"Huh? W-what did you say?"
Aizel, who had been diligently practicing spell manifestation alone in a corner of the study, asked in surprise.
"Ah, it's nothing. You just keep training."
I waved him off and focused on my conversation with Velkarion.
But Velkarion's reaction wasn't particularly different.
-That's it? What is 'it'?
'Two.'
-Yes?
'Two Dantians, or two Mana Rings.'
-Oh, honestly! I wondered what you were on about. Does that even make sense? Do you know what they call someone with two Dantians or two Mana Rings? A mutant. A mutant!
True.
That's common sense.
Humans are born with only one Dantian and one Mana Ring.
Size and growth rate differ according to innate talent and constitution, but having only one of each is universal to humankind.
But this could be looked at from a different angle.
'The human body has a Mana Ring, and it has a Dantian.'
In other words, hold the Ether that comes forcing its way in inside the Dantian, and inside the Mana Ring as well.
The problem with Ether Hyperventilation Syndrome is Ether absorption beyond the body's capacity.
The surplus Ether runs riot inside the body, and that is what causes the seizures.
Therefore, if that surplus Ether were held somewhere inside the body, the seizures would not occur.
In short, a fundamental cure for Ether Hyperventilation Syndrome.
A groundbreaking shift in thinking, is it not?
What came back, of course, was Velkarion's derision.
-Hah, my Master has lost his mind. Then again, if you've made up your mind to die, there's nothing you can't do. Still, I'd rather not see that grotesque sight, you know? Kehehe, if you're going to go mad, go mad gracefully.......
'You're crossing the line again, huh?'
-You're going to croak anyway, so what's a little line-crossing?
Well, I couldn't say I didn't understand that reaction.
Still, this shut-in Archmage has no respect for his master.
'Oh ho, so that's how you're going to be?'
-How can a man who calls himself a mage have so little common sense? If that worked, why would there be no Magic Swordsman in all of human history?
Right. A Magic Swordsman.
Put simply, a person who handles a Mana Ring and a Dantian at the same time is a Magic Swordsman.
And in all of human history, a Magic Swordsman had never once appeared.
'The phase, or the frequency, is different.'
-And knowing that, you spout that bullshit?
'Tsss, I've been letting this slide, and now this?'
-No, well, anyway!
'Fine. Then tell me the reason it can't be done.'
-Hah, I could talk about that for more than ten days.
The reason a Magic Swordsman is impossible.
I know it too.
But there might be reasons besides the ones I knew, and there was a chance I had it wrong.
So for verification's sake, it was worth hearing someone else out.
'So talk.'
-Countless papers explain the impossibility of the Magic Swordsman in all sorts of ways.
'And?'
-But dig all the way down and the reason is one. A problem of the energy's phase, or frequency.
'Right, exactly.'
Energy has a wavelength.
From that perspective, Ether was energy with a middle phase, or a neutral frequency.
And if you forcibly convert this Ether's phase, it becomes energy that can be held in a human body.
That is magic power and mana.
High-vibration, high-frequency energy is magic power; low-vibration, low-frequency energy is mana.
But what happens when the two energies derived from the same Ether meet inside a human body?
'Right. When the two energies meet inside a human body, they cancel out and vanish.'
-And that's only at low levels. At even the Second Circle.......
'The shock of the energies canceling tears the body apart.'
-And you know that, and still say this?
Indeed.
'Correct. Which is why holding magic power and mana in one body at the same time is absolutely impossible.'
-Exactly. It's impossible.
'But I can do it.'
-Eh?
'I said I can.'
-Hah, what are you, built out of dragon bone?
'I'm not built out of dragon bone, but that part is possible.'
Why drag in dragons, which are extinct?
-That's not something a sane person would say, is it? If you want to die, what wouldn't you do?
'A mere shut-in Archmage like you wouldn't know, but I have something called the Sovereign Body Art.'
-What's that?
'A method of controlling the human body.'
-Yes?
