Clearly, He wanted me to answer all the questions. Without thinking further, I sat on the sofa beside it and started scribbling down the answers.
The top two questions were simple.
They asked about basic mana circuits and magic formulas-and why one needed to imagine them before casting any spells.
They were easy for me to answer, as I was the one who had designed the power mechanics of this game in the first place.
Then he proceeded to the third question.
'I knew it...'
He grinned, seeing progress in his plan.
The third question was different from the other two; it was more complex to answer.
Q3."In live combat, how can a spellcaster minimize casting delay without destabilizing mana?"
For me, the question was rather simple, but the answer to it was something that hadn't been discovered yet.
Surely, I knew the answer, but the man seated in his study didn't.
This question had once come up in the forums for Worlds Doomsday:
Why do spells take time to cast in-game?
But the actual reason was something more technical. Each spell triggered over a
million lines of code. To hide the overall rendering and execution delay, the
developers masked it with in-game animations, like characters drawing complex
magic circles and chanting spells-making it feel like a natural part of the magic
system for mages profession.
They existed because there was no other way for the developers to conceal the lag.
'How sly of him to add it in the entrance test.'
But that was the real world. This was a fantasy world, where magic actually
existed. So, there was a way to reduce the casting time.
And I had the answer to it.
"Should I answer it?" he muttered.
'I mean, I could always scribble "just be faster" and call it a day...'
But, he had to impress Headmaster Raizen.
'This is the only way."
To pass this entrance test and win Raizen's attention, he needed to reveal his S-
ranked intelligence.
"Heh..." I chuckled.
'What would I even gain by keeping it hidden?'
Leon loved being praised by others. Even in his old life, he took pride in his intelligence and achievements.
And along with those glories...
He had become addicted to them.
'The old me is dead. Now, all I am is Kael Arion .'
The most mocked and utterly trashed character in the game.
I glanced at the Headmaster, who wasn't even paying attention to him.
"Alright then..."
'I'll let him take a peek at this new Kael Arion.'
After writing the answers, I set down the pen with a sigh.
'Let's hope this doesn't break the old man's brain circuits.
"I'm done."
didn't even look up.
"It's fine. I figured you wouldn't be able to answer them anyway."
"I said I'm done, Headmaster Darian."
That made him pause.
"Hm... what?"
The old man finally lifted his head, blinking at the boy now standing in front of
his desk. He adjusted his glasses before speaking
"You answered all of them?"
"Yes."
"All three?"
"Yes."
"By yourself?"
My eye twitched.
''Yes''
Darien sighed and lazily extended a hand. "Alright then. Let me see it."
"Here," I replied, handing over the paper.
The Headmaster Darien adjusted his glasses again and gave the paper a quick glance. 'He probably wrote the questions back as answers just to fill space... he thought.
"Huh?"
What greeted Raizen was a neatly written page, filled top to bottom, front and back.
Precise handwriting, bullet points, and even intricate diagrams tucked between
narrow spaces.
There wasn't a single spot left to even write a grade.
Raizen had intentionally instructed the servants to provide only one sheet of
paper.
After all, giving more to a so-called failure would've been a waste.
Yet somehow...
'He answered all of them...
Darien's brows twitched. He glanced at Kael, who stood quietly with an
expressionless face.
From gatherings and casual gossip, Raizen had heard plenty about the youngest son of House Arion, he was a talentless brat, who was not even awakened, who was better known for his incompetence than anything else.
I""
But the paper in his hand told a completely different story.
The first two answers described the inner workings of mana circuits and magic formulas with such clarity and precision that even the professors at Eclipse Institute would pale in comparison.
It was absolutely brilliant.
Raizen turned the page.
""
The third question.
It had been answered too
Not just answer he completely nailed it
Charts, comparison tables, flow diagrams, speculative theories, even a miniature
blueprint for some kind of artifact, it crammed perfectly onto the back of the
same page.
Darien shot up from his chair.
The page in his hand was worth decades of magical research.
"H-How...?!"
This... this hasn't even been discovered yet!
He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, glancing back and forth between Kael and the
paper in his hand. Without wasting a second,Darien read through the theories proposed by Me.
"There's only one way to reduce spell casting time, and that is to completely skip
the magic formula creation and visualization process..."
I had named this process: Formulaless Spell Casting.
At first glance, it sounded idiotic. There was no known method of casting a spell First without the structure of the Spell how can one cast a spell.
A mage needed to visualize a fire-bullet magic formula and recite its incantation
to cast a fire-bullet. Likewise, a water-snipe spell required its own unique formula
and incantation.
To skip that process completely meant casting random spells without structure.
So how could anyone do that?
He had managed to come up with an idea.He was sure someone has misjudged his talent is for research.
Headmaster Darien opened a drawer and took out an envelope, then handed it to
me.
I looked down at it.
"What is this?"
"Your acceptance letter," Darien informed him. "You will be a student at my institute starting next week, as a research scholar directly under my authority.."
He paused, then added.
"Welcome to Silver Spire Institute."
Darien stared at the stack of research papers he had been working on.
Then, at the single piece of paper he had handed him just minutes ago.
"Sera," he said quietly.
A well-dressed woman stepped out from the shadows. "Yes, my lord."
She had dark skin and a muscular build, with long black hair and obsidian eyes. A
heavy sword rested on her back, its size nearly matching her own height.
"I want you to look into that boy. Kael Arion. Find out everything. Where he's
been, what he's studied, and who he's spoken to... all of it."
Sera didn't flinch.
"Isn't he the boy you just admitted in Silver Spire? The... uh, third son of Duke Orion?"
Darien narrowed his eyes.
"Yes, he proved his worth... but I feel like his objective was something other than
just proving his intelligence."
There was no way Darien would just let it go, not when a boy with a reputation for
being a complete fool in society had suddenly turned into a genius researcher.
''Yes my lord''.
Then she disappeared in the shadows as the way she appeared.