Chapter 2: Magic and A new friend Part 2

"Are we going to go outside?" He asks her in anticipation while imagining about how the world could be different from his own world. For instance, he hasn't yet seen enough to tell if there are two moons or weird and exotic beasts.

"Oh my and here I thought you didn't have any interest for our world besides magic." She says sarcastically. She probably noticed that whenever he took a short break he would look out the cracked window.

"It's not that I have no interest in seeing the outside world. It's just that I have to be useful in something, so I can travel with sister and protect her. She's an idiot who doesn't have the best brain, but she's really good at doing physical things so it feels weird being without her."

"You really care for your family. Fine I will not be constantly bugging you, but you gotta eat food and be a little social, ok?"

"I wanna see the city!"

"Being the home of a king that ruled 'the world' the city is huge with four different sections based off of class and status." Liz starts to explain the inner workings of the city while preparing their lunch.

"While my hut may look poor and run down that's only because of my old age and not being able to take care of it."

"I'm actually very comfortable with living in this small hut, but it really needs a new touch up if I'm going to have a permanent guest. The king so graciously gave me the land surrounding this small hut to live in and I could have made anything that I wanted. I just find living in an environment like this as comfy and homey."

She finishes explaining about the reason for her living conditions, while also finishing packing up their lunch and starts to head outside. She continues her explanation about the district, so Ghost doesn't get into trouble if he adventures outside.

"The rest of the houses are more like mansions. Everything here works with magic since we take great pride in our magic abilities. The street lamps and any other lamp really works with light magic." Everyone who they passed on the streets looks happy and cheerful wearing bright colored clothes and furs. A truly rich feeling comes out throughout the capital.

Sadly seeing people isn't exactly common since there aren't that many buildings throughout the area and it feels a lot more open than the normally crowded capitals.

Liz takes Ghost towards a very lush open field for a picnic. The difference between here and where he lived is huge. There isn't any science in this world as everything has been replaced by the easily moldable mana.

As mentioned before it's hard to imagine a city that has so much empty space between different houses and doesn't have any tall skyscrapers to block your view.

"This world is so much prettier than the world I lived in before. The world I was in previously might have never gotten dark at night thanks to various artificial lights, but in reality, it always felt so dark and stale. It feels so much more bright and fresh here!"

Ghost can't help but exclaim while he naively believes there could be such a great world after only seeing bits and pieces of it.

They eat their lunch in silence as Liz doesn't want to ruin Ghosts new outlook of his new world and Ghost simply is taking his time to enjoy this meal unlike his other two.

The time flies by and the food quickly disappears and Liz decides that it's time to show him a bit more of her world.

"Now that lunch is done, how about we go meet some old friends of mine?" She says while putting away the silverware into the picnic basket.

"Sure meeting people will be nice for a change. The only people that I've met are you and that arrogant king." He excitedly gets up at the prospects of seeing more of this bright new world.

"Then let's go my little hero." After we leave the field Liz takes him to a popular market that is being held by bored nobles.

Over the many long years, she's lived here most of them are her friends and are the best people to introduce Ghost too.

She takes him to a tiny stall that looks handmade with the thought of easy to put away in mind instead of being a permanent structure.

"Hi Alex, how's your luck with fishing you catch any bites?" Liz asks a lean but muscular man who's black hair is in a ponytail. Behind the stall owner is an assortment of different still wet and fresh fish.

"They can't help but grab onto my new bait! It feels so good when you catch one that's worth keeping!" He takes out a couple different fish and puts them on the counter. "Now who is this young lad I didn't know you had children much less a grandchild."

She sighs while thinking about the king's idiotic decision of using the foreign summoning circle to summon a pair of kids.

"He isn't my relative the king called in a favor. He was also summoned with the hero. Have you met the other one?"

Ghosts ears perk up at the thought of hearing information about his sister as she hasn't even visited him yet.

"No ma'am the king must have been anxious to start training her. He probably wants these unknowns gone as fast as possible!"

"I haven't heard a peep about her from anyone. Heck, he didn't even mention that the summoning was a success. You should probably keep your mouth shut about him" He says while pointing at Ghost, but then he realizes who he was advising and shuts up.

