Chapter 9 - The classes are starting ── I received an unnamed letter

Two days had passed since the entrance ceremony without any notable occurrences.

But if I really had to mention something, there was this mysterious letter laying on top of my desk that said: [Come to the back of the auditorium alone after school], which I had decided to ignore. Because it was clearly written by a man. I want a confession from a woman, not from a man.

Hence–

“I’m really grateful for your enthusiasm, but I’m romantically interested in women only. So, I’m very sorry to say this, but I can’t reciprocate the feelings of the person who wrote this letter.
However, if this letter was written by a woman by any chance, then please do let me know later. I’d like to start by being friends first.”

–The day I received the mysterious letter also happened to be the same day that the real lessons were scheduled to finally start. So, I decided to pin the letter on the very center of the blackboard before relaying my reply in front of all my classmates in the morning.

Soon after, I caught sight of Alfie, who was holding his forehead with his hand as if he were pressing down a severe headache. And I also noticed another classmate(male) whose name I’ve yet to know, having his face plopped down on a desk as his shoulders kept trembling. But since none of them came forward after receiving my reply, they probably weren’t the sender of that letter.

“… As outrageous as usual, this guy…”

When I returned to my seat, Alfie was muttering something next to me. I simply replied with a “How rude” and decided not to pursue it. There really aren’t that many men as kind as I am, you see.

After the first event of the morning had passed, Zest chose to enter the classroom at that perfect time.

“Good morning, everyone. I had quite a bit of research work to finish before this, and thanks to that, I’m feeling awfully sleepy again today. Hell, If I wasn’t assigned to this troublesome classroom, I would be sleeping peacefully at home by now.”

And he did very little to hide his lack of motivation to be here as usual.

“Now then, we will begin the real lessons starting today– what’s with this letter?”

Zest looked at the letter that was still taped to the center of the blackboard with a dubious look on his face. Oops, it seems that I forgot to take it back.

“That’s a love letter sent to me by someone! But since I’m not really into homosexuality, I was expressing my thoughts on that ahead of time!”

I bowed toward Zest while reporting the event in detail.

“Ah… I see, well I don’t mean to meddle in your personal views about love but let’s keep things in moderation.”

And with that, today’s class officially began.

Our first class was about basic training. The purpose of the class was to strengthen the fundamentals of being a magician and to develop skills and techniques even further, such as mana manipulation and casting precision.

Due to the practical demonstrations during the school entrance examination, the school was already aware of the student’s basic abilities to a certain point. But that knowledge only reached a superficial level at best, as they had yet to grasp the full extent of our abilities. So, today’s class was designed to accurately measure those basic abilities. The whole day was completely reserved only for this procedure.

We moved locations from the classroom to the training grounds within the school. If magic was to be practiced in narrow enclosed places, there would be a lot of property damage and numerous injuries caused in the process. Hence, most of the practical classes were usually held in the training grounds.

“Since you were all able to enter this class, I think most of you already know this. But I’m going to explain it again anyway.”

As we gathered in a corner of the training grounds, Zest gave us a detailed and thorough explanation of the subject. Despite his usual lack of motivation, he seemed to be very meticulous and strict about his work.

“Mana can be roughly divided into two categories. One of which exists within your body, and is called the internal source. While the other part; the external source, exists freely within the outside atmosphere around you. Usually, when a magician speaks of mana, it’s mostly referring to the inner source. That’s because they mainly use the inner source when casting magic. So, in other words, the greater the magician’s internal source, the greater his ability to cast large-scale magic.”

The scale of a magician’s internal source largely depended on their innate talent. Even though this inner source could be increased or decreased a little through acquired training, it’s only by a very slight margin. That was one of the reasons why the society of mages was also known as the world of talents.

“But that doesn’t mean the external source has nothing to do with magicians.”

Once the deployed magic has achieved its purpose, it will dissipate into the air and return back to the atmosphere –the external source. A magician can replenish their internal source of mana by absorbing external mana from the atmosphere. The ability to absorb external mana was known as ‘mana recovery’. It was a very important parameter for magicians. As compared to one’s innate mana reserves, one’s mana recovery rate could be easily increased through training.

“All right, let’s start by measuring the amount of mana each of you has, with this thing.”

There was a crystal ball placed on a cloth cushion on top of the table next to Zest. That crystal ball was a magical tool used to measure mana.

Come to think of it, there was one of those at that loli hag’s place too– even though it was used as a *pickle stone* instead.¹

“When you place your hand on this crystal, it’ll react according to the amount of mana you possess, and a light will be generated in response. The color and intensity of the light will depend on the amount and the characteristics of your mana. So, it’ll give a rough assessment of your magical power. Now that the explanations are out of the way, let’s get this over with. I still have something to do after this.”

The order of the students was decided by who would volunteer to get their measurements first. In the case where nobody volunteered, the teacher would call out the names of students to follow suit.

Student A’s turn–

A flash of blue.

“Water attribute with a reasonable amount of mana.”

Student B’s turn–

A bright brown pulse.

“Earth attribute with a fair amount of mana.”

Melon-chan’s (Kadina) turn–

A dazzling green radiance.

“As expected of the young lady of the Alfire family. It’s wind attribute with an impressive amount of mana.”

Then Alfie’s turn came up–

At that exact moment, a new ‘sun’ was born inside the school training grounds– at least that’s what it felt like. It was blindingly radiant.

“… So, this is what it actually feels like to be speechless. This is the second time in my entire life that I’ve witnessed this level of mana concentration. And it’s the first time seeing it belonging to a person with four attributes.”

And then, it was my turn–

……………………Poof!.

「「「……………………… …………………」」」」

Now that was what you would call a true state of ‘speechlessness’.

The whole class was stunned by the amount of mana I possessed. But of course, it was for the exact opposite reason from Alfie’s.

Although I had guessed this before, I only got to confirm it today. So, it seems that the innate mana capacity I possessed was actually so small that it ranked comfortably amongst the bottom pile of low-rank magicians.