In the following months, he researched the Elendir Institute of Magic and prepared for its next intake season. In addition, he also researched the other of his two primary agendas.
Cultivating magic.
His goal was not just to become one of the most powerful mages, but also the most powerful cultivator.
Those were not the same.
Cultivators were those who dedicated their lives to cultivating magicapita while mages dedicated their lives to mastering magic. Although many were both, most people leaned one way or another.
Businessmen would sometimes rather employ competent mages and assign them wealth under their names and in their ownership to make them more powerful. These businessmen sometimes had no aptitude for magic or simply had no interest in pursuing it at later stages in their lives with what meager aptitude they might have. However, most businessmen did end up dabbling in magic and becoming mages, even if they were low-ranked mages often.
Not Cæ.
If he wanted to become not just the most powerful person in the world but also gain enough power to singlehandedly rewrite the world, he would need to become the greatest cultivator and the greatest mage by far.
And thus, another massive chunk of his free time was dedicated to studying the ideas that he had come up with. Specifically, he wanted to explore the cost of production of housing construction services and judge how feasible it was to tap into the demand for safe housing in the slums.
Unfortunately, even the slightest bit of research showed that he had underestimated how large the gap was.
He had underestimated how much it cost to build even the smallest of housing units in accordance with the regulation set by the Board of Civil Regulations under the Ministry of Domestic Affairs.
Building even the smallest of housing units required more money than pretty much any of the poorest of poor working people in the slums could even dream to afford. This was especially the case when the slums were disconnected from the magigrid.
"No wonder the construction industry universally stays the hell away from the slums," Cæ muttered. "What an impossible task."
And yet, he continued visualizing countless concepts, ideas, and possibilities to overcome this hurdle.
He imagined possibilities where the construction process did not require the slums to be connected to the magigrid. He came up with concepts where the end product simply didn't require an enormous supply of raw materials.
He also brainstormed ways to reduce the required input of capital and labor.
"Tsk, I will need to do more research."
That was expected, of course. No commercial venture could be commenced within merely a few months of the initial conception of the idea. Cæ had just merely identified untapped demand and immense uncontested potential. As long as he found a way to make his idea work, he would be able to harness a large amount of demand.
After all, thirteen percent of the population of Elendir lived in slums. That was a tremendous amount of cumulative demand even if the purchasing power of each individual poor person living in the slums was minimal.
"This is an opportunity worth pursuing," he concluded. "I'm probably the only one with personal experience in the matter who has ever considered this opportunity. I doubt anybody else considering it has ever had a building fall on them due to its unstable structure."
In order to identify the most feasible possibilities out of all the options that he had conjured up, he would need to sift away the implausible from the probable.
This was how he spent another chunk of his time after work.
And yet, his most enjoyable activity was, of course, learning more about magic. Across the span of a few months, it remained his favorite way to spend his time.
[Mana Conductors]
[Mana conductors allow mana to flow to form with less resistance by reducing mana resistance. Magic cast with mana conductors is more than an order of magnitude more powerful than magic cast without mana conductors due to their high mana conductivity.
These are materials and substances that were generally mana-rich by virtue of having been part of highly valued magicapita or having been part of powerful living monsters with great mana. Alternatively, some substances develop conductivity over sustained exposure to magic.
In the modern era, it has long become the norm for mages to own and wield mana conductors such as wands, staffs, scepters. Some mana conductors even take the form of conventional weapons such as spears and swords and are usually used by warrimages. Some more obscure forms include clothing, rings, and other trinkets.]
Cæ's eyes lit up at the illustrations of the mana conductors in the Foundations of Magic.
"Beautiful."
He instantly felt the need to get his hands on one. Even though he hadn't learned how to use magic in any comprehensive way, he felt a profoundly deep urge to secure a powerful wand for himself.
He had always known that mages carried wands with them, although he had never understood why. It was fascinating to know that the reason was something that was so technical.
"But isn't mana supposed to be formless and thus not real or immaterial?" Cæ frowned with a hint of confusion. "It shouldn't be interacting with things in the first place. Not without an eidos."
Unfortunately, the book's explanation and coverage was extremely surface-level; it didn't bother such details.
"If I want to learn more about this, I will have to enter the Elendir Institute of Magic, I suppose." His eyes narrowed. "Tsk, I can't wait for the next seasonal intake of freshmen."
Outside of engrossing himself in the Foundations of Magic, he also couldn't stop himself from practicing magic discreetly in the slums. He had enough sense to know that he shouldn't practice pure magic in places with people around, thus he remained isolated in some of the remote spots in the Colohen Slums.
