NoveLight ™
Chapter 3
The man who had checked the crystal ball hurriedly pulled out another orb from his robe and shouted something.
"Please send Professor Mavel to the main gate immediately. It's an urgent matter!"
"No, I'm telling you, someone with a celestial attribute has appeared! Would I act like this without reason?"
His excited shout quickly came to an end after the words about the celestial attribute were conveyed.
According to what Leon read in the Mana Theory, those with the light and dark attributes were considered to have celestial attributes.
This trait was seen as even more exceptional than possessing all six elemental attributes.
An elemental affinity is not just about the ability to wield an element; it indicates one's talent for mana itself, making it all the more crucial.
It was a well-known fact from extensive research that those with dual attributes were better at realizing mana and advancing in magical realms than those with a single attribute.
In that sense, having the light attribute, known as a celestial attribute, meant being born with the highest level of talent.
Soon, a magician swiftly descended from the sky.
"Who is it? Who possesses the celestial attribute?"
"This girl... I mean, this young lady here."
The bald man approached Leah and checked the crystal ball, taking a deep breath.
"It’s true! What a blessing! Haha, to think that someone with a celestial attribute has appeared in our school."
The bald man spoke a few words to her, then quickly took her up into the air and disappeared into the distance.
Leah's lingering gaze back at Leon as she ascended was the last he saw of her.
Leon was dumbfounded.
Too many things happened all at once.
He was momentarily worried about Leah being taken away, but given the reactions, it didn’t seem like they would treat her poorly.
It didn’t seem like Leah was completely uninterested in magic, either.
Suddenly, the memory of giving a long speech about magic in front of her flashed through his mind.
“Maybe I was showing off in front of someone who might become a great magician in the future…”
The man, who was left alone, then checked the elemental affinities of the remaining five, including Leon.
The man’s face, once filled with anticipation, quickly returned to normal.
They all had single-element affinities.
"Don't be too disappointed. You’ll still have plenty of opportunities to become magicians if you accumulate enough contribution points or wait just one year."
He then took the remaining children into the city, introducing them to various places and entrusting them to those in charge before leaving.
Leon was left alone at the library.
He was informed that it was a magical library where lower-level magic books were stored.
The person in charge of the library was an old man with gray hair.
The old man, with a gentle expression, didn’t show much interest in Leon.
Although he spoke softly, he explained Leon’s tasks in an even-toned voice.
“This is the old magic library. The latest magic books are managed elsewhere, and we’re preserving these outdated ones here because it would be a shame to discard them.”
He told Leon what his tasks would be.
“You will be responsible for cleaning the first floor, organizing the borrowing list, and occasionally sorting the shelves. Visitors find books on their own and put them back in place. Oh, and don’t go up to the second floor. Just managing the first floor will be enough.”
Leon thought that his duties weren’t bad at all. His impression of the place changed entirely.
Although he didn’t like being brought here against his will, it wasn’t like he had been subjected to horrific experiments he had feared, and it was a great environment to access magic.
He felt he could focus more on his training than when he was at the orphanage.
He was particularly pleased that there wasn’t much to do.
His assigned quest was to study the Mana Theory.
All he had to do was sit still and read, which was perfect to combine with his library tasks.
It didn’t seem like many people would visit this library that stored old magic books.
After learning his tasks, Leon went to the dormitory, which he had been previously shown.
The dormitory was better than the sleeping arrangements at the orphanage, but they still slept in groups.
He met the kids from the orphanage again, except for Leah.
All of them seemed to have bright faces, probably because their tasks weren’t too difficult.
Above all, the fact that they could now see magic up close, which they had only imagined, seemed to stir their childish curiosity.
The kids started talking loudly amongst themselves.
“It might be better to work at the library.”
Leon wondered if he could get a private room with contribution points.
Days Passed
As the old man had said, there was nothing to do but sit at the entrance of the library.
Occasionally, magicians who visited this place would search for something in the artifact placed at the library entrance, quickly find and read a book, then leave it in place and disappear.
Rarely, some wanted to borrow or copy books; for borrowing, Leon received money and made a list, and for copying, he received more money and used an artifact to transcribe it.
