Spellcasting

 "Yeah, whatever."

A frown appeared on Amelia's face when she heard his casual response. 

Clap–!

"You guys done?" right then, Nero clapped his hands from behind Lucas. "Lucas, Amelia, I know you guys had a past, but I don't want it to get in our Unit's way."

With a serious look, Nero looked at Lucas and Amelia one by one and then said, "I don't want you to be friends, and I don't expect Amelia to forget what Lucas did or anything like that, but don't let your emotions get in your way while working together."

Just as everyone has a side different from their usual public persona, Nero too had a dark side to him.

On the outside, Nero was just a happy-go-lucky goofy guy who used jokes and sarcasm as his defense mechanism. But that personality of his was just a mask.

In reality, Nero was a goal-oriented boy with a sense of purpose driving him to push through his extreme limits.

More than anything, Nero sought justice. Justice for his mother, who got killed by his father for just giving birth to him.

But it was not that easy. His father was one of the 12 members of the Central Government. He was above the law itself.

And Nero is just too powerless and young to do anything at the time. No one in the entire world possessed enough power to go after his father. His father was the law itself.

Right now, the only person who could do anything to his father was Lucas himself but nobody is aware of it yet. So, Nero made his goal to create justice the hard way by himself.

And he realized that the only way to achieve his goal was to get strong and gain power. Unimaginable power that no one in this world, not even the Central Government, can ignore!

Thus he became obsessed with getting stronger and taking revenge for his mother's murder. As a result, he developed a dark side to him.

"Understood?" Nero asked whether they got what he was trying to tell us or not.

Instinctively, Amelia nodded her head as his dead serious gaze fell on them.

But Lucas being Lucas completely ignored Nero's words and comfortably settled on the sofa. 

"I am going to take a nap." He said and then closed his eyes.

Nero's expression turned more serious at Lucas's nonchalant attitude. But he decided to let him be since he could take care of Lucas on the chance he tried something funny.

He announced with his usual cheerful face, "Great, with that out of the way, let's get this spell-casting training session started y'all!"

Nero started instructing the group on how to cast spells while Lucas was dozing off at the corner of the sofa.

From the very start, he wanted Lucas to not interfere with them. He knew that the judging criteria for teamwork wouldn't be that serious since it was not possible for strangers to become good friends on the very first day.

The only reason why he even invited Lucas was to show AI that they were acting as a group.

*****

37 minutes later

"Ventus v-vel!"

"No, no, you're doing it wrong. You need to imagine and then boom! Then shoot out and then swoosh! Like that! And it's pronounced as Ven-tus! Vent-us! Not Ven-tus! But don't focus on that."

"The hell does that even mean?!"

"Just focus on the boom and swoosh feeling!"

"Okay, once again, the hell does that even mean?!"

Nero decided to teach Amelia first.

But even after more than 30 minutes of continuously trying to cast a basic wind magic spell, they got nowhere.

While that was happening, Anastasia and Kent were sitting there with blank faces, probably dumbfounded by the rather childish way Amelia and Nero were arguing.

They were arguing so loudly that even Lucas who was sleeping comfortably till then started to wake up. The noise they made was no less than an alarm clock for Lucas.

 Spellcasting for Amelia shouldn't have been that hard. She possessed two elemental affinities– Wind and Dark and had a good talent for magic.

There was no problem with Amelia.

The problem was the protagonist himself.

Nero's talent in spellcasting exceeded the level of that of a genius. He was a monster.

But it's precisely because he possessed such a monstrous talent that he was an extremely bad teacher.

He never experienced the hardships of learning so he could never share the experience of another person trying to comprehend something— by extension, he could never teach anyone.

As they say, it takes an intelligent person to understand something but a brilliant person to explain it.

"Oh my god, you're dumb!"

"You are just a bad teacher! What do you mean by 'boom' and 'swoosh'? What does that even mean?!"

"Arghh...What are these idiots doing?" 

Lucas had only heard the last part of their argument but it was enough for him to realize what was happening.

Noticing that Lucas was awake, Anastasia got up from her spot and said:

"Okay, guys, stop fighting. At this rate we'll get nowhere. How about this? We let Lucas help us?"

"What? I can teach just fine! It's Amelia who can't understand!"

"I'm not taking his help! I'd eat dirt and do a backflip!"

