"Over the hundreds and thousands of years there have been several theories of magic, magical essences and mana. Usually, the older the theory, the more powerful the magical system is for a limited number of magical products, and conversely the more inefficient the system is for wider applications.

The oldest theory of magic is these days known as the Theory of Raw Mana. Mana is the basis of magic, it is an endless field of natural energies spread throughout the aether in our world, and throughout the ages, man, beast and plant have all evolved to make use of it, be it consciously or unconsciously. Mana is everywhere, it permeates everything. It is even in this room, you just cannot see it. Mana is usually consumed in a magical process to bring about a magical result. In the most basic sense, a magical result is a natural result augmented due to influence of mana. For example some plants growing faster or bigger due to mana-rich environment."

"But where does mana come from?" a young boy in the back row asked.

"Are all peasants this stupid?!" the son of Ivanhoe snorted, "Master just said that mana is everywhere!" Similar snickering could be heard all around the auditorium, mostly by nobles.

"Where does mana come from? Now that is an excellent question!" Arandas smiled, ignoring the unrest. "The truth is that mana comes from everywhere. Everything that exists in this world produces mana. Both living and non-living things. Living things usually produce less mana, due to using some for their own sustenance.

How exactly something produces mana is unknown, however observation has shown that mass is important. For example: every human, even one with no aptitude for magic, produces mana, due to some being used internally, the amount is miniscule. However 2 humans together do not produce the same amont of mana as each person on their own, they produce more. The amount of mana two people together produce in excess compared to each of them alone, is infinitesimally small even compared to the amount a single person produces, but this fraction slowly increases the more people we have together. A million people going about their daily business as a group produce more mana, than all of them alone.

"Likewise for everything else, forests, fields, seas and tundras. Even volcanoes, the three moons and the sun. Massively large natural bodies or aggregations form a natural very primitive mana producing formation. This is the current theory of mana. However the mechanism by which anything of any given size or amount produces mana is still one of the unanswered questions of modern philosophy of magic."

Arandas looked about the classroom, as if waiting if anybody had anything to comment.

"But let's get back to out main topic: Theory of Raw Mana. This theory itself is thousands of years old and treats mana as a uniform force of nature. It also establishes a magical system, how mana can be collected within human bodies by special meditation and breathing techniques. These techniques took for years and decades to master and were historically used to bring about two magical effects: one proven by research, and one still theoretical.

The effect, which has been thoroughly proven is body strengthening. Raw mana was collected and built up in the cultivators' bodies to allow heightened strength, speed, healing factor as well as resilience. This is the era that spawned all the stories of ancient people who split mountains with their fists, fought divine beasts bare-handed and ran faster than many magical beasts born to run. This is also the era in which cultivation techniques first started to appear."

"Is this true?" A tall girl from the same row as Diavella asked. "Did they really manage to become super-humanly strong?"

"Well," Arandas laughed, "some of the stories may be exaggerated, but uprooting trees and fighting early gold level beasts is certainly something a person could do after many decades of hard training. There are still some sects out there which are focused on using raw mana."

"What was the other, theoretical aspect of ram mana training?" a girl with pink hair asked.

"Ah, yes. The other aspect which is still unproven by modern attempts, but certainly demonstrated possible in the past, is TK. As in telekinetics. Manipulating objects without physically touching them or influencing them with magical effects. This is said to be a whole other level of body cultivation because the mana used to strengthen the body is projected outside the body to bring about an effect. This is different from conscious emission and control of aura, be the practitioner a mage or a sorcerer.

Now across the countless practitioners and countless years of training, it was noted that raw mana did not affect all people the same way, it depended on age, gender and even location of training. This slowly led to the Twin Elements theory, or yin-yang theory. This theory pushed aside the concept of uniform mana and stated that mana is a mix of a warm-essenced male yang energy and female-essenced cold yin energy. Men have a greater affinity to one, and women to the other. Likewise, all natural energies can be divided into yin and yang energies. For example, the Sun carrying yang energy and the three moons varying degrees of yin energy.

