Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

"Ah, I can't make it clear, let me demonstrate some magic for you, and you'll understand." Winters slapped his thigh, feeling that showing is better than telling.

"Sure." Hearing that Winters would show him real magic, Aike nodded eagerly.

Spellcasters at school were all very secretive, and the school strictly prohibited asking about them. This was the first time Aike discussed magic and spellcasters with Winters.

As for Winters, he had studied with Aike for six years at the preparatory school, and this was the first time Winters heard Aike express envy for the identity of a spellcaster. In fact, it was the first time Winters heard Aike express envy over anything at all, which made Winters feel obliged to satisfy Aike's curiosity.

So, Winters squeezed a few drops of sweat from his uniform onto a stone bench. He first focused his attention on his longsword to practice concentration, then Winters pressed his left thumb onto his left index finger, trying hard to recall the feeling of casting spells in the past.

In Aike's eyes, Winters was just staring motionlessly at these few drops of water. But to Winters, he began to feel a strange pressure and a tingling sensation.

This pressure and tingling weren't coming from anywhere inside or outside his body, not from any part of his skin, any tissue, or any bone, yet he distinctly felt the squeeze and the sting.

However, Winters was already familiar with this sensation, he endeavored to endure and conquer the pressure and tingling, and soon, a layer of fine sweat beaded on his forehead. Finally, the few drops of water on the stone bench had all but disappeared.

"All done!" Winters clapped his hands and took a comfortable breath.

"That's it?" Aike asked, utterly confused.

"That's it," Winters answered matter-of-factly.

"That was magic?" Aike asked, still puzzled.

"That was magic," Winters assured Aike confidently.

"How can that possibly be magic?" Aike felt truly baffled.

"That is magic. You don't understand magic, I show you what magic is, and yet you still don't believe it," Winters also felt particularly wronged.

"This (expletive) is just water evaporating, right? This (expletive) is just a few drops of water evaporating when blown by the wind, isn't it?" Aike said, almost laughing in frustration.

"Don't rush, listen to my explanation," Winters cleared his throat and began to give a forced explanation: "The disappearance of these few drops of water in front of you is different from evaporation due to the wind. These were turned into water vapor by my magic, they would vanish even without any wind blowing."

"First, you must understand that using magic is just a type of ability, no different from other human abilities. Like some people run particularly fast, some people jump incredibly high," Winters shared his direct experience.

Aike frowned.

"Like fish can swim without learning and birds can fly without being taught. I can indeed use magic, but I don't know the principle behind it, I just have the ability to use it," Winters thought but still felt he hadn't made things clear enough.

He thought it would be easier for Aike to understand if he related it to his own experiences: "Just like you don't know why everyone practices swordsmanship and you're better at it, right? I think the innate talent for swordsmanship and for magic are similar in nature."

"My swordsmanship comes from my hard work," Aike felt the need to correct Winters' misunderstanding.

"If you insist that you have no innate talent for swordsmanship and became the strongest in the school solely through hard work, that would just be irrational," Winters countered: "There are others who practice as diligently as you, or even more so, and still aren't as good. I don't deny the role of effort, but you can't ignore the disparity in talent, can you?"

"Then tell me, who practices swordsmanship more diligently than I do?" Aike felt quite indignant.

"Bard," Winters threw out a name without hesitation.

"Bard... Bard does work harder than I do, but I think his swordsmanship is lacking because he started too late... Ah, never mind, go on," the mention of that name deflated Aike's indignation.

"I didn't say your swordsmanship is all due to talent; talent plus hard work, missing either won't make you a top swordsman," Winters delivered his verdict: "But you can't deny the role of talent just because of diligence, that would be an insult to those who are more hardworking but still fall short of you."

"Now, where was I... Magic is an innate ability, spellcasters only know how to use it but don't understand the principle," Winters gathered his thoughts, which had been disrupted by Aike.

"But the effects that magical abilities can achieve are diverse and complex. The drops of water just now did not evaporate, they were turned into mist by me. Notice if there was any feeling of wind," Winters said as he made a gesture with his thumb pressing his middle finger and entered a spellcasting state, using the Wind Control Technique to generate a slight breeze between them.

"Do you feel this breeze? This breeze was also produced by magic," Winters could only maintain the spell for a short while before he had to stop.

