kscans

Chapter 469 - The Foundation of Magic Craft

"What is this, magic?"

"Nope. It's kinda like a status window."

When I pointed to the light spreading through the air and asked, the answer I got was one that made me tilt my head. At the very least, my Arcadia didn't come equipped with such a stylish, visually-maxed-out status window.

"It's called a 'D-Sphere'—a Duality Sphere. It's the 'visualized talent' that every magic crafter has. Or maybe it's better to say it's their individuality?"

"Dee-sphere."

Duality, huh. I wonder what two things it's meant to represent.

"To put it in super, super simple, bite-sized terms, how you see this, how you perceive it, and how you interpret it is the foundation—and the entirety—of Magic Craft."

"Don't 'see,' 'perceive,' and 'interpret' all mean the same thing?"

"And that leads to each artisan's own one-of-a-kind technical system."

"You've been casually ignoring my retorts lately, Nia-chan."

But I mostly got what she was trying to say. In short, it was one of those classic Arcadia things—a mysterious fantasy element that's difficult to explain with words.

"Learning about Magic Craft basically means having someone guide you until you understand your own D-Sphere. Make sense?"

"Sorry, not at all. Could you break it down into even smaller pieces?"

"Mmm... Training wheels on a bicycle. A kickboard for swimming."

I see. I don't get it. My thoughts must have been written all over my face.

"See? I told you it's hard to put into words! Once you get the Mako skill from someone, you'll get it naturally, so there!"

With Nia's words, her cheeks puffed out to signal 'impossible,' I suppose I had no choice but to pretend I understood for now.

As usual, I'm sure Arcadia's handy brain-installation feature would be involved—wait, hold on, another question just popped up.

"What do you mean, 'get it from someone'?"

"...Hey, are you really interested in anything besides combat? Isn't your radar for other genres a little too low?"

"It's not that it's low, it's that I don't have time to put it up. You of all people should know that, Lady Milmarinus, you've been involved with Haru the Acrobat since the very beginning."

I returned her suspicious glare with a half-lidded one of my own. Nia seemed to concede with a, "Well, that's true..." but then pinched my thigh, adding, "And stop calling me that."

It didn't hurt, but it was ticklish, so cut it out.

"You see, Mako isn't a skill you can acquire automatically like others. It's a special category that you can only learn by having it bestowed upon you by someone who already has it."

"What's that about? What did the very first person to get it do?"

"Ahaha, that's simple. They got it from an NPC."

"Ahh... I see. So that's a thing, huh."

It's probably not the same as becoming an apprentice... but I bet a lot of players would include that sort of thing under the umbrella of 'receiving instruction.'

From what she was saying, it didn't sound like Nia had received the skill from Nonomi-san.

"Any-way! That's kinda how it is. In the beginning, I just couldn't understand this sphere at all, and Nonomi-chan helped me out a lot with that."

"Hmm..."

Her teacher before Nonomi-san—the one who gave her the skill—you'd think they would've given her some pointers... but as I thought about it for a moment, I figured there were probably compatibility issues.

Since it was a difficult subject that couldn't be understood just by hearing about it, that would be all the more true. I suspect Kagura-san probably saw that Nia and Nonomi-san were similar types—or something along those lines.

"'How you see it, how you perceive it, and how you interpret it'... was that it? So, how does this lovely planetarium look to you, Nia—oh, is it okay for me to ask that?"

Even as an analogy, if she called it 'kinda like a status window,' it was possible that, like a combat class's build, it was fundamentally classified information.

Realizing I might have asked too casually, I instinctively hit the brakes, but Nia's reply was a light, unconcerned, "It's fine."

"To me, it's a 'puzzle.' Through that, 'Magic Craft' for me is like an attraction where I shuffle and rearrange and reconfigure the pieces—kasha kasha kasha—to create the shape I want. I guess?"

Her words reminded me of her work process, which I'd seen several times before.

The way she manipulated the multiple magic circles she generated at her fingertips, kashari kashari, now that I think about it, was indeed exactly as she described—a 'puzzle.'

"I see... yeah, I get it now. So, that means the work process also varies wildly from one magic crafter to another depending on that perception."

"That's about right."

It was still a bit fuzzy, but it seemed I had finally reached a level of understanding.

I caught the index finger of the scoundrel who tried to poke my cheek with a smug look, feeling refreshed now that my questions were more or less settled.

"You've seen Kagura-san work before, right? His method is completely different from mine, but it's not because our genres are different, like weapons and armor versus accessories and clothes, you know."

"'I see' is the only thing coming to mind. No, really, that was educational. By the way..."

Her voice was gradually starting to melt, which probably meant she was, as usual, getting sleepy while we talked. I figured it was about time to start persuading her to call it a night...

If it wasn't classified information, there was one last thing I wanted to ask out of curiosity.

"What's the sphere to Kagura-san?"

Did she somehow sense that I would take an interest—and that I already had a pretty good idea of the answer?

A grin spread across her cheeks, which were starting to slacken with sleepiness. My partner's answer was,

"...'Flame,' he said."

And it was, just as I had expected.