Jin stood across the street, staring at the building that supposedly housed the “Magic Tower.”
For a long moment, he said nothing. Just took it in—the dull grey stone, the squat shape, the sign that flapped gently in the breeze like a lazy afterthought.
- “What…is this?” - He'd imagined more.
From everything he’d read back on Earth—novels, manga or even in games—"Magic Towers" were supposed to be grand with spiraling towers piercing the sky; floating platforms; pulsing runes; arcane fire dancing in the air. Hell, maybe even a robed lunatic cackling from a balcony. Something… more.
Instead, what stood before him was a modest, three-story stone building with two iron-banded doors and a single wooden sign that read:
Solaria Central Magic Research Division
No fanfare nor mystical energy. Just a pair of armored guards standing casually by the door like they were keeping watch over a storage warehouse.
So, this is it. The so-called Tower where legends are born... and reality checks get handed out.
Jin exhaled through his nose, a quiet smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.
- “How is this called a ‘Tower’ when it only has three stories? Looked like my old University Library”
He stepped inside anyway.
The interior lobby wasn’t much different—clean, well-lit, and… entirely underwhelming. The back wall had a counter where a few staffers were sorting scrolls. To the left, a wide notice board posted spell update memos and potion compatibility charts. To the right, there were shelves filled with basic staffs, mana crystals, and neatly wrapped spellbooks—each tagged with prices.
And tucked into the corner?
A small cafe…like a cafeteria? Really?
They’ve got a restaurant in here? Jin thought, half-amused, half-disoriented. Next thing I know they’ll offer lunch combos with elemental lessons.
There were robed people moving in and out—black, grey, some navy-blue—carrying books, scrolls, and potion trays like it was a very strict university campus. No one floated. No one wore robes with stars. No magic carpets.
Without much hope, he approached the reception counter. A man sat behind it, flipping through a thick ledger with the kind of precision only someone deeply married to routine could possess.
Jin’s retina scan pulsed softly in his vision.
Keval didn’t look up. Jin cleared his throat.
- “Uh, hi. My name is Jin Kazama. I was expected to meet Duchess Elrion Vaelis here?”
Keval’s hand paused mid-page turn. He raised his eyes slowly, scanning Jin from boots to brow with the kind of clinical detachment usually reserved for magical artifacts or unpaid library fines.
A long second passed. Then two.
- “Wait here.” - he finally spoke.
Moments later, a door to the side opened with a soft chime.
A young woman stepped out in deep violet robes, her silver-blonde hair tied in a short braid, a quill stuck behind one ear. She moved quickly, her boots making just enough noise to be heard but not enough to be rude.
She stopped in front of him with a polite smile that tugged at mischief.
- “Welcome to the Magic Tower, Sir Jin,” she said smoothly. “I’m Nira Velith. I’ve been assigned to assist you today. Master is in her office and... anxiously awaiting your arrival. Please, follow me.”
Jin followed as she led him down a short corridor and through a door two rooms in. The chamber was barely large enough for four or five people, with smooth stone walls and a single entrance.
Inside, there were no windows nor sigils. Just walls.
Jin glanced around, then at Nira.
- “Sooo…where…is this training room? Meditation cell? …Trap?”
- “Teleportation chamber.” - Nira laughed softly.
Before he could ask more, the door behind them shimmered—and vanished.
For a moment, Jin felt weightless. A faint tug pulled at the edge of his consciousness, like a dream shifting behind closed eyes.
Then—
Ding.
The door reappeared.
Only now, it opened into a long corridor with bright crystal lighting, high-arched ceilings, and wide, rune-etched doors lining each side. Mages in colored robes moved through the halls—some with glowing potion bottles, others levitating stacks of tomes.
Jin stared, slack-jawed.
- “Did we... did we just…?”
- “Yes,” Nira replied smoothly, “we’ve just teleported to the top of the Tower.”
He looked back through the open door, then at the new hall, then back at her.
- “But... it’s a three-story building. Shouldn’t we just use stairs?”
- “Would you like to look out the window?” she said, her tone positively playful
Curious, Jin walked to the nearby crystal window, leaned forward—and froze.
Below him stretched an endless sea, glimmering with the morning sun. Far beneath that, he could make out cliff faces and waves crashing into jagged rocks. The “tower” walls ran down so far it was like staring into the spine of a mountain-sized monument.
