A week later, Aibo brought his latest work to Levi’s house.
“Ninja… Naruto? Did you write this yourself, Aibo?”
Levi picked up the notebook whose cover read *Naruto—The Legendary Tale of the Eastern Mage*, her face full of surprise.
“That’s right, just a little experiment. Could you big sisters take a look and see whether it might be submitted to a newspaper?”
“Little Aibo is this amazing!? I knew you were hiding away writing and drawing something lately—you were actually writing a novel? Let me see!”
Cana was equally shocked, and she and Levi huddled together to read it.
“I wrote a fantasy story about the mysterious East of the continent. Of course, I don’t know anything about the Eastern lands—it’s all fantasy and fiction. I’ve only written ten chapters so far. Do you think anyone would like it?”
“Don’t worry. Your big sisters will definitely give it a careful read!”
Levi and Cana were grinning at first, but the more they read, the more serious they became.
Eventually, the room fell silent, with only the sound of turning pages remaining.
Half an hour later, Levi and Cana suddenly sat up and flanked Aibo, one on each side.
“What happens next, what happens next!? I want to read the rest of the story! Did Naruto and Sasuke pass Teacher Kakashi’s test!?”
“It’s super interesting, isn’t it!? Little brother, are you a genius!?”
Once Levi started talking, she could hardly stop:
“Aibo, your worldbuilding is so interesting! Hundreds of years ago, the Eastern magical world was locked in constant warfare. Mage guilds organized around families fought one another, suffering heavy casualties. Later, two powerful Saint Mages joined forces to end the chaos. To eliminate the influence of mages on ordinary people, the Saint Mages decided to abandon the name of mage, become shadows, and take the name ninja so they could hide behind the scenes. Each country was left with only one guild—no, one ninja village—and the ninja village centrally assigned all requests…”
“Wow! It’s unbelievable—this is the fanciful idea of a six-year-old!”
“Levi, is that all you care about? Right now, I only want to know what happens next. Little Aibo, give me a spoiler!”
Seeing their reactions, Aibo felt confident.
It seemed the people of this world were quite open to new things.
The effort he’d put into reworking the story hadn’t been wasted.
Come to think of it, his gains this past week had been considerable.
[Text Magic LV1, 987/10000]
This week, Aibo focused on mastering Text Magic.
He hadn’t used any inspiration points, but LV1 Text Magic didn’t have much offensive power.
LV1 Text Magic allowed Aibo to infuse text with magic while writing, making the words he wrote take visible form.
Beyond that, it had no other effects.
But that didn’t mean it was useless.
On the contrary, this magic was extremely useful.
After obtaining [Text Magic LV1], Aibo’s overall understanding of magic improved greatly.
He could clearly feel that, when learning other magic, the speed at which he gained experience had increased!
Before, Aibo could gain less than 300 experience from a day’s study of Fire Magic.
Now, with the same amount of time, he could gain nearly 500 experience.
His Fire Magic progress had now reached [Fire Magic LV0, 888/1000], and he would soon learn it.
Text Magic was essentially an “experience-gain up↑” buff for himself. This story is hosted at g.com.
That effect alone was more useful than learning a dozen different magics.
In addition, Aibo had also learned Solid Script Magic from Levi, and something interesting had happened.
On his system panel, the skills appeared side by side:
[Text Magic LV1, 987/10000], [Solid Script Magic LV0, 36/1000]
Solid Script Magic appeared after Text Magic, rather than on a separate line.
Perhaps it was because the two magics belonged to the same category?
Aibo hadn’t figured it out yet.
Moreover, Solid Script Magic’s experience bar was very difficult to raise, much harder than those of ordinary magic.
But gaining experience in Text Magic was very easy—he only needed to infuse magic into his writing as he worked on his novel.
In just these few days, he had accumulated nearly a thousand experience points.
If he worked diligently, he estimated that reaching LV2 would take only two or three weeks.
