After finishing Prince Saul’s first magic lesson, Kastel quietly headed for the ‘Golden Palace.’
It was the residence of Maren, King of the Kingdom of Darsen.
Even someone as important as Kastel could not enter and leave the king’s residence without permission.
However, when the guards saw her, instead of questioning or stopping her, they immediately showed their respect.
“His Majesty is waiting for you.”
Kastel silently followed the guards and soon found herself standing before Maren.
Maren had been attending to some simple paperwork, but when he sensed Kastel’s presence, he set down the quill in his hand.
“I greet Your Majesty.”
Maren chuckled when he saw Kastel bowing before him.
“It has been a long time.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You hardly went outside at all for the past several years, did you? If you were going to rest for that long, you could at least have learned some proper manners.”
“…….”
“At least you took off the mask and cloak. I was worried you might walk into my room wearing them.”
“His Highness the Prince asked me to remove them.”
“Saul did?”
“Yes.”
Maren laughed again.
He could not help but find it amusing to imagine her going to meet his son dressed exactly as the figure known throughout the world as the ‘Black Witch’ or the ‘Black Star of Ill Omen.’
“You obeyed my young son rather readily.”
“His Highness the Prince made a request. I could not refuse.”
“A request? Not an order?”
“Yes. He asked rather than ordered me, Your Majesty.”
Maren’s smile deepened at Kastel’s answer.
“My son still has much to learn, but it seems he at least knows how to handle someone like you.”
“…….”
“So, how was my son? Does he have enough talent to satisfy you?”
“I believe I will know soon.”
“I suppose so. You cannot learn everything in a single day.”
Maren looked down at Kastel and gave her an instruction.
“Then continue teaching my son for the time being. It does not appear that you will have any reason to return to the battlefield for a while.”
“…….”
“Do you wish to return to the battlefield?”
“I merely obey Your Majesty’s commands.”
“It is all right. Tell me what you truly think. Do you want to return?”
“...I want to erase my humiliation.”
Kastel’s humiliation.
The defeat she had suffered at the hands of Gamelda’s heroes, the ‘Garcia Sisters,’ who had given her the first loss of her life.
For now, Kastel’s one desire was undoubtedly to wash away that humiliation.
But Maren could not grant her wish.
“The time has not yet come. For now, teach my son, recover your strength, and wait.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
After Kastel withdrew, Maren muttered to himself.
“I wonder how far that boy will be able to go. And whether he truly has any talent for magic.”
***
The next day.
Saul’s second lesson with Kastel began in a training hall specially prepared inside the Ivory Palace.
It was a spacious room large enough for several grown men to exercise without difficulty.
In the middle of that vast room stood only a single table and two chairs, with Saul seated across from Kastel, who was no longer wearing her mask.
“Your Highness. Did your meditation go well yesterday?”
“To some extent.”
Magical meditation was the process of becoming aware of the flow of mana within one’s body and gradually accumulating it.
It was also a discipline in which experience mattered more than innate talent.
Fortunately, it posed no difficulty whatsoever for Saul, who had been an accomplished mage in his previous life.
Even a single day of meditation had produced fairly good results.
“Please excuse me for a moment.”
Kastel reached out and placed a hand against Saul’s forehead.
After examining his mana, she nodded.
“You have made progress.”
“Yes, thanks to you.”
Despite having done nothing more than toss him a book and teach him absolutely nothing about meditation, Kastel shamelessly nodded at Saul’s response.
“That is fortunate. It seems Your Highness is not lacking in talent.”
“Then what are we going to study today?”
“Try casting magic.”
“…….”
That was absurdly fast.
Normally, a beginner spent at least a week learning nothing but magical meditation before being taught how to cast an actual spell.
“According to the books I’ve read, beginners are supposed to focus on meditation for the first week after starting magic. Isn’t learning a spell today a little too much?”
Kastel shook her head at Saul’s question.
“The sooner you learn, the better. I only hope Your Highness does not lack the necessary talent.”
“…….”
What would Kastel do if Saul turned out not to possess that vaunted ‘talent’?
She looked ready to quit being his teacher of her own accord.
That was one thing Saul wanted to avoid.
“All right. What magic should I try?”
Instead of answering, Kastel gestured with one hand.
A translucent membrane immediately appeared over one wall of the room.
It was a type of ‘Magic Barrier.’
It created a solid layer of mana capable of blocking physical force, magical force, or both.
It was considered one of the basic spells that virtually any mage could use, but the result varied dramatically depending on the mage’s power and technique.
To Saul’s eyes, the Magic Barrier Kastel had just created was extraordinary.
It probably would not budge even if it were battered by a siege weapon or struck by a fireball the size of a human body cast by an ordinary mage.
After effortlessly creating the powerful Magic Barrier, Kastel extended her hand once more.
Blue energy shot from her fingertips and slammed into the barrier she had created.
Saul immediately recognized the spell.
It was Mana Blast, one of the most basic offensive spells, which converted mana itself into physical force and discharged it to strike an opponent.
BOOM!
A thunderous noise reverberated through the room, as though a siege weapon had just smashed into a fortress gate.
The sound and vibration alone revealed the tremendous force behind the impact.
“…….”
Saul was impressed.
Ordinarily, Mana Blast was considered a beginner’s spell with little practical value in actual combat.
Although it was easy to cast, converting mana into a smoke-like physical force and releasing it resulted in poor efficiency and limited power.
