Chapter 3: A Guide to Magic

Two years had passed since I was reborn and finally I had grown enough to walk around on my own and talk to my family. Of course I bungled up my first words and put on a pretty unconvincing act of trying to learn to speak however, as always only Lillia seemed to think something was amiss. Every chance I could I asked Zenith about the spell she cast, the best I ever got was that it was a magic spell and that she promised to teach me when I got older. That wasn't going to work so I developed a plan that would help myself and Lilia. Whenever Paul and Zenith looked like they were going to do the deed that night I'd ask them to read me a bedtime story again. Our house only had five books and two of them were story books. I would read along with them and ask them to read it again whenever there was a part I didn't quite understand. I repeated this for a little over a year until I could call myself literate and with how often I asked my parents had started leaving the book chest unlocked.

After two years phase 2 of the plan could start, which was access to a book whose title was simply A Guide to Magic. I had been using my knowledge of jujustu for the past two years to try to cast the spell that Zenith had with no results. Meaning I needed a guide like this if I wanted to learn. The principles couldn't be any more different from the world I came from. All magic was a generic set of powers that anyone could use if they knew the proper incantation and had the mana to power it. Mana was an energy source that all living things produced but was a fixed pool one had from birth. As opposed to cursed energy which a user would constantly try to find different restrictions to grow their pool and output as well as the efficiency of their techniques. Healing magic however was quite similar to RCT. It required physical touch and more mana than equivalent attack magics. Considering that something had to be hurt to be healed I decided to learn attack magic first and use those fundamentals whenever Zenith decided to teach me. Considering that Zenith could casually throw out healing spells I should at least have enough mana to cast simple spells. Worst case scenario I could learn more about these magic circles instead of casting spells myself, then again maybe drawing these circles might end up costing a lot of money.

That brings me back, the Muta clan wasn't fabulously wealthy so I had to make a good case to convince them to buy all the stuff I needed to make my Ultimate Mechamarus. I was 16 when I finally worked off my debt to my family and that was with years of doing the work of five Grade 2 sorcerers. I don't think I want to live my life like that again, even if this time my parents actually cared for me rather than viewing me like an investment.

In a situation like this I wanted to learn something useful which immediately brought a fire spell to mind but considering I would be practicing with a book indoors I elected to learn how to use water first. I read the page on elementary water magic. It described a spell called water ball; it even had a depiction of a classical mage casting the spell. The incantation read.

"Bestow the protection of water on the place thee demandest, let thine crystal clear flow here, [Water Ball]." and surging like a river up my arm, mana shot out to form the water ball and launched it until it splattered against the wall. After following the steps from the book and envisioning the spell beforehand my mana had surged through my body faster than I expected. That was another way this was different from cursed energy. If I had to compare the two I would say cursed energy was like clay and mana was like water. For 12 years of my life I had been shaping and pushing clay through my veins trying to find ways to make it squeeze through my veins faster, while here casting my first spell I detected no waste, there was no time for mana to be lost in the process. However once it was outside of the body it had to be formed into shape. The book had mentioned how skilled casters could cast spells without incantations and if I was right the reason was simple.

So without a word I recalled the sensation from before and envisioned the spell. With little effort at all the water ball was summoned again but it didn't fly and black dots were gathering at the edges of my vision. After a moment the ball simply fell to the ground. I had messed up the process but my hypothesis was correct. In a world where somebody can use countless spells it would be hard to learn how to do too many as the feeling would all start to blend together. Incantations were a mnemonic device meant to streamline the process so mages could learn dozens of spells rather than a handful. They might even be a holdover from before written language had been developed. To be safe I tried again and blacked out from mana exhaustion.

