The sun had barely touched the horizon when Archimedes awoke. The morning chill made him shiver slightly as he sat up in bed. Gathering courage, he stood and spent a few minutes stretching.
After a quick bath, he dressed in a hurry and walked through the silent halls of the Guild, the echoes of his footsteps accompanying him to the dining hall.
On the way, he came across a thin man with graying hair and a diligent posture, who was waiting for him holding a small pile of folded clothes.
"Young hero," said the servant with a slight nod. "These are for you. The Guild attire, as requested by the Guildmaster."
Archimedes accepted the clothes with a slight smile, feeling the thick yet comfortable fabric. There was a long-sleeved white shirt with a hood and blue accents, sturdy trousers, and leather boots.
These were the clothes given to apprentices. Archimedes would no longer stand out like a sore thumb walking around in peasant clothes.
After eating bread, fruit, and refreshing juice, he returned to his room and changed before heading to the training grounds. Weaver would no longer be responsible for his training; instead, specialized tutors for each Discipline would take over.
Though Archimedes had talent in all Disciplines, he could only train one per day, as the lessons took place early in the morning, leaving the rest of the day free to continue practicing or take on other tasks. This was because the tutors were also heroes and had to go on Guild missions.
Archimedes chose to train in swordsmanship until the afternoon meal, after which he would continue exploring magic. He wouldn't waste his talents just to become a typical fragile mage, a glass cannon. Training the body was training the foundation, it also meant a backup in case his mana ran out mid-combat.
Arriving at the training ring, Archimedes saw the tutor and some other apprentices with Strength talents. Since he had arrived early, he had to wait for everyone to gather before training began.
The other apprentices were already used to the routine, practicing repetitive strikes and controlled duels under the watchful eyes of assistants. Archimedes, however, was called aside by the main tutor, a burly man with a large beard, firm voice, and prominent muscles.
"You're the boy who arrived yesterday, right?" the tutor asked, resting a longsword on his shoulder. "We'll start with some basics before you start swinging a sword."
He positioned himself with feet apart, knees bent, hips lowered slightly. The center of gravity was low, allowing him to move in any direction with a burst of speed.
"Bend your knees, lower your hips, and use your calves." The tutor's eyes locked onto Archimedes'. "If you can't move without tripping over your legs, you can't fight. Falling in combat is the end, your enemy won't let you get up without filling you with holes and cuts."
The tutor gave a few demonstrations, moving around a wooden dummy. His feet glided, barely lifting dust. He advanced, retreated, and spun.
Archimedes observed and repeated the movements. Hours seemed to pass with just that. In straight lines, zigzags, circles, and even rolls. Archimedes felt his leg muscles burning.
The Arconte bloodline wasn't idle, it had begun to work, aiding his motor coordination and strength.
Archimedes bent over, holding his knees, panting and dripping with sweat. He couldn't help but ask the tutor:
"Sir, I understand the reason for footwork training. But I don't think I could do this for long in a fight while wearing armor."
"You're only thinking of fights against humans. Fights between humans end in minutes, even seconds. And against humans, we have armor, shields, and magic. Acrobatics in real human combat only tire you out faster."
"The real reason we train footwork is for monsters. Monsters make armor and shields useless, leaving only magic and dodging."
"I see. So there are monsters capable of causing damage even to someone in armor." Archimedes could only imagine the balverines, the werewolves of this world, with supernatural strength capable of tearing through metal with claws.
"Alright, now let's move on to another foundation..." The tutor handed Archimedes a bastard sword, and he raised it with both hands and stepped forward.
The blade pointed at Archimedes.
"Space control. Come on, raise your sword and point it directly at me."
Archimedes did so, the bastard sword pointed at the tutor, but didn't reach him.
"This is my range. Here, I can harm you. Here, you can be harmed." The tutor demonstrated the difference in reach. He had longer arms and held a longsword, giving him an absurd range. He could strike Archimedes without being struck.
He stepped back.
"Here I'm safe, but harmless."
Then he stepped in too close, allowing Archimedes' sword to reach him.
"Here I'm lethal, but also exposed."
"You need to know exactly where your blade ends and where your opponent's begins." The man sheathed his longsword and pointed to a dummy. "You'll now train spatial control. Your cuts must use the tip of the blade, the edge of your sword's range."
"And of course, use footwork. Don't plant yourself like a tree while swinging your sword."
Archimedes nodded, breathing deeply. He advanced, struck, and retreated.
"Besides advancing and retreating, move in the direction your strike came from. If you attack left to right, move left. This helps you evade and makes your movement harder to predict."
Archimedes put it into practice, and he had to admit it was harder than it looked. Trying to land tip strikes while moving complicated everything.
"Breathing," said the tutor, noticing Archimedes starting to lose his breath. "Control your breathing. Movement and breathing must be synchronized. If you lose control of yourself, you've lost the fight. And if you've lost the fight, you're dead."
The exercise continued for grueling minutes until the tutor saw that Archimedes had reached an acceptable level.
"You're getting the rhythm. Rest a bit."
Archimedes collapsed to the ground, his legs burning and his arms turning to jelly.