From this theory, fire and frost magic were first born, and tangentially people could also emulate wind and water magic. Generally this theory can be said to be the start of historic magical systems. The Twin-element magic led to two completely independent theories. Us on the northern continent developed the four element magic theory of fire, water, earth and air. While people on the faraway southern continent developed the five element magical theory of wood, metal, fire, water and earth.

Currently all known classical magical effects can be produced with the four or five base elements. Indeed many old noble families have learned for hundreds of years based on this system and how to produce non-elemental effects from mixing several elements or how to produce most effects within the confines of a single element. For example, we generally accept that water magic has healing capabilities, but over the years, all four elements have been shown to be capable of healing, each due to a different mechanism.

Due to old nobility having massive magical cabability, they have managed with the 4 or 5 element theory. However many younger families and the lower nobility in general was not able to rise up from the commoners with the 4 or 5 element theories and continued to research magic, thus it was discovered that mana does not consist of only a limited number of elements but has a lot more of them. Thus a modern 9-element theory was created. Consisting of earth, wind, water, fire, light, darkness, life and death elements, as well as a non-element. Non-elemental magic is actually a group on its own, containing magics, which have no known mana elements, such as space and time magic, blood magic, abyssal magic as well as demonic magic.

Also, the theory of non-elemental magic allowed for the formulation and rise of circle-based magic. I. e. magic spells which can be activated regardless of the elemental contents of the user's mana. This is due to the fact, that circle magic does not produce a magical effect by virtue of the elemental properties of mana, but as a byproduct of magical energy passing through a magic circle, which transmutes and purifies the energy into magic power and magic effect.

Thus in case of magic arrow, which, as a spell, is fundamentally rooted in circle magic, the cost in circle magic is relatively low which is why lady Morgenstern can fire a thousand of them during a single battle. Mr Rutherford however has to emulate the same effect within the four element system, using magic conversion and balancing, and thus the cost is totally different. However if the two were competing in say fire magic, then mr Rutherford would win every time. However, as you saw just now from the calculations, not by much. With optimized spells and circles they would be equal or miss Morgenstern would even surpass mr Rutherford. Thus, circle magic has allowed less powerful and younger noble families catch up to the older and more established families. Even if it is viewed as a less elegant and more technical way of doing things."

"Given all that, does the 4 elements magic hold any strength over circle magic?" An elegant-looking young girl suddenly asked. "Because from what I am hearing, circle magic has no downsides and even stronger older mages and families would benefit immensely from using circle magic."

"Yes." Arandas replied. "Strangely enough, on both accounts."

"If a person who has around 4000 units of mana under the four elements system, then using circle magic he can bring his apparent power to compete with four elements mages of 8000 units of power.

However, 4 element magic has its niche uses. Since circle magic is purely a technical idea, the power is limited only by the magic capacity of a person and the external mana available to the caster, be it in the aether in the surroundings, gathered by natural or unnatural formations or stored in a specialized container. However the 4 elements system is more closer to a cultivation technique and not algebra, like circle magic.

It is more about guiding external energies within and internal energies without, creating a unified movement and motivating force, nothing like drawing up magic circles and having them do all the work in producing an effect. Thus learning and mastering the 4 elements' magic system is an essential prerequisite on one's road to attaining enlightenment and becoming a sorcerer. After all, sorcerers guide natural energies by feel, not by spells and sigils."

"This is bullshit!" A voice right beside Jack rang out. A female voice. A voice that everybody but him seemed to ignore.

He turned to see a small girl of maybe 12 or 13 years old sitting next to him. Long glossy black hair, bottomless black eyes like an abyss, a mischievous smile and clothing that reminded him of gothic loli characters from Japanese manga and anime. The ensemble was made whole with laced stiletto boots and shear see-through gloves.

