Chapter 4 ...Meet the Elements...

It's been a tough few years, just three really, but I finally had it.

I had almost perfect control over the magic I was granted and boy was that something.

Now, normally when you think of fantasy world magic, one either goes Fireball, or maybe Cure, all the way up to True Resurrection, Time Stop, and Ultima or something like that.

Those old magic games only wish they were as diverse as the real thing.

After three years of experimentation, I could conclude that magic was a whole different animal compared to what I was used to.

Magic, back in the old world, was something with a set of distinct rules, regulations, limitations, and mechanisms that were strictly adhered to. It was something caged, limited, defined, much like science grew to be, but magic was something man mad than the phenomenon that just was. No matter where you looked, magic could only be created by people, defined by people, and in a way produced by people. It was something that was confined to the human imagination and no matter how vast you can claim that to be, it was presented as something limited or too complex to be understood by the public.

Since magic was something publicly consumed, or it catered to a lot of people through media like video games, table top, general literature, maybe anime and more, it had to be limited or at the very least easy to understand. For throwaway one shots, or short series, it was as simple as the world had a certain set of allowable actions, and for those like the long running franchises dove a bit more deeply into their magic systems. The biggest ones like Gundam had an entire pseudoscience developed for the Universal Century, and on the magic side there was Type Moon and all the confusion those systems brought with them, but it was very rarely that magic is explored so deeply.

I didn't really care about those things, honestly.

Magic, the way I saw it back then, was always in the form of a game of some sort. Fireball, Ice Shards, Cure, Lightning, Meteor Swarm, Tsunami, Flare, and all those other techniques were supposedly possible but if you look at it, it's kind of limited. You always saw the same fireball, the same flare, the same meteor swarm no matter what, as if it couldn't be used any other way. There's always a rigidity to it, a repetitiveness that couldn't be overcome because the game was made like that. Magic back then was structured in the same way physical moves like Cross Slash, Dolphin Kick, Megaton Punch, and Zantetsuken were structured and that made it... fake.

Because that wasn't realistic at all. You didn't need to conform with a specific stance to create a move to eliminate the One Winged Angel, it wasn't like a specific diagonal slash surpassing space and time was the only way to kill a Witch that wanted to End the World. Those were just structured, animated, invented that way because it was easier to sell, and not because it was in any way accurate to real life. But that was fine, because it was all a game, it was all fake anyway. It was a way to pass the time, to entertain, and that meant that no matter how fake it was, you wouldn't really complain because you were after having fun more than the magic system in itself.

Magic back then was a fantasy and it didn't need to imitate real life because it didn't really exist.

But Magic here was real life and the truth is, I couldn't exactly define what magic was.

Like the way you didn't just take a step the same way each an every time, magic was variable.

Like the way you needed strength and endurance to run very fast for a long time, magic took energy.

Best of all, like the way you needed to write a name several times as a child to be able to have your parents read it, magic took practice.

And as a doctor, the joke is my penmanship sucks by the way, I needed a lot of practice.

Magic was confusing in that sometimes things worked counter-intuitively, like fire worked similarly to wind, even if it should have shared more qualities with water and earth since all three are strictly made of matter and fire is energy.

Magic was flexible too, in the way that it would conform to what you wanted and sometimes acted on its own, like how it was easier to flash freeze my... messes than it was to get my blanket off of my body.

This one time, I found that I could mold a cloud into any shape I wanted, but for the life of me, I couldn't lift a simple chair with my mind.

So Magic was confusing, we'll settle with that, so in an attempt to make things clearer, we'll start back at the very beginning of my self study on the subject.

You would not believe how excited I was when I had the opportunity to practice magic again.

I could recall it as if it were yesterday; everyone was gone for some reason, Lilia-oneesama was in her room, and cute little Rudi decided that he would rather sleep with mother and father that night instead of his clingy onee-chan.

I learned our names, mine's Candace by the way, when I was around two years old but I'm getting side tracked a bit.

