Lately, the guild had been even livelier than usual.
All because a rowdy newcomer had joined the guild—Natsu, the one who ate fire.
That one little hellion’s destructive power alone equaled ten adults.
Rumor had it he’d even burned down the boys’ dormitory.
That day, the Master hauled Natsu up and chewed him out for ages, then warned all the boys that if they wrecked the dorm again, he wouldn’t rebuild it for them.
But Natsu was a complete little demon.
He could get into seven fights with Gray in a single day, and he’d set the guild hall on fire several times.
Makarov was so furious his hair was practically falling out.
This chaos continued until… Erza returned to the guild after finishing a job.
“You two! Get along properly! Do you understand me!?”
“U-Understood…” x2
“No more using magic in the guild! No more fighting! Is that clear!?”
“C-Clear…” x2
The two of them, their faces swollen into giant pig heads, knelt upright before Erza, not daring to breathe too loudly.
“Mm, good children. From now on, learn from Aibo. He’s younger than you two, but far more sensible.”
Nearby, watching Erza subdue the spirit-pig little devil in an instant, Cana felt thoroughly bored.
She’d originally wanted to unite the three of them and overthrow Erza’s iron-fisted rule, but now it seemed there was no chance.
“Ugh, Erza’s just too overpowered. I figure only Laxus could beat her. He might not make it this year, but next year he’s a sure bet for S-rank. An S-rank at sixteen or seventeen… I’m so jealous.”
“He’s older, that’s all. In a few years, Big Sis Cana will definitely make it too…”
Aibo was a little cold and distracted because he’d been busy lately—busy beyond belief.
Ever since he’d learned Celestial Spirit Magic, he’d become a little obsessed.
Aibo scribbled and sketched something in a small notebook, while Cana sat beside him holding a pink “puppy” with a round head, round face, and drill-like nose.
This pink puppy was the Canis Minor spirit.
It had signed a contract with Aibo allowing him to summon it at any time, seven days a week.
Maintaining the puppy consumed less magic power than Aibo regenerated, so he simply kept it around as a pet.
A few days earlier, after successfully summoning a spirit, a skill had appeared on Aibo’s panel: [Celestial Spirit Magic LV0: 1/1000].
It seemed that as long as he kept the summon active, he’d gain experience.
But the problem was that the experience growth rate was slower than anything he’d ever seen.
Several days had passed since then, and he’d gained only 4 points of experience—and during that time, he’d repeatedly summoned spirits and kept Canis Minor active the whole time.
This could only mean that his compatibility with Celestial Spirit Magic was extremely poor, or that his method of practicing it was fundamentally wrong.
Magic being difficult to learn didn’t matter—Aibo had his cheat, after all.
He later poured 1000 points of inspiration straight into it, and then… something terrifying happened.
Celestial Spirit Magic shattered completely and vanished.
[Celestial Spirit Magic LV1]→[Spatial Magic exp+1000]+[Link Magic LV1]+[Stellar Magic LV1]+[Time Magic LV1]+[Contract Magic LV1]+[Soul Magic LV1]+[Heterogeneous Magic LV1] Get faster updates on NovelPing.
At the time, this sudden change completely stunned Aibo.
He’d never imagined that a single Celestial Spirit Magic could pull off something this huge.
So the system meant that a mere form of magic anyone could learn was actually a super-composite magic formed from seven profound magics!?
Aibo’s horizons had been blown wide open.
Who would’ve thought, who would’ve thought—he’d spent only 1000 inspiration and learned six magics he’d never touched before.
But this also meant that if he wanted to fully master Celestial Spirit Magic, he might have to spend seven times the experience!
Spatial Magic needed no explanation—being able to summon spirits from another space definitely involved advanced Spatial Magic.
Link Magic was the magic that formed a mana link between the mage and the spirit.
Stellar Magic was magic that utilized the power of the stars.
The effects of these three magics were all readily apparent.
But Time Magic gave him no clue at all.
Aibo had tested it and found he could only rewind the “time” of inanimate objects, and the effect was limited.
