บท 29: New Spells

The figure was rendered speechless by my words. In the end, he ended up abruptly stopping the dream altogether.

As a result, I suddenly shot wide awake.

It was at this point I had to think back on previous events to find out how I ended up in Jess's bed, with Jess herself wrapped around me like a spider. It took a second, but I remembered that we were in the bath together and Jess was being stubborn about not letting me go.

I thought she would actually let go of me afterwards, but it would appear that was too naive of me. Despite her being asleep now, it was unrealistic for me to slip out of her grasp because not only were her arms around me, but her legs were as well.

It felt suffocating, and I could feel my body tensing up once more. I guess while I worked hard to do it before, that didn't mean I could just do it on command.

Soon after I had tensed up, Jess slowly opened her eyes as well. It appeared she had somehow sensed the change in my body. There was a small smile on her face as she used a hand to stroke my hair.

"Shhhh... go to sleep, ok?"

It felt both comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. A bitter smile formed on my face. If I really had to go through with this every single day... that would be exhausting.

Yet, I suddenly remembered something. I was able to meditate while eating food, blocking out my external sensations. And so, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on meditating. It was definitely a little hard at first, but with time I was able to do it.

The mana in my body became clear to me.

While my muscles were still tensing up, it was easier to calm them down. At the same time, I practiced moving the mana around in my body. After perhaps an hour or so of that, I finally ended up falling asleep.

...

When I finally woke up again, I found Jess lightly patting my face, getting me to open my eyes.

"It's time to go to school."

With a yawn I got up, rubbing the back of my head. I still felt a little sleepy, but if nothing else I felt well-rested.

I was already clothed, so I simply went down to have breakfast. Jess hurriedly followed after me, and it seemed she was upset that I didn't wait for her to go with me. It appeared like there were many tiny things that she wanted from me.

Regardless, when we did end up getting into the carriage together, she didn't bother me. I half expected her to force me to sit in her lap or something similar, but thankfully she didn't do anything.

I spent the time meditating.

Upon making it to the school, after just walking a few steps I felt someone tapping my arm.

"Hey, do you mind spotting me a piece of gold? I want to buy an animal so that Edward can practice his blood magic on it. He gets too nervous when I mention trying to help someone else drain blood."

I gave a quick nod before pulling out a piece of gold from my pocket.

By the way, there were roughly one hundred of them on me. It made me wonder how much Nathan had, because if a meal cost ten gold coins, then surely a pig would be more than that.

It seemed he was saving up quite a bit if all he needed was one gold coin.

After taking it, Nathan pocketed it without another word. Then the two of us proceeded to enter magic class. Raisa enthusiastically turned to me with a smile and waved her arm unabashedly.

"Hi, Bryson!"

I gave a small wave back.

"Hey little ki- I mean, Raisa."

Arianne clearly was hesitating, but she did end up greeting me as well.

"H-Hello Bryson!"

She immediately covered her mouth right after, probably because she said it way louder than intended. I simply chuckled lightly while waving towards her as well.

"Hello, Arianne."

I couldn't help but notice that Ela was staring at me like a hawk, with her same stern expression. It seemed she didn't expect me to get on familiar terms with this many people.

I didn't focus on it though and just went to my seat.

After the last few people walked into the class, Harold cleared his throat and tapped the board to announce the start of class.

"Today we will be doing something a little different. We will be learning the fire spell, but because of its more dangerous nature, we will be having the lesson in the target range. The fire spell itself doesn't have any propulsion properties, but you can still throw it manually with a flick of the wrist."

He stood up from his seat, gesturing for the rest of us to follow, and so we did.

I couldn't help but think of finally being able to burn the book, but in fairness, it seemed like it would finally leave me alone. For now, I wouldn't burn it, but if it started to act up then I always had something to fall back to.

It did not take too long for us to make our way to the target range. It actually ended up being even larger than the gymnasium. From a rough estimate, I saw that there were targets that were even a kilometer or so away.

There was also a chalkboard in the room, which Harold used to explain the fire spell. The rest of us stood around, watching him. Once he finished, he once again emphasized safety.

There were several different markers along the practice range in different colors.

Harold explained that we should use the gray markings to indicate how far we should be from one another. They were also the ones that were closest together, roughly two meters apart. It seemed like when we needed to learn even more powerful spells, we would have to stay further apart.

