I Couldn’t Afford to Buy Mana, so I Started Streaming

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Chapter 1: The Calculation is Complete!

“Alex, I’ve finished the calculations! I’ve derived the energy dissipation rate from the Alphaburn model, and I’ve confirmed that energy is dispersing on a smaller scale at a higher rate than expected!”

The lead researcher gave a fleeting glance and left without reacting, turning to another researcher.

“Hey, Branson, do you know what’s for dinner tonight?”

“It’s Kentucky Fried Chicken, apparently.”

“Again? Ugh, it’s always tacos, burritos, tortillas, and KFC. These Hispanic chefs have absolutely no creativity. Let’s just eat out.”

Cecilia, who had been standing there in a daze, finally spoke up again.

“Um…”

“Yeah? Got something to say? You can leave if you want.”

“I think this calculation result will be important material for the project’s interpretation stage, so I’d like to participate a bit more!”

Right after hearing that, the lead researcher scoffed.

“Look—Cecilia, this will be done in a day or two even if we leave it to ASI. And you’re a Rice University graduate, right? Not an astronomy major. Just match our numbers and submit them on time. If we push you too hard, someone might accuse us of child abuse. You’re already 15; can’t you spare us a thought?”

“Oh, um… yes! I will do that.”

“Set up a self-exploration project, yeah, and have Branson examine it.”

“You’re passing this onto me.”

“I’ve been watching her for three months. Now it’s your turn to sacrifice a bit.”

Once Alex and Branson left, Cecilia, alone again, glanced back at her computer.

The conversation had whirled by like a hurricane.

She realized all too easily that it was filled with interruptions, disdain, and humiliation.

“I’m still young and lacking. If I just work a bit harder, I’ll do well…”

A stagnant workplace didn’t welcome young geniuses.

A young genius couldn’t adapt to a prejudiced society.

No matter how hard she dug into her research project, would anyone really take her seriously?

She spent every day alone in the office, sketching alien figures.

“This idea is interesting.”

Scratching away—Na-me was diligently taking notes.

Watching Na-me’s long eyelashes flutter made Cecilia just stand there in a trance.

* * *

We returned to the Fort Worth Athlete Village accommodation and continued pondering the storage tower.

When we had to interpret the sun numerically, we had to use ASI to solve it.

In the meantime, I hadn’t forgotten to assign homework to Kain Eli.

“Here you go. A gift.”

“What’s this?”

“Jon Marshall’s performance analysis data. Since it’s also somewhat similar to Eli’s play style, I thought you’d gain a lot by casually giving it a read.”

“This is quite hefty. Thanks! I’ll read it all in my room later.”

“What are you talking about? You can’t leave this room until you read it all and can answer my questions.”

“Eek!”

Bang!

Thus, a bizarre three-person study group was formed.

Flippity-flap—

Eli flipped a page of the electronic paper.

Clack-clack-clack-clack—

Cecilia continued to rush around the room, lost in thought.

“Why is the Bestial rune used here?”

“Let’s see… this stabilizes the leaking mana when connecting the L-1 circuit to the P-2 circuit!”

“Feedback is received from A-1, the Psyche?”

“That’s right.”

“Why is it set up this way? Oh, the L-2 is already overloaded.”

Tick-tock—

How much time had passed since then?

Gurgle—

“Huh?”

A hungry sound echoed from Eli’s stomach.

Cecilia and I looked at Eli simultaneously.

“Oops, sorry for interrupting your concentration, guys, but we should probably eat soon—”

Suddenly, I wondered why Cecilia had assumed a ninefold mana concentration.

In my view, the difference between the mana concentrations of the past life and this one felt roughly between nine to ten times.

If the mana concentration drastically changes, then of course the magic circle used should also change.

For that reason, the spells I primarily used in my past life couldn’t be utilized in this one.

Of course, I could change them with diligent research…

But anyway, there are much better spells available, so the inconvenience is the bigger issue.

“Mana is an illusion, and magic is the wish in a superposition of probabilities.”

I muttered to myself.

“?”

“That sounds like Ernst Pascual Jordan? The theoretical magician who revealed that mana is an illusion.”

“Wait? Why is mana an illusion? I can feel it so well right now.”

Hearing Cecilia, Eli lightly waved her hand.

From her fingertips, a sparkling orange aura poured out like honeyed thread.

I turned my gaze from the complicated storage tower magic circle and took a brief break.

“20th-century scientists introduced the Copenhagen interpretation to uncover the source of magic.”

They tried to explain ether energy as a sort of quantum superposition, and Jordan pushed that interpretation to extremes.

So, the hypothesis emerged as one of the most famous, along with the Big Bang cosmology— the “Idea Hypothesis.”

“When you try to stick two of the same pole magnets together, you feel as if something is blocking the space in between, right?”

