"How?" My voice came out louder than I intended. I stood there, speechless. That… wasn't the answer I remembered hearing.
"You lied to me!" I pointed at him, frustration beginning to rise in my chest.
Damian let out a soft sigh and, with that typical irritating smirk dancing on his lips, replied:
"I didn't lie. You questioned my ability to use level 1 spells. As for the restriction… I never answered."
"..." I fell silent. He was right. He never said he had overcome it. He just... omitted it.
'Does that mean I joined this order for nothing? No… he said he's able to use the spells, but then... how? How did he do it?'
Before I could give voice to the question burning in my mind, something in the environment shifted.
A tremor—not physical, but... perceptual. A distortion.
My eyes caught a faint ripple in the space around me and, within seconds, Damian, who had been standing several meters away, suddenly appeared right in front of me.
"...!" I blinked, stunned. I was so lost in thought that I hadn't even noticed him move. I instinctively jumped back.
But he didn't give me time to react. In an instant, he was in front of me again. The air around him subtly shimmered, as if reality itself were struggling to keep up with him.
"You're moving way too fast! No... are you shortening the distance? No, that's not it either... are you teleporting?!"
A sharper smile crossed Damian's face. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers lightly.
"The answer to your question is right there. Affinities."
"Explain better."
He raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms, and took a few steps to the side, as if considering how to make it digestible for me.
"Have you ever felt that, with certain types of spells, learning just... flows?" he asked, twirling his index finger in the air. "Like you're not really learning, but remembering something you already knew?"
I furrowed my brow but said nothing. He took my silence as confirmation.
"Exactly," he said, excited. "Magical affinity. Not just with elements, but with types and natures of magic. It's like... a natural inclination. Some people connect better with fire, others with illusion, others with raw energy. In my case…"
He stretched his arms out and spun his whole body around dramatically, like he was on an opera stage.
"...I have no affinity with traditional elements. Fire, water, earth—those common things? A complete disaster."
He laughed, half-mocking himself.
"But spatial magic? Pfft… it's like breathing. Seriously."
As he spoke, he vanished again and reappeared half a meter from where he had stood. Beads of sweat now glistened on his forehead despite the cool weather.
"Wait… so you didn't bypass the restriction?"
"Of course not," he replied, now more serious. "The restriction… it stops us from consciously channeling mana through our bodies, but it doesn't stop it from circulating. It's one of the reasons our bodies are so resilient, agile, full of vitality, and highly attuned to mana, especially compared to the lower classes and other noble families. In Dracknum, most people have high mana affinity."
His eyes gleamed, and a smug smile appeared.
"But that doesn't mean talent, obviously."
"In any case, it protects us. It forces mana to circulate in a controlled manner, tempers the body, makes internal circulation more robust."
He placed a hand on his chest.
"It forms a temporary core. Small, unstable, but present. When we get rid of the restriction, that core can be reforged, depending on the profession we choose."
"So that's why even though I can't use any spells on myself, I can still cast them," I muttered, trying to keep up. "And as for the core…"
"Yes! If you become a sorcerer, you'll use more formulas and form magic circles around your heart. If you're a wizard, you'll rely on rituals and incantations. If you're an elemental mage, you work off intuition and elemental sensitivity. And if you're like me…"
He vanished again, reappearing higher up, perched on a rock. He placed one leg on it theatrically, hands on his hips.
"…a spatial mage, mono-affinity."
"Then how do you cast level 1 spells?" I kept my eyes on him, curiosity sparkling in them.
"Reverse engineering!" he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Level 1 and above spells usually depend on mana stored inside the body. I… do the opposite."
He jumped down from the rock. His movements were slower now, the sweat increasing. Even with his natural ease, repeated teleportation was exhausting, even if he was only jumping two meters at a time.
"Thanks to my heightened affinity and sensitive control, I can manipulate pure mana straight from the environment. Instead of channeling it from my body, I condense it and convert it into space."
He made a gesture with his fingers, like he was shaping something invisible.
"See, spatial magic—like time and gravity—doesn't have 'particles' or 'waves' like the elements. It has to be created, imagined, almost like… shaping the void."
"So it's not just a matter of power, but of precision… of sensitivity?" I murmured, furrowing my brow, as if trying to feel the answer in my own skin.
"Exactly!" Damian smiled with that satisfied glint of someone watching a student finally connect the dots. "You're starting to get it."
The wind blew through the chamber's openings, carrying a thin layer of dust that danced in the air before settling gently around us. Damian was now breathing heavily, sweat trailing down the side of his face, but his eyes remained sharp, alight with enthusiasm.
"But even so, you need absurd concentration to pull this off, right? I mean, things are the way they are for a reason…"
"Yes," he nodded, panting, wiping the sweat away with his sleeve. "That's why I can't do more than a couple of these steps without stopping to catch my breath. And the biggest toll isn't physical… it's mental. You have to be shaping the mana around you constantly — and it's not your mana. It's foreign, raw, and you have to convert and adapt it. All of that in seconds."
"So your struggle comes from having to convert that raw mana into something usable to trigger the magical phenomenon…"
"Exactly."
'That means, for me, it should be much easier…' I thought, holding my breath for a moment. Unlike him, my affinity with elemental mana made everything easier. The mana I worked with was already in harmony with the world, with nature — it was like breathing instead of swallowing rocks. All it took was sensitivity… and focus.
Damian kept explaining:
"Level one spells are usually evolutions or fusions of zero-level spells…"
But I wasn't listening anymore. My mind had drifted.
I closed my eyes for a brief moment and started to focus. We were underground — surrounded by stone, rock, and iron. The density of earth and metal element mana was palpable. I felt a slight tingling climb up my arm. I chose earth. My affinity with it was perfect. It felt natural.
I opened my eyes and directed part of my attention to the black ring with golden markings on my finger. The mental interface appeared almost instantly — a relief. Leopold had only restricted basic level spells; no one would expect me to dare reverse-engineer anything above that.
I navigated the mental archives of earth-element level one spells. I found one that would work. I focused. I absorbed every detail — the mana flow, the ignition points, the molding pattern.
'That's why they do it the usual way… The mana inside the body is easier to control. It's more malleable. And most of it naturally leans — even unconsciously — toward the element we're most attuned to. That makes the process so much easier, compared to relying on mana from the environment…'
I focused on the mana in the surroundings. I felt the earth particles in the air, in the stones around us, in the ground beneath my feet. I began drawing them toward my palm, now touching the cold floor.
'First, I need to shape it…'
I followed the basic stages. The first spell was Soften, followed by Shape, and finally Harden. That was the fundamental sequence of earth manipulation.
A spike of earth erupted violently from the ground in front of me, breaking through the floor with a dry snap.
"As I was saying, you really need to be careful when invoking magic using environmental ma—"
Damian stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening as he saw the earth spike rising toward him, as if it intended to pierce right through him.
In one second, he vanished; in the next, he reappeared two meters to the side, a cloud of dust dispersing in the spot where he'd stood just moments ago.
"What the hell was that?!"