When Jay opened the heavy, worn volume of Magic : Roots for the first time, the dense, earthy scent of ancient parchment and dried ink filled his nostrils. He did not find chaos or the wild, untamed mysticism often bleeding from the pages of occult texts. What greeted him instead was order, a cold, precise, and utterly analytical system, which appealed immediately and profoundly to the analytical core of his mind.
The book was written in a formal, almost archaic medieval English, its language dense and occasionally foreign and replete with obsolete spellings and capitalized pronouncements.
Yet, Jay could read it pretty easily. Sister Andrea, despite their poverty, had ensured the children were deeply literate, and Jay, naturally inclined toward study had often been left to pore over books far beyond his years. The language was a small barrier quickly overcome by his focus.
The text spoke of magic not as a miracle bestowed arbitrarily by gods or capricious spirits, but as a system of Supernatural Equations embedded directly into the foundational structure of the world.
It posited that existence itself was a vast, complex formula. Every manifestation of magic, every simple or grand spell, followed a strict but immutable rule of causality. If a force was invoked in the proper linguistic, geometric, and energetic sequence then a predictable, specific phenomenon would manifest without fail.
Magic, the text insisted with the absolute conviction of its author, was the act of understanding those pre-existing sequences and supplying them with refined intent and focused power.
Jay paused, letting the implication sink in. This system defined the cosmic unfairness he had already felt keenly.
Supernatural beings such as Devils, Angels, and Gods wielded their abilities mostly by instinct, nature, and pure force of will or imagination. They were born with the intrinsic code already written into their essence.
They did not calculate, they willed.
Humans like him however, had to calculate symbols and draw flawless magic circles with painstaking accuracy. On top of that, they also need to memorize incantations with absolute precision. Their power was entirely dependent on external structure, a crutch needed to stabilize the vast, chaotic forces they sought to command.
'It's almost unthinkable how unfair this supernatural world is for human.' Jay thought.
The injustice of the cosmic hierarchy settling deeper into his conviction. They are born with power while we humans must build it brick by brick, and even then our walls are still significantly weaker than them.
The name Merlin Ambrosius appeared repeatedly throughout the grimoire, written with unmistakable reverence, often preceded by the epithet, "The Magician Blessed by the Fairies."
"This guy is a narcissist," Jay thought with a flat cynicism that betrayed his age. "Self-proclaimed titles everywhere. But well, can't blame him. He backed it all up."
As Jay devoured the historical background sections, he realized the colossal magnitude of Merlin's contribution to the human race. Before his era, human magic was a brutal, self-destructive affair. From ritualistic blood sacrifices, desperate pacts with evil spirits, or total dependence on worshipping and channeling the diluted, often capricious energy of respective deities. Human magicians were either desperate supplicants or dark practitioners. No in between.
Merlin's self-proclaimed invention was termed The Human Magic, a path to power that did not require selling one's soul or appealing to a higher power.
According to the book, modern and structured human magic existed because Merlin. With a genius mind that would never born for another thousand years, an unparalleled intellect, systematically studied the prodigious, chaotic, and self-replenishing demonic power of Devils and translated its underlying principles into mathematical and linguistic formulas that humans could safely and efficiently use.
He did not create magic out of nowhere. Rather, he refined and systematized raw supernatural forces and transforming them into structured spells, intricate rituals, and easily reproducible magic circle.
His art favored technical mastery over brute, destructive force. His teachings detailed spells focused on constructing intricate barriers, enchantments that permanently altered environments or artifacts, and complex calculations so exact they bordered on rewriting natural law through sheer geometric perfection. Merlin introduced the concept of the Magic Circle as a form of Thaumaturgy, a non-physical device made manifest through runes and lines as the ultimate tool for controlling and safely discharging dangerous energy.
As Jay read on, a chilling realization settled in his mind.
To study human magic was not merely to learn an ability, it was to inherit a precise but foreign language that Merlin had mathematically etched into the fabric of reality. One equation at a time.
The depth of the knowledge required was staggering, and Jay knew that the sheer effort was why only a fraction of humanity could ever become a true magicians like Glenda and people in the Emerald city.
"So, in order to perform even the simplest spell, I need to draw a circle full of equations," Jay concluded, his mind already visualizing the steps.
He descended the spiraling library steps, a quiet shadow moving through the impossibly vast room, and sat at Glenda's elegant, empty desk. He found ample supply of fine paper and precision pens, tools befitting a meticulous scholar of the arcane.
He opened the book to the section detailing the simplest working: a low-level illumination spell, merely a directed discharge of energy. He carefully copied the circle onto the paper. It was a dizzying array of sigils, lines, and complex geometric overlaps.