"This girl is a retard. Magical arrow that looks like a highly stylized real arrow? Arrow gates? Visible magic circles? Light emission? If she would cut out all the flashy shit, and instead concentrated on throwing sharp pointy bolts of magic as fast as possible, her efficiency would rise at least a 100%. Never mind that firing an already aimed arrow actually takes less mana than erasing the circles. Much less. I don't know what kind of a brainless work taught her that spell, but the fact that she hasn't modified the spell for efficiency is a testament to her stupidity.

This geezer is also an idiot. Sure, magic circles are better than four elements, considering raw efficiency, but the whole avenue is a deadend as far as advancement is concerned. Magic circle, taking the training of ones physique out of the equation and reducing the whole of magic to a string of transfigurations of energy? Bravo, you have made magic accessible to literally anyone, but what next? What's the next big idea? This is no longer cultivation, it technology. Becoming a sorcerer is also not about some mystical enlightenment, it is about sensing your internal energies, first of which is aura, and manipulating them throughout your body, so one can draw out more of them and awaken other energies, as well as have the capacity to assimilate other, natural energies."

"Excuse me, but who are you? Have we met before? I have a strange feeling we have." Jack stared at the girl intently, at the same time trying to remember, where he had seen her.

The girl turned her gaze at Jack. "So you can hear and see me? Sorry, this farce of a magic was annoying me so much that it broke my usual concentration. Didn't mean it." She smiled apologetically and then faded into invisibility.

Mike nudged him into the ribs. "Who were you talking to?"

"A ghost apparently," Jack answered, "a ghost I've met before."

*

"So who were you talking to?"

The tone of Mike's voice told Jack that he was not merely interested but also worried. But Jack could not have asked to confirm that. That was not a productive avenue of conversation.

"I don't know." Jack led him to a lone tree in a far corner of the outer court-yard. He sat down under the tree, looking at some older students practicing with wooden swords.

"Was it a man or a woman?"

"A girl," Jack answered, "young, almost child-like, yet annoyingly adult with her words. I can tell you one thing though, I have never met such a person in my world. If I had, they would've picked my interest immediately. And she is certainly not a person I've met thus far in this world. Thus, either I am insane or she's one of the magical, mystical or mythical things of your world."

"You mean a spirit of some sort?" Mike asked.

"Your world has magic, does it also have spirits?"

"Yes. Spirits, ghosts, apparitions, demons, fairies, elves. All sorts of magical things really, not in the empire of course, the empire is a decidedly human world. But there are other empires which don't look down of other races as much as it is done here."

"Interesting."

"Let's assume she was not only in your mind," Mike began, "what was she talking about?"

"Magic. Mainly about how Diavella could really become more powerful by cutting out all the visual flare from her spells. Also about circle magic being a dead end and becoming a sorcerer is a matter of training sensing and moving your own aura."

"That is funny."

"What is? Or rather, why?" Jack asked.

"You know nothing of magic yet she explained something complicated in a really simple way. Who does that remind you of?"

Jack nodded.

"And now that you've told me, who know nothing about magic, I am also deep in thought over this."

"Sorry about that." Jack gave a faint smile.

There was only one thing about that conversation he was not going to tell Mike. That last thing the strange girl said. The thing about losing concentration and becoming visible. If he was going mad, then it was just an explanation by a figment of his imagination trying to make itself seem valid. It it was a spirit of some sort, then it was most certainly either following him or even latched onto him.

"However due to her interrupting I never managed to asked Arandas about the things i couldn't understand."

"What things?" Mike asked.

"Firstly, why is it about one or the other? Across all the magic systems, Arandas explained it as if the older system was being pushed aside by the newer one, the old one being completely superseded. If it is as Arandas explained. But it shouldn't be. The main difference between the different systems and circle magic, is that circle magic is a tool, much like a hammer. With a hammer you can hit anything, not just nails. Likewise, a magic circle can work off any magic, not just one of a certain element, thus the magical result is not brought on by virtue of the elemental affinity or essence structure, but by virtue of magic moving through the circle itself."