Nearly the entire target range was covered in the same black stone that the class had. There were large targets far off in the distance, with varying shades of gray, but still made out of the same stone.

For us, we had target dummies just a few meters away that were similarly made of that same stone.

While each of us took a spot, Harold called out soon after.

"Remember the first and most important step! It is easy to hurt oneself while casting the fire spell. The entire time you must channel your mana to coat your body to prevent the flame from burning you. Keep in mind that this only works because the spells you cast are naturally attuned to your own mana, it will not work with others as they are differently attuned, so keep it away from one another!"

Hm... that was quite interesting. What if there was a way to change how your mana was attuned? Wouldn't that mean you could theoretically cancel out another person's magic?

Well, that was a thought for later.

I focused on channeling my mana, forming a thin layer around my entire body. With the meditation I had done recently, this wasn't too hard. However, it was noticeably harder to cast the spell while also maintaining the layer of mana.

Regardless, I had meditated while eating before, so this much wasn't too hard for me.

Slowly but surely, I ended up casting the fire spell, causing a tiny ball of fire to appear on top of my finger. My eyes flew open as I watched the tiny flames dance in front of me. I could feel the warmth on my skin, but it wasn't painful because of the mana shielding me.

I then flicked my wrist, throwing it at the target in front of me.

A tiny explosion seemed to be on the verge of occurring upon collision, but it rapidly dispersed right afterward.

Raisa let out a cry of surprise.

"You already finished casting?"

I blinked a few times.

"Uh, yeah."

It was then I noticed most people were looking at me in shock, including Harold. As for Nathan, he didn't care at all, which was expected.

Sam's eyes widened as he blurted the thoughts in his mind.

"Impossible! You... you must've..."

Harold rubbed his chin as he looked at me.

"That is quite impressive. Have you already practiced the fire spell, Bryson?"

I shook my head.

"Nah, first time."

Harold narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Your focus is impeccable! It's a shame that your talent isn't higher..."

I waved my hand dismissively and chuckled.

"Haha, I like to see it as being thankful that I have the talent in the first place. There are plenty of people that don't have it, no?"

Harold was stunned for a second, but ended up laughing as well.

"I suppose I was looking at it in too negative of a light."

Shortly after he said a large fireball formed among the students. It was Nathan, and the fire he conjured was nearly bigger than him. His eyes flew open in surprise while he awkwardly leaned his head back as he stuck the hand holding the fire spell out. There was a frown on his face, almost like he was facing something disgusting.

He seemed to be sweating, but it was cold sweat more than anything.

"Ah, shit! I thought I put less power in this time!"

Harold looked over and also began to sweat. He raised his hand and seemed to be casting something to salvage the situation.

With a weak lob, Nathan threw the fireball forth. It just barely made it to the target, but that was more because of the size of the thing rather than anything else. It looked like a rather huge explosion was about to occur, but before it did the fires quickly dissipated.

Harold let out a sigh of relief as he lowered his hand, not casting the spell.

After the fires dissipated, Nathan put both hands on his hips with a frown. Harold called out to him.

"Natan! While your magic aptitude is high, your control is weak! You must work on that."

Nathan took a deep breath before leaning over dejectedly.

"Yeah, I know. And here I thought I was getting better at controlling it. Guess it's harder than it looks..."

I couldn't help but remember the number of times Nathan had complained about the main character having difficulty in learning spells. He had always jokingly boasted about being able to learn all the spells in a flash.

And under normal circumstances, that wasn't too big of a deal to boast about, since a situation where you were required to prove yourself realistically wouldn't appear. I mean, it's not like you could expect reincarnating as the very main character you always talked trash about.

Regardless, Nathan was actually progressing fairly well. By my estimate, it was roughly on par with my pace, because it was harder to control larger volumes of mana. Still, I was pretty sure my learning speed was faster by a decent amount.

I guess the tables turned when we reincarnated, considering he was better at studying than me.

Though, soon after someone clapped rather exaggeratedly

"Wow, you're so good at this Natan!"

I looked over to see it was Charlotte, one of the capture targets. This was honestly quite surprising as she was actually a noble herself. But even more than that, we were still in the prologue stage, meaning there shouldn't have been an event for him to get to know her.

I saw that Nathan didn't seem pleased at all, only having a tired expression on his face.

Ah, it seemed he attracted her unintentionally.