The time the was late in the evening, the day after I confirmed that I had something close to ice or wind powers and I was so ready to try to do what I did again. The room was absolutely empty, quiet in the way only a child's room could be when everything was still and absolutely nothing stirred. It was kind of creepy how nothing made a sound, but that just meant there was no one there to discover what I was doing.

I didn't want a repeat of the first time. As brief as it was, I felt some parts of my skin freezing over with just how cold the air that passed over me was, and I was sure as hell that I didn't want to risk being a babycicle, again. When I tried magic for the second time, I didn't exactly cause the breeze that came, I just cooled the air enough that free convection did its work via the science of colder air being denser and thus wanting to fall.

This time, I imagined something expanding rather than contracting. I didn't want it to get hotter or anything, or for this to make any sound, but between my blanket and my body I imagined the air exploding outwards. I didn't want anything too strong, nothing too flashy, just a burst of wind strong enough to blow my blanket into the ceiling without hurting me.

What happened next was just what I expected.

It worked.

I would admit that it was a bit weird seeing my blanket suddenly jump from my body and softly thud when it struck the wooden ceiling a short distance away, but the sense of accomplishment and wonder was just so addicting that I didn't care. It was curious how I felt the air ripple, outward, like the wind was pushing in every direction except towards my body.

The scientist it me screamed that air pressure shouldn't work like that, but the inner child was just so giddy that I WAS A FREAKING MAGICAL GIRL.

Well, not really, but I could magic and that had to count for something.

It was also fun, hypnotizing even, watching my blanket float down from the ceiling, the beloved piece of cloth opening up as it descended lazily like a small parachute in the silent night as it swayed to and fro...

And fell outside the confines of my crib.

I sighed in a way only a disappointed child could.

I was two months, going on three, of course I would still be sleeping in a crib and because my stupid baby muscles haven't developed well enough to climb out yet, so I was stuck with my blanketlessness.

Alright, at the very least I proved that I had relatively good control over whatever air was. I could apparently control where pressure was applied and where force was just absent, if the air flowed and where it remained still, and how much the air would vibrate or just how hot or cold it could be. It was just a small amount of air, but I wasn't really keen on going out to see if I could create a hurricane just yet.

Still, I didn't have a blanket and unlike last time, It was getting cold. Sure I could make a warm breeze, I actually just did, but I didn't want to stay awake just keeping myself warm or wake up in the middle of the night to find myself shivering. I wanted my blanket, I needed my blanket, and right now, I just couldn't reach it.

Unless, of course, Magic could save me.

I closed my eyes.

In my head, I imagined myself reaching out and lifting the blanket off of the ground and bringing it to the edge of my crib. I Imagined the form of the blanket rising from the dark wooden floor and taking to the air where it would glide its way towards me and settle on the railings of my wooden cage.

When I opened them to look at what my magic wrought if found the edge of the crib surprisingly blanketless.

Even if I looked at it closely, it was clear that the damned piece of cloth refused to move.

Well, since it worked the first time...

Releasing All Limits...

Bending the Fabric of Reality...

ENTERING GOD MODE...

Within the confines of my mind, I was an all powerful Godess, and it was my will that the blanket be rescued from the darkness that enveloped the room and returned to my embrace. There was nothing beyond my reach, the very laws of the universe were under my control, all things bent to my will, and I wanted my blanket off of the floor and back in my crib.

Not just that, I wanted it to float.

In the way I controlled the air, and just the air, I wanted my blanket to be lifted up, as if someone was holding the entire thing at the same time, and carried to my crib.

That's when I felt the drain.

I used to run quite a bit in the old world and the familiar feeling of exhaustion washed over me win an undeniable wave. It was as if I ran an Ironman Triathlon again, except this time in the body of a two month old baby instead of a woman in the best condition of her life.

I could feel my heart seize, the steady heartbeat all but stopping for a moment as my body simply gave up.

