Chapter 26

And so, time passed again.

Five days after leaving Sinan, we arrived at the royal capital of the Salt Kingdom—Loif. And then…

“Here’s your pass.”

“Thank you. Please, this way.”

…we stepped through the teleportation portal and in an instant, reached our destination: the Kesala March.

“Welcome to Central, the capital of the Kesala March.”

Crossing through the portal, I couldn’t help but let out a quiet murmur of awe. The sheer liveliness here made Sinan Barony feel pathetic in comparison.

“Wow… yeah. Now this feels like a place where people actually live.”

From her perch on my shoulders, Shia nodded in agreement.

“Mhm. The weather’s good too. Hard to believe it’s the tail end of winter—it’s so warm.”

As I watched the endless stream of people pouring out of Central’s portal station, I soaked in that warmth for a while before asking Shia:

“So, first stop is that ‘Purple Magic Tower,’ right? Looks like it’s a ways off on the map… Should we walk? Or take a carriage?”

Shia let out a small laugh.

“Judging from your excited tone, your expectations must be quite high.”

“It’s magic, you know? Every guy grows up dreaming about having a Black Flame Dragon sealed in his left hand.”

“Black Flame Dragon?”

“It’s… a thing. Anyway, let’s go.”

“And what will you do if they tell you you’ve no talent for magic?”

“Well, I’ll think about it when the time comes.”

Three hours later.

I found myself squinting at a beaker filled with pitch-black liquid, handed to me in a research room of the Purple Magic Tower. The elf who passed it over looked every bit the part of a shut-in scholar, down to her horn-rimmed glasses.

She fished out a nametag that had been dropped into the beaker—“Sodin Cross”—pinching it between her fingers with a bored expression.

“Drink.”

“…You want me to drink this shady sludge?”

“Yes.”

“…And what exactly is it?”

“‘Lake of Gouphus.’ A top-grade elixir that will put you into a trance. You’ll drink it, then manifest your Imagery—the mental landscape that bridges your soul and body. That is the first step into the path of magic.”

…Magic.

Sure, part of me wanted to learn it out of curiosity or simple admiration. But more than that, I needed a new source of power to survive in this world of Kion.

Objectively, I was already strong enough. Thanks to my overwhelming talent, even without body mana, I could casually beat down most opponents.

But as the angel had warned me, there was a limit.

If conditions lined up, I could probably go toe-to-toe with Masters, maybe even Grand Masters. But that was only in one-on-one combat.

Unlike high-level Steel Body users, I couldn’t bring down a mountain alone, nor could I unleash aura blasts to wipe out an army or a horde of monsters. No matter how much I trained, that wouldn’t change—not as long as Shia’s seal remained.

In short, I had plateaued.

‘Well, unless my luck takes a serious nosedive, I probably won’t get beaten down just living like this. But… something tells me life here won’t stay peaceful for long.’

That was why I naturally turned to magic—as a way to cover my shortcomings.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t some childish delusion like, ‘I bet I’ll be amazing at magic too!’ It was more of a mindset like, ‘If I can learn it, in any form, it’ll be useful.’

And yet…

I stared down at the murky liquid sloshing in the beaker and muttered to myself.

‘Uh… maybe I just shouldn’t learn magic after all?’

The drink had that much destructive power to the eyes and nose.

The sticky viscosity. The stench that made my nose want to drop off. The occasional bubbles that burst into a foul, dark-red steam. The disgusting pale lumps floating around, squirming like mochi balls in red bean soup.

I prided myself on having a strong stomach—I could even eat surströmming without flinching—but this? This I couldn’t bring myself to swallow.

“…Lake of Gouphus? A trance-inducing elixir? Don’t you have anything else? I’d force myself if I had to, but this—my survival instincts are screaming too loud. And why does learning magic even require me to go into a trance? What’s with this whole thing about Imagery?”

For the first time, an expression crossed her face, breaking her usual mask of indifference.

“Don’t tell me… did that bastard Falun—no, Master Falun—give you no explanation when he handed you my recommendation?”

“No. Just said to come here, do as I’m told, and you’d handle the rest.”

At that, she scrunched her brows hard, her voice dripping with irritation.

“Ha… that bastard, seriously… Fine. I’ll give you the basics then.”

She dragged over a blackboard from the corner, eraser still covered in chalk dust. With a few rough swipes, she smeared out the dense formulas written on it and scrawled three words:

-World.
-Soul.
-Body.

“First, mana begins from the World, flows into the Soul, then into the Body. From there, it cycles back into the World again. In magic theory, this is called the Great Circulation of Mana.”

“In other words, mana always flows through the body—large or small in amount. It’s just that for ordinary people, it remains nothing more than a flow. They neither affect it, nor are affected by it.”

“A Steel Body user begins by ‘sensing’ the mana flowing through their body—body mana.”

