Research Life of a New Professor at Magic University

“Professor, you speak surprisingly well, don’t you?”

“Surprisingly?”

It’s as if implying that I usually speak strangely.

The authority of a professor has indeed fallen.

“To be honest, I was a bit surprised. Based on what I’ve heard you say before, I thought you would just breeze through the lecture, filling the time as needed.”

“Did I not do that? The story I told wasn’t wrong, but it could have been said in any class. Even if I were teaching a course on magical studies, I would have said something similar earlier.”

“Is that so?”

“Recall what I said earlier. ‘There are too many elements involved in magic, and the qualities one must possess to become a great magician are endless, so even if it seems unnecessary at the moment, this course must be taken…’ or something along those lines.

It’s not a lie, but it’s a line that fits anywhere.”

“Still, you seem more serious about pedagogy than I thought?”

Since earlier, I haven’t been liking her tone very much.
What kind of professor was seeing me as…?

It’s as if she believes I am not interested in my lectures and only intend to exploit research assistants to churn papers.
I didn’t expect to be misunderstood in such a ridiculous way.

“It’s not about pedagogy but about magic. That’s genuinely my opinion. The biggest reason I could reach this position at my age is because I’ve acquired and utilized knowledge from various fields.”

“Coming from you…”

“It’s not just me. Most great magicians remembered in history were like that. You have to know everything to use anything.”

“If you want to create something new, do you need to accumulate existing knowledge first?”

“That’s right. When you delve into remarkable inventions, they often have rather ordinary origins.”

As we continued our conversation, we had already arrived at the restaurant.
Perhaps because the class ended early, there weren’t many students yet.

“Is that so? Whenever I see things like that, I wonder how they came up with such ideas.”

“It’s because you’re only looking at the result. If you carefully dissect the knowledge they’ve acquired and the research they’ve done, the conclusions are obvious.

It’s not about ‘how they came up with this idea.’ It’s easy to come up with something when you already know it. It’s about ‘how did they know all of this.’ They didn’t intentionally have that knowledge. They accumulated it, and then methods of use became apparent.”

“It feels too complicated. Honestly, Professor, I didn’t quite understand what you were saying earlier.”

“That’s how it is in the beginning. You’ll understand once you study.”

“…Are you going to give me another paper today?”

“Of course. Is that a problem?”

“No… it’s fine…”

Arien’s expression as she said this didn’t seem to indicate any enjoyment.
But I knew, in reality, she was just being a little shy.

***

Before the first “Advanced Spellcraft” class began, Arien entered the classroom early and took a seat.

The assigned professor was already there, wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a neat cloak.
The middle-aged professor exuded the aura of a scholar just from his appearance.

The atmosphere among the students was different from the previous class.
Most students in “Advanced Spellcraft” were master’s and doctoral research students.
The youngest person was at the undergraduate level.
All students were affiliated with Magic University, with a majority majoring in spellcraft.

This also implied that Professor Atwell had urged Arien to take classes at an exceptionally high level.
However, Arien was overwhelmed by the atmosphere and couldn’t think of such thoughts.

With a serious rather than strict demeanor, the professor began the class without taking attendance.

“Welcome, everyone. I am Clyde Caulry, the instructor for ‘Advanced Spellcraft.’ I assume most of you have taken the undergraduate courses in spellcraft.”

Arien realized from this statement that the professors didn’t check students’ prerequisites. At the same time, a sense of unease rose within her.

“I won’t lay out dizzying spell matrices right from the first class. But you don’t have to be disappointed. Haha. You’ll be seeing plenty of those in the future.”

Although it sounded like a joking remark, there were light jeers among the students.

“It seems like you all are quite excited. Today, I’d like to shed some light on the history of spell formation, albeit briefly. You’ve heard about it several times, right? But shall we delve a little deeper? Understanding the developmental process will make dissecting the complex formations we use today easier.”

Some students brightened up, while others wore expressions that suggested they already knew everything and found it boring. Arien fell into the former category as the content was unfamiliar to her.

“The spell formations we use today didn’t take their current form until relatively recently. Just two hundred years ago, they were quite simple. Just a few lines drawn on a single circle.”

As Professor Caulry spoke, the magical formation he displayed in the air was very simple, just as he described.
It consisted of a small circle with an inscribed equilateral triangle and an inverted equilateral triangle.
One would typically learn this formation in the early years at the academy.

“There weren’t even runes back then. Many spell formations of that era didn’t have any runes at all, and at most, there were only one or two, maybe six at most known to wizards.”

Taking a momentary pause, he then posed a question.

“Why do you think that was?”

Among the students, one in the front quietly murmured “paper,” which was audible to Arien, who was nearby.
Professor Caulry didn’t miss it either.

“Yes, that’s correct. Methods like drawing magical formations in the air weren’t available back then.

Even after magic was invented, for centuries, all spell formations were drawn directly on paper to activate them. They were also drawn directly on walls or floors. Anyway, the point is that they were drawn physically, not magically.”

Professor Caulry then added a few more magical formations in the air. They were all similarly rudimentary and straightforward, mostly devoid of runes. Only one of them had three runes written boldly.

