Chapter 5: Anthony
It has been two months since Luke started learning the magic of the Six-Sided world.
It was as he had theorized. One's mana capacity was not fixed. It could be increased by expending mana. Simply put, the more mana you used, the larger your reserves would grow.
Luke had thought it strange. Why then did the people of this world hold the common sense understanding that mana capacity was determined at birth, when it could so easily be proven false?
So long as an aspiring magician trained diligently, they would notice after just a week or two that the number of spells they could cast would increase. It would hence only be logical to assume that the preconceived notions of a fixed mana reserve was inaccurate.
It wasn't possible for such an easily disproved lie to be propagated for thousands of years if that was the case.
Then he put two and two together and it started making sense.
Firstly, there had to be an age cap where expending mana would no longer increase one's magic power capacity. Rather than age, perhaps biological development would be a more accurate term.
And because most people only started learning magic when they were older, very few would have realised that this was the case, and so they would continue believing in the so called 'fact'.
Naturally, there were exceptions to the rule. Prepubescents like Luke, who were precocious enough to seek to learn magic when they were still young. But one had to realise that not many five year olds in the world were like Luke.
In a medieval world like the one he had woken up in, literacy rates were abysmal. Almost all nobles could read and write, while commoners usually only learned enough for work and their daily lives, but not for scholarly pursuits.
Commoner children on the other hand, almost never had formal education that imparted reading and writing.
And reading and writing was a pretty massive component in learning magic and spells.
Therefore, if one were to assume the previous statements as true, then it provided one explanation why 'mana capacity is fixed' was a widely held common knowledge.
Except, in the case of the nobility, whose children would undergo formal education from a young age. The native Luke began learning his Human Language alphabets and basic arithmetic at age 3, and then he had to learn useless things like noble etiquette, decorum and formalities starting from age 4.
Noble children would thus have vastly lower barriers to entry for learning magic, and thus were way more likely to discover the truth of mana reserves not actually being determined at birth.
It would then only make sense that Luke was probably not the first one to have discovered this truth. Then the realization struck Luke – he had very possibly stumbled into a conspiracy to monopolize power by the very caste of nobility he was a part of!
Why would nobles willingly share that anybody could increase their magical potential so long as they had the opportunity with the peasants and commoners that they lorded over?
It was just like the Magi in the Magus World who made knowledge and the means to acquire them incredibly exclusive and prohibitively costly. Share their resources and benefits with everyone else? It sounded like a nice idea, but even the Light Magi would scoff over actually doing something so foolish.
Luke felt like he had accidentally stumbled onto a grand conspiracy, but that suited his own plan well enough.
Upon realising that his magical capacity could be increased with training, Luke and his A.I. companion designed a regiment to maximise the efficacy and efficiency of his training. After recording his mana recovery rate, he now had specified times of the day where he would consume nearly all of his magic power, wait for his mana pool to replenish naturally, then rinse and repeat.
No matter what Luke wanted to do in the future, power would always be something he'd rather have but not need, than something he needed but not have.
His self-study, during which he managed to scan nearly all the books in the Notos library, only lasted a few days before his grandmother found a teacher for him.
His name was Anthony, and was introduced by Valentina as the previous Royal Court Wizard for the Asura Kingdom, whose job had primarily been to safeguard the Asura Kingdom from magical threats.
Now an old man in his seventies, Anthony had served as the Asuran Court Wizard for 40 years before having retired just a year ago. Valentina had clearly spared no expense finding the most qualified teacher for Luke even if it was just temporary.
The ostentatiously robed old man was a King-rank magician specialising in Fire magic. Ostensibly titled Fire King as a result, though he was sufficiently proficient in most other forms of magic.
Anthony had been disdainful when he first met Luke, though the split soul supposed that he had the right to be. A King-rank anything, magician or swordsman, would be welcomed with open arms in any capacity in any kingdom.
To paint a clearer picture, a King-rank magician, especially one of an element as destructive as fire, would be labeled an 'army killer'. King-rank spells had the potential to devastate an entire battlefield. Provided enough time and distance to recite the long ass incantation of course.
Luke remembered the old man saying, "Your grandmother pulled a lot of strings and called a lot of favours just to get me here today. But if you are not worth my time then I will not waste even a single second of my retirement on you."
It was funny to see the old man's imitation of a goldfish when Luke demonstrated his chantless casting for the first time.
Apparently, chantless casting wasn't exactly unheard of. There had been a few recorded accounts in the archives of Ranoa that detailed records of certain talented wizards having the ability to cast a spell, or at most two, silently.
These were usually low ranked spells between Elementary and Advanced, and it was stated that these wizards had used or experimented with one or two spells so frequently that they somehow learned to cast these spells silently.
One of the teachers currently at Ranoa Magic Academy, a Wind Saint, was one of those wizards who learned how to cast their signature spell without invoking incantations.
But to see a 5 year do so, after supposedly only starting to learn magic just 5 days ago… it was unheard of! Never before seen in the current era and perhaps not even in all of history!
Luke had to prove it wasn't just a fluke by repeating it twice more with different Elementary-rank spells. His magical reserves having swelled enough to withstand such expenditure in the last day or two.
When asked how he did it, Luke answered half-heartedly by shrugging and saying "I don't know."
While Luke didn't intend to hide his intelligence or talent, it would have been too suspicious for a 5 year old to have seemingly cracked the mystery of silent spellcasting that have mystified contemporary magicians for so many years. Who knew if there was some sort of soul-searching or mind-reading spells hidden out there.
Relying on the reasoning of instinct and 'I just thought about doing it, and so I did' would be a flimsy excuse for an adult, but not for a 5 year old child.
Needless to say, Anthony had been intrigued by Luke's seemingly unique talent for silent spellcasting, and had decided to stay on as his tutor for now.
It took another week stunning the old magician with Luke's brilliance before Anthony offered to take the Notos scion as his official apprentice. Luke wasn't surprised by the offer.
A seemingly eidetic memory, prodigious level of comprehension, a decent but rapidly growing mana capacity, and a flawless noble lineage. Luke had everything Anthony would want in a disciple and more.
Valentina was stunned by Anthony's offer of apprenticeship and even more bewildered by his seemingly wild claims. She had willfully expended a healthy chunk of Amarant's political capital without informing her husband just to get Anthony to tutor Luke for just a day or two.
She had heard that after retiring, Anthony had received many job offers from the Asuran nobles or invitations to settle down on their territory promising extravagant and lavish remuneration.
After all, having a King-rank wizard working for you was the same as possessing a deterrent equivalent to a nuclear missile in these lands.
Anthony rejected all of these offers, and instead traveled around the Kingdom as a vacationer, looking to enjoy his retirement after many years of leal and loyal service. And besides, anything the nobles could offer him, he already had or could easily get himself.
It was serendipitous that Anthony happened to be passing by the Notos family lands when Luke made a request to Valentina to learn magic.
She had initially been a little regretful after seeing how haughty Anthony actually was, wondering if he would be too mean to her one and only grandson. But suddenly the mean old man was all smiles, congratulating the Notos family for having sired a once in a generation talent that could no doubt surpass himself one day.
Though she loved Luke as much as a doting grandmother could, he had never struck her as a precocious prodigy… he was the type to eat a jar of glue and then throw a tantrum after all.
But perhaps it was just a matter of interest and selective passion?
Nonetheless, Valentina and Luke enthusiastically accepted Anthony's offer of apprenticeship. Valentina did so because she wanted the best possible teacher, within reason, for Luke. And he did so because Anthony was a way for him to learn more about the magic system and its secrets of this world.