Ralth had heard the name of the magic stone from the nobles on the airship, but this was the first time and he supposed Garven de Rathane had them in his ring but this was the first time he saw it up close.
He turned the stone over in his callused palm, feeling its cool weight. This magic stone was the size of a thumb, black all over, and diamond-shaped.
Under the dappled sunlight filtering through the ancient forest canopy, it gleamed like a black gem, capturing the light without reflecting it back. Tiny flecks of purple and blue shimmered deep within its core when he tilted it just right.
"So this is what all the fuss is about," Ralth whispered to himself, his breath forming small clouds in the cool forest air. The woods around him were alive with sounds—birds calling, leaves rustling, and somewhere distant, water running over stones.
Ralth closed his eyes and used his mental power to sense the magic stone. The sensation was unlike anything he had felt before—like dipping his mind into a bottomless well of power. The magic stored inside it exceeded his own magic power return by far, and he could tell it would be effortless to absorb. A smile spread across his face as he felt the raw potential held within this small object.
This was undoubtedly a great thing for Ralth. The life of a poor farmer's son from Gessian Territory had not prepared him for such luxury.
"With this," he murmured, turning the stone between his fingers, "everything changes."
The magic power stored in the mana reflux of a magus apprentice was limited, like a small pond that could dry up. After the magic power in the magic reflux was consumed, even a full magus needed to absorb magic power again.
But simply absorbing magic power from nature to restore the Mana Reflux was painfully slow. Ralth had spent two full days on the airship just to restore half of his consumed magic power. With this magic stone, his recovery time could be reduced from two days to mere minutes.
"No wonder a magic stone can be sold for 100,000 gold coins in Relves," Ralth exclaimed in his heart while holding the magic stone. He tried to imagine such wealth—enough to buy the entire village where he grew up and still have plenty left over. "If you bring two of these to the exam, you can easily pass as long as you've become a magus apprentice."
He looked up at the towering trees, their trunks wider than three men standing with arms outstretched. Sunbeams pierced through in golden shafts, illuminating dancing dust motes and tiny flying creatures. In this ancient forest, time seemed to pass differently.
"By analogy, if magi don't have any special means, I'm afraid battles between them will become merely competitions of personal wealth," he reasoned. "The son of a duke would have dozens of these, while someone like me..." he trailed off, remembering the years of saving, scrimping, and occasionally stealing he had to do to survive under his tyrannical father and how the drunkard had always managed to find and spend his money, rendering it all useless.
Thinking of this, Ralth's eyes turned even more fiery as he looked at the magic stone. It represented not just wealth, but power - the power to change his fate.
"Magic stone is not only wealth," he said to the silent forest, "but also part of the magus's power." His voice grew stronger with conviction. "And I intend to have both."
Carefully, reverently, Ralth wrapped the stone in a small piece of cloth and tucked it into his inner pocket, close to his heart. Then he put the rest of his findings into his rough leather bag and continued on his way through the forest.
But this time was different. A ray of light suddenly flashed across his body, briefly outlining him in pale blue.
"Zero-ring spell: Lightness Spell."
With the magic stone as a backup source of magic power, Ralth no longer hesitated to use spells for convenience.
As the effect of the Lightness Spell took hold, he suddenly felt his body become lighter, as if the forest's heavy gravity had loosened its grip on him. He walked more briskly, and the pocket around his waist also seemed to have lost its weight. Even the rough cloth of his apprentice's robe seemed to float around him.
"This is how the wealthy travel," Ralth chuckled to himself, taking experimental hops that sent him floating several feet into the air. "No wonder they look down on common folk like us who must trudge through the mud."
The effect of the Lightness Spell lasted for half an hour, during which time Ralth covered nearly twice the distance he would have walked without the spell.
The forest scenery changed subtly as he moved deeper in—the trees growing even more massive, the undergrowth thicker, and strange flowering plants he had never seen before blooming in patches of sunlight.
If he continued like this, it would only take Ralth about three days to reach the location of the light column where the final part of the exam would take place. He allowed himself to feel a flicker of hope. Perhaps he really could succeed where so many other commoners had failed.
But just as Ralth was hurrying on, his mind filled with thoughts of future glory, a sharp sound of breaking air came from the forest to his right.
Whoosh!
Acting on pure instinct, Ralth leaned sideways and dropped low. Something cold flashed past his scalp, and he felt the wind of its passage ruffle his hair.
Looking up, he saw an icicle the length of his forearm embedded in a tree trunk ahead of him. The frozen projectile had shot clean through the wood, leaving a gaping hole rimmed with frost. A few of Ralth's hairs were frozen to its surface.
"That was a close call!" Ralth whispered, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead as he stared at the icicle. If he had moved a second later, his head would have been pierced into pieces by the magical ice.
"I can't be so reckless," Ralth warned himself, crouching low behind a fallen log. "Although hurrying on the road is important, I can't put the cart before the horse. What use is speed if I'm dead?"
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Ralth raised his hand towards the direction the ice cone had come from. He concentrated, feeling the familiar build-up of magical energy at his fingertips.
"Since someone attacked me," he muttered grimly, "I naturally have to return the favor."
A ball of blue light formed at his fingertips, growing from a spark to a glowing orb the size of an apple.
"Magic Missile!"
The blue light shot out, streaking through the forest like a falling star. Ralth did not even bother to see the effect. He immediately cast another Lightness Spell on himself, lowered his body even further, and ran in a zigzag pattern towards the direction where the ice cones were released.
Whoosh!
Another ice cone flew through the air, but this time it passed nowhere near Ralth, embedding itself in a tree trunk far to his left.
"It seems this attacker is panicking," Ralth thought to himself as he ducked behind trees, moving ever closer to his target. "The sneak attack failed to kill me with one strike, and they immediately lost their composure after being countered."
A grim smile spread across his face.
"Is such a person worthy of killing me? I think not."
Ralth sneered, and then the figure of the attacker appeared in front of him as he rounded a massive fern. To his surprise, the attacker was petite, dressed in gorgeous clothes of blue and silver silk that seemed absurdly impractical for forest travel. It was a beautiful noble girl with long blonde hair tied back in an elaborate braid.
The girl's face was full of panic, her pale blue eyes wide with fear. Her delicate hand with the ring kept shaking as she tried to summon the focus needed to release another ice cone spell.
"Don't come over here!" she screamed, her voice high-pitched and trembling. "Don't come over here! I'm warning you! My father is a powerful noble! He'll have your head!"
When the girl saw Ralth's figure getting closer and closer to her, she suddenly closed her eyes, screamed again, and released another ice cone with a jerky motion of her ringed hand.
But the gods had no mercy on her. This time the ice cone flew wildly off target, not even coming close to Ralth. It shattered against a tree trunk with a crash that sent ice shards flying in all directions.
"Please," she begged, her voice suddenly small as Ralth emerged from behind a tree just ten paces away. "I have money. I have more magic stones. You can have them all."
"It's over," Ralth said flatly. He stood not far from the girl with a cold expression, and a blue light flashed at the fingertips of his raised hand. Life had taught him that mercy was a luxury that a person, let alone a magi could rarely afford. An enemy magus, even a failed one, was still a threat.
He had no intention of showing mercy simply because his attacker was a woman. In this world, that kind of old-fashioned thinking got you killed.
Bang!
A flash of blue light, a scream cut short, and then silence. Red and white splashed against the green undergrowth.