“That’s why it was naturally difficult to draw complex formations. Today’s complex magical formations are influenced by the fine size, color, thickness, and arrangement of the lines. As you know, a slight mistake can cause them not to activate, or worse, backfire, or something the spellcaster didn’t intend.

People in the past knew about these risks, so they preferred simple formations.”

So that’s what it was. Arien had simply thought that people at the time couldn’t draw complex formations due to a lack of magical knowledge.

“Creating rune arrays like we do nowadays, with hundreds of tiny runes packed in? It was naturally impossible. Even drawing them on expensive parchment was difficult, let alone making corrections.

Nowadays, we can check and make corrections as soon as we draw them, but back then, it could take several days to fix a mistake. If magic left marks on the paper upon activation, you had to redraw it from scratch rather than make corrections.

To make one roll of parchment, dozens of lambs had to be slaughtered.

That’s why magic was rarely used in everyday life at that time, as it is now. Elemental magic was dominant, and most of it was used in combat.

Meticulous mana manipulation or complex spell formations were unnecessary. Instead, consistency and drafting were most important at the time.

Simple magical formations with attempts to express intricate spellcraft even within them. Those efforts laid the foundation for the development of modern complex spellcraft.”

He took a moment to pause and created a magic circle larger than what he had made before.

“Furthermore, as you all know, the most important thing to enhance the power of magic is the size of the magical formation. They needed large pieces of parchment to draw as big of a magical formation as possible.

Some countries even carved magical formations on the entire marble floors of their castles.”

Even in the modern era, where mana manipulation techniques and spellcraft have advanced, the absolute size of magical formations remains crucial.
At the time, increasing the size of magical formations was the only way to increase the output of spells.

“Because of this, the art of paper-making also advanced. Thanks to the developed paper-making and printing techniques, magical papers could be published as they are today.

There have also been many wizards who devoted their lives to creating vivid colors for these papers. These individuals are said to be the pioneers of ‘chromatics.’”

Upon hearing this, most students thought, ‘People must have had a hard time back then.’
But Arien reminisced, “Come to think of it, paper has become easier to obtain since I was a child.”

“From here, magical spellcraft undergoes a revolution. Until then, wizards only trained in the absolute amount of mana and their spell proficiency. That’s all they had to work with.

But having too many options can be a problem. Suddenly, wizards, who could freely mix numerous circles, polygons, lines, and runes, became lost.”

Professor Caulry drew several more complex spell formations in the air, which were a bit more complicated than the ancient magical formations but still much simpler than modern ones.

However, as time progressed, the structures became increasingly intricate and detailed.
There were no single-circle formations anymore.
The interior of the largest circle was filled with smaller circles, along with numerous triangles, squares, and hexagons.
Even the spaces between the shapes were filled with densely written runes.

“Ultimately, it led to the conclusion that individual research was limited. From this point, a structured wizard society was created to share knowledge.

Until then, magical researchers had been confined to their laboratories, with the most prominent research unit being the Magic Towers. Even then, they were much smaller in scale than they are today. It hasn’t been that long since magic reached this scale.”

So, the history of modern magical research is even shorter than Arien’s lifespan.
She didn’t know about these circumstances when she was young because she had no interest in magic.

“Moreover, the advantage of magical formations no longer being constrained to drawing on surfaces is that they can be stacked on top of each other.”

Professor Caulry once again drew several magical formations in the air.
Unlike before, where several formations were arranged on a single plane, each was implemented on different parallel planes.
If one were to connect the centers of these formations, a single line would emerge.

“Combining different formations in multiple layers like this may seem obvious to you students studying at Magic University. However, it hasn’t been so obvious for long. The birth of third-generation magical formations, which layer second-generation formations, marks the development process of magical formations.”

As the professor was about to conclude, a student raised their hand.

“Yes, you there. Do you have a question?”

“Isn’t there still one more step left?”

Professor Caulry chuckled softly as if he had anticipated the question.

“Why didn’t this question come sooner? Yes, the advancement of magic never stops. Magical spellcraft is about to undergo another major upheaval driven by a genius in the field. I’m sure all of you have heard the name of this individual, especially if you’re a student of spellcraft.”

Arien, unfamiliar with spellcraft scholars, waited skeptically for the conversation to continue.
If the professor spoke with such certainty, perhaps she might recognize the name, too; maybe she had seen it pass by in a corner of a textbook.

Professor Caulry’s following words fulfilled Arien’s expectations.
The name of the eminent scholar who would open up new horizons in spellcraft was a name she had heard countless times recently.

“That’s right. It’s Dr. Roger Atwell, now Professor Atwell, here at our school. I refrained from mentioning it earlier, as his research is still ongoing and more future-oriented than modern.”

Arien was astonished at the familiar name unexpectedly cropping up in the conversation.

‘What?!’

“Professor Atwell’s research started from a simple idea. ‘If we can create formation in the air without paper, do we need a planar form of spellcraft? After all, isn’t the core of spellcraft ‘circulation’ and not ‘circular?'”

With that statement, Professor Caulry conjured something resembling a small spherical object in the air.
Inside the sphere were various polyhedra and intricate runes mixed.
The internal structure was so complex that it was impossible to discern correctly.

“The result is the birth of three-dimensional spell formations.”

Arien was still reeling from the shock up until that moment.

“Perhaps in the future, this might be called the fourth-generation magical formation.”