Magic is a necessity

Raindrops were flowing down the window; the rain had just ceased, and the dark gray sky had begun to lighten to a brighter bluish color.

Leander was watching the window thinking about his current situation.

Worries filled his head, leading him to consider a variety of hypotheses as to why that occurred to him, the worries were eating him from the inside but deep down he felt excited at being in a whole new world, and for the first time in decades, he felt the desire to explore.

His current obstacle was...

"Why the long face Fer" Celine messed up her hair affectionately, her attitude as childish and charismatic as ever.

'Here we go again' He said with a defeated tone.

Lydia was his mother but the person whom he spend most of the time with, was Celine for sure, she was always looking after him, he didn't mind her affection but with a whole new world to explore his actual situation was quite frustrating.

All days seemed the same in that house and his thirst for knowledge also kept growing day by day, He knew nothing about this world and nothing about the magic of this world as well, It was as if he was back to square one again, his years of practicing magic in the other world had gone to the trash.

All he managed to learn was that this world was called Raghon, to avoid arousing suspicions he decided to not ask too many questions to his mother or aunt; The house also didn't have any books about magic or other subjects he could learn from.

"Are you Reading all this by yourself?" Celine pointed at the book scattered on the floor around him.

'Talking about avoiding arousing suspicions...'

Celine took one of the books from the ground, they were all ancient fables that she read as a child and still hold dearly in her mind, she remembered perfectly when she read him these bedtime stories.

"Do you want me to read them for you?".

'Fuck no' He thought.

"I can read them by myself aunt"

"Oh, he is all grown up now" She ruffled his hair again and started to collect the books from the ground.

"As a ten years old child I think a more complex piece of literature would help my development".

"Hahaha no magic books for you, and we don't even have any here".

'Danm she got me' It wasn't the first time he had asked to learn magic, Since he had discovered his second reincarnation into another world, he had tried to learn magic from the two of them but they always refused to teach him for some reason.

'Magic is one of the things I need most right now'

Leander knew that enjoying a peaceful life without training magic was a decision that could certainly backlash in the future; he had learned the worst way through his past lives how being powerless could make someone's life a living hell.

Celine and Lydia also didn't make things easier, when he asked about magic they both made cheap excuses, Lydia took it more seriously when she refused to teach him, and Celine always looked at him with sorrow when he requested, they both promised that he would learn magic when he got older.

The "When you are older" sounded like a cheap excuse.

"~You've never changed, have you? You always ask for it, even though we swore we'd teach you magic when you're older".

'You're lying Celine, both you and Lydia use magic to the most trivial things and are good at it I can see it clearly...then why are you lying about this?' Her personality was bright and honest she Always had a smile on her face but that Always changed when he talked about magic or he asked about other Family members.

Lydia took it more seriously when she refused to teach him but Celine always looked at him with sorrow when he requested, her nature made it easy for him to know when she was lying.

'Whether they want it or not magic is one of the things I need most right now'

Leander knew that enjoying a peaceful life without training magic was a decision that could certainly backlash in the future; he had learned the worst way through his past lives how being powerless could make someone's life a living hell.

"Actually you changed a bit when I think about it" Celine put one finger to her cheek when she noticed this.

"I-i changed?" he got scared, maybe someone finally caught on to his acting.

"Yep, Now you are even more impatient than before hehe".

"~Haha you think so..." Seeing her silly smile he understood, she did not see through his bad acting skills, not at all.

"We read all those books already huh?... what about I tell you the fable of the queen of Alth—". Because of the loud noise of the door being kicked, she couldn't finish her sentence.

"Celine where are the herbs told you to get" Lydia suddenly appeared through the door with a frown.

"Aaahhh do I really have to go now?" Celine Whined like a kid.

"Yes, you have been delaying chores for the entire week," Lydia shouted like a commander enraged by the incompetence of his soldiers.

If Celine still acted a bit like a child, Lydia was the opposite, she had a mature and composed posture, she was responsible for almost everything in the house; although she was really young her eyes had a mixture of maturity and tiredness. Leander thought that probably she had lost her husband or family in some tragedy or something, That would explain her behavior of never talking about family, actually, that would explain the behavior of the two.

He had noticed that Lydia's expression was slightly distant and unfocused sometimes, especially when she took care of the flowers in the garden, it was almost unnoticeable, her distant demeanor Always changed when Celine and Leander were around.

"You need to finish this today Celine"

"Couldn't you just do it for me, I'm so tired" Celine begged hugging Lydia's waist like a child.

"No, even if wanted to I also have my own chores to do"

Using her usual threatening glare Lydia freed herself from Celine's hold, seeing that there were no more chances Celine left, Lydia followed her a little after leaving the house without even looking back.

"Man, leaving the house without even checking at your son to see if he is going to be all right alo—"

Then he soon understood that this was the opportunity he had been looking for since his arrival in this world, an opportunity that was rare for a kid like him.

"I'm alone, I can finally put my theories about magic into practice".

With a wide grin on his face, Leander took advantage of his family's absence and leaped out the window, heading towards the forest.

It was a small forest, but it was the only place Leander could exercise without being seen; Hecoul'n'tt test his theories inside the house, both Lydia and Celine seemed to be extremely sensitive to mana, Lydia could tell if Celine tried to cook something only by detecting the fire-type mana she used on the kitchen.

