Flight Mode!

"Aibo! Who is she!?"

"Good morning, Sister Cana. Let me introduce you—this is my newly contracted Celestial Spirit, Virgo. She's the Celestial Spirit of Virgo among the Twelve Zodiac Signs."

"A Celestial Spirit? She's so tiny?"

"..."

Virgo, whom he had summoned today, happened to be in her little-girl form. She even needed to bring a stool into the kitchen to make Aibo breakfast. Another summoner might have been at risk of getting zapped, but Aibo belatedly realized that he had absolutely no such concern!

So Aibo put on a puzzled expression and asked:

"Virgo is a Celestial Spirit who can change her form. Aibo wanted a friend his own age, so she turned into a little girl. Is there a problem with that?"

"Oh, oh... so that's how it is?"

"..." (Virgo was helping Aibo do laundry.ing)

After thinking it over, Cana found nothing wrong with it. It was perfectly normal for Aibo to want a friend his own age.

"Never mind that. Today, the guild master officially announced that a huge area south of Magnolia will be set aside to build an amusement park! Aibo, you're amazing—you really pulled it off!"

"It was only natural. There's nothing to be surprised about."

Aibo shook his head smugly, only for Cana to pinch his cheeks.

"You little show-off, Aibo! Your big sister is praising you!"

"I know... So, Sister Cana, did you come over just to tell me that?"

"Yes and no. The guild master said the amusement park is still in the planning stage, and they're recruiting a lot of mages who can use construction magic. I heard the pay is very generous. I wonder if I could help out... Aibo, you know construction magic too. Will you sign up?"

"?... Sister Cana, I'm the consultant for this amusement park project. In theory, that generous pay is coming out of my wallet."

"Huh!?"

Cana froze, her hands stopping as well. Her expression shifted from bewilderment, to shock, to confusion.

"Aibo, since when did you become so rich?"

"Of course I don't have that much money, but I brought in an investment from a huge tycoon. Ah, it's too difficult for Sister Cana to understand how all this works. Just know that I'll never be short of money again."

"I-Is that so?"

At only eleven or twelve, Cana really could not wrap her head around it so quickly. In her mind, Aibo had always been the little brother who needed her care when he first arrived at the guild. She knew he had made money by writing books, but it had never felt real.

Yet now, she suddenly realized that her little brother seemed to have unknowingly become a "big shot" capable of mobilizing the entire guild's resources. Those were things only adults could do, like Gildarts...

In children's eyes, there was a clear dividing line between children and adults. Yet Aibo seemed to have blurred that line with his own abilities. It was only at this moment that Cana realized it.

"Aibo really is amazing..."

"You already said that earlier~"

Aibo smiled and patted Cana on the head.

"I know Cana wants to earn more money, but you can rely on me a little more, you know. I'm already very rich, and in the future I might have more money than I can spend. Supporting a few more Sister Canas wouldn't be a problem at all!"

"Pfft~ No way! What kind of older sister lets her younger brother support her? Aibo may be amazing, but I won't fall behind either!"

Cana quickly cheered up, but she soon noticed something was wrong.

"Wait!? Since when did you get so tall? You can even reach my head... Huh? No!? You're floating!"

Only after taking a step back did Cana realize that Aibo was actually hovering in midair.

Aibo planted his hands on his hips proudly.

"Impressive, right~? I used Gravity Magic to cancel out my own weight, then used Wind Magic to control my movement. That lets me float in the air. But I still don't control it well enough. Freely flying around will take a while yet."

"Will you be able to fly with me someday?"

"Definitely~"

He had learned Gravity Magic from Gildarts, then used Inspiration Points to force it up. At LV1, he could only designate an area and increase its gravity. After reaching LV2, he could cast the magic in reverse.

It was clearly a magic with a simple principle, yet few people in this world had thought of flying this way. Perhaps it was because there were already so many other flying magics in this world.

However, because he had forcibly raised its level, the magic was difficult to control. He often drifted all over the place and scraped against the ceiling.

Only after Aibo raised Mana Control to LV3 and combined it with Wind Magic for fine adjustments did this new flying magic finally stabilize.

The improved spell model for [Flight Magic] should have counted as the first new magic Aibo had created. It was a huge step forward. Aibo now had the ability to write his own magic grimoire.

After all, as long as they possessed a spell model for a certain magic, mages could cast it successfully even if they did not understand its principles. That was why most unaffiliated mages were semi-literate. Someone like Aibo, self-taught and capable of creating magic alone, was exceedingly rare.

"I've already proven that creating magic is possible. So, Sister Cana, next up will be card summoning magic. Please look forward to it!"

"Mm! I've always believed in Aibo."

For the next period of time, Aibo began focusing on researching Summoning Magic. With Virgo's assistance, his research went very smoothly—no, it was more accurate to say it went surprisingly smoothly.

One night, Aibo and Virgo had an in-depth discussion about Celestial Spirit Magic—

"Virgo, why don't Celestial Spirits die even if they suffer fatal injuries after being summoned?"

"Because Celestial Spirits are not humans. We who are summoned are existences similar to [Thought Projections]. Our true bodies are not in the human world, but in the Celestial Spirit World, so we cannot die in the human world."

"...Soul Magic? But I remember you said you only knew earth-element magic..."

"That is rather complicated to explain. Little Master, you should know that mana possesses attributes. Aside from common elemental attributes, this world also has certain rare mana attributes,

such as dragon attribute, god attribute, and dark attribute. In addition, the power of the sun, the power of the moon, and Stellar Power are all rare mana attributes."

"What we Celestial Spirits use is actually Stellar Power. Strictly speaking, the magic we use does not belong to the human magic system. That is also why we Celestial Spirits cannot use our true power in the human world."

"Oh? Isn't what you normally use my mana?"

"The keys. The keys are converters. After the master's mana is converted through the keys, it becomes Stellar Power, so what we use still belongs to the master's mana."

"Star Magic, Link Magic, and Heteromorphic Magic! No wonder, no wonder... Virgo, if I directly input stellar mana into the keys, can you unleash greater power?"

"Humans find it difficult to control Stellar—eh? Little Master, do you know Star Magic too?"

"I know a thing or two."

"But that actually does not mean much. Gold Keys convert mana with an efficiency of up to ninety percent. Little Master would merely be having your body perform the conversion process instead. That would consume more effort, making it not worth the cost."

"Mm, I can see that too... It seems Celestial Spirit Keys are even more important than I imagined."

"Of course. As the pinnacle creation of Holder Magic, Celestial Spirit Keys have never been surpassed."

"Creation? Wait, Celestial Spirit Keys are man-made?"

"...Little Master, I'm sorry, but Virgo cannot answer that question."

"Celestial Spirit Magic really is... getting more and more interesting.

Thank you, Virgo. I think I already have an idea."

"You're welcome. Little Master is an outstanding Celestial Spirit Mage. Few mages in the past have noticed the core of Celestial Spirit Magic. You are already very close to true Celestial Spirit Magic."

"True Celestial Spirit Magic? Virgo, perhaps one day I might even create my own [Celestial Spirit Magic]."

"Then I look forward to it, my master."