Another World Magician
Alt Korean Title: 속임수의 마법사 (The Magician of Deception)
Written by: [Xirus]
⚡ Chapter 6: Aura and Magic
The morning sky was painted in hues of pale blue and gold, but the air was far colder than it looked. A sharp breeze cut through the trees, slipping past Elric's coat and brushing against his skin like icy fingers. He shivered slightly as he made his way into the forest hidden behind his family's estate. The path was still damp from last night's dew, and every step soaked his boots a little more.
"It's freezing today", Elric thought, teeth lightly clacking. "Spring, my ass."
Lately, he'd been coming here far too often. What began as cautious morning ventures had turned into daily rituals,rituals that now felt... watched. Though he had never seen anything out of place, a creeping sense of being observed clung to him like the cold.
"Damn it," he muttered under his breath. "Why the hell do I keep feeling like something's out there? It's already been days, but nothing's happened. Nothing's ever there. Just trees, wind, birds…"
His eyes flicked toward the dense brush to his right. Still. Silent. The usual rustling of squirrels or birds seemed oddly absent this morning.
"I'm being paranoid. Again. Probably just sleep deprivation," he reasoned, but the knot in his stomach refused to loosen.
The forest was quiet, too quiet, sometimes. No matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, that eerie stillness gnawed at the edges of his nerves.
"If something jumps out at me, I swear, I'll die before it even attacks,just from shock."
Still, he returned. Compelled, perhaps. Or maybe curious. Or maybe, deep down, he just didn't want to admit he was scared.
Elric sat beneath the wide canopy of a sprawling oak, cross-legged on the earth. A large flat stone lay before him, its surface smoothed and stained with ink from his notes. He had dragged it here over a week ago, turning it into his makeshift desk. Pages of diagrams, glyph sketches, and scribbled observations fluttered slightly in the wind.
His fingers were smudged black with ink, and his nails were caked with dirt. Sweat clung to his back, mixing with the earthy scent of moss and pine.
"Focus... just focus," he muttered to himself, for what felt like the hundredth time.
Carefully, he traced a simple glyph into the air. A glowing trail shimmered faintly behind his finger, but it sputtered out before the spell could activate.
Fsssh.
Nothing. Again.
He sighed and dropped his hand. His frustration was mounting, but so was his understanding.
"Still nothing." His fingers curled slightly, stained with ink and dirt. "Why does it feel like I'm missing something obvious? Every theory makes sense on paper, but reality keeps spitting in my face."
It had been nearly a month since he began slipping away at dawn, telling his family he was simply walking for health. In truth, he was here to unlock the logic behind this world's magic, bit by bit, failure by failure.
"I didn't get a second life just to be mediocre," he thought bitterly.
"If I can't even light a powerful spell EXPLOSIONNNnn… properly, what was the point?" He vent his frustration as he remember some Anime guy got isekaied and meet an Archmage with powerful Explosion spell.
But even in that frustration, something inside him kept turning, clicking. Every ruined glyph, every failed spell was another piece of the puzzle falling into place.
"I know there's a pattern. A structure. Magic has rules. It's not divine. It's not random. It's language. It's math. If I can decode it…"
A gust of wind stirred his notes. He slammed a palm down to keep them from flying.
"...Then I don't need talent. I don't need a big mana core. I just need to be smarter than the system."
He stared at the charred edge of one page, remnants of a poorly drawn glyph that had sparked for half a second before vanishing.
"Dammit. Why won't it work?"
Still, he stayed. Not because he believed he would succeed today, but because the act of trying felt like survival.
"This forest, these notes, this stone, it's the only place I feel like I'm moving forward. Even if it's crawling. Even if it's alone."
He looked up at the shifting canopy, leaves dancing in the windlight. The cold bit at his neck again.
As he take a deep breath and start to analyze what he manage to find so far.
"So, everyone's born with a mana core," he muttered, eyes narrowing. "That's why even peasants can use spells like Light or Fire. Instinctive magic. No circle needed. The most simple spell which conver inner mana into the element need."
But the moment a spell needed function ,vector , velocity, kinetic force more than just simply convert mana into element.
"The glyphs act like algorithm... the magic circle is the compiler, is what I can conclude" he murmured, while his finger fidgeting , tapping the book rapidly as the adrenaline and excitement rush in "And mana is simply the resource needed."
His mind flashed back to Bellmarch a few day ago.
[Bellmarch, Noon]
It had been a humid afternoon when he followed his father into the bustling town square of Bellmarch. They had come to sell game, two boars and a few rabbits, caught by his father's bow. Traders lined the streets, shouting over one another, selling pelts, dried meats, herbs, and trinkets. It was there, near a fountain, that Elric saw it.
A mage, a few years older than him, had conjured a fire bullet for show. The boy raised a hand, and a glowing magic circle, complex, elegant, formed midair. Then…
Fwoosh!
A ball of fire shot forward and evaporated in the air with a sharp hiss. Gasps echoed from the watching crowd. Elric had watched wide-eyed, memorizing every movement, every glyph.
"To cast a fire bullet," elric pause before he continue again, "you have to: create fire, shape it, compress it, heat it, and then release it."
He mimed the motion with his hand. "Boom. Fire bullet." He shout out as he try to immitate what he remembered from the day he goes to Bellmarch with his father.
