Training Ground No. 3, where the Advanced Telekinetics lecture would be held.
Classes that focused more on practice than theory often used training grounds as their lecture halls, and this was one such case.
The moment Aion opened the classroom door, he came face-to-face with a familiar—and unwelcome—figure.
Blond hair and arrogant eyes.
Kael Pyron.
...So that guy is taking this class too.
Kael’s expression immediately twisted when he spotted Aion.
Blatant displeasure and competitiveness dripped from his gaze.
It was as though he were asking, Why the hell are you showing up in front of me again?
At that moment, Fire clicked his tongue.
【Fire: Tch. Ignore him. We have no time to spare for a brat like that.】
Aion silently found an empty seat and sat down.
【Fire: The one you need to surpass is not someone like him. It is yourself. Focus on your goal.】
...
Good advice. An extremely textbook-worthy saying.
Yet Aion could not help but give a bitter smile.
It is not as if there is anything for me to surpass yet. I cannot even walk properly.
【Fire: ...I agree with that. You are seriously pathetic right now.】
【Arcana: An irrefutable truth.】
Leaving the banter in his head behind, Aion looked forward.
The professor in charge of the course walked onto the platform.
“Nice to meet you. I am Lowell.”
A middle-aged professor with neatly combed-back hair and sharp features.
Without even glancing at the attendance sheet, he went straight to the point.
“The purpose of this class is not to introduce you to what telekinesis is. Since you have already entered Exion, I assume you all know that much.”
【Fire: Wrong. This one does not know.】
【Lightning: Hehehehe! He is completely blank!】
The professor sharply struck the lectern with his baton.
“Here, you will learn to use telekinesis more skillfully and practically. Therefore, we will avoid tedious theoretical lectures and conduct most of the class through practical exercises.”
“Ooh....”
The students’ faces brightened.
They had spent all their time since entering Exion listening to theory classes such as Introduction to Mana Studies and history. They had been itching for something more.
After all, should a mage not use magic?
They wanted to take one step closer to the grand dreams they had held when entering Exion.
“Good. Then let us begin immediately.”
At the professor’s gesture, the teaching assistants placed an object on every student’s desk.
They were large, pure-white feathers.
“This is the most basic exercise in developing your sense of weight. Raise the feather to eye level. However, do so gently enough that you do not damage its barbs.”
It was an easy assignment.
After all, most of the students gathered here were elites.
“Hmm.”
Kael gave a scoff and lightly flicked his short wand.
The feather rose gracefully, like a living bird taking flight.
Swoosh—
“Excellent, Kael. Your mana flow is very smooth.”
“Ooh... As expected of Kael.”
“So students from the Youth Mage Tower really are different.”
At the professor’s praise, Kael arrogantly puffed out his chest and glanced toward Aion.
But Kael was not the only student who stood out.
“Xiao Lin... What an unusual name. Your telekinesis is excellent.”
“This is nothing special.”
Her tone was blunt and rigid.
She was Xiao Lin, a black-haired female student seated in the front row—an international student from the eastern Daeryeon Empire.
Without even using a wand, she was freely spinning the feather with a single finger.
“You have a remarkable degree of mastery, despite your young age.”
“You flatter me. This is merely a basic skill for Lin.”
While the other students lifted their feathers, Aion alone was breaking into a cold sweat as he wrestled with his.
Damn it... Why will it not move?
His mana was woefully insufficient to begin with. Every time he tried to envelop the feather with it, the mana simply slipped away.
The feather merely trembled, showing no sign of rising.
Of course, he could simply use ordinary telekinesis rather than Celestial Motion Art.
But the Ultimate Points would never allow that.
【Fire: Assume you will never use telekinesis again for the rest of your life. You must become accustomed to Celestial Motion Art.】
“Uuurgh....”
Aion’s face flushed red. Seeing this, the professor approached him.
“Hmm. Student Aion.”
Aion lifted his head.
“...I am trying.”
“It is all right. Light objects can sometimes be more difficult to handle. Do not be impatient. There are always students who progress a little more slowly.”
Leaving behind words that did not sound entirely like comfort, the professor walked away.
Snickers of ridicule rose from around him.
Kael was whispering with his friends.
“All right, that is enough warm-up.”
The professor clapped his hands.
“Let us move on to the next stage. This time, we will increase the weight.”
The assistants collected the feathers and handed out something that appeared much heavier instead.
They were metal spheres about the size of an adult’s fist.
“This assignment is simple. Lift the sphere. But instead of scattering your mana as you did before, you will need to concentrate it.”
Murmurs broke out among the students.
“W-what? You want us to lift this iron ball?”
“Yes. You can do it.”
The students’ expressions grew serious.
It was a weight in an entirely different league from a feather.
