03 - Learning Magic

After Greta left, the family returned to the kitchen to finish their coffee.

I had to force myself to eat that hard bread, but eating it was better than being hungry.

With my body already weak from the mana cost of keeping my magic eyes active and the weak water spell I used in the bedroom, I really needed that bread.

As for interactions with the family, there were none.

My new father and mother chatted about some of the neighbors' gossip, but both the twins and I kept quiet for the rest of the meal.

After I started earning a lot of money and getting out of the house more in my previous world, my social skills improved a lot, but not to the point of acting familiar with people I hadn't met until yesterday.

To make sure I didn't act strangely enough for them to suspect anything, I decided to just keep quiet and act like Kael did.

When we'd finished eating, my father, Alden, and I left together for his pawnshop, leaving my mother alone to look after the children at home.

As Kael had been very quiet in the past, no one was surprised at how pensive I had been since I saw Greta's magic.

The more I remembered about it, the more interested I became.

It seems that since the three spells were focused on healing, the mold that Mana followed was very similar...

If that mold was the basis for healing spells, as long as I learned that, wouldn't deriving that basis to learn other healing spells become simpler?

It was as if I was first learning to use the mathematical formula and then learning to perform the calculations that would use that formula.

Closing my eyes and trying to focus my vision internally, I could vaguely see and feel my Mana core.

Of all the Mana my body produced, more than 80% of it was blocked for the maintenance of my eyes, leaving me with only 20% of that Mana available to use for other things.

The problem was that not only was 80% of my Mana blocked, but 80% of my Mana recovery was blocked for the safety of my eyes, leaving me with only 20% Mana recovery speed.

Now, just over an hour after doing the water spell, I've managed to recover half the Mana spent on it...

Almost two hours to recover Mana from such a basic spell was extremely long.

In order to develop magically, I would need to deal with this problem in the future.

Fortunately, I had plenty of time to think and analyze things while I was in my father's store.

The place was very small, a store of no more than 20 square meters.

The store had three shelves, one on each wall with a shelf in the middle turning it into two aisles. At the end of these aisles was the counter where my father and I stood.

When a customer came in to sell something, the priority was for my father to evaluate the item the customer was selling, while teaching me his requirements for evaluating that item from time to time, or if he was already busy, I had enough freedom to evaluate and negotiate the second customer's item on my own. 

When a customer who wanted to buy something came in, my job was to show them the shelves, present the items the customer was interested in, and bargain down the price to make as much profit as possible.

Business was pretty slow, for a town with a population of a few thousand, it was difficult to have so many valuable items to trade, or enough people interested in the available items we sold.

Most of the income came from travelers who were passing through the city for various reasons, making a profit of a few copper coins a day the average, with some days yielding a little more.

For a family of five, the total cost of food and taxes that the household spent was around 5 copper coins a day, totaling 35 copper coins a week.

Fortunately, this was a medieval world where 100 copper coins equaled 1 silver coin and 100 silver coins equaled 1 gold coin, rather than any of the other messy systems that people at the time liked to invent.

It was with the travelers that Kael had the opportunity to see magic, since the customers who passed through the store were usually wizards interested in finding some hidden treasure.

Unfortunately, the only spells he came into contact with were basic quality-of-life spells, as I never witnessed a mage battle.

Fortunately, the memories of the old Kael were still available to me, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to evaluate or price any items.

While the store was empty, apart from sweeping the floors and dusting the items on the shelves, I had no other obligations, which gave me plenty of free time to think and study magic.

Since my family knew how much the old Kael liked magic, it wouldn't be strange if I practiced it in front of them.

So I thought back to the healing spells that the old healer used on Finn and Milla this morning.

Despite the slight change that each spell had, I could see the pattern of the base of that spell, and it was this base that I decided to try to replicate.

Using the little Mana available in my body and the memory of how to control that Mana from the old Kael, I began to shape the magic to try to make that base.

I have to admit, although those eyes were a big burden on my Mana recovery, being able to see the Mana and realize the mistakes I was making instantly helped me a lot in the learning process, since instead of having to wait for me to fail to start trying to understand where I was going wrong, as I could see the magic being formed I could take steps to correct the mistakes while I was making the magic.

