Magic, Baby! Magic! (NasuFate - Artoria Pendragon SI Chapter 2)

Merlin was both intrigued and excited by his new student. Artoria wasn't like his visions at all. Not bashful nor naively innocent like he expected. Her initial love of swordsmanship, by Ector's account, was more due to the physical movement and exercise, and "pointing the sharp end at something and smash". At least, she held her passion for it till it became a chore.

For magecraft however, even after a month her passion for it didn't wane.

Her elemental affinity were Fire, Wind and Ether. A pretty good amount of talent for her to dig into. Not that he'll let her limit herself to only studying those elemental magecraft branches.

"Good, good." Merlin said as Artoria made the high-grade fire spell stabilize and contained within the ruby. "You really grasp this material quick. I want to take credit for it, but sadly I hadn't done enough to earn it at this point. You really are a genius." Merlin was easy with the compliments, not just because they were true, but to see her reactions, as there are things about his student that are a mystery. A mystery that he was enjoy unravelling. Although it will likely take a long time to-

"Aww thanks, Wizard Bro." Merlin sighed. While he liked her casual slang speaking, he wondered if Ector might have a point of focusing some of her lessons on noble etiquette, so she doesn't talk like a peasant in front of the Ladies and Lords of the land, when she faces them later on. "Besides, I can't really say I'm a genius. It's just that being a reincarnate means I have a head start so figuring things out is easy."

Merlin stilled.

"Come again?" He asked.

"What?"

"That thing you just said. Being a 'reincarnate'?" Was the mystery of Artoria Pendragon really that easy to solve?

"Hmm?" She looked back at him. He would admonish her for taking her eyes of the ruby, but she had already contained the spell successfully. "Yeah, I'm a reincarnate, reincarnator, whatever you want to call it. I remember my past life."

"...Just like that?"

"Just like what?"

"You're telling me such an important secret, just like that?"

"Well, you're a wizard, I figured you already knew."

"...Pfft." Merlin began giggling. He really should stop overthinking thing when it comes to Artoria. "I see, so who were you?"

"Doesn't matter." Surprisingly her tone wasn't one of someone trying to hide something, but someone that genuinely didn't think it mattered. "This is my life now and that's it. I'm Artoria and that's all. Well, Arthur when others are around." She rolled her eyes.

"But your aptitude for learning, you said that was due to your past life. I'm guessing you were a scholar?" Merlin asked.

"Kinda?" She shook her head a bit thinking it over, as she turned to face him in full. "It's just the education level where I'm from helped a bit." Her eyes lit up. "Oh! I should explain that in my past life the date was 2015. So technically I'm from the future. Or a future."

"...Continue." Merlin pulled a chair with telekinesis and sat down.

"Well, I don't think it's the future of this world, since mine didn't have magic. Or maybe it was hidden, so I never found out." She explained, then her eyes lit up again, when an idea came to her, as she looked down on the ruby intently.

"...Have you ever heard of King Arthur?" He asked.

"Huh?" She looked up. "I think he was some king in England. Maybe." Then she looked down at the ruby, drawing on Od from her Magic Core, as she tried to use Reinforcement and Alteration for what she wanted.

"Anything else?" He leaned back looking up, as he was thinking on how many things this changes.

"Hmm, oh! I think he had this sword called 'Excalibur'. I remember that from when it was an annoying sword in Soul Eater." She said with excitement. It seemed like Alteration wasn't working, maybe she needs to work with Fire Element for thermodynamics, and Ether for Separation and Unification.

"Soul Eater?" He looked down lazily to see her.

"Yeah, it's uuuhhh, manga. A serialized fictional story from Japan. Or would it be called Nippon now?"

And she even knows about the Far Eastern nation? "And you don't know anything else about 'King Arthur'? Nothing about say 'Merlin' or 'Morgan'?"

"What do you or my sister have to do with anything?" Artoria looked up with a raised eyebrow.

Merlin sighed. "What do they teach in the future?"

"In my defense, I never really cared about history. It just never really clicked and became interesting. Anime and video games on the other hand-Woah oh." The ruby in Artoria's hand started giving an odd hum.

Merlin sat up and focused, his eyes widening in alarm as his magic senses were telling him what's happening in the ruby.

"What are you trying to do?"

"I wanted to see if I can make and contain a nuclear-"

Merlin moved at the speed of teleportation.

The ruby cracked.

Merlin and Artoria stood outside his Wizard Tower. The place that was his home, workshop and realm in a sense.

It was on fire and crumbling down bit by bit. All the magic effects were contained by the tower, and a Bounded Field Merlin erected around the tower after he made it outside.

"...You burned down my tower."

"...Sorry." Artoria scratched the back of her head, while looking down and sucking a breath through her teeth.

"You burned down my tower." Merlin fully turned toward her, his face show neither anger nor approval. "I have never, never had a student cause such damage, within a month of being under my tutelage. And at this scale."

"Well," deciding that pulling back and apologizing more wouldn't work, Artoria decided to take refuge in audacity. "Since I managed to do that in a month, clearly I'm your most exceptional student." She said with a wide grin and a shrug of her shoulders.

"Oh really?" Merlin gave a devilish smirk.

"...I'm gonna regret this, aren't I?"

"As they say in your time, 'hold on to your butt cheeks, kid. It's time for Training from Hell'."

The glow of the burning tower seemed to cover Merlin's frame.