Magic Class
After a short break, it’s time for magic class. The sheep triplets are once again training in mana control. The middle group is practicing offensive and support magic, and the little ones are working on daily life magic.
Speaking of which, I’ve been trying to push myself until I run out of mana at home, but I always end up falling asleep while practicing mana control in bed. I’ve never experienced actual mana depletion.
If you want to become a legendary adventurer, you should be training from childhood—that’s the standard pattern—but I wonder if there’s anything I can do about my sleepiness.
“Now then, the two of you succeeded with Clean the other day. Have you continued practicing since then? Let me see.”
Teacher Ariana came over to check Ren and Hachi’s Clean. With confident smiles, the two summoned water droplets of a suitable size into their hands and spun them around to wash, then made the water disappear on the spot.
“Amazing! You can now make them the right size, even better than two days ago. Did you practice at home?”
“I helped my mom out!”
“I washed the dishes after dinner~”
Their tails wagging furiously as they reported this was just too adorable. Teacher Ariana, too, was patting their heads and saying “Good job, good job,” making their tails wag even more.
“Teacher, what magic are we going to practice today?”
“Well, I didn’t expect you to master Clean so quickly, so next would be Light, I suppose. Burn is still too dangerous since it involves fire, and Dry needs something to dry. Yes, let’s go with Light.”
“That’s the one for room lighting.”
“My house uses a magic tool!”
After a bit of thought, Teacher decided on light magic. The lighting Len was referring to uses a magical tool called Light, but I guess we can use that as a reference point for brightness when casting Light ourselves.
Ah, if I can get the daily life magic version of Light working well, maybe I can try using that as an excuse to experiment and see if I can generate light using attribute magic.
Actually, I’ve always thought the basic attributes were kind of strange. We’re taught the seven elements are wood, fire, earth, water, wind, dark, and holy. But dark and holy are said to be opposites, which seems odd. If holy had an opposite, shouldn’t it be “demonic” or something? And if darkness had an opposite, wouldn’t that be light?
This room-expanding magic, and magic bags, are both space magic, yet none of the basic attributes seem to cover that. So doesn’t that imply space is a separate attribute?
If I think along those lines, then there must be more attributes. For example, time, or ice (maybe a derivative of water), lightning (possibly a mix of wind and light), or even non-attribute (maybe that’s where time falls). My knowledge is a bit fuzzy, mostly from light novels, but if spirits exist, then the list could grow even more.
I was almost convinced when the guild card said those seven were all the attributes, but that card-making machine, while super high-tech, is still a magic tool. That means someone had to set it up. Did they only believe there were seven elements? Or maybe they deliberately made it so unacknowledged attributes like space wouldn’t show up.
No one knows exactly what the baptism ceremony with the glowing crystal ball reveals either. But since it’s a magic tool too, I doubt it can display more than the seven attributes. I’m already registered as an adventurer, and I have no desire to get involved with the church or the country, so I won’t be attending that ceremony anyway.
Teacher instructed us to start practicing Light, so the three of us began. When I focused on the daily life magic version of Light and chanted, a glowing orb about the size of a chicken egg floated up, emitting a white light. It reminded me of an LED light. Thinking about it, those lights could adjust brightness and color too.
(I wonder if I could do that too?)
I tried adjusting it in various ways, but once the Light spell was cast, I couldn’t change it anymore. So instead, before casting, I pictured a warm, orange nightlight glow in my mind and then chanted Light, and it worked.
By the way, Len had summoned an extremely bright, dazzling Light spell at first and was now resting with his hands over his eyes. Hachi had been hit by the light too, having watched Len cast it up close, and was also taking a break.
With the two of them resting, I sat beside them, fiddling with my Light spell. Assuming light magic exists, I’m convinced Light must fall under it. Maybe the casting method is just different? But then, what exactly is the difference between daily life magic and attribute magic? Now that the thought’s stuck in my head, I can’t stop thinking about it.
The sheep triplets are deeply focused on their mana control training, so I don’t want to interrupt them. Come to think of it, I wonder how the others are using their magic? I focused my gaze a bit farther away and saw the middle group taking turns firing at targets. Looks like Nachi is up next.
Can I hear him? I strained my ears to listen closely. I also tried focusing my body’s mana to enhance my hearing, gathering the soft mana fuzz around my ears while wishing to hear better.
I pictured the mana swirling from around my belly button, circulating through my whole body along the blood vessels. Nice, nice. I guided some of that swirling mana to my ears and eyes. The sounds that had been just background noise before began to take shape as voices.
“You’re best with wood, right Nachi? What’s wood attribute attack magic like?”
“I can’t really imagine wood being used for attacks. I found tons of incantations in books for woodworking and stuff, but none for attacking. That’s why I’m planning to focus on extending fire magic instead.”
“But Mr. Alke is a former high-ranking Silver adventurer who specializes in wood magic, right? Maybe we could ask him?”
“Yeah, he will be here to pick up Vio, so as long as we don’t take up too much of his time, he might tell us.”
I can hear them clearly! Wait, did he say incantations just now? Last time when Tony almost caused a blowup, I only heard him shout Fireball, so I assumed it was just a short chant, but maybe it’s different?
Also, isn’t there a lot of potential for offensive wood magic? Do they think it’s just limited to wood? Dad uses plant manipulation to do farmwork and prune trees, but I’ve always thought it’d be useful for stealth-based attacks too.
While I was thinking that, it looked like Nachi had finished preparing and started to chant with his right hand extended.
“Flames dwell within my hand, and the fire that burns all to ashes becomes a ball and bursts forth—Fireball!”
… Uh, wasn’t that kinda long? Just to produce a single fireball, he had to extend his hand, start concentrating mana, recite that whole spell, gather the mana to his palm, and then launch it?
Well, I guess the incantation wasn’t as cringe as I expected, but still, that fireball isn’t gonna burn everything to ash. And “flames dwell within my hand”…?
What do you think about this chapter?
