The previous day, I succeeded in giving more power to Dia and Tarte.

This was enough to count them as a force to be reckoned with.

They had not only both acquired abilities such as【Rapid Recovery】and【Limitless Growth】to increase their mana reserves, but also powers that were best suited for their own fighting styles, namely【Beastification】for Tarte and【Multiple Chanting】for Dia.

Additionally, basic abilities such as physical and magical prowess had also been improved.

However, no matter how much power you gained, it would prove meaningless if you couldn’t use it.

Therefore, we decided to spend the whole day training to master our powers.

[Ahahaha! Look, Lugh!【Multiple Chanting】rules!] (Dia)

Dia was laughingly using magic.

At first glance, it looked like she was merely casting【Gun Strike】.

However, what she casted was incomparable to the【Gun Strike】we were used to by now.

She produced iron, transformed it, loaded it with bullets, and generated an explosion inside the gun barrel.

Normally, these processes were carried out in order and took a certain amount of time.

However, Dia was now able to shoot at a speed that was nothing like what she was capable of until now by performing all four of these processes simultaneously.

[You’re truly incredible, Dia. To think you can already cast four spells at the same time. It took me a week to be able to do the same.] (Lugh)

Dia wasn’t chanting them all at the exact same time. What she did was more advanced than that.

The start and completion times were finely tuned to ensure that the spells were completed with the desired timings.

Otherwise, it would’ve been impossible to fire the gun as soon as it was formed and loaded with bullets.

She had brilliantly mastered it.

[This seems like a good match for me.] (Dia)

[I guess your calculation speed for processing magic formulas is greater than mine.] (Lugh)

When it came to magic, Dia was a true genius.

…No, that wasn’t the only explanation.

Since my early childhood, I had trained my brain to the point where it would’ve snapped from the burden of information if I were an ordinary person, and I continued to heal and grow it with【Rapid Recovery】.

No matter how much of a genius Dia was, I was someone who had gone beyond the bounds of humanity. Creativity and sense of control were one thing, but it was impossible to beat me in terms of computing power.

Perhaps I should assume that she had some sort of skill that was working well for her.

[Dia, have you ever used appraisal paper?] (Lugh)

[Nope. It wasn’t available in my country at all.] (Dia)

[Well then, I’ll see what I can do to get some, and you’ll give it a try. You too, Tarte.] (Lugh)

Since it was so hard to obtain, I considered appraisal paper useless and ruled it out as an option.

The artisans who could make them were protected by the government and couldn’t be issued without the kingdom’s permission.

I couldn’t obtain it by means of the information network and money of the Balor Company. …If I really wanted to get it, I’d have to bribe an aristocrat, and a fairly influential one at that, but that was an extremely risky option.

However, if I used the privileges of my current position as a holy knight, then I could get my hands on it.

I had to check the skills that Tarte and Dia each had.

[I can hardly wait. Maybe I have skills similar to yours, Lugh.] (Dia)

[In my case, I am convinced that I have no talent.] (Tarte)

[Don’t say that. I’m sure you have some.] (Lugh)

The odds of getting S-rank or A-rank skills were too low, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they had skills of other ranks.

If they knew what skills they had and learned to use them, they would become even more powerful.

I would negotiate for appraisal paper once our training was over.

[By the way Dia, how many spells can you cast at the same time now?] (Lugh)

[Hmm… I can do six spells max, but I can only use simple magic formulas when I cast them at the same time.] (Dia)

[Nice, it’s more than I can do.] (Lugh)

I could cast up to five spells. Although I started to lose control when using five, so four spells was the safe number.

[I realized it after many test runs, but not only can I cast many spells simultaneously, but apparently, I can also convert my mana into various affinities simultaneously.] (Dia)

[Seems like it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to use earth magic to create iron and fire magic to generate explosions at the same time, like you just did.] (Lugh)

[Rather, this is what I’m really curious about. Until now, I was limited to using mana of a single elemental affinity when casting magic, but with this, I was thinking that maybe I could cast magic made with mana of multiple elemental affinities.] (Dia)

…How could I have not thought of that? This was because I assumed that magic was the use of mana of a single affinity.

This was a very interesting idea.

[I’ll think about that too. There are so many possibilities it might be counterproductive.] (Lugh)

[I’ve got so many ideas coming forth it’s exciting, but I might lose myself. Just a few that come to mind, but if I could use water and fire to create steam explosions, or wind and fire to create a storm of fire, or rather, earth and fire at the same time, then there’s a way to attack even more efficient than【Gun Strike】. Even if I don’t shape the iron like a gun, I could just scatter iron fragments in an explosion, this would be fun!] (Dia)

This was already a step forward.

We would be able to create magic on a whole new level.

Everything Dia came up with just now was perfectly appropriate.

[Hmm… I think I can try that last one right now. This will be a minor change from what I’ve done so far, so I’ll just need a minute.] (Dia)

With that, she took out a piece of paper and a quill from her pochette, sat down on the spot, and started writing.

Developing magic had become Dia’s lifework, and she was more familiar with the conformity and better at coding than I was.

If Dia was around, it might even be possible to improvise magic.

[Okay, I did it. Lugh, turn it into a spell.] (Dia)

And in order to make this happen, you needed the【Spell Weaver】skill, for which my participation was essential.

[I can chant it, but I don’t know if it’s gonna be safe.] (Lugh)

[Trust your girlfriend.] (Dia)

Magic was relatively dangerous.

