Published: January 22, 2026
“Devolving humans?”
“Maybe ‘devolve’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”
“What do you mean by that? I thought support magic was about drawing out abilities beyond a person’s natural strength.”
In response to my unexpected statement, Luna replied with the common-sense logic that most people would think.
Of course. Even I had thought that way until very recently.
“That’s true. It’s certainly convenient, and if you use it as a temporary boost, I don’t see a problem.”
“Sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re saying, Mr. Orun…”
“Think about it. Support magic’s buffs suddenly boost physical abilities drastically. So why is everyone able to adapt to that instantly?”
To put it simply with numbers, if the power of ten suddenly balloons to twenty or thirty due to support magic, normally you would be overwhelmed by that strength.
Yet in reality, that doesn’t happen. Without exception, everyone adapts immediately upon receiving the buff.
That’s clearly strange.
So, it makes more sense to think that humans originally had a capacity ceiling of a hundred, and that whether the power is twenty or thirty, they can control it because it’s still within that limit.
“…Now that you mention it, that’s true. ‘Receiving a buff increases physical ability’ is so obvious that I never really thought about it. But how does that connect to degeneration?”
“My hypothesis is this: — To use numbers as an example, humans originally had the means to raise their power of ten up to a hundred. But for some reason, that knowledge was lost, and they could only use their original power of ten. After a long time, a method to raise the power of ten to twenty or thirty was discovered and spread.”
“You mean the basic six types of support magic are that method?”
“Yeah. The basic six are comparatively new in the world of magic. — People used to be able to draw out power up to a hundred, but now it’s been reduced to twenty or thirty. Viewed that way, you could say humans have degenerated. …Right? It’s a wild theory, I know. I realize there are many holes, like why that knowledge was lost.”
“Yeah, it’s a big leap. But Mr. Orun, you have some kind of basis for this theory, right?”
“It’s a bit thin as evidence, honestly.”
I arrived at this idea after learning about qi.
That day when I spoke with Marquis Forgus, who had lost his memories, I asked Mr. Haruto to teach me about qi.
He agreed and found time to teach me about it until we left Tsutolairu.
Qi is energy within the body.
By intentionally controlling and activating it, one can enhance their physical abilities.
Mr. Haruto kept some things under wraps, but from what I gathered, qi can be used in ways beyond just boosting physical power.
For example, when Mr. Haruto destroyed his opponent’s weapon during the martial arts tournament, that was likely an application of qi.
Now that I know about qi, I realize how advanced his weapon destruction technique was.
Releasing qi outside the body is something I couldn’t do even by accident.
And when I learned more about qi, I was shocked.
Support magic’s basic six types and qi share the common goal of enhancing physical abilities.
At first, I thought they were separate things.
So I believed that combining support magic and qi would allow even greater boosts.
But in reality, they are essentially the same in essence, just different approaches.
The basic six support magics apply magical formulas and mana externally to act upon the target’s qi, forcibly activating it to improve physical abilities.
Although forcibly activating qi via magic doesn’t harm the body, it’s naturally inefficient.
Intentionally activating your own qi yields much better results.
Even Ms. Selma, who has strong buff effects, probably only manages about fifty out of a hundred.
“What kind of basis do you have for this?”
Luna asked.
It’s natural to be curious after hearing such a story.
“Sorry. Even though I brought this up, I can’t talk about that part.”