1st Lt Finn Miller took out a device that looked like a cylinder, with a diameter of 10cm and a height of 15cm and placed it on the table that is found in the stage of the lecture theatre, he fiddled around with it until it made a small noise and then light came out.
'Holographic projection!'
That kind of shocked Grey a little bit, he was a geek in his previous life, such things are definitely in his interest range, his eyes had light of want and 1st Lt Miller could see.
'These people of this world are getting more interesting day by day.'
Grey thought to himself. The projection shown by the holographic projector showed what the children believed was a Magic Ring. The ring showed on the projector had a bit of profoundness to it, there were lots of writings on the flat side of the ring, the language used was not the language used by kids because they could not even read what has was written.
"Here shown on this projector is a Tier 1 Magic Ring. Tier 1 rings are the most basic of the Magic Rings, they effects are only slightly. The main reason for that is that they are too small, there is not enough space to engrave more complex effects."
At this moment, a hand was raised by the well mannered child Sophia, it looked like there was something that was actually confusing her, Grey had a passing glance to her and got back to concentrating on the lecture.
"Sir, what do you mean when you state that effects are engraved onto the Magic Ring?"
"Magic rings are natural creations that are created when a mage goes to higher tiers, when they are created they are blank without any effect, if they were not further processed through engraving they would not have much help to any mage, the process of engraving is something you learn when you start your magic classes."
The well mannered child Sophia thank the 1st Lt and the seated down.
"I mentioned engraving, but what is engraved in these rings? In the case of tier 1 rings, because they are too small only spell structures can be engraved into them, and only one spell structure at that. This projection that I am showing here is tier 1 Magic Ring, [Strengthen Magic Shield], the effect of this Magic Ring is very obvious, it slightly strengthens the tier 1 spell [Magic Shield]."
A hand was raised by Leon to ask a question, it seemed that he got through his shame and had a serious look on his face.
"Sir, I understand what you just explained, does that mean tier 1 rings can only have tier 1 spell structures? Is it possible to engrave higher tier spells on tier 1 rings?"
The 1st Lt had a smile on his face and no one could guess what he was thinking.
"For the short answer, yes it possible, but to a limit."
The children were actually surprised that it was actually possible.
"The limit you can reach on tier 1 rings is tier 2 spell structures, Leon can you tell me then why mages don't do this."
For the first time in the class 1st Lt Finn Miller actually asked a child a question in the lecture theatre, and Leon did not disappoint, he is a tier 3 talent after all.
"I believe it is because mages cannot use spells that are higher tiers when compared to their own magic tier."
"That is correct, I would like to say that once an engraving is done it cannot be undone, there have been mages in history who thought they were highly special and they could bridge spell tiers and thus engraved higher tier spells on their lower tier Magic Rings, it did not end well for them."
The children finally understood why the 1st Lt was smiling, he wanted to point out this situation to prevent problems in the future. The children understood such a situation was possible and the had to be careful in the future.
"Now back to the tier 1 ring, [Strengthen Magic Shield]. Why would anyone choose this particular one? In general, tier 1 mages mostly choose to strengthen a tier 1 defensive spell and thus have their tier 1 ring increase their survivability."
1st Lt Miller changed the projection to another one with a different ring.
"Tier 1 ring, [Strengthen Solar Ray]. This is an offensive spell, and there are some mages who choose to have offence than defence. Why I am telling you this? This is your Magic Path and you too will have to choose, it is called a Magic Path for a reason. You make your own Path by your own choices. I digress, any questions at this moment."
There were no questions, everyone had a thoughtful look on their faces, trying to understand what type of person they are when compared to others.
"Good. You now understand the concept of Magic Rings, you should have noticed a big issue with tier 1 rings by now as you have been pondering. Mages cannot survive with a only one spell that gets the benefit of being strengthened by a tier 1 ring, that is the glaring weakness, it gets really bad if your enemy knows which spell is being strengthened, they can just get a spell that heavily counters that spell."
