There are three things that make up magic.
This was something Ojo had once told me when I was on the island.
“With sufficient mana and the knowledge to wield it, one can use any magic,” he said.
He paused, closing his eyes as if organizing his thoughts, then added, “But why, then, do their powers vary? One person’s flame can burn a mountain, while another’s can’t even light a piece of paper. It’s too vast a difference to simply call it talent.”
Hearing this, I conjured a simple spell.
A tiny flame flickered on the tip of my finger.
Watching it, Ojo continued, “You lack talent for offensive magic. This stems from an issue of will. When the will and purpose behind the magic are clear, the magic becomes more potent.”
He raised a finger and drew a magic circle.
A gentle breeze emanated from it and snuffed out my tiny flame without resistance.
“You lack the will to harm others. Whether it’s due to your past life or the nature of your soul, I can’t say. But it’s clear that this has shaped your talents.”
Without will, magic weakens—a lesson I had learned in childhood.
After that, I avoided fighting whenever I could, even during my university exams.
Over time, my offensive magic grew even weaker.
Perhaps that’s why I kept failing.
I had always blamed it on a lack of talent, but maybe, as Ojo said, it was a lack of will.
This issue of will applied to the self I wanted to create as well.
I began researching shadows because of the shadow given to me by Professor Heisen.
It mimicked me, borrowing my talents to animate a doll.
Watching it, I thought the shadow had copied me and gained my abilities.
So, I tried merging the shadow with the doll.
But through countless attempts, I realized I had been mistaken.
The shadow mimicked me only because it formed a connection.
The entire shadow wasn’t truly linked to me; only tiny “stars” within it were.
These stars, upon connecting to me, could borrow everything from me.
They simply lacked the strength to wield it until they took a definite shape.
I had misunderstood the relationship.
The shadow itself wasn’t important.
No matter how I tried to shape it, it lacked the essence to hold form.
That was why Heisen’s shadow was so extraordinary.
Creating such an essence isn’t something anyone can do—not even a powerful wizard like Baun, who still attends her lectures.
And yet, I aimed to take on that challenge.
Other magicians would have laughed at me.
‘Copying a professor’s creation?’ And I was just a first-tier mage with barely a seedling of magic to my name.
But it wasn’t my intention to take on something this ambitious from the start.
All I wanted was to optimize mana efficiency, but one step after another had brought me here.
It was too late to turn back now.
I had to see it through to the end.
The past month had been spent with that resolve.
Creating self-awareness in a shadow was a grand magic.
From my prior attempts, I knew roughly how much mana it required.
I also had enough knowledge about the process.
Magic should work with those two components.
But this magic—the one to create self-awareness—kept failing.
I figured it must be a problem of will.
Not my will—I had endured too many painful days to lack resolve.
What was missing was the will within the shadow.
I recalled the first time my shadow connected with me.
It was so faint, its presence barely noticeable.
But it kept signaling to me through the connection, delighting every time I acknowledged it.
Over time, it shaped itself to resemble me.
That exchange, woven into magic, created the shadow as it was now.
Similarly, I needed to instill a core within the doll using the shadow as a link.
This core would harmonize with my mana and the doll itself.
Through endless exploration and experimentation, I finally found the most suitable core.
I gazed inward.
Inside my chest stood a towering tree, grown so large it could no longer grow further.
It was my seedling.
***
During my time in the slums, drug addicts were everywhere, and they often cut down their magic trees to trade for drugs.
These trees, valued as ingredients for magical elixirs, fetched high prices.
In the slums, these magic tree branches functioned as a kind of currency.
I, too, had once cut mine.
It was when I urgently needed money to open my shop.
I knew the pain of cutting it down.
Back then, I swore never to cut it again.
But this seedling was the perfect core for my shadow.
There were no alternatives.
Taking a deep breath, I gathered my mana and gripped the seedling tightly.
Then, gritting my teeth, I tore it out.
A searing shock coursed through my body.
The sensation of something ripping from my very soul overwhelmed me—a pain far deeper than mere flesh.
My whole body trembled, and my vision blurred.
The agony made it hard to breathe, but I couldn’t stop.