"Well if she ever comes to this district tell her that I am taking good care of her little brother." She starts to leave the fish stall to head towards another stall when a big warlike man comes in the stall to probably buy some fish.

"Arthur, how are your wife and kid doing these days?" Liz asks a big warlike man who suddenly entered the stall.

"They're doing great Liz. May I ask, what the young lad's name is?"

"Ah this is Ghost, the big man over there is Arthur an average sellsword till he met his wife. The man in purple is Alex a noble who has a hobby of fishing and selling his gains from fishing to the locals."

Each of the men introduces themselves to Ghost as she is speaking, while Arthur seems to be visibly mad at her calling him average. He seems to manage to calm down his inferiority complex when she mentions his wife.

"Ghost was summoned here with his sister Jana, who's the hero that the king brought to us. Arthur's wife is a mage who was brought to this lovely district to examine the summoning circle."

"Arthur, of course, followed her and thanks to her contribution to understanding the summoning circle Arthur and his wife successfully managed to become nobles."

"Now, Liz you don't have to bring up the boring past what's more important is right now."

"Yea, Arthur's right, for once, don't bore the poor lad with our life stories he should be living his life not reliving ours."

"Hey what do you mean for once! I'm right more often than you ever are."

"As you said let's not bring up your boring past in front of the kid."

"Fine but this conversation isn't over!"

"Well it's nice meeting you Alex. I would love to meet your family, Arthur. I'm interested in talking to your wife about magic."

"Oh, Liz you're teaching the lad about magic even though you refused to teach my wife and daughter."

"He was under my care, to begin with, and wanted to learn, so I thought it would be good if he found something to do!"

"He also really needs an ability to protect himself with. It is a harsh world out there and I'm sure he wants to go out and see it."

"Yeah, any real man would want to go out and see the world even if they're completely useless. If you can help this young man find his calling to lead him forward in life and adventures. Then I won't mind you teaching him after denying everyone else to."

"Seriously my wife was fine with it, but my daughter was heartbroken. She thought you thought of her as useless and an untalented mage."

"Well I'm not the best teacher, Ghost can vouch on that part, and I didn't think I could do a good enough job teaching your daughter, Arthur. I'm sorry if I caused you or your family trouble over that."

Granny Liz says with while looking completely embarrassed about the predicament she created for herself.

Ghost quickly gets his new grandma out of the predicament she created for herself by interrupting the conversation before it gets any worse.

"I think it's about time granny Liz and I get back to studying. Bye Alex, I hope these fish turn out to be amazing. Bye Arthur! Be sure to introduce me to your family sometime."

He waves goodbye to the two men while carrying the bag of fish Alex gave to them as a gift.

"Bye Ghost get stronger for that sister of yours and your welcome back anytime."

"Also, come visit my house from time to time my daughter doesn't get to meet people her age enough.

"They are nice people aren't they Ghost?"

"Yeah, in my world kind people like them are rare. Most just ignore us and live on with their lives. Others wanted to use us for their own personal gain. There are some jobs that only a child can get away with in our world." Liz immediately hugs him after hearing him talk about his sad yet normal life.

"It's alright, now you have Alex, Arthur and most importantly me. Arthur's daughter isn't that much older than you. Maybe you and she could become friends."

"Really!"

"Yes, my dear she's around your age and is also very interested in her mother's profession. She's already taking lessons from her mom. If I remember correctly she is only eight, so treat her like an older brother would you hear me?"

Granny Liz starts to lecture him on the proper way to treat the young lady that he has yet to meet and that just because she is a girl doesn't mean she has any weird germs on her.

"I know Grandma, I know."

"Good now let's get back home, so you can return to your studies. I don't want you to embarrass me in front of them you hear me! They wanted to take me in as their master and I rejected them for you, so you better show your worth to them. "

"What about fixing your house?" He asks while still thinking that he would have to help her fix it.

He still hasn't realized that she only wanted to fix it up because of her new guest and that it can be easily fixed with a spell or two.

"I will have Arthur and Alex ask some of the people they know to fix it. Don't worry there is really useful magic that can almost instantly fix it." She says while patting his head. She also gives him a stern look that pretty much tells him that he isn't allowed to watch it happen.