"Do both!" Nero had a mocking smirk on his face as he said, "Braindead!"

"Y-You!" Amelia gritted her teeth and shot a mad grin, "You really don't love your ugly face huh? Because you're practically begging me here to punch it!"

"Hah!" Nero scoffed, "Your mom is so ugly that she looks like me! Wait…."

"Dude, was that your comeback?"

"Your mom's a comeback! Wait…."

"...What? …What? Just what?"

"And these guys are supposed to be the main characters of this world," Lucas muttered to himself as he massaged his head from the headache due to their argument and his lack of sleep.

"Guys, you know fighting can affect our merit points, right?" finally someone said something sensible. It was Kent.

As if waiting for that cue, the yelling and wailing in the room died down instantly, and everyone went quiet.

"Was Amelia first or did both of you already finish?" Lucas spoke first, deciding that it would be best if he taught. He got up and looked at the three people sitting on the sofa.

"Amelia was the first since all of them had different affinities. No matter how much I explained she didn't understand at all." Nero clarified.

"You are just a bad teacher, Nero," Lucas said and turned to face Amelia. Nero wanted to say something but gave up after seeing that Lucas wasn't looking at him.

"I know you have a problem with me Amelia and I don't expect you to forgive me either. So instead of thinking that I helped you, just think that I doing this for merit points. How about that?"

Amelia fell silent and began contemplating Lucas's words. Convinced of his reasoning, she reluctantly gave a nod.

But immediately her expression turned into an irritated one as she started gritting her teeth and gave Lucas a fierce look.

Since Lucas had said that Amelia could blame him all she wanted, it would be even more difficult for her to argue with him. Because that would be the same as saying that her pride was greater than the success of our team.

"And you both, if you didn't understand his explanation either, then better pay attention to what I am about to say since the basics are the same for every spell," Lucas said to Anastasia and Kent. 

All Lucas wanted was to wrap this up quickly so that he could sleep peacefully in his apartment. Not knowing his inner thoughts, both of them just nodded at his words.

"Fuuu! I thought I would die choking from all the tension in the air!" completely ignoring the atmosphere of the room, Kent commented with a laugh.

"Ahem, well, I still think it's Amelia's fault for not grasping my amazing teachings but thank you, Lucas, for offering to help." Nero chimed in, still refusing to admit the lousiness of his teaching methods.

Sighing at their careless attitude, Lucas shook his head and started his explanation.

"From what I've seen, you're focusing too much on pronouncing the spell. The most necessary element for spell casting is not the pronunciation of the chant, but your will— your imagination.

"The chant is just a substitute for imagination and its role is to help the caster visualize better. If you can't get a feel for the mana flow then the chant is meaningless. Focus on the feeling you get when you move your mana. After that, imagine your spell coming to reality. Visualize a blade of wind manifesting and cutting through the air.

" And don't forget to fuel it with enough mana. If you put too much mana, the spell will overload and go berserk like what happened with me at the class. On the contrary, if you don't supply it with enough mana, the spell will collapse on itself and nothing will happen."

"I-I see."

At his slightly lengthy explanation, Amelia hesitantly nodded her head.

Right at that moment, Nero spoke out with a frown, "That's exactly what I said! How do you understand him but not me?"

"That's not what you said," Lucas replied and everyone including Amelia nodded at his words. Nero looked shocked at their reactions but everyone just ignored him.

After grasping the basic concept of spell casting, Amelia started progressing rapidly. Lucas continued to help her with the chanting part too.

Since Lucas' mother was an elf, he had a pretty good understanding of the elven tongue.

But I am pretty sure that the language is similar to that one. 

Lucas thought while he started instructing the other two. The number of questions was increasing by the day yet Lucas was in no rush to find answers. He was confident enough to deal with any problems he might face in the future. 

"Ventus vel!"

After only a few tries, Amelia chanted her spell and manifested a weak gust of wind from her open palm.

"Yes! That! Memorize that feeling!" Nero shouted almost instantly.

At the same time, Lucas too got up from his spot and]said, "Focus on that feeling and draw it out again! Cast your spell again but supply it with a little more mana this time!"

Amelia nodded with sparkles in her eyes and pointed her open palm at the wall.

With fierce determination, she drew in a deep breath and chanted once again, "Ventus vel!"