"Watch my Alarm Ward!"
Rhode stretched out his hand, and a flash appeared on the ground.
A little object glowing blue-white had appeared there. It looked even thinner than a sheet of paper.
Lilia only saw the initial flash before it vanished from her sight.
Still, she picked up a twig and tossed it toward the spot from memory.
At that moment, Rhode felt something like an electrical signal passing through his mind, followed by a clear message from the Alarm Ward: something had entered its range!
It worked!
"I felt it! The message from the Alarm Ward!" Rhode said happily.
"You're amazing, Rhode!" Lilia excitedly took his hand and jumped up and down. "You're learning so fast. I don't even remember how long it took me to cast my first ward..."
"Then let's set up the wards. That way, I won't have to patrol everywhere every day."
Rhode took Lilia along to set up Alarm Wards.
With his current mana, he could cast about ten at a time, but that was enough.
Ten wards could cover most of the farm's important spots, and there were also the wards Lilia helped set up.
That meant Rhode could keep studying in his room in peace, then run out to investigate whenever an Alarm Ward went off.
He had to keep learning.
After all, an Alarm Ward only sounded an alarm. It couldn't drive monsters away on its own.
After several trips back and forth to chase away little wild boars, Rhode decided to learn the next spell right away-Guardian Ward.
This ward was a little more powerful. It was essentially a guard with a limited patrol range, beating up any enemies that entered its watch area, except, of course, friendly units designated by the caster.
It was clearly less trouble than an Alarm Ward.
In exchange, it was also more complex, with twelve energy circuits and thirty-six spell nodes. Lilia didn't know this spell either, so she couldn't teach him.
That was also why he couldn't start by learning Guardian Ward right away.
Going from easy to hard, from simple to complex, was the right way to learn any subject.
It was like jumping straight to 5 + 5 = 10 before learning 1 + 1 = 2. That would definitely make things harder.
But now that Rhode already had experience learning 1 + 1, learning 5 + 5 actually felt a little faster.
After all, these wards worked on fairly similar principles. Moving from a lower-tier ward to a slightly higher-tier one was easy for Rhode to understand. The spell model was just a little larger-or, to put it another way, he only had to write a few more lines of code.
And so, after just one day, he more or less had it figured out.
Its drawback, however, was its higher mana cost. Rhode could only maintain four at a time.
But at least he no longer had to handle things himself!
Rhode watched a little wild boar wander into a Guardian Ward's watch area and get beaten until it fled in panic. It was incredibly useful!
Now he really could study in his room without worrying. He only had to check the messages sent by the wards.
He wasn't planning to learn any of the other wards for now.
Flame Ward, Frost Ward, Shadow Ward... weren't those only useful for fighting various spellcasting classes?
I'm a farmer. Learning those really wouldn't do me any good. It's not like a fire elemental is suddenly going to show up to steal my corn.
"What should I learn next?" Rhode asked his teacher, Lilia.
"Fireball, Fireball, I know Fireball!" Lilia said in a singsong voice.
Right. Fireball.
A mage naturally had to sling fireballs. Could a mage who couldn't sling fireballs even count as a mage?
Simple, brutally direct attack spells were Rhode's favorites.
Besides, Lilia knew a little Fireball magic too, so she could give Rhode more help with learning it.
Rhode began studying Fireball: From Beginner to Mastery.
This was an entirely different subject from magical wards. The placement and connections of the energy circuits and spell nodes were all new, and Rhode had to work out how they functioned from scratch.
Moreover, a spell with such formidable offensive power was another level more complex.
Looking at the three-dimensional spell model in his mind, packed with densely clustered spell nodes, Rhode felt his scalp tighten.
No wonder mages were so rare.
The requirement of an innate mana surge just to learn magic already ruled out most people.
Having to gain a deep understanding of how spells worked eliminated another portion.
Even after finally understanding how to cast a spell, they still had to memorize such a complicated casting sequence to actually produce it. Only after completing that step could they become a true mage.
There was no telling how many people reached that stage, only to rush things and have their heads blown apart by mana backlash.
Luckily, Rhode had a programmer's way of thinking. Otherwise, he might never have gotten anywhere with magic at all.
And because he could visualize a concrete, three-dimensional model in his mind, he could understand it far better than an ordinary person, and do so much more safely.
And so Rhode began practicing Fireball.
One day.
Two days.
He practiced, failed, and kept practicing.
Finally, through his tireless efforts and Lilia's demonstrations, he gradually grasped the principles behind creating a fireball.
Rhode held out his hand. Before long, a small, pale red ball of light appeared above his palm, translucent and quite beautiful.
"You're really amazing, Rhode," Lilia praised him. "You might be a natural-born mage."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Why do you say that?"
"You learn very quickly. Much faster than I do."
"That's because you love sleeping."
"No. Even we Elves need a long rest if a spell fails, so we have to sleep. But you keep failing without needing to rest very long."
Was that so?
Could my mana recovery be especially fast too?
Even faster than an Elf's?
With a talent like this, I'm really going to become an Archmage!
Excitement surged through Rhode.
He was just about to ask Lilia more when he suddenly sensed activity from the Guardian Ward to the southwest.
Unlike before, when things usually settled down quickly, this disturbance lasted a while.
That meant the Guardian Ward was engaged in a prolonged fight with an intruder.
Had some larger beast broken in?
After all, his spellcasting level was still fairly low, and the Guardian Wards he summoned weren't particularly strong in combat. A beast like a giant bear would probably be difficult for them to handle.
"Let's go take a look," Rhode said to Lilia, grabbing his iron rod.
Well, ever since losing his steel fork, Rhode had been using an iron rod as his main weapon.
After all, he had only just started learning magic, and his fireball couldn't hit anyone yet. A melee weapon like this was still very necessary.
He'd heard that battle mages were all like this!
"Okay, let's go!" Lilia followed Rhode outside, her voice brimming with excitement.
Whenever there was any hint of adventure, Lilia was always excited.
Their house stood at the northeastern corner of the farm, diagonally opposite the Guardian Ward, so it took them a little time to get there.
Then Rhode discovered that his Guardian Ward had almost been destroyed. It lay scattered across the ground like torn scraps of paper, its main body giving off a faint glow.
Not far away, a slippery-looking creature lay facedown.
It wasn't very big, so it probably wasn't some large beast.
But it clearly wasn't human either.
Rhode saw that its skin was mostly blue, with a row of dorsal fins running down its back like an outrageous punk hairstyle. It had two short legs and two short arms, all of which looked sturdy.
This was...
Rhode carefully used his iron rod to turn the creature over.
Then they saw a pair of murky yellow eyes, each as big as a fist, with vertical pupils, and an enormous mouth full of sharp, hooked teeth. Thick, cloudy saliva dripped from the corners of its mouth!
A Murloc!!??
Before you continue