He had no idea where Celestial Spirit Magic even used Time Magic.
Contract Magic needed little explanation.
In this world, it usually existed in the form of contract documents, which were common in the Merchants’ Guild, while ordinary mages used it less often.
Soul Magic was a pleasant surprise for Aibo.
He’d originally planned to learn the [Thought Projection] clone spell after some time.
Thought Projection was a type of soul magic, so having learned Soul Magic ahead of time meant learning Thought Projection later would yield twice the result with half the effort.
As for the last one, Heterogeneous Magic, he was completely in the dark.
It was a magic he’d never even heard of, and Aibo suspected the system had invented even the name from his own imagination.
He tried using and sensing this magic and discovered that it could convert the attributes of mana—for example, converting fire-attribute mana into ice-attribute mana, with some energy lost along the way.
He didn’t quite understand how to use this magic yet.
Aibo guessed it might be for converting stellar power into mana.
The information overload was so immense that Aibo felt as if he were about to grow a brain, but he also had the feeling that he’d inadvertently stumbled upon some incredible secret.
So lately Aibo had been organizing all the knowledge related to Celestial Spirit Magic.
If he didn’t clarify the relationships among these various magics, creating summoning magic would be out of the question.
After all, who could’ve guessed that Celestial Spirit Magic—which he’d thought would be super easy to learn—was actually a hidden boss?
It had nearly scared the kid to death.
But compared to Aibo’s gains, these little worries were nothing.
Never mind the six magics he’d gotten for free—while Aibo was pondering Celestial Spirit Magic, all kinds of inspiration came flooding in, and his inspiration points skyrocketed.
Aibo had learned more and more magics, but he didn’t have enough time to practice them and earn experience.
His skill list was perpetually filled with LV1 skills.
As for power-leveling them with inspiration points?
Don’t be silly.
Aibo already felt like he didn’t have enough inspiration points, because he’d discovered that leveling up Meditation could increase the rate at which his mana grew.
He needed to save his inspiration points to upgrade his Meditation skill.
Aibo’s current situation was this: not enough inspiration points, not enough time, and not enough brainpower either.
It was incredibly anxiety-inducing.
It felt as if there were countless treasure mountains before him—he only had to spend a little time digging to uncover massive treasures.
But there were simply too many mountains, and he didn’t know which one to dig into.
He was so anxious he could cry.
Aibo now felt he’d been too conservative in the past.
He could have been more extreme in his daily life, fully integrating the practice of magic for experience into every aspect of his life much sooner.
Aibo planned to completely abandon the useless activity of walking next.
He wanted to learn [Wind Magic] or [Gravity Magic] to make himself fly, staying airborne at all times so he could constantly train magic and harvest experience points.
Later, he’d try eating without moving his chopsticks, writing without using his hands, training his mana control, bathing with Water Magic, dressing with Requip, sleeping with Meditation…
Aibo’s Meditation skill had already been upgraded to LV3 through inspiration infusion.
Its effect on increasing his mana cap had doubled, and meditating also restored his spirit and mana.
Staying awake all night doing nothing but meditating was still a little difficult, but Aibo felt this direction was right.
Aibo planned to save up a million inspiration points, then upgrade Meditation to LV4 first.
That way, his mana surpassing Erza’s would be just around the corner.
He currently had more than five hundred thousand inspiration points left after using over a hundred thousand.
He estimated it wouldn’t take a year to save up enough.
So next, Aibo needed to familiarize himself with the power of Celestial Spirit Magic, learn Wind Magic and Gravity Magic, help Cana create a brand-new summoning magic, and find an opportunity to learn Dragon Slayer Magic.
He needed to study, train, keep upgrading, and also spend time cuddling with his big sister…
Ugh!
So busy!
He wished he could grow six more brains and become seven Vegapunks.
After learning Celestial Spirit Magic, the world of magic had opened an entirely new door before Aibo.
This was the second time he’d received such a huge shock since coming to this world—the first was when he’d used Telepathy Magic.
Where exactly would Aibo’s path of magic lead next…