Ch 19 The Balance of Mana

Why does everything in the world have to be symmetrical?

Trees were symmetrical. Desks were symmetrical. Buildings were symmetrical.

Even magic, the very foundation of this world, demanded perfect symmetry.

Ivan bit down hard on his lower lip.

In a world built on perfect balance, Ivan’s arms were asymmetrical.

“…Why, won’t it work?”

Standing alone in the training room, he failed once again to cast a simple [Fireball].

All he had to do was gather his mana, condense it in the space between both hands, and shape it into a geometric cube.

That was it. That was the basic foundation of magic. So what did losing a single arm have to do with him losing his ability to cast? This wasn’t fair.

Ivan gritted his teeth and tried to manifest a mana cube in front of his remaining left hand. He tried to trick his body, raising the wooden prosthetic strapped to his right shoulder as if it were a real hand, trying to bridge the gap and gather his mana.

His internal mana flowed through his left hand.

But the unstable mana shattered into nothingness, scattering into the air like broken glass.

Ivan let out a trembling sigh and aggressively ruffled his hair.

One-armed, flunk-out who couldn’t even cast basic magic.

On the verge of being expelled from one of the most prestigious academy on the continent.

That was his reality.

“I came so far… why?”

Ivan dropped his head into his hand.

He wasn’t like the other students at this academy. He didn’t come from a wealthy, noble household. He wasn’t born a genius overflowing with innate talent.

He was just a son of a dirt-poor farmer.

But despite his low birth, he had craved magic more than anything else in the world.

It started when he was five years old. He had been playing in the back of a merchant’s wagon when he accidentally stumbled across a grimoire hidden among the cargo.

<Magicology 101: The A to Z Guide to Casting Like Lord Asterion>

It was a beaten-up, dog-eared book filled with incredibly difficult theories.

But the moment he opened it and traced the formulas on the page, he felt a spark ignite inside his brain.

From that day forward, he decided to become a mage.

He found out much later that the book wasn’t actually written by the legendary Archmage Asterion himself, but that didn’t matter. He spent every waking moment after that secretly training his mana alone in the fields.

Tracing the invisible circuits of mana in his mind made his heart race far faster than the feeling of dirt under his calloused hands ever did.

There was an indescribable, electrifying thrill in gathering mana. It felt like stepping out of the flat, two-dimensional world he had lived in his entire life and crossing over into an entirely different dimension. The mysterious, humming energy that started at his fingertips and flooded through his entire body constantly pulled him forward.

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Eventually, Ivan crossed paths with a mage from the academy who happened to pass through his village.

Desperate, Ivan poured his heart into proving his passion, and miraculously, he secured a scholarship to Aeterna Academy.

But it’s all over now.

The practical exam that day was supposed to be a routine subjugation of low-level monsters.

But a massive Venom Viper—a monster that never spawned on the 2nd floor of the Abyss—suddenly appeared.

The other students had instantly scattered, screaming, or completely frozen up in terror.

When the Viper lunged, aiming to rip Kale to shreds, Ivan was the only one who threw himself forward to intercept it.

He managed to save Kale, but he couldn’t dodge the Viper’s venomous fangs. The monster’s jaws clamped down on his arm, and the necrotic venom immediately began to spread up to his shoulder.

The professor arrived seconds later and slaughtered the Viper, but to save Ivan’s life, they had no choice but to amputate his arm on the spot.

“You were incredibly reckless, Ivan. Charging in without assessing the situation. How do you think this reflects on my reputation for recommending you to this academy? You must train to balance your mana without that arm. Do you understand?”