His previous guess had indeed been correct—he could practice magic while earning money at the same time.
This exciting discovery even provided Aibo with nearly a thousand inspiration points.
The feeling of using one foot to step on the other and soar into the sky was incredibly exhilarating.
Now, as long as he confirmed that the book he was copying could make money, Aibo could basically lie flat.
“Hold on, don’t get ahead of yourselves. Do you think this draft still needs any improvements? If I submit it, could I get paid?”
Cana gave a thumbs-up:
“No problem at all! I’ve already become a fan of your book, Aibo. Is there more of the manuscript!?”
“I also think it’s very well written! Little brother, your prose and word choice are simple, but the story’s inherent appeal more than makes up for those shortcomings. emmmm, I can offer some suggestions about the wording and grammar in a few places, but I think it’s completely fine to submit it as is.”
Levi was right.
Aibo hadn’t learned this world’s language for long.
Although the common tongue here was very similar to English, there were still many differences.
When writing, he naturally used the simplest, easiest-to-understand sentence structures.
And since it was a novel translated from a manga, the prose was, well, at an elementary-school level—which suited his persona.
“Then where do you think I should submit it?”
“Sosara Weekly?”
“The Fiore Kingdom Daily would be better, right? Sosara Weekly’s audience consists only of mages.”
“All right, Levi’s right.”
Levi thought for a moment and added:
“By the way, it would be best to have your guild master handle this matter.”
“Why?”
“Master Makarov is one of the Ten Wizard Saints, after all. His status in this country is extremely high. If he handles it, he should be able to secure better terms for Aibo.”
“Submitting to a newspaper is only for serialization at first, but eventually you’ll definitely publish a book. If the terms aren’t negotiated properly, the newspaper might publish it themselves, and then you’d lose out big time.”
“Hehe, it’s because my family runs a bookstore. I’ve heard plenty of similar newspaper scandals.”
Aibo nodded.
He was just a little brat now.
If he went to negotiate with the newspaper himself, it would definitely be a huge hassle.
He might as well ask his dear guild master for help.
“Hehe, why don’t you take this chance to join our guild, Levi? The master will definitely agree!”
“Huh? Th-that’s not really appropriate. I haven’t even learned Solid Script Magic yet…”
“What’s there to be afraid of!? I didn’t even know magic back then. I just hung around the guild, eating and drinking every day. The master thought I had plenty of magic power, so he let me join directly.”
[Though I only stayed in the guild because of that bastard father of mine]
Aibo glanced at Cana a few more times, then guiltily looked away.
He wondered whether it was because he had told Cana that, during the days he traveled with Gildarts, that guy had slept with a different auntie in almost every town and village they visited…
On top of that, Cana believed that Aibo was also Gildarts’s “illegitimate child” and had been dumped at the guild and left there…
As a result, Gildarts’s reputation had suffered in Cana’s eyes, and his standing as a father had dropped considerably.
Though…
perhaps it wasn’t exactly reputation damage.
Aibo hadn’t lied, and Cana had been making up most of it in her own head without ever bothering to verify anything.
He couldn’t correct her even if he wanted to.
emmmm, anyway, it was all Gildarts’s fault!
Afterward, the three of them returned to Fairy Tail with the manuscript.
Levi joined the guild without a hitch.
Master Makarov praised Aibo’s work to the skies, thumped his chest, and promised to contact a newspaper and help him.
Before long, Aibo would probably be able to see the Naruto novel serialized in the newspapers of this world.
Aibo’s feelings were somewhat complicated, but joy outweighed everything else.
After all, this could still be considered the fruit of his labor.
Fan fiction didn’t count as plagiarism of the original work.
He was a little curious about what effect such a work would have if it appeared in another world.
Just imagining future mages casually shouting, “Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique,” made him inexplicably want to laugh.
What was he supposed to do?
[Inspiration Points +233]
Truly…
delightful.