It had been four days since his first meeting with his father to check his magical affinity.
Since then, he started learning magic he expected to have so much from Arnold. On the first night Arnold taught him, he asked Yoro to follow him to a secret chamber below his study. It was spacious, and filled with all kinds of supplies. If he hadn't known better, he would describe it as an oversized underground bunker.
There, his father showed Yoro a thunder spell, one of his specialties. He extended his hand, and from there, a magic circle came out, making Yoro gasped when he saw it for the first time. The magic circle looked complex, a matrix spell his father called it. From there, a crackling thunder came out less than a second later and shot out towards the target across the room. The spell exploded, burning the dummies along and made it into ashes.
He exclaimed in amazement at such spectacle, raising an embarrassed fake cough from Arnold's side. And then after that event, his father instructed him to try and control the mana outside of his body.
But saying so was way easier than to get it done, and Yoro was learning that phrase in a pretty hard way. Different from circulating mana inside his body, controlling it outside was entirely harder for him. His father said it should be easy for a noble born who had a magical affinity to do it, moreover with a natural mage like him. But Yoro just couldn't do it. He had lived for 18 years without magic in his past life, and to expect him to feel something ethereal and invisible then trying to control them was almost an impossible task for him. If it was put into words, it's like when you were swimming. You could feel the water, but how in the world you could control them?
That's when his father suggested another means, and that was by doing incantation.
Incantation seemed to be a common practice among mage, very common even, but his father despised such a means for some reason. He said that it would only make you dependent on it and restricted one's ability. But three days had passed and there was still no progress in his mana control. It then came to the point where Arnold let him practice in his study while Arnold worked on his administration job. Until a week passed, along with conceded Arnold who finally let Yoro use incantation with a heavy heart. Although, he just let him use one for a simple water magic.
When he began the incantation, a blue line of mana started to materialize, forming a magic circle on his extended hand. He could finish a whole verse only after 10 seconds long. Very long if you compared it with Arnold who could make one without incantation in a blink of an eye. And that without taking the battle consideration in mind. The memories of Chad only took a mere one stomp of his feet to leap 10 meters long into his mind, and the process only took less than a second.
It's why he complained the incantation was very long, too long if you weighed the effect that was only to create a splash of water ball from his hand. But magic was still magic, and it would make any earthling screamed giddily once they suceeded pulling such a feat while couldn't stop grinning ear to ear even after 5 minutes passed.
Oh a wonder of magic.
He was just happy that there was no inquisitor in this world like the earth does. If that really was the case, he would have been hunged or crucified while people justified it as he was a witch… or a wizard? if that really happened. Either way, now he was in this world, and he was excited at where he would end up with his magic.
"I call thine help, for what thee hath, art exceeding what mine." When his incantation was nearing the end of the verse, the magic circle almost completed. And what appeared there was a complex line of a matrix.
"-Come, water ball!"
Under Yoro and Arnold's attentive gaze, a sphere-shaped water materialized. A grin crept up into Yoro's lips when he saw he was succeeded. But in less than a second, that grin of his froze up as the thing that transpired before his eyes were totally unexpected for him.
The water ball sped up like a jet engine, shooting towards wide eyed Arnold as if it was some kind of bullet. Due to how fast it was, the recoil even made Yoro's hand jerked back as he was unprepared for this outcome.
Isn't it supposed to be a water ball? A splash of water?
That kind of thought circled his head as he watched that psio-bullet heading towards Arnold with a horror striken face. But to Yoro's relief, Arnold dodged it as soon as it came, evading the deadly spell in a thin hair gap. The spell obviously didn't stop and crashed against what was behind Arnold, which turned out to be the glass window from the week ago. Upon impact, it shattered in countless pieces, creating a sound that was loud enough to raise alarm in all of the mansion inhabitants.
…
"uh… I seriously don't know what's just happened." When Yoro came back to his senses, he knew he needed to say something under that scary gaze of Arnold.
"...Hmph, it was under my expectations."
"yes yes, I am sorry for doing tha- eh? Under expectation?" Yoro was just about to kowtow and do a seiza while the imagination of his father screamed at his shrunken self for all his incompetence and faults in the rest of the night. But Arnold's surprising response made Yoro exclaim in a funny fashion in the middle of his confusion.
Arnold shook his head and rested it on his palm, looking really tired more than anything right now. "Sigh… you are my son. Obviously, I already expected that to happen." Arnold sighed helplessly once again when he saw Yoro standing there with apparent confusion on his face.
"I am a thunder and water mage. One of the best in this kingdom even. So it was obvious for my offspring to have the same affinity. While it wasn't always the case, it happens more often than not to most of the people."
Tilting his head, Yoro asked. "Do you mean-?"
"Yes, it was the same for my first time… no, it was actually even worse than you." He chuckled bitterly while face turned blue when he said this, it was as if he just swallowed some kind of stink bug and digested it as a whole.
'We~ll, better not asking him about it then.' Yoro mused internally while he pointed at the window. "But… it's going to be okay, right?" He asked. And he instantly realized that his voice was a bit trembled and he had a slight dread in his heart. Well, according to his experience, he would get a harsh punishment in this case. The window was repaired only a week ago before it was broken again by his.... unentional act.
Arnold stayed silent, observing him with those scary pitch black eyes of his. After a couple of seconds in a contest of staring, Arnold humphed and crossed his arms. "Sometimes I wonder where you get that humble attitude of yours from. You are a noble, and it was just another window. Hasn't your mother always taught you to keep your composure at all times? No matter what, a noble always has to raise his head high, otherwise, you won't survive Escilla's political world for long… at least if you continue being like this."
Now it was Yoro's turn to be lost of words. Never in his whole experience he came out unschated after breaking some property, regardless of it his, or someone else's. He laughed dryly at the next moment after his father's advice. Now he knew why those stories depicted the noble as an arrogant asshole who held their pride so high that they would kill anyone who scratched even unintentionally.
'I need to adapt I guess.' He thought, and he knew he had plenty of time to do so.
Time passed after that. And by the end of their training, he finally got a hang of the feeling of where he should tug and pull his mana onto outside his body. The most easy part of his body to do so was his palm. And so he realized the reason why Arnold extended his hand like this when the first time he cited Yoro on how to conjure a magic circle.
Although, he still disappointed in himself for his incompetence in conjuring one. It seemed he still needed more time for mastering magic, maybe even more so compared to his swordsmanship which had reached it's basic-intermediate rank in a mere two days.