My lungs somehow stopped, not even strong enough to keep my breath from passing helplessly from my lips.

I couldn't move all of a sudden, but I could feel my entire body scream with the pain that came from overexertion.

Then came the darkness.

I couldn't contain my joy when I woke up just before dawn with a blanket loosely draped over my tiny form.

A couple of nights after that incident, while I was watching the fabric of my blanket flutter as it flew through the air, I had a few more conclusions when it came to magic.

The first was that magic used a certain amount of mental energy, or let's just call it MP for simplicity's sake.

Everything that was done using magic took up energy in the same way doing anything took energy. The only good thing was that magic apparently drew from another source of energy, since when I came to after fainting, again, my body didn't ache like it did after I accomplished the Ironman. I didn't really know why that was the case but I was willing to take that little blessing with a grateful smile.

I wasn't in pain and I wasn't about to start complaining about that.

Anyway, using magic took energy, and the amount of energy required depended on what I wanted to do as well as how many times I've done it before. It was like any other physical task in that way, it took practice before it could become something like second nature or at least something easier. So the reason I fainted from controlling air and trying to telekinetically lift my blanket was because it was the first time I tried doing either of those things.

It wasn't effortless yet but I could do both pretty well for a few minutes each, what I mean to say is that I can lift the blanket both by lifting the blanket itself or by taking control of the air and using that to manipulate the blanket. I guess the difference lies in what I'm holding, like if I took the blanket, I was writing with a pen and paper, and if I took the air it was like I was writing through a computer and printing what I wrote. Neither was easier than the other after a couple days of practice but something in my gut told me I was improving since it got easier and easier each time I did either took control of the air or picked up the blanket with my mind.

I willed the blanket to stop it's nightly flight as I prepared for my next experiment. Since I was able to pick up the blanket and make it fly around like a magic carpet, as in it was spread out as if it was on a flat surface, I thought I was ready to try and manipulate the fabric itself. What I mean to say was this time I was going to try and see if I could fold the blanket with nothing but my mental powers.

I'll cut to the chase and say that it took me another three days to figure out how to do that.

No, it wasn't because I didn't know how to fold a blanket. It was just because each fold I made, either telekinetically or by manipulating the air was hard. It took years of practice before I could twirl a pair of chopsticks, simultaneously, on one hand and that was when I was dexterous enough to eat with them. I was trying to do something leagues harder since I had only the most basic idea of how magic worked and how I could control it.

Another lesson, though one I learned much earlier, was that magic seemed to have a built-in safety mechanism.

This little tidbit came to me when I was trying to exploit the telekinetic part as well as my real lack of alone time in the house. Ever since my birth, ever since I could remember, I had someone beside me whether it was my older sister, my mother, my twin brother, or my father. I loved them all, three of them in the way a child loves everything and that special little angel in the way a twin would basically imprint on her counterpart, but they presented me with a problem ever since I figured out that I could use Magic.

I couldn't practice with them around.

I was torn right then and there about the two paths I could take.

With magic came the excitement of day to day life since I could basically do something other than eat, sleep, soil myself, and get changed. On the other hand it was kind of obvious since there is definitely nothing normal about 2 month old baby bending the laws of the universe.

I could either chose to contain myself, practice only at night, and bask in my family's adoring love, or risk having fun screwing with the laws that I knew to be unbreakable, but risk looking like a monster in front of the only people I had in this new, unfamiliar world.

It was poetic that Magic solved that problem for me, and in doing so, taught me quite a bit about itself.

I had decided to try one last magic spell before promising myself that I would only practice at night when the entire house was asleep. I focused everything I had into that one final spell, to try and lift everything in the room, the table, the chairs, a wardrobe, and of course, the crib I was resting in. More than that, I wanted to lift everything in the room a single centimeter off of the ground, just to test out my control of magic.

I thought I had practiced enough with the blanket, but the pain, even worse than the first time I tried to levitate something, told me that I was being much too conceited.

