Chapter 9: Have you heard about Gravity?

"The people here are from everywhere around the continent."

It seemed like she understood that I didn't get what she meant after seeing me arch an eyebrow, so she continued her words.

"This tavern is enchanted to connect to a multitude of places at the same time, most major cities have an entrance, the person finds an entry, the pub registers their mana unique signature to see where they came from, and when they exit they are sent to the same place.

View this place as an hub of sorts for all kinds of mages to connect with one another in a friendly environment."

That sounded absolutely fantastic, this place was basically my dream coming true, it was a connection with people from outside the Wild Lands and a place with all different kinds of magics.

But how come father or the old weird guy, Sigmund, never told me about this place?

I didn't doubt that either of them had a better magical perception than me, in magical capabilities I was probably just a bit below father's level, but the old man was definitely better than me.

Those were definitely questions I would ask later, but now my greed was taking over my body, I had to learn that floating spell from the horned guy.

I turned to Ufine and asked, "If I ask that horned guy how to float like that, would he tell me?"

She blinked in confusion at my question, but she remembered one crucial fact about me soon enough, I was actually a child, "First of all, that guy is a Bebilith, a kind of demon, second, he's is an asshole, so he probably won't."

"What does asshole mean?" I asked cluelessly.

"Huh, it means… That he's a bad guy! Yes, he's a bad guy." she seemed panicked momentarily, but I didn't understand why.

"Oh well, I'll ask him anyway."

"Sure, you can try."

I neared the guy, he was now talking with some winged people about something I didn't care about, something about some guy called Ryor.

But anyway, I tapped the guy on his arm to call his attention, when he turned his eyes towards me he seemed very confused.

"Hey little girl, are you lost? No, wait," he turned to the people around him and asked, "whose child is this?"

He didn't seem that much like a bad guy, Ufine must have exaggerated with her description.

"I came on my own, how did you do that floating magic?"

"Gravity magic, now go away, I'm a busy man," he shooed me away while picking back up his mug, but seeing me not leaving he asked me, "What are you still here for?"

"Teach me." I asked, I did't even know what gravity was, the guy in front of me, and this every other person in this entire pub, was a treasure trove of knowledge that I wanted.

"No way, learn it yourself, now piss off."

"Oh, come on Junul, she's a kid and that spell is no secret to anyone," interrupted another male, this one had wings on his back that resembled a butterfly's, "listen little girl, you don't have to deal with this guy, almost anyone in this tavern knows how to cast that kind of spell, you can ask anybody, maybe one of them would actually be willing to tell you."

The mans words were roundabout, but they left intended the fact that he wasn't willing either, so I held no false hope that I could convince the two non humans and left their table.

But not before leaving some words behind, "Thank you winged man and horny asshole."

I wanted to use the words I had just learned, but unfortunately I combined it with a word whose meaning I didn't actually fully understand.

Horny meant with horns to my little ten year old self.

I left behind me a series of laughter from the horned mans friend and a demon that gave up on pursuing the thing as I was just a child, to go back to where I came from, to the very beautiful lady.

"Did you succeed?" She asked, but in her eyes I could confirm that she knew exactly how the conversation went.

Now that I had the time to cool down the heat after my first time seeing the woman, I finally saw something more in her beautiful eyes, it looked like… Pity?

Why would she pity me?

"I know that it's gravity magic now, I don't know what gravity is, but it's a start."

The woman put her hand on her lower chin and assumed a pensive expression, I didn't interrupt her and she eventually said, "Oh whatever, listen up little girl, gravity is a force that attracts any body with a mass to other bodies with mass, the bigger the mass the stronger the force.

Gravity is what anchors you to the ground instead of letting you float around the place, while gravity magic is the art through which we manipulate this force, is costs an enormous amounts of mana and concentration if used in battle, so most use it as trinkets and pranks like what Junul did earlier."

That was a lot of info, which made me realize that learning something like this was still way beyond my capabilities.

I still had difficulties using lightning, forget about this thing that used so many words to describe that I didn't know the meaning of, like mass.

"What is mass?" but I sure as hell was going to try and understand, or at least ask things until I did.

She sighed, but answered anyway, the pity in her eyes being ever strong, "Mass is a fundamental property of all matter, mass and gravity together create the weight you feel when lifting something, the higher the mass the higher the wight and the more force you'll need to move it."

