Daily Training
Even after Professor Doua, the elven mage, returned to the royal capital, my magic training continued. Of course, before bed every night, I still practice mana control together with Dad.
Doing stretches after waking up is the same as always too, the only difference is that now, once I’m done stretching, I put on the ultra-alloy suit, I mean, the barrier armor.
Professor Doua recommended that I make a habit of wearing it regularly, saying that doing so would reduce the danger when I’m outside the village.
“However, the way it is now won’t do. It won’t be noticed visually, but anyone skilled in mana sight will be able to tell, and anyone who touches you, Miss Vio, will feel something off. After all, when mana or a sword strikes an ordinary person, it doesn’t make a metallic sound.
Please improve it by the time we meet again next year.”
One of the assignments I was given at parting was improving the barrier armor.
So every morning, I tweak it little by little and observe things like the sound it makes and its durability. I’ve really come to feel just how important imagery is in magic, so when I make it, I test it by imagining full-body suits I remember, but it’s hard.
When it comes to full-body suits, I first thought of the ones worn by the pretty girls in that robot anime where enemies called Apostles come from space and get fought, but maybe my imagination wasn’t good enough, because the arm and leg parts were stiff and made metallic noises, so that was rejected.
Thinking about softness, I went, “A full-body bodysuit!”—but the durability was terrible. Well, it is a bodysuit.
The villain suits that go “Hii!” or “Kii!” were no good either, probably because they’re meant for getting beaten.
On the other hand, the hero suits that defeat them required a belt and wouldn’t work without a huge insect mask, so those were rejected too.
After many twists and turns, I settled on an American comic hero suit.
You know, that hero who can use spider powers.
“Dad, how about this one?”
“Hm? I ain’t all that good at mana sight, y’know. Mm, feels just like normal clothes to the touch. Ain’t hard at all.
Aaaalright then, I’m gonna hit it with magic, okay? Wind Cutter.”
Every day when I get back from school, Dad checks the durability for me.
The ones made of bad materials are so uncomfortable that I end up taking them off while spending time at the academy anyway, and the full-body bodysuit failed just from falling off a mound of dirt during martial training.
If it makes it home safely, Dad checks how it feels, gives it a light tap, and then finally tests it with magic.
He really didn’t like doing it, but when I asked him, saying I wanted to know the durability in case I got suddenly attacked by a monster, he agreed.
Today’s spider suit seemed like a huge success.
The Wind Cutter hit it dead-on and got deflected somewhere else, but there was no sound. With that, my barrier armor was officially decided to be the spider suit.
It’s not as draining as when I first made the barrier armor, but imagining a different full-body suit every day still used a fair amount of mana. Once I settled on this one, though, reproducing it feels like it uses almost nothing at all.
Barrier armor is magic purely for defense, it isn’t body enhancement.
“When trainin’ at home, don’t use body enhancement magic. Let’s work on buildin’ up yer strength too. With that defensive barrier, even fallin’ from a bit of a height won’t hurt ya. Don’t rely too much on enhancement magic, train yer physical abilities.”
Dad gets pretty strict when it comes to training.
He always makes sure it’s safe, and it’s not like he suddenly throws me into fighting monsters, so in that sense I am being coddled.
I don’t really know what’s normal in this world, so it’s hard to say, but maybe this is normal for an adventurer family?
Olympian families start astonishing training from a very young age too, after all. Oh, I see, maybe this is just adventurer-style elite training. Yeah, let’s do our best!
“If ya can’t jump onto it, just make footholds with earth magic. Go on and use everythin’ except enhancement magic.”
“Got it!”
The really big logs can’t be jumped onto without enhancement magic. Before, it was fine just running through them, but now that I’ve gotten used to things, finding ways to jump onto them has become part of the training too.
“Usin’ vines to swing is only for goin’ from that tree to this one. For gaps about as wide as that bridge, try usin’ wind magic.”
“Got it!”
I chanted [Wind] the way the Vice-Guildmaster taught me, creating a tailwind, and the wind scooped my small body up from behind.
“Ah!”
“Ohoh~ Ivy Whip!”
I put in more mana than I meant to, and my body was completely lifted up, slipping off the suspension bridge in the trees. My body flew up into the air and then started falling straight down, but Dad immediately caught me with vine magic from below.
Still gently held by the vines, I was smoothly lowered back down to him.
“That shooketh me, but are ya alright, sugar?”
“Yeah. The wind got a bit too strong. I only meant to make a tailwind, but it turned into a whirlwind instead. Wind is hard.”
It seemed like it had gotten pretty late, so Dad said we’d stop for today, and we headed home with him carrying me.
After dinner and a bath, it’s mana control practice with Dad. Since it doubles as wind practice, I keep working on blowing leaves around.
I can do it calmly like this, but trying to do it during training at the same time is hard. I guess it just takes getting used to.
Maybe because I didn’t use enhancement magic today, I’m incredibly sleepy from overusing my stamina. It feels different from mana exhaustion, probably just normal tiredness…
Just a little more, just a bit longer… I was thinking that, but before I knew it, I’d fallen asleep.
What do you think about this chapter?