The first attempt wasn't a great success, with my Mana running out before I could correct the last mistake I was making.

After waiting for another two hours, I started trying again and this time I really succeeded.

The base for the three healing spells was actually working!

In the palm of my hand was a steady stream of green Mana, ready to be molded into something more specific like the three spells the old healer had made.

“Which spell is that, Kael?” A deep, surprised voice came from beside me, making me lose concentration and stop manipulating the Mana.

Looking at the source of the voice, I saw my father staring at me with eyes as purple and bright as mine, but ignoring the strangeness of those eyes, I could see the surprise on his face.

“None.” I replied imitating how the old Kael would speak, a low and slightly unsure voice. “After seeing Lady Greta use those three healing spells I noticed a pattern in how the Mana was shaped for the three spells she did, so instead of trying to copy the magic directly, I just focused on the base of those spells and tried to replicate it.”

As someone who has had magical eyes like mine for longer than I have, it wouldn't make sense to try and hide it from him, so I was just honest and told him my findings.

Listening to my explanation, he too became interested and tried to replicate what I was doing.

With my palm facing upwards, in the same position as I was holding my hand while practicing, I could see the Mana coming out of my father's hand and shaping the environment as it tried to imitate what I had done.

Unfortunately, his control over Mana wasn't as precise as mine, and perhaps his memory wasn't as good either, since even though he had spent a lot more Mana than me on his first attempt, he still had a lot of mistakes to correct before he succeeded.

“Seeing you do it makes it look easier than it really is... your talent for magic is very good, Kael.” He said as he looked at me in surprise, before his gaze changed to disappointment. “It's a pity that with those eyes, even if you learn a lot of spells, using it would be too exhausting...”

Because of the old Kael's quiet and emo personality, I realized that even with a good memory I still knew very little about Alden, my new father, so I decided to ask.

“Have you ever tried to learn magic before? With our eyes it seems so easy.” I asked.

Looking at me with those bright purple eyes, Alden was a little surprised by my interest before answering. “Yes, of course. I think everyone in our family will be interested in magic at some point, even Finn, especially when you can see Mana all the time.” He said as he reached out for a small particle of Mana in the air. “Unfortunately in our family, my talent has always been the lowest, so ever since I realized that, I just gave up trying to practice magic and focused on having a comfortable life.”

“My father was more talented than me with magic, but it was my grandfather who was really talented. Even without the opportunity to get a master or attend a magic school, my grandfather had watched so many magicians casting spells that he had learned many spells, just like you are doing.” He said with a nostalgic smile forming on his face.

“Did he ever try to become a wizard?” I asked curiously.

He just shook his head in denial. “No, even if he knew a lot of spells, at the end of the day the usefulness of those spells was only to impress others or to use in emergencies, since with our low Mana capacity, the only spells we can do are the most basic ones.”

“At the end of the day, the most useful thing about him learning magic was that he could heal minor injuries for us. Anything bigger than that was more than his Mana could handle...” He said as he sighed again. “I learned your grandfather's healing spells myself, remember how I used to heal you when you were younger? The problem is that the level of the most powerful healing magic I can use is still not enough to help Finn, so we still have to hire Lady Greta.”

Hearing that, I understood. It really wouldn't make sense for my father to be able to see magic like me and never have learned any spells before.

Let alone paying a healer when he himself had probably learned her healing spells a long time ago.

Mages were rare and noble in this world, but they weren't mythical beasts. Every month it was possible to see at least one low-level mage passing through the city, so with years of seeing various mages casting spells, it was natural for our eyes to learn some of them.

“Can't you change the spell to reduce the effect and the mana cost?” I asked curiously.

Hearing my question, my father was confused. “Change the spell? No, spells are immutable. It's even easier to see with our eyes. Whenever a wizard uses a spell, that spell is always charged with the exact same amount of Mana, if the wizard uses more or less Mana the spell will fail.”

'Spells are immutable?' I asked myself in confusion. 

When I was replicating the basis of the healing spells, I felt as if the Mana was very free and moldable, at no time did I feel as if the spells were immutable...

Curious, I decided to study more about it. It's not as if I have more to do in the store anyway.