School proceeded without much trouble. As I got closer with Mike and Gerd, I also started taking part in school more and more.
History was taught in here. Though there are tons of interesting stories, like the one where this city is said to have been built on a seal that sealed off one of the Archdemon from the Great Demonic War, it is all a really long story to share.
One important thing was taught in history though, it's about the world's geography.
Our continent is set in the middle of the world, called Central Land. It's a massive continent that rivals the size of North America, capable of fitting about 26 Japan into it. This continent has basically all the biome that exists, with a large majority of it being plains and forest, and then some amount of desert and rain jungle.
Currently, I reside here in the northern side of this continent on a kingdom called the Northern Holy Kingdom of Ataraxia, and specifically in the city of Klada. This city sets near the middle of this country and is near the warmest area, but not directly in that area. That's because that area is reserved for farming since farming is actually possible there outside of winter.
Besides my country, to the east there's another continent called Moonfall continent and it's also mostly inhabited by humans, but it's different by it's culture. In that continent is dense jungles and mountains, exactly like Japan, and it's has a really large pink tree in the middle of the continent, which blocks out a lot of sunlight. This is the origin of it's name, since the sun blocked out a lot of sunlight that means it's night is also longer, to which is its known for having a longer night than day. It's size is relatively small, only slightly larger than Earth's Japan.
The Weyn Continent is located South of Moonfall continent. It's similar in location to Australia. It has 3 different area, the West is a swampy area where the beast men lived, the middle is a large mountainous area with dwarves and the east is a large forest with giant trees where the elves lived. It's size is about 2 times of Moonfall continent.
Finally we arrive at the Bostnia Continent to the west. This place is currently inhabited by all kinds of demons. It used to house a race of giants, which was all killed by the humans that conquered there. And then the demons appeared out of nowhere one day and took over the entire continent in really short span of time. It's size is roughly the same as the Weyn Continent.
It's land is full of deserts and canyons, very similar to America back on earth. And it's signature is a giant volcano in the far West of the Land. Aside from these, not much is known about this land. While they are all inhabited by demons, some amount of inhabitants of the Allied faction has took over a city near the port side.
These covers all the important aspects about the world.
...whew, that is a lot of information to digest.
Unlike back on earth, this school doesn't have club activities, which is a shame because I would've liked to take part in it. However, this school do have events like sport festival, or something like that.
Well, when I say sports festival, it's less similar to the ones we hold back on earth. There's no baton race, no marathon running, no tug of war, or whatever else.
What we do instead is a tournament, where students spar with each other or together against another team of students, or against monsters. There are also mini games held as they spar, like capture the flag or team disqualification match.
Either way, us first grades don't get to take part in this because we are too weak. Like I said, us first grades are too weak because we don't get enough experience in fighting and nearly 80% of us cant even cast intermediate ranked magic, it's true. I believe that if I were to fight with the entire first grade, only about 20 students can actually match me, not that I knew for sure though.
Only starting from grade 4 and 5 can students partake in the tournament. At grade 6 it is mandatory though.
Watching this tournament gives me a lot of data and information about using magic in combat. It seems that adept ranked magic like fireballs and ice spear are considered highly advanced magic for students to use in combat. I hope that someday I will be able to learn to cast them.
So, all my time was passed by spending time with my friends, my studies or reading story books. Around half a year passed by like that.
Marielle has started crawling around in the house like I once did, but unlike me she cries a lot. I had to keep her company for a while when mom worked, so I constantly played with her, read her books, teach her maths and languages. In truth, I don't know how to raise a child. The best I could do now is to just go with the flow.
The first words that she said was actually "Papa! " when dad came home. He was overjoyed.
This life that I have right now is rather busy, as I had to study, train my body, take care of a little sister, take care of the class as a class monitor, and practise magic. I almost never skipped any magic practise, even though I stopped experimenting with magic I always made sure to almost exhaust my mana everyday. It's easy to do so because I could just pump a lot of mana into Incineration and Ember, then cast them simultaneously. For now I could do about 5 minutes until I almost exhaust my mana.
