Flight Mode!

"Aibo! Who is she!?"

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

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

"..."

Virgo had happened to take on her little-girl form when she was summoned today. She even needed a stool to make Aibo breakfast in the kitchen. Another summoner might have been in danger of getting electrocuted, but Aibo belatedly realized he had absolutely no such concerns!

So Aibo put on an "uncomprehending" 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?"

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

"..." (Virgo was helping Aibo wash his clothes.)

After thinking it over, Cana couldn't find anything wrong with that. It was perfectly normal for Aibo to want a friend his own age.

"Never mind that. The Guild Master officially announced at the guild today that a huge area south of Magnolia will be set aside to build an amusement park! Aibo, you're amazing! You actually pulled it off!"

"That was only natural. There's nothing surprising about it."

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

"You little show-off! Your big sister is complimenting you!"

"I know... So did Cana come here just to tell me that?"

"Yes and no. The Guild Master said the amusement park is still in the preparation stage and they're recruiting a lot of wizards who can use construction magic. I heard the pay is really generous. I was wondering if I could help out... Aibo, you know construction magic too. Are you going to sign up?"

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

"Huh!?"

Cana froze, and so did her hands. Her expression shifted from bewilderment to shock, then 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 super-rich tycoon. Honestly, it's too hard for Cana to understand how all this works. Just know that I'll never be short on money again."

"I-Is that so?"

At only eleven or twelve, Cana truly couldn't wrap her head around it so quickly. In her mind, Aibo had always been the little brother who had needed her care when he first joined the guild. She knew he had made money from writing books, but it had never felt real to her.

Yet now, she suddenly realized that her little brother had somehow become an "important figure" capable of mobilizing the entire guild's resources. That was something only adults could do, like Gildarts...

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

"Aibo really is amazing..."

"You already said that earlier~"

Aibo smiled and patted Cana's 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 I might have more money than I can spend in the future. Supporting a few more Canas wouldn't be a problem at all!"

"Pfft~ No way! What kind of big sister lets her little brother support her? Aibo might be amazing, but this big sister won't fall behind either!"

Cana quickly perked up, but then she noticed something was wrong.

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

Only after taking a step back did Cana realize that Aibo was floating in the air.

Aibo planted his hands on his hips proudly.

"Pretty amazing, 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 can't control it well enough. Freely soaring through the sky is probably beyond me for now."

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

"Definitely~"

He had learned gravity magic from Gildarts, then used inspiration points to force it into existence. At LV1, it could only increase gravity within a designated area. Once it reached LV2, he could cast the magic in reverse.

It was clearly a magic with a simple principle, yet very few people in this world had thought of using it to fly. Maybe it was because there were already so many other kinds of flight magic in this world.

However, because he had forcefully raised its level, the magic was difficult to control. He often ended up drifting around and scraping against the ceiling.

Only after Aibo raised his magic control to LV3 and combined it with wind magic for fine adjustments did this new flight magic finally stabilize.

[Flight Magic]—the improved spell model should count as the first new magic Aibo had created. It was a major step forward. The current Aibo now had the ability to write his own grimoire.

After all, as long as they had the spell model for a type of magic, wizards could cast it successfully even without understanding its principles. That was why most self-taught wizards were barely literate. Someone like Aibo, who had taught himself and could create magic on his own, was exceptionally rare.

"I've proven that creating magic is possible. So, Cana, next comes card summoning magic. Please look forward to it!"

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

For the next while, Aibo focused on researching summoning magic. With Virgo's assistance, his research went extremely smoothly. No, it was so smooth that it was almost unexpected.

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. When we are summoned, we exist in a form similar to a [thoughtform]. 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 saying that you only know earth-element magic..."

"That is a little complicated to explain. Little Master, you should know that magic power has attributes. Besides the common elemental attributes, this world also has certain rare attributes of magic power.

"For example, dragon attribute, god attribute, and dark attribute. In addition, the power of the sun, the power of the moon, and the power of the stars are all rare attributes of magic power.

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

"Oh? Isn't the power you usually use my magic power?"

"The keys. The keys are converters. After the master's magic power passes through the key's conversion, it becomes the power of the stars. So what we use still belongs to the master's magic power."

"Star magic, Link Magic, and Heteromorphic Magic! Then it makes sense, it makes sense... Virgo, if I directly input stellar magic power into the key, could you unleash greater power?"

"Humans find it difficult to control the power of the stars—eh? Little Master, you know star magic too?"

"I know a little."

"But that would not mean much. Gold Keys have a magic power conversion efficiency of up to ninety percent. Little Master would merely be having your body perform the conversion process instead. That would consume even more effort, making it not worth the loss."

"Mm, I can see that too... It seems the function of Celestial Spirit Keys is even greater 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 have an idea now."

"You are welcome. Little Master is an excellent Celestial Spirit Wizard. Few wizards in the past have paid attention to 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 shall look forward to it, my master."