Disclaimer: I do not own Danmachi or anything created by the author Fujino Omori; all rights go to him. I only own my original character Sleipnir.
Speech: "Why is it built in such a pose?!"

Thoughts: 'Why did I enter the story only now?'

Magic: "Cynder Ella."

Screaming/Demonic Voice: "What should I do now!"

Chapter 5 A Lesson in Magic

Afternoon - Dungeon Entrance Floor 10 - Sleipnir's POV

After finishing the ninth floor, they rested for a moment on the staircase to the tenth floor. The stair went down at a 45-degree angle and they already saw fog hiding the bottom of the stairway. The brown stairway went 50 meters down from the ninth floor. After looking around, they noticed that visibility was severely limited.

The fog on this floor reduced vision to 20 meters around the party, but the fog only went up for 10 meters before thinning out. The floor itself had the same brown colour as before but was otherwise completely open, with some white trees strewn about the floor.

'This is the first floor that is appropriate for our level. But because it is so open, we have to be careful as larger monsters can appear and any battle could attract a lot of other monsters from all around if we are not fast or silent enough.'

Ouka then looked at Mikoto. "Mikoto do you sense any monsters close to us?"

Mikoto crouches down and uses Yatanokurogarasu to detect all monsters close to them. "At 2 o'clock there are three big monsters around 50 meters ahead. I also sense multiple small monsters on the ceiling, around 30 meters above us and a few below the ground."

"To get a feeling for the strength of this floor, we will begin by approaching the small group of three. Sly-kun, what can we expect?"

"Orcs. They are the major threat on these floors. They are 5-8 meters tall and slow but have a lot of strength. Flying imps that will harass us with stone projectiles. Bad bats hiding in the stalactites on the ceiling. They are blind but attracted by loud noises. There are also needle rabbits. They have poisonous horns, so avoid direct contact."

"Okay. Mikoto will help me in the melee and focus on dodging the orcs and striking when they are open. The backline will focus on the small monsters. The needle rabbits are the first priority. If we encounter any problem, we will make a fighting retreat.

They all nod and accept the simple strategy.

Ouka and Mikoto then sneaked towards the orcs that were sitting in a loose circle, surrounded by a grove of trees. They got within 10 meters before the closest orc noticed them and stood up, causing the other to follow. The two further back walked towards the trees and ripped them straight out of the ground. They then used them as substitute clubs with a length of around 5 meters. When the first tried to punch Mikoto, due to its size it was at most as fast as a war shadow and its large overhead strike made it very easy for the level two Mikoto to avoid. She used the opening to slash it with precision and sever the tendon of the offending arm, severely limiting the orcs attack options.

'They use the environment as a weapon ingenious and honestly unexpected. And those strikes are too loud. We will attract all the small monsters just because of those orcs.' And as if following his thoughts, a big group of 10 imps surrounded them and began throwing random pieces of rubble and stray equipment at them. Most notably knives and even a mace.

Sly began conjuring foxfire's, 10 cm (diameter) spheres of fire, at the imps at the front while dodging to the side. Chigusa took out her arrows and began striking at the ones in the back with Asuka. Each imp needed at least two arrow hits from Chigusa or Mikoto, one to disable their wings and the second to pierce the magic stone.

Mikoto and Ouka meanwhile had to dodge the orc clubs and also watch out for the imps, who tied to trip them with their strikes. Ouka had to use his shield and only made gracing hits on the orcs, while Mikoto used her higher status to counterattack more aggressively. And that was when the shrill cries of the bad bats rang out.

It was a loud shrill sound that was distracting Ouka, Mikoto, Chigusa and Asuka, but Sly was by far the worst of them. His sensible hearing made the sound reverberate through his skull. It was like a sound of a piece of metal being crudely dragged along glass, but 100 times worse. Sly stumbled before a second cry joined the first and he couldn't keep standing and stumbled to his knees. He tucked in both ears as far as they would go and after the sound continued unabated he was forced to protect his ears from the sounds with his hands while crying out in pain.

