Sword, Magic and Academic Society

After realizing that the Royal Academy would still be a prominent factor in my future course from my discussion with the gardener Oliver, I canceled my plan to drop out of the exam.

The main point was I lacked vital information. So visiting the royal capital, even if it was for an exam, had value in itself.

For the time being, I decided to set aside my future goals for now. It wouldn't be too late to drop out of the academy once I made my way inside and broadened my horizons about society and the world. This was the conclusion I reached.

I had everything planned out perfectly for the upcoming exams.

The most crucial aspect of the exams was for the test-takers themselves to accurately assess the height of the wall they needed to overcome. So what I had to do was a straight and simple thing: yes, solving past papers thoroughly. It all came down to this.

In all honesty, three months was a very short time for preparation. And, as if the situation wasn't already hard enough, I even needed to go through the past years' exam papers when no one knew how much of the past formats the upcoming exam would follow. It would be a daunting step for most in a normal scenario.

As the saying goes, know yourself and your enemy. Any plan would be futile if I didn't recognize where I stood at the starting line and the distance I had to run to the finishing line.

I needed to grasp my current limit as well as find an efficient way to fill that gap, and once the height I had to aim for was clear, I would start my in-depth studying with my devised strategy.

It would be next to impossible to improve my abilities just by going through the assignments given by my parents and teachers like the fool I was in my previous life, wasting all my time in nothing but aimless studying. It was something I came to realize when I was in college, after becoming a working adult, and even when I was taking various qualifying exams. A simple answer, wasn't it? Albeit, it took me too long to confront my clumsiness, inefficiency, and a bitter struggle until I finally arrived at this conclusion.

I had been continuously haunted by this reality, thinking over and over if only I had realized it earlier, but not realizing what was important at the time of the exam was the essence of the so-called exam game.

Anyway, I had Schold gather as many past exam papers as possible and devised a perfect strategy for me, though it took me quite some time in the beginning. After objectively analyzing the remaining time and the scope I needed to cover within that duration along with my study planning, I was sure I would be able to reach the required threshold with ease with my current intellectual capacity.

Well, 'Allen's' pass rate was determined to be 20% (meaning there was a possibility of success) but without the awakening, I had no doubt I would have failed. I think I could certify myself as the beta-tester of the Exam God's strictness at this point.

Anyway, that was all about my exam.

I had an even more pressing problem— magic.

'Allen' had a bit of knowledge about such stuff, but I decided to verify it once again.

Emission-type magic, a.k.a shooting flames, generating water, or throwing lightning, was possible in this world. That being said, it was reliant on talent like many other things.

There were two elements required to use emission magic.

One was the ability to shoot out or circulate the mana stored in the body, which I did have. If I had to describe it, this was the application of mana manipulation for body strengthening which could be said to be my forte.

This could be brought in for things like reconnaissance, so it could be argued that I was capable of using emission magic as well.

......Though it wasn't the magic I truly wanted.

The reason was the other factor— the talent to convert one's mana into other attributes like fire, water, or healing which I apparently didn't have talent for.

It is said that roughly 1 among 10 people had attribute conversion talent. There was also the matter of affinity between an individual and an attribute. For instance, the most common attribute was fire, with 1 among 15 individuals having an affinity for it while the ones with an affinity for rare attributes like lightning were even more scarce, which was said to be one among 10,000.

If that wasn't enough, some mages had dual or even triple attributes as well apparently. Sounds fantastic, right?

The talent in attribute conversion became apparent by the age of 12, the same time as basic mana capacity, and whatever the result remained with the individual for a lifetime. If I were to quote their words why it was so, it was because the mana organ, which was akin to a mana stone in a monster, finished developing by that age.

I was surprised! There was actually a template of special talent that only the chosen had!!

However, it was another matter that I wasn't the chosen one......

The standard template to become a chosen one started with realizing the phenomenon and accurately visualizing it...... or something like that. I, who had a science background, too was anticipating that my awakening might lead to a new talent out of nowhere. But so far, there was no sign of it.

I didn't want to believe it, but I had to admit, their theory about talent depending on the mana organ in one's body might actually be true. This meant that I couldn't use magic with a legitimate method.

Only by legitimate method, that is. There did exist other methods through which even the talentless me in attribute conversion could become the user of emission magic. The method was by using magic tools.

By employing magical tools such as wands that used mana stones as a conduit, even someone without the attribute conversion talent could forcefully alter their mana's properties and use emission magic. The attribute of the magic depended on the attribute of the mana stone by the way. But of course, how could there not be a drawback?

The mana stone would be destroyed instantly as a result of forcefully converting the attribute of their mana with a mana stone of an element they didn't have an affinity for. There were also instances where channeling a large amount of mana would shatter them instantly just after a single burst.

Besides, given the absurd cost of such disposable magic tools, it was impossible to use them for training.

In that case, did I want to become an Artificer and improve them? Well, being an Artificer wasn't in my future goal list......

If anything, my heartfelt desire was to use magic like I breathe, naturally and not by relying on some kind of tool!

Magic that anyone could use with tools, a strength born out of relying on tools...... How could it compete with the thrill of making magic dance at your fingertips?

Well, this summed up all the information I had learned so far.

As for my sources, there was the meager collection of books of a sole Viscount family in this countryside and the formed Explorer Oliver— I knew any further research would be a futile endeavor

I would be able to get my hands on more research materials by visiting the Royal Capital, and the Academy should have specialists in diagnosis magic. I planned to seek knowledge from them.

There was a practical test so I knew it was impossible to pass, but if fate permitted, I would absolutely love to take the Mage path.

I knew that I might be burning daylight in futility and this would most likely be an unrewarded venture. But...... I won't give up, no matter what.

What if it ended up having zero value for a job? Doesn't matter. Was I being stubborn? Probably. Not serious? So be it. I'm just going to do whatever the hell I want!