To the left, a lush meadow stretched out from a terrace he hadn’t seen—complete with magical fauna grazing under hovering sunlight filters.
- “This is...” Jin’s mouth hung open. “This is a whole continent disguised as a building.”
Nira giggled, clearly enjoying the reaction.
- “Welcome, Sir Jin. You’ve just arrived at the real Magic Tower.”
- “Real Magic Tower? Like… what was that?” Jin asked, half-exasperated as he tried to keep up behind Nira.
- “Well, you didn’t expect all of us to cram into that tiny building down in Solaria, did you? That was just a lobby.” - She chuckled
- “A lobby?”.
- “Yeah,” she said casually, weaving through a trio of mages hauling a cart of glowing herbs. “One of many, actually. We call them doorways, or ‘lobby nodes’ if you want to sound official. The real tower’s location… well, it kind of changes.”
- “Changes?”
- “Mm-hmm.” Nira glanced back at him, grinning like it was the most normal thing in the world. “The First Master made the entire tower mobile, you see. It jumps locations depending on its Master’s mood. Some days it’s by the ocean. Some days, on a cliff. Once it was inside a giant tree—ugh, the humidity that day.” She waved it off. “Point is, lobbies are fixed doorway to this tower so mages across the continent can reach us. Think of them as... stable gateways.”
- “So, what you're saying is… the Tower doesn’t actually exist in a fixed place, and we just got pulled into a floating goddamn mystery box because your master was feeling flighty?” - Jin slowed, trying to parse all that.
- “Exactly!” Nira beamed, sidestepping a floating stack of books. “You’re catching on, fast.”
Jin’s brain stopped briefly. All of his thoughts—questions, awe, confusion—compressed neatly into one internal scream.
I’m… F—
- “Sorry—left turn!” Nira called over her shoulder, yanking him by the sleeve before he collided with a chalkboard that was… floating. And arguing with itself.
After navigating through a hallway more chaotic than a university finals week, they finally arrived at the furthest door on the corridor. Tree-vines coiled lazily across its frame, pulsing faintly with green mana. The door itself looked alive—weathered wood carved with symbols that pulsed when they approached. The doorknob wasn’t metal, but a crystal sphere etched with a twisting script.
Just as they stepped close, the door swung open on its own.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
And a voice—bright, urgent, and already half-distracted—called out from inside.
- “Jin! Welcome! Come in—quickly. I’ve got something to show you!”
Nira grinned and gestured with a dramatic sweep of her arm.
- “After you, Sir Meteor.”
The chamber was both magnificent and a mess.
Books floated midair with half-open pages, parchment sheets were pinned to walls by magical darts, and glowing crystals buzzed around an overstuffed desk buried in notes. A swirling orb hovered in one corner, dripping drops of silver mana into a cracked flask that looked dangerously close to exploding.
And in the center of it all stood Duchess Elrion Vaelis.
Or at least, the version of her not currently posing for royal portraits.
Her long silver-blonde hair was tied in a haphazard knot with a quill stuck through it. Her outer robe was unbuttoned, slipping off one shoulder, and her left sleeve was scorched—still faintly steaming. Arcane soot smudged her cheek. Her once-elegant demeanor had been replaced with wild-eyed focus, ink-stained fingers, and a faint scent of burnt parchment.
She turned the moment Jin stepped inside, her eyes gleaming with the same excitement one might see on a child discovering a new toy—or a researcher about to detonate something no one told her not to.
- “Jin!” she beamed, stepping over a scroll-strewn floor with the grace of a predator, despite the madness around her. “You’re here. Finally. Come—come in! You have no idea what you’ve done to me!”
- “Good morning to you, too,” Jin muttered, glancing at Nira, who only grinned and backed out of the room like she’d just handed off a ticking box. “Um…Where’s duchess Elrion?”
- “Haha, very funny. I haven’t slept since last night,” Elrion said proudly, “not a single wink. The moment I returned from the palace, I locked myself in here and began experimenting with your concept. You said about combined spells, yes? Stacked them on top of each other until something greater came out? It was madness. I loved it.”
She didn’t wait for confirmation. She spun and waved her hand toward a floating board.
- “And now, I can do it too—sort of. Not your Meteor, no—but close enough! Watch!”
She clapped her hands, drew in a breath, and chanted under her breath. Her magic surged.
