Volume 1 - CH 7

Non-attribute Magic

*thud*

The thunder claws were slammed on the floor and remained there as they held down their prey.

Even if one were to escape the deathly claws of the beast, they would have been crushed by the palm alone considering its size. And even if one managed to dodge that, their bodies would be paralyzed because of the very nature of the lightning attribute that paralyzes any target that it touches.

*crackle*

Mana leaked in all directions from the claw taking the form of lightning as it threatened to paralyze anyone who might have dodged its attack.

“…”

There was a deathly silence in the stadium. As there was no movement, Lux continued to channel his mana in the claw with care.

Even though the floor was made up of very sturdy material, there were a few scratches caused on it due to the power of his spell.

“… Did he die?”

One of the audiences from the galleries murmured as he was unsure of the outcome. The usual stillness of the battle floor didn’t give many clues to guess.

Even from a professional wizard’s perspective, the spell used was a fairly decent one. And if it hit properly, there was no chance that Arum could survive it, since he couldn’t use any defensive magic.

Most people didn’t think that he was dead, but they believed that the match was already decided.

The match had proceeded as they had expected. And all they got to see was a daredevil commoner whose only fate was to be sandwiched between the floor and the lightning spell.

“Arum… Arum…?”

Misty’s light whisperings reached nowhere as she scanned the floor with her disturbing eyes looking for the peasant boy.

But she couldn’t find him anywhere.

‘If he is nowhere then he must be really under that claw.’

It was then that Misty noticed an unusual change around her. She turned around only to find a girl holding onto her chin.

‘Since when was she here?’

Misty couldn’t help but have her cheeks flustered. She realized that the girl had already heard her whisperings of that boy.

And as if to confirm her thoughts she spoke.

“It’s okay, I am also vouching for that person.”

“Huh?”

Misty tilted her head in confusion.

The girl was the same girl who was asked by Lux to start the match. She was the one who was acting as their referee but she seemed to have backed off in between.

The girl took a glance at Misty from the corner of her eyes.

“That person is interesting.”

Misty noticed that the girl next to her was looking above instead of below as she spoke.

“Lux does not use unusual spells.”

Misty followed the girl’s line of sight causing her eyes to shoot out wide. Arum for some reason was standing at the far edge of the gallery on the raised floor. He too noticed Misty’s and the girl’s gaze as he turned towards them.

The right side of his uniform was torn apart as it was difficult for him to completely dodge Lux’s attack. The whole stadium was covered with the sparks of Lux’s thunder so Arum had no choice but to jump up above the raised floor of the stadium among the audience to avoid getting his paralyzed. His anti paralyze spell could only help him so much.

Arum smirked as their eyes met.

“It’s just a little enhancement spell that I used, it’s not the magic of Manalil.”

“Rather it’s a magic from my master’s country and it suits my style more.”

Lux too noticed the tone of the voice coming from the stadium to be a little unusual. He turned around to find Arum there only for Lux’s brows to twitch.

He removed the claw magic from the floor but of course, there was no loser commoner there causing the audience among the stadium to gasp in surprise.

“Where is he?”

Lux was finally able to solve the mystery of Arum’s unusual spell that he had used before. And he was finally able to figure out why he hadn’t heard of it before.

Arum didn’t immediately go back to the stadium as their gazes met. Rather he took a glance at his torn uniform with a look of awe as if he loved its new form.

He always felt that he was wearing his uniform in the wrong way. It looked weird on him for some reason despite it being the same uniform that others wore.

But now, after it being torn, everything has changed.

“Cool! It’s fierce, rough… but even then it looks amazing! Thank you, Lux…”

“… what?” Lux almost stumbled upon hearing that claim.

Arum’s soft voice seemed to be grateful for having his shirt torn.

But unlike what Lux thought, it was heartfelt praise for him and not a sarcastic remark.

Arum didn’t realize that his words had angered Lux’s heart all the more as he jumped out of the gallery seat.

His reinforced legs aided him to make a perfect landing from the second floor as his eyes met with Lux again.

“Are you fooling around?” Lux snorted

That was the only conclusion that Lux could come to. Arum seemed to be using non-attribute magic on purpose. It was as if he was shouting to the world that ‘I can fight Lux with basic magic alone!’

It was indeed a disrespect to Lux who was at least using his attribute.

“Nope, I am very serious about this.”

“But you are using just non-attribute magic since the very beginning. Even the unusual spell you used now seems to be only countering mine and strengthening your spells. But it seems to have decreased your casting speed. Are you sure you want to continue like this?”

Lux couldn’t help but admit that Arum had some skill. The speed of casting of his spell and the fact that he could successively cast one after another spoke for itself. Not to mention that Arum could dodge Lux’s spell showing that he was somewhat talented.

What Lux couldn’t understand was why Arum was using only non-attribute magic. Was it just to mock him? Could a commoner have such balls to mock a noble? Would he be able to bear the consequences if he did?

