บท 41: The First Lesson
It was early in the morning the day after we returned to End Town and had our big party.
I woke up next to Yoru, who opened his eyes as I sat up on the bed.
Vespera wasn't in the room, but I had heard her leave a few hours before. She whispered "I'll be back", then made her way out. However, I was pretty sleepy, so I just mumbled some words and went back to sleep.
When I walked downstairs to the kitchen, the maids were already cooking breakfast and the princess was sitting at the counter, drinking a cup of tea.
"Morning!" she exclaimed as soon as my body was visible from the stairs.
"Good morning, Mr Ichiro." said both beastkin maids in unison.
"Good morning everyone… Umm, can you guys drop the 'Mr'? You can just call me Ichiro."
The two maids looked at each other. "Are you sure?" said Carli, the senior maid.
"I am. I already told this to Gina at the capital, but I'm not a noble or anything close to it, so you really don't have to address me with any formality. In fact, I prefer you didn't."
"Very well then. Would you like some breakfast, Ichiro?"
I nodded. "I would love it, thanks!"
While we ate breakfast, I asked the maids if the knights were awake, but apparently they had too much wine at the party, so it would take a bit of time for both of them to wake up.
The princess chugged the rest of her tea and slammed the cup on the counter. "Alright, I'm ready!"
"First lesson and you are that excited?" I asked before chugging the rest of my tea, too.
"That's right, let's go!"
The princess' energy was certainly contagious. She held my arm and dragged me outside while the maids and Yoru followed us behind. The only problem was, that she didn't even know where we were going.
__________
After the princess finally realized she had no clue where to go, I was able to lead the group to the large open space where we would build the knight's barracks. But before we could do any serious work, I wanted to go over the basics with the princess.
I still needed Vespera's help to build the whole thing, and she wasn' back yet, so we had some time.
We stood in the center of the open area, while the maids were watching from the sidelines.
"Alright, let's start. Show me what you would do if you wanted to erect an earth wall…" I said.
The princess closed her eyes for a second, focused magic power in her right hand, then pointed it at the ground, just a few meters away from her.
"Earth, please give me a wall!" she exclaimed, creating a wall that was 3 meters tall and about 5 meters wide.
The wall looked uniform and sturdy, so it was definitely good enough to block certain attacks. I tried punching it, although not too hard, and it seemed to hold on pretty fine.
It did chip a little, so I thought if I used all of my strength I would actually be able to break it.
"Alright… Now do the same but try it with no incantation."
"Umm… But how? I saw you doing that when I tested you at the castle, you removed the gravity without saying anything, but I don't really get how you did it…"
Something I noticed when traveling with the knights was the way they casted magic as opposed to me. When we fought the troll on the road, the knights always had to say a pretty long incantation to shoot a simple fireball.
Ever since that moment, I believed that magic wasn't being taught correctly to people in this world, and that they didn't truly understand the nature of it.
That's when I explained to Melina how I understood magic:
Magic was the materialization of your imagination, meaning that as long as you could imagine it, and had enough power, you could always make something out of it.
A good example of that was 'gravity magic'. While it is a widely accepted theory, in the end it was still technically just a theory. However that didn't matter with magic, since it was all imagination driven.
Saying incantations, or the 'name' of the spell was only to help people visualize what they wanted to cast, and have an easier time materializing it. Spells didn't actually have a name, they were just given to them so people could easily imagine them and learn.
Melina didn't say the name of the spells either. She just kind of asked whatever elements she was casting to help her. While it was cute and all, it wasn't needed at all. But I supposed that was a way for her to visualize her spell.
"Now, try casting that same earth wall. But this time, don't say a word, think only about the type of wall you want. Think about how big and sturdy you really want it to be…"
The princess closed her eyes again, and pointed her hand at the ground in the opposite direction from her first wall.
She frowned, as the pressure in her closed eyes was more visible and a little drop of sweat came down her temple. After a few seconds, a much bigger and stronger wall was suddenly erected, making the ground shake a little.
The wall was at least double the size of the first one. When I punched it, the wall didn't budge or chip a single piece, even when I used a bit more strength than before.
The princess looked surprised, admiring the wall she had just made while the maids in the back stared at us with dumbfounded expressions.
"See? Saying incantations help a little, but they don't describe the spell that you are truly wanting to cast. That's why it's better to just imagine it… Eventually, you will be able to do it way faster than talking before casting."
The princess' excitement died down after a few seconds, then looked back at me. "Umm, but it still looks like earth… How did you make it so that it looks more like… a house wall?"
"Mhm, you mean like the ones I used to make my house, and your rooms and all that?"
The princess nodded excitedly.
Explaining to her the different compositions that could be found in the earth would take me a while, but since we had time, I thought it would be fine.
I wasn't a genius or anything, so the knowledge I had about chemistry and physics was pretty average. Maybe a bit more than average, since I was curious about those topics in my old world, but I wasn't an expert by any means.
Then again, magic worked with imagination. So what I would do when building houses was imagine the walls made out of concrete. Of course, it was easy for me to imagine something like that, since I could remember the consistency and appearance of concrete from my old life, but someone born in this world wouldn't have a reference.
The best solution I could think of was to erect different walls using different materials, and have her study them. That way, she would be able to recreate them. Especially considering her skill "Magic Assimilation" that allowed her to copy almost any spell.
I created a small marble wall, smooth and shiny. A concrete wall, rough and sturdy, and one made of brick, which was basically really strong clay.
I thought it would take the princess some time to learn, but her skill acted way faster than I could have expected. All she did was touch the walls, knocked on them with the back of her hand softly a few times, then recreated an exact replica of each of the walls.
I was actually surprised that she was able to simply copy the spell like that, but I also felt a little relieved, since now it seemed like we could start building the barracks without waiting for Vespera to come back.
["Vespera, everything okay?"] I asked with a telepathic message.
["I'll be there in a few hours, sorry this took me some time…"]
["It's alright. But what are you doing?"]
["Hehe, it's a surprise!"]
I sighed. ("She really just does whatever she wants… It's fine though.")
I turned to look at the princess, who was taking down the dozen walls she had created around the area with a smile on her face.
"Alright Princess, I think we can start building the barracks. What do you say?"
"I'm ready!"
I didn't think we would even start building the entire thing that day, but the fact that she could just copy whatever I casted made it so much faster and easier.
("We might finish this whole thing in a few days… I was expecting at least a week's minimum of work… Not that I'm complaining though!")
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