[Sinseki Era - 21 Years Prior, Winter]
[Northern Nations · Ob Hills]
"What's troubling you? Why don't you tell your teacher."
Sitting in this carriage that two disciples had carefully prepared, Serie turned to look at Gut beside her, who seemed somewhat downcast, and rarely took the initiative to inquire.
Perhaps this was repayment for her disciples' thoughtfulness, or perhaps a small compensation for forcibly assigning him the diplomatic mission a few days ago.
Facing his teacher's concern, Gut didn't hide anything and directly told Serie about his mental struggles.
"Mm... Flight Magic, huh."
"Choosing such a difficult field, no wonder it's troubling you."
Even Serie, who had extremely high imagination regarding magic, showed a trace of gravity on her face after hearing her disciple's explanation.
After all, the sky was a domain that belonged only to demons—this had been common knowledge since the birth of human mages.
This belief had existed in her mind for over a thousand years.
Although it wasn't strong enough to prevent her from imagining herself soaring freely in the sky, undeniably, in researching this magic, Serie had been shackled by mental limitations.
This caused her, despite multiple attempts throughout her long history, to always end in failure.
"Teacher?"
Seeing the elf seemed somewhat lost in thought, Gut deliberately called softly near her ear, and Serie's eyes regained their focus.
"Can you give me some guidance in thinking?"
"Although I've tried constructing several models, the final effects aren't very satisfactory."
"Unsatisfactory effects are normal." Serie's words carried several traces of helplessness as she said somewhat irritably:
"Human mages have been researching collaboratively for over a thousand years, but none have been able to create Flight Magic suitable for humans."
"Even with your talent and progressive ambition, this isn't something that can be achieved in a short time."
"Haha." Gut laughed and scratched his head, not discouraged by the negativity in his teacher's words.
"Although humans have no wings, they've never stopped yearning for the sky."
"Help me, teacher Serie."
"I want to try."
"Sigh, alright." Since her disciple had already said this much, the elf sighed and took out paper and pen from her small carry-on luggage.
In front of Gut and the other disciples, she began writing and drawing, explaining her understanding and research of Flight Magic—a history of failures that made her feel uncomfortable just remembering.
After writing Flight Magic in large characters on the paper, the elf drew three branches and explained:
"Currently, human magical research on Flight Magic is mainly divided into the following three schools."
"First, relying on magic currently mastered by humans, using complex combinations to achieve the purpose of flight."
"Second, relying on detailed records of magical power circulation when captured demons fly, copying them one-to-one and rigidly transplanting demon flight magic onto humans."
"Third, developing Flight Magic suitable for humanity based on humans' own conditions."
Gut beside her looked thoughtful. It sounded like the third and first schools were undoubtedly the best choices.
But judging from the actual situation in later plot developments, human mages seemed to have only succeeded with the second school's path.
So Gut directly asked:
"Teacher, do you understand the second school's situation?"
Serie looked at this disciple with surprise and said: "You always make choices that exceed my expectations."
"I thought with your ambition, you would choose the third, most perfect path like me."
"I don't have such lofty aspirations." Gut laughed self-deprecatingly twice. "The most perfect is often the most difficult to achieve."
"Simply in terms of feasibility, the second is undoubtedly much more reliable than the others."
"That's true." The elf didn't deny this point about feasibility.
"But the problem is, only with this school have I not conducted much research."
"Hm?"
Before the disciples could continue questioning, the elf explained her reasoning herself.
"This school's operation is too crude. In my view, it lacks any beauty that magic should have."
"Moreover, it requires keeping batches of demons in captivity and conducting long-term, multi-angle observations, which isn't suitable for individual researchers like myself."
"This school's development has always been promoted by major powers like the Empire and Royal Capital. I hear they've made some good progress and might actually have a chance of success."
"I see."
After hearing his teacher had no research in this area, Gut felt somewhat disappointed, so he inquired about the other two directions to see if he could gain some insights.
"The other directions..."
Those unpleasant memories gradually surfaced. If not for her disciple's insistence, Serie really wouldn't want to recall them.
After all, whether she knew Flight Magic wasn't really important to Serie. Because whether demons used it to attack or escape, as long as she was unwilling, demons would absolutely be unable to achieve their goals.
But recalling her past failures was different. For the proud Serie, this was definitely quite shameful.
Therefore, after hesitating for a while, the elf continued:
"In the Magic Combination and Human Self-Development schools, I do indeed have considerable experience."
"Although most were failures, they should still provide you with some reference."
"First is Magic Combination."
"As I mentioned earlier, it involves combining currently mastered human magic to achieve effects that allow mages to soar in the sky."
"To give an example of one of my failed research results: Magic to Make the Body Light combined with Wind Control Magic."
"The two combined, although far from true flight, can still achieve short-term hovering or even maneuvering through control of these two magics."
Gut raised an eyebrow. "That sounds pretty good."
"At least it would work for mages attacking from high positions or avoiding ground dangers. Even if it's not successful, it has merit and can't be called a failure, right?"
"No, it was a failure."
Facing her disciple's attempt to save face, Serie actively denied it.
Compared to the bit of shame from admitting failure, she was more unwilling to lie about it.
