Chapter 5. Practicing real magic

Thinking of all this, I let out a breath and pushed open the door of the study room.

After walking through the corridor, I soon ran into the kitchen while wearing an excited smile.

Inside the kitchen, Lilia was preparing dinner and Zenith was helping her.

Zenith seemed to enjoy cooking and trying out various recipes with Lilia. She really was into the housewife's ordinary lifestyle.

"Oh, Seraph. What are you doing here? Are you hungry?" Zenith greeted me with a beautiful loving smile.

Lilia also turned to look at me. Her expression remained reserved, but I could see her eyes smiling.

I shook my head at Zenith's question.

After that I stretched out my hand and called out, "Mom, look what I can do!"

I formed a sphere of water in front of my palm.

Zenith was frozen for a moment as she stared at me, and then shouted out: "Voiceless magic?!!!"

She was so loud that I was genuinely startled.

I dropped the water bullet to the ground.

Splat.

Very quickly, her expression changed into a very intense smile and she slowly asked me, "Seraph… How did you learn to do that?"

Zenith's expression was quite intense, but I know that was not due to anger. I muttered, "Um, I learned it from the book…"

"The book on magic?" Zenith asked while staring at me intensely.

"... I'm sorry," I muttered quietly while casting my gaze downwards.

"Yaaaaah!" Zenith let out a high-pitched scream, then kneeled down and started hugging me tightly. "I knew my Seraph was a genius!"

Lilia: "..."

"What happened? I heard a shout." Paul bursted into the kitchen at that moment.

Zenith let go of me and said, "Our boy is a magical genius! Seraph just cast his first magic. Without a chant!"

"What? First magic? Without a chant?"

Zenith ignored Paul's surprise, kept raising my hands up and down and continued speaking, "Let's hire a magic tutor right away! This child will become a remarkable magician in the future!"

Paul was still confused, while Zenith was completely delighted.

Paul spoke up, "A magic tutor? But he's only two. No, wait. You said he can do voiceless magic?"

"Mmm. Seraph, show dad what you can do," Zenith said as he looked at me with expectations.

After a moment's lag, I faintly nodded my head at her.

I momentarily looked up at Paul with a bit of childish fear, and then stretched out my hand.

"Mmm…" I let out a humming sound as I showed an expression of concentration.

I slowly formed a water ball in front of my palm just like before.

"Yaaah! Did you see that, dear? Seraph is a magical genius!" Zenith ran up to Paul, grasped his hands and started jumping in exhilaration. "Yay! Dear, go out to Roa tomorrow and put up a job request! This talent must be properly trained!"

"I understand. But what about our promise?" Paul replied in a somewhat neutral tone. 

"Promise?" Zenith asked. "Ah, that promise. But he's so talented in magic. It would be a waste if he didn't choose to be a magician!"

"I know that, but a promise is a promise."

Zenith rebuked, "Don't you always break your promises?"

"My matters have nothing to do with this!"

And so, a couple's quarrel began.

As the quarrel persisted for a while, I quietly spoke up during a momentary silence: "Can I do both?" 

"Hm?"

The two parents looked down at me.

"Please don't fight. I can do both. No?" I softly said while blinking my eyes.

"Train both in magic and swordsmanship?" Paul asked.

I gently nodded my head with an uncertain expression, as if I was not entirely sure if I was in the right.

"Ah, we just can't win with you! My angel!" Zenith ran up to me and started squeezing me in her arms.

Ah, relax, woman!

You'll kill me!

…

Zenith wanted to hire a magic tutor right away.

Paul did not object to the idea after seeing what I could do and after I also offered to train with the sword.

But I personally shot it down and said that just learning from the book was enough for now.

In the original, Roxy was hired only when Rudeus was 3 years old.

If my parents tried to look for a magic tutor right now, then there is a chance that it would not be Roxy.

Apart from other things, Roxy was said to be a good teacher in the novel.

If the theoretical side of magic was concerned, I think it was true. It would be extremely difficult to find a better tutor that would come to this rural village to teach a kid of a low-ranked knight.

For the time being, I felt that experimenting by myself just with the magic guide book would be just right. Another mediocre inflexible tutor might only waste my time and fill my head with flawed ideas and misconceptions about magic.

Through this year I can learn the spells in the book by myself and develop my own understanding of magic without being influenced by someone else.