'I can feel the mana but is just like a little itch sensation, in the worst-case scenario I have no talent for the magic of this world or was born with a defective body'

Both seemed like horrible situations, especially being born with a body unable to use magic.

As he walked away from the open plains and closer to the forest, Leander felt a mild electric charge flowing through his body, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

There was mana in the atmosphere as he got closer to the forest, he was familiar with that feeling, mana was being absorbed naturally by his body.

'Ok if I feel mana I must be capable of using it as well'

He stopped in the middle of the trees and tried to focus on the sensation of mana.

After leaving the plain fields the mana felt way stronger, he could feel the mana on the atmosphere surrounding him, it was also running inside his body like an electric charge running uncontrollably.

Leander closed his eyes and tried to make the mana move to his hand but nothing happened, he could feel the mana but it wasn't moving according he wanted for some reason.

'Maybe I should start with elemental affinity'

He decided to test a simple spell like a fireball, but nothing happened again after a few more tentatives he decided to finally give up, he didn't understand why it wasn't working.

'Ok maybe I don't have an elemental affinity for fire'

His second theory was that maybe magic in this world was restricted to one elemental affinity different from where he come from where people could use all elements, the only foundation he had behind this theory was something Lydia had said about solrien magic

'Let's try water'

He approached the little river hoping to increase the water mana attribute.

He tried to make the mana flow to his hand and the way mana behaved chaged; The faint electric current that passed harmlessly through his body suddenly seemed to have the force of a thunderbolt, and the electricity seemed to burn his body from within, making his muscles hurt.

'How do I make this stop?'

The pain had become unbearable and he felt he was losing his consciousness, in a desperate attempt Leander mentalized the mana in his hand flowing out of his body.

Water formed on top of his hand quickly and then exploded forming a very dense fog.

Leander was dripping, not from his spell, but sweating; he had seriously underestimated how different the otherworldly magic would be.

Yet he decided to try again, this time trying to do everything as slowly as possible, mana had a Wild nature in Raghon.

Leander tried to think about the humidity on the air gathering in his hand and condensing into a small bubble of water.

This time instead of pressure inside his body he felt his control over mana suddenly being weakened and the mana concentrated in his hand going wild.

Fog formed in his hand and condescended into a bubble of water in one second before becoming a cube of ice and exploding, scattering ice spikes.

'Why are my spells just exploding'

His frustration kept building up as his spells kept exploding for some reason, mana sometimes was calm and flowed naturally other times became wild out of the blue, and what was supposed to be a one-hour training became two and then three.

He could feel his body weakening, but his mind was still strong enough to keep trying; he was determined to figure out what was wrong with his spells and how mana correlated to his elemental affinity.

His concentration was taken away by wood cracking noises, they were getting closer and closer by the second.

What confused him was that the sounds were coming from opposite directions.

One coming from came from the bottom of the forest and the other from where he had entered the forest.

The source of the sound coming from the bottom of the forest revealed itself, a bird-like animal with grayish-colored feathers and two pairs of wings emerged from the middle of the trees flying toward him, the beak looked as sharp as a spear and was pointed straight at his mouth and an immense amount of mana come out of the Bird.

His body of a child was really slow and he nearly didn't dodge the attack, being a child had many disadvantages and slow reaction time was one of them against a beast that could fly and maneuver perfectly in the air he had no chance in a battle.

His only option was to stick close to the trees since the wingspan of the animal wouldn't let him come close enough to strike him.

'Think Leander how can I distract thi—'

In a blink of an eye, Lydia appeared in front of him; with a wave of her hand, an arrow of blue flame was conjured and flew out striking the animal.

The fire arrow hit it, but instead of blood gushing out as expected, white lines that resembled cracks formed in the animal's body, which evaporated like dust.

However Leander wasn't focused on the beast, what picked his interest was how much mana he felt coming from his mother, the amount of mana and pressure was much stronger than he had ever felt before from her.

It was much stronger than even the beast itself.

"Ferran, what are you doing alone in the middle of the forest, you've never done something like this before" she looked leander in the eye.

"..." Without a proper excuse, he had to resort to the "Looking at the floor with a guilty face" strategy

"What happened?"

Celine came running as fast as her legs allowed, she returned home and after not finding Leander she started to look for him luckily Lydia had already returned before her and found him before, all Celine had to do was follow the two mana signatures that came from there.

"A Merijiya tried to attack Ferran," Lydia said looking around.

"What are spirits doing here?" She asked with worry in her voice.

'Spirits?' Leander started to wonder what that meant, he could feel mana coming from the beast, like a living thing.

Lydia shrugged in response to Celine's question.

"Are you sure you couldn't detect any mages?" Celine asked again that time in a more serious tone.

"I'm sure there are only your mana signature here but I think I have an explanation"

Lydia turned around and pinched Leander's cheek.

"Maybe someone was using magic and attracted a merijiya"

"Ferran what I said to you about magic" Celine walked closer and pinched his cheek as well

"I'm sorry mom, aunt"

"Is he hurt?" Celine checked every part of his body.

"No he is completely fine, let's just get inside, and don't do this anymore little man".

"Lydia we should do a full check-up on him and scold him more after that".

"You are too over the top Celine".

They left the forest and for the rest of the day Celine kept her eyes on him making it impossible to leave the house, she also refused to say what a spirit was no matter how much Leander insisted, at the end of the day he had more questions about magic than answers.