Chapter 002 : Our Own Secrets, Part.1

*Chirp, Chirp, Chirp*

Outside the house, we all gone out after breakfast and bathing ourselves a bit, when sun's gone up a little high. ' *sighs*. It's so depressing that such nice view makes me remember of when I'm dying'

Father Paul is pulling his horse out of the barn, putting the saddles, and he looks at us once more.

Paul : "Take care of the house for me, you all!". Saddling up, he climbs his horse as he readjusts himself on it's back.

*Whips*

He waves at us without looking back, venturing outside until he gets home again.

Paul : "Let's get it on, Matsukaze!"

*Pitter-patter*

With him finally going out of our sight, I got my mind a little knocked off from what he just said. '… After all this time, how come I didn't get to know that it's named Japanese-like?…'

My brother faces me with a magic guide book held and his grinning face up high, seeing as he'll be the one teaching.

Rudeus : "So, up for some magic incantation, Eyn?"

I lift my shoulders, shrugging off his shrewd act.

Me : "Yeah. So, where should we practice?"

He walks ahead of me to where there's a bit of empty space, in which I naturally follow.

Zenith : "Rudy! Just Don't Be Rash With Your Teachings!"

Rudeus : "Ye~s!". He waves back without looking, though he gives me a side-glance.

*Crunches*

He stops walking, and that made me bump his back.

Rudeus : "First, let's start with the fundamentals of Magic, which you already know as Mana".

Not afflicted by my bumping, he hands out the book after turning a few pages down.

Rudeus : "Bear with me, since it's quite long and tedious"

Me : "OK"

He begins to introduce me to the starting pages on learning Magic, starting from Mana.

They reside within our body, and he also has a theory that the further you put the spells into practice, the capacity in which you can hold Mana inside of you expands little by little. He said that it's from experience, when all of us didn't notice that he's secretly learning them. 'Just what more did he hide? Actually, on second thought, was I was born on a genius family?'

Rudeus : "Eyn? Eyn~, you hearing me?". My tutor pokes my nose once a second until I snapped out of my mind.

I put away his hand as I scratch my eyes, which are exhausted from the night thinking the kind of things I could possibly achieve with magic.

Me : "Ah! Yeah, sorry, sorry… Where were we again?"

*Fwip*

Water in the form of a floating ball appears in front of me, as Rudeus golds out his hand for the activation.

Rudeus : "Ways to cast the spells, and I might be incentivized to wet you with this if you doze off again"

*Fwoosh*

With that said, he flew it out to the nearest hay field as the water scatters, and continues the lesson. 'Pretty sure he didn't spell the name out just now, so there's possibly Chantless spell casting I can ask of him to teach me the know-hows off'

Magic casting method was split into two groups of Incantation and Circle Casting.

He begins to tell me of how the latter used to be the only way to cast magic spells… Until someone changed that, and make up for another way to cast magic spells by making the former, seeing that the latter requires a bit of convoluted process just to cast.

The difference in effectiveness is that the former is quicker, with the most basic spells of Fire Ball and Water Ball taking up at least 6 seconds for the slowest time needed, while the latter requiring at least more than a minute And not including the circle you have to either provide in an animal-skin paper or inscribed on whatever kind of medium you want it to be.

*Swooshes and Slashes*

Rudeus : "Boring, isn't it?". He asked me while he's practicing Wind Cutter, an Intermediate-level Attack Magic spell, as loads of grasses at least 3 foots away from us gets to be cut into bits and pieces.

Me : "Not really"

Rudeus : "Hmmph, that so? Well then, let's get to the types of magic"

Next, the divination of magic which is knows as Schools, divided into 3 categories :

— Attack Magic

— Divine Magic

— Summoning Magic

Rudeus : "Continuing, the elements of magic or more known as 'Schools' "

Schools are subcategories of magic of which element we cast, and Rudeus can only tell me so much with him saying that he's not interested in Summoning Magic.

For Attack Magic, they are divided into :

— Fire

— Water

— Wind

— Earth

And for Divine Magic, they are divided into :

— Healing

- Barrier

- Purifier

- Divine Strikes

Me : "Say, why does Divine Strikes gets to be put into Divine Magic category even though it's for attacking?"

Rudeus : "I don't know, but possibly because there's rarely any occasion where we get to encounter spiritual beings and we often meet with people that might attack us. That's my take on it, anyway"

Me : "Oh… OK"

Rudeus : "Next, the placements of magic power level or more, knows as Ranks"

The rankings are divided into 7 categories, each one higher gets to be more complex, exhausting, and destructive after another ;

— Beginner

— Intermediate

— Advanced

— Saint-like

— King-like

— Imperial / Emperor

— Godlike

'I'm honestly baffled on how this world isn't all dust and ashes with the existence of Godlike magic'

*Snap*

He snapped his fingers, checking if I'm all ears.