Somehow, despite that out dated book saying that Mana is determined upon birth, my mana is still increasing day by day. Now, my mana is a bit higher than a year ago by about 15% at least, and that is a lot.
Even if I am really busy each day, I am having a lot of fun with my current life. That being said, I do want to start travelling when I am grown up. That's because this is a fantasy world that's entirely different from my old world, I'm really excited to see it with my own eyes. And this is besides the fact that there's no photos in this world and paintings are a bit expensive, the best I can make do with is just descriptions with words, but they say that a picture is often times worth a thousand words.
As such, I don't want to keep staying in this city and want to become an adventurer and go out someday to see new places and things that I have never seen before.
Today, while I was eating lunch with Mike and Gerd, something interesting came up in our conversation...
"Hey, have you heard that there's gonna be a lecture here in this school?" Mike brought this topic up out of nowhere.
"A lecture? " Gerd asked.
"Yea, haven't you heard of it? "
"Oh I remember now! The one about that Magic God coming here to give a lecture tomorrow! " I answered him.
"That's right! I totally forgot about that! "
"I heard that the lectures she gives are really good. Maybe you two should pay good attention to it, since Gerd is falling behind in magic, and Kyrie is serious about her magic learning. "
"I see. I am kind of excited to hear her lecture to be honest. Come one, she killed the former Magic God who is the Demon Lord as well! That must mean she is really strong! " I said what I was actually thinking.
"Yeah I know right? Her entire being is really mysterious, I want to know more about her! It's been 50 years already since the war, she should be a grandma right now."
We continued chatting like we do normally. Surprisingly we do share a lot of interests, from playing badminton, reading story books, our humor and just general chemistry, we get along very well.
Anyway, the next day during the assembly, the master of ceremony from the student council went up the stage to welcome the mysterious Magic God.
"Today is a special day, students and teachers. That is because that the Magic God, Hero of the Allied faction herself has come to our school today to give a speech and teach us how to use magic like she does. I welcome, Lynn the Magic God, to come up the stage and give us her wisdom."
A woman wearing a familiar white robe with a hood walked up the stage. She opened her hood, and with eyes of pink, a fair skin and long smooth white hair, she isn't someone you would call a wrinkly grandma, but a beauty. I really wondered if she's immortal, because she doesn't look like a grandma.
She walked up the stage and the pulled down her hood, revealing the face of a beauty and her silkly smooth white hair. Without even using the magic device, she talked loudly with just her sound alone, somehow enhancing her voice with magic of some sorts.
"Good morning everyone in the Zoward's Academy. I am the Magic God, Lynn. "
"It's her! I saw her at my shop when she once purchased potions from my mom! "
I excitedly whispered to the classmate behind me.
"Anyway, I do want to give a speech, but I don't really like to talk in circles and waste our time, so I'll just cut to the chase. I had planned to teach you all how to better control your mana, as a lot of you seem to be bad at it. "
Following that, principal Jack went up the stage as well to assist in her lecture.
"The most basic of mana control is done by just restricting your mana. While this is basic, it do train your control and help you understand how to control your mana better, so it's a really good practise to do. Here, you will see a demonstration of this. Mr Derrick, if you please. "
Principal expanded his mana and immediately caused winds around his body to rise. This must be because of the high concentration of mana bending the winds around.
"This is your principal's actual mana amount. It's high enough to bend waves of air around his body. However, his mana control is good enough to completely hide it away. So again, Mr Derrick, please restrain your mana."
And then, as soon as she said that, he immediately pulled back his mana and controlled them perfectly.
"By learning to hold back your mana, you are practising on controlling your mana better, and thus improve your magic control as well. Do take note that all Mana despite being invisible, will manipulate properties around it. The most common property that is manipulated by mana is wind. So, if you expand your mana and let it flow wildly like a storm, the air around you will starts to let loose and get really strong as it twirls around your body according to how you manipulate your mana. Students please feel free to try this. "
I can do that as well. I immediately expanded my Mana Aura to my surroundings and then pictured the Mana going stronger and stronger like a stormy ocean. I could feel heat from the surrounding area growing as I did this. And then, as I pictured the stormy oocean calming down into a relaxed state, the heat all dissipated immediately and the winds calmed itself down.
