Shi sat down on the mountain, feeling the strong winds buffeting him, seemingly trying to force him out of its domain. Wind was a strange element, it could gently buffet you, calming you down and making your day better. But it could also form giant storms, tearing apart buildings and throwing them everywhere. Shi looked at the wind patterns, watching how it seemed to swirl aimlessly.
Before his breakthrough, he might not have been able to see it, but now he could see how the wind, no matter how it swirled, kept moving in the same direction. Shi reached out to it with his will, but the wind swirled away from it. He tried over and over, but each and every time the wind evaded him.
Shi noticed himself getting frustrated and forcibly calmed himself down. If the wind went away if he snatched at it, what would happen if he went slower? Shi reached out slowly, following the path that the wind took. To his surprise, the wind kept flowing like he wasn't even there. Shi melded his mana with the wind around it and was surprised when it took almost no mana or will to control.
He turned the wind into a little tornado with almost no effort and tried to absorb more wind into it. He was surprised at first when nothing came, until he realized that he needed to go slower. When he slowed down more wind slowly started moving into the tornado, making it spin faster and get bigger.
It took about an hour, but when he reached his limit, there was a 45 foot (approximately 13.72 meters) tall tornado that was taking small chunks out of the small mountain that Shi had made. Even with something so large however, Shi could easily control it, moving it around the area with ease. It seemed that wind magic took a lot of time to set up, but if set up it was decently powerful, and much less taxing on his mana than the other forms of elemental magic.
Shi jumped off of the mountain, using some of the wind magic he had already summoned to slow his fall down right before he hit the ground. He headed over to Oshieru's house to show his mastery over the elements. "This is the last time we will be master and apprentice. You have outperformed many, but don't let yourself become lax because of your achievements.
There are many with better results and higher-level mana cores." Oshieru said with the smile on his face almost hiding the beginning of a tear in his eye. "If you keep this up, then you might be able to get a job at Castle Saiban as a contracted mage or even become the court wizard!
For now however, it's time to send you over to Shiryoku so your real training can begin. Her house is the biggest one and is in the center of the village. Just tell her who you are, I've already sent word of you." Oshieru gave Shi a fatherly hug before he left, trying his best to conceal a sniffle as he closed the door behind Shi.
Shi headed into town, walking past Mubona's body still hanging on the pole outside his shop. It seemed that nobody liked the man enough to get him down from there, the piece of sh*t deserved what he got after all. The town knew the type of person Mubona was and never questioned why he was dead or who had killed him.
Shi found the biggest house in the village and knocked on it's door. It opened after a few seconds and the old lady's eyes immediately locked on to Shi and gave him a strange feeling as if she was looking through him. "You must be Shi, come in then." She said, leading Shi into her spacious living room and sitting on the couch. Shi sat on the love seat opposite her and waited for her to start.
"You've done pretty well to achieve mastery over the elements and reach the middle stages of orange core by age 7. Now, however, the real challenge begins, you must create your own spell. Whatever ability interests you, you should figure out how to force it to happen. Also, I would suggest using more mana than necessary when learning. Mana cores improve by forcing mana through your veins over and over again until the mana core's shell is eventually worn off.
You will also learn the ability faster by using as much of your mana as you can at once while learning it. After you make a spell, I will teach you any of my spells if you wish. However, if you learn a spell from me, you will learn it in only a few days, but it will be many times harder to properly learn the spell to where it is fast and efficient so you will be stuck with a poor version of the spell for a substantial period of time.
I know it seems like teachers have no use for you, since we only give you tasks to complete, but it is essential to attempt these things in the right order or else your learning will be inefficient, now go." Shi walked out of Shiryoku's house and went to a small meadow outside of his house.
He already had a few methods of attack, with his proficiency in combat with his fighting knife, and elemental magic at his disposal. He could only use his mountain creation as a form of defense though, and that took a substantial portion of his mana to form even a small hill in front of him.
Shi decided to create a spell that would reinforce his body and increase his speed and strength, supplementing his already impressive offense and giving him a way to help him defend himself without a massive drain on his mana.
With this technique, he would have the edge over anyone who had similar experience in magic to him, as he could use it to attack them physically, closing the distance between them faster than they would expect. Even better, if he ever needed to pretend to not be a mage, he could use it to defend himself without blowing his cover. With that thought, Shi sat down to begin his study.