He worked with the meticulous focus of a clockmaker, ignoring the potential distraction of the magical library around him. Every sigil was aligned, every equation closed, and every intersection perfect. The slightest deviation could lead to catastrophic failure that backfired to him.
After the circle was complete, nothing happened at first.
The text warned that this silence was the most dangerous moment. A magic circle, no matter how perfect, was only a circuit, a dormant formula waiting for power and command. The human user had to become the switch.
The caster must first still his breath, set his mind fast upon its anchor, and shape his intent with utter clearness of thought. For should his will be clouded or divided, the runes and reckonings would mistake his desire, and the working would turn awry, either breaking as dust upon the wind, or rebounding upon the caster in grievous ruin.
Control, Jay thought as his jaw clenched. Structure above all else. No fear, no grief, just the sterile demand of the spell.
Only then came activation. Jay learned that power had to be fed into the circle in a controlled flow. The energy, which Merlin called Mana needed to be guided through the lines and symbols as if tracing them from within the mind.
An incantation spoken or mental served as the final key, synchronizing thought, energy, and structure into a single moment of execution.
Jay closed his eyes, his breath shallow and even. He focused on the Incinerate Anthem—not the destructive, taxing True Cross, but the raw, focused energy source beneath it, the boundless potential of the Longinus. He channeled his will, picturing the energy moving through his core, then guiding it out and into the delicate circuit on the paper, and then.
A soft almost imperceptible pop sound.
The paper was instantly lighten up of bright light. Above the desk, a small, perfectly spherical ball of white light was shaped from the burning magical energy, hovered steadily. The light was stable, pure, and contained.
"Huh. That's easy," he thought, his expression remaining awfully flat.
There was no internal cheer, no sense of pride. It was merely the successful completion of the first step of a million. If any other aspiring human magician, let alone Glenda, had witnessed this after what Jay just did in his first-try execution of a magic spell, anti-failure sigil without weeks of prior practice albeit its a simple one and heard his subsequent thought, they would have been utterly dumbfounded.
Instead of reveling, he immediately thought deeper about the core concept, realizing that while he had completed almost five hundred pages of The Roots in just five hours, its fundamental concept of energy flow was still too abstract.
"But what is Mana?" Jay pondered, his gaze fixed on the small, hovering sphere of light, a tangible result of an intangible input.
Mana is ambiguous to say the least, as the book explained,
Magical energy-Mana is no singular force born unto the world, nor a power that dwelleth within man by nature. It is a wrought thing, a subtle weaving of many forms of strength and essence, gathered and refined into one substance. It existeth not of itself, but is ever shaped from other powers, as metal is smelted from ore and fire.
No man is said to possess mana, nor to be bereft of it, for it belongeth to none. It lingereth everywhere, awaiting craft and command. Only through art, learning, and careful shaping may it be drawn forth and given purpose and without such guidance, it remaineth formless and idle, neither boon nor bane to the world.
"But this was written around the fifth or sixth century. The concept of conservation of energy hadn't even been formalized yet," Jay critiqued, applying a modern, clinical physics filter to the ancient mystical text.
"The book describes Mana as a refined, derivative power, a universal currency, but it doesn't clearly define the original, primary energy sources or the conversion rate. If Mana is refined, what is the raw ore, and what is the process of the furnace?"
The ambiguity was unacceptable. To satisfy his understanding and solve the confusion surrounding the energy requirements of human magic, Jay stood up. He returned to the spiraling shelves, ascending rapidly through the power of his intense focus. He began gathering a massive stack of supplementary texts, determined to find the gaps in Merlin's 1500-year-old knowledge.
He grabbed volumes on Thaumaturgy which is the study of mystical runes, lines, and their geometric properties, essential for circuit building. Devil's Magic which is the study of how raw, non-structuredpower is generated and wielded. Necromancy which is the forbidden art of using Life Force and ambient spirit energy. Summoning Magic which the creation of dimensional and energetic gateways to summon a creature or an object. Teleportation Magic which is an advanced spatial manipulation theory. Spirit Magic filled with pacts and channeling of ambient nature energies. And lastly, Fairy Magic, a single, slim, abstract volume detailing a highly conceptual form of magic.
He also grabbed texts related to human energy concepts from religious and martial arts practices such as the control of Ki and Chakra. He found only a single book about Sacred Gears. It seems like Glenda, had already took the rest of the book for her research.
Jay returned to the desk, the massive stack of forbidden knowledge resting beside him. The pile represented thousands of years of human and supernatural intellectual endeavor, all synthesized by a thirteen-year-old boy in a black coat with an urgent, singular goal.
To understand, Magic.