After they got back home Ghost immediately starts to study various spells and tries to understand the magic code that has to be written to cast magic. He gets so zoned into studying that Liz has to force him to stop studying to eat and sleep.

The days continue onwards without him changing his schedule as he slowly studies each different element of magic. Sadly no matter how well he understands the theories on magic he can't seem to put them to practice.

"Ghost! Arthur invited you to his house for a visit. You haven't gone out since you met him and that was a while ago. His daughter can show you live magic, so it's not a loss on your education either. As your master and caretaker, I command you to go out today."

She looks over at Ghost while wondering if it's okay to let a kid spend most of his days inside reading.

She knows that it's probably best for him to spend his time like this, but it breaks her heart a little to see such a serious look on a child's face.

"Granny you didn't have to force me I want to see the magic. It's one thing learning all these theories but it's another to see it!" He ignores the worried look on Liz's' face and heads outside to see a black horse-drawn carriage.

"Make sure you treat their daughter with the care and respect a young lady deserves!" Ghost hears Liz start to give him last teachings about how to treat their daughter as he enters the carriage.

"I know! You've already told me this lecture like a thousand times by now." He yells back at her while entering the large carriage in front of him.

"Good morning Arthur. I didn't expect you to personally come and pick me up." Ghost says while failing to get into the carriage without tripping.

Arthur smiles and starts to laugh as Ghost barely manages to catch himself on the seat before he fell face first into the carriage.

"Well, I thought that I should talk to you before you meet with my family." His laughing expression turned serious in an instant.

Ghost sits down on the opposite section of seats from Arthur and waits for the overprotective dad lecture to commence.

The carriage starts to move as Arthur starts explaining about his family. "My wife may seem a little odd at first, but she means well and would never do any type of experiment that would kill you. As for my daughter."

He stops for a second wondering about how to explain his daughter's problems to Ghost without talking bad about her or Liz.

"She might be a little bit rude to you at first, considering how Liz didn't teach her about magic and then decides to teach you, a nobody, about it. But she means well and if you get to know her she will probably lower her grudge."

Ghost seems to understand that in her eyes he took away her opportunity to learn from someone who even her mom wanted to learn from.

Even though in reality he did nothing wrong and it was because of Liz's boredom that she let him borrow her notes.

"Ok sir, I won't judge any of them from my first impression, no matter how bad it might be."

"Good lad, oh looks like we are here."

Ghost looks out the window to see a medium-sized mansion that wasn't the biggest nor the most luxurious of the mansions he had seen when he was walking about with Liz.

They head on inside to see a woman with electric blue hair going down to her waist and modestly sized mounds, wearing a black dress, comes down some stairs in high heels.

She looked like someone you would see in a movie or a queen married to her king. "Miss, you didn't have to dress up I'm not anyone really important. I'm just a student of Liz's that's all."

She stares into his blood red eyes with her nearly black eyes and says.

"Sweetie you are not only the first student that Liz has ever thought about teaching, but also might also be our future savior. I think you deserve me dressing up a little bit, silly."

She takes a deep breath before starting to talk for some reason. "Now then I have a couple questions I would like to ask you. How did the summoning feel? What is your world like? Does it have magic? If not tell me how your people managed to live without such a convenient thing?"

She stops her firing off questions to take a breath of fresh air And drink some water. "And finally are there any other sentient life forms on it or are there just your people? For instance, there are many different races in our world, but I'm curious if that's the norm or if we're abnormal."

She finally stops her rapid-fire questions and lets Ghost think about the answers to her various questions. But unfortunately, the only thing that happens is Ghost's eyes start to spin while trying to figure out the answer to all of her various questions.

"Mom! Don't you think you're asking him too many questions? How do you expect to get an answer if you don't let him talk?"

A girl who also has electric blue hair like her mother's, but a childish face with grass green eyes like her father's attempts to save Ghost from his predicament.

"And what about you young lady, not even greeting this young man who came here to mostly see you?"

Ghost is visibly confused by the sudden claim of her mother but decides that it would be best for him if he just plays along. He is still trying to figure out all the answer to her various questions after all.

"Oh yeah, and why would the great disciple of Liz Magi want to come and see little old me?"