The kids with tier 1 and some of the kids with tier 2 had looks of horror when they heard what he was saying. 1st Lt Finn Miller chuckled when seeing these children's faces.
"Tier 1 Magic Rings lack utility and the strengthening the provide is only slightly."
A hand was raise from the front row, it was the reincarnator and protagonist of his life, Grey Gram.
"Sir, I have been hearing you say the strengthening for tier 1 rings is only slight, how much is slight?"
It finally dawned on the kids that they were hearing that the Magic Rings were the master stroke of magic that they did not fully understand the underlying information. Grey did not find such information in the beginner magic book 'Into Magic', he felt such information was very important for his future plans.
The 1st lieutenant audibly sighed.
"Ha… Grey it gets really complicated from that point, I will try to keep it short, you should read up on this if it interests you. I will only talk about tier 1 rings, there is a numerical representation of the strengthening. The theoretical limit for a tier 1 magic ring is 10% strengthening, this being a theoretical value means that it is very difficult to achieve it in practice."
The attention of the class was at is highest, everyone was pondering as the lieutenant was explaining.
"You could consider yourself lucky if your tier 1 ring can strengthen up to 8.0%, the reason for this is because of a bunch of people who specialise in magic ring design called Magic Ring Masters. When a magic ring is being created it heavily depends on the design, a well designed ring should allow the Magic Ring that is created to try and reach the theoretical limit, but not everyone is good at design."
"This as you can observe is a problem. Magic Ring Master, Wagner's highest known tier 1 ring design reached 9.3% in strengthening when tested, and it more difficult in higher tiers."
The children finally saw that the world of magic was not shallow at all, it was deep and it kept getting deeper. The other tier 4 children looked at Grey and nodded to him as a sign of weird elitist respect, he simply nodded back too, these were people he could not ignore, from what he observed from them, they were like him and highly interested in magic.
1st Lt Finn Miller fiddled with the holographic projector to change the projection to a different ring, this ring was clearly larger when compared to the first two tier 1 rings.
"You children were horrified when you learned of the glaring weakness of tier 1 rings, their lack of utility is a big problem. Higher tier rings solve the issue of the lack of utility and still give more power, they are larger and because of that special effects can be engraved on to them. The projection shown here is Tier 3 ring, [Strengthened Fire Magic]. Ponder on that for a while. Any questions?"
A new hand was raised from somewhere in the middle row, a girl with red hair and freckles raised her hand. The girl was a tier 2 talent and had been silent and following the class. The child's name was Scarlet Autumn, she was born in the season of Autumn. The people who were responsible of registering her were were too lazy to think of a proper surname, these orphanage people should be dealt with.
"Sir, I see you jumped to tier 3 rings, can you please give an example of a tier 2 ring."
The girl felt that tier 3 rings did not currently affect her, what affected her were tier 2 rings, she is a tier 2 talent after all. Observing the young girl, made 1st Lt Miller smile, it is getting creepy now, this fellow must stop doing that.
'It looks there is someone with high intelligence even being a tier 2 talent.'
"I will give you two examples of the most used tier 2 rings. Tier 2 ring, [Increased Magic Damage] and Tier 2 ring, [Increased Magic Penetration]. These two rings are very simple in their effects, they are offensive choices in tier 2."
"These rings are not as simple as tier 1 rings, the effects of these tier 2 rings are highly useful to anyone who uses magic to attack. The effects of these two rings can be combined to make a highly offensive tier 4 ring, the people who use such rings are very dangerous and should be avoided if without a proper way to counter."
Everyone seemed to agree on the statement that higher tier rings are more utilitarian and have better effects. But what got the tier 4 talents' attention and some of the tier 3 talents' attention was the last statement.
"Thank you Sir."
"My pleasure Scarlet."
The child only nodded back. What a peculiar child.
"Now back to Tier 3 ring, [Strengthened Fire Magic] why would a person use this ring?"