Sleep is for the Weak

Scarlet had worked through the entire night, but after two hours of focused [Meditation], she felt rested and ready to go. As her [Meditation] level increased, it became a more effective form of rest and she needed to do less of it in order to maintain a rested mind and body.

She was glad for her choice to train her [Singing] skill, as she felt it had made learning how to vocalize spells easier. And she was now convinced that she was right to have practiced the [Memorization] skill as much as she had. From what she observed in the books, the invocations of spells ranged from 10 to 100,000 spell words long. Meaning a more difficult spell could require her to have memorized an entire hour long chant.

Not that invocation magic was ever going to be useful in combat. Even a 5 second cast time was murder. But for things outside of combat, it was the right balance of mana cost and easy to use.

From what she understood, magic could be divided into Invocation Magic, Invocationless Magic, and Ritual Magic. Invocationless Magic could be cast with a single act, but cost a lot of mana and wasn’t very powerful. Ritual Magic was mana cheap and powerful, but used a lot of expensive spell components and took forever to cast.

Invocation magic was the balancing point between the two, not so cheap mana wise, but not taking as many spell components, not so quick to cast, but still packing a bit of a punch.

As well as being divided by the method of casting, magic was also divided into types based on how they functioned. Though Scarlet didn’t yet understand the differences between [Evocation Magic] and [Conjuration Magic], or how [Enchanting] differed from [Enchanting Magic].

There seemed to be about 9 different types in all, not including [Demon Magic]. Some of these types were subdivided even further into even more skills. She would need to get 5 new skills up to level 25 in order to earn enough EXP to level up to level 20, and get her next Talent Point.

After last night, she thought it was possible to get there in two more days, if she worked hard. She would just need to train [Invocation Magic], [High Speed Invocation] and 3 types of magic skills. It might be a little hard, since the only bonuses she was getting were the bonuses from her Talent Point in [Enchanting], which wouldn’t help her [Invocation] growth. But it didn’t seem impossible. 

But once she got her second Talent Point, she might see yet another period of explosive growth.

She was so excited about it, she didn’t even notice as her new teacher observed her from the opposite side of the breakfast table, along with his rabbit bond.

(Where does she get all that energy?) Thumper said, feeling tired after having observed the girl for most of the night, only to see her humming happily the next morning, even though she had been the one expending stamina to perform spells.

(I have no idea. Her level must be abnormally high for her age. But shouldn’t such a large mana pool cause health concerns for a child?) Will said, believing that Thumper was talking about the girl’s mana.

Normally speaking, people avoided excessive leveling in children before they get their Bond, as without the Bond to absorb excess mana, there could be mana poisoning related illnesses in the child. Will’s best guess was that the girl had somehow managed to gain [Mana Control] in order to expend her surplus mana in order to survive. 

At first, he thought she was just expelling her extra mana on instinct, as no matter what she was doing, she seemed to be pushing small amounts of mana out of her body as fast as she was absorbing it. But on closer inspection, the mana wasn’t just randomly getting expelled. Even as she was eating, she was letting mana leak out and drawing shapes with it in the air.

The mana wasn’t dense enough to be visible to the human eye, but with his [Mana Sense] Will could still see it. Even if he was having a hard time believing it.

Scarlet ate quickly, finishing her meal long before Will himself, and then seemed annoyed that her teacher was taking so long. Through her eyes then moved from Will to Tumper.

Will watched in puzzlement as she shaped a thin ribbon of mana and sent it towards the rabbit, prodding him with it.

Then she did it again. And again. And again.

(What is she doing?) Will asked the rabbit in puzzlement.

(She’s trying to imitate my [Telepathy] skill.) The rabbit replied.

(...Can she do that?)

(Of course not. …At least, it shouldn’t be possible.)

[Telepathy] was his Bond skill, a skill unique to a Bond, not a General Skill, so it should be impossible for someone to learn. But the girl was stubborn, changing the shape, density, wavelength, and diffusion rate of her mana with each attempt in order to try to do with [Mana Control] what Thumper could do naturally.

The rabbit suspected if she knew how to use [Evocation Magic] to change the attribute of her mana, she would be hammering him with every type of that as well, trying to get a message to him.

If she usually behaved like this, it was no wonder her [Mana Control] skill was so high. Was it possible for her to succeed through sheer stubbornness? It shouldn’t be. But was it?

The girl had found a trick for starting to get used to [High Speed Invocation] after just a single night. It was something that usually takes people years of practice before they try to approach. And if she could do that, then he wasn’t willing to believe that anything was impossible.

“Mr. Baker. You might want to finish eating before the young miss explodes.” Judith said, reminding the man to eat.

