TalentPlus!: Talent + Effort = Strongest Capture Target!!!

I, I have regrets. To be exact, I have recently done two things that I heavily regret. I can clearly remember what happened last night and I'm pretty sure what I did would scar me for life. If I could, I would go back in time and change the past. It all started after Lime-sensei had dismissed classes.

About an hour after Lime-sensei dismissed classes, he handed me a book and told me to read the first few pages to prepare for the actual class. I skimmed through the pages and found out that it was a book about magic. At that moment, I ran to my room and holed myself in there. The entire time I was inside the room, I did nothing but read through the book. From what I recall, Lime-sensei told me to read and understand the first 5 pages of the book since it contained the basic introduction to magic. I already knew about most of the information except for the part about casting and magic formulas.

 According to the book, each unique spell has its own unique chants and formulas. To cast a spell, one must know the formula for the spell and must also have enough mana that is required for the spell. There are two ways to cast a spell. Chanting and chantless casting. Casting a spell by chanting is the most common way to cast a spell since it's way easier to do. This is because of how a spell's formula is structured. A spell formula is actually made out of characters and words from a language of unknown origins that basically dictates the spell that you are going to cast. Nobody knows the origins of these characters, but using this ancient language just so happens to control our mana to form spells.

As for chantless casting, it is less common than casting with chants due to its difficulty. For starters, you yourself have to control your mana by yourself without any help from the ancient language. Only a small amount of people can use chantless casting but it also has its own advantages. First of all, with enough practice, chantless casting can cast spells at a faster rate compared to normal casting. Second of all, it is possible to multicast. This is impossible with normal casting since it's not possible to say two different things at the same time. And lastly, it completely erases the need for any vocal action. This might sound obvious, but it also means that it is not affected by all of the disadvantages of normal casting. This includes silencing magic, being in an environment without air, having your vocal cords crushed or disabled, etc.

Anyways, my inner chuunibyou came out and I suddenly felt the urge to try out one of the spells, specifically a fire element spell. After memorizing the spell(which took me about a minute), I decided to try it out while saying a really chuunibyou line. What I didn't know back then that the phrase "Imagination is the fuel of magic" applied to this world as well.

"My right hand...IS BURNING!!! AHHHHHHHH HOLY SHIIIIT IT BUUUUURNS!!! PUT IT OOOUUUUT!!!" (Riel)

I quickly stormed out of my room and began shouting for help.

"Riel! What happened!" (Mom)

"PUT IT OUT!!!" (Riel)

She then attempted to put the fire out but to no avail.

"Riel! What's going on? Don't tell me, you used high-grade magic?" (Lime)

"HOW DO I PUT THIS OUT!!! HEEEEEELLLLLPPPPP!!!" (Riel)

"Ah, umm, ok. Riel, listen to me. The only one who can stop the fire is you. Just concentrate and focus. Just imagine that the fire is disappearing." (Lime)

As soon as Lime-sensei told me to do that, I tried to ignore the burning sensation and followed his instructions. After I did that, the flames started to disappear. He then took a potion from his pocket and poured it on my right hand. After he poured the potion, all of the burns disappeared and my hand became normal again.

"Riel, next time, you shouldn't attempt to use high-grade magic without supervision." (Lime)

"B-but I didn't. All I did was cast the fire spell on page 8." (Riel)

"I-impossible! The strength of the flames was clearly declared in the formula so it couldn't possibly have resulted in such a flame unless..." (Lime)

"Unless?" (Mom)

"Mwahahaha!!! It all makes sense now!!! Mwahah—er sorry for that. Anyways, don't blame Riel for this. It isn't his fault. As for what caused this, I will tell you the answer during tomorrow's class. I'm not a hundred percent sure so I need to think about it even more. For the time being, you shouldn't be practicing magic without supervision." (Lime)

"Ok." (Riel)

I then went to my room and just laid on the bed while staring blankly at the ceiling. I don't think I want to ever experience that ever again. 

The other regret I have is something that I didn't know existed. From what I remember, it was a series of events that had slowly piled up and resulted in something happening to me. I wish I knew in advance that whatever I was doing would end up with this result. the worst problem is, I just kept on making it worse every single time.

It was the day after I had "burned" my hands. After laying down on my bed last night, I did nothing but stare blankly at the ceiling. It was then that I realized that I had developed a trauma. In my past life, I've heard about people suffering from traumas and overcoming them since those kinds of stories was pretty common in the news, television, internet, etc. But I had never experienced those sorts of things as my life was relatively peaceful so it's kind of funny that in my second life, I have finally experienced the action of confronting my greatest fears.

 "Have you ever heard of the phrase 'Imagination is the fuel of magic'?" (Lime)

"Yes." (Riel)

"As much as it is a saying whose purpose is to inspire people, it can also be taken in a literal sense. From what I've understood, you must have been thinking about a strong flame while you cast the spell, am I wrong?" (Lime)

"No, you aren't." (Riel)

"Something like thinking about a strong flame or a whirlwind while casting magic for the first time is very common to those youngsters who have fantasies about magic, but what isn't common is what happened to you." (Lime)

"How so?" (Riel)

"Well, normally children like you who fantasized about such things tend to either be disappointed with the actual result or excited from the prospect of being able to do such things in the future. In your case, however, the actual result was affected by the image you had in your head at the time of casting it." (Lime)

"So, are you saying is that my magic is unstable since it gets affected by my emotions?" (Riel)

"No. What I'm saying is that you're a prodigy for being able to affect the output using mere images. It is a talent that can't be seen in multiple lifetimes. The main problem is that you're basically skipping a few steps. Under normal cases, one must be able to use chantless casting before being able to do what you did. This is because chantless casting requires you to understand how mana works. So instead of teaching you the conventional way by starting off with normal casting, we're gonna start with chantless casting. This is possible since normal casting is less of a prerequisite for chantless casting and more of an easier method since they have very different basic principles." (Lime)

"But how are you going to teach me chantless casting when you can't even use magic?" (Riel)

"You are sorely mistaken. The hard part about chantless magic isn't the controlling part, but the calculations. What really makes chantless magic hard is the fact that you have to constantly make calculations in your head to find out how exactly you're going to use and control your mana. So before we start with magic training, we are going to be learning mathematics. High-order mathematics." (Lime)

"But I still haven't reached that level yet. Won't it take a long time?" (Riel)

"Fufufu, we have a loooooong amount of time to spend. Please take care of me for the next few years." (Lime)

"N-nooooooooooo!!!" (Riel)

And thus started my second personal hell(Math).