2, Month Fall-Quatre, Year Elizabeth 402

04:20, Claude Mansion

 

After pestering Duke Ryan for around a month, he finally relented and bought a book that Alice want: “All answers to common problems in condensation of a magic circle by Hammingway”.

The book was relatively rare, but not because it was a very sought-after book. In fact, the book was proved a long time ago that most of the contents were inaccurate. That was why it was no longer sold in most book stores.

But for Alice, it might—while unlikely—contained a solution to her problem so she asked her father to find it for her.

According to the book, low human activity would often result in more mana concentration. So, Alice searched for a place like that in her vicinity and that was where her little adventure in the forest began.

As one of the four Duke in the kingdom, Claude's family mansion was enormous and that was not applied to the mansion but all the area surrounding it. The mansion included everything ranged from a simple garden to a private beach. So, while Alice was walking in the forest now, she was—as absurd as it sounded—technically walking in her own house. The forest in the Claude mansion area was frequently patrolled and there was a troop stationed in the external perimeter, so it was relatively safe for even a child, like Alice, to walk alone, so long as you did not count the “education” that she would likely receive if she got caught by her mother at least.

After walking for another 5 minutes, she came to a clearing that seems like a suitable spot for a cultivation session. There was even a compact size pond—about 10 meters in circumference—on the edge. Alice put the book and the lantern down on a rock nearby and walked to the shore. The clearing gave the impression that it came by naturally. There was no stump on the ground that would be a sign of a man-made circle.

The grass on the ground, wet from morning dew, felt fresh even through her thick brown boot. The smell of fresh air mixed with the natural smell of forest and water made Alice more refreshed. Her drowsiness subsided a little.

She felt like she could breakthrough at any moment.

It is working!

Maybe because mana did become more concentrated in the morning, or maybe it was just a placebo effect, but that was what exactly the girl needs. She just needed a little something to made her overcome this tiny gap between a Mage apprentice and a true Mage.

Magic cultivation.

After thousands of years of refinement, magic finally had a proper system for a human to cultivate.

The first realm, Mage apprentice, was when there is no magic circle in the body of the cultivator. What one did in this realm was to gather as much mana into their own body as possible. While they did not possess a magic circle, they could cast a spell through a medium like a magic plate or a magic staff.

After that, to become a Mage, that person must condense all their magic power into a magic circle. The way it worked is by congregating your magic power into several nodes, each node complimented and repelled each other forming a perfect circle.

Of course, when starting out, a perfect circle was just impossible because it would require a lot of mana, extremely precise calculation, and enormous experience in magic. The workaround was to start with simple geometry like a triangle first.

Three nodes that were pushing and at the same time helping each other.

The first stage of mage: triangle!

After the said mage accumulated more mana and more experience would they then refined their magic circle to have more and more nodes, upgrading to square… pentagon…etc., the more node they had the more they approached the true perfect circle.

Alice heard that there were even more realms after the perfect circle but as her class had not touched on that subject yet, she remained unclear.

To be fair the knowledge about that realm was still one of those non-urgent matters for Alice at the present time as the priority of her—for now—was to condense her very own magic circle first.

In the internal vision of her magic passage, Alice sensed her own mana. It was like a white liquid pooling in a vast land. While she could unleash her magic power, it would be with low efficiency. She must continue along the path of cultivation to be able to cast the more powerful spell. With her magic power already at max capacity, the only way forward for Alice was to make her magic circle.

After a series of deep breaths, Alice calmed herself down and drove her consciousness to divide her magic power into three-part equally.

The first step was a success so far.

But the hard part was in the later step.

Pain.

While there was no pain now, the past pain flashed in her mind and the idea that this time might be even worse filling Alice with dread. The air was no longer cold. It was more on the warm side, but she still shivered uncontrollably.

Please give me power, father… mother…

Thinking about her mom and dad seemed effective. Alice found herself calmed down at least slightly. She then seized the time when she still felt concentrated to slowly guide all the part—that she had split—of her magic power into a rotation.

There were actually two branches of teachings here, first being to work on all part concurrently and the second to work on each part one by one, but it had already been studied enough to know that those two methods were in fact equally effective with each had their own pro and cons.

