Chapter 8: Conservation and Consequences

Noa carefully opened her mouth as she sat down in the empty seat next to me.

“Tarsha. Can I ask you one thing before we start?”

“Huh? What is it?”

“Do you know the rumor going around among the students right now?”

A rumor?

I don’t think so.

I tilted my head.

I just transferred yesterday, how could I possibly know about any rumors?

“Well… they say you’re magicless. Is that true?”

Noa then quickly added before I could even answer.

“I’m not saying anything bad. It’s just that if you’re really magicless, the magic circle won’t work properly even if you draw it, so I’m just checking beforehand.”

So that’s what it was.

It wasn’t something to hide, so I answered nonchalantly.

“That rumor’s true. I am magicless.”

“Oh? …Oh. Is that so?”

More important than that right now was the practical exercise.

A truly miraculous phenomenon that happened right before my eyes.

Magic that violates the conservation of mass!

The thought of being able to create that magic myself made my shoulders tremble with excitement and impatience.

I took out a new sheet of parchment for notes and asked Noa.

“More importantly, Noa, how much do you know about making magic circles? I have almost no knowledge in this field. If possible, I’d like you to show me a slow demonstration. A brief explanation would be even better.”

“Uh. U-um. I’m not the best, but I’ll do my best.”

Noa took out a pre-prepared parchment from her drawer and picked up a special brush with a pointed tip.

She dipped the brush into a small bottle filled with a black liquid, which looked just like ink on the outside.

“The most necessary thing when drawing a magic circle is this ink. It may look ordinary on the outside, but it’s a special solution made of a material that can hold magic power. This stuff is super expensive, you know?”

Tap.

Noa’s hand, having lightly dipped the brush in ink, glided across the parchment.

It was a light yet skillful hand movement, like doing calligraphy.

“The most important things when drawing a magic circle are the direction of the strokes and the order in which you draw them.”

Saying so, she drew two parallel horizontal lines.

One from left to right, and the other in the opposite direction.

“These two lines are strictly different. If the direction of the line is wrong, the magic circle might not activate. Similarly, whether you draw a circle first or a straight line first also determines whether it will activate.”

“In short, directionality and order are important?”

“Yes. You understand faster than I thought.”

The importance of directionality resembled the properties of vectors, and the importance of order was just like the properties of matrix multiplication.

Of course, whether those principles would apply here was unknown, but the concept itself was familiar.

Finally putting down her brush, she showed me the completed magic circle.

“Now I’m going to infuse magic power. There’s something to be careful about here too. If you put in too much magic power, the ink will overheat and the parchment will burn.”

As Noa carefully channeled her magic power, the magic circle glowed with a faint blue light and activated.

Success.

She let out a sigh of relief and placed a small eraser that was on the desk onto the magic circle.

The eraser disappeared in an instant.

A moment later, when she infused magic power again, the eraser popped back into its original place.

“Wow… success! Thank goodness.”

Noa smiled brightly.

Other students around us were also making small objects disappear and reappear in a similar fashion, marveling at it.

Once used, the magic circle lost its light and returned to being an ordinary drawing.

The storage magic circle was a one-time consumable item.

In other words, it had to be redrawn every time it was used.

With Noa watching, I redrew the storage magic circle, remembering the one she had drawn.

“Alright. Now I’ll put in the magic power.”

“Wait a moment.”

When I snatched Noa’s wrist, she jumped in surprise and her eyes widened as she looked at me.

“Oh, what’s wrong?”

“There’s something I want to try.”

I stood up from my seat, still holding Noa’s hand.

As I headed towards the empty space at the back of the classroom, she followed me obediently, albeit with a bewildered expression.

I had her stand quietly in front of the wall.

Then I had her stretch her arms straight out.

In her hands, she held the parchment with the magic circle engraved on it, facing outwards.

“Should I just stay like this?”

“Yes. When I give the signal, activate the magic circle.”

I stood firmly about 3 meters away from her.

In my hand was the eraser Noa had used earlier.

“What are those two doing?”

“What are they doing in the middle of class?”

I heard the students’ disgruntled voices, but I let them go in one ear and out the other.

Opportunities for experiments are rare.

The magic ink is expensive, and I need Noa’s help to infuse magic power.

If I don’t do it now, I don’t know when I’ll get another chance.

I have a mountain of questions about that magic circle.

Is there a maximum mass that can be stored?

Is permanent storage possible?

Does the stored object undergo changes such as cooling or decaying over time?

But right now, there was only one thing I wanted to confirm the most.

“Noa. Ready?”

I got into position.

As if imitating a pitcher I had seen in a video from my past life, I swung my arm wide and threw the eraser in my hand at Noa with all my might.

“Now!”

The eraser flew straight into the center of the magic circle.

Noa must have infused magic power as I’d instructed, because a faint blue light began to swirl from the magic circle.

And then.

With a flash of light, the magic circle swallowed the eraser.

“Good. It worked, at least.”

“Um, Tarsha? Why are we doing something so dangerous…”

I took the parchment from Noa.

Even though I threw it so hard, the paper wasn’t torn, and there wasn’t even a single wrinkle on it.