In the future, I can supplement it with Roxy's lessons to fill in any holes.

It seemed like a good enough plan.

Luckily, my parents didn't object to the idea of delaying to recruit a tutor.

It was very likely because I was still way too young and also didn't yet master reading.

My swordsmanship training was also delayed to when I'm 3 years old and my body developed a bit more.

Unfortunately, I was forbidden from using magic unless someone was watching over me. Zenith and Paul should be worried that I might hurt myself or someone else.

And it was not strange since a misfired spell could potentially blow myself up or cause fire.

After all, once again, I was only 2 years old.

However, the advantage was that I could try all kinds of spells in the courtyard without hiding and holding back!

This was my main reason for revealing my talent.

I did not need to hide myself inside the house, be limited to small and safe spells, and could freely experiment without worries.

…

After the matter was settled, I immediately grabbed the magic book and walked outside to practice.

Zenith stood behind my back with a bright smile as I was sitting in front of the magic guide book.

And then I started casting all kinds of spells.

A gust of wind, a whirlwind, a fireball, a water wall, an ice pillar…

I continued at it without stopping and Zenith excitedly cheered me on, from time to time correcting my pronunciation.

"Hey, Seraph! Over here!" I heard Paul's shout as he waved toward me.

I turned my head to look over.

Around this time, Paul also started his training in the courtyard, practicing swordsmanship shirtless, his well-trained body brimming with muscles.

Seeing me look at him, Paul grinned. "Magic is good, but firstly a man needs to be… *strong*!"

Letting out a 'Ha!' shout, he then swung out his sword at unperceivable speed and slashed at a huge boulder, causing it to break apart in a straight line almost as if cut by a blade.

I then saw Paul slightly smiling with a proud look as he placed his sword over his muscular shoulders and looked at me. He asked, "What do you think, son? Of the beauty of the sword."

I smiled.

Did he bring that heavy boulder into the courtyard just to show off his two year old son how he slices it in half?

This should be the application of Battle Aura.

Thinking of this secretly, I called out: "Dad, you're amazing!"

"Haha!" Paul grinned, looking quite happy.

'He's really easy to handle, huh?'

After slicing the boulder in half, Paul returned to his sword training, and I inadvertently took a peek.

"Ha! Yah! Haa!"

My father of this world seemed to be especially flexing that day, doing all kinds of flashy movements while letting out loud shouts.

I felt that he was probably trying hard to get me interested in swordsmanship by showing off. Showing me that the sword wasn't any worse than magic.

I found it to be somewhat cute.

Paul was quite inconsiderate and a bit foolish, but he did try hard to be a respected father.

At this moment, his movements with the sword were really quite mesmerizing. The way he handled the sword, his speed, power and grace, all of it looked very cool.

Swords are cool. I can agree on that.

He didn't need to convince me of it.

Glancing to the side, I saw Zenith looking at Paul train shirtless with love in her eyes.

I let out a breath.

Maybe he was stupid, but even as a man I had to admit it - when he swung his sword like that, he looked quite heroic and attractive.

I was not surprised that many women were into him.

Hopefully I have inherited Paul's physique.

And also his talent for the sword, or even better.

I shook my head off unnecessary thoughts and focused back on the magic guidebook.

…

That day I continued practicing magic in the garden and tried out all the Elementary level spells of the four attack types from the guidebook.

After repeating the spell several times, the feeling became ingrained into me more and more.

What would come next is probably repeating the spells over and over to make casting them quickly without an incantation my second nature.

Starting this kind of training while still very young instead of just producing water balls to burn off mana at this time should be immensely beneficial, so I planned to do just that.

In regards to my Mana reserves.

Even though I cast plenty of various Elementary-rank spells, I could barely experience a dip in my mana level.

In fact, my total amount remained stable and recovered in real time.

After two years of training since basically day 1, my mana pool was like that.

That was certainly a great result!

Earlier I had no way to practically judge my Mana capacity, but things looked quite well.

The question remained how long I could keep growing my mana pool, but I had high hopes.

I also experimented with adjusting the size and speed of my spells.

As long as I did a spell chantlessly, I was able to modify it like this.

I could turn a fist-sized water ball into a water sphere the size of a basketball or even the size of a hopping ball, and then I could increase the flying speed.

Changing the shape was another level of difficulty, but I could still do that much.

To be able to achieve all this, my magical affinity and talent of course seem to be great.

