Chapter 89: New ways of magic

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Aspen was reading a book about the fundamentals of magic while sitting on a nearby bench right under the shadow of a tree. In front of him, a dozen or so Knights could be seen fighting against each other with serious expressions and great determination.

Soon, the man who had been standing next to the King during the [Clean-Up], appeared on the training camp and started observing at the training Knights with a satisfied expression. However, when he noticed Aspen reading calmly a book below the tree, he narrowed his eyes and started walking in his direction.

"What do you think you are doing?" The man stood up in front of Aspen and glanced down with an angry look seeing that the newbie was acting rebellious on his first day.

"Hmm? Oh, you are... that guy" Aspen lifted his head and looked at the man's face for a few seconds before closed his eyes and nodded as if knowing who he was.

"My name is Jeffrey Anyer, and I'm your captain" The man crossed his arms and declared his current position with a proud and strict tone on his voice.

"Yeah, I already knew that (No, he didn't)" Aspen nodded once again and then turned to look at his book once again without minding the presence of Jeffrey.

"Then... What are you doing?" Jeffrey squinted his eyes seeing Aspen's carefree attitude even while being in front of his superior.

When Aspen noticed Jeffrey's slightly angry expression, he glanced back at his book, then back at Jeffrey, then at his book, and finally at Jeffrey again, and finally, something clicked on his mind. 

"Uh... I'm reading about magic? Are knights prohibited from using it maybe?" Aspen raised an eyebrow thinking that maybe this man had some sort of discrimination towards mages.

'Maybe the whole Kingdom is like: Grrrr, mages weak, warriors strong' Aspen placed a finger on his chin and started thinking about such a scenario.

"What? No, some of us have even learned some spells that might result useful on the battlefield, but right now we are training our swordsmanship, not magic. If you want to learn magic, you have the entire rest of the day for doing that"

"Hmm... Listen, pal, I understand that this might be time for swordsmanship training... but I have nothing to learn when it comes to that. That's why I prefer to study other types of ways to becoming strong instead of wasting my time on something useless... The only thing I lack training in is archery. So when the time for training that aspect comes, I will do it" Aspen looked with a wry smile at Jeffry and tried to reason with him, he knew that these guys must have some type of schedule and that he was interfering with it. But he just couldn't give a fuck about it no matter how hard he tried.

That's why he tried making Jeffrey allow him to do his own thing while the others trained. He didn't disturb them, and they didn't disturb him. It was a win-win situation.

But in the eyes of Jeffrey, this was nothing but pure arrogance.

"You talk big for being just a low life a few days ago... You say you have already learned everything you could have at swordsmanship? There's always something to learn, even in the simplest of trainings! If you can't even understand that, then I doubt very much that you are so good as you say"

Hearing that, Aspen got a bit annoyed at Jeffrey's persistent behavior and decided to respond back.

"Well, those words sound like bullshit to me, probably an amateur invented them"

"...!!"

The other Knights, who were listening to their conversation opened their eyes wide and looked at their captain with nervous expressions on their faces.

Jeffrey, who heard Aspen's words, had a vein spread across his forehead, as he unsheathed his sword before pointing it towards Aspen with a furious expression on his face. 

"Then should I teach you how there's always someone above you?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"So?"

"Listen bud, I know you want to teach me a lesson and make of me an example for the other guys to never slack off. But if we fight here and now you will lose, which I'm sure it's not something you want to show your subordinates, so what do you say if we part our ways here and never interf-"

"DO YOU ACCEPT THE DUEL OR NOT?"

"... Whatever, No hard feelings later alright?"

°

°

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"So? You surrender?"

"No, I can still fight!"

"Ugh, you sure are annoying..."

*Crack...*

"AAAAAAAHHH!!!"

"Come on, surrender, or I will break it"

"N-never..."

*Crack"

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! ALRIGHT ALRIGHT, I SURRENDER!!!"

"Took you a while" 

Aspen freed Jeffrey from his grasp, and let him do his thing while he walked away in direction of his residence. 

Jeffrey kept massaging his injured arm and then looked at the departing back of Aspen with an angry expression on his face.

"W-where are you going?!"

"I'm going back to my room, my working hours have finished already after all..."

"What?"

Jeffrey looked at the watch on his waist and noticed that indeed everyone's working hours had already finished long ago.

"That fucker prolonged the fight so that he could leave right when the duel ended!"

...

In Aspen's room, Aspen was currently reading the book about magic that the humans from before the Great War had passed down through generations. Normally he could not have picked it up since he cared more about learning about other types of magic than learning about something that he knew already. However, when he took a pick inside out of curiosity, he became interested in its contents and decided to read it completely.

This book, unlike what he expected, was not the typical book for students explaining the basic magics that humans could use, and the basics on how to control the mana in our surroundings and the one inside our body.

It was a theoretical book. 

It explained what was mana and how it was originated, from where it came from, and how were the living being in this planet able to control it as if it was theirs. Everything here was something that he had never really asked himself, after all, he considered it just to be part of the game settings, and nothing else. But seeing that this was real-world... then the Mana must have come from somewhere right?

Well, yes. It seemed that the Mana had actually come from space. More specifically, from the universe around us. The humans in the past theorized that the planet had absorbed the Mana from the universe, and developed its own consciousness, then, the next in absorbing the mana from the universe were the Dryads, who in a way were part of the planet, although each of them had their own ego and thought on their own. Finally, when the other races started populating the world, their bodies adapted and evolved in order to be able to control the mana from the universe.

Thus, the density of the mana in this world got reduced due to the number of living beings making use of it in order to live. However, it was not by a dangerous degree, as the planet was still absorbing mana at every moment, replenishing the lost mana.

Outside of this world, however, the density of the mana has not gotten reduced in the slightest. That's why the fallen starts, extraterrestrial rocks with the ability to absorb mana in enormous quantities, were so valuable materials that were used in most situations with the creation of mana-related objects. 

The mana crystal by the other hand was an enormous amount of compressed mana that took solid form, and that when used in the human body, could release an enormous amount of mana on the mana reserves of the body, causing it to enlarge and expand in order to not break apart.

In a way, it was similar to a muscle. The more mana you absorbed, the more mana the mana-reserves could have to sustain, and thus, the more it could enlarge. However, even the mana crystals had a limit on how much they could enlarge a human's mana reserves, as at some point the mana supplied by the Mana Crystal could stop being enough to continue to enlarge the mana reserves. 

In summary, what did this mean? 

It meant that if Aspen somehow managed to create a larger type of crystal with compressed pure mana, then he could surpass the limit of 200 mana max for humans, or 400 on his case.

Mages in this Kingdom made use of small crystals that were created out of the mana in the surroundings in order to enlarge their reserves. However, as far as Aspen knew, it only increased 10% of the normal Mana Crystal. So they were rather lame in his opinion.

Either way, he was interested in this way of creating mana crystals without the need for Fallen stars. So, after finally finishing reading the book, he stretched his limbs and grinned mischievously.

"Should I pay a visit to the Mages Guild?"

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