“Hmm... What should I do?”
I’d been spending the day staying out of sight from others behind the mansion, where I’d been racking my brain for a solution. So far, I’d shot down every idea that had popped into my head. The issue I was mulling over was the quantification of mana—in a video game, this would be a character’s MP.
There was one thing that was always on my mind during Sandra’s lessons: Whenever she spoke of mana in terms of amounts, it was always vague. Solving this issue would also help me discuss the new drug with my father. If we were going to be giving my mother a brand-new drug we’d created, we would first need to convince my father to let us do it. Having Sandra working with me on this added a lot of credibility to our efforts, but I wanted an additional element that could be used to ensure my father was on board.
As I continued to puzzle over the matter, I heard a rumbling in the sky as thunderclouds gathered.
“It looks like it’s going to rain,” I muttered to myself. “I guess I should head back inside.”
The moment those words left my mouth, torrential rains began pouring down. It was so sudden that I couldn’t even make it inside before it had begun, so I came back inside the mansion soaking wet. The maids all stared at me, their eyes wide with surprise.
“I’m a bit wet, ha ha...” I said with a wry smile.
One maid shrieked, “You will catch a cold if you do not change out of those clothes, Sir Reid! I will bring a towel right away. I shall also draw you a bath!”
The maids waiting inside all began running around, hurrying to dry me off. They finished drawing the bath while they were toweling me off, so I was immediately led to the bathroom.
“It’s been so long since I’ve taken a bath,” I remarked as I began soaking in the hot water. “Phew, that feels so good,” I mumbled, unable to help myself. “Baths are both uncommon and a luxury in this world, so I’ve been holding off on taking one...but man, this feels good.”
I enjoyed soaking in the tub and warming up my body, which had been chilled by the rain.
“This is such an impressive tub,” I mumbled to myself.
The bathtub I was currently soaking in had been prepared in my room. Usually we only washed ourselves with washcloths, so there wasn’t a specific room where the tub was stationary. Whenever someone needed to take a bath, the staff transported the tub to their room. Of course, they’d made efforts to ensure that using it didn’t create a mess in my room by doing things like laying down a bath mat.
“It’s really something else,” I remarked, still in awe of the tub. “I wonder how much hot water you need to fill this.”
I scooped up some of the water in my hands and rinsed off my face. As I was relaxing, I recalled something interesting that I’d learned: Units of measurement in this world were the same as in my previous life. Or perhaps I should say that was true here in Magnolia, since I wasn’t sure how things were done in other countries. At the very least, across all territories in Magnolia, units of length were measured in meters, and liquids were measured in liters.
“It’s a bit strange that it’s the same, but there’s no use thinking about it too deeply,” I told myself.
It was at that moment that a light bulb went off in my head.
“Wait, that might work!”
Once I finished my bath, I quickly dried myself off and got dressed. I continued moving about in a rush as I asked a maid where I could find Garren, and I took off to see him.
“You are the son of Sir Reiner. You will be succeeding Valdia Mark, Sir Reid. You may be as, if not more intelligent than, an adult, but you are still a young child. Please try to take better care of your body. Will you do that?”
“Yes, I will. I’m sorry...”
The first thing that Garren had said to me upon seeing my face was that he’d heard I’d gotten soaking wet, which had led to a scolding. Garren truly had a way with words.
“I actually have something that I’d like to try out right away, and I need your help,” I’d explained.
“Is that so? In that case, please first listen to what I have to say.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Please listen quietly as this humble butler offers you some candid advice.”
And so, I was in the middle of being lectured.
I need his help to test out my idea. I can handle a little lecturing.
As that thought crossed my mind, Garren fell silent and stared at me with suspicion.
“Um...what’s wrong?” I asked.
“You weren’t listening to me, were you, Sir Reid? In that case, let me start from the beginning...”
Sacrebleu!
Garren’s lecturing continued for a bit longer. By the end, I’d vowed to never let myself get wet in the rain again.
