The knight waved his hand dismissively, grin tugging at his lips. "Merlin? Oh, that old lazy fart. Probably still drooling on his tower pillow somewhere."
Advin froze, then burst out laughing. "That's insane. You know Merlin?"
Wilhem tilted his head, grin never fading. "Of course I do."
Advin stumbled to his knees, clutching his chest like his whole world tilted sideways. "O-Of course… of course you do. You're the hero knight." His voice cracked between awe and despair.
The room was thick with silence until Ednar cleared his throat. "That still doesn't explain," he said carefully, "why you told us to use magic circles to speed up the mana flow. That's suicide."
"Oh, right," the knight said, snapping his fingers as if he'd nearly forgotten. "That idea came to me when I first read Merlin's dumbass book. Back then, I only managed to make one circle."
Advin leaned forward, curiosity taking over. "How long did it take you?"
Wilhem scratched his chin, pretending to think. "Hmm… maybe… three hours?"
The entire room exploded.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!"
Chairs scraped, mouths dropped, hands slammed the floor. Lard nearly fell backwards. Raiyna's sword clattered from her lap. Even Thorus, normally quick with insults, was too stunned to speak.
Three. Hours.
It was impossible. It was absurd. It was—
And the knight? He just grinned wider, as if their disbelief was the funniest thing he'd seen all day.
The knight threw his head back and laughed, a booming sound that filled the whole tavern. "What's so funny about that?" he asked, genuinely confused.
Ednar blinked, then slammed his hand on the table. "What's so funny? It took me six damn months. six! of harsh training, mana meditation, and sleepless nights before I could even form my first magic circle!"
"Six months?" Lard groaned, rubbing his temples. "Lucky bastard. It took me almost eight."
Thorus scowled. "A year for me! And I almost burned my eyebrows off in the process."
The room erupted in frustrated groans and complaints, everyone suddenly venting their trauma.
Wilhem just grinned wider, amused. "Is that right?"
Ednar stared at him like he wanted to throw a chair. "You're seriously saying you made a circle in three hours and you think that's normal?"
The knight shrugged casually. "I thought that was slow."
A collective scream of disbelief filled the room.
Sein, sitting off to the side, furrowed his brows. "Why… why is it so difficult then?" he asked quietly, doubt creeping into his voice. "Am I just not cut out for it?"
Ednar sighed, softening a little. "It's because to create a circle, you have to truly understand mana," he explained. "Not just sense it—but feel it. Shape it. Control it. Grimoires help with theory, sure, but at the end of the day, it's about talent and focus."
He looked at Sein seriously. "And if you mess up if your focus slips even once your mana core shatters. And trust me, kid…"
He glanced at his trembling hand.
"…that's bad news."
The air grew heavy again. Everyone could feel the weight of his words.
And yet, the knight was still smiling.
Advin still looked baffled, his mind trying to wrap around the absurdity of it all. Finally, he asked, "Then how? How did you manage to form a magic circle in three hours?"
Everyone went quiet. Even the wind seemed to still.
The knight leaned back slightly, his armor creaking with the motion. "Are you interested," he said slowly, his voice carrying a calm weight, "in knowing the secret of how I did it?"
No one spoke.
All eyes turned to him wide, eager, afraid. The earlier noise vanished. They could hear only the faint humming of mana from the circles drawn on the floor.
Some swallowed hard, others clenched their fists. Even Thorus, who had been half asleep, leaned forward.
Wilhem raised the old grimoire (Magic 101 for Dumbasses) and rested his other hand on his chest, the metallic clang of gauntlet meeting armor echoing through the room.
Behind his visor, his eyes seemed to gleam.
"The secret," he said, his tone suddenly colder, lower, "is…"
He paused. The room felt like it was holding its breath.
"I had a magic circle—"
A strong gust of wind howled through the open window. The shutters banged against the wall, making everyone flinch.
"—from the day I was born."
The window slammed shut.
For a moment, no one moved. Then someone-Jayl, probably through his mask- blurted out, "What the actual fuck does that even mean?!"
The gang erupted in chaos. Raiyna stood frozen, her heart hammering. Advin dropped the chair he was holding. Lard's jaw went slack.
Sein's hand trembled slightly as he stared at the knight. "Born… with one?" he whispered, half in awe, half in fear.
The knight didn't answer. He simply turned the book in his hand, tapping its cover with a single finger.
The dull thunk echoed like a heartbeat.
The knight didn't flinch at their stares. His voice carried the same maddening calm as before.
"Don't overreact," he said. "Because like me… you all were born not only with mana cores—" he paused, glancing around the room, "—but also with magic circles."