Ouka noticed Sly scream after the bats started harassing them. Ouka screamed out a loud command over the bats to the others. "We forgot Sly's hearing. Fighting retreat. Mikoto protect Sly and help the backline clear a path. I will occupy orcs. Kōtai o Sorasu (Deflecting Technique)."

Ouka then took out his shield and took steps at a steady rate in between the orc's swings. He dodged when possible, but against three orcs he had to deflect them more often than not. His arms were shaking from the strain, but because he was deflecting the strikes, he managed to hold on with his endurance.

Meanwhile, Mikoto charged back and used her level two speed to neutralize the few needle rabbits and imps that got close to the prone Sly. After clearing them, Chigusa and Asuka also took up formation and Asuka carried Sly while using his naginata to smack any monster that got too close while retreating with Mikoto.

Chigusa guarded their retreat with arrows and also discouraged the monsters from blocking Ouka's path. Even using Jian Yajirushito strike the nimble bats before they got close to Sly. Thus, they slowly cut through the swarm by first beating the distracting bats, before striking the imps and lastly, the ogres. All the while, Sly had to protect his ears or be fully incapacitated. He could barely even concentrate on walking, even less throwing foxfire or his throwing knives.

Once the bats were gone, Asuka dropped Sly close to the stairs and joined the others in removing the remaining monsters. Sly then removed his hands and dropped his head to his knees to let the blood that gathered in his ears flow out and then drank one of his health potions to heal from the injuries his inner ear sustained.

He still didn't regain his hearing. 'I must inform them somehow. Wait, I should be able to cast even without hearing.' "Hiding trickster, oh cunning fox spirit, refracting prism, by the father of the eight-legged horse, I command thee to affect the judgement of reality- ILLUSIO."

He used his illusion to write in the air. "I can only hear a loud ringing in my ears. I won't be able to follow orders. If I see another bat I will burn it in hell."

Ouka looked surprised at the message before nodding and then pointing at the stair to the ninth floor. They then headed back up after Asuka removed the magic stones from the defeated orcs.

After returning to the ninth floor, Sly's hearing slowly got better, and he heard fractions of their conversations.

With his limited hearing Sly looked at them to see who spoke. Ouka was the first he managed to understand partially. "He - continue - us to - - floor - - - - Take - his opinion."

Mikoto argued back. "- will - hold - back - - - - dojo - can't wait - -. I - - - training."

Chigusa then retorted meekly. "- can't leave - -. He - - alone - - dungeon. Mikoto - are -."

Mikoto turned her focus on Chigusa. "I - —- heartless —-, —- practical. - need - —- funds and — —- —- - back - — take far —."

This continued for several minutes, where Chigusa and Mikoto were noticeably more vocal, Ouka chanced a few concerned glances at Sly who kept his gaze carefully neutral and only made quick glances at their mouths to see who was speaking, while Asuka used the momentary lull in combat to look at his ears.

Asuka then spoke to the, while Sly still only understood fragments. "This injury is severe. The bats used very high-pitched sounds that we could only barely hear, but Sly seems to have heard them clearly and his inner ears were subject to far more damage than ours. The inside of his ears even lost a lot of the finer hair. He must be banned from floor ten until they regrow or the damage might be permanent. It's a good thing that he drank a potion as quickly as he did or the damage could have been worse."

Ouka looked even more concerned then. "I see. As the team leader, I will tell him. Let's hope he finds a way to protect his ears till the injury heals."

Sly's hearing slowly improved after they started fighting on floor 9 and he managed to hear the clatter of their weapon against monsters again. Another 15 minutes later during a battle with ants, it improved enough to understand Ouka's commands again. Then, after they finished another room, he spoke in a strained voice but at a normal volume.

"So. My hearing is well enough to allow me to hear you once again, but please don't be too loud or it might get worse again. So what exactly were you discussing before?"

