Chapter 107: The Secret of Magic

When Qiu Nuoya honestly explained his thoughts, Viktor respected them, at least for the most part. However, overprotectiveness was not something that could change overnight. Recently, even Igor and Warren had been infected by it, and Qiu Nuoya’s number of overprotective guardians seemed to be multiplying.

"Why are you so eager to work every single day, Nuoya? You don’t even have to pay rent here anymore, and you should have managed to save a decent amount of money by now, right? Kids are supposed to have more fun."

Qiu Nuoya gave Igor an awkward smile.

Yes, it was true that his savings were steadily increasing. But between upgrading his equipment and buying food for Mochi, the money disappeared surprisingly quickly.

People in this world seemed to live by the philosophy of spending whatever money they had instead of saving it for tomorrow.

However, Qiu Nuoya found that kind of uncertain lifestyle extremely unsettling. It was a value system he had brought with him from modern society in his previous life. Ideally, he would have liked to let go of such values, but the fundamental beliefs ingrained in a person were not so easy to change.

"Nuoya, you’re a little too serious."

Even Warren had started saying things like that. But what was Qiu Nuoya supposed to do to act more like a child?

Warren himself spent nearly all his time training just like Qiu Nuoya did, so Qiu Nuoya did not particularly appreciate hearing it from him.

"I’m allowed to be like this. I’m completely useless compared to everyone else. Actually, the harder you work, the bigger the gap between us becomes! How much stronger are you planning to get? Just go play with Mochi!"

"Ugh..." Qiu Nuoya could not help feeling that it was an incredibly unreasonable thing to say. He was working hard precisely because he still felt that he was inexperienced. So, being told to stop only left him at a loss.

As a result, Qiu Nuoya was occasionally forced to take breaks from his training and accepting missions. With too much free time on his hands, he began reading the books that had already been left in the rented house.

Apparently, the previous residents had been avid readers. The house contained a wide variety of books, and many of them proved surprisingly interesting.

There were plenty of novels and other entertaining stories, but there were also history books that taught the basics of this world’s history, as well as books on subjects such as alchemy.

Qiu Nuoya became absorbed in them and devoured book after book.

Incidentally, Qiu Nuoya was not particularly skilled at languages, so he could only read Chinese. It was only now that he realized this was probably another cheat ability granted to him by the gods.

Whenever he read something, the writing was automatically translated into Chinese. Likewise, whenever he wrote something in Chinese, it was automatically converted into the language of this world.

However, the reason Qiu Nuoya finally noticed this was rather amusing.

When a book contained a typo or some other error that made no sense, the automatic translation apparently did not work. Instead, the original writing from this world remained unchanged, leaving Qiu Nuoya unable to understand it and strange strings of incomprehensible symbols would suddenly appear before his eyes.

After repeatedly asking the others what they meant, Qiu Nuoya eventually realized what was happening.

By simply turning the pages of a book, he could somehow identify places where the text was incorrect. It was an ability that seemed completely useless.

However, Qiu Nuoya would later discover that this strange ability had an unexpected use. It was extremely useful when constructing magical formulas.

Basically, magical formulas are made up of combinations of written words. For example, the incantation for Fireball is a combination of the words "fire" and "ball," while Flame Thrower is a combination of "flame" and "projection."

Qiu Nuoya understood the meanings of these words through his automatic translation ability. However, he was beginning to realize that the people of this world did not seem to understand the formulas so clearly. Instead, they activated spells by memorizing the incantations exactly as they had been taught and relying on the idea that a particular spell would activate as long as they recited the correct words.

Literacy was not particularly widespread in this world. With simple magical formulas, it was possible to memorize the incantations without making mistakes. However, the more advanced the magic became, the longer and more difficult the formulas were to memorize.

Qiu Nuoya had noticed something strange in some of those formulas. There were completely unnecessary strings of words inserted into them.

More accurately, the original meaning of the formulas had not been conveyed correctly.

When Qiu Nuoya pointed out to Viktor that the formulas might contain errors, Viktor compared the book with Qiu Nuoya before he looking at him with an exasperated expression and said, "Nuoya, you might fundamentally change the way magic works in this world."

Sure enough, they later confirmed that the corrected formulas Qiu Nuoya had come up with produced more powerful spells.

So, Viktor immediately warned him, "You really should not go around telling other people about this."

Qiu Nuoya also discovered something else through this process. It concerned the relationship between magic and incantations.

When Qiu Nuoya had first met Viktor, Viktor had taught him that incantations were extremely important when casting magic. He had especially emphasized that the more advanced the magic became, the more important the incantation was. However, it turned out that this was not entirely correct either.

There was indeed a difference in magical power between casting a spell with an incantation and casting it without one. But when Qiu Nuoya considered why that was the case, he realized that Chinese homophones were the key.

For example, in Chinese, "石" (shí) means "stone," while "十" (shí) means "ten." Although they have completely different meanings, they are pronounced exactly the same.

As an example, there was a type of earth magic called Stone Projectile, which was slightly more powerful than Sand Shot. When casting it, the formula naturally consisted of "石" (stone) and "弹" (projectile).

However, if "十" (ten) were substituted for "石" (stone), the written formula would no longer make sense, and the spell should naturally fail to activate.

However, when the words were spoken aloud, both "石" and "十" were pronounced "shí." In that case, the spell would still activate.

How does that work?