For a split second, there was silence.
Then all hell broke loose.
Thorus screamed first, pulling at his hair until it stood like a bird's nest. "The old man's finally lost it! I knew it! I fucking knew it! He's completely insane!"
Lard laughed. Then he cried. Then laughed again. His mind simply could not catch up with what his ears just heard. He grabbed the edge of the table, trembling between hysterics and disbelief.
Ednar slammed his palm on the table. "Sir Knight, please don't mess around with things like that!" he shouted. "That's impossible! If everyone was born with one, then the entire concept of mana cultivation—!"
But his words were drowned out by the chaos.
Advin didn't move. He stood there quietly, eyes fixed on the knight as if he could burn a hole through the visor. His lips parted, but no words came. Slowly, his hand drifted to his chest his mana core. Four months.
Four months of sleepless nights, of cutting his palms open to feel mana trickle through the blood, of meditating in the cold streets, half-starved, just to form a single, faint, unstable circle.
Four months of pain.
And this man this lunatic of a knight was saying he was born with one?
Advin's breathing grew shallow. His chest tightened. Faces from the past—his brothers, his sisters at the orphanage—flashed in his mind. The little hands that had held his, the laughter before it was all swallowed by hunger and despair.
If he'd known.
If he'd had power sooner.
If he'd been born like that.
He could've changed things.
But he didn't. And now this man was saying he could have. Advin laughed once dry, broken, bitter. "What fucking bullshit," he muttered, voice cracking. The room fell silent again. All eyes turned to the knight. His grin, as always, remained unshaken.
Advin's voice cracked the silence like thunder.
"Bullshit," he spat, taking a step forward. "You're bullshitting me, old man."
The knight tilted his head, grin still plastered across his face. "I'm not."
Advin's fists clenched, his teeth grinding. "Don't lie to me. For as long as I've studied, bled, and lived as a mage—I've never heard of such a thing. Not in any scripture, not in any academy, not even from the scholars of the Silver Collegium! You're basically claiming—"
He stopped, chest heaving. Everyone waited.
"You're claiming that everyone in the world can use magic."
The words hung in the air, heavy as lead.
Even Thorus stopped muttering. Raiyna and Lard exchanged a glance, and for once, neither had a joke to crack.
Advin pointed a shaking finger at the knight. "Do you even understand what that means? That's not just impossible that's insanity. Every scholar, every test, every generation of research says the same thing only one in eight people can form a mana core strong enough to sustain even a spark! One in eight!" He jabbed at his chest. "That ratio defines our damn society!"
He was panting now, his voice trembling between rage and disbelief. "And here you are, claiming that the number is one in one? That everyone can use magic? That the whole damn world's been wrong all this time?"
The knight didn't flinch. If anything, his grin grew softer, almost patient.
"Advin," he said quietly, "I may be a lunatic, but I'm not stupid. I understand your confusion. To you, to the world, this concept must sound like madness."
He raised a finger and tapped his temple, the metal of his gauntlet clinking faintly.
"But madness, you see… is only an idea that hasn't been proven yet."
He took a slow breath. "I'm not lying to you. I'm not toying with you. I mean it every single one of you, every soul walking this earth, was born with mana and with the potential for magic. The only difference is…"
His voice dropped lower, sharp like a blade cutting through the air.
"…most people just never learned how to see it."
The room went dead quiet again.
Advin stared at him, his breath caught halfway in his throat. For the first time, he wasn't sure if he was looking at a fool or at someone who knew a truth far beyond human reach.
The knight leaned back slightly, his voice softening as if speaking to himself rather than the room.
"When I first opened that grimoire," he said, "the first thing I read was how hard it was to learn magic."
He chuckled, a low sound of amusement that carried a note of memory.
"It said: 'Before one learns to bend the world, one must learn to master their body and mind.' I was a boy then—full of energy, clear-headed, never still for long. I figured, great, I already have that part down."
A few in the room smiled faintly at his tone.
"Then the book started talking about mana," he went on, eyes glinting behind the visor. "The very essence of what makes magic possible. It said that mana exists everywhere in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in the stones beneath our feet. It's the thread that binds the world together… and through it, humans can bend reality itself."
He paused, his voice lowering.
"But then I read something that made me stop."
Everyone listened. Even Thorus looked invested now.
"It said mana wasn't just in the world around us. It's in us. Every single one of us."
There was a faint murmur of disbelief, but the knight continued, unfazed.
"The grimoire called it the mana core a tiny, invisible point near the heart where all that energy gathers. From there, it flows through the body like blood through veins, feeding the spirit and the mind alike."
