A Magic Book That Gives a Man a Fish

Manus could naturally tell that the wording and meanings in these documents, some of which were at least several centuries old, differed somewhat from those of the present day.

But that was not much of a problem. It was also an extremely common occurrence when excavating old documents.

Even within the same race and civilization, word meanings could change over a century, let alone in records spanning different races, civilizations, and thousands upon thousands of years.

For different categories of writing, such as phonetic and ideographic scripts, they had long developed a complete set of methods for determining the basic meanings of unfamiliar words through graphical classification, symbol associations, combination rules, and other means.

There were not many reference texts available now, but he was not trying to reconstruct an entire language from nothing. He only needed to restore what a language had been like several hundred years ago...

Manus merely ran it through his mind and had it mostly translated.

The problem he encountered came in the next step.

In theory, a purely phonetic script like English had a very low learning threshold, while individual words carried little information. It was unlikely for a short sentence to contain an enormous amount of information.

And based on his nearly seven years of experience living in this world, that was indeed the case.

So the question was, why was this text in his hands so... simple in its explanation of magic?

It was not that the descriptions were unclear. It simply contained introductions to the spells and explanations of how to cast them, without any explanation of the principles behind them.

Manus could understand the lack of magic models. The rules behind magic were its true essence, while casting methods were merely ways of using mana to pry at those rules. They could naturally take countless strange forms.

Forget waving a wand and chanting incantations. He had even seen people cast spells by using an Elemental Plane dialect to curse out the elements.

Casting with magic models was simply the optimal solution they had developed so far, one that balanced learning difficulty, universality, readability, convenience, and many other criteria.

They directly reflected the relevant rules within the structure, combining study and application. It was especially suitable for scholarly mages.

Having already changed worlds, Manus had never expected to see familiar magic models again.

Otherwise, it could only mean that he had not transmigrated at all, but had arrived somewhere he did not recognize, or inside the plane of some Plane Lord.

But... even without magic models, there should have been some other way to explain the principles of these spells, right?

Yet the reality was that this book contained no principles, no research ideas, and not even detailed descriptions of how these spells had been invented. It only described the casting procedures needed to release them.

The good thing was that the book recorded far more spells than Manus had initially expected. The bad thing was that after finishing it, all Manus had learned were those spells.

It taught a man to fish, sure, but was that reasonable for a textbook?

Oh, right. He had almost forgotten. This was magical knowledge passed down through their family. It really was not a textbook.

But what was the point of passing down magical knowledge like this? Just passing down magic from several centuries ago?

Manus went through it again. They were basically all combat spells, and he had not seen a single spell like Warning Spell—one that was worth preserving on its own even without involving its principles...

"Maybe this book is too recent."

Manus glanced at the other documents.

"How about we look at some others?"

"Manu..."

At dinner that day, Aivina looked at Manus hesitantly.

Two days had already passed since they had given Manus that box of books, yet Manus had not reacted at all...

Shouldn't he at least complain that he could not understand them?

Now that there had been no feedback whatsoever, Aivina was starting to worry instead.

"Hm? What is it, Mom?"

Manus was intently savoring his dinner.

A mixture of potatoes and eggs had been flattened into a base, with a ring of potato wedges around the edge to keep the filling from spilling out. The middle was layered with mashed potatoes made from steamed potatoes mixed with butter, cheese, and various spices, followed by a layer of bacon, a layer of roasted sausage, and a layer of shredded cheese.

The finished dish was then topped with meat sauce and sprinkled with a handful of fries~

Manus was eating so enthusiastically that he could barely lift his head!

Seeing the traces of meat sauce and cheese at the corners of Manus's mouth, Aivina almost could not help laughing. Still, she barely held it in.

"Um, those books we gave you before... have you been reading them lately?"

"The books? Oh... yeah, I have."

Manus blinked, remembering that box of documents.

"How is it going? Is there anything you do not understand?"

There was even a trace of unease in Aivina's gaze. After all, this was the first time they had set a trap for their son, and she felt a little guilty about it.

Manus fell silent for a moment at Aivina's question.

How should he put it? Even if he counted by letters, all of that information put together did not amount to as much as what was written in a single one of his Fireball magic books. He had finished reading them on the second day.

As for what he had gained, aside from learning quite a few spells from this world, there really was not a single scrap of theoretical knowledge.

If conditions had not allowed, Manus would not have minded asking Aivina and Griffin to help him try casting one of those spells, then working backward to infer the theory behind it.

But now that conditions did allow, Manus would rather wait until he enrolled and read the textbooks, without risking drawing too much attention to himself.

So his attention had already returned to the Fairy-Tale Magic he had been researching recently. However, Fairy-Tale Magic had very few low-level spells, and using them as a foundation to derive more advanced magic was far more difficult than he had imagined.

As for using the documents being too difficult to read as an excuse to ask his mother to teach him magic, he had planned to bring it up after another ten days or half a month. Yet she had actually become impatient and asked him today...

Did his mother really think he was that impatient?

He felt that the image he had built for himself in the past needed some slight adjustment, but Manus did not let this chance to cast spells openly ahead of schedule slip by.

"There are quite a few parts I do not understand."

"That is good..."

Watching Aivina let out a sigh of relief, Manus slowly produced a question mark: ?

So, she was not even going to bother pretending anymore?

"Ah, ahem. I mean, it is normal not to understand them. Those are all very precious, ancient magic books. You will come to understand their value in the future. There are many more in the old house."

Manus understood. So that was it. Those documents probably needed to be read together—some explained theory, while others covered practical use.

His parents had likely seen that he was a beginner and that he had been looking forward to Charms for so long, so they had specifically brought him a few documents he could use simply by following their instructions.

Forget the other ancient books in the old house. There was no need to rush; he would get his hands on them eventually. Being able to cast spells openly was clearly more important.

"It is all right if you do not understand them for now. After dinner, Mom will teach you an easier spell."

"That is wonderful. Thank you, Mom~"

Upon hearing Aivina's words, Manus broke into a happy smile and casually stuffed another bite of dinner into his mouth.

What kind of spell would be the first one he learned in this world?