"Master, are you really that happy?" Looking closely at the smile that never left her little master's face, Silas, with a soft smile of her own, couldn't help but ask.
"Of course I'm happy." And Ellis, naturally, immediately replied.
How could he not?
Between the mages, knights, and priestesses… going down the knight path at this moment, when he had not grown up, was the most meaningful, after all.
It was never simply about which path was stronger, or which one held more potential. For Ellis, it was always about something else entirely.
What did he need? What could he rely on, right now, in this moment when he couldn't afford any mishap? And when he looked at the three paths again, with everything he understood about this world… the answer became clear.
Mages were people who needed to accumulate a great deal of knowledge, not just to create a ring, or a circle as they called it, around their heart that helped in gathering mana and determined their level, but in every aspect… and that took time.
Whether it was about their strength when applied broadly, or about learning spells more specifically, as at every new circle there were countless spells one could learn.
New spells were being created constantly too, and they needed to find the right combination in their choices, as time was not on their side.
Their time was finite, yet the possibilities for magic were infinite.
That's how mages were perceived.
But for Ellis, it was not the same. The ceiling was there: the ninth circle, after all. And for him, who had already heard of the capability of the Twilight faction, able to conquer worlds, only to add them to their collection, he naturally looked higher.
Moreover, what bothered him was that he would be restricted by his choices. Mages had a weak body, and most importantly, they were unable to awaken Aura.
… While there were, however, records of some irregular individuals who defied that, managing to become magic swordsmen, able to harness both aura and magic together, and there was even a magic school, not in his kingdom, but out there nonetheless, dedicated to battle mages who fought at close range. But the scarcity of information about them, and the long time it would take to gather enough details to replicate their feat, was an arduous process he didn't want to take.
And even if he did, they still did not seem as amazing as the stories claimed.
… Setting these special cases aside, it wasn't just due to him being unable to walk the knight path that he ended up not choosing the mage path. The more important reason was that the circle system of the mages was something he could not understand the importance of. He felt it held restriction more than advantages.
Because, after his soul recovered, and Ellis came to understand just how much mental strength he had… he used his skills, trained in them like crazy.
And that's when an idea suddenly occurred to him.
Why did he need to go through the trouble of making a magic circle around his heart, of learning countless spells for every possible situation?
Take a long, a long time for that.
When he could just brute force everything?
… While he had a lot of time, and it was okay to squander some…
He still felt it was such a waste.
For Ellis, who estimated his strength now to be slightly above an average mage in the third circle, and understood that if he had just focused on magic, he would have barely touched the threshold of the second circle, it just didn't feel worth it.
Most importantly, he was able to raise his mana without any problem, without depending on making a circle around his heart at all.
So… why?
Until this moment, he was still curious about the reason why a mage needed a magic circle around their heart to accumulate mana or become stronger.
He did that just fine without circles, after all. And through his theory, other people should also be able to find a way to do this too… as long as they didn't imitate his actions when he first came in contact with mana and tried to control it, anything was fine, after all.
Ellis had already learned that one was just supposed to guide the mana. something that only came after a long time of studying magic.
Let alone the action he did at the mere age of weeks.
He was fortunate that nothing went past the point of him losing consciousness.
But, anyway, the fact that he already had the strength to beat an average three-circle mage was the most important thing.
… How did he do that, if he still had not learned how to perform magic?
The answer was simple. While he had given up on learning to perform spells, as aside from the times he needed to understand the theory behind them, he would still have to perform every spell countless times until he gained good mastery in it…
The real answer was simple, Skills!
If he could brute force, defeat everyone, with just two skills, was there a need for many spells?
Mana Bullet, and Mana Barrier. They could be said to be simple skills… and they really were so, as the counterparts of them in magic were two- and three-circle spells.
But were they really weak?
Not at all!
With a huge amount of mana, his ability Ephemeral Soul Genesis, then his system, raising their lethality was not something he considered difficult.
… Of course, that's compared to learning magic. There naturally was nothing easy, after all.
Anyway, putting aside how Ellis was already strong, despite being just four years old.
The second choice, of becoming a priest or paladin by going through the church, was intriguing on its own.