'An extreme method of bodily control that lets you observe the changes inside your body as if watching them with your eyes, and control even involuntary muscles at will.'
-Something like that is possible?
The skull-head's voice, disbelieving.
I stopped answering him and called Aizel.
"Hey, Aizel."
"Huh? Yeah?"
Aizel, still wrestling and groaning over the magic on his own, looked over at spinal-reflex speed.
"You're my guard."
"Guard?"
"I have something to do, so stand guard. Like guarding someone in cultivation."
No one would come into the study anyway, and once I entered the cultivation chamber it would be completely sealed off, but a guard was necessary in case of emergency.
"Got it."
I pointed at the door as Aizel approached.
"Just watch the entrance."
With that, I went straight into the cultivation chamber built into one side of the study and shut the door.
Before the regression, I had cultivated my Mana Ring in this chamber.
Once the door was shut from the inside, it could not be opened from outside, nor could anyone see in.
The finest environment for cultivating a Mana Core or a Mana Ring.
I settled into the cultivation posture.
"Hup!"
-W-what? You're starting just like that? With no preparation?
'What great preparation would this need? You take a look too, just in case.'
-At what?
'My Mana Circuit and Dantian.'
-How am I supposed to see that?
'It's a guess, but your Life Seal Orb fused with my soul. And my soul is currently held in this body. I can't say for any other being, but you might be able to.'
-Uh.......
'Seeing. That is the beginning and the end of the Sovereign Body Art. Try it.'
Strip away the fact that it was Dark Magic, and Velkarion was in essence a Seventh Circle Archmage.
A mage who had once reached the highest realm a human could attain.
Shut-in or not, a Seventh Circle was absolutely not something to take lightly.
What I was about to do was set foot in territory no human had ever entered.
For work like that, the intuition and insight of a Seventh Circle Archmage would be a great help.
So if he could see my condition and exchange views with me?
There'd be no finer collaborator.
'The core of the Sovereign Body Art is seeing. Contemplation.'
-You think I don't know what Contemplation is?
'It goes a step deeper than ordinary Contemplation. Only then can you confirm everything happening inside my body.'
-Tch, can just anyone do that?
'You might be able to, though?'
-Me?
'Did you forget I said your Life Seal Orb seems to have fused with my soul?'
-Huh? So the Life Seal Orb could influence my soul in reverse?
'You're a dark mage too, so you know, right? This is plenty plausible.'
-M-maybe?
'Then I'm starting.'
With that, I closed my eyes.
With a deep breath, I sank straight down toward my interior, toward the abyss of the body.
***
My name is Velkarion Asengrave.
A Seventh Circle Archmage, and a Lich who attained eternal life.
And now I have been reduced to a ridiculous state, the familiar of some fellow.
Though that fellow is a rather remarkable one.
The reversal of time, of all things. Regression, of all things.
Anyone can imagine such a thing.
But those who actually build a magic formula to achieve it are exceedingly rare.
And on top of that, one who hunted no fewer than three Liches to power that magic is unique.
He even succeeded.
Honestly, he is a being I cannot help but acknowledge.
And it takes that much to be qualified as the master of the great Velkarion Asengrave.
And now that remarkable master is attempting something absurd again.
A Magic Swordsman, of all things.
The coexistence of a Mana Ring and a Mana Core, of all things.
An absurd act. Perhaps an act of throwing his life away.
But this absurd master is attempting it now.
He even tells me to attempt the Sovereign Body Art.
Utterly hopeless.
Didn't he say he learned it over a lifetime of being worked to the bone and experimented on?
How am I supposed to do that overnight.......
Huh?
It works?
Why is this actually.......
Particles holding light shimmered inside my master's body.
Particles of red light.
Red particles that began at the Dantian and flowed along some pathway inside the body.
They trembled heavily and low.
Mana!
Ha!
It was absurd.
To confirm the particles of mana with my own eyes.
But there was something more astonishing still.
Particles of white light that began at my master's nose and mouth, passed through the lungs, and flowed to the Dantian.
