CHAPTER 3: Magic

I and Aishita haven’t spoken a word about the incident yesterday, Aishita wondered what kind of magic I accidentally released, and I kept trying to cast the shortened incantation for Aqua Sphere repeatedly but unfortunately, I couldn’t reproduce the results of yesterday.

Nevertheless, I was still able to shorten the incantation for Aqua Sphere. After being able to short cast aqua sphere, I also tried it for Liquid Armor. I was successful in short-casting Liquid Armor as well; it seems that my hunch was correct, that having a good mental image of the spell correlates to effective short casting.

Within just a day, I was able to short cast 2 spells and became a C rank Water Wizard, however, I wasn’t able to short cast any of the remaining 3 attributes, so I don’t think my assumptions are reliable anymore.

I stopped trying to short-cast, despite that, I didn’t stop trying to improve, this world might be peaceful now, but I still want to protect those close to my heart, something that I couldn’t do before and I’m almost positive that the peace won’t remain forever. So I tried combining different attributes, first I tried combining water and fire attributes, the most basic attribute to combine, by increasing the temperature of the water using fire magic, one can effectively dispose of enemies, this is effective on monsters who are weak to fire but one cannot simply just burn things all the time, for example, when inside an enclosed space where every oxygen counts, using fire magic to defeat monsters is not a wise decision because fire consumes oxygen and produce carbon monoxide that can fill the entire space which can lead to carbon monoxide poisoning and render a person unconscious which can probably lead to death, because of that, I thought maybe learning to combine magic attributes early is a wise decision.

After spending almost an entire day, I barely manage to combine the two attributes I sought out to combine, maybe tomorrow I’ll try combining earth and wind attributes as well, I was getting bored trying to do the same thing for an entire day.

I went back inside to rest and after eating dinner I slept like there’s no tomorrow.

***

I woke up just before the sunrise and immediately went outside by the garden to train.

“hey, kid!”

To my surprise, I heard a familiar voice calling out to me. There she was, Ophelia-san, and a female human child with her, I highly doubt it was her daughter.

She was about my age, maybe older, having short wavy gray hair that barely reaches her shoulders, different colored eyes that glisten from the rising sun, her left studious hazel brown eye scrutinizing me, while her right piercing sky-blue eye speaks confidence in her abilities. I think she’s a bit taller than me. She wore this white shirt and tight black shorts fit for strenuous activities.

Both her and Ophelia came into the garden.

“You remember me, right? Where’s your sister?”

She asked nicely as the human child clung to her back, staring at me.

“You’re Ophelia-san, Nee-chan’s helping out in the kitchen.”

I answered while having a smile etched on my face as I pointed to where the backdoor of the kitchen was. She thanked me and asked the little girl to stay in the garden with me so she can talk to Aishita. As she left, the girl introduce herself.

“Henlo!!! My name’s Yuna, what’s yours?”

“Sura”

She speaks cheerfully, like a child, so I acted childishly to keep up with her, I remember mom used to say back in my old world, she said you’ll miss being a child, I thought she was just telling me that, but now, I know what she truly meant. So, we kept talking, then played. I learned that a few years back her home was attacked by a group of smugglers who killed both of her parents protecting her so she could escape however she was eventually caught later, it was Ophelia and her husband Luke that saved her from slavery and raised her like she was their own daughter. When Ophelia came back, she told us that its time for them to go home.

“Can we come back, mommy?” Yuna asked

“Of course, we will Yuna” She answered as she patted her head.

We waved goodbye as they slowly walked away from our house, Aishita appeared behind me.

“You had fun today?” Aishita asked with her usual happy expression

“Yeah, we did a lot today!” I answered, but I didn’t notice, I was still in my childish state, regardless, I cared less about it.

Aishita look at me with a fading happy expression, which raised my concern.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her

Aishita laid her hands on my head and spoke.

“It’s nothing, I just want to tell you that you are going to train with us” Her usual expression returns, filled with delight and positive emotions.