"If used only on myself, this magic might have some merit."
"But Magic to Make the Body Light requires too harsh an amount of magical power for ordinary mages to achieve the degree where the body can be lifted by wind. Moreover, it requires multitasking to additionally control Wind Control Magic, which is also a significant drain on mental energy."
"Even without considering magical power consumption, mages probably couldn't spare mental energy to deal with external situations while hovering, becoming only living targets in the air."
"Other magic combinations have roughly the same shortcomings."
"To address this situation, I tried making changes, such as merging them into a unified magic according to Chimeric Magic Theory, or specifically simplifying magic to reduce both magical power consumption and mental energy required for control."
"But this brought new problems. Both Chimeric Magic Theory and Magic Simplification Principles have considerable learning costs themselves."
"Using this method to popularize Flight Magic ultimately isn't very suitable."
"Just like that, after repeatedly attempting and repeatedly failing, I chose to give up."
After hearing his teacher's explanation, Gut gained some understanding of the difficulty of popularizing magic.
However, this Magic Combination being unsuitable for ordinary mages didn't mean he couldn't use it.
If there were no other gains, Gut would request his teacher to teach him this combination magic.
After all, researching Flight Magic wasn't a sudden whim from Gut, but preparation for dealing with this diplomatic mission.
For this trip to the Imperial Capital—Eiseberg, compared to being attacked by demons midway, the greater risk was dealing with human disasters.
Compared to normal mages, Gut actually didn't particularly fear Shadow Warriors—those warriors specialized in assassinating mages.
Even if he couldn't necessarily win in close combat against well-trained opponents, Gut was confident he could fight and retreat, at least not melting like normal mages when approached.
What Gut truly worried about was being besieged by large numbers of guards and mages. Under numerical suppression, his individual strength couldn't make any waves.
In such situations, epoch-making Flight Magic would be extremely useful.
Even if he might take several volleys of Basic Attack Magic while flying, as long as protection was adequate, there was still a chance to escape.
Moreover, as his teacher said, the Empire wouldn't be happy to see the Continental Magic Association completely lean toward the Royal Capital. Even if they really fought, they'd probably want to capture him alive rather than kill him unless absolutely necessary.
"What about the last one, teacher?"
"The Human Self-Development path..." Mentioning this, Serie's eyes couldn't help but show some unresolved feelings.
This direction was where she'd spent the most time and energy.
And unlike other paths, in this direction's research, she seemed to have... succeeded.
No matter which theory was used for verification, the Flight Magic Theory Serie developed based on human physiology was the most compatible and perfect.
Even the Demon King, who was forced onto the judging panel, gave a positive evaluation after seeing the excerpted portions Serie showed it, believing this magic theory's logical parts had no problems and should be quite feasible.
But...
Reality differed from theory.
Despite being argued through thousands of times on paper, this theoretical model's actual effects were vastly different from expectations.
Whether Serie herself or other mages who participated in testing, all those who practiced this magic couldn't achieve the expected flight effects.
It seemed this magic theory had some mysterious limitation. Even if you practiced it perfectly—even as the creator like Serie—you couldn't break through, couldn't shatter this restraint to soar freely in the sky with a human body.
It was as if the sky truly was a forbidden zone belonging only to demons, and human mages' qualifications could never reach it.
Until much later one evening, sitting by a pond silently watching the sunset, the elf vaguely understood the root of the problem.
The issue wasn't with her magic theory, but with herself—her imagination had problems.
So-called mages were beings who spent their entire lives seeking the magic they wanted.
And magic was realized through imagination.
Things that couldn't be imagined naturally couldn't be realized through magical means.
Serie had serious flaws in her imagination of flight due to the thousand-year-old ingrained belief that "only demons can fly."
This was the root of the problem.
Therefore, no matter how correct the magic theory derived from this; even though this notion was only a not-very-strong recognition in Serie's subconscious, and even Serie herself had achieved hovering and movement through Magic Combination, challenging it.
But she still couldn't completely erase it.
Magic was realized through imagination.
As long as her thoughts couldn't change for a moment, completely erasing that thousand-year-old ingrained belief, this magic probably couldn't achieve its proper effects for even a moment.
But transforming the subconscious was extremely difficult, especially since the belief that "only demons can fly" remained factual even now.
Perhaps she could only wait for other mages to achieve results, making the sky no longer exclusive to demons.
After a few hundred years, perhaps one morning or evening when Serie stretched, this most perfect Flight Magic most suitable for humans could truly be used by humanity.
Thus, Serie explained to her disciples all the research she'd done on Flight Magic over the past thousand years. Junior mages like Zenn and Ross listened with fascination, understanding from their teacher's personal lessons why she valued mages' imagination so highly.
However...
Disciple Gut, whose performance always exceeded Serie's expectations, was unsurprising this time as well.
Unlike other disciples' looks of admiration or regret, Gut's direct, burning gaze made Serie feel somewhat uneasy. She unconsciously gathered a Sealing Magic construct in her hands to prevent this disciple with designs on her from suddenly pouncing.
However, Gut currently couldn't care about any of this, murmuring:
"Teacher, give it to me... give it to me..."
"I promise..."
"I'll make you...(r theory)...fly!"
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