Could I have a Laplace Factor?

In Rudeus's case, he had taken over a body which would have normally died at birth because it presumably had a Laplace Factor that was too powerful for a child's soul to handle.

Perhaps I was the same, or perhaps not.

My only hope is that the kinds of Laplace Factors that I have, if I have them, would not interfere with my ability to manifest Battle Aura.

From what I knew, a Laplace Factor that improves Mana capacity potential and the inability to manifest Aura are not necessarily inclusive. Laplace Factor and no talent for swordsmanship was simply the genetic hand that Rudeus was dealt.

Apart from that, one thing that might not be related to Laplace Factor, but could also be crucial in improving my magic talent is my outstanding ability to concentrate and focus.

In general, my brain seems to be operating on high gears in this life.

Because my thoughts were not flowing as smoothly soon after birth, but then my mental capabilities improved, I believe this to be the result of my mindful meditation practice - I trained my mind by meditating for hours each day as a newborn infant.

This should have contributed to my brain's development.

After all, neither Norn or Zenith were intellectual or magical geniuses, so I don't think that Zenith's genetics are particularly exceptional for that.

Either way, it seems to be the case throughout the novel that a person's potential for things like magic and swordsmanship are both often decided by their training during their early years.

If you slack off as a teenager, you'd be stuck in the Advanced rank like Paul for years to come, but in contrast, if you practice magic even at already 6 years old like Julie (which should be relatively old), you can boost your magical affinity and mana reserves.

Similarly, originally Eris was meant to be stuck in a life-long bottleneck of never being able to surpass Saint rank before she began to train hard during her youth because of Rudeus. If we followed logic from Earth, it would be possible for her to advance above the Saint rank eventually over the years, but no, she remained stuck at Saint rank for a lifetime unless she went hard at it as a teenager.

Especially, the younger you are when you begin serious training in this world, the greater your future potential seems to be.

With all this in mind, I feel that optimally training all: my mana, body and mind during the most fundamental phase of a human's development - the infancy period - might be the key to breaking through my limits and improving my potential.

Of course, that's what I planned to do anyway.

While I am still very young, I need to milk this period to the fullest.

Anyway, I was able to adjust the size and speed of my spells to a rather extreme degree.

Zenith was especially shocked by how insanely big my water ball could get, but she fortunately expressed her shock with only happiness as she immediately bragged to Paul of how talented I was in magic.

In turn, Paul appeared happy, but he also seemed somewhat disappointed.

I guess he wanted his son to practice the sword with him.

But it's alright.

If I only have a bit of talent, I would try to master the sword as well.

Back to my magic practice.

It was impossible for me to run out of mana even if I kept using Elementary-ranked spells for the entire day.

In comparison to expelling pure mana out of my body at full throttle when I used my original training method, doing it through an Elementary level spell was like placing a funnel-like limiter on myself, slowing down the expulsion rate.

Even though this time the mana was now put to proper use to produce a physical phenomenon in reality, which might logically require more mana than simply expelling it out, the amount of mana used per second was not higher.

In conclusion, simply expelling my mana into the atmosphere at full power through my hands was still the best method of using up my mana reserves.

That was in comparison to an Elementary level spell.

Perhaps once I get to higher ranked spells, there might be a change.

Thinking of this, I wanted to attempt casting an Intermediate rank spell for the first time.

I aimed my hand toward the sky, then slowly recited: "Supple spirit of water and princess of streams that flow through the earth, sweep away all things with your hidden inner might."

I could feel mana flowing through my body as I chanted.

The difficulty had spiked up quite a bit.

Unlike before, this magic required control.

Until now, I didn't use such a level of control when reciting the incantations of Elementary ranked spells.

However, it wasn't something that proved to be a challenge.

I soon finished the chant: "Water Cannon!"

A hopping-ball sized water ball formed in front of my palm, then I concentrated, adjusted the speed and sent it to explode in the sky.

Casting an Intermediate ranked spell was still not too difficult.

Zenith was shocked.

Paul was shocked.

Unfortunately I had gotten ahead of myself because after witnessing me cast <Water Cannon>, Zenith forbade me from using Intermediate ranked magic just yet, probably out of concern for my safety.

Many of the Intermediate ranked spells had a significantly increased area of effect and deadliness, so Zenith actually said something a parent should…

Good grief.