"Honestly, I did not understand a word you just said." Mike gave a small smile.

"Do you know what a waterwheel is?" Jack asked.

"Sure." Mike nodded.

"Water flows and powers the waterwheel. But it does not power the waterwheel by any virtue or affinity of water. The flowing thing might even not be water. It could be air in the form of wind, or some glass marbles. And the waterwheel would still turn, right?"

"So in this example, a magic circle is like a waterwheel, and magic is like a water flowing?" Mike asked.

"No, water, or really anything flowing is mana of different affinities and magic is the event of the waterwheel turning due to that flow."

"I see," Mike nodded.

"You're not wrong you know." An aloof female voice stated.

"You heard that, right?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," Mike nodded, "its her."

His gaze directed Jack's attention to a girl with short blue hair and a staff.

"The baroness," Jack said.

"Elizabeth." The girl replied, "call me Elizabeth. You are not wrong, you know. Circle magic works exactly as you described. In theory."

"In theory?" Jack asked.

"Yes." The girl replied with the same emotionless voice. "Magic is not alchemy, one cannot simply follow a string of discrete operations and arrive at the same result each time. The intent of the caster is very important. Because mana does not flow along the circle as a natural phenomenon, it is directed by the caster, pulled along by his intent. Whether this mechanism has any links to willpower and caster's latent un-awakened aura, is still a subject of ongoing research."

"Maybe you should talk to her again?" Mike asked, jokingly.

Elizabeth lifted an eyebrow.

"Talk to who?" an inquisitive female voice rang out.

Both Jack and Mike flinched. Diavella stepped out from behind the tree. She walked towards Elizabeth.

"So you and Elizabeth are not joined at the hip?" Jack asked.

"She was tired of following you around." Diavella answered.

"I don't think so, but at least she is a more interesting person to be stalked by."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Diavella asked Jack, she then looked at her friend.

"Like you heard. But I also have a question for you." Jack continued.

"And why would you think I'd tell anything about myself to a commoner like you?"

"It is about your magic."

"What do you want to know?" Diavella seemed to mellow somewhat.

"Does it take more mana to erase the readied volley, than it takes to fire it?"

"I don't know. I have never experimented like that."

"Why not?" Jack asked, "don't spells actually have a fixed mana cost?"

"They do, sort of, have a base value, an average skill of an average person, cast from an average wand. But beyond that every minute detail can become relevant and affects how much magic you can get out of your mana pool. Optimizing the spells, casting, training etc. is in itself really high level magic training that takes decades to master."

"Shouldn't that encompass even more? That one needs to know their own spell costs? Going with circle-based magic versus the old style, is also a kind of optimizing one's magic, but you cannot optimize if you have no idea about what exactly you should change."

"You mean I should take all the spells I know and see just how much it takes to exhaust my mana using each of them?" Diavella asked, "but that's just insane! It would take months! Plus one can sort of feel how much mana they have left."

"The feeling is based on that phenomenon of mana exhaustion, right? How accurate is that feeling?" Jack continued. "If you don't want to find out how large your pool is, then maybe try finding out regen instead."

"Why do you care about it so much?" Diavella finally asked the one really important question.

"Because we were talking about optimizing. You were saying that it is some really high level stuff, yet it seems to me that it is merely about changing your perspective and your own way of doing things. Because from your explanations about your mana pool it seems to me one could make tons of optimizations."

"So what would this optimize?" Diavella continued.

"How long a rest do you need to get all your mana back?"

"Usually a good night of sleep."

"Okay. Lets say you're in a fight and have run out of mana. If you don't know your wakeful mana regen you would most likely give up, be subdued or run away. If you however did know, you could think to yourself "I need to keep him busy with my sword for about five minutes and then i can create a blinding flash and use that to kill him.""

"Thats not even.." Diavella stopped mid-sentence and just stared in front of her with an empty look in her eyes.

"Did I say something weird?" Jack turned to his friend, "Mike?"

"I have no idea what the two of you are talking about, I am just marveling the dynamic you have."

