Level Eater

From the book, Tatsurou learnt how to ‘nurture’ his creations to a higher level and even the method on how to create those higher-level existences without the need to make them grow from a lower stage. Equipped with the knowledge, he called out to the other two in the room.

“Ai, can I have Cardina for a moment?”

“Sure!” Ai replied, holding the birdling up to her face. A moment later, she passed the chick over to Tatsurou with outstretched hands.

The little birdling, as if it was a puppet in the hands of a ventriloquist, tilted its head and chirped as the events unfolded.

Seeing the interaction between them, Tatsurou cracked a smile.

“What are you gonna do?” Ai asked.

“I’m gonna let it fly.”

“Oh, right! It can fly.”

“Well, not while it’s still like this…”

They both turned their gazes towards Cardina. The birdling, on the other hand, simply followed the order it was given and leapt onto Tatsurou’s hand. 

While it was true that it was not able to fly with its wings now, Cardina closely resembles the hawks and eagles back on Earth so saying that it should not be able to fly would be a lie.

Realising that, Tatsurou concluded that the main reason why it couldn’t fly was because his Dark Magic was at Lvl 1 when he brought it into existence.

“So, I wanted to try it now, but…”

“But?”

“I don’t know if it’ll work if I do it like before, so… Will you help me?”

“So you want to dope using the title?”

Nodding his head, Tatsurou continued on, “This magic needs precise control over mana. That’s why I’d like to do it while my mana control stat is at its highest.”

“You got it! Fusion!”

With Tatsurou sitting cross-legged on the floor, Ai sat right behind him, placing him between her legs as she leaned her body on his.[1]

Feeling her weight on his back, Tatsurou could easily imagine what was touching him. Calming his heartbeats down with Life magic, he then started to work on Cardina’s growth program.

According to the book, the way to do so was something close to removing the ‘soul’ from the old body and transferring it to a new one.

Hence, the first thing on his to-do list was to create a new vessel for Cardina.

With him being Ai-doped this time, he instantly began to gather Light and Darkness magic at Lv 4 and mixed them together. Next, he followed the same procedures which he did before.

“Done!”

“It’s a lot faster than yesterday, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” 

It was exactly as Tatsurou thought— weaving the threads of light and dark-attributed mana together was much easier as when his magic was only at level one. This time, the sphere of magic that he made was also much larger. 

If only I didn’t try to show off and did this from the start… 

While feeling a slight bit of regret, Tatsurou carried on with the process.

“Cardina, now, I’ll be taking you to your new body,” he said.

As if it understood the meaning behind his words, the birdling released a loud tweet, jumping towards the sphere of mana in his hands.

Surprised, Ai raised her voice for a moment but calmed down after hearing Tatsurou say, “Don’t worry.”

Feeling Cardina’s ‘soul’ imprinted all over the Lvl 1 vessel, Tatsurou carefully pulled it out of its current body and transferred it over to the sphere of magic. Once it was in place, the ‘soul’ started to spread throughout the entire sphere.

Not long after, he confirmed that Cardina’s soul had successfully been transferred.

From here on, Tatsurou wanted to replace the Information Magic embedded within it. Erasing the trace of his previous work, he implanted Information Magic Lvl 3 in. Seeing that the sphere was on the verge of collapsing due to the different mana mixed into it, he ordered Cardina to take form and end the process.

In response, the sphere gradually took the shape of a bird and which let out a high-pitched shriek.

“Whoa! Looking mightier now, aren’t we?” Ai, who was peeking over Tatsurou’s shoulders, said as she saw Cardina’s new form.

Tatsurou thought the same too. The once-little birdling has now grown to about 30 centimetres tall with part of its head colored white, contrasting its pure black body. As it absentmindedly made a small flap of its wings, anyone would agreed that it was now a magnificent bird of prey. However, the one characteristic that did not change were its round adorable eyes.

“Cardina, can you try flying now?” Tatsurou asked, to which the bird cocked its head to the side in response.

“Doesn’t look like it can understand you, does it?” Ai commented.

“Hmm… Has its intelligence not reached that level yet?”

“It’s pretty normal considering that it’s only a day old. Let me try,” she said.

Moving closer, Ai gently grasped Cardina’s wings and slowly moved it up and down, mimicking flight. 

“Cardina-chan! Try moving this part like this.”

Thinking of it as play, Cardina jumped up and down, fluttering his wings as they moved through the air. Ai continued to guide his wings until he started to repeat the same action. 

“OH!” “IT’S FLYING!!” the two clapped their hands. Seeing them elated, Cardina made a joyful whistle as it deftly maneuvered around the small room.

“Now we can let it fly even if we had to fight,” Tatsurou said.

“But isn’t that too dangerous?”

“When an existence made with mana dies, it won’t truly die as long as it isn’t completely cut off from its mana source, so it’d be fine,” he explained. “Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll make it do suicide attacks but I at least want it to help us whenever we need it.”

“I see. By the way, this look… it’s not that it isn’t cute, but it’s a bit sad that it lost its loli-looking body,” Ai said.[2]

What do you mean, loli-body? Tatsurou thought to himself, but somehow, he understood what she meant.

However, all that matters was that Cardina was able to fly now. After experimenting with its newfound power, Cardina landed in front of Tatsurou.

Holding out his right hand, Tatsurou stroked its head and after seeing Ai poke her head out from the side, Tatsurou did the same with his left hand. While doing so, Tatsurou used mana transmission to tell it to change its shape.  

Once Cardina received the order, it gradually shrank back to its former ‘loli-body’ form (courtesy of Ai).

