It was my first time trying beginner wind magic, so I wasn’t able to activate it. The movement techniques and imagery needed were different from those of flame and frost magic, leaving me feeling very oddly disjointed, as if I were trying to eat with my fork and knife in opposite hands all of a sudden.
However, I didn’t see this as a problem. This much was expected when learning something new. Emptying my heart and mind, I continued practicing Wind Shot.
Then, around one hour after I started...
“I did it.”
A bush that my hand was facing visibly swayed, not because of any natural breeze, but because of my magic.
Looks like I’ll be able to learn wind magic too. Now, I just need to do it again and—
“—ter? Young master!”
“Huh?”
Someone’s voice cut through my concentration. When I turned around in surprise, I came face-to-face with a rather angry-looking maid.
“Wh-What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“I have been calling for you since earlier, young master,” she chided. “It’s dangerous to be here by yourself. This area has not been cleared of beasts as per the master’s orders, and there may even be poisonous bugs or snakes nearby.”
“Oh, but I’m not alo—” I turned around, but the man was gone. “Huh?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, um...” I looked between the spot where the man had been and the maid who was looking at me strangely.
He was there just a second ago... Where’d he go? He couldn’t have been a ghost, right? In which case, should I just not mention it at all? If I went and said, “There was a guy right here, wasn’t there?” then she’d probably just give me a funny look.
That train of thought flitted through my mind for a split second. In the end, I decided to change the topic.
“More importantly, did you need me for anything?”
“Oh, yes. I came to deliver this to you.”
“This is...a grimoire?”
The maid gave me a grimoire titled Beginner Summoning Magic. It looked much older than any of the other grimoires I had seen until now.
“Master ordered me to hand it to you.”
“I see. Thanks. Tell him I’ll thank him in person later.”
“Understood.”
The maid bowed deeply before turning around and leaving, eventually walking out of sight.
“A grimoire from your dad? Great timing.”
“Whoa!” My heart nearly jumped right out of my chest. I spun around to find the man sitting in the exact same spot in the exact same position. “Wh-Where have you been?”
“Nowhere. I used magic. I hid myself using a spell called Invisibility.”
“I see...” I muttered, astonished. So there’s that kind of magic too.
“It’s in the ring as well. It’s a bit difficult, but you can take your time and learn it.”
“Yes!”
“Now then, seeing as people actually come by here, I can’t afford to stay too long.”
“Huh? Wh-What...”
What did he mean by that?
“I’ll teach you one last thing. Open that grimoire up to any page with a spell, then use the ring to practice the contents.”
“Right... Okay.”
I opened up the grimoire and looked through the first page that had a magic spell on it. It was a spell that summoned a Salamander, a low-rank fire spirit.
I followed the instructions written there. It was my first time using this magic, so normally, it would’ve taken me at least an hour to see results—but surprisingly, a result came in an instant this time, just not the one I expected. I looked at the ring in shock.
“It’s in,” the man confirmed.
“Wh-What’s this?”
“Nothing big. The magicpedia just imported the grimoire’s contents,” he explained. “You can think of that ring as a notebook with an infinite supply of empty pages.”
“I-I see...”
“It doesn’t do anything to the contents other than import them, though. Well, it saves you some space in your bag, right?” The man grinned.
“Yes! This really helps!”
“Try importing the others too.”
“Okay!”
I went on to do the same with the three other spells left in the grimoire that father got for me, each of which summoned a low-rank elemental spirit: a Sylph for wind, an Undine for water, and a Gnome for earth. It only took a second each, and I finished right away.
“I’m done—huh?”
By the time I raised my head, the man was gone. I thought he’d used Invisibility again, but I immediately realized that wasn’t the case; words were being scribbled on the ground before me the same way when he taught me about prime numbers.
“Good luck practicing magic. Let’s meet again someday. PS Don’t tell anyone about me.”
I could tell that he didn’t just go invisible and was actually gone for real this time.
I silently erased the words with my feet. I didn’t know what his reasons were, but since he told me so, then I wouldn’t tell a single soul. We only talked for a short while and I had no idea what his name even was, but I had completely accepted him as my teacher.
“Goodness! At the same time?!”
Father was baffled when he saw me practicing magic.
Because I didn’t have enough mana, one spell would always disappear whenever I tried using three at once. That didn’t serve as much practice for me, so I went about casting two spells at once.
Learning magic using grimoires—or, well, a magicpedia now—was essentially learning through repetition, so naturally, doing two at once increased the efficiency. Day and night, I kept going on and on. My mana gradually increased, soon followed by the number of spells I could activate at once, ultimately leading to yet another boost in efficiency.
Eventually, after one month, I’d become capable of activating five spells at once, and the total number of spells I’d learned had reached a hundred.