"I have also been thinking about another issue: what if there is a Magus who thinks like me but cannot clarify the key point, or finds it too difficult to outwardly project their 'world,' and thus only advances their magic by learning each magic template one by one?""With time, these people will accumulate enough to become extremely powerful high-class Magus, but they will never be able to become grand-class Magus. Because even if they learn everything and bend every single magic system, it can never equal the comprehensiveness of this world, can it?"
It was not wrong that grand-class Magus could nullify any magic system, but it was not because they could do so that they were grand-class Magus.
They were already a "world"—a world with a consciousness—so the so-called nullification of all magic systems was merely a side effect, not the main point.
Now, Kain finally understood why, despite being separated by only one rank, the number of grand-class Magus was not even equal to the fingers on one hand, while the number of high-class Magus was at least in the hundreds, if not thousands, in Kanzax Province alone.
And he also understood why the Commander-in-Chief of Kanzax, as a lone grand-class Magus, could force countless factions possessing many powerful high-class Magus to bow and obey the system. The disparity between the two ranks was so terrifyingly vast that it could not be bridged by numbers.
Optis leaned back, his gaze looking toward the distance as he spoke softly, his eyes filled with deep emotion and a faint, vague regret.
"In this world, talented people are hardly rare."
"Kanzax Academy surely has no shortage of Magus with the aptitude to become high-class Magus in the future. We nobles have a few such people as well; a new generation of high-class Magus can be produced every few decades or centuries. Even among the common folk, high-class Magus who belong to no faction occasionally appear."
"Even when a generation of high-class Magus dies of old age, a new generation will succeed them."
"But looking across such a long history, with geniuses constantly being born one after another, how many people can truly touch the peak of a high-class Magus? Let alone becoming a grand-class Magus."
Optis himself had once been a man seen by others as a genius. He too had harbored great ambitions of becoming a grand-class Magus, but the higher he climbed, the more he realized that the so-called grand-class was moving further away from him.
Even with someone as outstanding as Cecilia, who became a high-class Magus before the age of 18, Optis and others only dared to conclude that she would reach the pinnacle of the high-class rank; as for the grand-class, it was too vague.
It was always merely a "possibility."
Optis had often wondered: how powerful must a person's will, perception, and ego be to truly consider themselves equal to this world? Not by deceiving oneself, not by mental suggestion, but by truly regarding oneself as equal to the world, regardless of what the actual outcome might be, so that it cannot be overturned.
"Mr. Optis, I still have one more question."
"At the end of the battle between the two grand-class Magus, I saw both of them... reveal two special things."
Kain described the blurred silhouette created by the sequence of connected light rings of Ebadon, along with the two-colored aura of Morizion.
"What exactly are these? A type of magic? Why is it necessary to manifest them like that?"
"Through our conversation just now, I think you have probably formed, perhaps even perfected, your own hypothesis, haven't you, Kain? In fact, I don't think your own answer will be much inferior to mine."
Hearing Optis say this, Kain pondered for a while before slowly speaking.
"I have indeed perfected my hypothesis, as soon as I obtained the key factor."
"If a grand-class Magus is the outward projection of their own 'world,' then in that world, what would they be?"
"This sounds a bit illogical because previously, I explained the so-called 'world' here as the sum of the entire Magus's cognitive structure. This is already the Magus, so why would another 'self' sprout out from within the Magus themselves?"
"But the truth is exactly that."
Previously, while struggling to find a new path to study magic, Kain had gone deep into understanding the nature of the mind and the ego.
At that time, he had defined the ego—the innermost center—as having two parts. One was "the self," the root, the most primal and pure essence of a human being, the clearest difference between one person and another. The second was "the impure self," the outer layer surrounding "the self," which is formed from all experiences, concepts, perceptions, and knowledge. At that time, it was by simulating the "impure self" of a Magus that Kain was able to unlock the magic seed.
Looking closer now, if the ego is the Magus's "world," then is "the impure self" not the part comprising natural rules, the operation of reality, and the construction of thought taken as a template and carved into the Magus's mind? These very things are the bricks building a part of the ego as well as the Magus's "world."
It seemed as though there was no room for "the self"—that is, in the situation of the original world where Kain currently stood, a pure world without consciousness. But in the Magus's "world"—a place with consciousness—even they must have something representing their truest self within their own thoughts.
Even so, this was still only "representing." Theoretically speaking, "the self" is a mystery, something whose existence can only be accepted but never fully proven, invisible and unknowable.
Meanwhile, that thing "representing" them, which was also what the two grand-class Magus displayed earlier, had already incorporated external elements—one being life and death, the other being endless fortification. Both were merely the simulation of "the self" by "the impure self" at the deepest level, also closest to "the self."
"Now that I have sufficient information, I think I can proceed with naming the grand-class Magus rank."
"Grand-class Magus: the redefinition of reality. To the world, we are merely individual beings living upon it, 'the world and I.' But grand-class Magus have escaped this setup; it is 'my world.'"