"Oi Kyrielle, what are you doing? "
The girl in behind me tapped on my shoulder.
"I was just trying out what they were doing."
"Calm yourself down! The surrounding just got really windy when you tried that! Your magic is too strong! "
"Oh I see... Sorry about that. "
"It's alright. "
Hmm, another form of mana control is to expand your mana aura towards somewhere specific to sense other people's mana. I wondered how much mana that Magic God has?
I expanded my Mana Aura and reached out towards the stage. As I am sitting in the front of the line of my class, I could easily reach the stage with just my mana. As my mana reach the stage I could feel principal Jack's mana repelling my own. And then I felt the Magic God's mana, but it's off... I can't tell how much mana she has other than the fact that her mana doesn't just repel mine, it literally bends my mana away like my mana just ran into a tornado.
"...?"
The Magic God suddenly looked at me directly in the eyes.
"?! "
Did she sense my mana repelling hers?! I immediately withdrew my mana back to my body. She finally looked away after analyzing me for what felt like eternity even though it was just a few seconds.
"Anyway, I could see some of you successfully doing exactly what the principal did. To that, I congratulate you, you have the potential to become a really strong mage. For those who can't do that, fret not, thats because with practise you can also achieve the same thing. "
Everyone clapped as they heard that. I also clapped with them.
"Thank you for the applause. Now, there's a reason that I told you all about that. Every one of us has the ability to keep mana in our body, but what exactly is mana? Mana is something that we use as fuels to power our spells, but we don't know for sure what exactly it is. However, while we cannot see it, we know for sure that it is a physical thing, as you can see how it bends air around it. As I am the one who made this research, this theory of mana being a physical thing is also named after me, it's called the Lynn Theory."
"And now, I'm going to demonstrate how these physical properties of mana can be utilized. Mr Derrick, if you will. "
The principal brought up a table to the stage. And then the Magic God used some sort of Gravity magic to pull 3 glass bottles from the back of the stage and set them all on the table.
Mumblings of "Woah, that was cool! " "What was that magic?! " "As expected of the Magic God! " could be heard from the crowd.
"Quiet down! " The discipline teacher yelled out and the crowd silenced themselves.
"Thank you. Alright then, this theory dictates that like sand and wind, Mana is something that is physically present even if we can't see it. With a good enough Mana Control you can see why this is true. I introduce to you all, this sub class of magic known as 'Magic Techniques', that focuses around manipulation of Mana rather than using it as a fuel to cast spells. "
She strecthed out her hand towards one of the bottles.
"Now, I will show you the difference between a Magic Technique and a spells. A spell is where you use Mana to power a magic crest, which turns into something else entirely and fires out that thing when you will. "
A crest forms in front of her hands, I recognized that crest, it's the Rock Sling. And then, a rock bullet formed in front of the crest, floating and spinning violently.
She then shot the rock forward and shattered the bottle. Before the bullet could hit the wall, she quickly pulled on it and the rock bullet stopped mid air as it continued spinning and then finally stopped for good. After that it dissipates into sand and fall onto the ground.
"What control she has! And she doesn't even need to chant to use magic! " The girl from being whispered that into my ear.
"I know right? She's amazing! " I replied to her.
"Anyway, this is how a spell works, as all of you know. However, Mana by itself can be used to do the same thing. If you focus your mana into your arm, and then shoot it out, it could still shatter the bottle."
She gathered a lot of Mana in front of her hand in the form of a ball, which bends wind itself as it twirls around despite being invisible.
"Remember everyone, spells ALWAYS require a magic crest to form, no crests could be seen here because this is a magic technique, not a spell. Having no magical crest is the tell tale signs of a Magic Technique being used instead of a spell. Now watch closely."