Lux had no idea why Arum was hell-bent on destroying himself when he could very much have a respectful defeat. After all, no one would mock a commoner for losing against a noble.

‘It is only natural that commoners would lose to the nobles.’

No matter how fast Arum casts his spell and no matter how many times he casts it, it wouldn’t make up for the lack of power in his spells. The quantity could never make up for quality. Not to mention that Lux had enough reserves that he could cast a lot of quality spells too.

‘Looks like he is trying to hold back his cards maybe? But if I let him survive without showing his hand, then I would be only disrespecting myself.’

But soon Lux changed his opinion as Arum tried to answer all of those questions of Lux with a simple nonchalant line.

“No, I can only use non-attribute magic.”

Arum shook his head. To Arum it didn’t matter what form of magic he uses as long as he becomes a great wizard. But the same wasn’t true for Lux and the others.

“… What the hell?”

It was an answer beyond anyone’s expectations.

One must note that these nobles who were spoon-fed from their birth had never seen a single magic-user who couldn’t use one of the attributes. Non-attributes? That was common to all of them. But no one used it due to its lack of power.

A shocking silence befell on everyone as they couldn’t believe what they had just heard.

The voice of Arum that even reached the gallery thanks to the reverberation continued.

“My mana vessel doesn’t allow me to convert mana to any other attribute by its very nature. So I can only use it directly as non-attributed magic.”

Arum presented a more logical explanation.

Everyone wondered whether Arum was joking. There was a silence that waited for the next words as the audience gazed at him with a stupefied expression waiting for him to confirm that it was a joke.

But no words came for Arum’s voice as he seemed to be not the least bit bothered by his physical shortcomings.

The moment everyone realized that there was no lie in Arum’s serious expression, the gallery burst out into laughter.

“Ha Ha Ha! Seriously!”

“There was such a guy alive!”

“Look what that fool claims! He thinks he can be a wizard with that. A cripple can be a wizard. Ha Ha Ha!”

Everyone ridiculed Arum as they burst into laughter.

No one knew whether Arum was used to such mockery or if he didn’t care at all, but there seemed to be no change of expression on his face.

The spoon-fed audience jumped to the conclusion that Arum was indeed used to such mockery from his very birth. After all, in the circle of nobility who wouldn’t laugh at a cripple such as him?

But one thing they failed to notice was that Arum had never come into contact with the circle of nobility. Thus he was never ridiculed for not being able to use attributes. And why would he be? The people back in his village couldn’t use magic at all! Let alone using attributes.

Yup, that was the scenario. Arum indeed didn’t care all all, as he passed it off with a shrug.

Arum shrugged. The laughter of those nobles didn’t matter much to him.

A girl sitting beside Misty held onto her chin as she calmly made an analysis of Arum’s case.

“I see that’s why his scores in practical skills are so low in the entrance examination… Otherwise, it would have been weird for him to get such low scores even with such a high casting speed…”

She was the only one who took the situation seriously and put some thought into it. Others only ridiculed except for Misty who was still finding it hard to believe.

“Arum… is that really true?”

“It is. I can’t use anything but auxiliary spells.”

Arum shrugged. But Misty had a bewildered look on her face that didn’t seem to believe what she had heard. She was amongst the very few who weren’t laughing at Arum along with Lux. Indeed, Lux didn’t laugh either unlike the others. Rather he had a disappointed expression on his face.

“Arum there is no point in continuing. Let’s end the game here.”

Arum squinted his eyes.

“Why?”

Lux sighed. He felt somewhat guilty for wrongly accusing Arum of dishonoring him and cussing him in his heart.

“I admit that Non-attribute magic is somewhat necessary sometimes too. And I admit that your simple and easy to use auxiliary magic might be convenient to have at times. But it’s a magic form that is eating dust. It’s obsolete in today’s world and it is fatally unsuitable for combat and battles. You use auxiliary magic yourself, shouldn’t you know all of this already?”

The ridicule of the nobles… Misty’s astonishment and Lux’s disappointment. All of them were due to the weakness of the non-attribute magic.

In a battle of wizards, it is magic that determines victory and defeat. So what were the things that determine the strength of the spell itself?

The first was the amount of mana used. The mana used for activating a spell was fixed but after activating it a wizard can keep channeling mana into it thereby increasing the power of the spell.

But this method is highly inefficient considering the nature of the process itself. A wizard would be just trying to forcefully break the horizon of the spell. Thus, the power of the spell doesn’t change unless a lot of mana is put into it.

The second factor that determines the power of magic used is the rank of the spell. There are three levels of magic namely basic, intermediate and advanced with their power increasing in ascending order. The higher the rank of a spell is, the more difficult it is to activate. What’s more? A higher rank spell also consumes more mana than a lower rank one.

