Five Years Old

Time slowly passed day after day and in the blink of an eye, a year passed. Roxy's lessons with Rudeus went better than either had expected.

Rudeus was able to quickly pick up both Earth and Wind magic from Roxy's teachings. Reaching the Advanced rank in all four elements in quick succession after grasping Advanced rank in Fire and Water magics.

At the same time, he had also achieved Advanced rank in the three sword styles, Sword God, Water God and North God, reaching the same level as Paul in terms of technique.

It seemed that this body had a keen mind, being able to retain information a lot better than his previous body.

Aside from achieving Advanced rank magic in attacking spells, Rudeus also studied a lot of Melded Magic from Roxy. That is, the creation of various phenomena by mixing certain spells in a specific order.

The example Roxy had given was the activation of Water Fall, Heat Island and Icicle Field in this specific order which would then create fog. Reheating the earth again would subsequently dispel the fog.

Since this world's level of science wasn't very advanced, they did not have instruments that could measure why certain phenomena occurred the way they did. So even if they had a manual on melded magic that listed the order or spells to be casted in order to create fog, their only explanation would be: this is how it is.

Whereas science would be able to explain that fog is formed from the condensation of water vapour, which forms lots of tiny water droplets that hang in the air, creating a the appearance of thick fog.

This process was reflected in the Melded Magic order for creating fog: Water Fall created large quantities of water, Heat Island evaporated them resulting in dense, humid water vapour being created, and finally Icicle field provided the cold temperature that condensed the water vapour into fog.

It was just that the researchers of this world put too heavy an emphasis on magic, without the desire to explore and study natural phenomena while relying on magic as a go to answer for all unexplained phenomena.

Rudeus would not consider himself as particularly well versed in scientific knowledge. Because while he was indeed a student of science in college, he had actually majored in Sports Science! Don't laugh because Sports Science actually covered a wide range of areas that were all related to health and physical performance.

His knowledge of Human Anatomy and cellular production which he learned in school was what let him achieve Advanced rank in Healing and Detoxification magic while at the same time being able to cast them without incantations.

He did not need medical knowledge to visualise how to treat someone with healing magic. Rudeus already had the knowledge of the biological processes that went into cell production which helped aid him in understanding how healing magic worked and what was the underlying fundamental structure behind healing magic.

Take the Beginner rank Healing magic, Healing, for instance. Fundamentally, the Healing spell accelerated cellular regeneration. Minor cuts and bruises would undergo rapid recovery when exposed to the light of Healing magic.

Even laymen from Earth were aware that there was a biological limit to how many times a human cell could replicate before it could not divide anymore and subsequently breakdown by programmes cell death or apoptosis.

This resulted in a terrible implication that Rudeus realised. Frequent exposure to Healing magic was essentially shortening the lifespan of creatures that were being healed. It was an unnoticeable side effect that could not be empirically measured just from the surface unless the subject received healing magic 24/7 for a decade.

Of course, this was only a theory that worked out under Rudeus' preconceived assumptions about human biology that might not be relevant in this fantasy world.

Yet, it wasn't like he could rely on his existing knowledge of science to dissect every unexplained phenomena in this world. For example, Rudeus couldn't figure out the science behind Mana Reinforcement and its mechanical processes. He would need to delve deeper into mana theory before he could come up with a working hypothesis.

But something like that wasn't necessarily at the top of his list of priorities. He wasn't a scholar at heart. He was an athlete. Though most elite athletes possessed passing knowledge on subjects like nutritional science and biomechanics, they only studied them for the sake of improving their performance in their chosen sport and not out of academic curiosity. Rudeus was similar in this way. Though he has specialised knowledge in these subjects, which was why he had more than a passing understanding.

With his increased repertoire, Magic Sword Style was also rapidly coming together nicely. Since he had the ambitious goal of forming a fourth swordsmanship school equal to or greater than the three existing sword styles, he created techniques that started from the Beginner rank.

For example, Beginner rank technique, Fire Slash. Instead of emitting mana from his palm or a staff, he channelled the magic power through his sword and unleashed a Beginner Fire magic spell from the tip of his blade. This let him shoot out a wave of fire when he swung his sword. It did not have very high lethality, from Rudeus' objective judgement, but if used as a form of distraction or misdirection, then it worked very well.

Intermediate Magic Sword technique: Earthen Dash. He released mana through the soles of his feet and ran forward. With every step, a launch pad like contraption would form beneath the dirt he stepped on that launched him rapidly forward. Not only in a straight line, he could also do a zigzag like path without losing any momentum from having to change directions midway. The launch pads would launch him in different directions without him needing to reduce his momentum.

