"We greet the Master"
Upon returning home, servants were already waiting for me on the court of the mansion.
"Shall we prepare dinner?"
After I got out of the car, I stood silently for a moment looking up at the sky.
Sunset. The moon orbiting high up, clouds dyed in orange as if painted.
It was indeed a fantastical scene.
"Master...?"
It was the butler who held out his hand to take my coat.
"...Okay"
"Yes. So would you like to ea-"
"I'll skip it."
As soon as I entered the mansion, I climbed the stairs and headed to my room.
I didn't feel tired or stressed at all.
[Iron Man]
Rating
:Unique
Description
:Innate high physical constitution and temper.
:The physical potential deserves to be called supreme.
One of the many traits I added as a joke, "Iron Man". Thanks to this I only felt slight physical fatigue and recovered rapidly.
However, as I was mentally fatigued I still took a shower. As I had "Mysophobia", washing itself brought me happiness and rejuvenated me.
After showering, I sat down on the reading chair located in the study. Then I took out one of the books on magic that I had Allen borrow for me.
"Foundation of Control Magic"
Today, I planned to multiply my mastery of control type magic, "Psychokinesis", which was the closest related to my newly discovered weapon.
Of course, as I wasn't born as Deculein, I didn't have any magical knowledge this guy may have built up. Thus, my base as a sorcerer was comparable to a wasteland.
Nevertheless, the basis for my seemingly overwhelming confidence stems from my trait "Understanding".
"..."
I opened the book in a steady manner.
[Introduction: The value and significance of Control Magic]
There were only four topics mentioned in this thick book's table of contents. Basic wind direction control, basic umbrella control, basic camouflage and basic psychokinesis. Naturally, I immediately skipped to basic psychokinesis.
[ 4. Basic Psychokinesis: Understanding Psychokinesis ]
:Psychokinesis belongs to the non-mainstream magics. Of course, the control type is treated as minor among the eight, but nonetheless, it is well worth learning as a stepping stone to increase the sorcerer's capabilities. Now, take a look at the following magic circle...
...I was dumbfounded by the content for a moment.
They seemed like alien records to me.
It's not exactly that, but on each page they disassembled and analyzed the magic circle for "Psychokinesis" stroke by stroke.
To paraphrase it, it seemed like complex chinese characters were packed on the pages.
Even the explanation and calculation of "The amount of Mana needed for one stroke" and "The Flow of Mana leading to the next stroke" took up more than 10 lines per stroke and the total amount was a little over 60 pages.
"...Sure enough."
Will my "Understanding" also apply to magic?
Can I understand the operation of something as complex as that?
I closed my eyes, faced with this uncertain situation.
After turning a "switch" in my mind, I opened my eyes again.
My vision turned blue. The lights in the room flickered and blinked like stars.
In the midst of this world spreading out in front of me like an Impressionist painting my focus was solely on the magic book.
Both my eyes only looked at the described magic circle. At that moment "Understanding" activated.
My mind was seething hot. This forced boost pushed through my whole body.
So even beyond just boosting my hearing and seeing, my consciousness rose to higher levels.
–Psychokinesis.
The magic circle rose from the book into the air.
Curves and straight lines entangled with each other, forming something that looked like a talisman. My own magic power flowed along these subtle lines appearing blue and brilliant.
A ray of magical power that started from one point formed a line, filled the surface and manifested magic.
This was the magical manifestation of my "Understanding".
A visualization of an image.
A magic circle called "Psychokinesis" formed, illuminating the mansion and soon seeped into my head.
–By injecting magical power into an object, condensing it like a nucleus, it enables the magician's will to control said object.
In other words, the magician controls the "Magic nucleus" inside of the object and not the object itself.
Thus, the key to this magic is to compress the size of the nucleus as much as possible and make the magic circuit that holds the object harden.
I understood the principle behind psychokinesis and was able to "memorize" it in my brain.
"...Haah."
As soon as I stopped using "Understanding", I let out the breath I was holding back. My temples hurt and my eyes were swollen.
I took out a fountain pen from my inner pocket and infused mana into it. Magical power permeated the fountain pen's interior and like that I made this long, thin pen float with just my will.
