“So my master has finally appeared. You read me.”
The legacy of the Archmage, the Book of Truth.
Binaeril Dalhaim, a failing student of the Magic Tower Elphenbain, discovers the Book of Truth by chance.
“I shall awaken your talent for magic. In exchange, complete me.”
The failing boy, whose slumbering talent has now sprouted, begins a journey to restore the Book of Truth at its request.
Episode 1. The Century of Magic
The first mage, Dekiplio, proclaimed a single principle to the world.
“Magic is the mirror of the true world.”
The world was groaning under the sudden appearance of monsters.
They appeared without regard for place—markets and streets, forests and royal palaces—and attacked people.
Armies and knights were helplessly defeated against this new threat.
The leaders of each nation amassed troops in their capitals to drive out the monsters.
Most people living in large and small villages could not respond to the unexpected disaster.
They died, fled for their lives, or were devoured fighting the monsters.
Many died. Until Archmage Dekiplio came to their salvation.
The power to ignite flames and freeze rivers, to move mountains and call down lightning.
People gazed upon that power with awe and gave it the name magic (魔法).
Dekiplio established the Magic Tower, Elphenbain, and began to nurture future generations.
They came to be called mages (魔法師), meaning “warriors who wield magic.”
Time passed, and as the thousandth year of the Imperial Calendar approached,
people were now living in the Century of Magic.
* * *
In a classroom of the Magic Tower Elphenbain, students who had yet to shed their Eti sat gathered like chicks amid the restless atmosphere unique to their age.
The man standing at the lectern delivered a passionate lecture on the basics of magic to the students.
Some followed the lesson passionately, while others were more diligent in passing secret notes to their friends.
But there was one student who belonged to neither group.
A gray-haired boy with a listless face was casting his gaze at an ambiguous point, neither the blackboard nor the top of his desk.
His focus was blankly unfocused. Anyone could see he was not listening to the lesson.
“……Binaeril Dalhaim, come forward.”
At the sound of his name being called, the boy raised his head.
As he lifted his gaze, the face of a cantankerous middle-aged man came into view.
It was an expression of unbearable contempt. He seemed to have no intention of hiding the disgust seeping out.
Binaeril stood up tactfully. On the lectern sat a teaching cube used as instructional material.
He could feel the classroom’s gazes pouring down on his languid movements.
“Did you listen properly? Break the egg inside the cube.”
The professor clicked his tongue and gave the order once more.
This cube, designed for the lesson, contained magic that absorbed external impact.
Striking it with a fist or applying force from the outside could absolutely never break the egg contained within.
Bursting the egg with internal force using magic. This was the first test required to be admitted into Elphenbain’s formal curriculum.
Binaeril glanced once at the students, then looked at the cube.
He spread his palm toward the cube and closed his eyes.
Silence hung over the classroom.
“Hoo.”
Binaeril exercised his imagination. He imagined the egg in his palm delicately shattering. He repeated that image, gradually making it concrete.
The final trigger was the incantation. It was the act of uttering words befitting the image.
“Shatter.”
At Binaeril’s incantation, the professor’s face hardened grimly.
“…….”
Nothing happened.
The professor stepped forward as if he had been waiting for this. Binaeril ignored him and chanted once more.
He composed his mind, sharpened the image, and tried chanting the same trigger word, but the result was the same.
The egg didn’t budge, as if it were a solid model.
To a vexing degree.
Blatant scorn burst from Professor Freud’s lips.
“Can’t do it?”
“No.”
“Do you know why you failed? It’s because of your arrogance. The arrogance of arbitrarily changing spells that senior mages refined and established. How is it that you’ve learned nothing in three years?”
At the professor’s vitriol, open snickers spread among the students.
Binaeril knew it too. Imagination, willpower, and precise incantation. The three elements that constituted magic.
It wasn’t that Binaeril was an idiot who had forgotten the spell for a 1st-tier destruction spell.
But even if he did it properly, it wouldn’t work.
He had cast the proper incantation dozens, hundreds of times. No matter what he did, the magic wouldn’t activate.
Since neither this way nor that way worked, Binaeril had decided to use a concise incantation instead.
“…My apologies.”
Contrary to his thoughts, Binaeril bowed his head. Professor Freud wouldn’t care about his circumstances anyway.
“Tch, stand there and watch. Gaspelt Rui!”
“Yes.”
“You do it instead.”
Gaspelt, who had been standing with his hands behind his back at the rear of the classroom, walked proudly to the podium.
He was the one who had graduated from the junior class in just one month after enrollment and risen to senior.
And he was Professor Freud’s top disciple, as well as the student closest to being appointed as a mage this year.
Lastly, he was Binaeril’s enrollment year peer.
Gaspelt, attending as a lecture assistant, stood at the podium and glanced sidelong at Binaeril.
Sneering coldly behind the professor’s back, he struck a pose similar to Binaeril’s.
“O power of mana, destroy the enemy before my eyes!”
Then, chanting the accurate spell, the egg inside the cube split in half with a crunching sound.
“Well done.”
Professor Freud had called Gaspelt forward purely out of spite.
He seemed to want to show Binaeril, ‘Look at your peer, you are a worthless wretch.’
Since that intention was so obvious, Binaeril put on an appropriately apologetic expression.
Whether Gaspelt cracked an egg or the entire Magic Tower, it was of no concern to him.
Because Binaeril’s sole interest was in why he couldn’t use magic.
“Both of you, return to your seats.”
Behind Binaeril as he returned, the professor’s explanation targeting him continued.
“Did everyone see? This is how important a precise incantation is. The reason mages require extraordinary memory and comprehension among their virtues is not for nothing.”
