No magic

With the whisper of a word, they can make the room glow like the sun. With a wave of a wand, the trees listen to their command. With one evil idea, a person’s life could be ended with a sentence. I was born into a world full of magic. Every aspect of every day was dealt with it. A simple task couldn’t be completed without it. Almost everyone could wield it, but of course, not me. This is something I learned pretty fast; however, there was an upside to it, I guess, if that’s what you could call it. From a young age, I was so focused on learning magic and being so disappointed that I couldn’t do anything with it that I missed something that made me different, an ability I like to call “No magic”. Around the age of 7, most people began to wield magic in some vicinity. There are very few who can’t, and when it comes to those people, they are basically doomed. They have no way to protect themselves against those who wish to harm them, as magic will affect them. However lucky or unlucky as I am, magic does not affect me at all, good or bad. Magic is just a word to me. Walk with me as I tell you about what happened next when I decided to use this to my benefit.

Although I had no magical ability, I still had to attend the magic academy at age seventeen due to my family status. For 10 years, my family has been concerned about my case and its potential impact on my school performance and our standing in court. Luckily for my family, I screwed my head on right that morning and decided to use my disadvantage to my advantage. The first day of the academy held a tournament to determine the ability of the student and what rank they would receive. This is when I first debuted my “No magic” ability. I watched as many of the commoner students went first as customary. I studied them and the rules of the tournament. I found a solution, I combined my ability of “No magic” with the rule of last man standing. It’s quite simple; all I had to do was stand there and let them waste all their mana on me. You see, mana is the price that wizards and witches pay to use magic. It’s like energy inside of them, and once it’s gone, they get hit with a terrible sickness, leaving many unconscious afterward.

My plan was brilliant. I grabbed a stick off the ground on my way up and pretended it was a wand. I spoke Latin under my breath, pretending that I had cast spells, and then I let my opponent hit me with everything they had. I made quick work of climbing the ranks. I know that I made my parents proud that day. No one suspected a thing, from anyone’s view, I was just another wizard. Through my years at the academy, I remained at the top thanks to my “No magic” ability. Of course, I wasn’t stupid. I made sure to keep my studies up, and when it came to exam time, the time where I had to show off what I learned that year, the solution was simple: defense magic. I would have the teacher hit me with an attack spell, say some Latin under my breath, and stop it. I let it hit me, I mean, but it did nothing.

As I was diligent in my studies, I found some fatal flaws within my deceit. One, some wizards and witches could have the ability to detect mana. How do I counter this? I just say I learn to suppress my mana, something actually pretty common among the higher ranks of adventurers. Two, most monsters do not use mana, of course, there are some that do, but I would most likely be dead before they would run out of mana. How do I counter this? I must wield a weapon, a sword to be exact, luckily for me, as for most in the upper classes, we must learn the art of the sword, and just to be safe, I mastered the bow as well. Can’t be too careful when you have to fool the whole world. Of course, this leads us to problem number three: if I am on an adventure and I come across a monster, and everyone expects me to use magic, but I always choose to use the sword, people would get suspicious. How do I counter this? Simple, I focus my course of study on the history of magic, and I will not master defense, attack, or healing.

A decade later, now 27, and my studies done, with the academy, at least. I moved on to the Ministry of Culture and Civilizations. With my high standing in the school and my family status, I acquired a job with the ministry quite easily. However, I was at the bottom, and there was no tournament to help me work my way up. So, I started with field work, and this is where problem number two showed itself. I joined a party of adventurers who hoped they would find gold in an old ruin to the west of town. I made my standing clear from the beginning, “I know a lot about magic, but I truly never learn to master wielding it. I will only help if it’s absolutely necessary, but I will use my bow and sword as not to deplete my mana before I can study the ruins.” That is what I told them, and by this point, I had gotten pretty good at lying, or as I like to call it, not telling the whole truth. The secret to telling a good lie: sprinkle in bits of the truth. You see, I truly never mastered any magic.

After much time, many monsters and some bandits, we finally reached the ruins. This is when my “magic” had to lead the way. As I said earlier, I wasn’t stupid. I drowned myself in studies every minute of every day, studying because I could not use magic to help me; I had to rely on my knowledge. Using what I learned, I helped my party navigate the ruins past traps and down endless hallways until we found a treasure room. Using a small part of my share of the treasure as bribery, I had a fellow party member use a bag of holding to carry all the books, scrolls, and tablets back to the Ministry for me, also my portion of the treasure, of course. Which, luckily, didn’t seem too odd, as we had yet to get the treasure appraised by a priest to make sure no curses lay upon them.

After that adventure and others like it, my party became famous, and we went down in legend. Then I quickly rose through the ranks until I eventually landed myself a seat as head of the Ministry. Now, with my new job title, I no longer have to fake magic; I simply use my knowledge and experience from the years to plot out new excavations of ruins and my status to bring new knowledge as I build libraries from the stories of magic long past. Then, using my ability, I am able to keep myself safe from those who would have my head. So, in a world full of magic, I was able to fool everyone and climb my way to the top, all thanks to a special ability I call “No magic.”