In the Department of Modern Magecraft, grades were calculated on a ten-point scale. With five courses per semester, a perfect score was fifty credits.
While a score of six was technically a passing grade--meaning he only needed thirty credits to graduate the semester--Wayland's Side Quest 3 required him to rank in the top three for his theoretical exams.
Credits were everything. They were his ticket to the catalysts he so desperately needed.
Wayland took his library card and the borrowed book and left, heading straight for the General Fundamentals district.
8:00 AM.
He sprinted into the classroom just as the Clock Tower's bells began to chime. The lecturer was already at the podium; Wayland quickly found an empty seat and sat down.
The teacher didn't say a word, clearly used to students scrambling in at the last possible second.
"Today's lecture is on Magical Foundations and Magical Systems."
Wayland pulled out his textbook and sat upright, his focus absolute.
It was ironic; he had only just decided on his own magical system that morning, and now he was attending a lecture on the very subject.
A 'Magical Foundation' was a system pre-engraved into the world in the form of a religion or an academic discipline, allowing magi to utilize Mystery.
In Wayland's understanding, a Magical Foundation was like a law of nature. Just as an apple falling onto Newton's head was a result of the law of gravity, a magus was able to perform magecraft because the world possessed laws that allowed for it--the Magical Foundations.
The foundation for modern magecraft was the Western Foundation, which was built upon academic principles.
By connecting the magical formulas within one's own Magic Circuits to the Greater Formulas of the Magical Foundation, one could drive the phenomena of magecraft.
A 'Magical System' was a school or lineage derived from a specific foundation. For example, the twelve departments of the Clock Tower all originated from the Western Foundation.
After class, Wayland spotted Flyn. The boy was actually smiling today, a far cry from the hollow, exhausted shell he had been the day before.
"Hey, Wayland! Want to grab some lunch?" Flyn waved, noticing him.
"You look cheerful today. Did some pretty girl finally confess to you?"
"No, nothing like that. I just didn't have any nightmares last night. I actually had a good night's sleep for once."
Wayland let out a silent sigh. 'Well, at least one of us is doing okay.'
After eating with Flyn, Wayland headed to the Magic Square.
Since it was midday, the area was nearly empty, with only two or three other students scattered about.
The Magic Square was the designated area provided by the Clock Tower for students to test their spells without the need for specialized labs or research facilities--which Wayland couldn't afford anyway.
"Detect!"
Wayland chanted the single-verse incantation. A faint, grey mist rose from his Magic Circuits, floating before his eyes.
He closed his eyes and visualized the mangled face of the ghost from the previous night.
The mist instantly shifted, flattening out into a smooth, mirror-like surface. Slowly, the image of the ghost began to manifest.
But just as the features were becoming clear, a series of ripples tore through the mist, shattering the image.
'Failed.'
Wayland frowned. Detection magecraft was different from what he'd expected. He'd assumed it required a medium--a scent, a personal item--which was why he'd left his dormitory room exactly as it was.
But this specific spell was simpler and more direct. It required only information about the target--a name, a face, a residence. The more details you possessed, the easier the detection became.
Of course, the final success rate depended on the target's distance and their resistance to magecraft.
He had tried to trace the ghost's current location by visualizing its face, but he had failed.
'It's the way my circuits are running.'
Wayland quickly identified the culprit. Unlike Gandr, which had been a direct system download, detection magecraft was a skill he had to learn himself. This was his first time actually driving the spell, and the speed and volume of prana moving through his circuits were off.
However, a glance at his system logs allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief.
[Detection Magecraft (5/100)]
In other words, if he practiced it twenty more times, he would have complete mastery over the spell.
Wayland's circuits flared to life again.
After a dozen consecutive attempts, his head began to throb, and a wave of exhaustion crashed over him, leaving him with no strength at all.
He slumped onto the grass, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
'I didn't realize I was overextending myself. This is brutal. I'll have to be more careful from now on.'
Wayland looked haggard, and his right arm felt as if it were screaming in protest.
Magic Circuits were, in essence, no different from any other organ. If you overtaxed them, your body would pay the price. It was the same feeling as being sedentary for years and then suddenly being forced to run a marathon; by the end, you felt like your body didn't even belong to you anymore.
Still, the results were promising. His progress with detection magecraft had reached 85%.
He rested for fifteen minutes before leaving the square. Continuing now would be suicidal.
Casting spells consumed life force to generate prana. Simple practice like this shouldn't be enough to permanently drain his life force, but it was still a significant strain.
There were generally two ways to recover prana. The first was using magical items that contained stored energy--like Rin Tohsaka's jewel necklace, which held ten years of prana, enough to bring the dead back to life. The second was meditation, a slow process of absorbing ambient Mana from the environment.
There was, of course, a third, much rarer method: prana transfer (Tantra). By establishing physical contact, one could transfer prana directly from one person to another.
Fortunately, Wayland was only a Frame-rank magus. His meager prana pool could be fully replenished with a single night's rest.
With the next day being Saturday, he would have plenty of time to practice other foundational spells.
Based on his brief clash with the ghosts, he was at a disadvantage--largely because he only had a single spell at his disposal. In a battle between magi of the same rank, the one with the larger arsenal of spells carried the day.
The afternoon lecture was The Origins and Development of Chaos Magecraft, once again delivered by Waver.
Despite being one of the twelve Lords, and even with his relatively low personal rank, Waver's status at the Clock Tower was absolute. The only reason he was still teaching was because he was too broke to afford the salary of a proper lecturer.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]