The three of us all closed our eyes and tried to do as the book instructed.
I concentrated hard on picturing water flowing throughout my entire body, but I couldn’t even manage to get that part right. I didn’t feel even a trace of mana. I just felt myself getting drowsy.
I threw in the towel pretty quickly, but when I opened my eyes, I saw Hester with some misty haze surrounding her.
“Hey, Hester! Are you okay?”
“Huh...? Whoa! What the hell is that?!”
“I’m okay. I think it’s just mana,” Hester replied. Then, with a giggle, she added, “I think I’m getting the hang of this!”
Her eyes were still closed as the mist continued to envelop her body. Then it began flowing, rotating around her at varying speeds.
How did she figure out how to do that from just that short little paragraph? I wondered.
I knew how hard it was firsthand—because I’d just tried it too. Seeing Hester master it so easily really drove home what a talent she had for magic.
“Just be careful not to push yourself too hard,” I said.
“I think I’ll be okay. I’m pretty sure I’m just manipulating the flow of my mana right now, so I don’t think I’m doing anything too crazy.”
“W-Well, you don’t look okay to me! That weird fog just keeps getting thicker and thicker!”
“I’ll stop for a minute,” Hester said, and as the words left her mouth, the fog quickly began to dissipate.
Whatever she’d been doing probably didn’t qualify just yet as “magic,” per se, but I felt like watching it had given me a whole new appreciation for just how incredible magic was. It was like I’d gotten a glimpse into a completely unknown world.
“Whew...”
“Well? How do you feel, Hester?”
“I think I’ve got the basics now. It’s pretty late, so I think I’ll pick this up again tomorrow.”
“Glad to hear it. No wonder you were given a mage blessing at the ceremony.”
“Thank you, Chris. Can I ask for your help reading the grimoire again tomorrow?”
“Of course. I know you’re probably not ready yet to start reading it on your own,” I said.
“Thank you.”
And just like that, Hester was off to a running start in learning magic. Her talent was clearly bursting to be explored.
If she kept on improving at this rate, then she would probably be a proper mage much earlier than I’d been expecting.
It was Hester who was growing stronger, not me, but I couldn’t help but feel excited for her that night as I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, I decided to shake things up a bit. Instead of going cowbird hunting, I thought I’d do a little shopping and stop by the church for my monthly ability assessment. Then, in the afternoon, I’d help Hester study magic.
It seemed like it’d be the perfect way to have a rest day.
I was also eager to see what the plants I’d gathered during that last trip to Patia Forest were capable of...
Since I’d eaten a number of poisonous plants during that trip, I expected that both my HP and vitality had probably gone up by about four points, and that my overall stats had increased substantially.
Plus, in the last month since returning from the forest, I’d finished off all of the preserved ghost grass and speckled shroom samples I’d brought back with me.
Since I hadn’t taken any hits from the stray cowbirds I’d been hunting, I had no sense of what impact they might have had, but I was looking forward to finding out.
I was also looking forward to finally eating the new preserved species samples I’d been carefully storing all this time and finding out what they were capable of.
I’d start by making a trip to see what effect the ghost grass and speckled shrooms had had. Then, I wanted to come back to the hotel and eat all the new plant samples before making another trip to the church to see if any of them had performance-enhancing properties.
There was just one hitch in my plan: I could only eat so many wafers in one day. Without unlimited use of my secret weapon, I knew it would be difficult to down all of the plants all at once.
In any case, I decided to take care of my shopping until the church opened. But instead of heading toward the backstreets, this time, I headed toward the main street.
On my shopping list today was a new sword and some new armor.
I took good care of my sword, but since it had come from the bargain shelf (and I’d been using it to carve up monster corpses), it had dulled pretty quickly.
I’d kept using it for everything anyway, but I knew it was probably time for a replacement.
As for my armor, well... It was thoroughly bloodstained at this point. I needed to get a new set if I wanted people to stop looking at me funny.
Leather armor was generally reasonably priced, so fortunately, I should be able to replace it pretty easily.
The real problem was my sword...
I’d been mulling it over for days trying to figure out what caliber of sword I should buy this time around.
It was kind of nice to be able to use a sword from the bargain shelf all the time without being too precious about it, so I’d been thinking about picking up another one. But I also kind of felt like it might actually be more economical in the long term to buy a nicer sword and take better care of it.