"Now, the final part," the tutor murmured, turning his back. He raised his hands.
"O Mana, fiat terra per manus meas, tres columni molles erigantur dimidia decem pedum altae, quattuor pedum latae et duo pedum crassae ante me!"
Three clay pillars rose in front of the tutor. The chanting and sudden appearance of the pillars made Archimedes watch with fascination. He had just seen a new spell, and couldn't resist deciphering and understanding every word's purpose.
What caught his attention the most was the need to define the pillars' height, width, and thickness, something unnecessary in his lightning spell.
After a few minutes of rest, Archimedes stood up, amazed at how quickly a child's body recovered. Was this the power of youth?
"Ready to continue?" the tutor asked, seeing him rise. The boy nodded.
"Great. You'll learn blade alignment now."
"No matter how strong you are, if your blade is misaligned, it will bounce, jam, bend, or break. To avoid accidents, we use clay pillars so you don't walk away with a scar." To prove it, the tutor swung his longsword, slicing through the clay smoothly.
Archimedes swallowed hard and positioned himself. The thought of a sword ricocheting into his face was... unpleasant.
Breathing deeply, Archimedes focused. Adjusted his stance, firmed his grip, and visualized the strike.
And attacked.
He expected little resistance, but the blade got stuck halfway. He struggled to pull it free.
He continued practicing for a while. Each strike required focus, no matter the strength; the blade always got stuck if misaligned.
Alignment. Spatial control. Breathing. Movement. Sweat poured down his face, his arms ached, and his legs trembled, but he kept going, determined.
As he was immersed in the training, perfecting his strikes, a sharp bell rang through the training field.
"That's it for today," the tutor announced, lowering his sword. "Everyone to your rooms. Wash up before lunch. No one wants the dining hall smelling like mud and sweat."
Archimedes nodded, letting out a sigh of relief and dropping his sword. His muscles were exhausted, and his body covered in dust, sweat, and hardened clay. He walked back to the dorms with heavy steps.
Arriving in his room, he stripped off his dirty clothes and went straight to the bath. The warm water soothed his aching muscles.
After drying off and putting on clean clothes, Archimedes went down to the dining hall. The hall was filled with voices, laughter, and generous servings. He sat at a long table beside other apprentices and devoured the meal like someone who had fought a monster.
When he finished, he calmly returned to his room. In the room's silence, with his stomach finally full and body still sore, Archimedes ran his finger along the spines of the books on the shelf. After a few seconds of thought, he chose a volume bound in time-darkened leather and sat to read.
Chants and the Language of the Ancient Kingdom.
He blew off the dust and opened it carefully. The first pages contained a brief introduction about the text's origins, the author, a mage named Salvet, described as one of the last formal users of the original orator, and some re-editing notes.
But Archimedes quickly flipped to what seemed to be the start of the actual useful reading.
"Chants are restrictions that the mage places upon their own Will. They are verbal seals that prevent mana from acting freely through Will without restraint. They exist to protect the world... and the mage from themselves."
"Don't underestimate yourself, dear reader, overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer. You have no idea and even less understanding of the depth of malice that resides in the human heart."
"To all who wish to proceed with spell creation: define your spell's exit and target very clearly. If you're still not taking these words seriously, let me share an incident involving one of my dear students."
"He tried to create a wind spell to boost a jump, but forgot to specify the direction the force should exit his body. The air built up in his legs, and guess what?"
"That's right, his legs imploded from the inside out. He survived, but abandoned the Will's path. I was traumatized for weeks... and I sought solutions. And I did find one."
Archimedes shuddered. He remembered the first time he conjured lightning without a chant. Fortunately, he had meditated deeply on the workings of chants, or he might've turned to ash. Returning his eyes to the book, he continued reading.
"There's one word, a single word that can save your life during failure, distraction, or when a spell runs out of control: Nihil."
"This single-word chant cancels the casting as long as the mana is still under the mage's range. I also later found that it disables spells affecting the mage, malicious or not."
"Anyway, back to the topic. Every day language is filled with unconscious intent. By separating magical language from common speech, we avoid casual words causing extraordinary effects. Safety demands this distinction."
"Magic does not depend on method, only the mage's Will, be it words, dance, gestures, or painting. Will is the true engine of sorcery."
"But the Ancient Kingdom's language offers a standard that all Albion mages can follow. Writing is a common medium for transmission, documentation, and study. It's not easy to describe a dance in words, and far from efficient to draw every motion."
Archimedes closed the book for a moment and breathed deeply. Standing, he picked another book from the shelf, this one focused exclusively on chants for various spells.
Reviewing a chant, he felt confident and began to recite:
"O Mana fiat aqua per manus meas, Globus aquae parvus formetur et fluctuet ante me!"
The mana formed a small floating sphere of water in Archimedes' palm.
"Nihil," Archimedes said while staring intently at the small water orb, which began to fade. In seconds, it vanished without a trace.
Nodding to himself, Archimedes sat down again and closed his eyes. He frowned at the amount of mana he sensed, it was starting to irritate him.
He didn't know exactly how much mana he had. He could only tell when he was full or empty, and had to estimate the cost of each spell.
