*Mostly just an info-dumping chapter, giving information on the many concepts of magic in this world through a book.*
A few months have passed since I found the book, it's called "A Beginner's Guide to Incantations" from the information I gathered around the house.
Hah, I translated it correctly; it was like a small achievement in itself.
Now that I have a book at my disposal, I was able to steadily increase my vocabulary; sometimes I still have to guess the character's meaning.
This country's language overall wasn't actually hard to learn; it was a lot like Japanese without the kanji bullshit, so I was able to pick it up pretty quickly. It only took me like three or four months.
Now that I can better understand the book, I actually found the book pretty interesting. It wasn't what I was used to, I mean, reading off such a thick physical book.
I loved reading in my past life also— but it was just light novels, my hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of thin novels stacked in a messy pile proves that further.
Oh well, it's still reading.
I wonder if the maids and mother think it's weird seeing a child walk around with a huge encyclopedia-like book, almost the same size as the child itself.
What would be their reaction if they found out I understand what I'm reading?
Heh, I would laugh just thinking about their reactions.
I carried the book around the house, and whenever I had free time, I would review the book, reading through it again and again.
I'd say I had gotten a pretty decent grasp on the information it shows. The book was actually really well written. It was easy enough for a total beginner like me to understand the concepts of how everything works; it was pretty much a guide that walks you through the whole process of learning different incantations.
I haven't tried to follow the instructions and do it myself, but it seems simple enough, at least the beginner-level incantations seem pretty straightforward.
Let me go through the contents of the book before I continue on.
The book taught me the basic fundamentals of magic in this world, including a little bit of history and the system it runs on.
Magic isn't really magic; it's really a mixture of science and supernatural aspects, one of such is what they call mana, or as I like to call it, MP. It's not the kind of stuff we're used to seeing in anime or light novels where it can basically do anything… No, this stuff is way more down-to-earth.
Magic in this world isn't just flat-out magic and magicians; there are two main systems: first are Incantation users (Gladrs) and second are Sorcery users (Sorcerers). Each system has their own specialties and further subgroups.
In our case, the textbook mainly only goes through incantations, so let's go through that. The system of incantations is split into five different sub-categories: healing, enhancing, fortification, cleansing, and last but not least, offensive.
These sub-categories are simple enough to explain by themselves, so I won't expand much further, but just for the people who don't understand the title fully reflects what the category does.
The way to perform an incantation is, of course, by chanting an incantation; nothing too hard to figure out there, come to think of it, a lot of the things in this world just have the name reflecting the action, ain't it?
The chant gets longer in more complex incantations while being short for some other simple ones. As the textbook says, these chants cannot be avoided; if a person could shorten a chant to one to two short sentences, it's already considered a rare skill, while shortening it to a few words basically makes you a national treasure.
Both systems of magic ultimately tie back to the same thing as a source, and that is something called mana; it's just like what you'd normally see in video games, no real difference there. For incantations specifically, the mana is channeled from inside one's body, whilst for sorceries, they have something resembling a magic wand of sorts, which has a small crystal on the top, allowing them to use magic without as much of a need for mana. Of course, there are still minimum requirements, but it's much less compared to incantations.
Mana reserves are basically determined at birth; there are few who can expand their own mana without receiving some sort of blessing… So some lucky bloodlines would have the crazy mana pools, while unlucky ones can't even use magic if they tried. It isn't like your normal RPG MMO games, where when you level up, you get more magic power; it seems things don't work the same here. It's kind of unfair, but I guess the world has its own laws and rules.
Hopefully, I have at least a decent mana reserve. I can only guess how much I have, as I don't know my real parents.
What if I were the kind of person without any mana, I was uneasy not knowing if I was up to the task of learning magic.
For now, I should start from the easiest first; incantations aren't as easily said than done. The book teaches every chant decently in depth, although it lacks the theory behind it, I could work with just the explanation and chants.
Since incantations are the ones taught in this textbook, I guess I'll just stick to it. If I remember correctly, the chants get longer and harder as the incantations' power progresses. I am starting with the beginner incantations, so I should be fine as long as I don't get too ahead of myself.
There is no leveling up to get more mana in this world, right?
Let's just hope I don't faint after a single cast. Well, anyways, whatever the case, I would give this shot.
I mean, I had to, right? It's a staple for any isekai.
I placed the book on the floor of my room, and I held out my right hand, my left hand firmly placed on top of my right bicep.
I began reciting the words.
"Heave crackling flames, ignite this place and flicker in the dimming darkness, show thy the way forward with your light— Torch."
It was a weird feeling…
There seemed to be something pushing against the center of my palm, the blood in my body seemingly concentrating on the face of my palm, flowing like a spiral rotating around the palm of my right hand.
Once the blood finally reached the center, something pushed through and exited my body.
A small flame flicked in the center of my palm, lukewarm; it wasn't the type of flame to burn anyone.
The feeling wasn't uncomfortable, actually, it was a pretty cool feeling. Hmmm… How do I describe this? It's like the feeling when you hold in piss for a long time and finally go to the toilet.
That relaxing feeling was the best way to describe it, although it's kind of disgusting, hope you weren't eating just now, cuz I know that you just lost your appetite.
