novelraw Chapter 114 : Chapter 114
Chapter 114 : Chapter 114
114
“What is a path?”
I answered Professor Hollians' question just in any way for now.
“A path refers to a passage that has a departure point and a destination.”
“Then the mana of Mana Road must have a departure point and a destination! Then where would the destination of Mana Road be?”
“That is naturally the sword.”
Seeing the questions and answers continuing, it seemed I had chosen the right answers and was moving forward.
Professor Hollians smiled satisfactorily and asked me.
“To know properly about Mana Road, one must start from precisely that point. Who are the representative tribe that uses mana in this world?”
“Wizards.”
“Then do wizards have Mana Road?”
I shook my head.
Wizards use magic in a different way instead of Mana Road.
Precisely, the Mana Circle.
They create a circle where mana rotates around the heart to accumulate mana, and then manifest it as magic to use.
“Right. Wizards use the mana in their bodies. Then why do they accumulate mana in their bodies? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to just use external mana through Mana Road?”
This part was a question I had also been curious about and had asked Ulf before.
Back then, Ulf had answered like this.
“A swordsman's Aura is ultimately raising the function of the sword called ‘cut’ to the limit. However, wizards unfold completely new miracles.”
“You know the basics.”
With a tsk-tsk sound, Professor Hollians looked around.
Ah.
That was a process to verify that this Academic Exchange Conference wasn't just two people, me and Professor Hollians, chattering about things only we enjoyed, but that it was also helpful to the students.
I had forgotten that part for my own enjoyment.
I hurriedly looked at the students and added an explanation.
“Wizards absorb mana and then use that mana to create something from nothing. For example…… is there any student who can use magic?”
At my words, a few students from the Imperial Royal Academy side raised their hands.
Our students looked at them with expressions of surprise.
There was nothing strange about it.
The Imperial Royal Academy is a place where the most talented people in the world gather, and there were many people who displayed talent in both magic and the sword, setting their career path as magic swordsmen and studying accordingly.
“Please unfold Light magic.”
At my words, a student with yellow curly hair made light bloom from her fingertips.
A faint radiance flowed out from a sphere the size of a fist.
The eyes of our students looking at the magic widened.
“Mana is an existence that we can feel, but we cannot feel its form, scent, or weight. However, we can see Light with our naked eyes. Magic creates something from nothing like this. Bridget?”
“Yes.”
“Would you make Aura and try cutting something?”
At my words, Bridget stood up from his seat, took out a wooden sword, and raised Aura.
Then, without even a signal, Eleveth immediately threw her writing implement, which had been placed on the desk, into the air, and with a swish sound, the writing implement fell.
The Aura that fulfilled its purpose disappeared.
“Aura is created to cut something like this, and once it fulfills its purpose, it disappears.”
This time, the eyes of the students from the Imperial Royal Academy side widened as they looked at Bridget.
Those eyes were so hot that Bridget flinched in surprise.
“Think carefully. Like that hypothesis, if Mana Road were merely nothing more than drawing in external mana and granting it to the sword, shouldn't all the mana in this world sharply tear apart the world?”
At Professor Hollians' question, everyone in the audience fell into contemplation.
“However, we cannot feel Aura. Then, shouldn't converting mana into Aura also be seen as a type of magic since it creates something else?”
“But to call it magic, we don't create any formulas, nor do we fixedly create a specific form or shape.”
“Now, from here on, the students might not understand well. My hypothesis is this. Mana Road is a failed work cut in half, a magic that turns a human into a sword.”
It was a harsh criticism.
However, if one went a layer deeper, the content was talking about our potential for development.
“Earlier, you said this. That when a human connects with another object, the human's identity changes at that moment. If a person holds a knife, they become a swordsman; if they hold farming tools, they become a farmer; and if they hold a pen, they become a scholar. A person is not fixed. However, the moment one passes through Mana Road and manifests Aura, all other possibilities for the person disappear, and they become an existence solely for cutting. Then what happens if one lets go of the sword at this moment?”
“Just…… a human, right?”
“I do not see it that way. According to records, people who have realized Mana Road are said to have their senses sharpened, their strength increased, and their speed quickened.”
The professor's words were correct.
Actually, my movements, as well as the other students', improved drastically after we started properly feeling Mana Road.
Not only did our senses become sharper, but our intuition, which surpasses general human senses, also became sharper.
“Mana Road itself is essentially a single magic. However, since a swordsman has no Circle, they cannot truly change something and only show a certain state briefly.”
“Then perhaps if a swordsman comes to accumulate mana like a wizard…….”
“Then they will be able to exert more powerful strength. They might emit Aura from their hands without a sword or smash a boulder with a bare fist. Perhaps they might even jump to the sky with a single stomp of the foot.”
“That is preposterous!”
The swordsmanship instructors of the Imperial Academy scolded Professor Hollians as if it were nonsense.
They had disapproving looks at a professor who was just shouting out such hypotheses at an Academic Exchange Conference.
That could be so.
It wasn't any other place but a place discussing academics under the name of The Empire; if one only talked about floating clouds, the honor of the Imperial Academy could fall.