The transcription artifact didn’t require mana.
It was an artifact with an embedded magic core.
The old man didn’t talk to Leon, nor did he instruct him to do anything.
He was always alone, holding a book and disappearing somewhere.
It was great.
It seemed like that old man’s lifestyle was the situation Leon had dreamed of.
In any case, Leon’s pure learning time increased dramatically.
The library’s hours were from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a lunch break in between.
Excluding the morning cleaning time, organizing time, lunch break, and the afternoon organizing time, he had five hours solely dedicated to studying the Mana Theory.
After work, he returned to the dormitory and studied alone for two more hours, then the other kids came back after their tasks were done.
Then, Leon would quickly wash up, lay out his blanket, and sleep alone.
He slept during the time when the kids were most active.
Waking up at 9 p.m., he ate a late dinner with some simple bread and then read the Mana Theory again from 10 p.m. until 1 a.m. before sleeping.
That way, he accumulated ten hours of pure study time daily.
With that schedule, he could draw rewards every day.
“Is it Leon’s sleep method rather than Napoleon’s?”
After adapting to the early stages, he completed three quests over five days.
During that time, the quest content didn’t change...
And the rewards still didn’t change from the single-element affinity.
Like a gacha game, it seemed the higher elemental affinities had low probabilities.
Of course, what was important to Leon was the knowledge of magic he learned from reading the Mana Theory.
Specifically, the midsection he was reading was primarily about the origin of mana and basic magical knowledge.
The concepts of mana quality and elemental affinity, which are fundamental talents for learning magic, knowledge about magical realms, academic explanations about mana, and methods to realize mana were the contents.
After meticulously reading for five days, he had retained most of that content in his mind.
The remaining later sections provided basic explanations of elemental magic.
And then.
The quest content had changed.
“I’m doomed.”
Leon scratched his head in embarrassment after checking the quest content.
The reason he had put off mana perception training was not only because the quest content had been fixed to study the theory but also because mana perception training required a mana-rich location.
The only places he was active were the dormitory and the magical library.
Dormitory? There was no way it had abundant mana.
The same went for the magical library.
If it were rich in mana, it would have already been a place for magicians to use for training, not a place for ordinary people to do chores.
That was the first time Leon headed to the contribution point exchange center.
Entering a building the size of the magical library where he worked, a few people were already occupying the seats.
They were all ordinary people like Leon.
Leon examined the exchange list that covered the entire wall behind the receptionist.
He was looking for a place where he could conduct mana training.
He soon found what he was looking for.
[Mana Concentration Room (24h) - 50 Contribution Points]
"Ah…"
He couldn’t suppress the sigh of regret that escaped him.
He could earn ten contribution points by working for a month.
He would need to work for five months to use the mana concentration room.
After adjusting to this place for a few days, Leon was already realizing how hard it was for an ordinary person with a single-element affinity to become a magician.
Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many people doing chores in the buildings around the entrance without even entering the city center.
They did give opportunities.
But the door of opportunity was as narrow as the eye of a needle.
It seemed they thought they had already determined their limits based on talent.
It wasn’t strange.
Countless studies had already proven that talent was everything to a magician.
Dejected, Leon returned to the dormitory.
It was almost time for his roommates to arrive, so he couldn’t proceed with the quest further.
He took out the hidden black orb.
The number displayed on the orb’s surface was 40.
The number increased each time he completed a quest, but he couldn’t think of a way to use it.
He had thought mana might be needed because it looked like an artifact.
But after confirming that the library’s artifact worked without mana, he had already tried various other methods.
He tried all sorts of bizarre methods.
He even considered swallowing the large orb.
Leon sat before the orb, deep in thought.
“If it doesn’t work by injecting mana…”
Suddenly, a method flashed through Leon’s mind.
“Why haven’t I tried this?”
Leon bit his thumb with his teeth.
After a sharp pain, a drop of blood began to form on his thumb.
He let the drop of blood fall onto the orb.
Then the orb started to buzz.
Sensing something happening, Leon quickly grabbed the orb.
After staring intently at it for several minutes.
The vibrations ceased, and soon Leon’s consciousness seemed to be sucked into somewhere distant.