"It worked."
At this moment, the "Basic Psychokinesis", which I couldn't understand a minute ago, I realized without having to think about old-fashioned magic circles or how to control my mana.
That was proof that the complete magic was "memorized" in my brain.
Once a fully understood magic is memorized in the brain, the memorized magic can be used at any time without having to formulate a magic circle. No, the brain "unconsciously" formulates them. This is called "memorizing".
This was the moment I got to experience first hand what I only read in the settings once before.
"That's good and all, but..."
I was still just moving a fountain pen with my will.
If basic psychokinesis was just something of this level, even if I master advanced psychokinesis, I'd never reach the level of the Ki Sword I'm imagining.
"Isn't it just non-mainstream magic?"
Isn't there any way to enhance its performance?
Of course, with my limited talent, it was hard to do anything about this....
While I was struggling to think of something, stroking my chin, I suddenly remembered a certain trick.
"If I engrave a magic circle all over my body."
There were several major premises of this world's magic.
Among them, the most prominent one is "The larger the magic circle, the more powerful it is".
"If that's the case."
If I'm able to comprehend my whole body using the characteristic "Understanding, I should be able to engrave a magic circle not only on just my brain, heart or lower abdomen, but on my whole body.
"...It's worth a try."
Of course, it'll obviously put a greater burden on my body. There'll certainly be some unexpected side effects as well. So, let's think this over one more time.
This body, isn't it that of an "Iron man"?
That madness called "memorizing" magic using my whole body is only possible because of "Iron man" in the first place.
"Haah...phew"
I was excited to try it out, but I calmed myself down with a deep breath.
My remaining mana was 800.
I was just going to taking a quick look anyway, so that should be enough.
I activated "Understanding" and let magic flow through my body.
"...!"
I felt an excruciating intense pain.
It felt as if my bones and muscles all over my body were getting crushed by a hammer, as if all of my muscles were getting twisted and torn apart. It was incomparable.
Creak...! Crack...!
All these sounds were coming from my body.
My joints were twisting and my heart was breaking down.
At least that's how I felt.
–But
Even while getting baptised by this intense pain, this body didn't even let out a groan. It didn't even bite its lip. Even though it couldn't control the flow of its sweat, It never bent its waist even a bit.
A highly consistent posture.
A tenacious, unbending spirit.
Grace.
Acting with this false bravado bordering on madness and aristocratic ego — That's the most basic understanding of this character.
I thoroughly controlled the mana within my body to run through my blood vessels.
I attached my will to every part of my body through the flow of mana.
My heart, muscles, bones and intestines.
This was to engrave the psychokinesis magic circle into my skin.
Snap–!
As I heard the sound of something breaking, a sense of weakness settled in me.
It was a failure.
I exhausted my mana, so Understanding got deactivated.
I quickly opened my eyes. My whole body was burning with rashes, redness and itching.
Of course, I didn't scratch at it. That would go against my dignity.
"....I'll do the rest later."
[Mana: 1 / 3,375]
It failed due to my lack of mana. It just ended up getting engraved a little around my shoulder.
Fortunately, I didn't have to start from the beginning again just because I failed.
In other words, this process worked through gradual understanding.
To compare it to a game, even if you failed stage 2 after winning stage 1, you'd just start over from the start of stage 2 again instead of going back to stage 1.
"2 weeks"
Neck, shoulders, arms, hands, belly, thighs, calves, feet. I roughly estimated how long it would take for 8 parts of my body.
Approximately 2 weeks for "Basic Psychokinesis".
For something of a higher level, like "advanced psychokinesis" even longer.
"..."
I got up from my chair, putting my thoughts together. I took a shower first, because my whole body was soaked in sweat.
I wiped my body with a natural body wash and lay on the bed with a robe on.
"Pajamas..."
I felt like I was going to faint. My body wanted me to wear my pajamas. Sleeping in a robe was absolutely unacceptable.
"Fuck off..."
I didn't force myself to wear it.
Since I'm Kim Woojin, not Deculein, I won't be manipulated by some personality determined by code....