Getting on Track

Aibo quickly grew accustomed to life in Magnolia.

The little town was quite prosperous, and its public safety was better than he had imagined. It even had unexpected things like magic trains.

Along with all sorts of strange magical craftwork, ordinary people's standard of living was far above the medieval "swords and magic" world he had stereotyped, and closer to the Victorian era.

However, perhaps because of magic, the division and fragmentation of civilization in this world was also quite severe.

The country he was in was vast and sparsely populated, with only a handful of major cities. Beyond the towns lay untamed wilderness, and tribes of savages and powerful magical beasts were scattered throughout the wilds and forests.

Ordinary villagers in remote places might never leave their hometowns for their entire lives.

So Aibo felt that Gildarts bringing him out of the village and to Fairy Tail was a kindness no less than saving his life.

Although Fairy Tail was rather noisy, everyone in the guild was talented and spoke pleasantly. Aibo quite liked it here.

With his innocent and adorable appearance, his harmless and pure disguise, emotional intelligence beyond his age, and a little help from telepathy magic...

Aibo successfully earned the favor of almost everyone in the guild. Well, at least enough that no one would refuse if he asked for guidance in magic.

Although Aibo wanted to begin learning magic right away, before that, he first had to learn how to read and write.

There were many writing systems in this world. Aibo had even seen Chinese characters in some books, called Eastern script.

However, he had never systematically studied the mainstream common script, so he still needed to start from the beginning.

Cana volunteered to become Aibo's language teacher.

At the same time, Aibo got his first job in this other world—a guild waiter.

A daily wage of 1,000 J (50 yuan), with food and lodging included. It was blatant child labor exploitation, but this was another world, and there were no laws protecting minors.

Thus, Aibo worked and studied at the guild during the day, studied by lamplight at the guild at night, and even studied in his dreams. His days had been remarkably fulfilling.

Once Gildarts saw that Aibo had adapted to guild life, he took on a request and left.

Not long after Guild Master Makarov returned, the newspapers published news that the Magic Council had destroyed several dark magic cults.

Those cults seemingly had not even had time to wait for Aibo to gain the strength to take revenge before they were already destroyed.

As she watched Aibo skillfully read the news in the paper, the novice teacher Cana boasted to Gray:

"Gray, I might be a genius teacher!"

"Is it possible that Aibo is the genius?"

"Hehe, of course my little brother is a genius too!"

Cana stood behind Aibo and kneaded his cheeks.

"Little Aibo, I've got nothing left to teach you. If you want to learn other writing systems, I can introduce you to a friend."

It had only taken Aibo a few days to master the common script. After all, he could already read, and his new brain worked better too, so memorizing it had not been difficult.

"For now, I should know enough about writing, but I wouldn't mind meeting a new friend."

"Hehe, she's a girl from town. She loves reading, and she says she'll join our guild once she learns magic. I'll introduce you next time~"

Cana had become much more cheerful lately. She did not even care much that her father had left.

That was because she had gained such a fun little brother. She had never known that not every boy was as annoying as Gray.

"Tch, Aibo, stop hanging around these annoying girls! How about I continue teaching you real man's magic? You'll definitely learn it quickly."

Gray also came over and patted Aibo on the shoulder. He liked this "promising" little brother too.

"Gray! You perverted exhibitionist, don't lead my Aibo astray!"

"Huh?! Since when!?"

"Sorry, Brother Gray. I want to learn some simpler magic first. Your magic is too amazing, and I can't keep making you waste time teaching me. But..."

Aibo smiled, his gaze falling on the "system panel" that no one else could see.

His greatest gain over the past few days had actually been figuring out how to use his cheat. His panel data had now changed dramatically—

[Stamina: 21/21]

[Strength: 18/18]

[Magic Power: 365/366]

[Telepathy Magic LV4, 4550/10000000]

[Meditation LV1, 555/10000]

[Crushing Magic LV0, 24/1000]

[Smoke Magic LV0, 404/1000]

[Fire Magic LV0, 200/1000]

[Ice Magic LV0, 211/1000]

[Modeling Magic LV0, 333/1000]

[Card Magic LV0, 110/1000]

[Requip Magic LV0, 666/1000]

[Inspiration Points: 533](※)

His strength had increased by one point, and after learning meditation, his magic power had increased by more than ten points. At the same time, he had learned many LV0 spells.

Aibo had learned these spells from the guild's mages over the past few days, spending only one day on each type.

Yet when he spent the same amount of time learning different magic, the experience points he gained were different.

That meant different spells had different learning difficulties and different rates of experience gain.

Judging by his progress, the magic Aibo learned fastest was requip magic, while the slowest was naturally crushing magic, whose progress had not moved at all.

After learning Gray's ice modeling magic for a day, two entries had appeared on his panel: [Ice Magic] and [Modeling Magic]. Their learning difficulties were not even the same.

The system calculated combination magic separately.

Here was the key: based on his previous learning progress, meditation magic should not have gained experience that quickly. That was where Aibo's cheat had come into play.

Inspiration points!

There was an asterisk after the inspiration points on his panel—it meant they could be used to add points.

When that ※ symbol first appeared, the meditation experience bar had reached a little over three hundred, while he had more than seven hundred inspiration points.

Aibo had instinctively tapped it, and meditation rose from LV0 to LV1.

This cheat could consume inspiration points to fill the missing progress on an experience bar.

In other words, if Aibo wanted, he could spend 334 inspiration points right now and instantly learn requip magic.

The discovery thrilled Aibo. The value of this cheat had suddenly skyrocketed.

However, he had no plans to spend inspiration points on adding levels yet.

That was because requip magic was not difficult to learn. Even without the cheat, he estimated he could learn it in another day or two, so there was no need to waste those inspiration points.

Miss Airo had taught him requip magic. Apparently, it was extremely popular among female mages and allowed one to change their clothes at any time.

The principle was to set up a mannequin roughly matching one's body in another room or space, then use a magic circle to change outfits. It was an application of spatial magic.

It was not difficult for beginners. One only had to memorize the magic circle by rote, though there were limitations on the distance for changing clothes.

However, Miss Airo said it had taken her over a month to learn this magic. Aibo was not sure whether he was exceptionally gifted or whether he had misunderstood the experience progress bar.

So he wanted to first try learning a spell entirely on his own.

As for inspiration points, he would save them for now. It felt like there could never be too many of them, because going from LV4 to LV5 required ten million. Later upgrades might require a hundred million.

While the demand for inspiration points was enormous, Aibo had little idea how to obtain large amounts of them.

Although inspiration points seemed to increase every day even if he did nothing, the rate was far too slow—an average of around a hundred points per day, nowhere near enough.

As for how to actively increase inspiration points...

Aibo currently had a guess, though he was not sure whether it was correct.

He decided to test it today.