Chapter 10. My magic training and Gravity Magic

After sword training, I dragged my exhausted and sweaty body into the house.

Inside, Lilia had already prepared a water basin, a towel and a change of clothes for me in one of the rooms.

Like usual.

"Thank you, Lilia." I smiled gently, then picked up the towel.

"It's only my duty, young master," she replied expressionlessly, ever professional.

But I could see her eyes smiling.

In truth, I was a bit indifferent toward Lilia in the anime, but I liked her in this world. It was clear that she deeply cared for me and worked hard to fulfill her duties; she was like a part of the family.

I stretched out my hand, then used water and fire magic to quickly fill the empty basin with warm water.

In general, people rarely bathe in this world. In our household we had a habit of only doing it once to twice a week.

On other days, people would just wipe their bodies with a wet towel. That was all.

As for me, I had magic, and also a decent control of it, so it was not a problem to bathe every day.

Since I trained physically every day, I always ended up sweaty and sometimes also dirty due to often training outside.

I was just a child, bathing was even less troublesome than otherwise. With my body size and the bathtub size I required, it was not a hassle for Lilia to simply prepare a wooden basin for me and then empty it afterwards.

Soap existed in this world, but it was greasy and not very user friendly. The most basic form of soap derived from animal fat, I presume.

Because of this I didn't use soap every day, just from time to time.

Yet still, I was seen as rather pedantic since I insisted on bathing daily.

For this, I just told my parents that I like water. I had to keep in mind that I'm just a 2-3 year old child and usually children view bathing as a hassle.

And as a result... They seem to have fully bought it.

I took off my clothes fully, then entered the basin to quickly wash myself.

By now Lilia learned that I like some privacy, so she had already left the room.

She found it funny that I was so shy, but c'mon. I didn't need anyone to see my little baby elephant trunk if I could help it.

She had bathed me before when I was an infant, but that was then and now was now.

After taking a quick bath, quick because I'm so hygienic, I thanked Lilia again who had been waiting and began cleaning up after me, then eventually reached my room upstairs.

After closing the door, I sat down in a seiza position on the floor in the center of the room, my body straight like a spear.

I took in a single large breath, then let it out to concentrate my mind.

I then stretched out my hand slightly and faced my palm upwards.

It was time for me to begin my training.

Explosion!

I inwardly activated the <Explosion > spell.

Then, a small circular red flame the size of a large fist appeared floating above my palm.

As I maintained the spell, the red fireball quickly became more uniform and round, and then turned orange, and then finally yellow.

This was as far as I was able to get it.

Red -> orange -> yellow.

When I first started at 2 years old I was only able to produce red flames. Advancing two stages was the result of my training over the last year.

At this moment, my flames continued intensifying at the Yellow stage into that I have just stepped into.

Interestingly, even though I know the Advanced rank Exodus Flame, the Intermediate ranked Explosion still seemed to be my strongest fire spell.

For its good points, <Exodus Flame>, as an Advanced spell, can be cast quicker to cause a devastating explosion and affect a huge area. It gathered more total mana quicker to form a massive fireball.

However, because the fireball created by it was so massive, I was unable to concentrate the heat as much.

In practice, Exodus Flame was devastating when cast on short notice, but Explosion had more potential for destruction with enough time for me to accumulate mana inside it.

I believe what I was practicing now was actually the so-called 'Nuclear Explosion' that Rudeus used against Orsted when he bumped into him for the first time.

Simply an overloaded <Explosion > spell.

After all, all that Rudeus did at that time in the novel was pour a lot of mana into an unnamed fire spell in the heat of a moment and thoughtlessly fire it at Orsted while imagining the strongest explosion he could.

This should be the one spell he used - Explosion.

Right now, if I wanted to finalize my spell, the yellow fireball would collapse in on itself and then expand in size, but I didn't do it.

Instead, I continued trying to apply more mana and more pressure to the fireball for a few moments, then loosened it a bit, and then resumed attempting to pressurize it even harder again.

After doing it for a long while, I dispersed the spell.

Trying to train my casting speed, I quickly formulated the Explosion spell again and reached the Yellow stage as quickly as possible.

At one point Lilia brought me a post-workout meal and I quickly wolfed it down, then resumed my training.

Then I continued training in the usual manner by trying to concentrate the mana more and more.

Since 2 years old I no longer used the method of exhausting my mana through just pouring it out ever since I learned Intermediate ranked magic. Wasting my mana this way seemed like a wasted opportunity at practicing my skill when handling real spells instead.

I don't think I was losing out in any way, since my mana throughput was also increasing when practicing this way just the same.

These days I also experimented a bit with Howling Magic and had some successes, but I no longer wasted my mana by pouring it out through this pathway either. No matter how I exercised it, I didn't seem to improve this way.

I wanted to focus on improving my raw destructive power first and foremost. Compared to casting real magic, Howling Magic turned out to be just a gimmick.

After casting <Explosion > like this several times and burning a lot of mana in the process, I focused on another drill.

I walked up to the window and opened it.

