Chapter 168: The Second Circle

Whoosh——!

Flames lashed forward as Ilya completed the spell, crossing the practice field before striking the target dummy and spreading across its reinforced surface.

The fire remained concentrated around the point of impact rather than scattering immediately, burning for several seconds before Ilya cut off the supply of mana and allowed the spell to disappear.

"Again."

Professor Hakon Vinter stood several meters away with a clipboard in hand, watching closely as Ilya returned to his starting position.

Practical Casting II had resumed as usual after the Hunting Grounds test, and with the first-years now far enough into the term, Hakon had begun individually evaluating how far their casting had developed.

Ilya drew another breath and adjusted his posture before circulating mana through his body, guiding it through the First Circle surrounding his heart and toward his raised hand.

His fingers formed the required sign, and another magic circle appeared before his palm as heat gathered around it.

Whoosh——!

A second stream of fire struck the target, nearly overlapping the scorched mark left behind by the first.

Hakon lowered his clipboard.

"Again."

Ilya glanced at him. "Professor, are you planning to make me burn through all my mana?"

"If three basic spells are enough to empty you, I’ll lower your evaluation accordingly."

"...."

"Cast."

Ilya sighed before raising his hand again.

The third spell formed just as quickly as the previous two, but Hakon was no longer paying much attention to the flames themselves, and his eyes remained on Ilya and followed the rhythm of his breathing along with the subtle fluctuations of mana accompanying each circulation.

"Stop."

The magic circle in front of Ilya’s palm disappeared before he could release the spell.

"Hm?"

"Come here."

Ilya lowered his hand and approached while Hakon set the clipboard aside.

The professor studied him for several seconds before gesturing toward his chest.

"Circulate your mana again. Don’t cast anything this time."

"...?"

Ilya raised an eyebrow but did as instructed, taking a slow breath and adjusting his posture before beginning another circulation.

Mana flowed through his pathways, passing through the Circle around his heart before continuing through the rest of his body.

The First Circle was stable, but what caught Hakon’s attention was the mana continuing to circulate around it, gradually tracing the beginnings of another Circle that hadn’t been there during Ilya’s previous evaluations.

It was still faint and incomplete, nowhere near developed enough to be considered a proper Circle, but the direction his mana was taking was obvious.

"You’re beginning to form your Second Circle."

Ilya opened his eyes. "Already?"

Hakon looked at him strangely. "Why do you sound surprised?"

"I don’t know. I thought it would take longer."

"For most students, it does."

Ilya looked down at his chest as though he might somehow be able to see the unfinished Circle through his uniform.

He had noticed subtle changes whenever he circulated mana lately, particularly in how naturally it continued flowing after passing through his First Circle, but the development had been gradual enough that he hadn’t known what to make of it.

Hakon picked up his clipboard again.

"You haven’t crossed the threshold yet, so don’t get ahead of yourself. Your Second Circle is still incomplete, and trying to force it into existence before your mana pathways are ready would accomplish nothing except damaging them."

"How long?"

"That depends on you."

"I see."

Hakon returned his attention to the notes in front of him, although Ilya’s progress was becoming difficult to treat as ordinary.

He had entered the Magic Department as a complete beginner less than a year ago, and reaching a stable First Circle in that amount of time had already been unusually fast for someone who had spent most of his life training for an entirely different discipline.

Now, the beginnings of a Second Circle were already taking shape.

"You’ve been circulating more frequently."

"Every day."

Hakon sighed and wrote something on his clipboard. "Your control has improved as well. The Second Circle isn’t stable yet, but your mana is already beginning to settle into it naturally, so keep doing what you’re doing and allow the Circle to form at its own pace."

Ilya nodded.

Hakon looked back toward the scorched target.

"Now cast again."

"Yes, Professor."

After that, Professor Hakon continued evaluating the rest of the class, calling students forward one after another until everyone had completed their practical assessment.

By the time he returned to his office later that afternoon, he had accumulated several pages of notes that needed to be reviewed before he could submit his evaluations.

Hakon sat behind his desk and began going through them while his assistant organized another stack of papers nearby.

Most of the results were within expectations, with a handful of students performing slightly better or worse than their previous evaluations, but eventually his attention returned to one particular name.

Ilya Valentinovich Belozersky.

"First Circle, sure..." Hakon muttered as he looked over the evaluation again. "But his recent combat evaluations are off the charts."

His assistant glanced over. "Belozersky?"

"Not just him. Bellacourt, Beaumont, and several of the others are showing the same thing to varying degrees."

Hakon leaned back in his chair and tapped the paper against the desk.

"It’s strange. We’re not even living through a time of war, yet this generation seems unusually proficient at combat."

"Is that necessarily strange?"

"For wizards? Yes."

His assistant raised an eyebrow, prompting Hakon to set Ilya’s evaluation down.

"People have started associating magic too closely with combat, probably because that’s the side of it everyone hears about, but most wizards aren’t fighters. Magic has always been a field of study before anything else, and plenty of accomplished mages spend their entire lives in research without ever becoming particularly good at fighting another person."

"Even high-ranking wizards?"

"Especially some high-ranking wizards."

Hakon picked up another evaluation and skimmed through it.

"Reaching a high Circle means you possess the knowledge and ability to use more advanced magic. It doesn’t suddenly teach you how to read an opponent, react under pressure, control distance, or decide which spell to use when someone is actively trying to kill you."

"What about the Archmage?"

"The Archmage is an excellent example."

That answer seemed to surprise his assistant.

Hakon continued before she could misunderstand him.

"I’m not saying he’s weak. Quite the opposite. Put him against almost anyone alive, and he’ll probably end the fight before they have the opportunity to do much of anything, but that’s because the difference in magical power is absurd. When you can cast spells powerful enough to end an ordinary battle almost immediately, you don’t need particularly refined combat instincts."

"So he’s powerful rather than skilled at fighting."

"More or less, although saying that to his face would probably be unwise."

Hakon gave a small shrug.

"There are wizards far weaker than him who are better combatants in the technical sense. Give both sides comparable magical ability, and suddenly things like positioning, timing, deception, reactions, and experience become much more important."

His assistant looked back toward Ilya’s evaluation.

"And you think these students already have that?"

"That’s what bothers me."

Hakon pulled several evaluations from the pile and placed them beside one another. Ilya’s was among them, along with Tristan Bellacourt’s and Elise Beaumont’s, followed by several other students whose performance during the Hunting Grounds had stood out.

"They’re still inexperienced, obviously, but look at how they behave once they’re actually put under pressure. Bellacourt adjusts spell trajectories in the middle of combat, Beaumont recognizes openings quickly enough, and Belozersky..."

Hakon paused when he reached Ilya’s name again.

"Well, Belozersky fights like someone who has been doing it his entire life."

"In his case, he practically has."

"Exactly, which explains him." Hakon tapped the other evaluations. "It doesn’t explain all of them."

His assistant leaned against the edge of the desk. "Maybe they’re simply talented."

"Perhaps."

Hakon didn’t sound entirely convinced.

Talent could explain faster casting, greater mana capacity, better control, or reaching higher Circles at an unusually young age.

What he had seen during the Hunting Grounds was something slightly different, because several students in this year’s class were already showing an ability to apply what they knew under pressure instead of freezing the moment an opponent disrupted whatever spell they had prepared.

For a generation raised during peacetime, they were remarkably comfortable fighting.

Hakon’s eyes eventually returned to Ilya’s evaluation.

"And now this one is already approaching the Second Circle."