“Perception defines existence. And if something exists, it means it can be influenced.”

“After that comes training to control the mana with one’s will. Once you can circulate it evenly through the body, you’re finally recognized as a Novice, the first stage of a true Steel Body user.”

For the first time, a spark of life lit up the elf mage’s face. As expected of a study mage, she clearly enjoyed explaining and lecturing like this.

“But mages are different from the very start.”

“Mages were originally the losers. Those too dull to sense mana the way Steel Body users could. Magic was born from their desperate attempts to use it somehow.”

“Of course, whatever the origin, nowadays it’s an advanced discipline. Compared to that, simple-minded body reinforcement barely qualifies as a child’s trick.”

“Because of that difference, mages don’t sense mana directly. Instead, they create—or discover—a reservoir between soul and body, something we call Imagery. Mana flowing into the body gathers there.”

“And by perceiving that mana within their Imagery, they gain awareness of it. We call this mind mana.”

She added a new term to the blackboard, wedged between Soul and Body.

-World
-Soul
#Imagery
-Body

She tapped the word “Imagery” with her pointer and fixed me with a stare.

“And this is exactly what you must achieve to step onto the path of magic.”

-First, create or discover your own Imagery.
-Second, perceive and recognize the mind mana that gathers there.

“Once you succeed, you’ll have taken your first true step as a mage.”

Imagery? Ah… so this was what Shia mentioned before.

I raised my hand.

“What is it?”

“You said to create or discover Imagery. What’s the difference?”

“Rarely, some people have Imagery even without being mages. Those who’ve overcome immense trials, or lived lives of extraordinary intensity—heroes, saints, kings. Ordinary people don’t fit that category, so you needn’t worry about it.”

…Tch, way to jab at me.

“What’s the success rate?”

She answered without hesitation.

“One in a hundred.”

“…One percent. If I fail once, is that it?”

“No. If you can afford more elixirs, you can try again. But the odds don’t improve. That’s what we call talent.”

Schluuurp.

She shoved the beaker of foul black liquid at me again.

“This elixir severs your mind from body and world, forcing you to perceive yourself more structurally, more objectively.”

“If you have talent, the first step after drinking will be to separate your existence into Soul and Body—things you once sensed as one.”

“Then you must realize the observer watching those two is your mind, and even objectify that. At some point, your Imagery will naturally form between soul and body. It’s a blueprint of your inner world, a kind of deformé.”

“Don’t expect something grand at first. Most Imagery starts simple. Mine was just a puddle, barely enough to dip a foot in. Of course, now that I’ve reached the 7th Circle, it’s grown into a twenty-meter swamp with ten mangroves rooted in it.”

“…I digress. Once you succeed, the last step is to look into your Imagery. Mana doesn’t originate within you—it flows in from outside. If you see something foreign within your Imagery, that is mind mana.”

Her voice quickened as she pressed the point.

“Do you understand?”

“…More or less.”

“Then drink quietly.”

I took the beaker with the face of a man being handed his death sentence.

“…I know I shouldn’t complain when it’s free, but… there really isn’t an alternative?”

“There is.”

“Th-Then I’ll take that—”

“But the success rate drops by twenty percent. Still want it?”

“…Ha. This is driving me crazy.”

“Oh, and magical elixirs lose potency quickly. Let’s see… you have about five seconds left. Don’t expect me to make another.”

“Five seconds?!”

Panic drove me to lift the beaker to my lips, warring against every instinct.

Bubbling… squirming… hiss…

“Three seconds.”

No matter how I looked at it, this stuff screamed do not ingest. Was I seriously about to pour this down my throat?

“Two seconds. One…”

“Damn it! Fine, I’ll drink it!!”

Grinding my teeth, I gulped the hellish sludge down in one go.

“@%@$%!@$%!!!!!!!”

Bweeeh—!

I tried to vomit it back up.

But the cursed brew clung to my throat and stomach like it was alive, resisting every attempt to expel it.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me! It won’t even let me throw it up?! This is demon crap distilled into liquid form!’

“Ghh—kaagh….”

My vision blurred. A nauseating sense of euphoria and weightlessness followed.

As I flailed in agony, the elf mage muttered in her flat tone.

“Wow. He actually drank it. Didn’t think he would.”

Wh-What…?

“Oh, and that bit about five seconds? A lie. Well, since you’ve started, I wish you luck.”

“Y-You….”

“And by the way, this isn’t free. You just assumed that. Discounted with the recommendation, it comes to three hundred ninety-eight thousand sels. Payable even if you fail.”

“……!!!”

Darkness swallowed my consciousness.

…Just wait. That damned elf. When I wake up, I swear I’ll make you choke down the same thing.

And when I opened my eyes…

I was on Earth.

“…Huh?”