"Because he was interested in you silly. He hasn't met anyone his age since coming here and here you are almost completely ignoring him!"

"Now if you were in his situation would you be willing to help an ungrateful little girl with her current problems?" She sternly gets rid of the smaller girls arrogant attitude towards Ghost.

It seems to work as the little girl is visibly more aware of the problems she ended up causing with her sudden outburst.

"I'm sorry for ignoring you Ghost my name is Alicia Emantsal." Ghost seems surprised about how quickly she changed her attitude towards him

He thinks about it for a bit and decides that he'll forget her previous outburst since it managed to get her mom to stop asking him various questions.

"Apology accepted. I think that we both got off on the wrong foot because of a misunderstanding. Master isn't teaching me because she expects great things out of me. It's more because the king forced me onto her."

The first thing that he decided to do is clear up the misunderstanding between him and her since misunderstandings shouldn't be something that you build a relationship off of.

"Really she isn't teaching you because she saw some amazing talent in you?" Alicia asks him with a very confused look in her eyes while tilting her head to the side for a bit.

"Nope, it's been the opposite as of lately. I haven't shown any talent for magic, but the language is fun to learn." He starts to tell her about the various spells that he's tried to cast and also about how much of the magic code he's learned.

Normally someone at his level of knowledge should at least be able to cast the most basic of spells effortlessly without caring for elemental affinity.

"Really you have no talent for magic?" This time Alicia's mother chirps in which makes Ghost realize that he still hasn't answered any of her various questions.

"Well I can store mana, but it seems to not like the magic spells. All I learned how to do in the six months that I've been here is this."

He opens his mouth and urges the mana to come out, which proceed to turn into a blaze of fire instead of mana after making contact with the air. "I can breathe out more, but I don't think that that's a good idea."

"So all you can do with you mana is breathe fire as if you're a dragon?" Alicia's mother asks him while wondering why he can't use fire magic if it naturally wants to turn into fire after escaping his body.

"Yes, that's the only thing my mana seems to want to do. I can't even use regular fire magic. It only wants to leave through my mouth. Even though I can't use any actual magic I still know a lot of theories about mana and magic, so I can still help you, Alicia."

"There is also a reaction from the dark type spells, but sadly I can't seem to get the mana to escape from my body without breathing it out." A look of disappointment flashes on Alicia's face, so he tries to comfort her with help from this useless hero.

"Ok! There is a portion of the backyard made specifically for magic practices, you can teach me in there. Is that ok mom?" She seems to be feeling better after knowing that Ghost can still help solve her current problems and looks towards her mom for her permission to use their training facility.

"Of course why would there be a problem when I'm also learning from Ghost. What I'm not that old and even if I was can't you still teach an old wolf new tricks?"

Ghost doesn't seem to find the saying abnormal, but maybe they just don't think of wolves as wild animals where they're all from. Ahem let's continue, she looks excited to learn something new for once.

"Uhh miss, the master said you're strong enough as is and I shouldn't tell you anything. Something about your mana already being used to whatever bad habits that I would point out and if you tried to fix them your magic will degrade instead of an upgrade."

"Then why are you allowed to teach my daughter magic of you can't help her mother?" Alicia's mom seems to be ready to throw an adult hissy after being denied knowledge yet again!

"Alicia over here's magic is like a blank canvas to paint on, while your magic is a completed masterpiece trying to fix any errors will just ruin it."

"I think Ghost is right to let the two of them have time together to hang out, like a playdate."

"You're also already so powerful sweetie. How would a brat who hasn't been learning magic for very long help you out much."

"Aren't they a little too old to have a 'playdate'?" She seems to have calmed down after thinking about nearly acting like a child in front of her daughter.

Alicia's mom makes a strong argument to her husband, who doesn't seem to be worried about his young daughter being together with an older boy.

"Fine, they are strangers learning more about each other to become friends since they have similar situations. Most of the time their parents aren't involved in this type of manner."

"Fine, you win, Alicia and Ghost go off and have fun by yourselves." She looks depressed but Arthur has successfully managed to get her permission for them to be alone without any adult supervision.

She probably didn't actually care that much about two brats hanging out with each other and instead wanted to learn some new knowledge from Ghost.

