“Right, then,” Ingo said. “We’ll start with the fundamentals. Are you ready, Lorraine?”
Although we’d gone quite deep into the woods near Rentt’s home village of Hathara, this posed no particular issue to me or Ingo. I had my artifices as a mage for defending myself, while he was accompanied by one of his tamed monsters.
In this case, the creature at his side was not the lindblum I so closely associated with him, but a large species of slime known as a gran slime. They were roughly the size of an adult human and, in what no longer came as a surprise to me at this point, had never been recorded as being tameable. The common consensus was that slimes were only trainable up to the medium-sized varieties that stood about the height of an adult’s waist.
Nevertheless, as if to refute that assumption, the gran slime obediently heeded Ingo’s every order. The sight was exceedingly strange—and it was yet further proof that Ingo’s instruction would be priceless.
I nodded. “Yes, I’m ready. But if we’re starting with the fundamentals, wouldn’t it have been better to do this indoors?”
As a general rule, the foundational knowledge for most magical disciplines was learned from lectures or books, methods of study safe enough to do indoors. Even if Ingo’s style of monster taming was a special case, I had still assumed we’d be starting with a lecture.
“You already have the necessary taming knowledge, don’t you?” Ingo said. “Monster varieties, their unique traits and weaknesses, all that?”
“Well, yes, I suppose. That sort of knowledge is indispensable for adventuring, after all.”
“Hmm? You don’t say? The Bronze-class adventurer who came to our village the other day seemed rather lacking in that regard.”
“I...can’t speak to that individual’s skill, having never met them, but that’s unfortunately not all that rare for Bronze-classers. There are quite a few who believe they can get by with only the knowledge of the monsters in their regular hunting grounds.”
Of course, all Bronze-classers had some degree of know-how—they never would’ve passed the Ascension Exam otherwise—but for many, the bare minimum was enough. I would’ve even gone so far as to say that was the case for the majority. Rather than acquire new knowledge, they preferred to focus on their physical training.
But while that might allow one to squeak through the Bronze-class Ascension Exam, one would hit a wall when it came time to ascend to Silver. Still, it wasn’t impossible to pass the Silver-class exam based on the strength of one’s arm alone, and that meant you could occasionally run into highly capable individuals who were nevertheless somewhat lacking in the knowledge department.
In light of that, Rentt was quite the special case, as Bronze-classers went, both his learning and his technique were already at the Silver level. The former was likely due to all the time he spent with me, picking up niche trivia. I’d frequently catch him flipping through one of the many books in my home that covered some extremely specific topic or other.
“Such a waste, that is,” Ingo lamented. “There’s some merit to only acquiring the bare minimum, certainly, but if that’s all an adventurer does, I get the feeling they’d plateau rather quickly.”
I nodded. “Yes. It’s often those sorts of careless adventurers who suddenly turn up dead. Of course, dedicating too much time and resources to superfluous matters can be harmful in its own right. Striking the right balance can be quite difficult.”
“I suppose that’s true. Well, regardless, unlike those adventurers, you have the requisite knowledge already. That was why I figured we could skip the lectures.”
“I see...” I trailed off. “But are you certain it will not have an adverse effect on my learning?”
“It should be fine,” Ingo assured. “I might have concerns if it wasn’t for your magic eyes—but with those at your disposal, you should be able to pick it up quite quickly.” He paused. “At least, that’s my hope.”
“I’m...surprised you knew about that,” I said. I’d revealed my eyes to Rentt a long time ago, and I didn’t make any particular effort to keep them a secret in Maalt, but neither did I go out of my way to tell people. I doubted Rentt would’ve told Ingo without asking me first, even if Ingo was his foster father, so I was rather curious as to how the village mayor had found out.
“I didn’t hear it from Rentt, but from Gharb,” Ingo said, smiling. “Her powers of observation are quite astute.”
“Ah, her? I suppose I’m not surprised.”
“I know, right?”
“That aside, what do you mean when you say using my magic eyes will help me learn faster?”
“Well, I’m no expert on how other monster tamers do things, but do you recall that I said my method involves intricate mana manipulation?”
“I do... Ah. I suppose the ability to observe mana as it moves will prove important?”
“Exactly. It’s especially vital that you see how it flows into the monster. Once you know that, the rest is all about putting it into practice. Since this is my first time teaching anybody, I can’t guarantee that this method is foolproof, but I was taught that this is the fastest way.”
“All right. I look forward to your instruction!”