Advanced Magic Sword technique: Air Step. Similar to Earthen Dash, he would release mana through the soles of his feet and create a barrier made of wind in mid-air. This allowed him to seemingly be able to walk on air, and more importantly be able to engage in a 3 dimensional mode of battle that saw him bouncing around in mid-air at different directions before striking from the enemy's blind spot.

Even Paul could not do anything but maintain an air tight, defensive Water God stance against his Air Step offence. Even if he tried to counter attack against Rudeus, the boy would be able to rapidly retreat or change direction using another spell that expelled a large burst of wind from a part of his body which could subsequently throw him in another direction in mid-air.

While his family including Lilia were already somewhat numb to watching him combine magic and swordsmanship in this manner, Roxy on the other hand was blown away by how Rudeus used magic in unison with sword fighting.

From using Water magic to rapidly create ice weapons which were subsequently thrown using North God style techniques, to layering sharp, Wind magic on his wooden sword and turning it into a blade sharper than any metal.

From creating floating rock shields that rotated around his figure which greatly reinforced his Water God stance, to experimenting with inventing a Fire magic he called 'Afterburner' to boost the speed of his movements.

Roxy felt her preconceived notions on both magic and swordsmanship shatter with every new feat she witnessed from Rudeus.

'Am I witnessing the birth of a future legendary figure...?' She wondered, and it was a frightening concept to be honest. Would she be recorded in history as the teacher of someone who may one day reach the level where the Seven Great Powers resided? While it was intimidating to think of, she couldn't help but get excited as well.

All that she had left to teach the child was Saint level water magic, and to be honest, the only reason why it was taking so long was only due to Rudeus' declining interest in progressing to the next step.

He would rather spend more of his time on developing his Magic Sword style than put in the time and effort to study the magical theory of Saint ranked magic.

This was because starting from Saint rank spells, magic cast at that level would be difficult to incorporate into swordsmanship like Rudeus so obviously desired. They were large-scale, destructive spells that resulted in wide area devastation. Rudeus was more inclined towards small scale spells that could be integrated well with the three existing sword styles.

If he got rid of his enemies using Saint rank, large scale magic, he wouldn't be able to call himself a Magic Swordsman, or a Sorcerer Knight or Warlock Warrior (he hasn't decided on the name yet) anymore!

But Rudeus' decision to refocus his time and passion towards developing his sword techniques was well received by Paul, who wanted to see his son as a future swordsman anyway.

At first, when Paul learned of Rudeus' ambition to create a 'Magic Sword Style' that could contend with the three conventional sword schools, he felt it amusing but still sincerely encouraged Rudeus regardless.

But as time passed, and Rudeus' empty words suddenly didn't seem that empty anymore, Paul started to think differently as well. In fact he even started to actively think of ideas to help his son develop this new magic swordsmanship.

After all, who better than an expert proficient in all three sword styles who also had over a decade of experience fighting with or against spell casters to act as a consultant for hybridising sword and magic?

Paul still occasionally cursed this decision when he was on the receiving end of these techniques which specifically dug at weaknesses he had pointed out to Rudeus. But ultimately, which parent wouldn't be proud of their now 5 year old child's achievements?

Zenith initially chided Rudeus for wasting the opportunity to learn Saint rank magic from a Saint rank magician. But she couldn't bear to go too far in her lectures after seeing how happy Rudeus was while working on his magic sword style.

Furthermore, she was already more than happy that Rudeus was able to reach Advanced Rank in both healing and detoxification magic, even being able to perform them without incantations! He was able to heal himself just by willing it and moving his magic in the right direction.

To the external observer, it would look like Rudeus had disgustingly powerful self-regeneration abilities. Enemies fighting him might get frustrated to death before they could decisively take him out.

Not that Rudeus would take the risk of a permanent reduction in lifespan from overindulging in healing magic by fighting like an undying lunatic anyways. His theory that healing magic might be completely untrue but that didn't mean he would have to take that unnecessary risk. Lifespan, once shortened, would be a permanent loss. It wasn't worth tempting fate.

He also slowly grew more attached to Roxy as they spent a lot of time together. Aside from his immediate family and Lilia, Roxy was probably the person he was the most fond of.

The young girl was very good at teaching, unlike his parents...

Paul taught by saying 'just do it like this'. If Rudeus wasn't the genius that he was, he wouldn't have been able to understand a single thing about what his dad was saying.

Zenith on the other hand, only had superficial knowledge on the magic system of this world. Unlike the profound insights Roxy often expounded on during their lectures.

For Rudeus, Roxy wasn't just a person who brought along the spell models for Advanced magic. She taught him magic theory, how magicians fought and their various tactics, even sharing more about the geography and ecology of other continents.

If it wasn't for her, Rudeus felt like he would still be a frog in a well, unaware of how big the world really was and only assuming the small piece of land he inhabited was the whole world.