Groans could be heard all around the room.
“Hngh...!”
The spheres of students with poor mana sensitivity did not move at all.
Even Kael had to frown and grip his wand tightly.
“Ugh... Rise...!”
Hummm—
Kael’s sphere trembled and rose about ten centimeters above the desk.
Xiao Lin also succeeded in lifting hers after closing her eyes and concentrating.
“It is heavy. Not easy. But Lin can do it.”
The students who had barely succeeded wiped the sweat from their foreheads.
Then—
...Huh?
Aion looked down at his sphere and felt a strange sense of dissonance.
When he handled the feather, his mana felt as though it scattered into empty space, making it impossible to grasp.
But this iron sphere was different.
It was heavy, solid, and possessed an unmistakable presence.
I can grasp it.
It was not about wrapping it in mana projected outward.
If he extended the mana within him, just as the interpretation of Celestial Motion Art described—
Now...!
Aion stretched out his hand toward the sphere.
With his mana, he grasped it.
Crack—!
“...?”
A dry sound of rupture rang through the lecture hall.
The sphere, which should have risen, did not move.
Instead, spiderweb-like cracks spread across its smooth surface.
“...!!!”
Startled, Aion pulled his hand back.
The professor approached and looked down at the damaged sphere.
“Oh dear.”
He picked up the cracked sphere and examined it from several angles.
“It seems a defective one got mixed in. I apologize, Student Aion. These training spheres are rather old.”
“Ah... Yes.”
“I will replace it with a new one.”
The professor left to retrieve another sphere.
【Fire: Pwahahaha! It was a good attempt.】
【Lightning: Kihihihihihihihi!】
...Damn it.
It had felt as though something might work.
But that sensation had already fled far away.
“Now, everyone, pay attention.”
Returning to the platform, the professor looked over the students.
“How was it? Was it a little heavier than the feather?”
Complaints rose from every corner.
“It was not just a little heavier!”
“It is far too heavy, Professor. The feather was much easier.”
“It feels like it uses ten times more mana.”
With a smile, the professor looked toward Xiao Lin.
“How was it for you, Student Xiao Lin?”
“It was heavy. Not easy.”
Professor Lowell put on a deliberately puzzled expression.
“Really? How strange. In my view, there should not be such a significant gap in difficulty between lifting the two objects.”
Murmurs erupted among the students.
“...What?”
“That makes no sense. The difference in weight is enormous....”
As if he had expected their reaction, the professor raised the corner of his mouth.
“Yes. That is precisely what I wish to tell you.”
Swoosh—
When the professor pressed a switch on the wall, an enormous curtain covering one side of the classroom drew back.
“...!”
The students’ mouths fell open.
Beyond it stretched an immense, open space, so long and vast that its end could not be seen.
It looked like an enormous military training field.
At that moment, they understood why this classroom was so abnormally large.
Mage-shaped targets had been set up at regular intervals.
The farthest target looked like a mere dot, even when they strained their eyes.
“Do not tell me... that is a target too?”
Someone muttered in disbelief.
“No way... How are we supposed to hit that?”
Ignoring the stunned students, the professor lifted an iron sphere into his hand.
Thoom—
“The first thing you will learn this semester is the deception of weight.”
Strength entered the professor’s voice.
“Most students can move light objects far more easily than heavy ones. They are genuinely heavier, after all. That is a law of physics.”
The sphere in the professor’s palm began spinning like a top.
“Conversely, that means you are still bound by that law because you have yet to think like mages.”
One student tilted their head.
“...Think like a mage?”
“A mage turns imagination into reality.”
The professor’s eyes gleamed sharply.
“Imagine that this heavy iron sphere is as light as a feather.”
Fweeeeeee—
“Mage Lowell will hit that target without fail.”
A sharp crack split the air, assaulting their eardrums.
Before the students could even blink—
...Booom!
Far away, the head of the mage-shaped target that had looked like a dot exploded into fragments.
“...That is impossible.”
“He hit it....”
Someone muttered blankly.
“Y-you can do that with telekinesis?”
Pointing at the target as dust rose from it, Professor Lowell spoke.
“By the end of this semester, I hope at least one of you will become a student capable of imagining like a mage.”
***
Training Ground No. 3 after class.
“Students who feel they are lacking may remain here and practice a little longer. At least for today, there are no other classes scheduled here.”
Professor Lowell left after saying that.
However, other than Aion, not a single student remained to practice.
“Does that make any sense? If you imagine it is light, it becomes light?”
“The professor can do it because he is a professor. The difference in our levels is too great.”
Then, an excited voice rose from Kael’s group.
“More importantly, Kael! That was amazing...!”
“Hmph. It was nothing. Let us go have a late lunch together.”
“O-okay!”