But why is it.
Me too.
And the students and instructors sitting throughout the auditorium, and even people like Rozalin and Hati.
The feeling that those words were somehow not wrong.
Whether Professor Hollians read our atmosphere or not, he laughed playfully, heh heh heh.
“Wizards use staffs or rods to use their magic. If a swordsman masters Aura to the extreme, they will come to perform magic with the sword. If they cut with the sword, wind will flow out, fire will bloom, and space-time will distort. Wouldn't that be interesting.”
Ah.
I felt like I knew for sure why he thought it would be possible.
I and the regressors already knew a person who performed miracles with a sword.
The regressors had even witnessed it right before their eyes.
Pan.
And Time Regression.
‘Rozalin, and the other regressors, didn't know everything about Pan.’
He didn't cut time because he handled the sword well and performed Aura.
Pan had realized something beyond basic realizations like Mana Road and footwork, but thinking that others wouldn't understand, he had never revealed it.
‘The path to the ultimate swordsmanship still remained.’
My heart raced.
* * *
When it became lunchtime, staff members came in from the outside and guided the students and instructors.
“Lunch is being provided at the cafeteria here.”
The cafeteria we arrived at was a space where 1,000 students could eat at once.
“The professors are this way.”
The staff who guided the students first then guided the instructors and moved.
The instructors could eat more luxurious food in a buffet style in a separate space.
A place where all the adults had disappeared like that.
The students of the two academies gathered in small groups, sharing their own stories and gauging the atmosphere.
“……That's insane. Since those guys are doing an Academic Exchange Conference with us, they must be swordsmanship major students. But they know how to use magic?”
“There are many magic swordsmen.”
“Many, my foot. I've never seen one in our territory.”
Among them, the one who received the most attention from Akarind Academy students was the female student with yellow curly hair.
She looked to have a smaller frame than others, but her eyes were straight and thick enough to feel a stubborn venom.
Perhaps her actual personality was similar, as none of the students belonging to the Imperial Academy sat by her side.
However, the interest directed at her was only for a very short moment.
Because for the students, there was a topic more interesting than the scene of a talented student eating alone.
“Do you think the content that bearded old man talked about earlier is true?”
“Well.”
“Hey, they said you cut time. Did you realize something or anything like that? You aren't actually accumulating mana near your heart without us knowing, are you?”
“Want to split me open? Then you'll be able to check if I'm accumulating mana or letting it pass through.”
“Hiss, if we cut you open directly, you'll die. Should we ask Professor Berlis.”
“……Do you seriously want to see it?”
Pan looked at Bridget as if he was absurd.
Bridget laughed playfully, heh heh, and settled the situation as if it were a joke, but Eleveth next to him stared at Pan without even smiling.
It was scary because she seemed serious.
“The story about senses rising seems to be correct. We feel it too.”
Right, many students nodded their heads from all directions.
Actually, among the 400 or so personnel who participated this time, almost 15%, about 60 students knew how to handle Aura.
They were in the middle of feeling their bodies change day by day.
“That means Mana Road is really incomplete.”
“……That can't be.”
Freizier shook her head with difficulty.
Although she awakened Aura, her unique good-natured personality didn't disappear.
A student who agrees with others' words and bends her own opinion in most situations.
However, regarding the content about Instructor Cassian alone, she showed a faith like religion, enough to make Pan or Rozalin go away.
“Teacher's teachings are perfect. Aura is just Aura in this state.”
“I agree too.”
Pan spoke following after.
“I do…… something, but I don't know well. I think the current Aura is just a perfect state. Teacher Cassian, who is much more outstanding than us, doesn't accumulate mana separately either.”
“But we are building up the basics from a state of knowing nothing. There is a possibility that Mana Aura itself could be further developed.”
“Isn't the premise different? We aren't setting up a Sword Intent like ‘We will become strong!’, right? We can draw in mana in a state where the will is clearly present, like ‘I will cut the opponent well through the sword!’ or ‘I will protect people!’”
“Meaning our body is a single magic.”
“Then the magic would stay in our bodies. Not flowing to the sword. Besides, the Teacher who accepted that mana the most has the frailest body.”
“That is true. Our sickly handsome middle-aged teacher…….”
And as the students of the Imperial Royal Academy watched their debate, they whispered amongst themselves.
“……Earlier, that student used Aura, right.”
“No way. Even looking roughly, he looks the same age as us or younger.”
“Besides, the students weren't surprised or proud. That means…….”
“It means there are other students who use Aura. It must mean the instructors have sufficient ability to teach Aura.”
“Crazy…… Are we going to lose for the first time in the history of the Academic Exchange Conference?”
“No way. Our professor said so every day. Aura is only meaningful if it ultimately touches our body. We just have to win with swordsmanship.”
“But…… those guys act as if they understood everything Old Man Hollians said. Actually, isn't their swordsmanship also outstanding?”
“Can't be. They are merely students of a third-rate academy.”
The students of the Imperial Academy examined the students of Akarind Academy again.
They were busy reviewing the professors' stories, forgetting even to eat.
A faint anxiety began to creep into the hearts of the Imperial Academy students.