CHAPTER 2: BABY STEPS

I awoke with a small understanding of my magic, only enough to understand the basics of my new found element. I could extend my circles far beyond my own body having an influence of around one meter in all directions however my influence seemed limited in the degree to the weight of objects within my surroundings.

The energies that once played only around my body had started bouncing off other objects, each of the four circles continually rotating as I focused them daily.

While my sister practiced her magic with her tutor I would use my magic to help myself lift books as I made them lighter and heavier to test the limits of my newfound ability.

It seems at the moment I can only make objects about one pound either heavier or lighter, while I was there lifting and reading random books Trisha, my sister had just learned how to conjure an electric charge in her palms using it to leave deep lashes into the side of the shelves filled with books.

Seems she’s already a genius among genii, her instructor clapped and praised her nonstop with each session. Luckily with the entire family paying her all the attention, it gave me more time to be lost in the library and practice my unique magic even earlier.

After a few tries, I learned to apply my magic even on myself, instead of spending hours a day trying to strengthen my muscles I only needed to apply my gravity magic on myself while I continued my everyday tasks, while it tires me out at a breakneck pace it allows me more time to read.

The books within the library mainly spoke about basic elemental manipulations and how one could break through to the next circle, the magic of this world was mainly determined by the three factors: the quality and control of one’s circles, how strong each circle was, and of course the quantity and range of each circle also there was unique magic skills.

Most of the books however were diaries of past family members who had achieved a name for themselves through magic. One in particular Richardson Dimachaerus gave some deep insight into what the circles are. Each is assumed to be a deeper layer of the soul which helps to interact with the world by giving more of itself to influence the world in the desired way, each circle allows for greater interpretation and interaction of the world, with each amplifying the next.

It seems that seven circles can be realized naturally among the magically gifted while among normal people at least one would appear and among the paladins, only a maximum of three were naturally obtainable. However simply possessing circles was not sufficient, one needed a level of control and refinement to optimize each circle and they all had special idiosyncrasies.

I spent the next three years mainly refining my circles and exhausting my gravity magic. At this point It had become so habitual to increase my weight with my gravity magic that I could spend every day twice as heavy even while asleep, the drawback however was constantly being tired and needing more sleep.

Over the years my circles changed from sparks and thin threads running around my body to thick chords rotating and extending around my body, my circles expanded from one to five meters expanding my natural reach and now I was able to make myself twice as heavy while adding or subtracting up to ten pounds on foreign objects.

Meanwhile, today had made the third day we’ve had a visitor coming to watch my sister practice her magic, at this point she had a rehearsed combat sequel just to show off to the other families, she had begun her physical combat training a year prior and it now showed she was an avid combatant, mixing her lightning magic within her martial arts moves and her shifting shadow spell would allow her to fascinate any visitor with her young age and talent.

“Amazing! And all before the age of ten, she’s a natural talent.”

The guest laughed and clapped as Trisha performed her practice. The guest was a fat man with a beautiful young lady following behind him. His size betrayed the elegant suit he wore, though his sociological ranking was far below my family he represented another duchy more so an ancient one hence standing over my family in seniority.

He had trodden about the residents as though he owned it despite being only a baron, he eyed the maidservant with his hungry eyes and commented without regards, by the end of the evening attending to him was more exhausting to the family than they had hoped.

My mother particularly had spent the entire day shuffling around the help to ensure the more attractive servants would not encounter him to prevent any forced encounters.

Another year had passed, at the age of seven I was diagnosed to have little, more like no talent whatsoever for elemental magic and instead was given a tutor to mentor me in enhancement magic and basic sword and self-defense.

My mentor was the head of the army for my father’s duchy, a slim man with a burly red beard and tall hair that complemented his face, he went by the title of commander Jin. He dressed simply and at a glance one would not have guessed him to be the commander of over a thousand men much less my very distant cousin.

On the first day of our lessons, we met in the family’s courtyard early in the morning.

“Today I’ll be teaching you spells, or rather why we use spells.” To be honest I had read enough books to know of the existence of spells however between my low mana reserves and my lack of elemental affinity none of them worked as I would hope.

“Spells are used for faster casting of effects. Spells are originally just pre-rehearsed attacks. For example cast this”

He stopped his pacing around and handed me a paper with a strange phrase written on it

“Swift Dia” I said confusingly, as I said those words my muscles became lighter and I felt as though I would spring from the ground as I moved.