Rudeus : "So, you understand most of it?". He who is sitting beside me on the grass-filled ground as he rests his left side to my shoulder.

Me : "Yeah, Please Continue"

He pats the book as he begins to show me his rather arrogant side.

Rudeus : "I hope you've cooled your heads, because things will only get more… Wordier from here on out, since they're not really inside the book"

*Flap*

Closing the book down, he tells me of his theories on the 'Settings' that you can change regarding the spells you may want to activate, starting from Size, Speed, Power and so on with numbers of 1s, 5s, 10s and the likes.

Me : "I can't tell the difference"

Rudeus : "Of course not, so let me show you them instead. Water Ball"

*Fwip*

He calls out Water Ball, though now instead of launching it right after, he just keeps it in the air, and I noticed something jarring regarding this.

*Blubuk, blubuk*

Once the size of a soccer ball, now enlarges to the size of a gymnastic ball.

Me : "It's, getting larger!"

Rudeus : "Yeah, by focusing more Mana on the emphasis of Size up to 4 or 5, you can get this"

*FWOOSH~*

He sends it upwards as it pops out, and makes a little rainbow far from us.

Rudeus : "At this point, you know what's what with Speed and Power, right?"

I nod franticly up and down to him, and he gets to show his superior smile yet again.

Rudeus : "OK, now, witness me". He shows both hands open to me just right after.

*Sizzle*

*Swoosh*

Water appears in his right hand as his other one has some kind of pulling Wind floating right out of nowhere, and this confirms one of my suspicions about him.

Me : "Did you just cast them out of nowhere without Chanting?". I put a big emphasis on the last word, pressuring him for an answer.

Rudeus : "Not only that, there's also, This". He puts his hands close to each other, and aim for the sky yet again.

'Poor clouds'

*WHOOSHES*

A little spiraling fire tornado is seen launching itself to the horizon, as it dwindles and vanishes from our sight.

Rudeus : "Combination Magic, though it's too complicated for you as of now so, we'll get to that later.

Now, which Beginner spell do you want to go with first?". He shows me the pages that hold the few spells I can choose.

Since he was the one who told me of focusing on learning Wind Magic to be able to make some name for Archeries and Magic as a whole, I point out to one of them : Wind Slice.

Me : "Weird. I don't see Wind Cutter anywhere, though?"

Rudeus : "It's basically Wind Slice but with more, well, slices. I just thought of putting more Mana to the amount that I can gather in one spot, like a sphere or a cube if you will". He explains to me the things that wasn't included in the book, makes me bewildered and wonder that maybe I am born of a genius family after all.

He squints his eyes as to focus on the spells visible to us.

Rudeus : "Also, this is Intermediate, can't you pick something else? I got nauseated from just making 3 water balls that fall down, and those are Beginner-levels, never mind Intermediate ones"

Me : "… Water Ball it is, then". I pick Water Ball instead of Fire Ball since there are many hazards that Fire can burns , like the hays, woods, and grasses.

Rudeus : "Do you need me to guide you through it? It's not long, but I'm not sure that you-"

Not intending to have myself a handicap, I go on with it since I've memorized them just a little while ago.

As a member of Faceless, we are most often than not are required to be able to memorize more than 20 sentences, able to pick out people's mumbles in the middle of a theater, and a sharp-wit on split-second decision-making and many more.

And one of them just happens to be our brain power from knowing how nucleons coexisted, why oxygen is needed for us to survive, and how to recreate Water from an invisible life force.

I get myself to image the process from vapors turning into droplets.

Me : "Upon your wanted place is the Great Blessing of Water,". Interrupting in between, imaging that very droplet falling onto a water surface like the one I saw once. "… The refreshing little Flow, Here and Now,". And next, how it increases from within as it bubbles up, forming : "Water. Ball"

*Fwip*

A little ball of water floats just inches away from my open palm, and unlike how Rudy told of his experience, it stays afloat just fine.

Rudeus : "… Did you image it yourself?". I turn to face Rudy as he got his eyes widen, like a sign of defeat.

Me : "Yeah, well, how I view it from vapors from dusk sticking to plants, anyway". I put a half-truth talk in it as I describe the imagination I created.

He pats me in the head as he inspects my face, like a doctor does to their patients.

Rudeus : "Alright. So, how do you feel? Don't push yourself if you're feeling heavy or something"

*Growls*

My lower body tells me that it's time to have Lunch in the meantime.

Me : "Yeah, I… I think I'm exhausted"

He twirls up his body as he tries to contain his own laugh from going out loud.

Rudeus : " *chuckles*. Time for Lunch, then! Come On, lets great Mother and Lilia". He walks ahead of me as he waves to me, hands behind his neck and heads up.

Me : " *sighs*. Wait up for me, Brother". I follow him towards the inner house with a bellowing tummy.

Both Mother Zenith and Aunt Lilia awaits for our return, in which we discussed the results of Rudeus' teachings and what kind of future we both set our goals as.

. . .