“It’s back! It can do this too?!” Surprised, Ai asked.

“Yeah. It can’t totally change into something else but just this much is doable.”

For context, his earlier ‘transmission’ was not an order. It was something akin to a way of communication for a creature made of mana. 

And as if nothing happened at all, Cardina continued to act like a child in front of the two.

Once Ai got her fill of loli-Cardina, it changed back into its adult form and experimented on a few things with its creator.

While watching the two of them, Ai suddenly got curious. “Information magic can cancel other magic out right? Doesn’t that mean that it’s the strongest attribute?”

“Doesn’t seem like it, no.”

“And why is that?”

“Hmm… Information magic can only completely cancel out the null-attribute type magic that monsters use and the magic which has an opposite wavelength of it – Fire Magic.”

“I get the null-magic of monsters part, but… what’s with the opposite wave stuff?”

As she had already experienced it first-hand, Ai understood that the null-attribute type magic that monsters used could not be classified into any of the known attributes. However, as she was hearing the other one for the first time, Ai could only tilt her head in confusion.

“You know that the colors you see right now are due to the different wavelengths of light being reflected by the things around you right?”

“Oh… is it?”

“Well, yeah… So, back to the topic, the magic in this world is something similar to that,” he explained. “Even if I don’t have an image of what I want to do, as long as I can make the mana vibrate in a certain wavelength, it will turn into the magic of that certain attribute.”

“So each attribute has its own specific wavelength?”

“Yep. And there’s mirror attributes too, those with the same wavelength but with a reversed direction,” Tatsurou said as he took out a pen and paper from his item box.

Writing down each day of the week in this world, he labelled them with their corresponding attribute.

Ai watched as he tore the paper, leaving only the part which he wrote down the list of all twelve attributes.

Darkness, Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Wood, Lightning, Ice, Life, Curse, Information, Light [3]

“This is… the order of the weekdays, isn’t it?”

“Yep. And now, if you do this, you’ll be able to instantly see which attribute is the mirror of what,” Tatsurou said as he tore the paper right between the wood and lightning attributes. Turning one of the sheets upside-down, he put them next to each other again to show Ai this:

Darkness, Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Wood

Light, Information, Curse, Life, Ice, Lightning

“OH! Fire is right above Information. Does that mean that the top and bottom parts of this table are opposites?”

“Yeah. If two opposing attributes with the same amount of mana collide, they’ll just cancel each other out. Well, light and darkness would cancel each other out regardless of the situation.” After a short pause, he then continued, “So, apart from those two, to deliberately cause magic cancellation, you’ll need to first perfectly measure the wavelength of the enemy’s magic using the Information attribute. Then, using that, perform magic that has the exact opposite wavelength and aim it at the enemy’s magic.”

“So… in short, it’s not something that’s easy to do right?”

Just as Tatsurou was about to conclude his explanation, summarising the concept of magic cancellation in one sentence made his heart stop for a moment.

“Yeah… so it has to be low-ranked magic or it’d be impossible to do. And if the enemy’s magic changed by even a little bit, you’ll have to start the analysis again from the top so it won’t be useful in PVP.”[A]

“So it’s okay against monsters?”

“Yep. They don’t really have much intelligence, so they’re limited to using their skills. So, if I memorise the wavelengths of their magic, we should be able to make countermeasures.”

“Right…”

In her mind, Ai simply categorized it like this: using it against humans would be hard; using it against monsters is possible if they’ve already fought it once.

“So you plan on making Cardina-chan do the analysis?”

“Yep. That and it’ll be our eyes in the sky using search magic. That way, we can focus on fighting. Good plan, right?”

“It is! But I wonder… if it’s this good in theory, why doesn’t everyone just learn light and darkness magic to make their own familiars?”

“That’s… because it’s difficult? It takes a large amount of SP and normal people will… huh?”

“What?”

Tatsurou’s face stiffened as he realised something that he should have ages ago. “Then… the guy who wrote this book… was able to do it too, right?”

“Oh…” Ai also took note.

There was no room for ambiguities in the book. 

Everything was explained clearly.

It was written after numerous experiments, stating the most efficient actions.

It even had details for each and every attribute.

“You’re telling me that there’s someone else like me in this world, with an ability to earn SP in a different way?” Tatsurou threw the question out.

“Looks like it. It doesn’t look like it’s widespread and it doesn’t seem like just anyone could do it so you don’t have to worry that much.”

“Well, no, it’s not just that.”

“Eh?”

Opening the book, Tatsurou showed her the foreword.

To you, who are reading this right now. 

To you, who perhaps have been played by fate, I offer my aid through this book. 

May it help you turn your life around.

How you use this power is up to you. 

Use it however you deem fit.

Still confused at the situation, Ai tilted her head.

Seeing her do so, Tatsurou told her about the possibility in his mind. “Whoever wrote this said ‘you, who perhaps have been played by fate.’ Just from these words alone, you could imply that the author also had a similar experience, right?”

“Hmm? So?”

“What if this person is the same as us? What if they’re from another world as well?”

“Are they? That’s quite a bold assumption, you know?”

“Eh? Ah… But then… Well, I guess so. Now that you say it, I might have been a bit too jumpy.”

“See?”

It might have just been him jumping to conclusions after reading it through colored lenses.

However, the seed has already been planted in his heart, never to be forgotten.

The seed that the book’s author could possibly be someone like them.

ED Notes: 

[A] Player versus Player combat

TL Notes:

[1] Something like this: [Link]

[2] Oh no… Oh no… Oh no no no no no

[3] 樹 – Wood, which I previously translated as Nature. Also, a reminder that this world has 12 days per week.

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