And the third and the most important factor is “Mana Conversion”

Mana cannot affect reality as it is. Even though it is possessed by all living things alive, it is but a phantom energy and has no real meaning or significance.

But, mana changes its appearance in the hands of a wizard. A wizard can transform mana into magic making it actually envision characteristics such as shapes, properties, and attributes.

This is the very basics of “Mana Conversion” and the more magician is good in their conversion the stronger will be the raw power of their magic.

While “Transformation” is the next process after “Mana Conversation” which involves tempering the converted mana into shapes and properties through means of spells and the user imaginations. The more concrete the form his the better would be the magic effectiveness. Having raw power itself is not enough the magic should be able to hit the target as well and that is determined by the wizard’s ability in “Transformation”.

So in other words…

“Mastery of Mana Conversation” = greater raw magic power, and

“Mastery of Transformation” = greater effectiveness of the magic spell.

‘But that is not the case in non-attribute magic,’ Lux reminded himself.

In the case of non-attribute magic, it can be said that the very basics and important aspects of magic casting were in a state of collapse from the very beginning.

As the name implies, the non-attributed magic has no attribute. It is a magic form that was originally created to train wizards to master the “Transformation” process. This form of magic skips the very essence of “Mana Conversation” and jumps directly into “Transformation”. Hence the raw power of non-attribute spells is almost nil except for some weak power spells like the [Mana Bullet].

And that was the biggest reason why the non-attributed magic is flawed. With no raw strength to speak of it was a magic doomed to be eating dust.

The “Mana Conversation” of the non-attributed magic is insufficient, and its effects appear as an ambiguous phenomenon that is something in between “mana” and a “magic spell”. Since it is not even considered magic spell its influence on reality is almost negligible.

Even the efficiency of the magic is at rock bottom.

For example, if suppose one can cast 10 spells of a certain attribute in a day to consume all of his mana reserves, he would be only able to cast 3 spells of the non-attributed had he had the same reserves on another day.

Not to mention that if one uses attack magic like a [Mana Bullet], he would have to waste even more mana to increase its attack power even after casting the spell.

And indeed, it was very inefficient to increase the power of a spell by channeling mana into it after it is cast.

If using “Mana Conversion” to convert to other attributes was like multiplication, then using non-attribute magic was just like addition. You need to keep adding more and more mana to hope for the spell to have any power at all! That was the very reason no one used non-attribute and it was ridiculed to such a degree in the magic society. It was considered a waste of mana and nothing else.

“Oh, I don’t think that would be a problem.”

Arum smirked. There was all the reason in the world for him to be confident.

“…”

Lux could only sigh at Arum’s stupidity.

But Arum thought otherwise.

Arum had strong beliefs that went contrary to what the spoon-fed nobles had.

‘A wizard is accompanied by battles no matter where he goes.’

Wizards are born to be fighters. To defeat monsters under their overwhelming strength of magic spells. To do things that a mere knight would never be able to do regardless of upbringing and training.

Their path is something that is riddled with blood and corpses. They had to fight ferocious monsters and sometimes even worse! They have to fight the wizards of other countries.

Wizards are thus none other than those that use magic to confront threats regardless of their nature.

‘There is a saying that magic is given only to those humans that are suitable for it.’

‘This is equivalent to saying that as long as someone has magic, they would have no choice but to walk on the path of wizards. Their fate is bound to be riddled with battles.’

Lux shook his head. He was definitely going to refuse to continue any further.

“If…”

But Arum interjected in between.

“Don’t worry. That doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

Arum was going to back down neither now nor in the future.

“My master sent me here, and I came here to be a wizard. It doesn’t matter if I can’t attribute or not. I will become a wizard regardless. As long as I become a wizard nothing else matters.”

Things were quite simple. That was what Arum believed.

What is power? What is strength? Isn’t all of that relative.

You might think that your attribute is the strongest but you would only be a frog living in the well.

‘What really matters is whether I can accomplish my goals or not.’

‘Power is not important. What is important is to physically make things happen.’

Lux was a little dazzled by Arum, who stood straight with a puffed-out chest and could speak clear and confident words.

“You want to know what a true wizard is?”

“Well… I’ll tell you.”

Lux nodded.

Lux didn’t want to use it. But Arun’s stern words made Lux think otherwise. There was a need to crush this commoner whose feet weren’t on the ground. There was a need for him to know what the true reality is.

‘Being positive is good. But in the face of raw strength, it is useless.’

‘Well, you can think of it as a cruel execution. This is the least bit of kindness I am willing to show you to make you realize that your words are nothing but a pipe dream.’

Someone had to make Arum realize his ruthlessness.

“…This is what a wizard is!”

A different kind of mana runs on Lux’s body.

What Arum saw was the appearance of Lux raising his arm as he took a casual stance.

Golden mana circled around the hand as it took form. It rose like a beam of golden light as it rose from his hand making it appear as a tribute to the heavens…

[Thunderlight Giant]