He smiled then, a small, genuine smile.
"When I read that part… I swear, it was like my chest caught fire. I could almost feel it, like something deep inside me had just woken up. The idea that humans could hold something so powerful, so limitless, inside them…"
He exhaled a faint laugh. "It was absurd. But gods, it made my heart burn with excitement."
"The book didn't just praise mana, though," the knight said, his tone turning graver. "Right after that part… it came with a warning."
He held up a gauntleted finger, tapping the air as if quoting scripture.
"'To wield mana without understanding it is to invite death itself.' That's what it said."
A faint shiver rippled through the room. Even the ever-bored Thorus swallowed hard.
The knight nodded slowly. "If we try to draw mana from our core without knowing how to guide it… it tears us apart from the inside. Madness, pain, death take your pick. That's why the ancients made the concept of magic circles to help with this issue."
He paused, letting the weight of the term linger before continuing.
"A magic circle," he said, "is the measure of how deeply one can control and communicate with mana. It's not just a fancy mark drawn in the air it's a seal, a rhythm, a language that tells the mana what to do. The more circles you have, the greater your mastery. And the more complex the magic you can command."
He spread his hands, as if holding something fragile between them.
"Now, the amount of mana inside our cores that's fixed. Determined the moment we're born. That part hasn't changed, not for anyone."
He tilted his head, the grin flickering again. "But what has changed… what we can change is how well we control it. The circles are how we tame the chaos. Without them, mana is just wild wind. With them…"
He snapped his fingers, and a faint shimmer of blue light danced between his fingertips.
"…we give the wind shape."
The knight leaned forward, his voice low but sharp as steel scraping against stone.
"Here's the thing about magic circles," he said. "A four-circle mage with the tiniest mana core can annihilate a two-circle mage with oceans of mana. That's how important they are. Circles aren't about how much power you have they're about how well you control it."
He paused, letting the words settle in like ash after a fire.
"That's where I got confused," he admitted, his tone shifting to something quieter… more curious. "The book said mana is everywhere. In the air we breathe, the food we eat… inside us."
He tapped the side of his chest with a gloved finger.
"But then I wondered if that's true, and mana is already flowing through us since birth…"
He leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing behind his visor.
"Then how did we not die the moment we were born?"
A few heads tilted. Thorus frowned, Lard stopped mid-laugh, and even Advin's shaking hands froze in midair.
"Think about it," the knight continued, his voice now just above a whisper. "A newborn doesn't know how to control mana. They can't form circles. They can't focus, can't guide, can't even think. By logic, the violent current of mana inside their bodies should tear them apart from the inside."
The room grew colder.
"Yet… here we are," he said softly. "Alive. Breathing. Every one of us."
He turned his gaze across the room, letting the silence drag, until his next words cut through it like a blade.
"Unless…"
The candlelight flickered. Someone coughed nervously.
"Unless a baby is already born… with a magic circle."
The tavern went dead silent.
No one moved. No one breathed. Only the faint creak of the wooden beams above them dared to make a sound.
Advin was about to speak his lips already parting, his breath sharp and ragged but he stopped himself. Something in the knight's tone made him freeze.
He bit his tongue and said nothing. His hands were trembling beneath the table, and his heartbeat pounded so loud in his ears it nearly drowned out everything else.
The knight went on.
"I asked myself a question," he said quietly. "What if the circle was already there? What if we never needed to create it? What if it was always there helping us survive in a world drowned in mana?"
The room was still. The only sound was the faint hiss of the lantern flame.
"I remember," the knight said, his voice lowering as if he were confessing a secret to the dark, "I put the book down that day and sat outside on the green grass. The wind was soft. The sky was clear. And I thought."
He paused—then chuckled lightly.
"I somewhat lied about something earlier. Those three hours I told you about?"
Everyone looked up.
"It wasn't three hours of training." He lifted his hand and tapped his temple. "It was three hours of thinking."
He leaned back, gaze distant, as though staring through time.
"I sat there, staring at the horizon, and I asked myself… what if the circle was always inside me? What if I didn't need to make it just find it?"
He took a slow breath.
"I followed what the book said. I closed my eyes and tried to feel everything the wind, the earth, the trees, the sound of the river, the birds. I wanted to feel mana, not as something outside me, but as something connected… to everything."
His gauntlet tightened on the table.
"And then I felt it."
A faint tremor passed through the air as he spoke, as if the memory itself carried power.
"My muscles started to burn. My body heated up mana was pouring into me, fast and wild, like a storm. It was too much. It hurt. I thought my veins would burst. I knew if I didn't do something, I'd die." The knight's tone dropped lower, colder.