“Noa. Now, take out the stored eraser. But the direction of the magic circle shouldn’t be up, but towards that wall.”

She still had a look of incomprehension, but she followed my instructions.

She repositioned the parchment to face the wall, and finally infused magic power to activate the magic circle.

Flash!

The moment it did, the eraser that shot out of the magic circle flew like a bullet and hit the opposite wall!

There was no doubt.

It didn’t just fall to the ground with a thud.

It flew, at the same speed I had thrown it, and hit the wall.

That phenomenon meant only one thing.

“Eureka.”

Momentum is conserved.

Of course, this also needed to be verified.

Although it seemed to have shot out with the same force I had thrown it, if measured accurately, some loss might have occurred during the process of it coming out.

But this much was certain.

This storage magic has a value beyond simple ‘storage’!

“Ta-Tarsha. Why are you taking out the hammer?”

“For the next experiment, of course.”

“What next experiment?”

“The projectile absorbed momentum along with the object. So how would it react to a weapon that is directly swung?”

Just as I was approaching Noa with the hammer in my hand.

“Country bumpkin… no. Tarsha.”

What instantly cooled my passion for the experiment was a voice that felt somewhat chilly.

When I looked back, Professor Kyla, who had approached at some point, was looking at me, Noa, and the hammer in my hand with cold eyes.

“To think you’d cause such a ruckus during my class of all times. You’ve got some nerve.”

“Ah, Professor. It’s not that, it was an experiment…”

I tried to make an excuse, but Kyla raised her hand and covered my mouth.

“You. Stay after class.”

---

And so, I remained in the classroom, and only after an hour of a stormy lecture from Professor Kyla was I finally able to be free.

It seemed Kyla was a very strict type when it came to classes.

There was a reason why Noa had a look of horror when I got up from my seat without permission.

I felt like my ears were going to bleed from Professor Kyla’s nagging, but a smile never left my lips.

“Hehe.”

I let out an irrepressible laugh and fiddled with the parchment of the storage magic circle in my pocket, which had now become an ordinary drawing.

Conservation of momentum.

This one simple discovery sparked countless possibilities in my mind.

Should I make a ranged weapon that fires projectiles pre-loaded with kinetic energy?

Or a defensive barrier that absorbs incoming attacks?

Of course, the limitations of the maximum storage capacity and its one-time use were a drawback… but even considering that, it was certain that there were endless possibilities.

If just one storage magic was this amazing, what kind of miraculous phenomena would other magics show?

But as one thought crossed my happy mind, a wave of depression washed over my entire body.

‘The problem is still the measurement, I see.’

A migraine set in as I recalled the terrible measuring tools I saw in the Alchemy Hall.

Could I really extract accurate data with those crude things?

Moreover, the unit here was the f*cking yard-pound system.

This stupid unit, besides its lack of accuracy, had the characteristic of becoming doubly sh*tty when plugged into an equation for calculation.

Sigh.

I let out a sigh and first reconfirmed my schedule for the day.

“Let’s see… next class is at the Swordsmanship Hall.”

There was still quite a bit of time until the next class.

But it was an awkward time to eat, and it felt like too much of a waste to go back to the dormitory.

‘Right. Should I go to the library?’

You never know.

Somewhere in the vast collection of books at this academy, there might be the answer I’m looking for, or at least a clue.

Besides, I had a lot of prep to do to catch up with the magic classes.

I turned my steps.

I had heard the library was near the Swordsmanship Hall.

As I approached the Swordsmanship Hall, the sharp shouts and the sound of clashing swords from the training ground echoed in my ears.

I had heard that Ceylon Academy was not only top-notch in magic but also in various combat skills and disciplines, including swordsmanship, so many aspiring youths from the continent came here.

It was truly a fantasy-like setting.

If it weren’t for my magiclessness, would I also have been sweating like them, walking the path of a romantic adventurer?

As I was passing by the Swordsmanship Hall, imagining myself holding a sword instead of a hammer, I suddenly heard a dull ‘thud!’ sound and someone’s faint groan in my ear.

Did I mishear?

Half in doubt, I headed in the direction of the sound.

Behind a small building that looked like a warehouse, someone was collapsed.

Even from a distance, I could tell who she was.

Straight black hair and small horns.

A thick, lizard-like tail.

“Roommate?”

She was curled up on the bare ground, panting heavily.

On the ground, parchments with unfamiliar magic circles drawn on them were scattered messily.

“What? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

There was no response, so as I got closer, I felt a scorching heat.

When I tapped my roommate’s shoulder, I realized where this heat was coming from.

“What? Your body is on fire.”

She was not human, but a beastman.

But even if I was ignorant about beastmen, I could tell that the heat coming from her body now was not normal.

I looked around.

It was a deserted area, so it didn’t seem like anyone would come to help even if I shouted.

“I guess I have no choice…!”

I put my head under her armpit to help her up.

As the scorching heat was transmitted through the nape of my neck, I realized her condition was more serious than I thought.

Thanks to being used to the heat of the forge, I was able to press her body against mine without much difficulty.

I supported her and headed for the infirmary.