Genius Wizard Conceals His Origins

T/N: Edited 10/27/24.

“Will you become my disciple?”

With those words, Benjamin extended his hand.

I looked at his palm without saying a word.

The rough bones and deep wrinkles etched all over. Each wrinkle was as deep as a valley.

There’s a skill I’ve learned during my long life of begging.

It’s the ability to understand a person’s character by looking at their palm.

The palms of officers’ wives are smooth without a single callus. Those who have grown up without hardship tend to take the suffering of others lightly.

However.

The hand covered in the marks of time showed that his life had been a kind of asceticism.

I suddenly looked at my palm.

It was similar to his.

“……”

I made up my mind.

No matter how many words I utter, I cannot convey my true intentions.

Instead, I also reached out my hand. I felt the two valleys filling each other’s empty spaces.

Grasp.

Benjamin pulled me and opened a door.

It led to a room right next to the storage room, where the bed was.

The bookshelves were packed with books, and the place was filled with the scent of ink and books.

It was Benjamin’s study.

“Sit wherever you want.”

A round table. I sat on one of the two chairs.

It was a wooden chair with a leather backrest and seat. It was by far the most comfortable chair I had ever sat on in my life.

“Wow….”

Anyway, Benjamin sat on the chair opposite me.

This room was like a visualization of the word ‘scholarly.’ It doesn’t fit at all with Benjamin’s first impression of being just an eccentric old man, but it’s a different story if it’s a professor’s study.

I was astonished by the atmosphere created by the soft lights and the polished wood.

While I was overwhelmed by that atmosphere…

Knock, knock.

Benjamin tapped on the desk.

“Eugene, as long as you’re my disciple, I have no intention of holding back my support for you. This is a conviction and a decision.”

“……”

“And you don’t have as much conviction as I do. Right?”

I remained silent, but it was practically an admission.

His point was accurate.

I’m the one who has been living as a beggar for five years. Even if I suddenly hear that I’m a genius and receive a pledge of full support, there’s no way I can change my stance right away.

Being recognized feels good.

However, that’s assuming I know the person who’s recognizing me well.

I knew next to nothing about Benjamin.

“Benjamin. I’d like you to tell me about yourself.”

“Of course.”

Benjamin nodded.

“Well. I can give a typical self-introduction. Former tenured professor at the Federal University of Magic. Theoretical magic scholar Benjamin Oslo.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“That’s right. More importantly, though…”

He widened his eyes.

“…you don’t know magic yet. So there’s no point in talking about being a professor at a magic university or being a theoretical magic scholar.”

“……”

Benjamin’s logic was mostly correct.

Except for one thing.

Thud!

I placed the grimoire from my chest on the desk.

A dull vibration spread across the desk.

“You say I don’t know magic? Didn’t you just say you saw me using magic earlier?”

What’s the point of this grimoire, then?

Unless he’s going senile, he can’t say that I don’t know magic.

Just look at the [Levitation] spell I recently learned.

“[Levitation].”

If that unbelievable harmony isn’t magic, then what is?

But Benjamin chuckled.

“Who said you can’t use magic?”

“Huh?”

“What I’m saying is, you only know how to use magic, but you don’t know the essence of magic.”

Our eyes met.

“Let me ask you this. What is magic?”

“…What?”

“Don’t hesitate. You may not know anything else, but you should at least know what you’re going to learn from now on. I’ll ask again. What is magic?”

Benjamin widened his eyes.

A look that said he wouldn’t tolerate a sloppy answer.

Well. It doesn’t matter.

Magic.

The pride that allowed me to continue my squalid life for five years. My soul.

No matter how much of a professor he is, he can’t disparage my realization.

I answered confidently:

“Magic is the realization of imagination.”

It’s about wishing for imagination to become reality.

Using the sky as a canvas, imagination as ink, and a pen called magic to draw a line in this world.

That’s why magic was the realization of imagination.

In fact, after realizing this principle, I succeeded in learning my first spell, [Disc].

Upon hearing my answer, Benjamin nodded nonchalantly.

“It’s a decent interpretation. Imagination is indeed the essence of magic. That’s why even a vagrant like you can use magic left and right just by picking up a grimoire.”

“Ugh, why are you suddenly cursing at me?”

“Why do you think? Because you’re wrong.”

Chuckling, Benjamin continued.

“Magic… You want to learn it, right?”

“Yes.”

“But what do you think magic is?”

“The realization of imagination.”

“Can you ‘learn’ imagination?”