“Oh, right.”

“That’s not because ‘something’ exists, but is the repulsion caused by electromagnetic interaction, which we ‘perceive’ through touch. Mana works the same way. We perceive it as ‘gathered’ in our bodies, but in reality, it’s just the energy level changing when the Aura Heart’s fatigue is released.”

Just as birds have a protein called cryptochrome that allows them to visually see magnetic fields, humans can handle mana through the Aura Heart bundles.

According to Idea Theory, it explains that magic is cast utilizing the phenomenon where mana flows from high dimensions to low dimensions via the original string.

“So that’s why they teach us that we borrow mana from the school.”

“Not entirely wrong, but there’s this background.”

“Oh wow. I didn’t know that.”

“NoName! So what do you think? Do you see a method?”

“It doesn’t seem too difficult.”

“Of course, even Na-me would find this not too hard… right?”

“Yeah. Just give me 15 minutes.”

I was filled with confidence.

After all, I just needed to borrow the circuits of the magic circles I drew endlessly in my past life.

However, Cecilia would likely see a pile of glaring errors popping up out of nowhere.

“If the mana concentration is high, the circuits easily interfere with each other, leading to overflow.”

“Right. It’s nonstop errors and chaos.”

“When that happens, you connect here and here like this.”

“Huh? But then mana won’t flow at all!”

“Just wait and see.”

There were rarely people like me who seriously researched magic circles in my past life.

To put it bluntly, it was a world where magic circles were drawn on their own by human “will.”

At one point, I even thought that was obvious.

That’s the terrifying power of human adaptability.

Just one phrase, “It’s a fantasy world,” would erase any desire to doubt.

Gradually recalling, I methodically modified the magic circle.

Boldly removing runes that would cause great issues if omitted and inserting seven-syllable runes like “Zigmunta Ashante.”

Even the basic premise that El, Ras, and Mabeon should always be connected in series was thrown out of the window.

Before handing over the completed five-circle storage tower magic circle.

“Wait a moment, Cecilia. What are you going to use this for?”

“Well, revealing that is a bit of a dilemma… It’s a workplace secret, heh.”

“Since I wrote the magic circle, you can’t pass it on without telling me the purpose.”

“Fair point. Ethically speaking, that makes sense… Ugh, what should I do?”

Cecilia grasped her own head and ruffled her hair.

I crossed my arms and waited for her response.

Smiling playfully, Cecilia gradually stiffened her expression before ultimately letting out a hollow laugh.

“It’s nothing big anyway. I’m just a nobody at NASA; why would they assign me any important project?”

“Nobody, you say? Cecilia, you’re a talented person.”

“I thought so at first, but ugh! After several years, I feel that this path is just not for me! Hehe.”

Cecilia stretched her arms and said calmly.

“’Smiling but not really smiling’ isn’t it.”

Her expression was too easy to read.

“I should have worked harder for the national selection for the magic duel. It was only a one-win difference…”

“Why are you so self-deprecating? Balancing work with being a magic duel contestant is something anyone would find difficult.”

“But you can do it, NoName.”

“I haven’t gone through the U.S. selection. I might have failed.”

I comforted her by gently patting her back.

“I say you would have passed. Ah, I’ll be right back after hitting the restroom.”

Cecilia, with tears pooling at her eyes, could no longer hold back her feelings.

Eli, who had been studying hard in the corner, looked wide-eyed and surprised.

“NoName. Why is she like that?”

“I don’t know. She might have had a tough time lately.”

Cecilia quickly came back after washing her face.

She enlarged the main circle of the storage tower magic circle and showed us.

“Does everyone know the Arecibo message?”

I squinted my eyes and shook my head.

“Ah! I know! It’s the signal sent to the aliens, right?”

“Correct! Eli, you’re smart!”

“Yay!”

Eli yelled excitedly.

“Signal? Explain it to me too, Eli.”

“Sure! It’s a microwave message from the Arecibo Observatory introducing human DNA, numbers, and even the solar system to aliens.”

“Why do that?”

“Because… aliens might see it?”

“But we don’t even know where the aliens are.”

“NoName… if we start nitpicking like that, there’s no romance left.”

“Anyway, I get it. But what about it?”

Cough-cough—

Cecilia cleared her throat and regained her confidence to introduce the magic circle.

“Alright, listen closely! Among the recently introduced theories, there’s one that suggests the original levels of branches can be assumed like the hydrogen atom model. In other words, we can partition dimensions based on hydrogen energy levels like n=1, n=2, n=3!”

“Then what about n=2, n=3? Just worlds with higher energy concentrations?”

“No, it should be the opposite! The mana princes would flow into the stable n=1 world!”

Cecilia’s lengthy explanation could be summarized like this.