Before leaving, Kael looked once at Aion, who remained alone in the classroom staring intently at the feather, and said,“Well, if you have no talent, you should at least put in the effort.”
The students noisily streamed out of the room.
Since telekinesis itself was regarded as a dead-end path, few of them were particularly enthusiastic.
The lecture hall became empty.
Aion remained alone, glaring back and forth between the feather and the iron sphere on his desk.
“I thought I had almost grasped it.”
The sensation of holding the iron sphere from before had already vanished into the distance.
Now he would have to build it up again from the beginning.
Alone in the dark, empty lecture hall, Aion suddenly found the whole situation a little lonely.
“I suppose a sensation is not so easily ingrained in the body.”
Aion murmured into the air.
“You must be frustrated too, watching me, right?”
Normally, Fire would have shouted at him not to be discouraged over something so trivial.
But for some reason, Fire was quiet.
“Hey... Old man?”
【Fire: I was watching.】
Fire’s voice was lower and calmer than usual.
“...You are not angry? By now, you would normally be berating me for failing at something like this.”
【Fire: Damn brat, what do you take me for?】
【Earth: He sees you accurately. What is the problem?】
【Fire: ...Hmph.】
Fire’s reaction carried an unusual weight.
【Fire: Seeing you as you are now reminds me of my former self.】
Aion looked up.
“Your former self... Fifty years ago?”
【Fire: That was how it began. And I suffered from a sickness of the heart for quite some time afterward, consumed by inferiority and defeat.】
“...”
【Fire: Aion, everyone finds the beginning difficult. Perhaps it has been so long since I last witnessed someone’s beginning that I had forgotten. Even though the anguish and suffering you are experiencing now should be familiar to me as well.】
Aion awkwardly scratched his head.
“...Hmm.”
【Fire: Try again. I will be watching properly this time.】
“...All right.”
Aion placed the feather before him once more and concentrated.
The same lesson, again and again.
The same words, again and again.
Words he felt as though he could recite by heart now.
Do not pour mana outward. Keep it within, then extend it.
Extend... extend.
Still, it was strange.
That Aion, who had never properly learned magic beyond the basics of telekinesis—and whose talent was abysmal—had made it this far.
The amount of mana he could generously call an extension was pitifully small.
Hand... Extend a hand....
Then, Aion suddenly questioned whether that thought was truly correct.
He did not know why.
He had been focusing only on it because he had been told Celestial Motion Art operated through the sensation of extending a body part.
Yet now, he thought that perhaps it was not.
Maybe it is not a hand... That sensation....
Earlier, when he cracked the iron sphere, something similar to Celestial Motion Art had undoubtedly manifested.
But the sensation he felt then had been far removed from extending a hand.
It felt as though my will itself were expanding....
And at last, Aion realized it.
He needed to find his own path.
Perhaps—just perhaps.
What if the Old Man and I were in different conditions when we awakened this magic?
Both were Aion Iskar.
Both were male.
The difference was that one was old while the other was young....
...Damn it, everything is different, is it not?
Age was not what mattered.
The magical knowledge and experience they had accumulated over their lives—and everything else they possessed—were different.
That meant Aion might have his own sensation for casting Celestial Motion Art.
...Spread mana throughout my body.
The expansion of consciousness.
With his meager mana and clumsy senses, he could not even imagine making one particular body part enormous.
Since Aion could not picture it in his mind, he could not make it real.
Yet it would have been easy for Fire’s Ultimate Point.
That was the difference between them.
He changed his approach.
Toward something easier to imagine.
Expansion... If it is expansion....
Becoming larger would work as well.
His body weight increasing enormously, perhaps. Or his height suddenly growing.
But having experienced neither, he could not even imagine them.
Still, he had felt something similar before.
When Aion was very young, around ten years old, he had grown at such an astonishing rate that he seemed different every day.
In that one year alone, he had grown so much that it felt as though he had gone from a boy to a young man.
The sensation of a child... becoming an adult....
Something natural, something he could accept calmly.
Aion’s consciousness continued to expand.
...At last.
His small consciousness had grown large enough to reach the feather.
Lift... it.
For a boy, the desk had been a little too high.
But for a young man, it was the right height.
Swoosh....
When Aion opened his eyes, the feather was floating at eye level.
It did not fall even after he opened them.
Crush—!
Instead, it shattered and scattered.
【Fire: ...How did you do that?】
It had only lasted an instant, but Aion clearly felt it.
That ancient, forgotten magic had unfolded through his own hand.
Rarely, Aion gave a small smile.
“...I finally understand.”
Ding!
***
[!] Task completed.
[!] Reward granted: Celestial Motion Art Lv. 2 ▲, Mana Manipulation Lv. 2 ▲
***