In the magnificent Egyptian palace, within the imperial garden planted with all manner of rare and exotic flowers, colorful butterflies fluttered about, streams babbled softly.
And fountains, controlled by pumps, sprayed water from marble sculptures carved into the shapes of various animals.
What was happening in the imperial garden at this very moment was enough to make every young person in Egypt, whether noble or commoner, burn with jealousy.
Their dream lover, and also Egypt's female Pharaoh, Nitocris, was now standing in the center of the garden, making all kinds of hand gestures with keen interest, murmuring incantations under her breath.
Behind her stood a man, guiding her movements.
Because he needed to constantly correct the Pharaoh's mistakes in hand gestures and pronunciation, the distance between the two was extremely close, so close that he was almost pressed against her.
At the same time, he placed his hands over hers to personally correct her movements. Given the posture, it was practically as if he were holding the female Pharaoh in his arms.
Even to the nearby maids, such actions were undeniably blush-inducing and heart-pounding.
Yet the Pharaoh herself seemed not to care about this at all, or rather, she appeared accustomed to such intimacy.
She allowed the man to inadvertently brush against her small hands, her exposed waist, her smooth, beautiful back, places that would normally be considered taking shameless advantage, while devoting all her attention to her studies.
"Aρατη, Υπρτατη!"
"No, your pronunciation is wrong. It should be Aρατη, Aντερη!"
"Aρατη, Aπρτατη!"
"No, still not quite right. It should be Aρατη, Aντερη! Pay attention to my intonation."
"Aρατη, Aντερη!"
"That's right this time, but your hand gesture is wrong again. Don't make unnecessary movements, especially your little finger."
"Aρατη, Aντερη!"
Sigh…
"Don't focus only on the surface. Feel your magic circuits.
Find that previous sensation. Otherwise, even if you construct the correct magic model, you won't be able to properly fill it with mana."
And so the two of them continued in the garden, one teaching and the other learning, completely ignoring the fact that their behavior had long since crossed the line of what was normal for teacher and student.
At last, after repeated practice without grasping the essentials, Nitocris sighed and gave up on the movements.
"Casting this spell is way too hard, isn't it?" she complained.
"My gestures and incantations are flawless, and the magic model I'm building is exactly what you described. So why can't I use it at all?"
As she spoke, she cast a suspicious glance at the man behind her.
"Or did you give me the wrong method? Is this spell actually impossible to use?"
"How could that be?" Alaric protested indignantly. "Didn't I demonstrate it for you earlier? This spell really is used exactly like this."
"Who knows if you weren't just making random gestures and chanting something to fool me?" the girl rolled her eyes.
"Last night, you didn't chant any incantation or make any movements at all, and you still used the spell."
"That's because I'm already very proficient with this spell," Alaric sighed. "I told you, gestures and incantations are merely self-suggestions.
The real key lies in the construction of the magic model and the control of mana… Besides, haven't you already tried casting spells using incantations before?"
"You're right," after hearing Alaric's words, Nitocris couldn't help lowering her head.
"I shouldn't have doubted you… I'm just too stupid. Maybe you should just end their lives for me instead."
"What are you saying?" Alaric shook his head and patted the girl's shoulder. "You're not stupid at all. In fact, you're already very impressive.
Not just anyone can rely purely on intuition to use Blur without any foundation, that's a second-circle spell.
Even a mage with some talent would need four or five years of study before they could cast it.
Though you haven't truly grasped the fundamental principles, the fact that you can use it through rote memorization already shows considerable talent."
"Really?" Nitocris blinked. "Then why is it that I can't learn Greater Invisibility no matter what?"
"That's completely normal," Alaric said with a click of his tongue.
"That's an eighth-circle spell. Ninety-nine percent of people with magical talent will never be able to learn a spell of that level in their entire lives.
Mastering magic of that tier requires not only talent, but also long-term accumulation. Even for you, it's impossible to barely cast it through rote memorization alone."
That's right, Alaric was currently teaching Nitocris how to quickly grasp an eighth-circle spell through sheer memorization.
It sounded like pure fantasy, but in reality, it was possible, at least for true geniuses.
Alaric himself had once been capable of doing this.
The reason Nitocris could attempt it was due to her profound attainments in Egyptian rune magecraft.
In fact, rune magecraft at this stage was, at its core, still a form of divine thaumaturgy.
However, even divine thaumaturgy represented a transitional phase toward true magecraft.
Compared to conventional divine mysteries, rune magecraft contained far more knowledge related to magic, which gave Nitocris sufficient talent and foundation in this area.
That said, although Alaric had been capable of such feats in the past, he had never chosen to do so.
The reason was simple, it was far too inefficient, and the spells produced in this way were exceedingly rigid.
Alaric preferred to proceed step by step, building a solid foundation one level at a time before learning higher-tier spells.
But Nitocris was different.
After Alaric told her that his power was neither an innate ability nor divine thaumaturgy, but something that could be learned and mastered, magic, Nitocris proposed learning Alaric's spells herself, so that she could personally take revenge.
After testing her aptitude, Alaric naturally agreed.
Even so, eighth-circle spells were not easy for Nitocris to learn.
It seemed she would still have to endure quite a bit of hardship.
Their intimate interaction in the imperial garden was naturally seen by the palace maids.
With the ministers now holding Egypt's real power, the entire palace was riddled with the eyes and ears of ministers and priests alike.
Nitocris had no one she could truly trust, so news of Alaric would soon be reported.
However, Alaric was not anxious.
In order to teach Nitocris magic, he could no longer hide himself with invisibility, especially considering Nitocris's situation, but he still had other methods.
Controlling all the maids would be too troublesome, and ordinary mind-control spells tended to make targets act stiffly, easily revealing inconsistencies.
Instead, Alaric chose to use magic to confuse the maids' perceptions. In their eyes, Alaric and Nitocris were not engaging in magic instruction at all, but rather in music lessons.
Thus, the maids discovered that their once diligent and benevolent female Pharaoh had suddenly become infatuated with a handsome musician rumored to come from a distant land, pestering him every day to learn an instrument.