Like usual I was at dad's office just watching him work. And from watching my dad and his assistant talk about things helped expand my vocabulary. Usually I just ask his assistant ‘Hak’ whenever I want to know something.

Hak doesn’t hesitate to answer me, but dad is so absorbed into his work that he usually doesn’t pay attention to me. Well, I understand it. Afterall he has to manage the entire territory.

The office is a bit away from home, but I ask dad to take me there. At first he was hesitant but then he took me there, and now he takes me there daily. 

The office is two floors, the first floor is a waiting lobby and the second floor has a library and dad’s personal office. Dad’s personal office has two desks, but one was smaller, which was for Hak. And the bigger desk was for dad. There were a lot of cabinets lined up containing paperwork. The tables were at the end of the room, one to the left and one to the end of the room.

And that’s when it caught my attention. There was a book. A book with a hard cover. I could only see the stem of the book. The stem of the book had characters written, but they weren’t like the language that I had learned. It was different. 

“Hak! What’s this book?”

Hak didn’t respond to me. He was still working on his paperwork. Although now that I look at him, he looks ‘cool’ with his look. He wore a sleeveless black coat and a full-arm white shirt. He wore black pants. And he had shiny-silver eyes and black hair.

I then walked to him and poked his waist. I wanted to poke his face, but I wasn’t very tall. Even compared to my dad, Hak was tall.

He looked at me.

He smiled and said “Give me a moment, young master.”

I nodded back at him. I then went to the cabinet that had the book on top of it. I wanted to take it but I couldn’t reach the cabinet top. So I just sat on the chair in front of dad’s desk.

And suddenly I was floating in the air, but no. It was Hak who carried me away from the chair. “Now then young master, what did you want to ask me?”

“I wanted to ask about this book.” I pointed to the book on top of the cabinet. This time the room seemed small, all because I was being carried by Hak. 

“Ah. This is the Magic Book. Not a lot of us can read it, and it’s a huge subject. But there are those who can read it fluently.” he said with a smile.

“Oh... Can I have it?” I did it on impulse. It interested me, so I just asked him.

“Young master, can you read ancient letters?”

“I can’t...” I shook my head dejectedly.

“In that case, since you know how to read, I’ll get you that...” he then put me down on the floor and searched the cabinets near the magic book, opening and closing drawers. And then he finally took out a tiny book with some torn pages. It didn’t have a cover either.

“Here you go young master.” He gave me the book, it was handwritten. 

And on it was writtenー “Understanding the properties of Magic -By Hak Jouson... Wait! Hak, you made this?!”

“Haha.. I just learned a little bit of the ancient language, it’s nothing much.” he said.

“But this should get you started with the Magic Book. It’s really hard to understand, so you can come to me whenever you feel like you can’t understand.”

“Mhm! Thanks Hak!” He handed me the book but it was too heavy for me! “Hak... can you put this on the floor?”

“Hahaha~ Sorry young master, I was just teasing you.” Ah well. He then put the book on the floor. And I opened the page which was noted in the guide that Hak gave me. And I lied down on the floor and read it as I was lying there.

There seems to be illustrations in this book. On the page there was a circle. Just a simple circle drawn.

I looked at the guide and read the translation that he gave. “This is a base. The base has the capability to make a spell.” 

And then I read the notes to make sense of it. “A circle was presumably chosen due to its fluid nature to allow energy to flow through it. But I don’t think this is the reason, a circle also allows the spell to be contained within. That’s why I think it was chosen.” 

I didn’t quite get it, why even choose a circle, can’t any other shape also have a good flow? 

But I continued reading. “By fueling mana [an energy base] into it [the base]. We can close it off from outside interference.”

I’ve heard about mana, but never knew what it was. So I again looked at the notes. “The energy base described here seems to be impure undisturbed mana, and not the pure mana that we use when we cast spells.”

Hm. So it seems that our body must act as a converter then? Since both mana are different. But then I read the next line in the notes.

“But researchers reject the multi-mana conjecture. Therefore only one type exists.”

I continued reading the book. “By putting multiple bases in one, and connecting them with it [Terik]. We can make mana flow between it [functions] easier.”

Now the notes again. “It seems that bases are not only ‘bases’ but they are also spells themselves. A [Terik] is simply a connector between two bases. And functions are, as I call it ‘mana-processors’, they seem to have the capability to work with mana.”

I flipped onto the next page. “But, through mana-processors, a person can avoid problems with affinities. Though, by converting one [mana type] to another, we reduce it [efficiency] overall.”

And I looked back at the notes. “From others’ interpretation of the same statements, they have arrived at the conclusion that ‘Though, by converting one [container] to another, we reduce it [power] overall’.”

The notes continued, “[Image] methods are those that use mental capacity to make mana flow. While [containers] use ‘shapes’ to contain the mana, and make them flow through mana-processors.”

And then I closed the book and I thought about it for a while. It was then that I noticed that Hak was watching me with his mouth wide-open.

“Hak?” I asked him.

“Y-young master..? D-did you understand it?”

“Mhm. I did, why’re you asking?” - “N-no.. It’s just I was surprised that you read it that fast. And if you don’t mind. Could you explain it?”

“Uh yeah sure, so there’s a thing called a base where you can put mana into, and the mana then gets managed in a function. I don’t really get the multi-mana conjecture’s rejection. Since there's only one type of mana that doesn’t explain affinities, not to mention that since much of what they’re talking about isn’t mentioned, it’s hard to understand.” I said to him.

“I-I see, young master.” 

“Hak, can I go sleep in the lobby?”

“You can now, since no one is there.”

I then went to sleep on the wooden sofa in the lobby. It wasn’t really comfortable, but it had the bare minimum.