"No, it’s nothing," Diavella finally continued. "Nothing weird. If you'd excuse me, the class is starting." She looked at Elizabeth.

"Are you coming?"

The blue-haired girl gave a last look at Jack and then left with Diavella.

"What was that about?" Jack asked.

"No clue, master. But we should get going too."

*

What the hell was that just now? Diavella thought to herself while clutching her chest. She had been arguing with the strange young man and then.. suddenly she felt like she was losing the argument. Not just the argument, that kid was actually running circles around her. He was making sense to her, that was the most infuriating aspect.

She had talent for magic, everybody had said it. It had been like this since she first learned to use magic, achieving quite a serious level of power at an age much earlier than her older siblings. Going by the words of her parents and older brother, at age 5 her abilities had reached the same level as the others had when they were 10. She learned a bunch of different spells, but because her abilities in casting circle magic were so advanced, nobody really admonished her for failing to learn and eventually not learning at all the Four Elements magic. She had picked her favorite spell, which was of course the one which was most difficult and for which she was praised the most and practiced it over and over again.

But now in just a few sentences all of her confidence was destroyed by that commoner who probably couldn't even use magic. As if she literally did not know anything about her own magic. She just used it, expended it, without ever thinking how or why. And then went to sleep and then woke up to expend it once more. But was it ever a challenge? Even once? Truly? A challenge? All mock fights against her siblings usually ended with the other side surrendering after the appearance of the multiple arrow or sword gates. All fights against magic beasts ended with the beast being skewered by hundreds of swords or arrows. But was there ever a fight when she was truly challenged, truly in danger? Had she ever fought against a stronger opponent? Diavella clutched her fists digging her nails into her palms. She knew the answer. After those kinds of fights her power was deemed sufficient for a noble's daughter and that was it.

Mages fought until they ran out of mana and then they died. Soldiers fought until they ran out of stamina and then they died, too. War mages were trained in offensive and defensive magic, and magic knights just used magical artifacts. Every person who came to a school like this used it to find out what he was good at, and then honed that to perfection. Rarely would one train themselves in what they were weak at. That's why there was such a gap between commoners who had physical power and nobles who had magical power.

This train of thought lead Diavella to a whole new kind of feeling about that strange person. It was still fear, but fear of his knowledge and thoughts rather than his secret. But also respect. It was no longer a wonder that master Arandas had taken an interest in him. But it was still strange.

Did this mean that this weird kid had already been to battles, had he seen death? And what kind of experience did he have that with such a short conversations he had essentially discovered all the shortcomings of her magic technique. This person was.. dangerous.

"Hey, Diavella! Elizabeth!" They saw a group of their friends ahead, some of them waving.

*

Just as Diavella had explained to the strange young man, ther were 4 tiers of nobles, and like fathers like sons, essentially, as the social groups in school were likewise divided into four tiers. Thus the group Diavella belonged to had 2 baronesses, one lady, her and three burgraves. There were tens or even dozens of similar sized groups of friends or like-minded nobles. Since the low nobility was the most numerous amongst the nobles, their competition was also the most intense. Not just amongst themselves and the 3rd tier nobles at an academy like this, but across all the academies in the Empire. And Hammerhead was named as an 11th school of this list, thus it mainly attracted the lower nobles with lesser talent, and children of rich commoners or the troublemakers of higher nobility. Or students like Diavella who wanted to stay close to home.

"Hi Diavella!" Katerina ran up to her, "why were you talking with those weird boys?"

"What do you mean weird?" the red-headed girl asked.

"Well, they have no friends here, not even acquaintances." The small girl in a black dress explained. "They aren't trying to join the other Knight-Errants and they don't act like nobles at all. They are much more like commoners. And strangers to our empire."

"Plus, you can't find out anything about them." Stella chimed in, "I know the younger one is a knight-errant, so it is sort of understandable, why he's here. But the older one.. he is the younger one's attendant, but in reality, there is no info about him. Who he is, where he's from, or what heroic deed did he do to get into this school. Nobody in nobility knows who they are or where they came from. As if the king just gave him his title and sent him here."

