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Chapter 2. Uhh… Mm… What’s that? Scary… (3)
I’m pretty amazing.
The result of the training? The effects of the bat were truly magical.
What should I say… it’s like a martial artist gaining an enlightenment in xianxia novels?
Tyranny really is the best. But one thing that’s worrying me is… they’re doing so well that I can’t really make use of the bat… Hum, hum, I mean, I’m really sad that humans are only able to work hard when punishment is involved. That’s really the case, I swear. I’m definitely not disappointed that I don’t get to hit them as much.
…Sorry. It sounds like an excuse to me, too.
Anyway, as I trained these children, I was able to find out their specialties.
Omnipotence (noun), to have the quality of superiority in all things.
It’s awesome. You can do this, you can do that, etc etc. But how many are there in the world who are omnipotent? In the past, that is, in the previous world, you needed to learn computers, English, Chinese, work… it was a harsh world.
And even when you learn all that, you can’t even get employed…
By the way, learning stuff like that’s super inefficient. They have departments, right? You just gotta know what you specialize in, right? So why do everyone demand so much from you? Why can’t we all just focus on our specialties?
Omnipotence is good, but most end up becoming a jack of all trades. Things actually work pretty similarly to the other world around here. But would I have become the head instructor if I worked like everyone else? No!
I help people dig into their specialties. How? With the bat! Talent grows with the bat! How about people who bats don’t work on? Yeah, there are sometimes those who are immune to the bat.
But… if the iron bat appears?
The master craftsman dwarves who worked in the creation of the iron bat declared that they had created the weapon of the devil, and listed it as the 2nd strongest demonic weapon the dwarves had ever created.
The 1st strongest demonic weapon of the dwarves is actually listed in the 10 strongest demonic weapons in the continent, so I think that says quite a bit about this bat.
Mm… but taking that out would mean that I would have to give up on my humanity, so I never used it save for that one occasion 9 years ago.
Anyway, there’s a solution for everything.
And the kids this time are all really distinct.
The first is 102! (He escaped the title of a child a while back)
He’s like a knight. A goody two shoes… Boring. But he’s learning little by little. He does everything pretty well. If I work him well, he’s going to be omnipotent! Because of that, he’s getting a lot of love from the bat at the moment!
Second, 46!
I’m planning on making use of her perseverance and reflexes to raise her as an assassin.
What’s hard about assassination is that you may have to stay in cover for 5, 10 years. It needs perseverance! This girl almost seems like she was born to be an assassin.
Lastly, 17! Everyone probably knows at this point, but this girl’s totally a wizard. The fact that she can change elements is a big plus!
Unlike in fantasy novels, there are no incantations in this world. Incantations are just there to visualize the spell. When you think about it, there are a lot of incantations in novels, but who the hell came up with the incantations? What kind of a chuuni came up with those incantations?! It either came about when a talented chuuni said “Fire! Decimate my enemies!” and actually killed someone, or if that wasn’t the case, it would mean that someone was trying to find incantations when no one even knew magic existed… especially high ranked magic, how would you find incantations for that? It’s super long.
Here, in the actual fantasy world, it’s not words that do the work, it’s your imagination.
Because of that, the 3 major parts of magic here is the contract, imagination, and concentration. Of course, you’d need talent to even use magic. The more talented you are, the more energy you would be able to use.
But talent is talent. It is just one of the small annoyances that exist in the world.
Because of that, as long as you can use the 3 major parts well, magic is a pretty nice subject to take up.
First, imagination.
It is to draw images in your head. Magic is a subject of mysteries, but it is also a subject that requires one to know the mysteries of the magic itself.
That’s why changing elements is a hard thing to do. Can you imagine a situation where it’s snowing, but the temperature is 40 degrees Celsius? You can easily imagine it, but what if you were to make it csome true? As long as you’re thinking something along the lines of “no way…” in a corner of your head, magic is impossible.
Holy magic isn’t called magic for nothing. It’s a magic where you imagine a miracle happening, and the gods grant the miracle to you. Your faith would be a big bonus here. Holy miracles don’t happen when you’re atheist, you know.
Second, concentration.
If imagination triggers magic, concentration requires you to maintain that imagination. If I were to put it simply, imagination is a gas burner, and concentration is butane gas? Lighting a fire is important, but maintaining that fire is important as well. If you don’t get it, your magical talent is zero!
Lastly, contract.
It’s an ability that doesn’t require talent, but rather charm and talking skills. Just like the name says, you’re trying to make a contract.