Yet Kastel had used that beginner’s spell with enough force to smash apart a fortress gate.
Had she cast it without any precautions, the wall would have been destroyed.
The only reason it remained intact was the Magic Barrier Kastel herself had placed over it.
Producing overwhelming destructive power with an impractical beginner’s spell.
And then stopping that overwhelming spell with a barrier.
Neither was easy, yet Kastel had accomplished both effortlessly.
“That was incredible.”
For a moment, Saul forgot even his grudge from his previous life and offered sincere praise.
Kastel asked him,
“Do you recognize the spells I used?”
“Well... you created a magical barrier and then cast the basic spell Mana Blast, didn’t you?”
Kastel nodded after hearing his answer.
“I was told Your Highness has never studied magic, yet you know quite a lot.”
“I may never have formally studied it, but I’ve read about it in books.”
“Yes. Then please try casting this spell yourself, Your Highness.”
She wanted a beginner who had only started meditation yesterday to cast a spell today.
Unless one was a genius, success would be difficult.
But Saul decided to try.
‘I’ll do it.’
More than ten years of training in both magical theory and practical combat from his previous life had not simply disappeared.
Even if Saul himself was not a magical genius, he effectively had more than a decade’s head start over everyone else.
It was time to put that skill and knowledge to use.
First, Saul checked the mana within his body.
There was barely any mana inside a body that had only just succeeded at meditation.
Meanwhile, Kastel taught him the magical incantation.
Saul already knew the incantation, so there was nothing remarkable about it.
“Then....”
Saul recited the magical incantation exactly as it remained in his memories and as Kastel had demonstrated it.
A magical incantation was the process of tuning mana through one’s voice.
It was not a matter of simply muttering words. One had to sense the mana and use one’s voice to bring it into alignment.
“#^%^#%#%^#^%”
A sequence of murmured sounds that formed meaningful speech in no nation’s language.
A language meant not for communication between humans or other intelligent races, but for communicating with mana.
A magical incantation.
When ‘Roland’ had first learned magic, he had struggled immensely to master this incantation.
Thanks to that effort, Saul could still recall and recite it immediately.
The incantation succeeded.
The air around Saul began to glow faintly.
It was a sign that the mana inside Saul’s body was responding to the mana of nature.
Now all that remained was to cast the spell, whether by using only the mana within his body or by drawing upon the mana of nature as well.
The activation word was the name of the spell itself.
“Mana Blast.”
Saul extended his hand as he spoke the activation word.
A thin stream of wind flowed from his fingertips.
“…….”
Was that a success or a failure?
It was not a complete failure.
If he had failed entirely, he would not have produced even that faint stream of air.
But calling it a success would have been embarrassing.
The entire result of his spell was a weak gust of wind, less powerful than what he could have produced by blowing as hard as he could.
‘As expected.’
Saul clicked his tongue inwardly.
He had plenty of excuses.
It was the first spell this body had ever cast.
He did not have enough mana to cast magic properly.
His body was still unaccustomed to mana.
There were any number of excuses he could have made, but Saul chose not to make any.
When he had served in the military, the people he had hated most were those who made excuses after failing.
“I... failed, didn’t I?”
At Saul’s cautious question, Kastel nodded.
“Yes. You will need to work harder, Your Highness.”
Kastel remained as blunt as ever, apparently completely unfamiliar with the concept of flattering a prince.
Saul grinned.
For now, he needed to make Kastel like him as much as possible.
“Yes. I’ll have to work hard.”
Kastel responded with a faint smile.
“I will continue teaching you from now on.”
It was the first smile Saul had ever seen from the Black Witch, who had until now looked either vacant or expressionless.
The moment Saul saw it, he understood.
Kastel had given him her ‘seal of approval.’
Saul smiled triumphantly to himself.
‘Fine. I suppose this is fate too. For now, I’ll play the good little prince in front of you.... But someday, I’ll get rid of you as well. I might forgive others, but I’ll never forgive you.’
***
Kastel’s teaching method was simple.
She advanced through the material at a tremendous pace and pushed Saul all the way to his limits.
Thanks to the knowledge from his previous life, Saul had no difficulty keeping up with the theory.
Practice was another matter.
Learning to manipulate mana in accordance with his new body and casting each spell through those unfamiliar mana-control methods was anything but easy.
Whenever Saul failed, Kastel punished him without mercy.
“You failed the spell. Try again.”
Her most common punishment was simply making him repeat the spell until he succeeded.
If Saul ran out of stamina, she restored it with magic.
The same was true when he depleted his mana.
Thanks to that, Saul could devote himself endlessly to magical training with an almost unlimited supply of both stamina and mana.
Receiving such grueling lessons and training from the very person who had killed him in his previous life was deeply unpleasant.
But Saul gritted his teeth and endured.
This was a trial he had to overcome.
If a prince born to a concubine, whose mother was dead and who had no influential relatives to support him, wanted power, he needed to distinguish himself through ability.
Using that as his foundation, he would acquire great power and take revenge on every one of his enemies.
Kastel included.
Sharpening the blade of his resentment inwardly, Saul endured the brutal lessons.
As a result, his magical ability improved with each passing day.
He still had a long way to go before recovering the skill he had possessed in his previous life, but compared with young mages his own age, he already held a clear advantage.
Rather than being satisfied with Saul’s rapid growth, Kastel pushed him even harder.
And so Saul’s daily routine became one of reaching the limits of his stamina and mana, collapsing, recovering, and then beginning his lessons all over again.