I used to get lots of injuries from it when I was still inexperienced.

I looked over the magic formula Dia wrote. …And I concluded that it did seem safe.

I started chanting.

Similar to when casting several spells with【Multiple Chanting】, I converted my mana into two different elemental affinities, fire and earth.

…It went smoothly.

I was done chanting, and the spell was complete.

[【Buckshot】] (Lugh)

Over a hundred sharp iron gravels were scattered forward in an explosion.

As expected of Dia, she properly designed it to spread only forward.

It was a blow comparable to a large caliber shotgun.

It had a longitudinal range of about ten meters, and at the ten-meter point, it had a lateral range of about five meters.

The more mana I put into it, the more gravels I got and the more powerful the explosion was.

The number of codes was small, and it took about six seconds to chant.

[It’s a great spell. And really aggressive. It had a shorter range than【Gun Strike】, but at close range, it’s the better weapon.] (Lugh)

[Magic-focused mages like me don’t fare well in close combat, after all. But with this, I can stop the enemy in their tracks.] (Dia)

She was right, a widespread attack with a reasonable range was practically impossible to avoid. Although it used buckshot, each one of these shots had a decent amount of firepower.

In close quarter combat, a【Buckshot】in the face was much stronger than a【Gun Strike】at point blank range.

Dia chanted the spell I had just created, and she looked satisfied.

[I would like you to keep up this pace and develop it further.] (Lugh)

[Fufun, you can count on me. I’ve got a great idea. I’m going to make something that uses all four elemental affinities! I can’t wait to use that.] (Dia)

Earth, fire, wind, and water. It was hard to imagine something that made use of all these elements.

But if Dia said that it’d be great, then I could never be disappointed.

No wait, something felt off.

[…Hold on a sec, you can use all four affinities now? I thought you were only a dual-affinity user with fire and earth.] (Lugh)

[I became able to use them all thanks to your power, Lugh. I’m really glad because I was so interested in water and wind.] (Dia)

As if to prove her words, Dia started chanting, then she generated wind and floated in the air.

[Look! What do you think!?] (Dia)

It was a spell I had developed for flight, but it was too difficult to control, so I had put it aside.

It seemed that when Dia used it, she was at least capable of levitating.

[Color me surprised. It’s amazing.] (Lugh)

Dia, who was by far the best at magic control, could now use all four elements.

This was perhaps even more of a power-up than【Multiple Chanting】.

After that, we talked about multi-affinity magic for a while.

Once we were done with that, I left Dia to her business and went to check on Tarte.

[I see you’re working hard.] (Lugh)

[Yes! My body is so light, I am making progress!] (Tarte)

Tarte was using her spear to follow the training drill.

She couldn’t handle her body very well due to her sudden boost in physical abilities.

She was fast and strong, but there was a loss.

Nevertheless, she had already thoroughly forged her foundational basis. So it shouldn’t take long for her to get used to it.

…However, the real problem had yet to come.

[Tarte, it’s about time you tried【Beastification】. You’ll have to test all sorts of things, including the duration of effects.] (Lugh)

【Beastification】wasn’t a skill that could be left on all the time.

You had to voluntarily activate it, and it had a time limit.

In order to operate it, you needed to know how long it took to activate it, the duration of effects, and the conditions for reuse.

You needed to know everything about it.

As the one who gave this skill to Tarte, I could also use it, and I could pretty much guess it, but the animals our animal forms were modeled after were different to begin with, so I wanted accurate data.

[Yes, about that… Well… I have been having some problems with it, which is why I was wondering if we could… think about that another time.] (Tarte)

[Even if it’s problematic, it’s still a useful power. If you master it, it’ll become a weapon.] (Lugh)

[Ugh… I understand. I will use it] (Tarte)

Something was off about her attitude.

She looked like she had made a resolution of some sort.

Tarte gathered her strength and activated【Beastification】.

She grew a pair of cute fox ears and a fluffy tail.

The previous day, that fluffy tail caused her underwear to slip down and her skirt to slide upwards, but that wasn’t going to happen today.

Yesterday, I made a new set of clothes for Tarte.

First, I made her low-rise underwear, and stretched her jacket long enough to cover her skirt.

And then, I also made a hole for her tail in the part where her jacket and her skirt overlapped, so she could now get her fluffy fox tail out without any difficulty.

Just as I intended, her tail came out easily and her skirt wasn’t rolled up.

It was worth checking the position of her tail and taking measurements to make clothes that would fit her perfectly yesterday.

[Tarte, I need battle data. Let’s spar for a little bi- …Scratch that, let’s have a match. If you don’t give it your all, you’ll never know how strong you’ve become.] (Lugh)

I handed her a wooden spear with a cloth-wrapped tip, while I held up a wooden sword.

[Yes, Lugh-sama! I’m going to eat you!] (Tarte)

I wasn’t sure if it was because of【Beastification】, but Tarte’s eyes were different from usual.

She usually looked timid and quiet, but now, she looked belligerent. No, it was worse than that, so erratic maybe.

Whenever we had a match, Tarte would convey to me her belief that she could never win against me, yet today, what she conveyed to me was her intention to eat me.

However, there was something strange about her. Sure, she sounded aggressive and declared her desire to eat me, but I felt that there was something a little different about her.

Anyway, the fact that she was seriously going to try and beat me was interesting.

I would do my best to gauge how good Tarte was at using【Beastification】.