"Let's go Ghost!" Alicia runs off in the direction of the training hall, while Ghost stares at her blankly while thinking about how he never got to answer her mom's questions.

He eventually decides that he can answer all of the questions when they eat dinner, so he ends up far behind the much faster Alicia while yelling, "wait for me!"

So the magic training facility turns out to be an open area with four magic runes on each of the surrounding parts of the mansion's walls.

With Ghosts larger than average knowledge of magic runes he figures out that it's pretty much barrier magic surrounding the area of earth elemental affinity. "So what do you want to learn about first?"

"I want to see a fully charged fire breathe!"

"Fine but you will have to give me some water afterward. I don't have it mastered to the point where it won't hurt my throat."

He takes a deep breath of oxygen, even though it's not really needed, and urges his strange mana to come up his throat from an area near his heart.

As he starts to exhale unneeded air a fireball big enough to be the size of a small child comes out. It dies out three feet in front of him leaving a trail of fire in its path. "There...hap..py now..get me some..water please."

She completed her chant that she started earlier after Ghost said he'd need some water. A water ball appears over Ghosts head like magic.

Well, actually that was magic my bad. Ghost seems to be able to see a magic circle encoded with various runes while she was chanting.

"Here drink I can't keep it like this for long with my mana supply." He starts chugging down the water as his throat cools down.

Perhaps he is missing something important with the ability he found since your body should normally already be adapted to natural ability.

"So you are a water mage?" Mages usually specialize in one element then, if they have the talent, try to learn the neutral element to the element they already know.

"Yes and no I'm naturally inclined towards water and fire, so I am a water and fire mage. I'm as good at using fire as I am with water"

"Great! You're already learning two elements! Try to gain proficiency in all the elements, even the ones you suck at. It gets harder to learn another element the older you get, so right now is the best time for you to become familiar with the other elements."

He stops for a second and starts to drink some more water before continuing on teaching.

"Another thing you should work on is to stop using excess mana for tasks that could've been solved using a much simpler method. You didn't have to hold the water into a sphere in front of me you could've just forced it into my mouth. Also, you could've put it into my hand which would've eased mana consumption."

She nods her head as if understanding and wanting him to continue explaining. So, he decides to continue onwards, "you also didn't need the full amount of water that a water ball produces. Of course, you were worried and too much water isn't usually a bad thing. Still, you poured in too much mana to keep the balls form. Now you're mentally exhausted from a simple job."

He stops while trying to think of a scenario where it would be a good thing to have perfect control over mana usage.

"What if you are stuck somewhere and you have no idea how to get out? Your mana reserves are the only thing that can help you in this situation. If you run out of mana then you have nothing to use to protect yourself with."

"If a wild beast attacked you when you had no mana it would be able to kill you in a single blow. On the other hand, if you had mana you could use a spell to kill it yourself. That's why it's always important to be aware of your limits, ok?"

She stops and thinks for a second then a look of fear appears on her face. She is probably thinking of the situation and how terrible it would be if she ever found herself in such a situation.

"Yea Ghost, your right. As expected from Liz's disciple. I never heard of learning elements at a young age is easier than when you're older. Also, you can change the mana output of spells? I thought that you couldn't change the spell you just say the chant, pour in the mana and it, you know, happens."

She starts to reveal her terrible lack of control over her mana and her ignorance of how various spells actually work. Most magic spells are highly customizable as long as you understand the code that's used to write the spell.

As long as you understand the code well enough you can even begin to create your own spells! Sadly it seems that Alicia has no talent in the creation of spells as she hasn't even tried to modify a basic spell.

"Well when you are younger your mana is still changing much like your body and as you get older it starts to become more and more permanent. It's a lot like learning a new language it gets harder the older you get. It's the same concept with learning a new element. Another element to your mana is a brand new language for it to learn and explore."

Ghost ignores her lack of mana control while not understanding how much of a major problem it actually is because his strange mana doesn't really need any control to move the way he wants it to move.

"Honestly it's still possible for people like your mom to learn an earth spell, but she will be heavily limited by her mana." Honestly, it doesn't seem to be a bad thing that mana slowly starts to lose its adaptability considering how focusing on one thing is always better than focusing on two things.

