The day after being hit by lightning I felt the need to replicate that lightning. Sitting on the ground at the edge of the little plot surrounding the farmhouse I study a small metal rod I have shoved in the ground. No need to worry about making mistakes this far from others. I should be able to survive the worst of lightning accidents after the recent resistance training as well.

Holding a finger near the rod and try to replicate the electric charge at the tip of my finger. A small lightning jumps from my finger to my baby lightning rod. Success already! Guess I am finding it easy since I have seen in and I understand the concept from my past life. If I hadn't seen it done, I still would not have figured out how to do it with just my past knowledge.

After practicing a bit more with the baby lightning rod I am able to create ten sustained little lightnings coming from each of my fingers. It reminds me of a plasma ball toy. I stand up and look at the border stone about 10 meters away. How much power do I need to put into the lightning to reach it and leave a mark on it?

As I focus on creating the same conditions in front of my outstretched hand I feel the mana well up. I am using a lot on this one. I release the lightning and an explosion blows me backwards. I am definitely not immune to explosions, but what exploded? Sitting up the border stone looks untouched. However, the ground in front of me has a crater the size of well a half a foot deep.

What exactly happened? I run through the actions in my head. The lightning formed and released, but never reached the stone. Instead it went down and blew up the ground in front of me. Makes sense, lightning does not go horizontally. Looks like there is more to casting lightning that I don't know. How the heck did that goblin learn magic?

I remember reading about ball lightning. A rare natural phenomena not even understood by science in my past life. If I could figure out a way to replicate that I might be able to make a viable version of the lightning balls that have been thrown at me. There was also Dain's fireball. To me it looked more like plasma. That should be easier to make.

Compression gasses into focal point I use the mana to shake up the gas molecules, creating heat. Rather than the short burst I use for igniting something flammable, I keep increasing the heat until the gas changes state into something jelly like. I am not quite sure how I am keeping this thing afloat and maintained, but it is sort of working. My focus is disrupted by the second degree burns forming on my hands. Losing focus the jelly blob fall to the ground scorching the grass and dissipate. Looks like I need to increase my natural fire and heat resistance.

Scabs of dead skin fall off my hands as my extreme regeneration has already formed new unblemished skin where I previously had burnt skin. My menu tells me that both my heat and fire resistance has gone up. Seeing how easy my resistance increased I create a flame above my palm and start burning my other palm. "What the are you doing?"

Lawra's sharp and panicked tone pulls me out of my intense concentration. The flame goes out and I turn towards her. I guess I need to explain to her why I was trying to put myself on fire. "Don't worry, I am perfectly fine." I hold up my now healed hand. Lawra is usually carefree and easygoing, but she seems genuinely upset at seeing me hurting myself.

After spending some time explaining that I am practicing magic, and to avoid getting hurt while practicing magic I am slowly building up my resistance to fire Lawra eventually relents. I guess the smell of burnt skin didn't do me any favors. "What are you doing here? I moved far away from the house to avoid getting you guys hurt while practicing." It is Lawra's turn to try to explain, she clearly got curious after the explosion earlier.