Astrum Irae

I had already assumed it, but the place I was led to is a tranquil river in the middle of the forest. The river averages to about 15 feet wide and is generally a delicious spot which maintains a truly peaceful atmosphere. No rapids littered the entire observable river, omitting a few shallow spots. The particular spot we've decided to train next to seems to be a waterhole of sorts, and the crystal clear water doesn't allow light to reach the depths of this particular spot. Truly outstanding, would be the average person's first thoughts.

I can see why Gilgamesh chose this great spot to inhabit. There's even a grassy, open area devoid of bushes and trees directly touching the river that's perfect to train anything. This, this is the stuff of the past solely. I've never seen such a beautiful sight bar some photographs in my life. I'm gonna visit here fairly often, no, whenever I get the chance to. Oo, maybe I'll make a retirement home here.

"This spot is wonderful, thank you very much for enlightening me to its existence, Gilgamesh."

He sighs loudly and lays down in the violently green grass and relaxes while observing the river and surrounding countryside. He proceeds to not mind me and closes his eyes. Taking a deep breath through his nose, he forces himself up from clearly a very comfortable spot.

"Yes, I quite enjoy it here. I was raised in the countryside, so being assigned to this forest base was a nice change of pace for me. It's like I'm going back to my roots, you know?"

He realizes his slip of the tongue and immediately panics.

"Oh, no I'm sorry, I misspoke."

I shrug it off casually. After all, he didn't insult me whatsoever since it's all a farce.

"No problem. I completely understand the nostalgia of home. Despite me not remembering mine, it shouldn't make you refrain from expressing your pleasure in being comfortable. That'd just be rude of me."

I flash an honest, good-willed smile to show my sincerity.

"Well, back to the point. Magic is like using the mana in your surroundings as a force to manipulate the elements to your will. However, the work required to move the mana to your every whim is the extremely difficult part."

Well, it's a shame that things got awkward between us, but he's right. I only have about 6 hours to learn how to use magic to a satisfactory level. At least I like Gilgamesh, and I think that he'll be a good teacher.

"Mana, is everywhere. For what the leading magicians can tell, mana is unequally distributed throughout every crevice of the world. Magicians channel that power directly through their body and put their will into it, forcing the mana to do as they wish."

He demonstrates by creating a small flame in his hand. After playing with it for a bit, he chucks the fireball into the river.

I have some questions, but I'll refrain until the end of the lecture.

"Magicians are classified in terms of ability for a few factors. First, their raw ability to allow magic to traverse their bodies. This is what you'd consider natural talent. The more apt someone is for this, the more potential they have as a magician."

That is interesting. The problem here is that my body isn't even from this planet, and then was further messed up by "God". I might not be able to do this at all. Well, no, I'd think that our ol' pal wouldn't leave me hanging like that.

He's so unprofessional, I can't help but like him a bit, huh?

"The reason that more mana equals better is that the more mana you use, the more you can do. Oh, shoot, I forgot something important. The first rule of magic is that it takes half the energy to manipulate something than it does to create it. For example, picking up a huge boulder and throwing it takes half the energy than doing the same thing with a boulder you made yourself. Obviously, it's not perfect- it depends on what exactly you do, but that's the general rule. I forgot to mention it since it's the first thing every magician learns."

I see, so picking up pieces of earth and chucking them is more efficient than creating an array of rocks and shooting them. Almost always, that is.

"I have a question. So, that rule must apply to fire magic too, right? If that's the case then isn't fire magic as a whole rather inefficient?"

I mean, it's not like fire just exists in everyday life. Just now, Gilgamesh had to make a fireball out of thin air.

"That's a good point, but no. Fire doesn't have any substance, so creating it is not nearly as difficult as water and earth."

Since fire is heat energy and the other 3 elements are kinetic energy I guess it balances out nicely.

"Air magic is an outlier, though. Since air is everywhere and air has no substance like fire, it seems like air would be dominant. However, air must receive a supple amount of mana to do any damage so it is just as costly to use as any other school."

That makes sense.

Now that I think about, Gilgamesh hasn't been murmuring or acting shy at all. I suppose he has a passion for magic alongside myself. Merely explaining it has miraculously transformed him into a different person.

Good for you, Gilgamesh.

"The real tricky one is strength. Strength magic was an innovation, and brought the world's norm of magic to what it is now. It was created by applying the concept of the elemental schools to the human body. The creator, the current strongest magician in the country, The Apostle, wanted to increase the physical abilities of magicians while allowing them to still focus on magic. The result was coating the human body in different types of 'magic film' to create different effects."

That's completely different from the other types of magic. Truly innovative if you look at it from the people's point of view prior to strength magic. In fact, God's Apostle could easily go down in history as one of the founding fathers of modern day magic. I'm assuming that even right now various magicians are working on using strength magic's principals to create different types of magic.

"The current spells of strength magic are limited, yet powerful. You can coat your various limbs in magic power to amplify your physical strength or make a sleeve over your muscles to support them to reduce the rate of getting tired. The last one, though, is the true jackpot of all magic. It's a spell to coat your entire body in magic to reduce impact from the outside. It's, from what I heard, the only spell you can use, [Shell]."

Yep, that's what's been established. However, it seems like I also have a buff similar to the second to last magic.

Earlier, I sprinted back and forth for a few minutes at the fort. The result was that my endurance has increased a hundredfold, even though my actual abilities haven't improved whatsoever. My sprinting speed feels like it's identical to that of my previous life. The amount of push-ups I can do in a go, however, is seemingly infinite since every single one feels the same as the first. I still have a hard time doing pull-ups, however, since the first pull up is difficult in the first place. I'm not ashamed, not at all.

I suppose I'll clear it up now.

"Well, actually, from what you've said I also constantly have that second spell in action, too. What's it called?"

Gilgamesh widens his eyes and lets his agape mouth stay for a few seconds before recollecting his wits.

"Well, I'll say that that's a bit unexpected. You can seriously unconsciously keep 2 strength spells running at once?"

Shit, well, if it's that big of a deal I feel guilty and ashamed for keeping the charade up. Well, I've claimed innocence and ignorance so even if the truth is revealed I should be covered.

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Well, the spell is simply called [Endurance]. For future reference, most spells are named extremely simply."

I can see why. No one could get confused about the effects of a spell called endurance after all.

"We've gotten off track here. It's nice to learn and all, but for the results we want all I need to do is learn how to throw a fireball."

"Yes, you're right. So, what I want you to do is imagine the very essence of the earth being drawn into your dominant hand first."

I imagine that I am sucking up power from the earth, and that power is being deposited into my open left hand. I strain my brain for a few minutes while feeling significantly defeated.

"--Alright, stop."

I relax and look back up to Gilgamesh.

"Good job. You weren't focusing on your hand, so you might not have seen it, but the skin on your hand was lightly shining. You successfully supplied magic power to yourself."

Wait, I did it? It certainly didn't feel like I did anything except look like an idiot.

"But, if I was supplying magic to my hand, shouldn't I have felt it?"

Gilgamesh fails to suppress his laughter any longer and starts cracking up.

"I'm sorry, I was just messing with you. If you believed me just now, I'd have poor expectations of you in the future. Yes, you're right, nothing happened. That was just to show you how fickle magic can be."

Well, he's certainly warmed up to me, hasn't he? Ugh, well, at least I never got my hopes up. This was always going to be difficult. I can get through this, I have to.