Above a wide runic circle in the center of the floor, five glowing ice lances shimmered into existence—then hurled down in sequence, smashing into a reinforced stone target with deafening cracks.
- “Whoa—” Jin flinched.
- “It’s still unstable, and I nearly turned my table into a glacier,” Elrion admitted cheerfully, brushing a few ice shards off her desk. “But that’s progress!”
- “I call it” - She twirled, smiling. “well, I hadn’t named it yet. It mimics your meteor’s downward force but channels it through frost affinities. A sort of aerial ice barrage…”
- “Blizzard.” Jin, without thinking, muttered under his breath,
Elrion froze mid-spin. Her ears twitched. Her eyes lit up.
- “Blizzard…” she whispered, testing the word on her tongue. Then louder, “Blizzard! Yes! That’s perfect! Cold, swift, overwhelming—yes, it’s sharp. It fits! Thank you, Jin!”
She practically bounced as she wrote it down on a floating note.
Jin pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled, and shook his head slowly.
Who’s mentoring who now...?
Elrion spun back toward him, eyes gleaming like she’d just discovered a new layer of the universe.
- “Now, tell me everything. What other spells can you invoke? What affinities do you use? Ratios? Do you structure by sequence or element layering first? What mental image do you hold when casting? What’s your chant formula? Sequential or disruptive patterning?”
- “Uh…” Jin blinked.
She was already pacing, conjuring a quill and notepad mid-air, furiously scribbling notes.
- “And when you cast Meteor—what was the ignition chant? How many seconds delay between the earth-binding and the atmospheric pull? Did you fuse fire with gravity, or did you shift the gravitational weight into the fire element? No, wait, maybe it was…”
- “Duchess,” Jin cut in. “I, uh... don’t know any of that.”
- “What do you mean you don’t know?” - She stopped. Slowly turned.
- “I mean…” he scratched the back of his head, feeling like he’d just told a math teacher he got the answer by guessing. “I know how to use spells and all but to explain it like that…Besides, I don’t know how chanting works. I don’t use it.”
She squinted, as if trying to decide whether he was joking.
- “If anything, I just… imagine what I want to happen, the results and call out the spell name, and… it works.”
Silence.
- “You don’t chant,” she repeated slowly, eyes narrowing.
- “Not unless I’m copying someone else for show,” Jin said, honest. “And as for ratios, affinities, whatever you called them—I don’t know how that works either. I just kind of… think about what the spell should do and mash stuff together until it feels right.”
Another silence.
- “I’m basically a beginner, okay?” - Jin added quickly - “Most of the time, I’m messing around and hoping I don’t blow myself up.”
Elrion walked to her desk, gently set her floating notebook down, and leaned on both hands.
Then let out a long, soulful sigh.
- “…Of course. Of course, the first person in the history of magic to create an aerial bombardment-level fusion spell is a complete amateur with no formal training, no magical theory, and no internal chant matrices. Naturally. ”
- “Sorry.” Jin winced.
- “No, no—it’s fine,” she said, voice absolutely not fine. “It’s wonderful. I’ve been researching layered elemental invocation for thirty years, and you’re out here casting world-ending spells because you think really hard about them.”
She took a deep breath, held it, and released it like she was purging a demon.
Then turned to him with a dazzling smile.
- “In that case, no gain dwelling on that. Guess, we’re starting from scratch.”
- “Eh?”
- “You,” she pointed at him, “are going to learn the actual foundation of spellcasting. Real theory. Real control. No more making things up and hoping they don’t create craters.”
- “I mean, I haven’t cratered anything since the Chimera—”
- “And in return,” she said over him, ignoring the defense entirely, “you will advise me on everything you try. Every spell. Every experiment. If you think of something weird, you tell me. Immediately.”
- “That is not student-mentor relationship. More like I become your assistant.” Jin stared.
- “No, you become my new problem,” she corrected, “which is better. Now, lesson one begins immediately. And no more calling spells by what they look like. We’ll name them ”
- “…But Blizzard—”
- “Exception,” she said quickly. “That one’s genius.”
Elrion snapped her fingers, and a glowing glyph appeared on the floor behind her. The entire room shimmered slightly as a magic circle lit beneath their feet.
- “Come,” she said. “Time to move. Theory is one thing—application is another.”
In a blink, the chamber dissolved, and Jin found himself standing in a massive training hall. The air was crisp. Mana hummed faintly in the walls. The far side held target dummies made from layered monster-hide and alchemically reinforced wood—definitely not straw. These things were built to take punishment.
