She told him to finish his drink and get lost afterwards, but Oscar knew that he could not allow this chance to pass him by.
Just then, Isabel asked her serving golem for a refill while Oscar sat there wondering how on earth he was going to convince her. That was when he noticed an abnormality in the golem's right shoulder. He stood up and told Isabel that her golem was behaving strangely.
She yelled at him in anger, demanding to know whether he was spouting trash just to get her attention, and she had not even finished the sentence when the golem poured the tea over her head. Oscar panicked and rushed over to check on her, because the tea was obviously hot. He asked her if she was all right, and he mentioned that the circuits near the golem's right shoulder were clogged.
Isabel finally calmed down enough to check for herself, and she realized that he was right. She asked him how he could possibly know that her golem was malfunctioning. Then she grew even more curious, and she grabbed his arm and asked him again how he knew it was broken. He replied that he could see that the mana flow looked unnatural.
That was when it dawned on Isabel that this boy could see the mana in the atmosphere. Oscar remembered that the mage had told him mana was invisible, and he told Isabel simply that he could see it. Isabel expressed her surprise, saying that this explained how he had walked through her barrier in the first place, because her barriers worked by interfering with the invisible mana in the air to produce their effects. Oscar found himself wondering whether this was what the evil mage who killed him had meant by talent.
After giving it a quick thought, Isabel smiled and told Oscar that she was going to teach him how to use mana. Oscar was shocked to hear it, because moments earlier she had been about to throw him out. Isabel told him that what she had said was that she did not care about weak and incompetent men, and that as things stood, he had managed to pique her interest.
The two of them shook hands on it, and without wasting any time, Isabel took Oscar to her lecture room, where two golems held up a teaching board for her to draw her explanatory notes on. She told him that as long as he was alive, mana was being absorbed into his body naturally. Oscar only grew more curious about how he was supposed to make it flow through his circuits.
Isabel decided to make an example of it. She told him that he obviously could not pour tea if he did not have a cup, and that mana only flowed through the circuits once a magic formula was introduced. Then she whipped out a magic scroll inscribed with a specific spell, the same one she handed out to first-years at the academy.
Oscar took the scroll with all the curiosity in the world and asked her what kind of magic it was. Isabel decided not to tell him, letting him know that it would be a surprise for after he succeeded. She told him to feel the power circulating inside him and to visualize pouring it into the formula in his hand. She asked him if he could do that, and Oscar excitedly told her that he was going to give it a shot.
Deep down, Isabel knew that the task she had given him was one that took at least a month, though she expected him to manage it in two weeks if he really was talented.
Oscar placed the scroll on the ground and followed her instruction, feeling for the power circulating inside him. He likened it to the way he used to refine his sword ki, which meant that all he needed to do was focus his awareness inward. He closed his eyes and let the mana flow through him until it passed into the formula. Just as she had said, the mana ignited the formula on the scroll, giving rise to a bright light.
Learning to use mana was like learning to walk on new legs, and no one was born knowing how to walk. A person had to fall times without number, and it was only after understanding how to move one's body that one could finally stand on one's own.
Isabel watched Oscar pass the test in minutes, and she froze in shock. It was said that those at the very top of the magic world learned to handle mana faster than anyone else, but she had never expected him to do it on his first try. She wondered whether it was because he could see mana in the atmosphere, but she quickly threw the thought away, because that alone could not explain what had just happened.
Still, she could not help but accept the reality that an overwhelming talent was standing in front of her. Isabel rushed over and patted him on the back, congratulating him for activating the magic formula on his very first attempt.
Suddenly Oscar's excitement died down, and he told her that what he had just done was not good enough. Isabel was confused, and Oscar told her that what he had just done was not beautiful.
He remembered the magic that had been shown to him when he was a child, and he talked about how beautiful it had been compared to this. He pointed at the formula and said that it was not right, and he let Isabel know that, just like the golem's shoulder, it felt badly off. He turned to her and asked her what she thought about it.
But Isabel was so overwhelmed that she could not give him a proper answer. Oscar then said that he had realized a simple truth. It was not that he merely wanted to be a mage. He wanted to be a mage who could cast perfect and beautiful magic. His eyes lit up with excitement as he said it, and Isabel told him that if he thought there was something off about the magic formula, he should simply have rewritten it.
Oscar rushed over to her and asked her how a person got to draw magic formulas.
Later on, Brian was walking through the house when he noticed that Oscar's companions were all lying about, weak and battered. He approached them and asked them what the issue was. The trio panicked and tried to change the subject, but Brian repeated the question and would not let it go, asking them exactly what had happened.
The trio finally revealed that Oscar had defeated all three of them quite easily. Brian found that hard to believe, and he walked off, telling them to treat their injuries so that it would not interfere with the next day's schedule. Unknown to them, Brian was smiling with pride, because he believed that it was finally time for him to grant his son his sword ki.
Meanwhile, Oscar was learning under Isabel's guidance, and he was blown away by the sheer amount of knowledge required to use magic properly. Isabel told him that he genuinely had a talent for it, and that if he wanted more books, she was happy to lend them to him. Oscar was excited to hear this, and he asked her whether she was sure, to which she said yes.
She boasted about how everything she knew was inside those books, and that he was free to take as many as he liked. She regretted the statement almost immediately, because Oscar wasted no time in packing away nearly every book he could get his hands on. Isabel tried to fight back, but he reminded her that she had been the one who told him to take as many as he liked.
Just then, Isabel told Oscar that there was something he needed to know, and that it was a warning. She told him that now that he had housed mana within his circuits, and was officially a mage, he had to be very careful about how he handled sword ki, or else he was going to lose his life.