"Oh really, Rudeus, if you're sleepy just go to the toilet and then sleep on the bed." When I woke up, I was treated as if I'd fallen asleep when reading the book, and wet the floor. It was beyond embarrassing, to avoid needing people to clean up after me, in my previous life I spent all of my time in a combination bathtub/toilet. That was just an extra gut punch on top of the fact that I had such a wimpy mana pool. It's not like I need to be some grand wizard to live a long and healthy life, it was just that I didn't want to be powerless if something went wrong. So I continued my training the next day to rather shocking results.

Yesterday I blacked out after casting a water ball three times, but today I hadn't blacked out yet after five. Judging by the black spots in my vision I only had one left in me but that was a major change. In a single day I had doubled my mana supply, if this rate stayed consistent in a year's time I would be casting millions of water balls, assuming that my expending my mana pool had anything to do with my growth rather than this being random. So I put it to the test and after 7 days of limiting my spell casts to a certain number chosen at random every other day I got my results. Everytime I cast a water ball I could cast one more water ball the next day. That left me with only one choice. I would spend mana until I was delirious and wake up the next day stronger, it worked kind of like my cursed energy banking from my last life but in reverse. When the book claimed that incantations were necessary it made sense to tell that to beginners, there was a very good chance I could omit the incantations because of my history with sorcery. Lying about one's mana pools got me quite angry. It was senseless just a way to hamstring people to dissuade people from taking this path. Then again it was always like that. It was often said that Jujustu society was designed to protect non-sorcerers from curses but anyone who understood the system knew it was a lie. Curses mostly lacked intelligence and only killed a small number of people but sorcerers were dangerous. They were ill trained and sent on dangerous missions fighting curses that tended to keep to themselves. The weak ones died pointless deaths and the strong ones got addicted to mortal combat. But those that were too strong were worn down and put in competition with each other. Because Jujustu society was designed to protect non-sorcerers from sorcerers.

The same thing was probably happening here. It was a lot easier to control muscle bound idiots like Paul than it was to control men who could cause an explosion with a couple sentences. Maybe it was just the case that this only worked with young children who wouldn't normally be able to learn these things, if that was the case maybe that was why nobody knew who would give a toddler a gun. That was the more logical explanation, regardless of what was true I would need to take advantage for as long as I could. From that day onward, I would cast until I blacked out every day. At the same time I learned how to use all elementary spells even going so far as hurting myself to practice healing. These spells were the weakest of the weak but trying anything else within the house would be stupid, the descriptions of these intermediate spells gave the impression they could easily kill a man. From what the books says the tier after advanced is where most educated mages end their journeys meaning the saint rank beyond that is where I should aim. I've got a massive advantage over everyone else in this world. The least I could do is stand above the pack a little.

The water spells the book contained were the most versatile, a host of protective and offensive spells not to mention a source of cool refreshing beverages. Once I got a feel for a spell I would modify it to test its limits. Attack spells have to be formed in a specific order creation-determine size-set speed-release. This rule could sort of be applied to other spells which might be nice in the future if I found a use for a moving water shield. As the days dragged on I needed to spend more mana to run out my mana pool and this could take hours. The solution, I started casting multiple at a time. It could be my experience with controlling multiple bodies but I got the hang of it very fast. During this I learned a couple key things that would let me really make use of this. First All spells would stay suspended in the air until the spell was released or until the mana used could no longer sustain it. Second, Fire and wind spells didn't need to be suspended in the air with magic as gravity didn't pull them to the earth. This let me set up firing dummies. From delayed moving targets to a standing shooting gallery of candlelights.

Two months later

I wanted to move to the next stage but I would probably need to bring it up to my parents. Unless I wanted to practice after dark I couldn't hide my practice out in the yard. I would need to pester Zenith something fierce until she taught me herself, then I could move forward like I was a fast learner instead of having to explain how I taught myself how to read. It took me this long to realize but being this way was nice. In my past life all I ever got were looks of disgust and pity when people looked at me. Being the cute kid around the compound who was dotted on was something I never got. Maybe I should start thinking of these two as mom and dad not Zenith and Paul, after all between three families these were the first loving parents I ever had.