Ouka looked at Sly and then nodded. "I will be blunt with you, Sly. You are forbidden from entering the tenth floor until you find a way to protect your ears. Asuka found that you sustained an injury to your ears and a repeat of today could leave permanent injury."

The others had to look at Ouka at how, metaphorically speaking, Ouka just slapped Sly with a ton of bricks. Sly only remark was that his tail twitched. "I do not like it ...

But I understand. I need to protect myself before returning to floor ten. But what will you do while I search for a blacksmith or a leather worker to help me out? And how long will it take for my ears to heal?"

Mikoto looked uncomfortable but determined but spoke nonetheless. "Sleipnir, we will have to go to the dungeon without you until you solve your problem. We need the valis we get from the lower floors to buy back Amaterasu-sama's dojo and can't just sit around waiting for you."

Chigusa looks slightly ashamed but tries to cheer him up. "It's not all bad Sly-kun. I will even take your position and create the dungeon maps for floor ten until you return. And you will have lots of time to practice your spells before your glorious return."

Sly's ears drop as well, but he forces himself to remain standing and continue to look at them. 'Even after a year of working with them, they still don't need me. Why can't they just help me search for a solution? And Mikoto. You who seeks to be honorable. How can you decide upon my position behind my back. If they go on alone, it is only a matter of time before they reach level two and leave me behind. No, I mustn't allow it. I will improve my magic and continue training. Challenging the dungeon on my own if necessary.'

Sly ear and tail dropped even lower as it became clear that the argument of continuing with them was out of the question as they still needed 100'000 valis, to buy back the dojo and he was a handicap on the most profitable floor. "Fine, but I will return up to you as soon as possible. I won't be left behind."

He then quickly walked forwards towards the surface and fought the monsters in the melee with Ouka and Mikoto, to vent his frustration. Ouka looked at him in concern before nodding at Mikoto and joining him.

'That hurt ... a lot. I am certain I can find a way to help them if I continued with them, but unfortunately, I can't with this injury. I will just have to ask Take for help with my training and find a blacksmith to help me. For now, I need to keep training.' Sigh.

8 PM - Hostess of Fertility - Sleipnir's POV

After returning for the day, they told Take about their misadventure and Sly's injury and he agreed to give him the afternoon of the next day to search for a capable blacksmith for sound-proof gear. Sly might have to look into the equipment of other demi-humans but will most likely have to create a specific order, as there aren't any renards in the city, to their knowledge.

Take also offered Sly to go with him in the morning, to meet somebody that will teach him magic. The news cheered him temporarily until the others began preparing for their next dungeon delve.

So Sly spent the evening alone and in a bad mood. He tried finding the words to complete Ouka's fortify chant, but couldn't focus on them.'I'm really not in the mood to help Ouka. After all he also broke my trust by not defending my position in out team. He only encouraged me on our second day to get on my good side.'

'A lonely pebble, wasn't it?. Let's see who this pebble can pull along.'

6.30 AM - I am Ganesha restricted Library - Sleipnir's POV

The next morning, Takemikazuchi informed the others that he would bring Sly to an expert spellcaster to help me with my magic.

"Takemikazuchi-sama, could you please tell me who is going to teach me more about magic than you already have? As far as I know, most adventurers don't even question how they learnt their spells in the first place." Sly asked in obvious confusion, with a slight head tilt. After they entered, I am Ganesha and Sly got over his shock from seeing the silliest building on Genkai.

"Of course. Now that we are away from prying eyes.

It is quite simple. We are meeting an acquaintance of mine. She is a goddess that is traveling Genkai similar to myself as of a few years ago. But in contrast to me, she focused on the knowledge of magic the mortals created over the millennia. We are here because I found out that she was here yesterday."

Sly immediately became laser-focused on the conversation. "Who is this goddess? What will she teach me?"

Take smiles slightly after Sly took the bait. "You will see. I am only coming along to give you the chance to learn from her. She is difficult to work with and rarely wastes time with people she does not know, but with my recommendation, she should teach you.