"I tried to ask my uncle." A tall girl spoke, her straight hair barely reaching her neck, "the grand duke. He even looked into this for a while and then.." she stopped mid-sentence.

"And then?" a tall and busty girl asked, "don't leave me in suspense, Marianne!"

"Then nothing," the girl continued in a hushed voice. "He stopped. A member of the King's Command approached him directly and told him to stop looking into this kid or consequences would be sure to follow."

"No way, so this goes all the way to the High King's inner circle?!" Stella asked in disbelief. "Could they be some secret court-wizards sent to spy on students?"

"So he wasn't lying," Diavella wondered out loud.

"Who wasn't lying?" Katerina asked, tilting her head.

"Nothing, nothing," Diavella tried to change the topic, "I was just wondering out loud."

"Really, Diavella, you've been a scatterbrain ever since this morning's lecture on table manners where you called him out." Sophia asked, "with this swift a change in just a day, he must've certainly made an impression."

"Or you've fallen in love," Katerina added with a mischievous smile.

"I have not!" Diavella retorted, suddenly blushing.

"Oh really?" even Stella wondered sarcastically.

*

"My name is Victor Stein." A strong voice rang out in a shadowed sector of the court-yard. A tall man with shoulder length blond hair was walking back and forth before the students sitting on the ground, wearing what looked like tattered robe over somewhat grayish brown vest and pants of a three piece suit, with a wine-red long-sleeved shirt.

"Now I know you've just had master Arandas' lecture on why it is important to attend his lessons. I will now do likewise." he looked about the students finally stopping his gaze on agroup of girls. "I see we have a prodigy of the Morgenstern family among us. Very good. You shall be my first assistant. Stand up, please."

With an uncertain feeling Diavella stood up and walked in front of the students standing some distance away from the professor. Being called the prodigy of the Morgenstern family was also somewhat strange. The was no sarcasm or ridicule in his voice.

To Diavella, this felt even more sarcastic and ridiculing. That her talent was so good and her ability to manage it so bad, that in his eyes she was still nothing. No, even worse than commoners with no magic. As if mr Stein and that annoying commoner boy were in it together. First the boy cuts her down with some poignant observations about her shortcomings, and makes her obsess over every fight and mock battle she has ever had. And now some peasant who knows even less about magic will strike the killing blow by treating her as nothing.

"Now," the man in a tattered gray robe said as he produced a long narrow-bladed sword which glinted in the sun, "attack me with magic. Fireballs, magic arrows, area of effect magic, anything's good."

"Are you sure?" Diavella asked slowly with a haughty tone. "Master, you might get hurt."

The man smiled warmly, "I'll be fine, I am prepared for anything."

"Very well." Diavella nodded.

She produced her black wand, at a moments notice drew a small circle in the air which activated as a magic circle and from which a shining magic arrow sprang forth, speeding towards the man.

To both Jack and most of the onlooking students this was something completely new. No careful drawing of circle and its elements, no waiting until the circle forms, checks itself and then activates a spell. Just a single motion of the hand which produced an effect.

But this certainly was not anything unseen to master Stein, as he performed a quick slash a human eye could not see and the magic arrow erupted in a cloud of light particles as if..

"Disintegrated!?" a wave of disbelieving gasps tore through the audience.

"Very good," the man praised Diavella, "you've been taught battle casting. To not rely on magic circles but, something much more fundamental. Most third-year students still have trouble with that. However this will not help you here, ready your serial and parallel volleys."

Immediately, Diavella readied a score of magic circles which simultaneously launched many arrows. But Master Stein defeated the volley, apparently slashing all of them in one strike slightly before their aimed convergence point.

