While it was still a work in progress, I decided to name my elemental fire magic Flare. Since it was far from legitimate magic, I called it Trial Flare for now. The flames created by Trial Flare floated up and away. That made it a completely incompetent offense. It served no purpose whatsoever. My biggest goal now was to make it shoot straight forward. If I could do that, the small flames could become a weapon for me.
To accomplish this, I needed to up the intensity of my consciousness and focus. I developed a command: Mana, shoot straight out of my right hand. This would shift the energy from Magicoat to Magicluster, then shoot 60 percent of the mana out. I realized that some mana was lost during this moving process. Issuing a command apparently consumed some mana.
I decided on a new experiment. My research question: when you released the bare minimum amount of mana, did it decrease the further away it was from your body? Yes, I learned that it did, although only by a small amount. Still, the magical flame became smaller the further I stood from the fire.
At present, I could activate Magicoat up to thirty times in one day. Therefore, I could conduct up to thirty attempts at Trial Flare. There was no doubt about it—I’d invented a magic spell. It was a flying ball of flame, and it made for a menacing attack. I could use it to defeat all goblins or monsters that attacked us.
I tested Trial Flare on a variety of objects. Naturally, rocks and hard objects were unaffected, but flammable objects like wood were set aflame. This meant that I could burn objects from a distance. Of course, I couldn’t aim the flames to set an enemy target on fire like the magic of my dreams. Regardless, the fire magic would burn anything it touched. It was the equivalent of throwing a torch at your opponent. Since I could perform it up to thirty times, it was already an effective attack. It created new work for me to do, however.
“Shion, can you light it?”
I followed Dad’s request and set light to the firewood. The weather had turned cold, so we were using our fireplaces inside. Since it took a while to light them manually, it became my daily chore. I carried around the portable flint, used Trial Flare, and started the fires.
“Thanks! That really helps. The blue flame is a bit disturbing, though,” Dad said.
“I’d say it’s disappointingly ordinary.”
“What are you talking about? This is anything but ordinary. You’re the only person in the world who can do this. I think it’s incredible.”
The praise was nice, although it felt like flattery to coax me into doing more errands. Still, it felt good to be useful. Fire magic was different from how I had imagined it, but it wasn’t bad. Now, if I could just overcome my next dead end…
At present, a fire source was required to activate the spell. No problem: along with a source, I had a flammable substance—mana—and oxygen. It was useless without my flint, though. I wanted to figure out how to use the technique without it. It wasn’t exactly cool to carrying a flint around with me everywhere I went. Ideally, I could use a staff or a wand to control my magic.
On the one hand, I felt like I had begun to use proper, real magic; on the other, my goal still lay far ahead. I wanted to use not just magic, but epic magic. I didn’t even know if that was possible, but I couldn’t just give up on my dreams.
I wanted to figure out how to use magic barehanded, but I had no clue where to start. Maybe Flare wasn’t even possible in the first place. To get unstuck, I needed a new tactic. That was how I’d always dealt with things.
I decided to put Flare on hold for a bit while I moved on to the next experiment.