Magic

Almost two years had passed since I came to this world.

My lower half had grown stronger too. I no longer needed to crawl and could walk on two feet now.

And I had more or less gotten a general grasp of this world's language.

In the study, I was lying on my stomach, reading a magic textbook I had just found.

After reading through it, I gained a basic understanding of magic in this world.

First: magic was roughly divided into only three types.

"Attack magic."

"Healing magic."

"Summoning magic."

Those three. You could tell what they meant just from the names.

It felt like these forms of magic could do more things, but the textbook recorded that magic had arisen and developed through combat, so it seemed it was not often used in areas unrelated to fighting or hunting.

I did not understand this world's magic, so for now, I would stick to imagining it according to the textbook.

Second: to use magic, one must have mana.

As long as someone had mana, anyone could use magic.

There were two ways to use mana.

"Use the mana inside one's own body."

"Use mana extracted from substances that contain mana."

Third: there were two ways to activate magic.

"Chanting."

"Magic circles."

So you either recited something with your mouth to activate magic, or drew a magic circle to activate magic...

Fourth: "An individual's mana is basically decided at birth."

Decided at birth? Those words really pissed me off.

I tore out that page, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it aside.

In any case, I decided to start challenging myself with the simplest magic.

The magic textbook recorded both magic circles and chanting as methods, but chanting seemed to be the mainstream.

Since it was the mainstream, I would practice using the mainstream method too.

The larger the scale of the magic, the longer the chant, and apparently even greater magic later on required a magic circle as well. But I was only just starting out, so it should be fine.

I held the magic textbook in my left hand, stretched my right hand forward, and began to recite.

"May the great blessing of water descend upon the place thou seekest. Let a cool shallow current manifest here—[Water Ball]"

After I finished chanting, I felt something like my blood concentrating into my right hand.

Next came the feeling of that blood being pushed outward, and then I saw a fist-sized bullet of water appear in front of my right hand.

"Ohhh!"

This was my first time using magic by myself, so I was a little excited.

But next, I did not know what I should do.

How was I supposed to fire this water bullet? Or was this the limit because I had too little mana?

But if I had reached my limit, wouldn't my body warn me somehow? Right now, I did not feel anything at all...

I focused my attention and thought about what to do.

"Mm... Anyway, let's make this water bullet disappear first."

I lowered my right hand, and the water bullet disappeared because of that.

As long as you chanted, you could use magic. This world really was convenient.

My excitement had not yet faded, so I activated that magic again.

"May the great blessing of water descend upon the place thou seekest..."

But this time, before I had even finished chanting, the water ball had already appeared.

The textbook said that skilled mages could shorten the wording and duration of their chants.

Was I already a skilled mage?

That thought was pure arrogance. Think back carefully. Why did that happen...?

Just now, I had first imagined it once inside my head, and the magic had come out naturally...

I focused my mind again, but this time, I didn't chant.

As I expected, that water bullet appeared again. It appeared without needing a chant...

But didn't the textbook say there were only two methods: chanting and magic circles?

Looks like what that book said wasn't entirely right either...

To test my limits, I kept the magic going, letting the water ball float in the air the whole time.

"Mm... feels like this is going to take forever."

So I concentrated and turned the water ball into two, then three, then four... until finally there were seven water balls.

After maintaining seven water balls for nearly two hours, I felt tired.

The fatigue came very suddenly, as if my mana had reached some kind of threshold and my whole body abruptly became exhausted.

I glanced at the first floor, and after making sure no one was there, I dumped all the water balls down.

"Ah... I'll rest for a bit. I'm so tired!"

I lay down on the wooden floorboards and fell asleep.

When I woke up again, I was already in the crib beside Janice.

And Zenith and Paul were off to the side again, carrying out the project of making me younger siblings.

I had to hurry up and study magic, and bring soundproofing magic into this world...

No, maybe soundproofing magic already existed.

Thinking that, I closed my eyes and tried not to listen.

After all, hearing my own mother's voice like that always felt a little strange.

The next day, I started my magic training again.

This time, even twelve water balls were no problem.

"Strange."

The textbook said that the total amount of mana never changed... but today, I could clearly feel that I had more mana.

That textbook... was full of mistakes.

To think it had the nerve to say something as stupid as "an individual's mana is already decided at birth."

There must have been plenty of people whose whole lives were denied because of textbooks like that, right? How unpleasant.

Since the total amount of mana could grow, there was only one thing I needed to do.

Practice like my life depended on it.

Starting that day, I would use up all my mana every day, then collapse from exhaustion and fall asleep.

Lilia also somehow managed to time it perfectly every time, coming to the study to carry the sleeping me back to my room.

I tried different magic every day, but I did my best to avoid using fire magic. After all, my house was made of wood. If it caught fire, it would be no small matter.

The magic I practiced most was still water magic, mainly because it was safe, and also because it was the magic I liked best.

I felt like it would have a lot of uses, because water magic even included ice magic.

According to my memories from my previous life, water and ice should have been two separate elements, but in this world, they were the same one. That made me very happy.

"Ugh..."

Right now, I was troubled.

Every time I fired a water ball out the window, it only traveled a few meters, and it wasn't fast either.

Magic like this couldn't hurt anyone at all...

Why? The book clearly said this was attack magic.

Had I gotten something wrong somewhere?

How about this: after creating the water bullet, I would keep pouring mana into it to control it.

Let's give it a try. After all, out of the four points of knowledge in that book, I had already proven two of them wrong.

In that case, I would research it myself.

Pour mana into the water bullet... concentrate...

"Hm?"

The water bullet grew bigger.

But I could still tell it wouldn't fire very quickly.

Then... I used wind magic as well, trying to push the water bullet and make it faster.

"Fire!"

I shot the water bullet out. It still only traveled a few meters. Maybe there was a problem with how I was controlling it?

In any case, this wasn't the result I wanted...

"Forget it. I'll take it slowly. I don't have much mana left today anyway."