I pulled the seedling out, spilling a handful of blood along with it.
A small branch emerged from my mouth.
My shadow caught it and planted it into a prepared shadow.
Carefully, it transferred the branch to a pseudo-shadow space.
There, amidst the strange mana, the branch began to root itself into the shadow’s pre-formed mana core.
I felt a faint signal brushing against my mind—a connection forming.
I knew, in that moment, a new entity tied to me had been born.
Its intelligence was incomparable to my shadow.
The connection was fragile, and it possessed only the faintest will.
This weakness likely stemmed from the fact that my tree was still just a seedling.
But it was enough.
I poured my will into the shadow.
My spirit touched it, pouring into it.
The strengthened connection allowed me to sense its existence more clearly.
It took root within the shadow, evolving into a new form.
Neither wholly real nor entirely illusory, it radiated a mana distinct from my own.
It instinctively began using a spell—a spell neither learned nor created by me.
It was the one spell engraved in my soul alongside the tree: “Magical Deep Breath.”
Through it, the entity began to breathe, faint and unstable within the shadow.
I continued to pass my will to it.
Though it trembled as if on the brink of collapse, it kept breathing.
With each breath, it stabilized.
The shadow dimmed, leaving only the mana core glowing faintly as it emitted mana.
‘Was it a success?’
I swallowed hard.
It felt strange—separate from me, yet undeniably connected.
The entity continued to breathe.
But I wouldn’t know if it had succeeded until it connected with the doll.
Placing the doll into the pseudo-shadow space, I watched.
Though my tree was rooted in it, the doll wasn’t yet its master.
That role belonged to the doll.
The shadow sensed the doll and approached, cautiously connecting itself to it.
Success was crucial.
I watched anxiously.
***
Time passed without my noticing.
The doll stood still, showing no rejection or change.
The shadow, emitting its strange mana, remained connected.
Relief washed over me, leaving me weak with exhaustion.
This was progress—something I hadn’t achieved before.
Still, it wasn’t over.
I carefully drew the doll out.
The shadow clung to it, forming patterns across its surface.
Suddenly, as if overwhelmed by the new environment, the shadow quivered violently, expanding and contracting in rapid succession.
I watched tensely.
There was nothing I could do. This was its process of adapting to the world.
All I could do was strengthen my connection to it.
The mana heart within the shadow began “Magical Deep Breathing” once again.
As it did, the mana heart started to beat, gradually stabilizing the shadow.
Once the shadow calmed, it collapsed to the ground, pooling at the feet of the doll.
Then, it began to mimic the doll’s shape.
Eventually, the doll moved.
Its movements were clumsy and awkward, as it tottered forward and occasionally fell.
It wasn’t me moving, nor was it my shadow.
The doll was moving on its own, guided only by the shadow’s mana.
The shadow drove the doll, and the doll guided the shadow.
Together, they intertwined, growing into an entity that supported itself.
“Aha-ha-ha!”
I fell to the ground, laughing uncontrollably.
Even though it felt like my chest was being torn apart, I didn’t care.
I laughed, even as blood spilled from my mouth, rolling on the floor.
Success.
It was a success.
The completed doll had a faint sense of self.
It was connected to me but had also become an independent existence.
An overwhelming sense of fulfillment filled my body, so much so that I couldn’t feel the pain in my chest.
I laughed until it felt like I was crying.
***
‘How much time had passed?’ I didn’t know.
Suddenly, my mind cleared, and I jumped to my feet.
I couldn’t stop here.
I had to create more dolls, more selves, and more shadows.
My instincts screamed at me to continue.
Having secured success, I immediately brought out another doll from the collection.
My first target was Cassian’s bear doll.
It was the most intricate and perfect doll among them all.
If I could imbue it with a shadow, the others would undoubtedly be easier to handle.
Biting my lip, I tore another branch from my tree.
Once again, soul-rending pain overtook me.
Clutching at my trembling mind, I handed the branch to my shadow.
The shadow, already prepared to handle the bear doll, planted the branch within it.
Inside the shadow realm, the shadow began to stir once more.
‘Would it succeed again?’