And if that wasn't bad enough, apparently my mother thought that it was the perfect time to check on me.

I fainted, the image of her shock burned into my mind as I lost consciousness.

It was when I woke up hours later, to a worried and relieved family that I found out that I wasn't caught. Furthermore, when I tried to strip myself of my blanket, even while my adorable little angel was embracing me and found it surprisingly easy was when I realized that magic even when forcibly canceled, still brought about growth.

It was something like an extremely effective isometric exercise, as if pushing against the wall with all your might suddenly could make you much stronger. Even better, I could continue striving to do the impossible, even around my family, confident that there will be no effect and still continue to grow stronger even if there is no effect.

As for the reason for this phenomenon, I did have a conjecture but nothing too concrete.

Using magic was something like an exercise in a way, probably the best analogy would be vertical jumps rather than pushing a weight. Even if you jump as high as you can, or use as much MP as you can, there will be no effect if you don't have enough, or you can't jump high enough to reach the next platform. Still, you use energy, and that means that even if there's no apparent effect, or you didn't reach the next platform, there's still some growth there and in time, you'll be able to cast the spell after trying again and again.

So that I never create an effect, I just have to keep trying to do more and more impossible things, and that means that I can train even when I'm surrounded by everybody, and get even better results when I can produce the effects when I'm alone.

I didn't even have to worry about using so much energy or MP that I would die since the current mechanism for casting Magic was my mind. That meant that even if it got too impossible, which it the expected outcome, the resulting MP insufficiency would result in tremendous, excruciating, and unbearable pain, leading up to the loss of consciousness and the automatic termination of the attempted spell. That was the built-in safety allowing me to train to my heart's content.

Another, definitely useful side benefit was that I could basically shut down my brain on command, I just needed to try to lift the entire two story house, including the foundations, and I was out like a light.

The only downside was the pain; no matter how many times I've lost consciousness that way, it never hurt any less.

If anything, it seemed to hurt worse as time went by.

But I guess that was fine.

After all no pain, no gain.

Side Story: ...Boys...

Paul

Paul Greyrat's favorite time of the day was nightfall.

After a hard, or boring, day of patrolling the surrounding area with Rawls and the other guards, he would return home to a loving wife and his two adorable children.

Dinner was always a normal affair.

Lilia would always speak first, reporting on what happened in the house and specifically what was going on with Candace and Rudeus during the day, and Paul would always silently thank the gods for saving sending him old teacher and saving his wonderful twins.

Zenith would go next, detailing what she did in the church or what happened with the children since she would stay home and watch over them whenever Lilia needed to go the the market to restock the pantry. It was always a joy to listen to his wonderful wife go through the day, either helping the people around the village, praying for them, healing them, or when she would talk about just how much she loved the beautiful children she gave birth to.

He would often just talk about what Rawls had been doing all day; even if there was a monster attack, or a particularly fierce bandit troupe going around he always tried to spare his family of the danger he faced every day. He didn't really care that Zenith was his equal as an Ex-S-Ranked Adventurer and Lilia would still be able to best him with the blade had she never been injured, but it was a man's duty to care of the women and children in his life.

Dinner was always pleasant, if not particularly interesting, but the main event would always come immediately after.

Paul was a lover of women, and particularly the type of women with beautiful faces, voluptuous bodies, and large breasts. In the past he wasn't exactly picky, and he had managed to bed numerous women who possessed at least one of those three qualities, specifically the breasts if he was honest. He was a pervert who didn't really think things through, going from one woman to the next as long as they were willing and he was enjoying himself.

Paul firmly decided to give that pleasure up when Zenith, in his eyes the undisputed most beautiful woman he had ever laid his eyes on, agreed to sleep with him so long as he would take responsibility and marry her.

For her, he promised never again to invite any other woman into his bed and stay true to his wife.

It was a fact that Paul simply adored his wife, and for the longest time he found himself lusting only for her.