"Take for example my ability to only breathe fire it comes from my mana refusing to do anything but that. It's a rare case, but some mana can only do one type of element no matter how hard you urge it to do anything else. This, of course, could be looked at as a minus, but it also can be a very good thing."

"For instances, if your mom could only use water mana then water spells would cost less mana yet have a higher output than yours. It is almost as if that element cherishes its user like its own kin."

"Teacher said that I might be able to use magic in a different way if only a dragon would be willing to teach me, but going and asking a dragon to teach me is nearly suicide."

"It also doesn't help me that they are rare even in this world. Most are only spoken of in legends, so I've long since given up on that idea." Alicia has a depressed look on her face, so he changes the subject back to her current problems.

"But you should be able to learn a little bit of each system and since you'll start at a younger age than most it will be closer to your fire and water magic."

"Now the main thing I want to help you learn is the magic code for various elements. This will help you immensely and is something you should memorize even if you don't want to learn any other element."

"The magic code is what mages use to write out their spells and is something you'll use constantly even if you don't know what it means. Even you summoning that water ball was using code to write good code for an already premade water ball. These codes were designed by our predecessors and are what eventually turned into modern day magic spells."

Alicia's excitement drops dramatically after Ghost starts to mention the magic code. She seems to have some basic understanding of it, but she doesn't seem to like learning about it.

"Ghost mom already tried to teach me about this, but I simply couldn't understand the gibberish that she was talking about. I really think we should try to learn about something else besides this."

"You sure that you don't want to try to learn this? This isn't something you can casually abandon if you want to be a respected mage like your mom in the future. Every great mage will end up modifying all their spells so they can perfectly suit them."

"You'll lose a ton of adaptability and control if you don't understand how your spells work!" Alicia seems to be a bit hesitant after hearing all the pluses to learning the different language.

Ghost quickly realizes that he almost forgot something very important and starts to speak before Alicia can give her answer. "There is something even more important than just merely increasing your spells strength and control."

"It's actually even more important than the fact that you can create your own spells as well. To become an S ranked you need to be knowledgeable about the magic code since they don't have to chant anymore to use most spells."

"Speaking of chanting! It is actually something that isn't needed in our profession. It only exists to make the already hard to learn magician class easier to learn. It is simply translating the magic code into another language while diluting some of its effects. Since magic has its own language then it naturally should be chanted in that said language instead of any other one."

"This is why some races are stronger at casting magic as a whole. They have a language that's more suited to write the magic code. There is an even better step than simply chanting out in the magic language, which is to use the mana to write the code with your will. This is much faster than commanding the mana with words and lets you perfect your different magic circles."

He stops explaining for a moment because he sees a certain parent peeking in on their class. Teaching someone how to chant using the magic language is still one of the major things that can't be taught to stronger people.

"I'm pretty sure if you ask her for them she will give them to you since they have no use to me or her. We pretty much memorized those books already."

"Sounds like a good idea. Thank you again for helping you even though I wasn't that nice to you when you arrived." She tries to do a cute princess curtsey bow but nearly trips over her feet in the process.

"It's ok. You just wanted to learn more things about magic, but you got denied by a teacher and me didn't so, of course, you would be mad. I would be mad too if I got denied, then someone out of nowhere came along and was suddenly being taught."

"Really?"

"Yea I like knowledge and in my world whenever someone wouldn't teach me something I ended up stealing a book about it. No one would help us no matter how much we begged, so we stopped begging and started to live on our own. It was just my sister and me in that cruel dull world, but now we're here and learning about a world where anything could happen. It's also a lot nicer here than in my world."

He starts to realize that he hasn't visited her in months and she hasn't done the same, so he finally starts to worry about her safety. Instead of thinking something stupid like she doesn't actually like him and has abandoned him now that she has the opportunity.

"Well I'm sorry that you had to live such a hard time, but as of now, you're part of our world" She ignorantly and cheerfully tries to make Ghost feel a bit better.

"Yeah I kinda don't want to leave this world and go back, but you know I'm probably not meant to stay here forever." Ghost begins to convince himself that his sister will be fine thanks to her being with the king and his guards. She's their new hero so she should be the safest person in this kingdom right now.