##
In the world of Planetarium, the amount of magic power is incredibly significant.
No matter how powerful a warrior may be, they can’t exceed their physical limits without utilizing magic to enhance their inherent abilities. This becomes even more critical for mages and priests who absolutely need magic to cast spells or heal others.
However, magic power is also a rather tricky resource. Just having a lot of magic isn’t enough; you must also possess the right control and recovery abilities to use it effectively.
For instance, let’s say there’s a skill that requires 100 magic power to use. Generally, if your total magic power is 1000, you could just cast the skill without a second thought. But in Planetarium, even if your magic pools exceed the skill’s requirement, if your control is less than 100, you still won’t be able to use that skill.
It’s a situation where you’re overflowing with energy, yet can’t utilize it because you lack proper control.
Now, what happens if your magic refinement is low compared to your total magic capacity?
In this world, the means of recovering magic power are quite limited. While allies like the White Light can replenish your magic, they have to conserve their own resources for their skills, so it’s not always generous. Moreover, even though the magic passed from the White Light might not harm your body, it differs in color from your original magic, resulting in decreased output.
So, you end up relying heavily on your own recovery abilities, making magic refinement crucial at this point.
Let’s revisit the table we used during the magic measurement.
[Magic Consumption Per Skill Level
Low-level: 1-9
Intermediate: 10-90
High-level: 100-900
Top-level: 1000 and above.
Magic capacity indicates your pure maximum amount, magic control is the max amount you can control at once, and magic refinement refers to the amount you recover in one hour.]
If your magic capacity is 100 and your magic refinement is high-level, then there’s no real problem. After about an hour, you can recover naturally back to your max.
But what if your magic capacity is 100, yet your magic refinement is low-level? At best, it would take 11 hours, and at worst, it could take up to 100 hours to recover.
Thus, magic capacity, control, and refinement are all equally crucial, and players in Planetarium are constantly scrambling to enhance these three abilities by any means possible.
And I was no different.
“Magic control can be improved through training. If you have high control, you can somewhat cover for low refinement. But magic capacity is something you can’t resolve in the short term.”
The capacity of magic is an innate talent; it’s the size of the cup you’re born with.
While there are methods to enhance your magic capacity, the effects are usually minimal, taking a long time to show results. Furthermore, the necessary materials are all scarce.
Nobles and royalty across various nations are fiercely collecting these items for personal use or for their children. Even the Midas family, which holds significant influence within the Spero Kingdom, struggles to secure them for personal use, let alone for sale.
Yet, the only reason I could enhance my magic capacity this much was entirely due to my memories from my previous life.
“Here’s a handy tip to increase your magic capacity. If you consume figs from the Black Forest of Nahat together with the rare silver rose from the Gudrun Territory of Spero within ten minutes, your magic capacity will increase by 1.”
“Is fishing really that fun?”
“Thanks for the waste of breath.”
##
“Oh, I just tried eating them both at the same time and it really does work! (Proof shot)”
“Wow.”
A post by a user on the攻略掲示板 (strategy board) caught the attention of players obsessed with leveling up, and from that day onward, bizarre combinations of strange ingredients proliferated among the adventurous gourmands.
99.9% of these attempts ended up being pointless, existing only to trick other players, but amidst them, a few rare combinations that actually showed results were discovered, turning that information into a vital resource for the community.
“Some combinations were hard to source due to the locals knowing about them, but surprisingly, others were quite easy to obtain.”
To call this a lack of knowledge on their part would be a bit harsh.
It’s easy to say that taking multiple ingredients at once boosts your magic power, but how would anyone know that combining the leaves of a plant only found in Area A with the powdered skull of Beast B would do the trick?
It’s a madness achievable only by users who can traverse the continent with just a few mouse clicks and can repeat lives dozens or even hundreds of times just to test those specific combinations.
If they realized I had this knowledge, the dead head of the Midas family would surely squeeze me for every penny, probably even breaking some records, so the collection of such materials quietly mixed into the process of acquiring the ‘healthy ingredients’ that Ligret and I consumed together. The fruits of this two-year effort finally bore fruit.
—
“Mr. Chrome. You said that having a magic power of 100 is average and not bad just a while ago, but you’re the only one…”
On my way back after class, I responded to Roto, who was sulking with a grumpy expression.