The school that Alice went to is in the step-by-step faction, so it was a method that she was familiar with the most. This time, she also used this method. She did try to use the simultaneous method twice when she failed in the past but those also resulted in failure so Alice did not think that the method was the cause.

So, she decided to used the method she was comfortable with the most.

One… two… three…

One by one, all her magic power condensed into three small spinning circles.

This was the farthest Alice has ever been so far and there was no pain at all.

The method is working…

After this, she only needed to create a link passage between the three nodes. Alice separated a little of magic mana from the three nodes and circulated them around to—

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Pain.

Sharp pain.

It was a pain that Alice becomes familiar with even if she didn’t want to.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Everything in her eyes became red.

She could not see anything.

She only felt pain.

It was the same as last time.

Stab. Twist. Slash.

It felt like hundreds of knives have been plunged into her chest, twist around, and slashing her inside all while healing her wound just to repeat the process again and again.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

It lasted around one minute but it felt like an hour.

When Alice came to herself again, she was already lying with her back down on the ground. Her shirt soaked with sweat.

Needlessly to say, her mana that she gathered into nodes already transformed back to a pool.

“NOOOOOOO!”

Alice was a rather strong child. Although she was a young girl, every time she got the pain from failed condensation, she never actually shed a tear. This time she voluntarily cried out loud. Not because of the physical pain that already subsided but from the pain in her heart and her soul.

The pain from her broken dream.

“S…Sorry… ma…ma… I…m…Sorry…pa…pa… Al…ice…Alice…is…hic...”

The was no hope left, only despair.

Even when she prepared to bear the pain as much as possible... Fail.

Even when she tried to study a different breakthrough method… Fail.

Even when she used a precious potion that can help with breakthrough… Fail.

Even when she tried and use an unconventional method in an obscure book… Fail.

Fail.Fail.Fail.Fail.

All Fail.

“Alice…is…a…c... complete…fail… failure…hic.”

 

---

2, Month Fall-Quatre, Year Elizabeth 402

05:27, Claude Mansion

 

After what felt like an eternity, her cry finally died out and Alice slowly tried to get up. She must at least get back to the mansion, as it would worry her family if her maid came to check in on her and found her bed empty. But even if she went back in time those who see her would still worry nonetheless if they saw her in a state she was now. Her beautiful blue eyes—now red from crying—appeared to lack focus and soul. Alice was now in the state opposite of everything she used to be.

But what could she do?

She already lost everything.

Even if she tried to appear normal, those that were remarkably close to her as her personal maid, mother, or father for example would still be able to discern it regardless.

So, she did not care about it anymore.

Alice slowly made her way back to the stone where she placed the book and lantern.

Her hope was all but destroyed.

It was only then that some strange sound suddenly caught her attention.

Ding!

A sound that seemed to be really out of place breakout in the clearing and that was when Alice notices that besides the rock there was—for the lack of a better word—a small white tablet on the ground, and the sound appeared to come from the said tablet.

Curiously, she reached out to pick the tablet up. It was rather big for her hand but surprisingly light, and there seemed to be 12.9 inches from the diagonal corners mirror in the middle of the tablet.

As if awoke when picking up, the mirror became lit up and there appeared a picture of a gentlemanly old man in a black robe, which had half of his upper face cover in a hood, but his bright, golden eyes somehow became visible.

His gaze was full of profound wisdom. Alice felt like everything about her laid bare before him but, strangely enough, she did not feel uncomfortable at all.

Below the picture, there was a text that is very foreign to Alice, but she mysteriously understood all of it instantly.

[(Q&A Session) You are invited to my wisdom chamber! Sage Khun will answer all your questions!]

[Live in 2 minutes (2 September, 18:30)]

[4 waiting]

[EmperorOfYellowKingdom: Question sent.]

[Roboto_1291: How can I ask?]

[Sage Khun Ch.: @Roboto_1291 You can anonymously send your questions through my question submit form (link in the description) or you could just type them here.]

…

……

“W...What is this…?” Alice asked, her voice hoarse from all the crying she had made.

Obviously, there was no one to answer her, so her question silently disappeared into the night.