But I must warn you. Her knowledge of magic is different from almost everything you can learn from any of the adventurers in Orario and even the elves. She does not care for the respect most gods demand, but you must respect her drive as a magical researcher and possibly help her with a few experiments. She will teach you the principles behind magic and perhaps how they work with your spells, but to improve them is upon you. Remember, as a goddess, she has learnt every single spell she knows without the aid of falna or her arcanum. She had to work for her knowledge and has a dislike for shortcuts.

She will be interested in your opinions, but only if you are open to her theories. Do under no circumstances deny any of her words without a good reason. You must make your own opinions and bias will only lead to her wraith."

Sly listened intently and the further along Take spoke, the more astonished he was. "Is that why you thought us differently from the common practices of magic? Like how most mages speak of their mind as their magic and mana combined?"

"Correct. She was the one who introduced the distinction and most of my other teaching about magic is also derived from her findings. But aside from Altena the country of mages, very few know about her or the deeper nature of magic. Now then. Let's meet my aquaintance."

They then entered the main library and asked the Ganesha librarian for access to the restricted library to meet her. They followed many corridors underground and found themselves in old archives. The air was stale with the scent of papyrus. There were rows upon rows of tomes of varying lengths and any subject they could ask about.

They also saw an obvious light in one section of the library. They went closer and Sly could see how one tome after another began levitating from the bookcases and slowly flew down below the light magic circle. There floated a lizardman woman with feathered wings and pure white scales. She wore simple green robes adorned with countless magical symbols representing the wind. All around her floated different tomes.

As they got closer, some of the runes on her robe started glowing, and the goddess looked at us with her green reptilian slit eyes. "Took you long enough to get here, you old battle maniac. I sensed you yesterday and even observed your conversation with Ganesha. The fool has lost even more of his sanity since the last time we met."

Take looked at her strangely for a moment before clearing his throat. "Of course, from your perspective, Ganesha's behavior would appear as such, Quetzalcoatl-san or as we more often call you the professor. But I will have to cut our reunion short for now.

As you probably observed, I have brought my child Sleipnir with me. While I can teach the rest of my familia a lot more about their combat styles, Sly's style relies heavily on his magic talent. Sly won't enter the dungeon for a few days due to circumstances, so if possible could you teach him more about the depths of magic?

Quetzalcoatl floated over to them, where she summoned three magic circles around Sly. Before he could react, he was gripped by a gentle breeze from the white magic circle. Quetzalcoatl then used the wind to levitate Sly in front of her towards the other two magic circles. The next magic circle pulsed magic through him and the last interacted with his falna.

"Hmm. It seems you are correct. Take. This child has very potent magic. A double S in his magic. Strange. I will have to look into this. Also two spells at his age and he even has a racial magic skill. I agree to teach this child under the condition that he will aid me in my research once he matures."

Take looks towards a nodding Sly before bowing slightly. "Of course. Nothing comes without a cost, so I agree with your condition. I know that he will benefit greatly from your instructions. I will leave you alone. Please release Sly in the afternoon, as he has other duties for today."

Quetzalcoatl now looks at Sly while Take leaves. "Of course. I will take some of my time to teach him. Now Sleipnir-kun, I will be your magic instructor. My full name is Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. To save you some time you are allowed to call me Acatl-hakase. I am a goddess of the wind, wisdom and, since descending to Genkai, I also study magic. As a start could you explain your current magical knowledge to me?"

Sly took a deep breath before responding to the goddess. "I am just a beginner mage but Take taught us about the distinction of mind, magic and mana.

The mind is where our concentration originates and depends on focus and willpower. It is used to cast spells and maintain them while we concentrate.

Mana is the reserve we have with which to cast spells. We can channel it inside the body and even outside of it as spell circles or to guide certain spells. If it falls below a certain threshold, we enter mind down or even mind zero.