“Really?!” I couldn’t control my own excitement.

“Yep, we’re starting tomorrow so get ready!”

While I was being excited outside with my sister, mother and father had just come home after their date, spending half of the day in the village, going out and eating together.

The next morning, my sister and I finished the chores early for mom and dad to allow us to train. When they finally allowed us, we rush outside, did some stretches, and some warmup incantations. When we completed our warm-ups, Ophelia and Yuna arrived greeting us, we greeted them in return, Ophelia looks at me appraisingly, she then turned to face Aishita.

“We should go to a more spacious area,” Ophelia said.

We went out in search of a spacious place for our training, it is natural to train on open grounds to avoid accidents.

We were able to find a spacious area fit for training near our house. With that out of the way, we started our training.

The way of their training is what I didn’t expect, I thought it would just be practice or learn new incantations like Aishita and I usually do in our yard, they were training more on how to manipulate mana and increase one’s mana pool. Ophelia explained to me that mana is the core or the basis of magic. She then clasped her right hand and open them slowly; it revealed a blue spherical ball of energy.

“This is Mana, in its purest form is harmless, but you can manipulate it into different elements.”

Ophelia concentrates on her mana, dispersing the blue spherical orb into the air, which then wraps itself around her like how liquid armor works but this is somehow different like a higher-level variant. Her body now emits a light blue aura, after a few seconds it then burst and faded. Again, Ophelia concentrates on her mana wrapping herself with a vibrant red protecting herself, she did the same with the remaining 2 elements. With this new trick, I was excited about how useful this can apply in combat.

“How did you do that?” I asked, amazed at how much control Ophelia had with mana.

“Well, it’s all about what you feel, when you want to use water, feel the water coursing through your veins, and combine it with mana, for fire, feel the heat of your body temperature, and fuel it with mana, for wind, it’s all about the pattern of breathing with mana, and lastly earth, harden your body like acting like a rock, feel your minerals inside you, iron, zinc, magnesium, and any other minerals and fused it with your mana.”

Ophelia explained that the spell she conjured to wrap herself was called Mana Armor, the strongest form of armor in the world however only A rank Wizards can use it to its full extent without sacrificing focus and too much mana. There are 4 types of Mana Armor, one for each element, and each element is effective against specific elements. From what I understand water is effective against fire, fire against wind, and wind is effective against water. Earth is the most versatile element being able to shield against the other 3, but it is significantly harder to create a Mana Armor with the element of earth. She explained it all clearly, but still, it didn’t explain about the incident of the dark mist I cast the other day, then she said.

“Sura, Aishita mentioned to me about the dark mist that you cast the other day, correct?”

She asked me with concern in her tone.

“Yes, it was some kind of dark smoke that appeared when I tried to short-cast Aqua Sphere.”

“I see, then may I ask you to do it again?”

I gulped, but I agreed with her, Yuna and Aishita backed away as Aishita hid Yuna behind her, Ophelia and I stood opposite to each other preparing the same incantations I used before.

“What’s happening” Yuna whispered to Aishita, curiosity evident in her voice.

“Oh nothing, just a try-out for Sura” She explains happily, making Yuna ease her worries.

As I started the incantations, I started to feel that maybe this time I can repeat what happened the other day, and to my surprise, I was able to summon the same dark mist, Ophelia with bulging eyes, unable to believe what she had seen, the dark mist began to spread, it acted differently, instead of fading out, it turned into a fluid-like substance and form a dark sphere, as the form finished, it erupts violently. With fear, I could only stand, not knowing what to do. Suddenly a giant aqua sphere was summoned by Ophelia, it then proceeds to imprison the dark sphere, as Ophelia clasped her hands, the giant aqua sphere shrunk and pressured my spell. With that, the dark sphere slowly vanished inside her spell. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but seeing Ophelia’s expression, she seems exhausted containing that sphere, she then gawks at me, but somehow was able to recollect herself before speaking.

“Sura, you have an affinity for dark attribute magic one of the 2 advance attributes of magic.”