Elrion strolled across the marble floor, arms folded, completely back in her element—half-professor, half-obsessed inventor.
- “You said you don’t understand mana, yes?” she asked, glancing at him sideways. “Then we start there.”
- “Yeah. I feel it, but to me, it’s just like energy to spent in order to invoke spells, no?”
She raised a hand.
- “Look, mana is the base—pure, unshaped. But to cast actual magic, you’ll need to shape it. You assign it purpose. Slowly changing its characteristic into a form of the assigned element. The form you want to manifest is tied directly to your thoughts, emotions, and in advanced cases, image clarity.”
- “So, like... if I think about a fireball, it becomes one?”
- “Yes, but it’s more than just thought. It’s alignment,” she explained, summoning a small orb of water that floated above her palm. “Every mage is born with affinities. Elements they harmonize with best will cost them less mana to convert. A fire mage trying to control water will be a wasted. A lightning mage attempting to shape earth might barely scratch it. Even I, despite years of training, can only wield three elements reliably.”
- “Only three?”
- “My affinity is frost, which sits between water and wind.” She nodded. “I can manipulate both to roughly 80–90% efficiency. But Earth? Fire? I’ve studied them for decades, and still, I can’t call on them without backlash.”
She turned to him, eyes narrowing slightly.
- “Your turn. Focus. Don’t imagine a spell—just feel the mana inside you. Let it move, and then... push it outward as water. Think cool, flowing, pressure—not destruction.”
Jin held out a hand and tried.
He could feel it: the usual warmth in his core, the kind of instinctive hum that came before a cast. But now, instead of thinking attack, he followed her advice. He imagined a quiet stream, a mountain spring, cold and smooth. The mana shifted.
And a glowing orb of water floated in front of him.
Elrion blinked.
- “That was fast.”
- “I just did what you said.”
- “No,” she said, watching it intently. “You did it like someone who’s been doing it for years.”
She gestured toward one of the scarecrows.
- “Ok, now try to hit that target with the orb. Push it like a projectile. Don’t overthink.”
Jin did. He pulled his arm back and hurled the orb forward.
The moment it hit the dummy—boom. The water burst outward, smashing through the reinforced core and snapping the scarecrow clean off its stand.
Elrion stared.
- “…That target is reinforced. I’ve seen C-rank mages bounce spells off of it.”
Jin rubbed his arm, surprised himself.
- “I definitely felt something changed…indeed, much less mana was consumed.” - Then he paused. “Wait. Let me try something.”
Before she could object, he conjured another orb of water—this time smaller, tighter. He closed his eyes, focusing.
Inside the orb, he gently twisted his mana—adding a touch of wind, just enough to cause motion. He imagined it spinning. Spiraling. Compressing. A vortex wrapped in water pressure.
He shaped it into an arrow.
Then fired.
The projectile vanished in a blur.
It struck the second target dead-center—and erased it.
The top half of the scarecrow exploded in a splash of water and force, sending the base flying several feet backward.
Elrion turned to him slowly, her expression unreadable.
- “…What,” she said, voice flat, “did you just do?”
Jin looked at his hand.
- “Uh… made a spinning water arrow? I tried to do this before but the mana cost was insane, so I did not use it often.”
- “You added wind into the water and compressed the internal structure into a spiraling core. That’s Tier-Three spell fusion,” she snapped. “That’s supposed to take years of study.”
- “I… just thought it’d hit harder that way, back then.” Jin shrugged helplessly.
Elrion covered her face with one hand.
- “I don’t know whether to strangle you or submit a paper to the Arcane Congress.”
Then she paused—slowly lowering her hand. Her eyes narrowed.
- “Wait a moment. You used Meteor in the arena, didn’t you? That’s a fire-elemental fusion. So why is your water spell this strong?” - She tilted her head, voice sharp with suspicion. “What’s your magical affinity, kid?”
Jin scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
- “Uhh… I don’t know. Since, I haven’t test it out yet. But I think I can use pretty much… all of them?”
Elrion’s eyes twitched. A pause. Like the Tower itself was holding its breath.
- “All of them?” she echoed, like she hadn’t quite heard him right.
- “Yeah,” Jin said casually. “Like—if I change the water into fire, like this—”
He raised his hand again. This time, no hesitation. A flick of mana, and a small bolt of fire manifested, twisting into a narrow spiral. It flared just for a moment—a whisper of heat and red light near his fingers—then disappeared.