So it was quite a surprise when Paul realized that he was currently happiest when his wife was ignoring him.

Every night, after they would have dinner, Paul would watch his wife enter her own little world as she fed their children.

And it was beautiful.

There was a quality Zenith would gain when she spoke about a pair of small infants she loved very much, it was on another level entirely when she was taking care of them herself.

Paul was still surprised buy how different she looked whenever she would carefully lift either Rudeus or Candace up to her breast to suckle. She didn't even seem to notice that he was there, for a brief moment in time, her world was made of a mother and a child, and Zenith in all her beauty was simply resplendent. He had no words to describe her face, her smile, her eyes, her everything when it was just her and one of her babies.

And he could never bring himself to speak until she was done with both of them.

Paul was sure that if he blew out the candles, hid the magic stones, closed the curtains, killed the moon and the stars, his wife would still be able to light up the room with that smile whenever she held both of the twins.

And every day, at that moment, he's reminded why every mistake, every fight, every regret he had in life was worth it if it was to get to this point.

Of course, after Zenith was done, it was his turn.

After feeding, the twins grew a bit more excited than sleepy so to tire them out, Paul would tell them stories.

He would either read to them the tale of Three Swordsmen, or that of Perugius, but sometimes he would tell them tales of his own adventures.

His children were too young to understand his words, but they would cheer when he cheered, they would fall quiet when he whispered, and they would jump back when he surprised them. The may not have taken in the entirety of his stories but watching them have fun, watching them react to what he told them with giddy pleasure was enough for him. More importantly, it was enough to fill them with the sense of adventure and tire them out.

They could never finish the whole story, any story for that matter, but he didn't really care about that. His children always entered the realm of dreams with smiles on their faces, ready to greet what wonders that awaited them.

Then, when they were finally asleep, he would go over to her and hold her like there was no one else in their world and think this was absolutely worth anything and everything he gave up.

Sometimes, if his wife would let him, he would go further, though they would always make sure to put the children to bed and make absolutely no noise whenever they tried for another child.

Though it made no difference, on the nights when he would hold his wife in bed after a tiring day, or on the nights they would lie there and bask in each other's afterglow, he knew he cherished the image of his amazing wife holding his beautiful children the most.

It was the joy of finally being a father after all.

With that, he'd fall asleep, knowing he'd have more than enough strength to face the next day.

Rudeus

Rudeus Greyrat's favorite time of the day was the early morning.

In the first place, he was just getting used to walking up with his cute twin sister hugging him but after a month things somehow changed.

His loud, clingy, energetic sister suddenly turned lethargic all of a sudden.

Rudeus helped raise his youngest brother in the old world, so even he knew that when a baby suddenly changed from being noisy and energetic to suddenly being quiet and tired all the time, something could be wrong.

It could be a disease, a virus, a random infection cause by a large number of things. From what he knew, the world seemed much less modern than he would have liked so his twin sister could easily be suffering from some nutrient deficiency, or she couldn't take it since the world was so dirty and she was getting sick, or maybe she was just born with something wrong with her.

Rudeus couldn't really do anything about it as a baby.

All he could do, just like in the old world, was watch from the sidelines and keep hoping, keep praying, that things would somehow get better.

The sister who could keep him, and the rest of the household, awake by crying was all but gone now.

But something magical would happen in the hours of the morning, just as the sun would peek from the horizon.

On some days, there would be a miracle and his sister would wake up ahead of him.

Rudeus himself would stir, and when he would open his eyes, he would be greeted by the excited form of his sister looking up at the changing sky.

Their crib was close to the wall and just below the window so from that angle, they were treated with the sight of a beautiful sunrise. He wouldn't notice at first, but slowly he would see that there was never a cloud in the path of the sun or lingering on the horizon when those wondrous moments came. No, the clouds were always high in the sky, ready to capture the emerging light of the sun and reflect the shades of purple and orange and yellow that would come with the rising of the sun.