As soon as he was done, I asked him for an important favor. “I’d like a container that has a capacity of exactly one liter!”
Garren looked puzzled, unsure what I’d want the container for, but he quickly returned to his usual countenance. “Very well. I believe we have such a container on the premises. Please wait in your room while we search for it.”
“Okay, thank you. I’ll be there waiting patiently.”
Garren smiled a bit at those words. Perhaps he thought that his speech had gotten through to me. He left to begin looking for the container, and I returned to my chambers, where I began reading while I waited.
After a short time, Garren arrived with a container that could hold exactly one liter’s worth of contents.
“Thank you. This really helps,” I said.
He simply bowed and exited my room.
“All right, let’s do this!”
Fired up, I headed outdoors, where it had stopped raining. Naturally, I picked a spot that allowed me to quickly take shelter if it was to start pouring again. I placed the container by my feet and began performing mana conversion to cast a spell. It was a simple spell that merely produced water. It required the caster to have elemental potential in water magic, but I had potential in every element, so that wasn’t an issue for me.
Once the container was filled, I reflected on the physical sensation of how much mana I had used. I wanted to repeat the process, so I dumped out all the water. This time, I was going to attach a name to the spell, which would help me to conjure a stronger visual of it being cast.
The name of the spell was One Liter. I practiced casting it over and over until I’d completed my spell, which produced exactly one liter of water. Though it might sound simple on paper, producing a specific amount of a substance was surprisingly difficult. It could be neither more nor less than the required amount. I kept practicing so that no matter how many times I cast it, my spell produced exactly one liter.
The sensation of casting it was similar to using a faucet, which didn’t exist in this world. It was like turning on a faucet to dispense water and turning it off right when one liter had been collected. Doing it yourself would surely make this clear, but it was incredibly difficult to do in a single attempt.
“Okay, my spell One Liter is complete. Next, I’m going to cast it ten times.”
I cast my new water spell ten times in a row. After doing so, I tried to focus on sensing how much mana I’d used up. I cast the spell another ten times, then checked to see how much mana was left again. I kept repeating those two steps until I was out of breath.
“I’ve used up quite a lot of mana,” I mumbled. “I think I’m starting to get a sense of my mana capacity.”
It was time to move on to the next step of this process—I was going to quantify the feeling of how much mana I had within me. I worked under the assumption that the amount of mana used to cast One Liter was one unit of mana. I’d been casting the spell ten times in a row, so the amount I’d used each round was ten units of mana.
With that decided, I thought back to the feeling of my mana decreasing. I’d cast the spell 980 times. According to my unit of measurement, my mana capacity was over ninety-eight. Also, the feeling of how much mana was being used each time never changed. That meant that spells likely had a set amount of mana they consumed, and there was some sort of rule to that.
I continued sharpening my focus on this sensation and began constructing it into specialized magic.
Spell Name: Measure Mana
Effect: Quantifying the amount of mana residing within oneself or others who are visible and within a certain range.
Seems awfully simple, but that should probably do it.
I thought back to the number of times I’d cast One Liter, and I focused on the sensation of my mana decreasing each time as I chanted, “Measure Mana.”
At first, it seemed like nothing had happened. But the very next moment, a voice announced a number inside my head.
Self: 80 MP
“Whoa!!! I heard something in my head!!! It said, ‘80 MP,’ right? Let’s try it again! Measure Mana!!!”
Self: 60 MP
“That’s incredible! I heard it again! The voice was clear both times. I think I can consider this spell a success. I guess you never really know if you can do something until you try!”
I’m glad it worked, but it’s a bit unfortunate that it costs 20 MP to cast. That means casting it uses up twenty liters of water’s worth of mana.
I couldn’t actually tell if that was a lot or not. I had plenty more things I wanted to try out, but I was reaching my physical limit.
“I might have worked a little too hard today,” I said with a deep sigh of exhaustion. “I’m at the end of my tether. I’m going back to my room so I can rest...”
Upon arriving at my room, I fell asleep before I could even register it was happening.