Dream Life Vol II Chapter 45.3: “Professor’s Ability”

“Mm-hm, even with this magic, it looks like it could penetrate the knights’ armor. It is powerful enough.” (Ruspede)

　After saying this, the professor glanced at the fifth-year students.

“Look at other people’s magic and immediately increase the power of your own magic. It is not enough to simply imitate. You have to devise your own way, just like them.” (Ruspede)

　The professor nodded again with a satisfied expression, then looked at me, saying, “Is there anything you want to ask me?”

　I was more concerned about earth magic than fire magic, and it seemed to show in my expression.

“About what you did earlier, building an [Earth Wall] and then changing it to a [Stone Wall], for the life of me I can’t figure it out.” (Zack)

　The professor asked with a pleasant expression, “What about it?”

“I can use the magic of [Earth Wall], but I think it takes a lot of magic power to make something that big. And also that speed. Isn’t it the same with [Stone Creation], turning that much volume of soil into stone would be difficult even with a very large amount of magic power. It seemed to me that the professor had some special technique in mind, but for the life of me I can’t figure it out.” (Zack)

　The question I had was whether there was some kind of device used to build the stone wall. No matter how high-ranking a magician he may be. In terms of the absolute amount of magical power “MP”,  It is impossible to build a stone wall of that size with my method. Perhaps it is a characteristic of his race as an elf, but I could not see the value of his magic power. Even a first-rate magician has at most four or five times as much magic MP as I do.

　The professor kept an amused expression on his face and asked, “You have a hypothesis, don’t you?” He asked me.

　I had a theory in mind, but there were many things I could not fully explain. However, the professor was not going to give me an honest answer unless I answered him, so I presented my theory, which was partially lacking.

“There are still many parts I don’t understand, but I have an idea. Creating matter with magic requires a lot of magic power. But if it is a phenomenon, the amount of magic power consumed can be reduced. The [Earth Wall] is probably made from the soil on the ground, and if so, it leaves traces of the soil on the ground. As far as I can see, there are no traces of soil around it, so I don’t know how the professor did with it.” (Zack)

“ Hmmm. You have a good point of view. I can almost say that you are right. What about [Stone Creation]?” (Ruspede)

“I think [Stone Creation] is a similar method. …To begin with, [Stone Creation] is a magic that hardens soil to create stone. Unlike the wall of soil, it only changes the nature of the soil, so I think there must be some way to do it, but I also don’t understand this one at all.” (Zack)

　When I said this, the professor asked Sharon, “What do you think Miss Jakes?” Sharon shook her head, saying in a small voice, “I don’t know.”

　The professor leads us to the charred stone wall.

“Mr. Lockhart, make a stone yourself.” (Ruspede)

　I did as he said and made a small stone from the soil on the ground and offered it to the professor.

　He took it and picked up his own stone that had fallen nearby.

“Look at them carefully. I think you will immediately notice the difference.” (Ruspede)

　The stone I made is like a sandstone made of hardened sand, and if you hit the stones against each other, they shatter rather easily. However, when I looked closely at the professor’s stone, I saw that it was made of cement-like sand mixture and some kind of fine substance.

　I muttered, “Is this plaster?”

“You’re right. I was thinking of something like plaster. To turn soil into stone, the usual way is to harden it by making it stick together, but I’m using the image of coagulating it as it solidifies.” (Ruspede)

　I asked him if it was a matter of creating a coagulant-like substance, which would consume a lot of magic power.

“Not necessarily. I compared the magical power to turn soil into stone and the magical power to create a substance by coagulation, and compared which was greater. And the most efficient one was the one that combined the image of solidifying and the image of coagulation. It would take less than a tenth of the magical power of magic with the image that simply solidifies soil.” (Ruspede)

　I was impressed.

　It is true that if the proportion of coagulant is high like cement, it will consume a lot of magic power. However, if it’s just an image of using something like glue as a small amount of support, it shouldn’t consume that much magical power. Even so, if a stone wall can be built with one-tenth of the current mana, it is quite possible to build a castle wall faster.

　I tried to create a stone with the image that the professor had described.

　As expected, it was not one-tenth the amount, but the amount of magic power consumed was reduced to a fraction of the current level.

“Amazing. But why is this magic image not common?” (Zack)

　The professor chuckled as if he had just heard an interesting story.

“You’re really interesting. I, you, and the chosen ones like Miss Jakes can probably remember this image, but it’s hard for ordinary people to grasp this image. I wrote something similar in a grimoire, but the general image is that stones are hardened soil, or that soil is crushed stones. They can’t reproduce it as easily as you did unless they began to believe otherwise.” (Ruspede)

　It is true that biases are something that cannot be easily dispelled. I myself often think so, but when it comes to magic, I can understand it well by looking at Liddy.

　Liddy is a wind attribute magic user, but Sharon and I are good at [Swallow-Winged Blade – Swallow Cutter]. She is good with the [Whirlwind Blade – Wind Blade], but her power is reduced only when she forms it in the shape of a swallow. She has practiced a lot, and she can even guide it, but even so, she can’t control it as finely as Sharon and I can.

　When I asked her why, she replied that it was precisely her bias that were getting in the way. It is difficult for her to imitate living things with magic. Liddy can easily imitate tools with magic. This is probably because she assumes that magic is a weapon and a tool.

　Sharon, on the other hand, has seen my magic at a very young age, so she doesn’t have that bias. Even my Peltier effect magic was easy to replicate for her.

　I asked him again about my first question, how he had created the [Earth Wall].

“About that [Earth Wall] you mentioned earlier. Can you do the same thing here by eliminating the bias?” (Zack)

“Yes, it’s not that difficult. It’s not that difficult, but since it’s a problem… Let’s make this your homework. Mr. Lockhart, please get your thoughts together before the next lecture. By the way, this is also in my book, but don’t ask Professor Elvine – Liddy’s old friend, Kitely Elvine – about the book.” (Ruspede)

　After that, I used magic to the extent that I didn’t run out of magic power, and received the professor’s advice.

　Finally, the professor disposed of the stone wall that he made.

“This is an application of what I just said. If you imagine breaking down the material solidified…” (Ruspede)

　Saying this, he puts his hand on the stone wall and casts [Sand Generation – Sand Creation] spell. Then the solid stone wall turned into a pile of sand, just like the pile I had made in the sandbox.

“Well, something you made yourself can be easily broken down, though natural stone is a bit more difficult.”

　I almost dismissed the idea of such a thing, but the magic of turning stone into sand has more uses than I thought.

　It can be used to dig tunnels in rock piles, and if it can be partially converted, it can also be used to process stone materials. Furthermore, it can be used to extract metal from metal ores, and when cultivating farmland, if large stones can be converted into soil, the labor required to cultivate the land will be considerably reduced.

　When I mentioned this to the professor, he said.

“You are really interesting. What kind of development process you would do to make that happen? It never ceases to fascinate me.” (Ruspede)

　He said that and laughed.