"I have a proposition. Why don't you postpone your combat training for a while and focus more on learning about mystical arts. You can resume it after mastering all the basics.
"Besides, I think you are more suitable to become a wizard like me rather than a fighter."
Jack was pondering about it during the trip to the training area. When they got there, he replied with a calm but confident tone.
"I think I will do both of them at once, old man. I don't think I can become a great adventurer with this thin and frail body. Besides, I want to create my own combat style by combining close combat with magic.
"In my opinion, this combination holds the possibility to surpass both of them."
Jack hasn't given up on his dream to become a dragon knight, and he only has four years to find a way back to Earth. To be able to do that, he must push himself to the limit. Slacking off is not an option for him.
"Haha… Good. A young man without ambition is no different than an old man. I like that kind of youngster.
"Do you have an idea in what kind of fighting style you want?"
Izack thinks that having ambition is good. But ambition without vision is meaningless. So he tries to help Jack conceive a clear image of what he wants to be before helping him.
A good teacher inspires their student to learn by themself because, in the end, the one who did it is the student himself. This is what Izack Newtown believes.
After a few moments, Jack answered as though in thought, "Mmm… I already have a rough idea, but… I am still not really sure myself until I learn how to fight properly."
Izack nodded lightly and said, "Okay then. You can talk to me if you find something that you don't understand."
"Of course, old man." Replied Jack short.
After that, Izack teaches Jack how to train his mana control. The method is not complicated or unique. In fact, Jack has read something similar in several novels before.
Basically, he just needs to move an object with his mana. His first assignment was to lift a small wood marble-like object. Yet Jack needed about two hours before he could do it.
According to old man Izack, his progress belongs to the average category by adventurer standard. It's not too good, but not too shabby either.
Izack tells Jack to keep practicing until the sun sets. Sadly, his progress was so slow that it was difficult for him to know whether he was making progress or not.
Unlike stats points, skill didn't have a progress bar or another numerical value in his system. And this makes him frustrated. Fortunately, his spell casting speed was a bit improved because of that.
When Jack was about to go back to his apartment, he borrowed another magic circle book from the old man. Of course, Izack gladly approved it because Jack was showing great talent in this aspect. In fact, he was expecting great things from him.
When Jack arrived at home, he didn't waste any time and started translating the magic circle in that book.
Besides gaining a level, magic is the key to become a powerful adventurer in this world. So Jack put his study about magic to the very top of his schedule, equal to solving his leveling problem.
Without him realizing it, the sky became brighter and brighter as he kept writing. When his hand started to feel numb, Jack decided to stop. He exhaled a lot of air before limply leaning his back on the chair.
"Sigh… Magic circles are more fragile than I thought. It takes perfect coding in order to create a usable spell. Shit! I should have listened more when my high school teacher explained about java programming.
"Creating higher tier spells is not as simple as increasing the number of mana in the input sequence. Adding more mana into the fire torch spell wasn't necessary to turn it into a firestorm spell.
"This is just my theory, but the probability of it being valid is high. Regardless of that, I need to do some experimentation to understand it more.
"But first, I need to translate all of this magic circle and learn Java programming language by analyzing the pattern. What a pain."
Slowly but sure, Jack closed his eyes and fell asleep.
---
Jack opened his dozy eyes. A grayish-white ceiling with a golden pattern in its corner greeted him, but something was definitely different about it.
He could feel a sense of familiarity at those scenes as if he was born and raised here his entire life. The only thing that makes him think otherwise is the heavy feeling in his heart. Feeling that someone is waiting for him at a faraway place.
Those feelings always arise whenever he opens his eyes in the morning, forcing him to excrete a warm and salty liquid that seems never dried up no matter how much it flows out.
Three months have passed since Jack joined Adventurer's Guild, and a lot of things have changed.
When he hears six chimes from the adventurer's guild tower, Jack wipes his tears and abandons his bed to do his regular exercise. 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 squats before running to the old Blackrock mine while bringing all of his weapons and armor.
During three months, Jack learns that the distribution of time in this world is slightly different from Earth. People of this world didn't split the year into twelve months because the moon always appears in its perfect form.
Instead, they used spring, summer, fall, and winter to determine that another year had passed.
Surprisingly though, a day is divided into 24 hours.
According to a book he read, the one who suggested it was old man Izack himself. After inventing a sundial thirty years ago, the old man suddenly had an idea to divide one day into twenty-four hours which used the sun and the moon as the barometer.
Izack set the starting point of the day when the moon had reached the zenith. The reason is that this time allocation will help researchers like him to manage their schedules better.
Unfortunately, they only could keep track of time during the day because the sundial only works from six in the morning to five in the afternoon. With today's technology, inventing a moondial is still hard to achieve, even for Izack Newtown.