Iron Powder and Spellcasters

  Chapter 6 The third hand and fifth limb

   Watching Ike tossing aside, Winters was noncommittal.

   Given the Army's desire for spellcasters, it is unlikely that potential cadets will be missed.

   But it is very immoral to deny other people's dreams at will, even with the truth.

  Ike worked hard to "use magic", his face gradually got closer and closer to the stone bench, his expression gradually became hideous, and his eyes were almost sticking to the water droplets.

   Considering today's temperature, the water on the slate will vaporize sooner or later, regardless of whether Ike has magical abilities or not.

   "Anything special?" Winters asked.

   "Yes, my eyes are very dry."

   "I just love your sense of humor."

"Water cannot be used to test potentials, otherwise special equipment will not be needed to screen casters." Winters explained why water testing is not possible: "General Antoine Laurent once mentioned that it takes magic to vaporize a drop of water. , it takes more mana than accelerating an arrow like a hundred-pound bow."

"But the general just mentioned it casually and didn't have a detailed argument." Winters added: "But I can also feel that water is the most difficult liquid to vaporize. Do you now understand why acceleration spells are considered the most lethal? ?"

   "I don't see any use for vaporizing water, but accelerating an arrow can kill someone?" Axel answered tentatively.

"Yes, the difficulty of casting spells is not related to the power of spells." Winters thought of the embarrassing status of fire spells and couldn't help shaking his head: "Magic does not exist for killing, humans are just picking out the most suitable magic for killing. "

"What's there to say? After practicing swordsmanship for ten years and being shot to death on the battlefield, isn't it more aggrieved?" Ike accepted it easily, and he inferred from one fact: "The Lord didn't create steel and gunpowder for killing, right? Wasn't it used to kill?"

"Um."

  The water droplets on the stone bench have completely disappeared, and Ike has no sense of using magic. He is a little frustrated: "I really don't have the talent for magic."

   "Not necessarily, you can't measure it with water anyway."

   Winters comforted Ike: "If you want to test, I'll take you to Teacher Christian tomorrow, he should have a way."

   "Which Christian faculty?

  [Christian] means believer, there are too many people with this name in Luyuan.

   "Director of the Spellcaster Teaching and Research Section, he should be the most powerful spellcaster in the Lu Yuan. Don't worry, he is very kind, and it will be no problem to ask him for help."

   "Forget it, just try it, I don't think I'm really a spellcaster." Winters volunteered to help Ike find someone to test, but Ike became timid.

   It is one thing for the two of you to take a few drops of water and test it, but it is another thing to go to the director of the teaching and research department and use a special instrument.

   "You still tell me what it's like to use magic." Ike was curious.

   "I can't describe it in words." No matter how Winters organizes the language, it can't describe it properly: "I'll give you an example, can you describe colors to a person who is born blind?"

   This question stopped Ike as well. He was stunned for a while, and came up with various descriptions, and finally admitted: "No, how do people who never know what color mean to understand color?"

"The same is true of using magic. How do you describe the feeling of using magic to someone who has never experienced magic before?" disabled."

   "Of course I can understand what you mean." Ike said with a mild smile: "It depends on the standard of normal people. If the caster is normal, then we are indeed disabled."

   "You are a normal person, and the caster is an alternative." Winters quickly stopped the topic: "I'll try my best to describe the feeling of using magic, but it's not very accurate, and it's limited to my feelings."

"OK."

"Sometimes there is a very strong squeezing feeling, like the whole space is pressing towards me; sometimes there is a very strong stinging feeling, like being stabbed by a knife; sometimes it is very cold, and sometimes it is very hot." Tes frowned, recalling the feeling of using magic.

   He continued: “The point is that these sensations are not coming from anywhere in my body, like someone else is being beaten but I am in pain, you know phantom pain?”

   "After the amputation, the soldier feels that his amputated limb is still there, and he still feels pain?"

"Yeah, it's like phantom pain." Winters nodded. "But for me, phantom pain is not caused by a part of the body being cut off, but by a part of the body that I've never had. .

   The part of the body that produces the pain has no flesh, but it feels solid. It's not accurate to say it's a body, but I don't know how to describe it exactly. As I just said, color cannot be depicted to the blind. "

   "I understand a little bit about what you're saying."

"That's why Alliance spellcasters refer to magical talent as the invisible 'third hand' and the 'fifth limb' beyond the four limbs. The numbers three and five have important symbolic meanings for Alliance spellcasters, so Alliance spellcasting The Association of Writers is also called the Three Five Associations.”

   Winters drew a symbol on the stone bench with his hand dipped in water. He first drew a regular pentagon, and then connected a line from one vertex of the pentagon to the other two vertices to divide the pentagon into three triangles.

"This is the symbol of the alliance spell caster. You can see its shape. A regular pentagon is divided into three triangles, which can represent the third hand and fifth limb, and the three triangles can also represent the three major types of magic." Winters explained to Ike the meaning of the symbol as he drew.

   "So this is the sign of the caster? I said why you wear this badge every day, I always thought it was the sign of the Hailan Association!"

   "Don't you know it's the mark of the caster?"

   "You didn't say it."

   "You didn't ask."

   This chicken/egg cycle continues with no end.

   Winters quickly remembered something again: "Didn't we have a counter-magic tactical class?"

"It was only after listening to the description of the teacher of the anti-magic class that I felt that the spellcaster could kill me with a hook." Ike said with a smile: "The magic he talked about in the class was different from what you told me. "

"I think the anti-magic class should be talking about Richard IV's royal thugs during the Sovereign War, the court mages." Winters understood what was going on: "The court mages are few and very mysterious. Their training The content and the method of implementing the spell are unknown to outsiders."

Winters recalled what he had learned about court mages in his literature class: "Scholars from the Frymans recorded that the emperor of the ancient Silk Kingdom had summoned a meteor shower that destroyed hundreds of thousands of rebels. A spellcaster who can light a candle simply cannot understand how such a super spell can be achieved."

   "Summoning a meteor shower? If the court mage is so powerful, can the lunatic Richard still be unable to defeat Guitucheng?"

   "So I think this part of the ancient book is also mostly bragging. Anyway, it's bragging, and it must be bragging." Winters laughed.

   "Book of the Later Han Dynasty, Emperor Guangwu Ji": At night there are meteors falling into the camp, and during the day there are clouds like a broken mountain.

   "Book of Jin Xuandi Ji": He met with Liang at Jishi, and fought against the plains. Liang could not enter, and returned to Wuzhangyuan. There will be a long star falling to the bright barrier, the emperor knows that it will be defeated, and after dispatching an extraordinary army, he will cut more than 500 ranks, gain more than 1,000 births, and drop more than 600 people.

   "Book of Jin Xuandi Ji": There are long stars, white in color, and mane, flowing from the southwest of Xiangping City to the northeast, falling into the Liangshui, and the city is shocked. Wen Yi was so frightened that he had his prime minister Wang Jian and the censor Liu Fu beg for surrender, and asked him to release the siege and be bound.

   (end of this chapter)