In the n=1 world, the mana princes’ drop-off is the largest and can be regarded as an increase in mana concentration.

The mana princes stack from the top down, and the process of extracting mana from the original branches is a model of lifting the mana princes back up.

My head throbbed at the dozens of equations in the related papers.

“It sounds a bit too weak in terms of argument. After all, the original strands don’t only pass through our planet.”

The author ignored the influence other planets or stars have on mana.

“This storage tower magic circle can use the simplest light magic to send the Arecibo message!”

“Then why did you set it to nine times? Isn’t it supposed to start from four times?”

“I’ve already tried four times by myself.”

“And?”

“Nothing happened. But maybe with nine times, sixteen times, or twenty-five times, we might eventually get a reply?”

While I crossed my arms, looking skeptical, Eli’s eyes sparkled.

“Wow! So, we might someday be able to communicate with the Idea world? That’s awesome, Cecilia!”

“Hehehe, right? Right?”

The girls were jiving together all happily.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was hidden beneath that cheer.

“Cecilia.”

“What, Na-me?”

“What’s the purpose? Considering the high probability we won’t get a reply. Even if we do, it could take years. Is such a project worthwhile?”

“…”

“Na-me, why are you… this does have its romance and seems good.”

Eli defended Cecilia.

Cecilia hesitated for a moment.

“Na-me is right.”

“Hmm?”

“I actually designed this project in such a way that it can’t fail from the start. No replies will come. It’s definitely not going to happen. But, if I say ‘the message hasn’t been delivered yet’, we can keep waiting forever.”

Cecilia smiled, shaking her head tiredly.

“You’ve been through a tough time at work.”

“Yeah… I’m so exhausted. Being ignored and interrupted every time… So I wanted to quickly wrap up this project, making it look like a success while it’s actually okay to have no results. Then I could hang out watching you two at the National Exchange Tournament and have fun. Hehe.”

Wanting to finish the project early was her sincerity.

Cecilia, who had entered NASA after finishing college since she was young.

But could that have been a showy pretense of hiring?

It was obvious how things flowed inside.

“I went through the same thing at the magic tower.”

Human jealousy and ostracism are the same everywhere, anytime.

I hugged Cecilia tightly and whispered.

“So, is this subject one you chose for your own sake?”

“Yeah. I love aliens. I want to see aliens before I die.”

“Then I’ll help you. Let’s try together.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Now that I think about it, I’m interested too.”

The number of nine times for mana concentration.

Could it be, as she said, that we’re living in a world of n=3?

In reality, it’s more complex, but could it have just coincidentally matched like that?

[§Hara Yetreika§]

[§Hypreet§]

I filled in the last runes on the main circle.

“Thank you, Na-me. I’ll handle the magic later—”

“No, that’s fine. I’ll go get the magic stone, so let’s try it out.”

“What? No, no! Just looking at it puts this at five circles—if you add stability circles, it’s a six-circle magic…!”

“It’s alright. I have plenty of money. But can I add one more thing to the Arecibo message?”

Beep—

Measuring the expected mana expenditure, I presented it to Cecilia.

[$176,713]

“Seeing this, you can’t refuse. Hahaha…”

“Cecilia, you owe me. You have to take me on as your opponent for the National Exchange Tournament, alright?”

“Okay! Can I ask what the phrase means?”

“Latias.”

“?”

“Hmm, it means ‘let there be light’ in our Wagal Empire Language. It’s a light magic spell.”

“Wow, that’s great! Let’s do it, let’s do it!”

“Choose the incantation, Cecilia.”

Clink—

I adorned my arms with magic stones and recorded the magic circle, slowly infusing mana.

This time, I made sure to be as careful as possible to avoid overload.

“Latias should work fine.”

“Shouldn’t you pick up your surname too? How about Sanpai’o Latias?”

“Sounds good!”

“Here we go. Everyone, stand back.”

48 main circle runes.

24 sub-circle runes.

5 stability runes.

With all 77 runes activated, I sent the storage signal to the magic power plant.

Hoping fervently for it to reach those I long to see.

[6th Circle Unique Magic: Sanpai’o Latias – ‘1st Circle: Light’]

Paat—

The magic circle swiftly evaporated.

Somewhere in the world, may there be light.

“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat, Sis.”

Now, after a mana expenditure of 300 million, I was feeling quite famished.

* * *

“…!”

[6th Circle Unique Magic: Sanpai’o Latias – ‘1st Circle: Light’]

Paat—

A magic circle appeared in the sky.

Light poured down onto the meadows.

Dark charred marks.

Countless dots.

Double helical structure and the shape of a person.

And.

[Lax’tias]

“Latias…”

A man murmured with a choked heart.

“Estasha Latias de Kaizen.”