He would spend hours practicing any magical phenomena that he could think of.
He would set things on fire.
He would levitate things.
He would crush things.
He found that he was able to perform these tasks with ease.
"People can't even do this much? Really?" He frowned, scratching his head.
How difficult was it to visualize an object floating with pure imagination?
In reality, he had simply forgotten what his internal mindscape looked like. After all, this was not something that people were conscious of.
However, while most people's imaginations were hazy, blurry, inconsistent, and ever-changing, he was able to accurately visualize all three-dimensional phenomena with such detail, clarity, and consistency that it was effectively the same as a normal person studying an object in real life.
"Well, sucks to be them I guess." He shrugged. "I, for one, will not let this brand-new talent go to waste. I should practice and hone this ability as much as possible."
And he did.
Between preparing for enrollment and researching construction, he also devoted a lot of time to honing his magic with basic tasks.
He explored his limits, of which he had plenty.
"Even with pure magic, I have no idea how the fields of enchantment, artificing, divination, and alchemy work," he realized. "Just pure magic isn't enough to get me started in these fields."
From that, he could deduce that these fields applied magic in a way that had greater prerequisites beyond just magical aptitude. Of course, with the divergent thinking he had gained due to his accident, it was possible that he could eventually find a way to pursue these fields on his own.
But he decided against doing that.
"There is no point in recreating the wheel."
Thus, he stopped trying to test whether he could and instead began exploring other limits of his pure magic.
"…Range is another limit," he deduced as he concentrated hard on a rock ten meters away from him in the abandoned shack that he found himself in. "It gets harder and harder to cast magic directly on things further and further away."
He was sure that had he had a wand, he would have been able to do much more. But for now, he could only steadily focus on growing and breaking past his limits. The more he explored, the more he learned not just about what he couldn't do, but also about what he could.
"I can conjure all kinds of objects."
From rocks, magicars, and even people.
WHOOSH
His eyes grew melancholic with grief as he conjured an indistinguishably real clone of Lilia. Everything from her touch, her warmth, her scent, and even her mirthful mannerisms.
It only caused him pain.
"Huff…" He dispelled the manifestation, leaving him all alone once more.
"What the hell am I doing?" He shook his head. "Focus on the future. Don't get shackled by the past."
And yet, it was easier said than done.
At least, trying to keep her manifestation active for as long as he could taught him more about his limits.
"Manifestations are temporary." He gazed at his hands. "And they consume continuous energy each second. They cannot be turned into permanent fixtures in reality."
He had noticed that some things were harder to conjure than others. Things like rocks, sand, or fire were fairly easy. However, when he tried conjuring manifestations of dragons or phoenixes, he realised that they consumed greater amounts of mana than, say, sand that weighed as much.
"Truly bizarre…" he remarked. "I should thoroughly explore and inquire more into the nature of magic and consolidate my questions and doubts for the Elendir Institute of Magic."
And he proceeded to do just that.
A few months rolled by before the fateful day arrived. Centers around the entire nation opened up, setting up testing counters that would measure aptitude for form and physicality.
It was one of the most lively parts of the year, for magic was the most powerful force in the entire world.
The results of this exam would make and break dreams across the entire world. Each year, a flood of countless excited and anxious teenagers would flood the testing centers to measure their aptitude for magic.
Most of them would end up heartbroken.
The rare, blessed percentage of them that ended up discovering a viable path to realizing their dream would go on to enroll in some magicademy or the other, and eventually become proud wielders of magic.
Magical aptitude wasn't particularly genetic or biological, although that certainly played a role. At the same time it had limited scope for growth through training without an extravagant investment of aptitude growth resources.
Furthermore, those that didn't score high enough collectively weren't necessarily unable to use magic; it just meant that their aptitude was too low for magicademies to bother investing in them.
This was simply a crushing realization to many. To be able to take a step towards their dreams only to learn they're not worth investing in. To watch their peers master the godly power of magic and stand above the magicless weaklings of the world.
The nation effectively ground to a standstill when the magical aptitude test came around.
"Cæ, here's a little lunch that Darren prepared for you!" Mrs. Selvig came rushing to him with a little lunch box. "He prepared some meat buns for you. Be sure to eat them when you're hungry."
Cæ accepted her gift gratefully. He was as calm and composed as she was nervous. He had already figured out exactly how well he must perform to nail the top rank without drawing unwanted attention to himself.
"Don't worry, my boy, I'm sure that you will do just fine," Mrs. Selvig told him, reassuring herself more than anyone else.
A smile cracked at the edge of his mouth. "Thank you, Mrs. Selvig."
And just like that, he was off.
-