Before-bed Training
Afterwards, I got to see some fire magic from the Guildmaster. He showed me [Fireball], [Fire Arrow], and [Firewall], and his mane—no, his hair—glowed red from the flames and wind, looking really cool. I clapped with excitement, and he seemed so pleased that he also showed me [Flame Bullet], a rapid-fire barrage of flame bullets. Little fireballs popped up from his hand, rapidly striking targets—it was peak fire mage vibes and seriously impressive.
Holy magic and dark magic weren’t their specialties, so they promised to show me those another time. They said it’d be better to gradually practice and memorize the magic they had already taught me, so I wouldn’t forget from information overload.
Thinking back at home, I did wonder if it would’ve been better to start with safer practice spells… But thanks to showing off my Hot Reflex and watching their magic demonstrations, I didn’t have time to study magical beasts in the archive room. Well, since we have martial arts classes every other day, getting familiar with magic takes priority.
Apparently, school is on break tomorrow and the day after. Tomorrow, I’ll be training in martial arts with Dad and gathering herbs to earn some points. After discussing with the Guildmaster and others, we figured it’d be good to set aside one day during weekends for a kids’ gathering experience. Since the scissors should be finished soon, we might have our first outing next week.
For now, it’ll just be the Len, Hachi and their brothers gathering in the forest behind our house, but with the guild organizing things, even the village chief’s forest might open up. That one’s pretty big, so it’ll need more adults to supervise if other kids join, so it might become a community event on Holy Days. It could be a good chance to meet little kids who don’t leave their homes often. I’d like to visit the chief’s forest too if it happens.
"Well, you've put in a mighty fine effort with your exercises and magic today, so you must be plumb tuckered out. Make sure you hit the hay early tonight, ya hear? Get some good rest."
“Yup, I’ll do my usual training and head to sleep. Thanks, Dad. Good night.”
After dinner and a bath, it was bedtime. I said goodnight while sitting on my bed. Since I often do mana control training while falling asleep, Dad always brings me to bed before starting. I usually doze off while practicing, and Dad probably covers me with a blanket during the night.
But tonight’s different! I’m doing mana control but also aiming to use up all my mana. As long as I’m properly using magic, it counts as good practice. I’ll keep going until I’m completely out of mana, using safe spells!
Fire and earth are too risky—can’t risk the house catching fire or the bed turning into a crater. Since I’ll be under the covers, it needs to be something safe.
Water might be fine? No, if I fall asleep, I’ll end up splashing my face and waking up. Not a good idea. Light magic would probably keep me awake, and just thinking about it reminds me of eye strain from phone screens. Nope. Wind… hard to imagine anything that’d drain my mana there.
Then I remembered the leafy wall from earlier. Summoning leaves is wood magic, and keeping them floating could count as wind manipulation. That works.
I wasn’t sure how to summon leaves though, so I opened the window and used wind to pull in a leaf. I cleaned it with [Clean] before getting under the blanket, holding it in my right hand, and channeling mana to make it float.
“[Wind],” I chanted. A swirling gust sucked in the leaf and shredded it into tiny pieces… oops.
Right, that wasn’t the goal. Guess the swirling image made me imagine tornadoes or washing machines—no wonder it crumbled. Lesson learned.
I got out of bed, gathered about ten leaves with wind magic from outside, cleaned them, and got back under the covers.
Okay, no whirlwinds. I imagined a gentle breeze carrying the leaf from my right to left hand.
Coating the leaf with mana, it slowly floated, swaying gently. Yes, that’s the feeling. I imagined softly blowing it to the left, and a tiny breeze sent it gently spinning across.
Good, good. Now from left to right—soft breeze.
Perfect, a nice little spin midair. I decided to keep this up until I ran out of mana, like juggling weightless balls.
I swayed the leaf from right to left, left to right, again and again. I lost count after a while and apparently fell asleep midway, waking up to a crumpled leaf on my blanket.
I’m not sure if I hit mana depletion or just passed out from sleepiness, but I didn’t feel mana-starved after waking up, so I probably recovered overnight.
It would’ve been nice to have a status display or something—it’d make training more fun. But then again, that’d make it feel too much like a game world.
According to the Guildmaster, spells like [Fire Bullet] change in number based on your mana capacity and control skill. I should pick something like that to use as a progress benchmark. I’ll talk to Dad about which spell would be good for it. Sounds like a plan!
What do you think about this chapter?