With excited eyes, I watched the shadow.
I poured my entire focus into the fragile connection.
Slowly, the shadow began to breathe.
When I placed the doll inside, the shadow connected to it.
The same process continued even outside the realm.
The branch, through its “Magical Deep Breathing,” stabilized the connection between the shadow and the doll.
“Ha-ha, ahaha!”
I couldn’t hold back my laughter.
The entire process was excruciating, yet at the same time, exhilarating.
My tree had been cut down, diminished, and weakened.
But even so, it willingly sacrificed itself.
When I lacked the strength to tear off more, it split itself apart for me.
In the midst of all this, I realized something.
I had been feeding my seedling endlessly, pushing it to absorb as much mana as possible.
Since arriving at the university, it had grown to its limit, swelling with energy.
But that was the extent of its growth.
It couldn’t take the next step forward.
At that point, I had felt despair, thinking it was my limit.
Yet through the act of cutting down the tree, I understood.
This tree was the embodiment of my talent and will.
Cutting pieces of it to infuse the shadow was like cutting away parts of myself.
But that was the nature of magic.
The magic I had used before was merely a technique to manipulate mana.
True magic lay beyond that.
To reach the next level—to surpass one’s limits—required sacrifices and decisive actions far greater than the goal itself.
By offering parts of my tree, I connected with the shadow and, through it, with the doll.
In losing pieces of myself, I gained a shared existence with another being.
Through this, I came to understand that the essence of magic lies in defining the relationship between oneself and magic.
That relationship was where will resided.
***
Two hundred and one dolls began to move.
They stumbled awkwardly around the workshop, their movements jerky and uncoordinated.
I watched them with a faint smile, unable to summon the strength to move.
My tree had been stripped down to its roots, leaving almost nothing behind.
Yet I felt a myriad of connections.
The countless shadowed selves, born from the fragments of my tree, now guided me.
These shadows were no longer mere puppets bound to obey my commands.
They contained both my will and their own, forming lives of their own.
The collective will of the dolls resonated within me, creating a profound harmony.
The countless wills began to break down the walls within me.
They advanced, shattered, and consumed.
It was something I could never have accomplished alone.
The seemingly insurmountable walls crumbled like sand in the flow of their resonance.
A tremendous sense of relief filled my chest.
The walls had fallen, but my body wasn’t reconstructed, nor was my tree restored.
It remained weak and barely standing.
Yet it began to root itself deeper into the shadow.
It extended beyond its original size, beyond the space where its roots once grew, beyond my physical form.
The shadow expanded endlessly, forming the image of a massive tree.
Within it, the wills of the dolls shone like countless stars.
They scattered light through the dense shadow.
This was the new tree I had cultivated.
It was no longer a seedling but had evolved into the form of a young tree.
Having crossed this threshold, I understood how unstable my control over mana had been before.
Mana wasn’t merely fuel.
It was now a medium that carried my will, spreading the shadow of my tree far and wide.
I finally understood why this stage was called the “young tree.”
I had always wondered why the step beyond the seedling was named that.
But upon reaching it, I understood.
This was the stage where one must continue expanding their tree to establish their domain.
I examined my tree.
Though the massive shadow had formed, the tree itself remained meager.
I would need to nurture it again.
The new unique magic I had nearly completed had vanished entirely, swept away in the transition to this stage.
Yet I wasn’t saddened.
Instead, I found a new form of magic filling the void—no longer “Magical Deep Breathing,” but something I would call “Imitation Soul.”
By infusing the shadow of my tree into the dolls, I had created shadowed selves that shimmered with life and shared wills.
Because these selves were incomplete, I called them imitations.
If I continued to grow and refine this magic, perhaps one day I could call them true souls.
I had clung too tightly to everything before.
I had hoarded so much, unwilling to let anything go, and had suffered because of it.
Only after letting it all go was I able to move forward.
The mixture of exhaustion and fulfillment weighed heavily on me.
My vision blurred, and I closed my eyes.
“Good, this should last me for another five hundred years.”
I could almost hear the professor’s voice echoing in my ears.
Thank you for the chapter!