She then shot the condensed Mana ball at the the second bottle which also shattered it.
"This is the Magic Technique known as Mana Ball. To shoot the mana out after you gathered it into a ball, you just release your control from the mana gathered. It's simple, but rather hard for beginners to pull off. However, the best part about magic techniques is that everyone can use them, even people who can't cast spells."
The students and teachers all applauded.
"Now, if you all have any questions, feel free to ask right away as this lecture is almost over."
A student from another class raised his hand.
"What is the third bottle for? "
"Oh, that? It's for someone to demonstrate that I'm not lying about this entire theory. That little girl by the fifth line to the left. The one in front with the red hair. "
Huh? Me?... I must have drawn her attention to me with my bold attempt to feel her Mana Aura....
"Yes, you, the one with the twin tail. Please come to the stage thank you. "
"A-Alright. "
I got extremely nervous as I stood up from my line and walked up the stage, standing in front of roughly 750 people.
"No need to be nervous little girl. What's your name? "
The lady patted me on the shoulder with both of her hands, as she kneeled down to look at me in the eye with a kind face.
"I... I'm Kyrielle. "
"Okay Kyrielle. I want you to do what I just did, to that bottle. "
"I'm... not sure if I could do that. "
"Don't worry, you can. You can do this if you are bold enough to try and sense my Mana. "
"Wha?! You noticed?! "
"Of course I did! I'm the Magic God you know? Too bad for you, you can't tell how much Mana I have, because you can't touch it at all. Anyway, come on let's do it. I'll teach you, don't worry. "
"Ri-right. "
I turned around and faced the right side of the stage with the table, the crowd immediately cheered as I did that.
"You can do it Kyrie! " Mike yelled out, drawing attention to himself.
"What is that idiot embarrassing himself for?... " I mumbled under my breath.
"Alright. Stand in front of the table about 3 meters apart. And then, bring out your arm as if you are casting a spell."
"Right. "
"Okay, now close your eyes. "
"What? Why? "
"It's helpful for beginners. Just close it. "
"Okay... "
I closed my eyes, and now I could only see a pitch black screen.
"Now, ignore the crowd and focus only on my voice. "
"Right. "
"Then, take a deep breath. "
"Hooo.... Haaaahhh. "
"Good, now you have calmed down. Magic Techniques requires a large amount of focus to pull off, but the most important skill that you need to use it is visualization. You won't be able to do it without visualizing what you want in your head. "
"I see, it's the same with chantless magic then. "
"You can cast magic chantlessly? "
"Yes, but only with fire magic. "
"I see, then that makes our job easier. Picture your Mana, going from your spine and your heart to the front of your hand, and then you gather it into a ball. "
Heart? I don't usually feel Mana from my heart, but whatever.
I pictured Mana from my spine bending into a stream according to my will, and flowing directly into my arm and out of my arm, gathering into a ball of energy in front of my hand. I could feel heat from my spine all the way to my arm.
"Now, open your eyes. "
I opened my eyes. I was surprised to find a ball of wind gathering and spinning wildly in front of my hand.
"Wha-?! "
The ball of wind exploded at my face due to my sudden reaction and loss of concentration. I could hear the sound of disappointment coming from the crowd and I got stressed again.
"Ah, it blew up. Don't worry, you can just do it again. "
"R-right..."
I closed my eyes again, trying to draw out Mana from my spine but to no avail. Now I'm getting really nervous of embarrassing myself.
"Kyrielle. Kyrielle. Don't focus on the crowd. Focus on emptiness, the void that you feel when you close your eyes. The state of calmness and meditation. Focus on that. "
"...Thats right, thanks for the advice." I figured something out.
Whenever I messed up my visualization of a fire spell, it always fails. All that I can think of right now is just me failing and embarrassing myself, that's why I can't do this magic technique thingy. I'm not properly imagining and forming that mana ball like I should.
