Chapter 19 – Let’s learn to fire water blades

25/09/2022PC

I went to my usual spot outside town, and took out the Basic Magic 5th edition textbook and the Animium rings. I hope my block can be removed using these. I quickly turned to the fifth chapter, which was titled ‘Motion’. “Let’s see…. ‘Motion with respect to mana begins with learning revolution. First, try causing the mana to revolve along the Animium rings.'”

I took a ring out of the cloth bag. Since the book said that it is easier to start with the larger rings, I chose the largest of the lot. I knew how to begin thanks to my experience with channelling mana through Animium . I held the ring and tried channelling my mana through it.

“Ngh!” It’s not flowing in one direction. Looked like I’d only been haphazardly channelling my mana to Allison so far. When I tried channelling my mana through the ring, instead of going around in one direction it felt like my mana was flowing in both directions, colliding with itself and blocking its own flow.

I see. Even when I tried to fire it before, it would just collide with itself and disperse because I’m not able to make it properly flow in a particular direction. I nodded to myself in understanding and began practising the proper way to release mana. After practising all day long, I finally felt like I got the knack for it.

If I continuously released my mana, I would get a counterflow no matter what. So I switched to releasing it intermittently. I’d release it in a burst and when the mana came around I would release some more. By doing this over and over, I was able to release mana at a fixed strength.

The book required me to proceed to smaller rings once I was able to do it with the large one. But it was easier said than done. As the ring size decreased, the time I had to release my next burst got shorter and shorter and I would often miss the window. Not to mention, the larger rings were more forgiving if there was a small counterflow, but with the smaller rings the flow would be disrupted greatly or even completely stop. There are seven rings in total, with the smallest being the size of a finger ring. I was still struggling at the third level, with a ring that was as large as a monocle1.

After an entire week of doing this practice, I was finally able to circulate the mana in the finger ring. I was no longer doing it intermittently, but was able to continuously revolve my mana around the ring at high speed. According to the book, after reaching this stage, I need to switch to the rod and ‘release the mana straight ahead at high speed’. Doing that would give impetus to the mana and thus the magic.

To test it out, I took the rod I was given and pointed it downwards. Like how I’d circulated the mana in the ring in only one direction, I released my mana at high speed along the rod. “Alright, Let’s do this!”, psyching myself up I put all my spirit into it. Water fired from the pointed end of the rod, struck the ground and sprayed it all around. I was once again covered in the mud of my own making. Aaaah…. I did it again.

Well of course that would happen. This was supposed to be powerful enough to shoot water blades. To test it properly, this time I pointed it at a boulder nearby and was able to pierce a small hole right through it. Yeesh! I should take care to never fire this at a person. By releasing mana continuously, the water fires as a piercing jet. While releasing it at bursts fires small shells of water.

This by itself could work as a weapon, but what I really wanted was to fire water blades. When I looked at the book, it read, “First, let’s learn to fire our magic forwards without the assistance of the rod.” So, I continued practising that for another day until I got it down pat. This wasn’t that hard, I just needed to bring the mana out like I would for donning an Aura, and then fire that mana by giving it impetus with even more mana.

Similarly, I need to hold a sword and slash. I concentrated mana along the edge of the blade, and at the moment I slashed, I fired it forwards with an explosive release of mana. A curved blade of water flew forward and gouged the ground. “OH! I did it!!”

I was overwhelmed by a surge of emotion. I’d always watched Riley from afar as he fired water blades and yearned that ‘Ah, how nice would it be if I could fire blades of water like that too’. Now finally, finally, I was able to cast it too!! The strength of the water blade is determined by the strength of the sword swing, plus the explosive strength with which the mana is launched. If I combine it with Body Strengthening, it should become a powerful attack.

Anyhow, now I have a way to attack from a distance!!

T/N Notes:

I am not entirely sure of the size here. It’s either as large as a headband or as small as a monocle. The latter is what I went with. Even if it’s a mistake, it doesn’t affect much.