Seeing that Diavella made some additions to her magic circle and now the array fired at random, from the sounds the launching magic arrows made it seemed to be at around 800 arrows per minute from around 25 launchers. The rhythm sound being close to an idling car engine. But even that did not make a difference, master was still either cutting them down or deflecting them with his sword and slowly moving forward.

The red-haired girl made another adjustment to her magic and soon after the arrows no longer flew straight towards their target but followed complicated trajectories and essentially swarmed the man who now had to defend himself from all directions. The man produced a small bright colored ball from his pocket and at the cost of letting a few of Diavella's arrows graze him, he tossed to ball at the girl.

It hit her square in the face making her recoil backwards and stopping all the magical arrows, though the circles still remained in the air. With a short run the master was suddenly in front of Diavella and his blade was on the girl's neck.

Diavella froze in place looking at the deep flaming eyes of the blonde man standing in front of her. Te man lowered his sword and took a few steps back.

"Splendid! Simply splendid!" he exclaimed, "give a round of applause to your classmate! This was a truly spectacular skill! I've seen actual battle mages who are much worse at serious play, but you managed to pin me down with a beginner spell and some clever thinking. Plus you utilized your entire magic capacity without hesitation. Honestly, if I were any of you," he turned to the other students, "I would not want to fight her."

"You can sit down, miss Morgenstern." He watched as Diavella joined her friends who seemed to be really happy about the demonstrations she had given. "But now to the real portion of this performance. I myself has no magical affinity. Zero. I can't even produce sparks which signals a failed spell. But I can still fight battle mages. I can cut their magic apart, I can deflect it. And if that doesn't help, I can use dirty tricks. If the are casting from an array of magic circles, mages can rarely shift or divide focus. Thus they cannot shift from offense to defense unless they already put up a barrier beforehand. Thus, all I had to to was break miss Morgenstern's concentration and stop the salvos. But imagine if the ball had been a knife or an explosive item. One cannot use magic if one is dead or unconscious. Or in enough pain to dull concentration."

He walked around and looked at the students staring silently at him.

"So from today onward you will all learn to do the same. To fight without using magic. A battle mage who cannot fight in any way when he runs out of mana is not a soldier, he is a dead man walking. So start grabbing the wooden swords. We will start with the basic combat stance!"

*

"That was rough!" Jack walked alone in the inner court-yard, stretching his arms, legs and body. Although he had gone running in the morning he still had a really tough time at sword practice. This wasn't about stamina but rather about his lack of training on the upper body. His hands and grip were strong from constantly playing the guitar, but it really did nothing to help him swing, slash or block. Those movements with the footwork that accompanied them were completely alien to his body. Prudent, as his body was completely alien to this world.

In one corner of the outer courtyard he saw something curious – a small outcropping of trees. This was strange because there was hardly any tall vegetation in the courtyards. Just even and perfect grass with no weeds disturbing it. The other curious thing was a small stone building with tiled roof and smoke constantly rising from it. It had one wide opening to the courtyard which seemed to lead into deep vaulted chambers.

Jack was now walking towards it. For today, he was tired of wooden practice swords, maybe here in the forge he could see an actual sword. Or at least see how a sword was made. Also what lingered in his mind was being the least least skilled person in sword fighting amongst all the students in their class. By the end of practice session 1, Mike could overwhelm him with his strength, Diavella, curiously, with her speed, and Elizabeth was really good at reading his openings and weaknesses. So by now he had completely lost any desire to swing anything. His mind was pretty clear about just how much work he would have to do just to catch up to them.

The forge was quiet. Yes, there was fire, there were swords hanging from the ceiling and on the wall, several anvils of different size and dozens of different hammers and other tools which were probably used in metalworking.

"Young master!" a hoarse voice rang out from deep within the forge. "Are you perhaps lost?"

"No, I am definitely where I want to be," Jack responded.

"It is just that other than servants or some professors, no person comes here. Seeing a student here is truly a rare sight."

"This school has its own blacksmith then?" Jack asked.

"Not any more," the old man laughed, "it used to though. I had a huge forge in the fifth tower, with scores of assistants. In the best of days we could turn out almost fifteen average swords a week. Or one really good one."