Not faded.
Disappeared.
In the next instant, the scarecrow on the far end of the room erupted into a fireball and blew apart in a smoking heap of ash and charred wood.
No warning. No visible travel path. Just boom.
Elrion stared at the burning wreckage.
Jin lowered his hand and frowned slightly.
- “Huh. That was even faster than the water one.”
He turned to look at her—only to find the Duchess frozen, lips parted slightly, her expression a mixture of shock, awe, and full-system reboot.
- “…What,” she whispered. “What… was that?”
- “Fire arrow. Same twist thing I did with the water, but hotter.”
- “No. I mean—what are you?”
- “Erm… even it’s you, duchess, don’t you think it’d rather rude?” – Jin retorted.
Elrion said nothing.
She simply walked away from him, muttering under her breath, hands waving as if arguing with ghosts.
- “Affinity-neutral… he’s affinity-neutral… No, that’s not possible. That’s a theoretical state, not an actual one—he shouldn’t even be able to manifest tiered layering across opposites…”
She whirled back toward him.
- “Can you use Space Magic?”
- “What’s space magic?”
- “It’s the manipulation of dimensional boundaries. Folding, storing, relocating—any interaction with spatial structures outside of elemental form. Sub-space pockets, teleportation, spatial slicing…”
- “Okay,” Jin nodded, thinking of the Tower’s principle “...so magic that messes with location and storage?”
- “In… crude terms, yes,” she said, clearly trying not to look offended. “It’s advanced, Jin. High-tier scholars spend years mastering the smallest application. The ability to open a sub-space pocket alone is considered a fifth-circle specialization.”
He rubbed his chin, thinking to himself Sounds like inventory magic in games...
Elrion snapped her fingers and conjured a small, shimmering tear in the air beside her. She reached in and pulled out a thick spellbook, then dismissed the sub-space with a flick.
- “This is the basic form,” she said. “Even many towers’ scholars struggle to stabilize one this clean. Now…” She stepped back and pointed at him. “Try it.”
He gave it a shot. A pulse of mana radiated from his palm… but nothing happened.
- “Focus on your mana, guide it with precision—not force,” she instructed. “Imagine pulling the air apart. Not with destruction, but with purpose. Your intent must be sharp.”
- “Got it,” Jin said, though he clearly didn’t.
She walked toward the back wall, a hand glowing as she activated a rune panel.
- “I’m going to reset the targets. Keep practicing until I came back, ok?”
Jin stood alone in the training hall, hand still raised, brow furrowed.
Alright… control, not force.
He exhaled and tried again. A slow stream of mana gathered in his palm. He shaped it gently, tried to fold it outward… Nothing. Ten minutes passed, and then more. Still nothing happened.
He tried visualizing a door. A cut in the air. A zipper of a pocket or a bag. A twisting tunnel. Something that made sense.
He could feel the mana reacting—but not obeying.
He sat down cross-legged on the marble floor and closed his eyes. Let his mind still.
Think… pulling space apart without damaging it. Like folding paper without tearing it. Like... holding the air and convincing it to open, not break. Do I have to imagine myself as those Arr***ca guys from Bl**ch and open gates to Edmundo?
He tried again.
The mana shifted slightly this time. A ripple of resistance. And there, suspended in the middle of the room, a clean, stable sub-space crack swirled into existence—gentle, balanced, and untouched by distortion.
Right then, the training room door hissed open behind him.
- “Well, if you haven’t set yourself on fire, that’s progress,” Elrion called, stepping in with two trays and a smirk. “I brought—”
Her voice cut. Stopped. Then she dropped both trays. One clattered, the other landed face down, soup splashing over her boots. Yet she kept staring at the rift in space. At the doorway Jin had somehow willed into existence like it was nothing.
- “Hey, uh… so I think I figured it out.”- Jin turned slightly
Elrion didn't respond. She just walked forward slowly—like a priest approaching a miracle—and stood beside him. Then, as if on autopilot, she lifted a trembling hand…
And slapped his shoulder. Hard. The sound echoed like a spell had gone off.
- “Do you even know what you’ve done?” she breathed, eyes never leaving the dimensional fold.
- “Open a bag?”
- “You didn’t open a bag… You opened a door.” Elrion gaped at him.