Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 4 Antoine Laurent and His Magical System (Part 1)
A thousand words are not as good as a live demonstration.

Since it's already the last day at military academy, let's just screw the secrecy rules.

Although he slept in a longhouse every night, the spellcaster remained mysterious.

The school strictly prohibits non-spellcaster officers from inquiring about the content of spell training, and also strictly prohibits spellcasters from disclosing any information to others.

For Ike, this was the first time Winters had openly discussed everything about magic with him.

For Winters, this was the first time Ike had expressed his envy of the spellcaster's identity to him.

Strictly speaking, this was the first time Ike had publicly expressed his envy of Winters, making Winters feel obligated to satisfy his friend's thirst for knowledge.

Winters then squeezed a few drops of sweat from his armor onto the stone bench.

He took a deep breath and began to concentrate.

This process is a bit like archery; there are no mechanical preparatory steps, you just find the feeling and then let go.

All Winters had to do was recall the feeling of using magic.

In Ike's eyes, Winters was staring intently at the few drops of water on the stone bench.

For Winters, he was enduring an unspeakable phantom pain—the torment of being stuffed into a millstone, ground into minced meat, and then squeezed out of blood.

The phantom pain does not originate from any part of his skin, tissue, or bone, yet it is real.

Winters gritted his teeth and endured it.

The water droplets on the stone bench first shrank, then quickly turned into several watermarks, and finally disappeared completely.

Winters let out a long breath.

"That's all?" Ike was completely bewildered.

Winters looked tired: "Hmm."

"magic?"

"magic."

"Is this magic?"

"It's magic."

"What kind of magic is this!" Ike punched his friend. "Isn't this just a few drops of water drying up in the wind?"

"No. Listen carefully, [water being dried by the wind] and [water being vaporized by magic] have the same destination, but that doesn't mean the paths are the same."

Ike frowned deeply: "Turning water into water vapor, is that magic? What's the use?"

“It’s not very useful.” Winters lay back lazily on the floor. “But what if it turns into water vapor… the blood in your skull?” In the sweltering heat, Axel of Orange felt a chill run down his spine.

"That's just talk. [Penetration] is a profound skill, beyond the reach of a spellcaster of my level. You must understand that magical ability is a talent, like a fish that is born to swim, or a bird that doesn't need to learn to fly. A spellcaster doesn't know, nor does he need to know, the principles of magic; as long as he can use the ability, that's enough."

Winters candidly admitted, "It's like how I've been learning swordsmanship since elementary school, but I'm still not as good as you, a master who started learning six years ago. That's talent, there's nothing to complain about."

“Wrong, my swordsmanship comes from my diligent practice,” Ike said righteously.

"But some people practice even more diligently than you."

"Who?"

“Bard, Bard of Gerald,” Winters threw out a name without hesitation.

“Hmm…” Ike was speechless: “He is indeed more diligent than me.”

Winters sighed: "Talent and hard work are both essential. But hard work can't overcome talent—when talent is also working hard. If you attribute your swordsmanship entirely to practice, that's an insult to Bard."

"Let's talk about magic instead."

"The first principle of magic is that you can never feel magic, you can only feel the effect of magic."

Winters changed his gesture.

A gust of wind brushed past Ike's hair, and he could feel it clearly.

"This is the Wind Manipulation Technique, the wind of magic, but you can't touch the magic, you can only touch the wind."

"So... naturally occurring wind, magical wind?" Ike countered, "Can't tell the difference?"

Winters answered matter-of-factly, "The wind that can be distinguished is the wind of magic."

“Observing the effects of magic and deducing the process of its realization. Transforming sensory perception into rational understanding—this is the great achievement of General Antoine Laurent,” Winters said with some sadness. “Without him, there would be no spellcasters.”

"Emotional cognition? Rational cognition?"

"Take swordsmanship for example. At first, people who use swords just know how to swing and slash randomly. But after slashing a lot, they discover some useful techniques, which is called intuitive understanding."

As it continues to develop, some people will summarize the theories and form a system, allowing even novices lacking experience in swordsmanship to learn the knack of it. Furthermore, based on swordsmanship theory, they will create more sophisticated sword techniques—that is, rational understanding.

"What does this have to do with magic?"

"Imagine putting a pot of water on a fire to boil; the water will eventually boil away. Boiling water with fire and vaporizing liquid with magic have the same end result. Antoine Laurent concludes that all spells that 'use magic to replace fire' are classified as fire magic."

Similarly, any spell that "accelerates objects" is considered acceleration magic. Any spell related to sound is considered sound magic. These are the three main categories of spells in the [Antoine-Laurent system].

Winters concluded softly, "But Antoine Laurent, who built all of this, cannot use magic."

Only after I started writing did I understand why the protagonists in modern novels are all time travelers. Even if the protagonist isn't a time traveler, both the author and the reader will project modern thinking onto them. This creates a slight awkwardness, making the protagonist a time traveler makes it more comfortable. Antoine Laurent built a magic system from scratch, so there will be some errors. This is the fault of the times, not his. Orz


(End of this chapter)