We continued to travel safely by horse. The roads were quite safe thanks to the regular patrols and we encountered neither monsters or bandits on the way. “It’s a bit of a shame” is what I thought. I would have liked to gain more fighting experience before the tournament.

The travel was long and I had time to think about a battle strategy. First I would try to evaluate the opponent’s strength by firing a few『Wind Blades』. Then I would try to subjugate them while using my Expert level Magic. However, I decided to keep Creative Magic as a trump card in case I was pushed back to my limits.

Thanks to my continuous Magic training and experimentation, I was now able to make a more efficient use of Creative Magic. My Mana capacity had also improved by quite a lot.『Dragonfly』now required only 10% of my total Mana to activate properly and『Phantom Fireball』used up 25%,『Dragonfly』included. It was still quite a lot compared to『Wind Razor』which only cost about 10% of my Mana, although『Phantom Fireball』was much more powerful.

『Flash』was the least expensive Creative Magic I had so far. To achieve a brightness that could blind the enemy, I only needed to use up about 5% of my total Mana. Although it can’t be called “overpowered” because it is a trick that won’t work twice against the same opponent.

“You’ve become stronger, Zwölf. I can feel it.”

“Yes, Father. Although it might not be enough to win the tournament.”

“I’m sure you’ll be just fine, hahaha. You’re my son after all.”

“… That’s why I’m worried.”

I had wanted to test the boundaries of what I could do with Creative Magic and although it was almost limitless, there were still some restrictions. First off, despite all my training, my Mana capacity was at most average for a Magician. I could improve it with training but it would take a long time. Also, when trying to imagine the final result of the spell I’m training to cast, I had to have a very clear idea of what it would look like and how it worked. This is the reason why I was unable to cast any kind of healing Magic. How it worked was simply unknown to me.

Talking about Creative Magic, back when I was in Bruneciel, no one seemed to know what it was or how to handle it. According to them, there was no other way to cast spells other than using Cindril.

The very first book I read about Magic clearly separated both kinds of Magic but the more I inquired about it, the more it seemed like Creative Magic was an ancient lost Magic that no one knew about.

***

We finally arrived at the capital. Naxus was the name of the first Emperor of the Porcephone Empire and the capital was named after him.

The first thing I noticed from a distance was the giant wall surrounding the city. What I assumed to be the castle also stood out. Such a big building, that elevated nearly as high as the walls.

Unlike what I was expecting, the city was much quieter than Bruneciel despite its size. It was separated into multiple districts. The crafting district, the guild district, the residential district and the shopping district were the main ones. Although the residential district was clean, I was surprised with how dirty the crafting one was. Well, it’s not like I was disappointed by the town in any way. Actually, it matched the mental picture I had of it.

“Alright Zwölf, now let’s head to the inn indicated by your letter.”

“Yeah.”

After following the directions written on the back of Artis’ letter, we arrived at an “average” inn. Maybe it was considered mediocre, but for someone like me who’s never left my small village, it was quite luxurious.

We showed the letter to the tenant of the inn and after reading it, he nodded in silence and showed us our rooms. The beds were comfortable and the room in itself looked like it had been cleaned recently.

According to the tenant, we were considered as guests instead of customers and had been given the best room. Food was also free. Looks like saving the bartender in Bruneciel really paid off. Father looked satisfied as he walked up to me.

“Ok Zwölf. I will go register you for the tournament. You can use this time to relax or train.”

“I’ll try to visit the town first.”

“Sure. But don’t approach shady people, alright ?”

“Of course I’ll stay out of trouble.”

We both parted ways and I headed toward the guild district first. It was composed of a huge alley with massive buildings on each side. The mercenary guild, the alchemist guild, the adventurer guild… all those looked tempting. Maybe I’d try joining one of them in the future ?

I then left for the shopping district. It was designed as a gigantic agglomeration of shops of different sizes. I took a look at the displayed goods : books, weapons, armors, potions, ingredients, magic items, furniture, mounts… Everything and anything was sold here. However, the price were generally too high for me, even with my allowance of 10 Gold Coins (Father gave me more money as we arrived in the town). I saw an interesting stall full of enchanted items. The cheapest was an earring that apparently allowed the user to store extra Mana. Its cost was 50 Gold Coins. Dejected by my lack of money, I headed back to the inn and went in the backyard.

I first finished reading “Deeper analysis of the Magic concepts” and it helped me to understand a few more things about Magic.

First of all, although it was true that Mana was only raw Magic, this only applied to humans. It seemed like each race had a different kind of natural “attribute” inside of their Mana. As such, Elves’ Mana contained a natural healing ability which essentially worked on cell regeneration.

I did mention before that healers were Elves. As a matter of fact, the reason for that is that they are the only race that can manipulate Healing Magic. Although most Elves had migrated towards the Dorua continent, some of them decided to stay in Sill in order to make money thanks to their natural ability.

Orcs, despite their lack of Magic awareness, had an attribute inside their Mana that strengthened their bones, skin and muscles. Dwarves also seemed to only have raw Magic though.

When it came to the Half race – which was a race composed of different evoluted subspecies of monsters – it was different for each species. The only two this book mentioned were the Ghouls with a Mana attribute increasing their physical abilities and the Vampires with the attribute to turn ingested blood into Mana.

Father came back while I was training on the new Expert level Magic spells. I had only succeeded in mastering 『Wind Bullet』. This technique focused on compressing a large amount of Wind Cindril into a small cylindrical shape and then release it all at once.

It took me the entire afternoon to put the theory into practice as it required a large amount of concentration to avoid the Wind Cindril from leaking outside of the bullet. Furthermore, an additional command similar to 『Whirlwind』needed to be executed on the bullet to fire it as fast as possible.

Although this technique was hard to use due to me having to be extremely focused on the molding, it was indeed very powerful. It could easily pierce through normal metals such as iron plates and even shields.

“Do you feel ready for the tournament ?”

“I could still use some more training but I think I’ll be able to put up a fight.”

“Well do your best. I just registered you. The first half of the tournament starts tomorrow at 10am.”

“Tomorrow !? Wow that’s fast !”

“Good luck ! I won’t be able to watch to the tournament tomorrow because of my work but if you make it into the finals, I’ll be able to come and watch you. The Emperor has requested my squad to keep an eye on the last part of the tournament to ensure it’s safe.”

“Yeah, I’ll do my best !”

I went to sleep soon after eating and mentally readied myself for tomorrow.

Just like that, my first day at Naxus ended.