For a moment…

I felt like the world had stopped.

“……”

“If it’s hard to understand, let’s think about it the other way around. Can you teach imagination? Can you take out the intuition and images in your head and hand them over as is?”

“That’s… At least, I can’t. It’s the same as telling someone to teach how to move their fingers.”

“…I see.”

There was some truth to it.

My magic skills were self-taught with the help of a grimoire in the most ignorant way I could imagine.

There’s no way I could teach others…

So, why does a ‘university of magic’ exist?

“If that were possible, that person wouldn’t even be a once-in-a-lifetime genius. They’d be delusional. But…”

Tap, tap.

Benjamin tapped his fingers on my grimoire, and light seeped out from its cover.

“But, I can teach what’s in here.”

“The grimoire…”

“We call what we can create with books, scholarship.”

He looked me in the eye.

“Magic is scholarship. Nothing else.”

Magic is scholarship.

“Hmm…”

“Heh, is it not clicking for you?”

He saw through me.

“Your thoughts are showing right on your face. Well then. Try standing up.”

I obediently did as he said.

As I got up from the chair, Benjamin also stood up, leaning on his cane.

“I’ll show you with your own eyes. Take your grimoire and use the spell you’re most familiar with. I’ve filled it with mana, so don’t worry.”

“Understood.”

It was a simple task.

In five years, I only learned four magic spells. One of them I learned just a few days ago.

On the flip side, because I had been using only those for five years, I was confident in my mastery of magic.

I held the grimoire worn by my hands for years to my chest and took an almost instinctive stance.

I stretch my fingers towards the sky.

“[Disc].”

Plop.

It began with a single drop of water—a single blue dot floating in the air. 

However.

Imagine.

A blue disc spinning freely.

At that moment, the form of the water droplet began to change.

Woooosh!

This was indoors. There was no way to obtain water droplets through rain; instead, more delicate control was possible.

The realization of imagination was instantaneous.

I showed a rippling water screen floating above my fingers without wasting a single bit of mana.

Time taken… A mere two seconds.

Benjamin gasped.

“…You’re fast. Quite skilled.”

“R-Really?”

“Yeah. You’re good. Now, hand me the grimoire.”

Even a simple compliment can make a whale dance. I readily handed over the grimoire.

Splat!

The disc of water turned into droplets and spilled onto the desk.

Regardless…

Benjamin took the grimoire without flinching.

“Watch closely, Greenhorn Eugene. You’ll probably be amazed.”

“Yes?”

Benjamin chuckled. The grimoire in his hand shone brightly.

“What is the greatest achievement of Jean-Pierre Auchlimé, the founder of magic studies?”

It didn’t seem like a question he was expecting an answer to.

The old man’s gaze was directed at the air.

“Magic boasts a history of thousands of years. It has passed through the hands of millions, and they, too, have had their own achievements.”

Plop.

He raises his finger. A water droplet floated above it.

Type I Magic Spell [Disc].

It was an excellent skill, but slow.

It felt even more so as it was the first time I saw someone else’s magic. It seemed to take about seven seconds for the disc to take its proper form.

But there was also a difference.

“Thanks to that, the era of magical rituals and playing with magic circles has become a distant tale.”

Precision.

It was a sharp and level water screen like a veil.

In terms of precision alone, Benjamin was overwhelming my magic.

That’s when it happened.

“However.”

Sssssssk.

The moment Benjamin closed his eyes, the water screen began to ‘very precisely distort.’

I widened my eyes and stared at what used to be a disc.

“Why do we praise his name as the “Father of Magic,” leaving all others behind?”

It twisted randomly this way and that.

But if you ask if it was irregular, it wasn’t at all. The distorted disc suddenly curled up and became a long stem, folded slightly and became a thorn, and curved elegantly to become a petal.

Ever-changing.

In a way, it also meant that Benjamin Oslo was systematically imagining all those processes.

It didn’t make sense. How could a person-…

The next moment.

“Auchlime’s great achievement can be summed up in three words.

Theory of Imagination.”

Flash!

A blue rose bloomed in mid-air.

A single rose made by folding and folding what was originally a single layer of blue screen.

“…!”

I widened my eyes. It was deserving of that.

It was miraculous.

Drawing such a complex form and its balance in one’s head was unthinkable.

“Ah.”

Magic is scholarship.

Theorization of imagination.

Magic is not instinct and abstraction but is a rigorous theory!

“This is magic studies.”

Benjamin grinned.