Ether.
Had I possessed a body, the sight would have raised gooseflesh over every inch of it.
In all human history, who could ever have directly seen Ether and mana?
And now I was doing it.
What's more, I was watching the very moment Ether transformed into mana.
An immense exhilaration surged in, enough to shake my soul.
But.......
My master went and started.
He twisted the flow of the white-glowing particles, the Ether, running from the lungs to the Dantian.
Once again I could not help but marvel.
Ether cannot be manipulated artificially.
That was a truth humankind had established over thousands of years of history.
And yet my master was controlling Ether, as though laughing at those thousands of years.
Under his control, the Ether headed toward the vicinity of the heart.
The instant it reached the heart, the Ether turned into particles of blue light.
Particles far smaller than mana, vibrating very rapidly.
Magic power.
And then.
The moment magic power came into being inside the body, mana poured toward the heart.
And in an instant it collided with the magic power and canceled out.
My master's body lurched violently.
The shock could not have been a light one.
A Magic Swordsman really is impossib....... H-holy hell!
My master pushed Ether toward the heart once again.
-Don't! It's dange.......
But my master repeated that perilous process yet again.
But then.
Huh?
Just now, something slightly different came into view.
It wasn't cancellation?
When magic power and mana met, they did not cancel out.
They reverted to Ether.
And that wasn't the end.
The reverted Ether rotated inside the crude Mana Ring that had formed in the heart.
Which meant.
-An Ether Ring!
The moment he heard my cry, my master nodded as if he'd had the same thought.
And then my master did another insane thing.
He suddenly dropped his heart rate.
Using that Sovereign Body Art, he made his heart beat slowly.
I grasped the reason at once.
A sensory anchor point.
The thing my master had spoken of.
His intent was to lower his heartbeat to Ether's neutral frequency and build an Ether Ring using that beat as the standard.
The idea of holding Ether in the heart in time with a heartbeat at the neutral frequency, and forming a ring out of that Ether.
Absurd.
What an insane notion.
My master's complexion went pale in an instant.
Because he'd dropped his heart rate.
One misstep and he could faint, or die.
-Stop! You'll die at this rate!
I couldn't hold it in and shouted.
But as if he couldn't even hear my voice, my master lowered his heartbeat further.
And then.
Hah, hahaha!
My master had gone and made a ring in his heart.
A Mana Ring in which Ether, not magic power, rotated. No, an Ether Ring!
But my master was not satisfied there.
This time the change occurred in the Mana Core, the Dantian.
***
It worked!
The nature of the energy circling inside my body had completely changed.
Ether.
The heart and the lower abdomen.
In the places magic power and mana were supposed to occupy, Ether was filling up.
Now there was one last thing to do.
Operate the Ether.
The Ether in my heart and my lower abdomen flowed through my body in step with my will.
In an instant, Ether gathered in both hands.
What came next was what mattered.
"Hup!"
Taking a deep breath, I blew Ether into the longsword in my right hand.
HMMM!
The moment the Ether passed from my hand to the sword, its nature transformed.
HMMM!
Sword Aura surged up.
Mana.
The instant it left my right hand, the Ether responded to my will and became mana.
And the left hand.
"Hah!"
A small Magic Circle drawn swiftly in the air.
The First Circle spell [Flame].
FWOOSH!
In that instant, magical flame leapt up in my palm.
-H-holy hell! This insane Master of mine!
Velkarion's scream rang shrilly in my ears first.
My whole body shivered at the exhilaration surging through it.
Magic I had thought absolutely impossible since our bodies swapped.
How could words capture the exhilaration of the moment I cast it again with my own hand?
And.
With this, it was complete.
-A Magic Swordsman, a Magic Swordsman! You're mad. My Master is truly a madman!
The skull-head kept babbling, but none of it reached my ears.
A Magic Swordsman.
Literally a path untrodden by anyone before.
"Ha, hahahahaha!"
I had no choice but to laugh like that for a long while, in spite of myself.