“I didn’t lie. I said that’s the average magic power—not that mine is average. And how long are you going to keep adding ‘sir’ to that guy’s name? Just call me Chrome, Chrome.”
“Well, that’s a bit….”
“Would you really want to keep addressing our same-age classmates with honorifics for the next few years?”
“Hmm.”
While I was engaged in this trivial conversation, I suddenly spotted the duo of Pino and Rabaul. It seemed those two were always together, but thinking it through, it made sense since it was still early in the semester, and in a new environment, it’s natural to stick with familiar faces.
Pino also seemed to notice us and approached.
“Oh, Mr. Chrome. Please help me convince this guy.”
“Wait a minute, Sage, what’s going on?”
I asked.
“What’s up?”
“The professor said it’s not too late to switch to another combat course, but this guy won’t listen.”
“…Switching courses, huh?”
Did the academy even have such a system?
Rabaul scratched his gray curls and said, “I came here thinking I could gain the best education on the continent. But if I can’t receive the training I want, what does it mean?”
“Well, even so, there’s such a thing as aptitude.”
“No effort betrays the one who makes the effort. Even if I’m lacking now, if I keep progressing, I will definitely see the light.”
Since Rabaul’s words didn’t seem entirely wrong, I turned to Pino.
“Since he’s going this far, is there really a need to force him to switch courses? Sure, if his magic is low, physical combat might be more efficient, but…”
Pino let out a sigh.
“No, that’s not really what I’m getting at. But this guy, he says he can’t ‘dye’ his magic.”
“What?”
I reflexively asked back.
“Didn’t everyone take the potion the professor gave us after class?”
Roto replied to Pino’s question.
“Yes, he said we need to consistently take this for six months to change the mixed magic properties to ‘Blue Light’…”
As Professor Neville had mentioned before, the process of ‘dyeing’ magic properties was definitely not an easy one.
You needed to continuously consume a special potion manufactured in the Empire to gradually dye your internal magic to a single color, and trying to rush this process could completely disrupt your bodily balance, leading to a magical overload or, in the worst cases, even threatening your life.
Moreover, just taking the potion alone wouldn’t change your magic; the magic user themselves had to actively assist the process through magic control, making the challenge even greater.
Once you’ve dyed your magic once, the process of changing it to another color was exponentially more grueling.
“So he doesn’t know how to control his magic, so the professor decided to help him find direction at first, but then he said the potion isn’t working. Apparently, his natural disposition is optimized for maintaining magic close to ‘Red Light’, so whenever there’s outside interference, it just reverts back on its own.”
He couldn’t change his magic color to ‘Blue Light’.
The fundamental nature of his magic was close to ‘Red Light’.
And ‘Red Light’ was incredibly efficient internally but extremely fragile externally, making it a terrible match for the ‘magic’ that required constructing an external ‘form’.
I pondered.
“…Um, wouldn’t it be better to switch to another class after all?”
As much as I was trying to stay restrained in this not-really-a-game reality, it was a frustrating situation for someone like me who generally preferred efficiency builds over novelty builds.
But despite the ongoing persuasion, Rabaul remained immovable.
“No matter what you say, I want to study magic.”
“Why?”
“Because that is the wisest path.”
“No, maybe if it’s pure magic, but ultimately whether you learn martial arts or magic at this academy, isn’t it all just a difference in how to fist-fight?”
Whether to slash with a sword, burn with fire, or shout ‘I’ll heal you, so get to work, slave!’ only to have them fall instead.
I debated with myself.
Truth be told, part of me felt like telling Rabaul to do whatever he wanted since it was his own business. However, to ensure a solid community based on the connections from the entrance exams against those Spero Kingdom fellows heading to Midas, it was crucial to keep the members strong in the long term.
Ah, I get it.
Instead of struggling alone, why not ask someone smart?
I decided to find Fiore and explained the situation.
Listening to my story, she nodded and then said, as if it were no big deal, “Then shouldn’t we just ask the best in that field?”
“You mean Professor Neville?”
That professor specifically told him to quit, so wouldn’t asking him be futile?
But Fiore smiled brightly and shook her head.
“No, I mean Layla.”
Oh, uh…
…Would that work?
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