Magic itself represents our ability to manipulate mana and behaves like pressure. Mages can exert this pressure upon mana to guide it into the shape of spells." (Analogy: Mana is like electrons that are pushed in a certain way by the voltage)

"Good. At least you aren't blabbering about the mind being drained by casting spells or relating the mind to the power of your spells. In that case, I will skip that discussion. Then I will begin the subject of mana control.

First of all, your mana control is completely independent of your magic stat on your status. It can only be improved by better understanding the spell you want to cast, your magic attribute and, to a lesser degree, your magic pressure.

Training and maintaining your spells and learning every detail about how they behave under various conditions can train your mana control and your mastery of a certain spell. The better your control, the more easily you can change the size and potency of a spell at the same mana cost.

Magic attributes are specific to every person. They are related to the soul and can be trained by repeatedly working with their element. This reduces the mana cost of spells with said attribute, as your control over said attribute increases.

You can learn more than just the attributes you were born with but attributes you learn manually take far longer to master. There are 8 main attributes and an almost infinite number of sub-attributes."

Quetzalcoatl then creates an illusion with eight big symbols in a circle and many smaller symbols connected to the right in between. "The main attributes in order are Darkness, Water, Gravity, Earth, Fire, Lightning, Air and Light. Every being has at least one magic attribute, but their race may affect a secondary attribute. You can touch the crystal ball over there to see your magic attributes."

She then used the wind spell to float Sly towards the crystal ball. After he touched it and gave it some of his mana, it began to glow alternatingly in different colors. It began with a strong teal blue followed by no discernible colour, and the last is a weak flickering red.

Sly looks at the ball with confusion before looking at Quetzalcoatl. "As far as I can tell, I have a strong teal attribute. Perhaps water and a weaker fire attribute. Is that correct?"

Quetzalcoatl smiles with her teeth before answering. "This has just grown even more interesting. You have three attributes. Your strongest magic attribute is a sub-attribute closely related to the water attribute, but it is certainly not water. Your second attribute is invisible to the eye. It is a combination of light and dark. The illusion attribute. Your last attribute is indeed fire.

The last two affinities are probably from your parents, as renard often has illusion and fire affinities. The illusion affinity is a rare affinity almost exclusive to your race.

Your fire affinity is probably not hereditary but instead thought. Your use of your racial magic skill foxfire probably trained a minor affinity for fire over the time you had the skill."

Now, to the last subject for today's lecture. Magic Pressure. Your magic stat determines the magic pressure you can exert. The more pressure you can exert, the more mana you can push around at higher velocities. In theory, this allows you to manipulate more mana with higher precision, but if your mana control is insufficient, you will waste vast amounts of mana and overload your spells.

That's the biggest problem of most powerful adventurers. They have so much magical pressure that they can only cast very powerful spells. If you want to grow into a true mage or potential archmage, you will have to have to work on your magic control until you can manipulate even minuscule quantities of mana with precision.

With that, I will finish your lesson for today. Return tomorrow at 8 AM to ask me questions and then learn about the various chanting techniques Sleipnir-kun."
"Many thanks, Acatl-hakase. You have given me much to think about. I will begin training my affinities for my fire and illusion and mana control after finishing my duties for today." Sleipnir bows deeply to her so that even his tail is on the ground before slowly leaving standing back up and leaving her in the archives with a tail swaying in content.

…

"Interesting. A sub-attribute with similarities to water. And for a fire attuned renard no less."

Streets 12 AM - Sleipnir's POV

After the lecture, Sleipnir returned to the streets of Orario. After looking at the sky, he saw that the sun was at its highest, which meant it was around noon. He now had 15'000 valis after the previous three days in the dungeon.

Walking towards the center of Orario, he looked at the different stands that either sold food, supplies for adventurers or oven tools for travelers.

On one of the major streets leading towards Babel, he traveled along the flow of merchants and saw how, even during the day, the city had many adventurers in their full gear walking with purpose. Although the civilians still made out the majority.