"So what happened?"

"Magic happened. The theory of circle magic. This allowed a greater amount of soldiers to become battle mages or magic soldiers, so demand for our swords dropped fast. Since no soldiers came to us to get their swords forged or fixed, neither did their officers. And to nobles, swords are merely just a ceremonial item with rarely any focus on strength or edge. Thus real black-smithing is more of a folly of old men and young artists than a serious work. I've been a blacksmith all my life, and most of my life I've served this school, so I was permitted to erect a small forge in this disused cellar. And mostly I fix tools for servants now."

"That's a sad story," Jack said.

"The story might be sad, but I'm not," the old man smiled, "I have spent my life doing what I love. As long as I can grip the tongs and swing a hammer, I am alive."

"Haven't you thought of trying your hand at magic weapons?"

"Sadly I have no affinity for magic. Therefore I cannot. You see, magic weapons and artifacts in general have special forging, they need to have minute structure in their material that is conductive to impregnating the items with magic circuits, through which a person's mana can flow. But as I cannot see magic or magic circuits, I cannot hammer in the correct patterns."

"I see," Jack responded, in thought, "I am new to all this magic, so.. forgive me if I don't understand all of it."

"The main issue though why I find myself without much work these days is because I refused to compromise on function. If a noble came to me and wanted an eloquent sword or breastplate that was a sight to behold, then I would gladly spend my days creating one, but I would make one, that was of use in a fight, not only in court ceremonies. Which meant the swords and armor were a lot heavier than the client expected."

"And functional armor and weapons cannot be nearly as slender or elegant as purely ceremonial ones."

"That too." Old man stepped out of the shadows and stood before Jack.

He was tall and burly, much taller than Jack. His head was bald, with deep lines in his face, but his dark gray beard was full.

"Would you care to help me with something, young master?" the man asked, "I have a piece that I've been working on, but it needs fine control and speedy hammering so might you assist me?"

"Sure, what do you need me to do?"

"Take this hammer," the man handed Jack one of his smaller sledge hammers. "I will hold the item while you do quick and equal strikes on it."

The old smith made the item to be worked on glowing yellow hot, and then lifted it onto the anvil. What followed were a series of fast yet weak hammer strikes in almost a machine like fashion. The old man guided him, telling him where to aim, and when to increase or decrease the strength used.

In this manner they did four or five series until Jack's hammering lost its strength and precision.

"Let us stop for now," the old man said, "I can see you are at your limit."

"Yes, I already had a few hours of sword practice before this. What is to become of this, if I may ask?"

"A blade." The old smith said, "for a knife. I've been working on it for the past few months. Making it harder and softer, folding and hammering it onto itself time and time again just to see what will happen."

Something what the old man said sparked a memory in Jack. Something he had read once and obsessed about.

"If you were to do it with something that becomes a sword, you would certainly get something exquisite that shows all of craftmanship that has been put into it right on the blade."

"What do you mean, young master?"

"A blade that bends but will not break. An edge that cuts but will not dull. And a sword that will not rust."

"A magical sword?"

"No, it is similar to a lost art of sword-making I've heard of."

"Interesting. I've never heard of any such thing. Maybe master Stein has. He also has a rather peculiar sword."

"I've seen those before," Jack said, "they also take months to forge, they bend, but don’t break and are also very light and hold a fine edge. Even a novice can cleave a man in twain with such a blade."

"You know a lot about blades despite being a noble, young master."

"I am but a lowly knight-errant," Jack responded.

"Should you come across any information on making such interesting swords would you pass the on to me. I would very much like to forge a blade never seen before."

"I'll see what I can do."

Jack looked around the forge while the old man put the unfinished knife back on a metal shelf. Suddenly a loud noise rang out. Jack turned his head to see that one of the thin metal bars that made up the shelf had fallen. But there was something else interesting he saw. Something he recognized.

"May I see that piece?" he asked.