Over the years, I have thought about many things, events, actions, phenomena, and so on. I don't know why, but in my first life I didn't feel much like thinking, although there were times when I would be overcome by melancholy and philosophical thoughts would pop into my head.
Why was that? Perhaps it was the fact that I had never watched television during my years in this world? Or the fact that my new body had never gone on the Internet or touched a telephone in my fourteen and a half years?
Or maybe it has to do with learning? I've been learning for so many years now, training, self-study, again my passion for creating magical substances and artifacts... is that the point?
I can also add that there is a special atmosphere of spirituality here at the Miyazaki Mansion and on the Sakishima Islands. I would like to say that in the past year and a half I have had the opportunity to visit Mahoutokoro, a Japanese magic academy. I was stupidly put in front of the fact that I have to go there sometimes to pass some tests and exams.
So, in this center of magical progress of the island nation, the feeling was completely different. There was no spiritual uplift, no feeling that gods could live in this place. No, everything is boiling, roaring, stormy, and so on. When you get there, you feel a surge of power, because the natural magical source is very strong, but the coloring is completely different and calls for active life, action.
I spend most of my time at the manor, less on the islands, and it has left a strong impression on my soul. The impetuosity, recklessness, irascibility, and frivolity of my former life have been greatly diminished. I have more patience with people, don't you think?
If I used to want to get up to my ears in the ground for every fake smile and dirty word behind my back, I no longer expect much from people. What's the point? Servants — they are servants, their lifelong destiny is to grovel before their masters, to please, to be submissive, to bend.
Who are they, and who am I to pay them any more attention than necessary? They're all mages, there's not even any conditionally handicapped — squibs, only full-fledged mages are on the estate. So what? Are any of them practicing? Trying to get better? No.
I haven't seen a single one in all my years, they're all content. Guards and fighters don't count. So that's their level, and let them live up to it. My level is to control them because I'm superior in every way. I'm better than them, and they know it, but again, nobody wants to change anything. It's up to them.
The nail in the coffin of my sense of equality, or whatever, was a situation a year ago. To make a long story short, some little prick (in the sense of little power) demanded from his subordinate the right to use the younger man's wife to cover up a fake joint. So?
Well, this spineless worm was literally happy and agreed without a second thought. His wife is not particularly attractive to my taste, but not bad by local standards. Besides, she has a good character, her hands grow from the right place, kind and responsive, soft, and her daughter is the same. In short, when I realized how I felt about the situation, I turned them both over to the clan's security service and stood up for the woman with the child.
The doddering life lord and the spineless worm were branded with seals of magic suppression, blocked from remembering magic, deprived of the ability to have children, and thrown into the world of simpletons.
I later learned that this was a standard punishment for breaking the "regime" in the clan, a way of maintaining discipline and morale. And even later, I learned that this situation is not uncommon, and many junior clansmen share a wife with someone of higher rank, often giving their daughters in the process.
And they are all magicians, they can do magic, they can protect themselves! So no — they bend their whole life to anyone, and everything suits everyone. I shuddered with disgust, and I began to see the lower caste of the clan in this way, and in no other.
The next two trips to the islands and communication with Mori's family went smoothly, as usual, but I refused private lessons with Mayuri-san and her husband (he offered). Fuck it. Even though I've softened and become more tolerant, they've become unpleasant to me as people. Let them live their lives, and I will live mine, and I do not need extra debts. I did different things in the islands. I studied in courses, trained with weapons, mined gold, quartz and sulfur, looked for gems in the mountain, but didn't find any.
And other things, other things, other things. In the girl doll I considered even more oddities, which also became indifferent, for I will not take her as a wife under any circumstances. "I'd rather eat my passport! — I thought. Although the conversation with the head of the clan had already touched on this subject: — Get ready, boy, a few more months and we'll be dancing at your wedding!
I had to bow deeply and ask to postpone the "holiday" for at least a year, so that I would have time to complete my apprenticeship with the Master of Combat. I wanted to start a new stage of life, more respectable than I am now. My grandfather was pleased with my humiliation, smiling bastard, but agreed to the postponement. I managed to fend him off, albeit temporarily.
I'm using this time to my advantage. I've even managed to get involved in teaching the local "standard" combat magic. There's widespread use of combat wands and artifact wands with multiple instant attack spells. The matter turned out to be difficult, unusual — to create magic with a concentrator, but very useful in the development of skills of subtle work with charms, which greatly reduced the time to create a whole group of artifacts.
Now it is not necessary to calculate a separate ritual for each level of creation, and you can use a wand and a ready formula for a certain group of charms. Much easier. I already have a whole set of different artifacts for many occasions, but I'm hiding them for now — otherwise it's just impossible.
Magic combat itself proved to be quite difficult to master, as you can and should use anything that comes to mind. So I spent a lot of time just memorizing and understanding what to use and how to use it in a fight. What goes together, what doesn't, and what ultimately works.
Combat alchemy is a nightmare because there are tons of recipes, and each substance interacts differently with the environment and with spells. Let's say you throw a vial at an enemy and they close with a shield. In one case, the substance won't react, and in the other, it'll turn into something completely unexpected. Totally. So it's important to know the details and the nuances or you'll end up killing yourself.
Combat artifacts are a separate and vast subject. You can go into it with your head for the rest of your life. There are masters of artifact combat, and they are really respected. The twist is that a rare master of artifact combat is not an artifact master. A mage thinks through a number of strategies for different developments in advance, calculates the tactics of situations and terrain, his own condition.
And only then does he create a weapon that suits him, elegantly combining the necessary and the essential, seasoning the permissible. In short, I am interested in it, but the subject is deep and specific, requires a special mindset.
I decided to take the basics, and put the rest for "later", delving into the study of "standard", generally accepted magic with a Family , some people use wands. But they are so flimsy that they can easily be broken in a heated battle, staffs are another matter, besides, they can be strengthened, "armored".
As for combat training, I had it all worked out, even without my consent: after that strange operation, I became a permanent member of the group and was regularly sent on various missions. I was in a variety of situations, and it would be too long and painful to describe each of them, because sometimes we spent several days in a row stupidly wandering through forests or mountains without any noticeable result.
And there were times when we made it within an hour and came back. I can only say that it was here, in this world, that I killed a man for the first time. In this life I had been in tough fights, I had been beaten, and I had been defeated, but it was here that I killed a man for the first time... and many more times after that.
The first time caused a real storm of contradictions in my soul: reason and feelings were fighting, I knew that this mage had killed people, tortured them and deserved to die, but something in my head kept whispering about my mistake, my guilt, that I shouldn't do this — it was inhuman.
A week I worried, then let go, and the soul became calm, even overcame the disease. And in general it became kind of indifferent, and I even found myself thinking that I don't care whether I take the criminal alive or kill him. And again, complete peace and indifference. I guess something in me either broke or, on the contrary, fell into place. I don't know.
But what I can say is that thanks to this, I've made rapid progress in the magical arts, especially in artifacting. I even made a pair of battle wands with three spells in each, which turned out to be quite handy, since there is not always time to perform a gesture correctly or to say the formula. And so — I raise the wand, press the symbol, and a beam, ball, or something square flies into the target. So yeah, I use them now, and no one has tried to get me to make goods, which is amazing. So that's how two more years of my life here went.