He felt deeply frustrated. He couldn't even say if his mana had increased over the past days.
Opening his eyes, Archimedes was determined to devise a method to determine how much mana he carried. Was it equivalent to a cup of water? A bucket? A pool?
He'd have to use a tool humans trusted to uncover truths: science.
Science is an empirical method that uses repeated testing and intensive investigation to understand the world. If magic follows laws and rules, then it can be understood scientifically.
But Archimedes remained open-minded. Unlike fanatics who deify science as omnipotent, Archimedes knew there were well-known limits that science could not explain at all. He was in a fantasy world, after all, with no high expectations.
To discover how much mana he had, the first step was to answer a question:
Does mana have density?
Archimedes used mathematics to determine whether this was true or false. If mana density existed, then it was possible to know the near-exact amount of mana in a human being.
Excited, he grabbed his grimoire, quill, and ink, and ran to the Guild merchant to see if he had the tools needed for the experiment.
"Oh, you're Whisper's roommate. What can I help you with?" Dylan, the merchant, greeted Archimedes as he approached.
"Hello, Mr. Dylan. I'd like to know if you have anything that can store mana." Archimedes hoped such an object existed, otherwise, he'd need a different method.
Dylan scratched his chin, frowning slightly at the boy's unusual request.
"Storing mana, hmm?" he repeated, thoughtfully. "I don't have a magical item that does that, but I remember buying some shards from a ruin-delving adventurer who claimed they were fragments of the Tattered Spire."
He turned and rummaged through some boxes on a high shelf, pulling out several black stones shaped like triangles.
Picking one up, Archimedes immediately felt his mana being slowly drained into the shard.
Dropping the shard, he asked excitedly.
"Do you have a scale?"
"I have a balance scale, yes," Dylan replied, increasingly intrigued. He brought out a dark metal scale with polished plates that faintly reflected the surroundings. He placed it on the counter.
Archimedes took two shards and placed one on each plate. The balance remained perfectly even.
He took a deep breath. Now came the critical part.
Grabbing one shard, he felt the mana being drawn. This time, he didn't resist; he directed the mana, as if pouring water into a bucket. The stone absorbed it eagerly, and Archimedes suddenly felt empty.
"Now, the moment of truth."
He placed the energized shard on the left plate. Dylan leaned in, eyes fixed on the movement.
The scale wobbled… then tilted. The plate with the energized shard dropped while the other rose.
"…" Both were silent for a second.
"Eureka!" Archimedes cried, clapping. "Mana has density! The shard gained mass after absorbing my mana!"
"Mr. Dylan, by any chance, do you have measuring weights?" Archimedes asked, his eyes gleaming with excitement.
"I do, yes. I use them to weigh ingredients and precious metals. A full set, from grams to kilos."
He brought out a wooden box containing small metal cylinders, each engraved with numbers on their surfaces: 50g, 100g, 1kg, and so on.
"First, I need to know the weight of the empty shard."
He placed the empty shard on one of the scale's plates and began adding weights to the opposite plate. When both sides balanced, he carefully noted the result in his leather-bound grimoire.
"Base weight of empty shard is 520g."
He removed the empty shard and the weights.
Then he placed the energized shard on the same plate. Dylan and Archimedes watched closely as the scale tilted heavily toward the stone.
"Let's see..." Archimedes murmured, grabbing a 1kg weight.
He placed it on the right-hand plate.
Nothing. The charged shard still outweighed it easily.
"Hmm..."
He grabbed another 1kg weight and stacked it on the same plate. This time, the right plate dropped heavily, tilting the scale too far in the other direction.
"Okay... that's over."
Patiently, he removed one of the 1kg weights and began adding smaller ones. He swapped in a 200g weight. Then a 100g. Finally, he put small increments of 50g and 20g until the scale wobbled slightly...
...and stabilized, the central axis perfectly horizontal.
"Weight of the full shard is 1.89kg."
Archimedes picked up his grimoire and ink-dipped quill, recording everything and noting the date of the experiment.
"So, my mana equals full shard minus empty shard. The result is..."
"1.37kg. It may not be exact, but the margin of error can't be too big, just a few grams off either way," Archimedes murmured, satisfied that everything had worked.
"This... this is fascinating. You're telling me it's possible to measure mana by weight?!" Dylan finally commented after silently watching the entire process. "If converted to liters, you could fill about three glasses with your mana. Now I'm wondering how many glasses the Guildmaster could fill."
"Three glasses are pretty pathetic," Archimedes laughed. He packed up his things and handed the materials back to Dylan. "Thank you very much, sir. I'd like to know how much these shards would cost?"
Dylan started to name a price but paused, thinking it over more carefully. Archimedes was still an apprentice and probably had no money to spare for the shards.
"Kid, I don't know what your little experiment is for, but I have a good eye for investments. I won't charge you anything. Feel free to come here whenever you want to measure your mana."
"Really, Mr. Dylan? Thank you so much." Archimedes was surprised by the merchant's generosity. After thanking him, he headed toward the waterfalls to meditate.
He now needed to see if it was possible to increase mana capacity, and if so, which method would be the most effective.