"So I focused on the heat—the place where it gathered the most. My chest. My heart. I could feel the mana swirling there, desperate, violent. And in that moment I realized…" he smiled under his visor.
"…the circle was already there. I didn't need to make one. It was the circle that was pulling the mana in guiding it, shaping it, keeping me alive. I just had to see it."
He exhaled slowly, almost with reverence.
"When I accepted that, everything calmed. The storm inside me went still. The mana flowed smooth, steady, like blood in my veins. I could feel it, I could see it."
The knight grinned wide, the firelight glinting against his armor.
"I was right." He laughed, deep and raw."I was right."
The knight leaned back, his voice calm as if he'd just described a stroll through a garden.
"And I did all that," he said, tapping his chest once more with a metallic clang.
"In about… five minutes." The room went dead quiet. Somewhere in the corner, there was a dull thud.
Thorus had fainted, eyes rolled back, still muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'bullshit' as he hit the floor. Raiyna's mouth fell open, words failing her. Lard blinked several times, like he'd just witnessed the birth of a god.
Ednar's jaw twitched, his healer's composure shattered entirely.
Five minutes.
Advin's hands were shaking so hard he nearly dropped his cup. He wanted to laugh, to curse, to scream—anything—but all that came out was a strained whisper.
"...Five… minutes?"
The knight tilted his head, genuinely puzzled.
"What? That's a long time. I was still a beginner then."
Another thud. Someone else fainted.
Lard began to laugh, half-crazed, half-in-tears. "Five minutes," he wheezed. "FIVE MINUTES?!"
The knight simply shrugged, as if none of this was particularly noteworthy. He reached for his cup, drank calmly, and said "Well, what can I say? I was a curious child."
Advin, ever the skeptic, slammed his palm on the table. "You're lying. You have to be. What you're saying if it's true, it changes everything."
Ednar, though calmer, still looked deeply unsettled. "He's right. If everyone truly has a magic circle from birth… that would rewrite the very foundation of magic as we know it. The academies, the towers, the noble houses, all of them built on the idea that magic can only be earned." He exhaled sharply, his voice dropping. "If this ever leaked out… gods, the chaos it would cause…"
Advin pointed an accusing finger at the knight. "And yet here you are just telling us this? To a bunch of drunk hooligans in a tavern?"
The knight tilted his head, utterly unfazed. "Fine," he said flatly. "Then I'll prove it." That shut them all up. The air grew still. "How?" Raiyna asked, suspicion lining her voice.
The knight turned and pointed straight at Sein.
The boy blinked. "...Me?"
"Yeah, you," the knight said. "What's your name?"
"S–Sein."
"Sein, huh." The knight crossed his arms, nodding once. "Tell me, boy… do you want to learn magic?"
The tavern's silence was deafening. All eyes were on the young man now.
Sein hesitated, his throat dry. He looked around at Ednar's glare, at Advin's disbelief, at Lard's frown and then finally at Raiyna.
She smiled softly, giving him a nod of encouragement.
Sein swallowed hard. "...Yes. I do."
The knight grinned beneath his visor. "Good. Then tomorrow—" he raised a finger, "—you'll learn magic."
Raiyna shot up, slamming the table so hard that the mugs rattled. "What?! That's impossible! I've tried to teach him for months, and nothing worked!"
Lard raised a hand. "Yeah, me too! I even helped him practice mana control. Tried everything to spark his first magic circle—nothing! The kid's as mana-dry as a desert rock."
Sein stared down at the floor, his hands clenched. Their words stung, even if they were true. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how long he meditated or trained, nothing ever happened. He couldn't even feel mana not even a whisper of it.
Sein's thoughts drifted back to his long, frustrating sessions with Lard and Raiyna.
They had tried, really tried to help him. Hours of breathing exercises, meditation, mana sensing, the basics drilled over and over again. But every time, the result was the same.
Nothing. No spark. No warmth. No hint of mana. He clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened, eyes shut tight as his chest sank with the familiar weight of disappointment.
Maybe… maybe he just wasn't meant to use magic.
Then A firm, warm weight pressed on his shoulder. The faint clink of metal and the creak of worn leather followed.
He opened his eyes.
The knight was kneeling beside him, visor tilted just enough that Sein could feel the man's grin beneath it—broad, confident, almost boyish.
"Trust in me," the knight said, his voice steady and commanding. "Let go of your doubt. If you do that… you'll see. You'll see how awesome and amazing magic really is—just like I did when I was your age."
For the first time that night, Sein felt something stir deep inside his chest not mana, not yet, but something else.
Hope.