Ok, this was beyond me, what?

It seems like she understood that I didn't understand anything from her explanation, it made me feel dumb, this was probably the first time I couldn't understand something even after being explained, she took my first.

"How about this, I'll write it down for you, as for how to use gravity magic, I'll only give you a hint, you need to use every elemental mana at the same time, darkness, light, fire, metal, water and wind."

I wonder why she was willing to do so much for me while nobody else in the tavern would even try to explain it to me, sure, I didn't ask anybody after the horned and winged guys, but from their words it was clear enough that probably nobody would have taught me.

This lead me to question the lady's motives, I recently learned that nothing came for free from father, this was probably what he meant.

The pretty lady was probably going to ask for something back, well, there were many things that I was willing to do for knowledge, but some were off limits.

But if she wanted to just… h-hold hands I'd have been okay with it.

A few second's later Ufine passed me a few pages filled with weird symbols with legends near them that explained what they meant and some lines of text that explained everything, at least I assumed.

"Why the symbols?" I asked as this was the first time seeing something like this.

"The force of gravity is influenced by a multitude of factors, those formulas can teach you how the variation of a single one can influence the entirety of the thing, these formulas can also be applied to gravity generated by spells.

Learning these can make gravity spells much more mana efficient as they can teach you how to change an individual part while leaving the rest together to obtain the result you want."

Once again, I barely understood a word she said, but nodding would never be a bad idea, right?

Suddenly, she took back the papers, and looked at me sternly, "But, if you want these you'll have to promise me something."

There it is, father really was right, there is nothing free in the world and everything had a price, even the knowledge I believed should be shared.

"What?" I asked with no little concern behind it.

"You won't show those papers to anybody else, or else I'll never forgive you, okay?"

Well, that price was much lower than I imagined, I hop… thought she wanted a promise to do something lewd after I grew up more, after all father said that these things could happen only between adults, but I didn't mind this kind of price.

"I promise."

"Are you sure? You absolutely can't show these to anyone or teach what's inside of them without my consent, okay?"

Why was she asking again? Did she think I'd break a promise?

Obviously I wouldn't, "I am sure, please give me those papers."

Right after she passed them over I started reading through them, I could barely understand what was written, but more than those weird formula things, I wanted to understand the concepts first.

It was a block of a few tens of pages written back and front, jam packed with words and symbols, I couldn't understand how she wrote this much in such a small amount of time, but it went to show just how much she had mastered this kind of knowledge.

This will surely keep me concentrated for a long time.

After seeing me this excited she chuckled, "Go back home now, it's getting late."

Really? It had barely been an hour since I came to the tavern and it was morning outside when I entered, I was still in time to get home at lunch time.

"Can I come back?" I asked with hopeful eyes, I earned a lot this time so I thought that a few more visits could net me even better results.

"Sure, as long as you keep finding the door you'll always be welcome here, Avys." Those words were filled with a meaning that still escaped me, but a moment later I could feel my body lose all weight and I started levitating.

'So this is gravity magic, fantastic!' I used every single speck of concentration I had in my body to take in everything that the woman was doing with her mana to me, I could feel every single type of mana I knew and even some I didn't know about.

I was so concentrated that I didn't realize the woman blew in my direction softly, but it then became a soft air current that sent me out of the door to where I had come from.

I was dumbfounded to see the reddish door engraved in gray runes disappear from before my eyes, back into one of those doors that could be seen anywhere around the streets of Icerock.

I shot for the door as soon as the effects of that magic disappeared, but after opening the door, the only thing I saw was a normal semi-deserted shop with a few people inside.

Meanwhile, inside the pub, the horned man went to talk with the pub owner.

"Hey Ufine, what was that girl's deal, how did she get here?" Seeing someone that young not accompanied by anyone was a first for him, even he only saw the door for the first time at twenty years of age.

"She's just a human girl, like many others, just a bit more talented than normal."

The demon, clearly not understanding, replied, "Whatever boss, just say so if you don't want to reply." As he returned to his table.

Even if he'd rather be dead before admitting so, he had a weak spot for little girls, every time he saw one he remembers his own daughter and how cute she looked many years ago.

The owner kept looking at the door, her eyes flashed to something different, before returning to her normal deep green, muttering, "Consider this a gift, Avys, I hope you won't be corrupted by the horror that awaits you."