"Eat up Darius! You need to eat a whole lot when you train." "I'm already full mom!" "You'll be hungry later so eat a little more!" My mother was forcing food down my throat during our breakfast as usual while Linda and Caspian were having an eating contest. "You think I can't eat as much because I'm a girl?" "No, I think you can't eat as much because you're my junior!" They reminded me of a certain bickering pair of knights. I was ready to start my day.

We went back to the waterfall for training. “Spinning fast with a lot of force right mom?” I had the spell activated above my hand. “Don’t use too much force or you’ll break a leg or worse your neck, start small and build an image.” I started by having a small gust of wind swirl on the palm of my hand before speeding it up and having it explode with an upward force. The magic my mother taught me was unconventional, the way she used magic was completely different than what I read in books. Every spell is a frame, and there was a lot of things you can do with a frame. "Let the spell do the heavy lifting. It'll lessen the burden if you shape the spell after it's already been created. I can tell you are trying to craft the spell from scratch on your own rather than work with it. Don't force it, work with the spell, Darius." I was confused. I was more confused by her explanation than before. I reset my focus and tried again.

I would master Wind Steps until I could actually walk on top of the wind. There was only so much I could do in the framework of the spell itself, so I tried to focus on two things during my training today, instant casting and multicasting. The magic circle came directly under my feet and I began to practice. It seemed that no matter how many times I cast the spell it was never an instant cast. I closed my eyes and thought of an image, a small image. The wind would gather while spiraling and then shoot upward with explosive force. I cast Wind Steps again focusing on its speed and execution and ended up spinning in the air like a barrel rolling down a hill before my mother caught me.

Every time I practiced the spell I made noticeable small improvements and by the time I reached the halfway point on the second day I could finally cast Wind Steps instantly and even run with it.

I didn't catch up to my mom in the end, but I did achieve what I set out to do. Multicasting Wind Steps would take longer than half a day to master so I decided that was something to focus on later. We had lunch by the waterfall while my mother commented on my practice. "You're stubborn, Darius. You cast wind magic the same as your dad forcing the execution." She sighed, "In the end, you've still mastered the spell, and you did a better job than your father" She rubbed my back before saying, "You did good today, Darius."

After lunch, I thought hard about something my mother said. "You executed the spell first before adding your image." There was something worth trying. I cast Wind Steps and started running around the lake with wind flowing around me. My mother chased after me while I focused on an image. I added an image to spell while I was running. I couldn’t close my eyes, and it was difficult to focus while my attention was on not tripping or falling, but I managed to cement the image clearly. The Winged White Tiger was crouching, my body crouched along with it; the Tiger's front legs lowered, and I put my hands on the ground with my legs squatted. The Tiger leaped and for the first time since coming to this world, I used everything, my internal energy, undeveloped leg muscles, and Wind Steps. I made another magic circle under my legs and whispered, “It's just spinning the wind and an upward explosion of force!” I ended up shouting the last part. I imitated the image in my mind exploding upward as far as I could go, “Arghhhhhh!” I roared. The ground blew apart slightly from the force of my jump, and I noticed I was soaring much faster than I expected. I jumped straight passed the waterfall and soared past the lake as well. "Mom!" I knew she was prepared for something this time so I shouted as loudly as I could, "Mooom!" I was expecting to jump pretty high and for my mother to catch me again, but I overshot what I was intending by an enormous margin. “Dammit, Darius not again!” I could see fiery wings shoot out behind her back and flames firing from her feet as she rapidly closed in on me and caught me.

She flew back to the cabin with a frustrated look on her face. “In the future, you can only try something like that when you're confident you're not going to hurt yourself!” My mother angrily reprimanded me afterward for the first time. "What's the good of being talented Darius if you're an idiot and get yourself killed!" I tried to listen to her but I had run out of both mana and internal qi, I fell asleep. I used up absolutely everything in that leap from before so I didn’t even have the energy to listen to another word. As I drifted off, I could feel my mother's warmth coming from her back. I had a good mom.