The diversity of races was still strange for Sly. There were small pallums, dwarves, amazons, and many types of demi-humans. Another strange thing for him was the clothing most people wore, as it originated from all around the world. There were a few eastern, but the majority were either wearing strange, at times impractical armour, men only wearing loincloths, and amazons only wearing a bra and short pants. The ones with the most clothing wore monster leather and even then sparingly. The most common though were the civilians in their working clothes.

Sly was still uncomfortable when he saw the diversity of so many races in the same place. Mostly because most of the time he was the subject of many gazes as renards were a rarity in Orario. Even worse were the amazons, as he did not know what to do with some of their comments, which he could hear because of his enhanced hearing. At least until his ears healed he heard fewer of their comments.

After a few minutes of anxious walking, he found a distraction as he saw an old woman selling jagamarukun to two strong adventurers. One was slightly smaller than him and had blond hair with yellow eyes wearing light armour with an exposed back. She appeared very young at most 13 and the robed high elf with green hair was at least 70.

Sly had not eaten anything that day, so he also went towards the stand.

Riveria calmly looked at Ais. "Ais you can not buy all the jagamarukun this kind woman is selling. There are other guests."

Ais looked around blankly. "There is no one around."

The old woman looks at Ais. "I know you like my jagamarukun, my dear, but I can't sell you all of them. And right behind you comes another guest, so please do not buy my shop out again. It's bad for my business when my stand is empty when new guests come."

While Sly is walking over, the blond girl looks at him with a disinterested look. "What do you want?"

Ais startled Sly when she spoke to him and he walked next to her before looking at the stand before answering. "I will just take 3 of the normal jagamarukun please vendor-san."

Ais looked back. "I take the rest but three of every type."

Riveria just watched the scene with silent amusement at the stoic Ais, speaking a few sentences within a minute. The old lady, on the other hand, just sighted. "Very well. I can work with that. Young man, here are your three jagamarukun that will be 300 valis. And Ais-chan here is your order, it will be 1'500 valis. There are 3 normal ones, 6 vegetable and 6 meat for you. Pleasure making business with you."

Sly then walked further towards Babel. Ais stoically walked 1 meter next to him while eating. Riveria meanwhile, looked at Sly before asking him. "Young mage, what are you doing?"

Sly was surprisingly feeling less anxious around her, as most people were watching her and Ais. "I am currently searching for a blacksmith to create soundproof head protection for the tenth floor. Until then, I have to work on my own, as my party is collecting funds."

"Have you bought any items from a blacksmith you were happy with before? They always use a sigil on their items. It might be worth looking into those young blacksmiths if your familia does not already work with one."

Sly looked back, smiled and even bowed slightly to her. "That is a valuable piece of advice. Thank you, miss high-elf-san?"

Riveria looks back at him with some amusement in her eyes. "My name is Riveria and my blond companion is Ais."

"Thank you very much, Riveria-san. My name is Sleipnir from the Takemikazuchi familia. I have to leave now. I wish you a fruitful day, Riveria-san, Ais-chan."

Ais looks confused when Sly leaves before replying. "Do well. Sleipnir." Riveria also looks on with interest as the young adventurer, who did not know who they were, left for a small blacksmithing stand. "An interesting young mage."

Author's Note

I decided to write about Chigusa and Sly as siblings. At first, I had the loose thought of making them a couple, but it just seemed more natural for them to act like siblings after writing the scene where Sly referred to Take as his father figure.

On another note, Sly will always call out foxfire, when he uses the spell, but I noticed that I often wrote foxfire in the descriptions. He still needs to chant the spell.

Update 24.09.2023: Last of the chapter I split. The previous chapters 1-3 have now been split up into the first 6 chapters. With my current chapter length, I needed to change the first 3 chapters as they were almost twice the length of all my other chapters. From here on expect chapter lengths varying from 6'000 to 9'000 words every 2-3 weeks depending on how much time I have for writing.