I got on top of a chair, stretched out my hand and focused my aim.

'Stone Cannon!'

An Intermediate ranked Earth spell, the original Rudeus's signature single-target move.

I created a cone-shaped stone bullet, floating near my hand, and tried to make it as dense and hard as possible.

Then I added a rotational force to it, ramped up the firing speed as much as possible and then launched it while carefully aiming. I did all of this quickly whilst trying to pack the most mana into it as I could.

!!!

The stone bullet shot out mysteriously silently, then in an instant struck a stone dummy down below in the garden, shattering parts and bits of it.

The speed of this stone bullet was incredibly fast and the result devastating. It was similar to a sniper shot.

There wasn't much I was able to do with Stone Cannon apart from modifying the bullet and overloading it with mana, but that alone seemed to be enough.

According to my memory, Rudeus was just the same, I don't remember him using any special tricks, yet his full-powered Stone Cannon could even shatter Demon Kings.

My bullets takes the most aerodynamic shape I can make, imitating a railgun projectile. I make then dense and pointed.

I then also add in a rotation to them, to improve the accuracy more so than improve penetration, as it is with normal bullets.

The magic power I put into the spell is still the only driving force behind the bullet's explosive speed. 

Just that is working well so far.

I practice the speed of my spells mainly by using [Stone Cannon] which is the best spell for it, probably because the projectile is solid unlike a wind blade or a fireball.

After practicing my Stone Cannons for a good while, using different kinds of bullets and shattering two stone dummies below that I created beforehand, I began to do something else.

I quickly created several differently-shaped rocks and placed them on the wooden floor of my room.

Apart from practicing with the common spells, there was also a very special kind of magic that I managed to grasp over the last year.

I stretched out my hand and concentrated.

'Ha!'

I sent out my mana.

Then, the rocks started floating upwards as if they became weightless.

It was Gravity Magic!

I initially had the impression that Gravity Magic was a high-level magic that I might only achieve after years of practice, but I was positively surprised.

Once I grasped the principle behind it and realized how to use it, it was not as difficult as I thought at all.

There were many reasons and tricks that helped me to grasp Gravity Magic that easily.

Firstly, to use Gravity Magic a person needs to be able to manipulate pure mana.

In my eyes, Gravity Magic is a formless kind of magic just like Disrupt Magic. Learning how to manipulate pure mana is the first requirement for both.

On that note, I have also learned the basics of Disrupt Magic - how to use your own mana to disrupt the structure of a spell that's being cast.

My Disrupt Magic is not very strong yet, and seems quite chaotic, but I seem to understand how to go about it.

In regards to Gravity Magic, apart from being able to manipulate pure mana, a person also needs to have an idea of how Gravity Magic is even supposed to work to pull it off.

To do it, I relied on my basic physics knowledge from Earth of what gravity really is.

I also observed and imitated how objects created by spells float and are then sent flying when cast. For example, stone bullets, icicles and the like.

As it turned out, these are all being controlled by Gravity Magic to stay afloat by negating gravity.

I'm not sure if their initial velocity when they're shot out at a target is also the result of Gravity Magic, but just observing how the spells float was enough to give me a clue.

In this world 'Telekinesis' is not the kind of magic that keeps objects in the air and moves them around.

It is 'Gravity Magic'.

When you want to make things float, you don't use your mind or mana to lift them up. You mostly negate the gravitational pull of the planet in a certain area - this way the affected objects enter a zero gravity state.

When you want to pull a specific item toward you, you wrap it in mana and then affect it with gravitational force, pulling it toward you.

Next, things are a bit different when trying to push things away, but you once again manipulate the gravitational force to apply a vector to an object, causing it to be pulled away.

It's no wonder that Rudeus failed at 'Telekinesis' when he casually tried it during his early years. He had no idea how to go about it and in the first place he didn't even yet know Disrupt Magic and how to manipulate pure mana.

For me, once I had a general plan of action in mind, I was able to naturally grasp Gravity Magic relatively easily once I began experimenting. Relying on Einstein's Theory of General Relativity made it even easier to imagine the process.

I think the fact that I'm very young also played a role.

As it seems, the younger you are, the easier it is to learn magic in this world.

It's similar to how learning Silent Casting is effortless for a child, but adults require enormous effort and skill to pull it off.

If you ask anyone in this world, Silent Casting is a very high-level technique that only master magicians can use.

But is it really?

Once a child knows how to do it, they can learn it easily.

With this in mind, it might not be shocking that I grasped Gravity Magic before 3 years old, but instead being so young is what made it easier.

I've been training with this special magic for over 6 months already.

My current ability wasn't yet enough to make Gravity Magic my trump card in combat, but I was working on it every day, improving my range and the force of gravity.

To become a master of Gravity Magic!

In the future I can make Gravity Magic my ultimate move and my speciality.

By practicing from a young age, I'll be the strongest Gravity Magic user to ever exist!

Zero Gravity Field, High Gravity Field, Telekinesis, Space-Time Manipulation... All of these might be possible.

I'm excited.