"I just felt a little wind on my face, is that magic?" Aike did indeed feel a breeze against his skin just now.

"That's just the effect achieved by magic. When I use magic on you, you won't feel 'magic,' you can only feel the effects produced by the magic."

"Just like the Wind Control Technique I just used, did you feel the magic? No, you only felt the wind. You can't even distinguish whether it's a natural wind or one produced by magic."

"Human eyes can't see magic; people can only observe the effects produced by magic. Because the effects that magic can create are so diverse and chaotic, we need to summarize and deduce, transforming perceptual knowledge into rational knowledge."

"What are perceptual knowledge and rational knowledge?" Aike heard these two terms for the first time.

"Put simply, at first, spellcasters only knew how to use magic, which is perceptual cognition. Great minds were not satisfied with just knowing how to use it, they attempted to summarize and deduce, to discover the intrinsic laws of magic, and that's rational cognition," Winters explained, feeling exhausted from speaking, so he shifted from sitting on the stone floor to sitting on a stone stool.

Winters felt it was better to give examples from something Aike was familiar with, "Like swordsmanship, those who first used swords surely only knew how to flail and hack wildly. After much use, they found several effective techniques, gained what we call experience, which is perceptual cognition.

If it develops further, and a master of swordsmanship summarizes a theoretical system of swordsmanship, allowing inexperienced people to learn swordsmanship, and even to invent more powerful sword moves based on that system, that is rational cognition. Let's go back to the example of those drops of water I mentioned earlier."

"First, think about this, if you put water in an iron pot and heat it on a stove, the water eventually evaporates and disappears, right?" Winters started with the reasoning foundation.

Aike nodded. It was common knowledge that water would evaporate when heated by fire.

"So where does the water go?" Winters gently probed.

"It turns into steam," Aike replied without hesitation. Water boiling and producing white steam was also common knowledge.

"The process of boiling water is the water being heated by the fire and then turning into steam, right?" Winters continued to inquire.

"Isn't that obvious?" Aike was getting a little frustrated with Winters' obvious statements.

"Here comes the crucial part, listen carefully. General Antoine-Laurent believes that it's because of the fire that water turns into steam," Winters explained the history of magic in the Alliance seriously.

"At the same time, the general believes that when magic is used to turn water into steam, even though no flame appears, the same result as boiling water is achieved. Essentially, magic has taken the place of the flame. You didn't see any flame just now, did you?" Winters asked Aike.

"I indeed didn't see any flames," Aike was sure he saw no open fire.

"Therefore, this type of ability where 'magic takes the place of a flame' was summarized by General Antoine-Laurent as Fire-Starting magic. That's the reasoning process the general followed when summarizing the Fire-Starting spells."

"Similarly, 'the ability to accelerate an object' has been summarized as Acceleration magic."

"Abilities related to sound have been summarized as Sound magic. These are the three major categories of spells that the general came up with," Winters exclaimed in one breath.

"Huh?" Aike was completely confused.

"Think back to the breeze just now, it was wind accelerated by magic, so it's Acceleration magic, and that spell is called the Wind Control Technique. If what's being accelerated is a nail, then it's the Arrow Flying Spell," Winters hurriedly helped Aike review the points mentioned earlier.

"Before General Antoine-Laurent summarized these three categories of magic, the Alliance was entirely ignorant about what magic was."

"Furthermore, unlike the usual process where perceptual knowledge comes first followed by rational knowledge, magic was monopolized by the Emperor and the great nobility, and the general himself wasn't a spellcaster. He started from scratch, and it was entirely through his several encounters with Empire court spellcasters on the battlefield that he managed to summarize the three categories of magic, gaining rational knowledge.

It was as if someone who had never touched a sword in their life, only been wounded by others using swords, had summarized a set of swordsmanship theory, and it was truly an effective theory.

It was the general who first constructed the magic theoretical system and then invented magical detection devices based on that system that the Alliance was able to screen people with talent for spells from the populace," Winters said, admiring the feats of General Antoine-Laurent.

Winters then added, "Without long-term training, those with only a talent for magic are incredibly weak, so weak that neither they nor others would normally notice. If it weren't for General Antoine-Laurent, the Alliance would not have magicians."