I was excited knowing I could cast magic; it was a surprise, I guess it really would be for anyone from the other world.
The flame became hotter and hotter. "Blah!" I yelped as the flame sizzled my hand slightly, the flame flickered for a few more seconds, then extinguished.
Looks like I have to concentrate to maintain the incantation's effect.
Let's try that again— Concentrate…
The feeling of the spiraling blood boiled up inside me once more.
Yep, that's the feeling.
I closed my eyes…
I formed the image of the flickering flame inside my head. Did I do this last time? I questioned myself.
Now that I know how the incantation looks, I should be able to cast it easier, right?
What's this warmth I'm feeling?
It's pushing against my palm?
I'm pretty sure I didn't chant yet…
I opened a slit in my left eye.
Huh?
The flame is already there?
In my moment of shock, the flame quickly extinguished.
Was that normal? I thought, looking down at my hands in awe.
I was pretty sure the book said using incantations without chants is basically impossible for your average person, it's legit right there in the name.
Was it really that easy? All I have done is focus on the image of the cast I tried to create. If it was really that easy, why don't all the gladrs in this world do that?
I was a complete beginner, I had never even tried to use magic before now, and I of all the people in the world, had just pulled off a feat that even the textbook says is an extremely rare ability.
No, not even rare, this is beyond rare, casting an incantation without the use of words. At this point, I began to wonder if I'm even doing it correctly. There's no way some average joe like me got a national treasure class ability, there's just no way, right?
I mean, it really wasn't hard at all. I simply focused my mind on creating an image of the cast, then I guess the mana just did its job and formed the image into existence. It was basically all I did. Everyone can do that, right?
A bunch of different theories behind it formed in the back of my head; it wasn't like… No. Hmm, maybe the chants are used to push the incantations out?
Uttering the words out loud before, I don't think I had to focus on the imagery at all.
Maybe the chants are used as an activation for the incantations. Kind of like a car where you can use the auto to skip the process of manually shifting the gears.
The final outcome of my theory was that chants can trigger the image without having to put your mind to it, kind of like when you play auto in a gacha game.
There are advantages to using chants if you think about it more, there isn't no reason to use them. Mostly two things come to mind…
First, it would be way easier to use and to explain; instead of chucking in a whole lecture on how to create the image, you can just teach the chants, and the incantation would just form by itself.
Second, magic was mainly used for combat; both incantations and sorceries are designed for fighting, and there isn't much application that it can fill in terms of utility otherwise, at least that was what the book said.
If it was really mainly used in combat, saying chants out loud is simply put, much easier, not having to create an image in your head while thinking about all the other things needed to do to dodge the enemy's attacks. It's much faster to yap a chant in a chain than close your eyes and concentrate fully.
I flipped through the pages of the textbook again. I have read through the pages multiple times, and I have never found anything teaching you how to use incantations without chants. It really wasn't a surprise, in the first few pages it already gave us an answer, casting without incantations is basically impossible, it's one of the rarest skills a gladr could get.
Maybe I had some innate talent for this sort of stuff. I really doubt it, after all, it was something even the creator of the textbook probably can't do.
I tried to be reasonable with myself, but in the end I could only come up with one possible answer…
And it was that I had gotten used to creating images inside my head from all the LNs I read in my past life, and I could also create other 'images' in my head...
Sigh— I'm not proud of this 'achievement'.
"Hahaha. Makes sense if that was why I could do it." I mumbled to myself out loud. After all I wasn't someone who could be viewed as a normal person after all.
Let's lock in now; it's really not the time to get ahead of myself. If I just live in the past and think I'm all high and powerful just because I can cast without chanting, I would be no better than my past self.
I have learned a lesson, right? There's always someone stronger than you, no matter how strong you are; nobody has truly reached the peak. If I get cocky again, I'll probably get beaten up again.
"Gryne, time to restrain yourself," I murmured to myself before taking a deep breath and slapping myself on the cheeks to clear myself.
Yep, let's start over again. I'm still just a beginner, no more than a noob. I was just lucky in getting some rare skill from my genetics, nothing more, nothing less. This is what they call Beginner's luck, isn't it? I gotta keep a level head and focus on learning magic better, instead of thinking I'm some type of genius or something.
"Okay, one more time now," I said out loud, getting my body into the same position as last time. I was feeling slightly more sluggish than before; it wasn't like I couldn't move my body at all, but it just felt heavier, it was like I had weights attached to my joints.
Am I tired, I thought as I continued to try to focus on the task at hand.
No, that can't be right, can it? Do two casts of a beginner-level incantation really drain me that much?
Did I run out of mana—
Thump.
***
That can't be right… The book says mana reserves are basically set at birth, so does that mean… No, no, that doesn't make any sense. If my limit was two casts of a beginner incantation, does that mean I don't have any talent at all?
It seemed like my mana reserves had been too small after all. That really deflated my mood.
Ugh. I groaned and rolled over on the edge of my bed, still completely drained from using up all my mana.
Sigh… I guess I was delusional to think that I was some type of genius who appears every once in a thousand years. Who was I to blame? Of course, I would think I'm the main character from the isekai manga.