Noticing that everyone else had already finished, Will rushed to complete his plate.

“We’ll be waiting in the workshop upstairs. I hope you don’t mind having your lessons there as I work. Scarlet feels more comfortable when she knows her mother is nearby.” Maria said, patting the girl’s red hair.

“Not at all. Anything to make you feel at ease is fine.” Will said between bites of pancakes.

Reassured, the mother and daughter pair left the room so that Will could eat without distractions. But after the two had left the room, the maid spoke up.

“A word of warning, Mr. Baker.” Judith said as she was picking up the plates off of the table. “Scarlet may be one of the most intelligent and curious children in the world, but she is also extremely sensitive. She reacts poorly to people touching her. Even though I have known her her entire life, I still have to be gentle when reaching out to her. Please keep that in mind.”

“Of course.” Will said, not really sure what the maid meant.

He could probably arrange his lessons so that he never had to touch the girl. So that shouldn’t be a problem. 

(I wonder. Does that rule only apply to humans?) Thumper said, twitching his ears. (Surely she wouldn’t have a problem with me.)

“Surely not.” Will said, rolling his eyes a little as he finished his food, wondering what kind of surprises the day would bring.

---

 

When Judith led Will and Thumper back to the same work area that Thumper had watched the girl practicing in the night before, they found Maria and Scarlet both hard at work at various clothing related tasks.

Though when they noticed him enter, they stopped what they were doing and Maria picked up Scarlet and carried her to a large table in the center of the room, where paper and inks had been prepared for them.

“Goodmorning, Professor Baker.” Scarlet said with a bow of the head as the man approached. 

“I’m not qualified to be called a Professor. So just call me Will instead.” Will said after a chuckle, wanting to be friendly with the girl.

“Alright.” Scarlet replied with a nod, before looking at him expectantly. 

Though her eyes still had those large shadow’s beneath them, she seemed energetic to the point that Will imagined her as being a big hound with droopy eyes and a tail flopping back and forth behind her.

“Alright. Since you already seem to possess a good level of [Mana Control], we will start you off by learning the different spell words.” Will said as he sat down and started to grab some of the paper when Scarlet spoke up.

“I’ve already memorized them.” Scarlet said simply.

“...You have? All of them?” Will asked in surprise.

“All 200 that were in the book that you gave me, in both their alphabetic and runic forms.” Scarlet confirmed.

“...I see. Would you please demonstrate them for me?” Will asked, pushing a sheet of paper towards the child, along with a bottle of ink and a quill.

While it was only 200 common spell words, Will had fully expected the girl to spend at least a month and a half memorizing all of them. It wasn’t impossible to memorize them all in a single night, but it certainly wasn’t easy to do.

Will spent the next hour watching the girl writing out each and every word from memory, as well as explaining what the words meant. She even seemed to have a grasp on the different stages of spells and which spell words were common for which stages.

The only criticism that Will could give was correcting her pronunciation on two of the words. But considering she had only ever read the words and never heard them spoken, her mastery was incredible. 

“So does this mean that we can move on to learning healing magic?” Scarlet asked.

“You want to learn healing magic?” Will asked.

“Because, using lots of mana is tiring. So I want a way of restoring my stamina, so I don’t have to constantly rest while using it.” Scarlet explained. Despite her apparent energy, she must be very tired from her constant use of mana. It must really be straining her… “That way I’ll be able to train even harder!”

“...Huh?” Alright, so maybe he didn’t understand this child at all. Maria giggled in the background as she worked, having heard her daughter’s declaration.

“So, can I start learning healing magic now?” Scarlet asked again.

“...Most healing magics require the use of life or holy attributed mana. So before you can use healing magic, you first have to level either [Evocation Magic] or [Conjuration Magic] to the point where you can get access to life or holy attributed mana.” Will explained.

“I see. What is the difference between Evocation and Conjuration?” Scarlet asked. “The book said that Evocation changed your mana into attributed mana, while Conjuration exchanged your mana for attributed mana, but those two things sound the same to me.”

“Ah. I guess the book’s definition might not be very clear.” Will admitted, pushing up his glasses as he thought of a response. “[Evocation Magic] works off of transforming your own mana and giving that mana properties of the desired Attributes, while [Conjuration Magic] summons existing mana of those same attributes from elsewhere.”

“I see.” Scarlet said, squinting a little. “I would guess that having to change the mana yourself is more complex and difficult than obtaining it from elsewhere, so it probably requires a higher skill level. So conjuration spells are probably simpler than evocation spells, but there is probably an additional mana cost to summoning the attributed mana. And if you want to use a large spell, you might not even be able to summon mana in large enough quantities, and the exact type of mana you want might not even exist naturally. ...So evocation is probably better for large scale spells, if you have the intelligence score to cover the increased complexity. It requires a higher skill level to get started but in exchange it has a higher skill cap.”