A heaven sent talent? Try fighting with a 1000 year old demon, then. You die. This simple reason is why contracts are one of the three major parts of magic. Of course, if you delve deep enough, it’s probably the hardest part of the three. If you make a mistake, your soul gets taken, and your family could be slaves for generations.
But, if you do it well? You get a nice slave!
And for that reason.
“Today, we shall contract a demon.”
I’m thinking of testing out a theory.
“…Isn’t that illegal?”
17, the future evil archmage, rejected my idea. Hey, that hasn’t happened in a while, did it?
Also, what was that about illegal? If you’re going to talk about legality… this whole organization’s illegal…
Well, it wouldn’t look cool if I responded like that, so…
“Why would you think it’s illegal?”
When I lowered my voice and said this, 17 mumbled quietly.
“Because you would be selling your soul…”
“Then why are there those who contracted demons in the empire?”
“That’s…”
There are only two reasons why demons are called demons. They are too powerful, and they want your soul in exchange for their power.
The representative demons of this world are the 72 demon kings of Solomon, the demon of the Qliphoth Tree, the demons of ragnarok, etc etc. It’s all full of familiar names. And the abilities and personalities are similar as well!
Because of this fact, I know more about demons than some demon scholars in the empire.
And now, it’s time to test my theory! If I do this wrong, 17 will lose her soul, but I’m too curious to care! Honestly, it’s going to be a while till I find someone this talented again!
“I’m saying this again, but one of the 3 major parts of magic is the contract. And summoned monsters are the only ones that requires contracts.”
“What does that matter?”
“What is a contract? It is a trade. I’ll give you my this, so you give me your that. And most contracts with demons are scams.”
“Why is it a scam?”
“A soul is something that not even gods can touch. It is something only the real god who created both gods and demons can touch. That is the price for lending a mere strength of a demon? It’s a joke.”
“…mere strength?”
“Compared to a soul, yes. It’s shit. A demon’s strength? Yeah, it’s amazing. But even gods become limited in strength in this world. But demons? They are different. They can use as much power as they want. Why is that? It’s simple. They have your soul. A soul is that powerful.”
“Then…”
“Yes, it’s possible to form a contract with a demon. They get weaker as a result, but a demon is a demon. It’s still extremely powerful. But they are extremely hard to form contracts with, and even the empire has a percentage nearing zero when it comes to contracting demons.”
“Can I even do something that dangerous?”
Yeah, it’s a bit dangerous. After all, the empire gets screwed if they fail to form a contract. But.
“You can.”
I said this with a small smile. She can do it. If I make use of the theory that I formed using the summoned pose that demon kings make, she can do it! Maybe… Mm, since it’s just a theory, my trust in it’s going down a bit.
But if this succeeds? We’ll have a great demon as a slave!
Perhaps she sensed my confidence. 17 thought a bit for a moment, then answered confidently.
“…I’ll do it!”
Btw, I think you guys mean “Gifted”, not “Talented”.
Talent can be nurtured, it’s not necessarily something you cannot hope to gain. A Gift is something you cannot nurture, it’s something you’re born with.
When you say that someone is talented, you either mean they’re gifted, or that they’re really good at what they do. It’s truly a sad case of a word, think how people feel when they’re congratulated for being talented, yet they take it as “You’re so gifted, you didn’t have to work hard at all, everything you earned was just because of the genetic lottery.”
It’s an annoying word like that.
Gifts and talents are fairly synonymous. While there can be some minor differences skill is what can be trained. If you think of it as stats and abilities then skills and talents would affect stats and gifts would be the abilities.
Imagine having 6 stats; speed, strength, stamina, health, magic, and charm. Then talents would effect your base stats. Say you can start out with up to 10 points in each stat which affect the speed you can train in that area; speed=1, strength=4, stamina= 2, health=6, magic=10, and charm=5. Then you would say they’re talented in magic as it would allow then to become good at magic faster than someone who isn’t. Skill would be whats added on from that. Say at level 50 your magic has added 72 points into the area of magic. Since you have talent in magic you gain more skill in the area with the same amount of work as someone who doesn’t have that talent.
Gifts, on the other hand, would be something like being born with an unusual ability to recover faster than normal, or larger than normal hands that allow you to swim faster (Michael Phelps), perhaps even a higher overall IQ.
Sorry for the wall of text but if you understand what I’m getting at then you realize I’m implying that this applies to real life too. I personally think the use of talent in this case is mostly correct. In the case of life sword the ability to use it is a gift however how well you are inclined in its use is talent. Skill is the effect that is put in to use it more effectively.
I know there are some typos but I can’t really edit it and there’s no spell check on the comment. Please be nice.