My ass. It didn’t take outstanding memory or comprehension to memorize a few lines of spells.
In Binaeril’s eyes, what a mage needed more than anything was stupidity.
The stupidity to believe in such absurd power without a shred of doubt.
That naive belief that things would truly happen exactly as one imagined.
Binaeril thought that was what he lacked.
He was a human born with the exact opposite talent: a talent for doubting and being skeptical of everything.
And that was closer to a curse than anything when it came to becoming a mage.
Gaspelt Rui and Binaeril Dalhaim. Wasn’t that precisely the difference between the top disciple of their enrollment year and the eternal junior?
“Class ends here. Receive a cube from the lecture assistant on your way out. If you succeed in destruction magic, you may be admitted to Elphenbain’s senior curriculum after examination. I’m sure you all remember?”
As the closing bell ended, the students left the classroom in groups.
“Binaeril Dalhaim.”
Professor Freud, who had been organizing his teaching materials, called him to a stop.
“Yes?”
“Come closer.”
Seen up close, Professor Freud’s impression looked even more ill-tempered and irritable.
Binaeril realized this was the first time he had seen his face from so close.
“It’s been three years since you enrolled, and you haven’t cast a single basic spell yet, have you?”
“…Yes.”
“Yet on the other hand, you score perfect marks on theory exams. That alone isn’t enough, is it? To be frank, a student like you is unprecedented in Elphenbain.”
Binaeril knew it was an absurd exaggeration for a young professor in only his sixth year of appointment to speak of ‘precedents.’
But from experience, adding unnecessary remarks at times like this was unwise.
He simply lowered his gaze and let Professor Freud’s nagging flow in one ear and out the other.
That reaction further provoked the professor’s temper.
Professor Freud furrowed his brow.
“Isn’t this enough? You have no talent for magic. Wouldn’t it be better to give up now and help your parents back home?”
Binaeril barely held back his surging emotions.
He had no place to return to. His father back home found it difficult to even look at his son.
Sending tuition fees for Elphenbain via letter each year was the entirety of their father-son communication.
Binaeril had no intention of returning home until he made something of himself.
But.
Professor Freud’s words were not advice but a recommendation for expulsion. Plainly so.
Binaeril let out a short, inaudible sigh.
The nagging showed no signs of ending with silence alone.
“Esteemed Professor. According to the rules of the Magic Tower, all students have the right to continue their studies as long as they wish.”
“What?”
Freud was dumbfounded by Binaeril’s shamelessness to cite school regulations before a professor.
“There are many students with lower grades than mine and just as little talent. Do you wish to expel all such students, including me?”
“You insolent brat. No other student in any class has been so stagnant despite spending as much time as you!”
Professor Freud began to argue obstinately. Binaeril was no fool.
“Vilmini.”
“?”
“Chichen, Ariel, Ulrik, Bandireo.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“They are students who failed your class last semester, myself included. Several are retaking the same class this semester, yet you are telling this only to me. May I interpret this as stemming from your personal feelings, Professor?”
Professor Freud’s face grew incomparably ferocious.
“You truly are an arrogant wretch. Before whom do you spout such impudent words?”
“If there is no just cause for my expulsion, I shall act as though I never heard you. Then, I shall see you next week.”
Without waiting for Professor Freud’s answer, Binaeril turned and walked out of the classroom.
A nerve-wracking thud sounded from behind.
It was none of his concern. Binaeril left without paying it any mind.
Only after leaving the building and walking for some time did a sigh burst out.
“Sigh….”
Professor Freud was a figure with considerable research achievements and strong influence at faculty meetings.
Rumors that he was being considered as the next dean were frequently heard.
A recommendation for expulsion from such a person would not end as a simple threat.
“Should I really consider dropping out?”
There was nothing he hated more than that, but sometimes Binaeril wondered if he was foolishly clinging to Elphenbain.
His relationship with the professors had been deteriorating since his first year, but this was the first time he had clashed so openly.
Binaeril fiddled with the assignment cube he had received and thought he’d had enough for today.
“Maybe I’ll take a walk before heading back.”
Regret that he had responded too emotionally washed over him belatedly.
Binaeril shook his head hard to avoid falling into deep self-reproach.
When he turned his gaze, an exotic campus filled with all manner of mysteries and magic came into view.
It was a landscape befitting its reputation as the world’s only institution for magical scholarship.
Binaeril loved this space. Though he hated the people.
Taking walks through the quiet campus was one of his few hobbies.
Groups of students on their way home were chattering and returning to their dormitories.
Binaeril looked around the expansive campus. Buildings and people, harmonious in their own way.
‘It’s truly amazing that all this space fits inside a narrow tower.’
Precisely speaking, Elphenbain was not a specific place name.
It was the name for a narrow, tall tower whose end could not be seen no matter how high one cast one’s gaze.
Upon entering that narrow tower, an entirely different world emerged—a vast space that could not be explained by physics.
No mage in the world could create such a mysterious and inexplicable space.
Except for the Archmage Dekiplio, the founder of the Magic Tower.
When his thoughts reached that point, Binaeril recalled the teaching of Archmage Dekiplio once more.
“Magic is the power to realize imagination… so it is said.”
Lost deep in thought, Binaeril pondered long over his own faith and doubt.
Doubting and believing. Believing and doubting.
Time passed quickly.
When he came to his senses, Binaeril was standing before the Great Library.
“I should borrow the textbook for next class.”
Binaeril entered the Great Library.
That day, the single book he found there changed Binaeril Dalhaim’s life down to its very roots.