Since magic is based on visualization, then this magic technique thing is no different. My trick to casting chantless magic when I'm not yet fluent enough to do it on command is to calm myself down. I would imagine my state of mind like water, and when I'm anxious it'd grow into a stormy ocean wave.
To calm myself down, I picture this stormy sea being manipulated by my mind to slowly calm itself down until it becomes still water like a calm lake. Whenever this happens, my mind would feel really empty, almost like my stress and anxiety and all of my emotions have left my body, similar to a state of being in meditation.
I opened my eyes and looked directly at the bottle, at my target. Tunnel vision starts kicking in and I only saw the bottle, I can't even hear the crowd anymore. I know this feeling all too well, I have entered 'The Flow'.
"Kyrielle? Why didn't you close your eye? "
"It won't be necessary. "
Locking my eyes to the bottle, I stretched out my left hand and then pictured a ball of Mana forming there, drawing power from my spine and connecting through my arm like a power cable.
A ball of wind starts forming and begin spinning wildly as it turns into a ball of raging vortex a bit bigger than the one that Lynn shot out.
The target is the bottle. At this distance of just 5 meters, it is but a mundane task to hit it with a good accuracy.
I pictured the ball shooting out upon me releasing my control on it, shooting forth with the velocity of a gun's bullet, and then blowing itself up upon hitting it's target, like an explosive shell fired from a modern artillery.
'Buom!'
A small explosion could be heard as the wind ball shot forward with a really high speed. To the people on the stage this would appear so fast that their eyes would be able to keep track of it but their body won't fast enough to dodge it. As no matter how fast your reflexes are, you body is still really slow. Besides, this Mana Ball here is transparent, so it's even harder to see coming.
'Bang!'
The bottle immediately shattered as the wind ball hit it and blows up, even pushing the entire table baclwards. The shards started to fly every where, but the Magic God immediately caught all of the shards with her gravity magic before pulling them back and putting them down on the table.
...I couldn't hear anything, but it's not because I'm deaf. I couldn't hear anything because everyone silent from being dumb founded by the mana ball that I just shot forward.
I, also she'll shocked at what I just did, turned back and looked at Lynn. Lynn with a large smirk on her face as if saying 'See? I told you that you can do it.' looked me in the eyes proudly.
She then brought her hand up and started clapping alone. And then after a brief second, the entire school clapped together with her and applauded so loud that it rivals a football stadium during the World Cup.
After a few seconds passed, Lynn put her hands on my shoulder again and kneeled down. With the applause still continuing, she said to me.
"Congratulations, you are now qualified to become an Adept ranked mage."
My face slowly turns from being shocked to one of happiness as I jumped up from excitement and then hopped down the stage happily and sat back at my place.
"That was amazing Kyrielle! How did you learn to do it so fast?! "
"Yea yea! Teach me as well Kyrielle!"
"That shot was so cool it's straight out of a story book!"
The people around me and my classmates starts cheering me.
"Haha, thank you everyone! I'll teach you all after this is over alright? So please save the praises, I'm getting a bit embarrassed hahaha... "
"Oh you are too humble, Kyrielle! " The girl behind me said that to me.
"Ahem. Everyone, please keep your silence. The Magic God has something to say." The discipline teacher said in a loud voice but he wasn't yelling angrily. Even he could read the air and not sour everyone's mood by yelling at them.
Everyone quiet down as quickly as a flash flood. And then Lynn started talking again.
"Thanks to Kyrielle-chan for showing us that spectacular show just now, it was truly amazing to see your face of pure focus as you charged up the ball and shot it at a blinding speed. "
She cleared her throat with a cough.
"Now, the point of this demonstration is to teach you all how to visualize something. All of what you see on stage here requires visualization, and all magic is based on visualization. You may not have noticed it but the chants that you use to cast magic is also just a visualization attempt to create a magical crest appropriate for the spell. "
She opened her palm facing upwards.
