Chapter 22

(A/N: 13.06 I rewrote this chapter just like the last one, and I am finally confident to move forward again)

Slowly Nejime started teaching again, this time completely changing subjects. Instead of interesting and exotic magic from a foreign continent, she instead incorporated what she has been studying recently into her lessons. Teaching about the basics of interacting with Ionia's spirit through magic.

Though mostly fairly basic, many of the more knowledgeable listeners, such as other teachers she has gotten acquainted with, quickly realized many of the finer details and changes she included were incredibly novel. Trying out these changes themselves they learned many things and were quite shocked, that this young girl from a foreign continent was suddenly able to teach them things about their own magic, after studying it for what seemed like a few weeks at most.

So even with the recent swap in subject matter, because the teachers she was acquainted with vouched for her, she was still a fairly popular teacher. Though they were somewhat disappointed to find that she now held fewer lessons than before, still, they understood why, after all, she only started studying this direction for a short while.

Looking at her recent results she knew that her recent success in research wasn't just thanks to her skill. Whether as a partner for discussion and feedback or field testing all of her ideas, Phesto's help sped up her research immensely. She also wondered what would happen if he were to start researching magic himself. Compared to her he was able to pick up new magics almost immediately, add on top of that his odd senses. He could notice the smallest mistakes, adjusting magic on the fly, practically skipping the entire testing phase.

Aside from that, a few days ago a spirit was born in one of the plants in her room. When this happened she asked the other teachers she was friends with about it. Surprisingly enough the others were in fact not that surprised. Though not common a newborn spirit also wasn't rare either, usually seen once a month or so.

Nejime also got a lot of help on how you would go around raising and taking care of a newborn spirit and what the different kinds of spirits were. And generally, spirits could be separated into 2 different categories, conscious and unconscious. At birth, most spirits could not be considered unconscious, but depending on their surroundings they could gain consciousness.

The spirit's growth could be sped up by things such as talking or interacting with the spirit and feeding it magic power. And as long as the flow of magic was not too strongly disturbed the spirit would continue growing.

So with her research, the occasional lesson and now the spirit growing in her room she became much busier than when she first arrived. Thoughts of looking for her mother seemed more and more irrelevant than before.

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At the same time, Phesto became more immersed in smithing and with Nejime urging him also held his own lessons. In the beginning, he was unwilling to hold his own lesson feeling that he did not have enough knowledge of his own to warrant lessons.

But after he started selling what he crafted, people around him, and especially Nejime noticed that he was more than skilled enough to teach. Though he didn't have any forging technique through his understanding and skill in handling metals and the forging flame allowed him to push the crafted products to easily compete with many of the guest smiths from Kashuri.

His lessons were also very popular. The only techniques that Phesto taught were auxiliary techniques used to determine the properties of the materials and fire. Thanks to that many listeners could improve again after being stuck at a crossroads in their smithing techniques.

And Phesto enjoyed these lessons a lot as well, especially when listeners asked question and had problems with their smithing techniques. In these scenarios Phesto had the chance to learn new techniques altogether, speeding up his progress in creating a technique for himself. The more he taught and the more people presented their problems to him, the more he was able to improve his own skill.

But he was a bit lost. He had fun, a lot of fun. He was improving his skills, had no need for money and he was with Nejime. But he also knew the future of this world, the potential dangers that would be born if the future continued as in the canon timeline and the eventual darkness encroaching on this world.

Looking at Nejime he saw someone trying their best to help or perhaps even save their homeland. She saw the dangers improper usage of magic could have on the land and how forceful magic could scar it and was trying her very best to stop it. But was he trying his best?

No he wasn't, he was taking his time. After all, he didn't feel rushed at all, his homeland was still his old world, but could he even return to it? He has been on this journey without asking himself this question. In fact, except for the beginning of his journey, he hasn't even worried about his life once.

He shouldn't take his time. Reacting to this world was just too dangerous, he had to be strong enough that the world would need to react to him instead. And the first step for that was finally reaching level 100 in his first skill.