About two years have passed since I arrived in this world.
My legs have gotten stronger.
I don’t need to crawl anymore — I can walk on my own two feet.
And I’ve gotten a decent handle on the language.
…
I was sprawled out in the study, reading a magic textbook I’d just found.
After working through it, I had a basic picture of how magic worked in this world.
One: Magic falls into three types.
“Attack Magic”
“Healing Magic”
“Summoning Magic”
The names say it all.
Magic feels like it should be capable of more, but the textbook says it developed and evolved through warfare, so it rarely gets applied to anything unrelated to combat or hunting.
I don’t know enough about this world’s magic yet.
Better stick to the textbook for now.
Two: To use magic, you need mana.
Anyone with mana can use it.
Two methods:
“Using the mana within your own body”
“Using mana extracted from mana-containing substances”
Three: Two ways to activate magic.
“Incantation”
“Magic Circle”
Either chant it into existence or draw a circle to trigger it…
Four: “An individual’s mana is determined at birth.”
Determined at birth.
Those words made my blood boil.
I tore the page out, crumpled it, and threw it across the room.
…
Anyway.
Start simple.
The textbook covered both magic circles and incantations, but incantations seemed to be the standard.
If that’s what everyone uses, that’s where I’d begin.
Larger spells apparently needed longer chants, and the really big stuff required a magic circle on top of that.
But I was just getting started, none of that mattered yet.
Textbook in my left hand, right hand extended, I began to chant.
“O great blessing of water, descend upon the place thy servant desires — let a cool shallow stream manifest here.
[Water Ball]”
The moment I finished, I felt something.
Blood, rushing toward my right hand.
Then a pressure pushing outward, and a fist-sized ball of water appeared in the air in front of me.
“Ooh!”
First time doing magic on my own.
I couldn’t help it, I got a little excited.
Then I had no idea what to do next.
How was I supposed to fire it?
Or had I already hit my limit, mana too low to do anything more?
But if I’d hit a limit, wouldn’t my body give me some kind of warning?
I didn’t feel anything at all.
I focused and thought it through.
“Hmm…
for now, let me just make it disappear.”
I lowered my right hand.
The water ball vanished.
Just chanting was enough to cast magic.
This world was genuinely convenient.
The excitement was still there.
I activated it again.
“O great blessing of water, descend upon the place thy servant desires…”
The water ball appeared before I even finished.
The textbook had said skilled mages could shorten their incantations.
Was I already a skilled mage?
No.
That was pure arrogance.
Think.
Why did that happen?
I’d pictured it in my head first, and the magic had come out on its own.
I focused again, this time without chanting at all.
The water ball appeared.
No incantation required.
But the textbook clearly stated there were only two methods: incantation and magic circle.
Apparently that book wasn’t entirely right.
To test my limits, I kept the magic going and let the water ball hang in the air.
“Hmm…
this could take a while.”
I concentrated and pushed further.
One became two, then three, four, all the way to seven water balls floating in front of me.
Nearly 2 hours later, exhaustion hit.
Sudden and total, like mana had a threshold, and once you crossed it you just crashed.
I glanced down at the first floor, confirmed it was empty, and dumped all seven water balls over the edge.
“Ah…
need a break.
So tired.”
I lay down on the wooden floor and passed out.
…
When I woke up, I was in the crib next to Zenith.
Zenith and Paul were, once again, engaged in the ongoing project of making me a little brother or sister.
I needed to learn magic faster.
Specifically, I needed to invent soundproofing magic and introduce it to this world.
Actually — maybe soundproofing magic already existed.
I closed my eyes and tried not to listen.
Hearing my own mother’s voice like that was just wrong in a way I couldn’t quite explain.
…
The next day, I got back to training.
12 water balls.
No problem.
“Strange.”
The textbook said total mana was fixed.
But today I could clearly feel that I had more than yesterday.
That textbook was full of garbage.
“An individual’s mana is determined at birth.” What a stupid, arrogant claim to print in a book.
How many people had been told their whole lives that they had no potential, all because some idiot wrote that down?
It was infuriating.
If mana could grow, then the answer was simple.
Train.
Every day.
Until I couldn’t anymore.
…
So that’s what I did.
Every single day I drained myself completely and collapsed into sleep.
And every single day, Lilia timed it perfectly, arriving at the study right when I passed out, carrying me to the bedroom without fail.
I cycled through different magic types, but I avoided fire.
My house was wood.
That wasn’t a risk worth taking.
Water magic was what I practiced most.
It was safe, and it was the one I genuinely liked best.
The applications felt endless, and water magic here covered ice as well.
In my past life’s games, water and ice were always separate elements.
Not here.
I found that unreasonably satisfying.
“Mm…”
Right now, though, I had a problem.
Every water ball I fired out the window traveled maybe a few meters and moved at a lazy, unhurried pace.
That wasn’t an attack.
Nobody was getting hurt by that.
Why?
The textbook specifically listed this as attack magic.
Was I doing something wrong?
I tried a different approach: create the water ball, then keep feeding mana into it after it formed.
Push it, shape it, control it.
Worth testing.
Two of the textbook’s four key points had already been wrong.
I’d figure the rest out myself.
Pour mana in…
concentrate…
“Hm?”
The water ball swelled larger.
But it still wouldn’t move fast.
I could feel it resisting.
I switched tactics and layered in wind magic, trying to push the ball from behind and give it velocity.
“Launch!”
It shot forward, and stopped a few meters out.
Same as before.
Maybe my control was just off.
Either way, it wasn’t what I wanted.
“Ah well.
Slow and steady.
I’m almost out of mana for today anyway.”
➤ Next: The Tutor — Into the Unknown