He mimed the motion with his hand, throwing his palm forward like a wizard in a low-budget TV drama. "Explooooosionnnn…!" he shouted, voice cracking slightly with the effort.
A faint grin tugged at his lips, but it was quickly followed by a wince.
"Oh my god… he cringed internally. If someone saw me just now, please, kill me. I swear I'd rather get eaten by a bear than live through that level of cringe."
He gave a quick glance over his shoulder, just in case some squirrel or bird was silently judging him from a branch.
"No witnesses, right? Nari would laugh if she saw this,"
Despite the embarrassment, the grin returned. The joy of understanding, of piecing together the rules of this new world, chased away some of the bitterness of repeated failure.
Elric stood, stretching sore muscles. The sunlight filtered through the trees, but shadows lingered as thick clouds slowly rolled in. His eyes landed on a pile of charred twigs, remnants of previous attempts. Failure after failure. But each failure had taught him something.
He turned back to the book, The Truth of Real Magic, scribbling down the results of today's experiments. Once done, he grabbed another book, flipping it open to a bookmarked page. The front cover was hand-written by him.
Understanding the Aura
"Aura is created by using the aura core," Elric recited softly, summarizing what he had found. "Many claim that aura is a rotating force felt around the heart. That's what people call the aura core."
In this world, people could form aura only after they had awakened.
Awakened, he had learned, was when someone felt an overwhelming emotional surge. Old books from the estate described it as a moment when rage ran rampant, or the will to fight became unstoppable, some even spoke of a sudden explosion of the desire to win.
Conclusion Note: The true nature of "awakening" has never been definitively explained.
Hypothesis: Awakening might be connected to a spike in adrenaline.
"I've been running up this mountain every morning,not just to build stamina ,but to try and trigger my adrenaline," Elric murmured to himself.
Hypothesis: People with aura often train their bodies intensely. Therefore, the awakening could be linked to adrenaline, as all physical training involves an adrenaline response.
Inference: So far, there's been no change in my body. No awakening.
He sighed, shut the book, and lay back to rest a little. But his mind refused to stay still.
"Father can manifest aura with just commoner mana… and it's visible, too. Even if it only appears on certain body parts," he whispered. "Wait… that means I've been wrong all this time. No, everyone is wrong about it."
His eyes lit up. He sat upright and opened a fresh notebook, quickly scribbling the title at the top:
Magic in Another World
Aura is internal mana manipulation. Magic is external.
They're the same energy, just directed differently.
The mana core and aura core are the same. Both are made of mana.
He wrote furiously, fingers smudged with ink.
Magic = External mana use
Aura = Internal mana use
"That's why people treat them as different," he muttered, tapping the stone table with his finger. "But they're just two sides of the same coin."
"If mana control could be refined, if the direction and flow could be mastered, then maybe… maybe both could be used at once."
He turned to a fresh page and began sketching, unable to hide the smile tugging at his lips.
"This might actually change the foundation of this world's magic system."
Elric's Unified Mana Tier System
Tier 0: Can only use basic spells.
Note: All people can use basic spells with innate mana.
Tier 1: Considered Awakened. These individuals have greater mana capacity. They can manipulate mana either inward (aura) or outward (magic).
Note: Only awakened people can use magic circles due to the complex structure required for external casting.
Tier 2: Able to draw mana from the surrounding environment.
Tier 3: Considered Master Class. Can manipulate mana on a much larger scale.
Note: Since aura uses internal mana, a larger mana pool results in denser and thicker aura. Conversely, mages use external mana, the larger the pool, the wider their influence, enabling them to form massive magic circles, even large enough to cover a city.
Elric smirked, more amused than proud.
"Tier Zero… that's where I start."
Crack!
A branch snapped behind him.
Elric froze. His heart slammed against his ribs as he turned quickly, eyes scanning the trees.
A squirrel darted across the forest floor.
He exhaled sharply and let out a nervous laugh. "Damn… Why am I getting chills."
Still, he didn't let his guard down. That feeling, it hadn't left him. The air had grown heavier. The trees loomed taller than before. Shadows crept at the edge of his vision like they were waiting for something.
A gust of wind stirred the branches above. Pine needles rained down. The sunlight dimmed further as heavy clouds rolled overhead.
Elric glanced down at one of his glyph diagrams. A thought sparked in his mind.
"Wait… if linear movement doesn't require complex algorithms…"
He stood, raised his hand, and summoned a flicker of flame.
Then he moved his hand, right to left, left to right. Up. Down. Finally, in a slow circle.
The flame followed.
His eyes widened. The fire responded, not explosively, not chaotically, but obediently. Flowing with his will.
"It worked."
"I may be Tier Zero…" he murmured, "…but I already understand the theory of magic better than most of this worlds."
Raindrops began to fall. Soft. Gentle. One splashed onto his notebook. Then another. And another.
In the distance, thunder rumbled.
Elric scrambled to gather his papers, shielding them beneath his coat. He stood, brushing mud from his knees and slinging his bag over his shoulder. Time to head back down the mountain.
But still… the feeling remained. That presence. Faint, but undeniably real. Something, or someone, was watching him.
Unseen, nestled high among the branches, a small brown-haired creature with gleaming, gemstone eyes crouched low. Its gaze locked onto Elric. Curious. Silent.
It blinked once.
Then vanished into the leaves.
END ~