Will blinked as a child who wasn’t even 3 yet gave a pretty good cost-benefit analysis on the subject of using conjuration or evocation for obtaining attributed mana.

“Alright. I’ll learn through [Evocation Magic] then.” Scarlet declared.

“...Are you sure? It will take you a while if you want to learn to create life attributed mana yourself.” Will said nervously.

Strictly speaking, Will couldn’t use healing magic through the [Evocation Magic] route, as his [Evocation Magic] was only at level 10, while it would take a level of 50 or so to learn to properly make life attributed mana, with holy mana being even more challenging. Like most, he fell back on the easier [Conjuration Magic] route to learn just basic healing magic.

“If I don’t start now, then I won’t ever get to the late game.” Scarlet said with a determined nod. “Best to focus on what will be best in the long run.”

“If you are sure.” Will said, wondering how long it would be before she just gave up and went for the easy route. “But before we start to learn magic, I think it would be best, for safety reasons, for you to tell me what exactly your Skill levels are.”

“Ah… Okay.” Scarlet said, not seeming too enthusiastic about the idea. It took her a moment, but then she started to list off her skill levels, and Will nearly choked.

Level 68 in [Mana Control]? Level 56 in [Mana Sense]? Level 55 [Magic Appraisal]?

Will had spent his only talent point in [Mana Sense] eight years ago, and he still only had it at level 72, and with his [Mana Control] only being indirectly helped, they were only about level 35, high enough to start practicing magic, but not as high as this girl’s.

He had spent 8 years training his [Mana Control] skill, but it was lower than a 2 year olds?

“What level are you exactly?” Will said in shock.

“I turned 19 last week.” 

...She was a higher level than him!

Reaching level 17 at his age wasn’t exactly exceptional, only a little above average, but he hadn’t thought that there would be a child that would so easily out strip him.

(Hm… With these skill levels you’ve given, you should still only have a total mana pool around 420, while yours is around 550. So, just how high of a level of [Enchanting] do you have?) Thumper asked with a hum, startling Will.

“You… you noticed.” Scarlet said with a worried shuffle.

(The enchantments you and your mother wear both bare your mana. It’s not hard for me to put two and two together.) Thumper said, sticking his chest out with pride. (While your mother is definitely an expert weaver and can give her clothes many unique properties through her Class and Bond skills, she doesn’t have the [Mana Control] necessary to use [Enchanting], does she?)

It was true that most people never gained the general skill [Mana Control] and just relied on Class and Bond skills to use mana without them having to even know how to sense it. Assuming that Maria was another like this, she couldn’t make enchantments work regardless how well she wove the patterns.

Still, for a child her age to be able to get into [Enchanting]...

(I’m guessing [Enchanting] is where you spent your Talent Point.) Thumper said. Seeing it as the only logical explanation for how someone could have gained levels in something like that so quickly at such a young age.

“Pl… Please don’t tell my father.” Scarlet said in a hushed tone. “If he finds out, then he will force me to make enchantments every day so that he can make money off of me, and I don’t want that.”

Will blinked and glanced towards the girl’s mother who was also looking at him with pleading eyes. “...Alright. Your secret is safe with me.” Will said with a swallow. He had no idea what was going on inside of this family, but he wasn’t about to tell that man anything he didn’t need to about the girls. “For now, let’s get working on learning [Evocation Magic]. We’ll start with a simple ‘Create Aqua’ spell and work our way up from there.”

As he said this, Will pulled out his wand and started his incantation. 5 seconds later, he had a bubble of water floating above the tip of his wand.

“Is that a magic wand!?” Scarlet asked, standing up on the table for the first time as she peered closer at the bit of wood, reaching out to it with both her eyes and her mana. Annoyed that she couldn’t use [Magic Appraisal] without physically touching the item.

“Ah… Yes. Most mages use focuses like this in order to help them gather mana.” Will explained, not sure why the girl was so excited.

“Can you teach me how to make one?” Scarlet asked brightly.

“That… I don’t know how to do that.” Will admitted.

“Oh…” Scarlet said, a little disappointed. “Can you get me a book about it?”

SHE WASN’T GIVING UP!?

“Let’s just focus on the lesson for now, okay?” 

“‘Kay.” Scarlet said before starting to copy the spell words that Will had used, having memorized the short chant after a single hearing, and copying the way he had been controlling his mana. Will almost whimpered when the girl managed to create the small ball of water on her first go. “Alright. What’s next?”

He was starting to think he wasn’t qualified for this job.