Truth be told it seems as though the spell only removed my gravity from around my body which was doubled thanks to my ability.

“That was your basic swift spell, it lasts for about three seconds, but now I’d like you to try to cast your version of a swift spell.”

Following his instructions I hardly had to focus and removed the gravity around myself then started to move about at roughly the same speed as the swift spell before.

“You might have realized that your swift spell takes far less time to cast and even less mana because it was specialized to you.” I nodded in agreement as he spoke,

“However, that only goes for the lower tier spells, as you advance higher while the latter may remain true that it will consume more magic to cast a spell than use a focused thought the former will not be, it will take less time to say a few words than to focus for more a complex spell more so when it comes to things like congruent and double casting, but those are concepts I will leave for an academy to teach.” he smirked as he continued to pace and speak boldly.

“Then how do I make my own spells?”

I asked curiously as I pondered what about these particular letters or formation of them could influence the world in such a phenomenal manner.

“Well, personal spells are easy to make, while general use spells are a bit more tricky. Personal spells only require you to attach words to the feeling and flow of the mana, meaning any phrase or sentence could be a personal spell while general use spells, meaning spells others can use require translation into ancient languages and mixing of ancient mnemonics and hand signs. Often the higher the tier of the spell the more is required.” He rubbed his beard as he paced around and explained.

“However, as a member of the Dimachaeri family, you will never chant a low tier spell! All of that is the reason why from now on you will spend all day sparring with me until you can perfect cast tier-one spells during the heat of battle”

Commander Jin’s expression changed as he stretched out his arm and a wooden pole from a stack of wooden weapons across the room came flying into his palm.

I only saw a flash by then I was already hitting the floor and Jin’s sly grin came over me to pick me up,

“Rule number one! The fight is always on.” He grinned as he dusted off his staff.

Before I could stretch out my hand to direct my gravity magic, I was hit by his wood again breaking my focus and my spell.

“And being too reliant on spells and magic is what gets ninety percent of young mages killed, young Alric.”

I was already on the floor by the time he finished that sentence,

‘I don’t think a seven-year-old should be getting these kinds of injuries.’

“Don't focus on the pain, we have some great healers in the family villa we can bring you back from the brink of death to our heart's content.” as though dancing in my head Jin retorted with a dark and villainous expression.

He walked over to me while I was still spared out on the floor “So focus on your magic I bet you didn’t see that wooden sword on the floor right behind you.” Jin calmly pointed at the sword a few inches from my head.

I was inwardly shocked until I remembered when you reached for the staff there were two sounds but I was distracted by the fall, seems magic has its pros and cons. I rolled backward while picking up the wooden sword and jumping back to my feet to continue the practice.

I kept hoping my father or mother would come to save me but from sunrise to sundown, he’d spend an hour teaching me forms and stances just to spend the rest of the day teaching me what was painfully wrong with them.

He would hardly give me the chance to focus on a single spell, not that the exhaustion would help either. His lessons were only three times a week but I dreaded his classes.

The other days I would learn basic social etiquette, mathematics, Languages and geography of the country.

It took three weeks before I was finally able to cast a silent spell mid-battle. It was just a slow spell but Jin felt the effects and knew what I had done, his eyes widened as he felt its effect.

‘Only three weeks? Normally it takes At least two months for anyone within the family to come close and some never succeed,’ Jin thought to himself in disbelief.

“Class is over for today.” It was still relatively early in the morning when I succeeded, however, Jin ended the class and went straight to my father to make his report.

“It would seem not only your daughter but also your son might have talents far beyond their years. His circles by my estimates are at least at the end of the fourth limits, and each of his circles is already finely developed naturally, truth be told apart from combat there isn't much need to teach him meditation and harnessing techniques, while he may not possess the dual element he possesses an aptitude as though he had been using magic from within the womb.”

Jin's report was interrupted by chuckles between the two as they laughed heartily at the ridiculous thought.

“Continue to teach whatever you think will be more useful for him in combat.” Jin was dismissed for the remainder of the day.

After another three months of sparring and meditation, my fifth circle sparked into creation with it my mana reserves that before could only allow for short bursts of magic could now hold for a longer period.

While I would constantly have my body weight increase magic on myself, I called this my gravity chains, it seems I was unable to cast spells on other objects for longer than thirty seconds.

Well that was before my fifth circle sparked. Now I was able to hold my reduction and gravity increase for as long as two minutes depending on how heavy or light I wanted to make the object even while my gravity chains were active.