The Mist Vol 1 Chapter 8

Vol 1 Chapter 8

Looking at the dejected person in front of him, he took a step back. The distance had felt uncomfortably close.

"Um... Is the job change test that difficult?"

After hesitating, he cautiously asked, and the other person fired off words as if they had been waiting for this.

"Ah, you must have already changed to a different job, right? When you enter this Wizard Tower, if you haven't changed jobs, a test is automatically generated. People say there's one where some old man appears and spouts nonsense like what happened to me, another where the entrance corridor becomes endlessly long and you have to find a fork in the road, and there was one more... Well, anyway, that's how it is. I've been here since morning, and I've only seen about ten people succeed in changing jobs. Is this okay for the second day after opening? Are they telling us to change jobs or not to? How on earth are we supposed to play this game?"

It seemed like they had wanted to say this to anyone they could grab. However, this test method would only be difficult at the beginning of the opening. With only three set methods, once people who had already passed shared the keywords with others, it would likely become a mere formality that anyone could pass... But explaining all that was too bothersome, so he gave a perfunctory response and left the Wizard Tower.

"Open information window."

As he opened the information window for the first time, a translucent window soon appeared before him.

Everything except for "Mage" was at 1. He felt the need to quickly learn magic and level up. But...

"...How do I learn magic?"

Suddenly, the image of the assistant NPC inside the Wizard Tower came to mind.

The reason he had come out was to avoid standing out... But there's no helping it.

Reluctantly, he went back into the Wizard Tower. As he followed the assistant's guidance to the second floor, he could feel the burning gazes of numerous other users who had not yet changed jobs, along with the sweat flowing down his back. Among them was surely that user who had spoken to him earlier. The thought of having to sneak out later made him sigh involuntarily.

Following to the second floor, he was guided to a private room. As he entered, a hologram suddenly rose from the empty space.

[ Welcome, you who are qualified to learn magic. ]

The hologram rambled on about how magic is great for making the power of nature human and so on, and after a while, it changed into a small human silhouette.

[ The basics of magic is to draw a circle as a promise and greeting to follow the great power of nature. ]

Along with the words, the silhouette extended its right arm forward and drew a large circle, just as the old mage had done during the job change. However, while the old mage had seemed to do it rather casually, this silhouette was drawing the circle slowly and largely, perhaps because it was for beginners.

He also extended his hand and slowly drew a circle in the air, and surprisingly, the trajectory of the circle he drew began to appear as light in the air.

[ After completing the circle, the next priority is to grasp the image of the magic you want to cast. ]

Image?

[ Now, let's try to grasp the most basic image of fire. ]

Whoosh!

He was startled and stepped back for a moment. Suddenly, a fire had flared up in front of his torso. Despite there being no medium to burn, the heat of the blazing fire could be felt from where he stood.

[ Remember the image of fire well. An image involves remembering the texture, temperature, shape, process, and so on. ]

He didn't do anything foolish like trying to push his hand into the fire to feel its texture. Although it was a game and he wasn't sure what would happen, he felt that touching that fire would be dangerous, as if he might really get burned.

Following the hologram's advice, he started to look at the fire for about a minute, and the endlessly changing appearance of the fire first entered his mind.

How to describe it? It was like a lizard's tongue, flickering as if ready to devour something at any moment.

The colors were quite diverse, not just red, but also scarlet, yellow, white, and even blue hues. Since this fire was created by magic, it seemed that rapid temperature changes were fine.

[ If you've grasped the image, now set the range of the magic you want to manifest and then recall that image. ]

The fire disappeared, and simultaneously, glowing lines like graph paper were drawn across all the space in the room. Regardless of whether it was in the air or on the walls, everything was filled with vertical and horizontal lines, as if the world had transformed into a mathematical graph.

After pondering for a moment, he extended his hand forward again, placed it in the center of the glowing circle he had drawn earlier, and looked at a spot about 1 meter in front of him while spreading his thumb and index finger, which had been in a fist, to about the size of a fist. Amazingly, a fire flared up at that exact location, the size of a fist. This was truly a sensation he had never experienced anywhere else.

Thinking that Yoon Seok-ho hadn't been bragging about THE MIST for nothing, he was marveling anew when the hologram appeared again.

[ You have succeeded. Congratulations. THE MIST's magic can be basically learned and used like this. However, the most important thing is the incantation. Even if you succeed in all the previous steps, if you can't say the incantation at the same time, you won't be able to use the magic. ]

"...Cancel that. How troublesome."

The previous steps were manageable, but who could easily concentrate, set the range, recall the image, and babble an incantation with their mouth all at the same time? This wasn't just a hunch, but a feeling that being a mage in THE MIST would require extraordinary perseverance. Swinging a sword would be easier since it could be done without much thought.

However, the sensation of actually feeling oneself use magic and the sense of achievement from concentrating on something and succeeding after a long time were truly quite pleasant. It was a feeling similar to reaching a new level in kendo, and he found himself smiling unknowingly as he listened to the hologram's explanation.

[ Incantations exist separately for each magic, and as you rise to higher circles and become a high-level mage, depending on your level of training, you can shorten the incantations for lower circle magic or even use them without incantations at all. ]

"Hmm."

He wondered how much training it would take to reach that level.