He never really thought anything of it, just that his sister really loved watching the clouds and how they changed color and shape on those rare days.

She would always have a little bit more energy on those days, to play with him, mother, and father, though sadly, it would never last after their mother fed them.

When she didn't wake ahead of him, she slept like the dead, barely breathing and all curled up in that blue blanket of hers. On those days, when not even the light of the sun could wake her up, he would do is best and wait, wrapping his arms around her and giving her all the warmth his little body could muster, hoping it was enough to sooth her pain.

Those days were harder to predict, sometimes she would be able to last the entire day under the watchful gaze of their older sister -or was that their maid?- or their mother. On other days, she was content to sleep the entire day away, waking up at random times to cry for feeding or changing, but then after that, she would freeze and pass out like a drained battery.

On those days Rudeus was scared, hoping against hope that his sister didn't have anything wrong with her and that she would eventually get better.

Thankfully, she always did.

In either instance, she would always smile at him, either when she finally notices him sneaking up behind her to watch the sky, or when she wakes up within his embrace and snuggles in closer.

Rudeus always wanted a little sister, for those little moments, those wonderful smiles, and the undeniable warmth only a child could offer. He simply adored her when she smiled at the vaguely shaped clouds, or laughed when their father told them stories in a language he was still trying to learn, or when she simply slept soundly, on the afternoons that their mother would hold them in the light.

It was only half a year since they were born and he couldn't imagine his day without those mornings.

So he drew strength from that smile.

Rudeus wanted to live a new life, a better life now that he was given a second chance, another life to actually make his own instead of throwing away like he did before. He promised himself to live seriously this time, and now, more than that, he wanted to be the best brother he could be so that just in case the worst would come to pass, he could take care of his sickly sister.

He would learn faster, he would work harder, he would be better because there was a chance that he wasn't just living for his own sake.

And he was strangely alright with that.

Now all he needed to do was figure out how he could climb out of the crib again.

AN: Hello, I just felt like writing this one, and who knows maybe I'll get another chapter out in quick succession (unlike Silly Songbird, sorry guys).

Well, the main story here is kinda boring, just another magic training montage and all that, as well as some weirdness when it comes to MT magic system (It's canonically OMNIPOTENT, so I can't wait to have some fun with that) but the real inspiration for this segment was the fun I had last week.

I met with a friend, and she got as sister quite recently (That little girl is so adorable that I could die) and one time over the week I had time to ask her what she loved about the new baby. She reminded me of Rudeus, smart, kind of wacky, a bit conceited, but goodnatured, so I had to write that one out.

Also I had time to ask my dad what he loved most about having me and my siblings and it's my sister's birthday coming up soon so I wrote out that Paul bit as well. No, before anyone asks, my own father is a great man who would never even think of looking at any other woman besides my mother. He is awesome, and I won't anyone say otherwise.

Thanks for the reviews, and the next one, I'm writing it right now actually, involves the days leading to and some parts during Roxy's entrance. I remember being allowed out of the house to go play when I was three and a half so I'm using that since even if medieval people would allow their children out sooner, Candace looks kind of sickly here.

To SyQadelic: I don't really think Lilia was that bad of a person; she was better than Paul in my opinion since it was stated that he started flirting with her first. It might be true that she seduced him in the end, but it was stated that it wouldn't have happened if Paul didn't start... well... being Paul. That doesn't really excuse what happened, and Zenith is a freaking saint, but I would put more blame on Paul for that one. And after that she becomes the perfect support for Aisha, Zenith, and Rudeus after.

I'd like to once more take the time to thank you guys for reading, as well as expanding the fandom here; there really isn't a lot of MT fanfics yet so we're getting there.

Also, can someone tell me if we're using the Mushoku Tensei/ 無職転生 Tag instead of the Another-World-無職転生/ Tag so there'll be less confusion there.

I'll see anyone still here next update =))