Oscar picked up a wooden sword, and the young man opposite him excitedly told him to take his stance. The presence or absence of sword ki created a huge gap that swordsmanship alone could not cover, and the trio knew it. That was the whole point of the lesson they wanted to give him.
Just then, Oscar shocked them. He turned around and walked toward the lake, and he thanked the sword for everything it had given him so far. Then, without hesitation, he threw it into the water.
As the sword sank to the bottom of the lake, the trio laughed at him, certain that he was running away from them and had ditched his weapon to avoid the beating. The one who had wanted to spar charged at him anyway, calling him a disgrace to every swordsman alive. Oscar turned around with a smile on his face and told them that he was never going to wield a sword again, because he had made the decision to become a mage.
The young man did not care. He told Oscar that he would not hold back just because his opponent was unarmed, and he swung hard. Oscar read his movements easily. He could see that the man was using sword ki to enhance his body and his speed, and he could see just as clearly that it was not enough. Oscar slipped past the first strike and decided to give him a lesson of his own.
He told him that he had to treat the blade as an extension of his own body, and not simply as a tool. That only made the man angrier. He screamed at Oscar not to lecture him, and he began swinging his sword frantically, but Oscar dodged everything without so much as raising a hand. Somewhere in the middle of it, Oscar realized that he was treating this young man exactly the way he used to treat his disciple in his previous life.
The frustration got to the man, and he started screaming, demanding to know why he could not land a single hit. Oscar decided to put him out of his misery. All it took was a push to the head to sit him down on his backside, and Oscar finished the job with a punch to the skull that knocked him flat on the ground.
The man could not even walk on his own, and his brothers had to carry him away. After they were gone, Oscar stared at the sword still standing in the ground where it had fallen, and he remembered how his father had forced him to awaken his sword ki in his past life. Oscar understood then that he had to master magic first, if he wanted to avoid the same thing happening again.
He headed deep into the forest, to a place where he believed no one would see him. He found a rock to sit on, and he remembered once asking a mage named Lily how magic was actually used. Oscar knew that swordsmen refined energy within their bodies to strengthen themselves or their weapons, but he had always wondered how mages did what they did.
Lily had taken a minute to think about it, choosing the best way she could explain it. She picked up a watering can and began watering her flowers, and she told him that magic was similar to using a watering can to nourish plants. She added that mana was invisible to the naked eye, but that it existed naturally and filled the whole atmosphere.
By circulating that mana through one's circuits and pouring it into a magic formula, a spell was born. Lily had explained all this with so much enthusiasm back then, and now that Oscar finally needed the knowledge, he sat down on the rock and let every word of it come back to him.
Since he had been told that mana was like air, and that it was everywhere, he believed that if he could only perceive it, he would be able to draw it into his circuits. A swordsman used all of his senses to survive countless brushes with death, and even though he was no longer a sword saint, the senses he had honed across a whole lifetime still remained in his body. Because of this, Oscar was convinced that he should be able to feel the invisible flow of mana, and after a moment's concentration, he finally saw it, beautiful purple threads drifting all around him.
His face lit up with excitement. He had finally seen mana, and all that was left was to draw it into his circuits. Then it dawned on him that he had no idea how to draw it into his circuits, because he had never bothered to ask.
He leapt off the rock, and as he did, he noticed that something strange was happening in the distance, because he could see dense mana gathering in one area. Oscar walked toward the dark place, and he was surprised to find that there was not a single living thing anywhere in it. Something landed in front of him without warning, forcing him to duck, and when the dust cleared he saw a golem standing over him.
Oscar panicked, wondering why there was a golem out here, and out of nowhere a red-haired mage appeared from above. She landed gracefully on the golem's shoulder and asked him what business he had at her workshop. The question turned serious very quickly as the golem switched into combat mode, its eyes glowing, and the mage asked Oscar whether he was after her research results. She told him to think carefully before answering, because his life was attached to his answer.
Oscar stared intently at her, because she was someone he had heard countless rumours about on the battlefield. She was considered a hero, one whose main theatre of war had been the harsh and frozen north, and she was known as the one-woman army with a golem. She had commanded a golem capable of matching a thousand soldiers. She was the mage of creation, Isabel.
Before Oscar knew it, he was dragged into Isabel's hideout, his hands chained up while she questioned him. He had never imagined that he would meet Isabel this way. She demanded to know which faction he belonged to, and Oscar, still overwhelmed by the whole thing, said nothing useful at all. That vexed her, and she wanted answers. She unleashed a magic circle underneath him and told him to speak or regret it.
Oscar screamed in fear, telling Isabel to calm down, because he obviously had not resisted when she captured him earlier, which meant he was not her enemy. This only made her madder. She grabbed her wand and conjured a fireball, preparing to send him off, and she called him a nameless mage. That was when Oscar shouted out that he was not even a mage yet.
Isabel was taken aback when she heard this, and she assumed he was lying. She grabbed his head and looked directly into his circuits, only to find that he was telling the truth, because there was no mana in them at all.
After that, the two of them sat down for a drink, and Isabel let him know that he would not be getting an apology, so he should throw the thought out of his mind. She mentioned that she had only just started her position as a professor at the academy, and that she was already being targeted by everyone close to her. Oscar was shocked to learn that Isabel was a professor at the magic academy. She replied proudly that she had decided to become one because she believed it would help with her golem research.
Oscar realized that a golden chance had just fallen into his lap. If he could study under her while she was teaching at the academy, he might finally be able to channel mana into his circuits. So he made the bold move of asking Isabel to teach him how to manifest mana in his body.
Isabel told him straight out that she was not interested in someone as weak and talentless as he was.