"In truth, spells aren't simply limited to its default state, or the one that you learn to chant for. If you are able to visualize a spell, you will be able to cast it chantlessly, like so. "
A crest forms on her palm before she even finished speaking, proving that she is indeed a chantless magic user rather than using silent chanting since you can't chant and talk at the same time.
The crests immediately turns into a ball of darkness.
"This spell is the Saint Ranked magic, Black Spear, an Abyss element magic. You may be surprised that it isn't in a shape of an arrow, like the Rock Sling that I have just used. That's because with spells, you can shape your magic with almost no limitation other than your Mana and your imagination's limit, this is because magic is almost omnipotent. Watch this as the prove. "
The ball of darkness immediately forms a shape of a cube.
"And if you are truly good at visualizing, you can form just about anything. "
The cube slowly transformed again, this time turning into the shape of a sword.
"As you can see, while this magic is Black Spear, I can turn it into a shape of a sword. No matter what shape it is, if you can picture it in your head, then you can bend the spell into that. And it isn't limited to just shapes, you can modify a spell's intensity, it's velocity, and even it's uses. Watch this demonstration. "
From the side of the stage the Magic God pulled out a piece of bread and put it on the table. Then she shrinked the sword into a small knife's size. After that she cuts the bread with it.
The crowd seeing that starts laughing. With a smile on her face, Lynn continues talking.
"You can also come dense this sword into a smaller version like I just demonstrated now, but the spell will always maintain the same power. This means that if I were to condense it into a really small bullet like so, not even an Master Ranked Barrier that covered this training field could stop it."
She condensed the black knife into a really small dot and then aimed upwards with a finger gun. And then she released the black bullet and fired it upwards at a velocity far greater than my mana ball. That bullet easily pierced the barrier, but the barrier soon closed up the crack.
"As I'm sure many of you will be curious about how one of my strongest spell is formed. I can do it by consdensing 7 Black Spears into the shape of a small sword, and then shoot the energy contained in it."
"This attack can level mountains and destroy entire cities, this is the scale of the difference between a normal black spear and a super charged black spear. Of course, this attack spell has an appropriate rank for it's destructive power, it is indeed God ranked, one of my strongest attack magic. "
The crowd applaud again.
"And so as you can see, magic is formed based entirely on visualization, I hope that this point comes across to you as much as it does to Kyrielle, your fellow student here. Thank you for the all attention today everyone, my lecture has come to a close. Hope you all have a nice day and nice study section about magic. "
Now I see why my elemental magic training has stagnated. I can't visualize beyond what I already did years ago. My magic didn't improve since I can't picture a stronger magic than what I did.
With just a single lecture she already broke me out of this wall that I've hit about years ago. She really IS a Magic God.
Lynn bowed her head and went down the stage, back to where she was sitting. The MC of this assembly walked up and picked up the mic.
"Thank you for the beautiful lecture, Ms Lynn. The assembly for this morning will finish here, thank you everyone for your attention. Student council members may take your post and guide the students back to class. Presidents of first grades starting from the side most, you may lead your class back to your classroom. "
We all went back to class following the end of the assembly. After I lead my classmates back to class along with Mike, I ran back to the Training Field so that I could thank the Magic God.
There, Lynn is standing and talking to the principal.
"-this might further improve this school's motivation and also raises the quality of mages here. "
"I see what you mean. "
"Umm, excuse me, Ms Lynn! " I called out to the Magic God.
"Oh, it's Kyrielle. Do you need some further explanation? "
"No, I'm here to give my gratitude actually. Thanks out for teaching me that for today! You see, I had hit a wall with my magic for almost a year now, but with just this one lecture you had opened my mind and helped me overcome this wall. Thank you for that. "
"No problem. It is my passion to teach apprentices after all. All you need to do to climb out of deadlocks like this is to think out of the box for the answers. Being a magic user, that quote has been really helpful to me, I hope that it does for you as well. "
"Okay, thank you very much! I'll head back now so goodbye!"
"Farewell. "
I bowed my head and ran back to class before the teacher arrives.
(Chapter 20 end)