The only thing truly exceptional about this is the art and explanations. It's actually ridiculous and amazing at the same time that someone would go through such lengths to draw a manga. It's indeed like an artbook, for better or worse, with so many small details. The explanations are also very thorough, we get to understand everything the mc comes to understand, how magic works and every process of it. It's pretty rare, but honestly it can be a bit unnecessary as well, so it's not always something good when done to such great lengths.
This manga just didn't appeal to me for various reasons. The first is the art. The second is the explanations. The third is the characters and the fourth is the flawed logic of the whole thing. The art feels lifeless and dead as a result of giving it too many details. It doesn't feel vibrant, it gives me more of a feeling where I'm looking at pretty pictures in an artbook than an actual story. It's nice to look at but makes it very hard to immerself oneself.
The explanations are nice, but it's often overdone, going beyond what is necessesary or reasonable. I don't want to know every little detail about witchcraft from the basics, after all, I'm not here to learn witchcraft, I'm here to read a story. While this makes it engaging in a way and lets you immerse yourself into this fantasy witch world, it does so in a way I don't appreciate as I find it kinda tedious and boring at times when things are explained in such excruciating detail about the witch powers, methods and rules. Maybe if you gave me this in a audio book format to listen to while doing something else such as working, it might hit home much, much better.
The characters here are kinda dull for my tastes. Some of them feel alive, but at the same time doesn't. I also don't like that kid who essentially endangered the mc's life without permission for no other reason than "I don't like you because you didn't grow up with magic as you're not even as skilled as me". The lack of punishment and weight of it all from the teacher made it even worse, it's as if it didn't matter at all, instead it's somehow the mc's fault that she didn't know better. That he even left a kid to test/teach an absolute newbie as he went on her merry way to get some stuff made it even worse, is he retarded?
I also can't get behind the mc's happy-go-lucky attitude. You essentially killed your own mother and everyone else in the house, albeit by mistake, yet you get over it that quickly and have no negative feelings against magic after that experience? Come on. I get that she believes she can reverse it if she becomes skilled enough, but there's so many unsure parts that should cause worry and at the very least you shouldn't just jump into learning magic with eyes glimmering instantly. She's also way too naive, but I can understand that from her age, I never really liked child mcs in the first place, well, at least not those who act like children(let's be honest, almost no "children" in anime/manga/novels truly act like children, not even a bit except perhaps being a bit immature and acting without thinking, which is just as normal in adults), it's very hard or impossible to relate to, especially when you're an adult male that has no urge whatsoever to become a parent, ever.
Now we come to the flaws in the plot overall. I just don't feel like this setting is even remotely realistic, at least not enough for a manga that clearly prides itself on trying to be realistic both in art and writing(as realistic as you can get in a fantasy world). So, magic is actually usable by everyone and everything as long as they have some ink and paper and knows a few symbols, be it males or males, I don't doubt that even animals can use it if they somehow develop the ability to draw, the mc managed to draw produce magic after imitating some symbols messily and tracing a magic spell in a book. Yet no one knows that this is the case even though everyone in the world knew this a while ago since it was extremely widespread and used in wars and everything else, even now it's not like the common populace are devoid of magic, nope, there's magic everywhere you look, be it magic drawings, constructs, ponds etc, that people wouldn't somehow find out is impossible. Sure, mass specific memory erasure magic, maybe that's what happened? Not that it seems witches in this story are capable of something like that. Also, it's not as if wars would stop just because normal people couldn't use magic anymore, especially not since normal people can clearly use magic with the help of the many witches, there are also "enemy" witches which would help anyway, so stupid. Then we come to the laws of this magic world. It seems that it's absolutely prohibited to use any magic on a witch's body. Like, tattooing in a magic circle which can help greatly. That seems really stupid, especially in a medieval world like this, the author should just say that messing with life is prohibited instead, like resurrecting the dead, that's much more realistic. Well, maybe there's an explanation later on for that, I didn't last for more than roughly two volumes before I decided that it was too much of a pain to keep on reading.
In the first place, the very motivations of the magic teacher is flawed. He's going to keep her there and teache her to be a witch becuase she's the only lead? What only lead? Surely there must be other leads since they know of these mysterious "evil" witches. Even if not, I don't see how a helpless, naive girl that has no magic knowledge would act as a proper lead, she doesn't even have the book anymore because, for some reason, the magic teacher came at the very last millisecond and couldn't do anything but grasp her? Really, if he wanted leads, he would grasp the book, not her. There's also no reason for him coming so late that he can't even grasp the book which would take about half a second more, they managed to get out fairly easily, why would she risk her life for an unknown girl anyway? Sure, the girl might remember some of the contents of the book, but I don't see how she's useful beyond that. It's not as if he, the magic teacher, even planned on teaching her before well after he grasped her. I get headaches from stuff like this.
So, this manga has very pretty art and thorough explanations, but it lacks in pretty much every other department. I couldn't enjoy it at all because I simply didn't like the mood(it felt a bit gloomy and dull) of this thing or how it flowed, neither did I get fond of any of the characters. If the things I dislike sounds like pros rather than cons to you, you could always give it a try. I can easily see why some people would love this with all their heart and it is also apparent in the comments. I could especially think that if you're really into witchcraft and want a relatively realistic and good depiction of it all and the journey to become a witch, you will love this. I never had that hobby though, I'm more of a wizard/warrior guy, hahaha. Using your body or a staff as a medium along with spells or thoughts is just much more interesting than drawing things with ink.
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