Dragon and Practice
Back then, thanks in no small part to what passed for education from Ha-yan's mother, I had adapted to this society well enough that Ha-yan and I were getting through elementary school without any real trouble.
The one silver lining for Ha-yan's mother, if you could call it that, was that my relationship with her hadn't been all that bad from the day I first met Ha-yan. Of course, at the time I didn't treat anyone as human except Ha-yan and her parents. If you could have seen the way I looked at the other kids—like they were objects on a shelf—that would have told you everything. A few of the parents even whispered that I must be the adopted son of some highborn foreign noble. Not that I noticed. I had no eyes for anyone else, so I stuck even closer to Ha-yan than I do now.
And of course, even then, the same magical aptitude exams for wizards existed just as they do today.
"Uung… this is hard."
Elementary-school Ha-yan had been so round-cheeked, so cute, so pretty and good-natured that I'd wanted to give those cheeks a proper pinch. Entertainment scouts had even come knocking at the house, desperate to sign her. Naturally her mother had driven every last one of them off with a baldness curse.
I hadn't properly awakened my dragon instincts yet, either, so there was no company, no building, and certainly no training center. We practiced magic in a small clearing halfway up a mountain that Ha-yan's mother had sealed off with her own spells. That day, too, after a quick report to her mother, we climbed the mountainside so I could teach Ha-yan.
"How about this spell? For our age, this level should still count as high."
I conjured a perfectly smooth fireball in my palm and held it out to her. Ha-yan, face bright with curiosity, casually wrapped a defensive spell around her finger and poked at the orb on my hand.
"Reeeally? You think this is enough?"
"I looked through one of your mom's magic books at home. Mages our age who can just produce flame are already considered upper tier. This isn't only making fire—it includes refining the fire magic, too. So shouldn't this work?"
"Hehe. Then great! Can you teach me that spell?"
"It's a little complicated, but with your skill you'll manage."
I had never met any mages besides Ha-yan and her parents, but my instincts told me plain enough: at this level, we could chew through every other mage our age. After that, practice went smoothly enough.
"All right. You can make a flame on your palm with magic, right? You seemed pretty good at it last time."
"L-like this?"
Whoosh.
Ha-yan cast the fire spell at once. A vivid orange flame bloomed on her palm—warm to the touch, yet leaving the caster completely unharmed. A textbook magical flame. Then came the next step.
"Now picture that flame as sticky sand. You know—the feeling when we mess around with water and dirt at the playground."
"Ahh. That feeling?"
"Yeah. Imagine that feeling sitting right there on your palm. Then think of shaping it into a round ball."
"Umm… just a second."
Following my instructions, Ha-yan closed her eyes and focused on her palm, working the mana. The flame that had been flickering with the breeze slowly took on a sandy texture, then rounded into a sphere—like some strange orange chemical sealed inside a glass orb. When she opened her eyes, her smile was bright enough to light the whole clearing.
"Like this? Is this right? I did it, didn't I?"
I was a little startled myself.
"Y-you really got it on the first try? This isn't supposed to be an easy spell…"
I'd thought it since we were even younger than elementary school: when it came to mana control, Ha-yan felt like she had already left the human range behind. But maybe she'd gotten a little too happy about it.
"F-focus! The f-flame—it's going weird!"
"E-eaaaaaagh!!"
The moment her concentration slipped, the fire on her hand shot straight up into the sky. I was too startled to catch it, and the ember sailed toward the mountain peak. Dry air and a cool breeze made a perfect collaboration: that single spark became a towering blaze in no time, big enough to land on the nine-o'clock news. Ha-yan and I got scolded by her mother for a very long time after that.
"……Still. You're not going to hold just that one incident against me."
"After that, you had Miss Ha-yan practice sonic magic and shattered every window in the surrounding buildings."
"…That's—"
"I also heard that while practicing multi-casting water and fire magic, you created a raincloud. That one caused a flood in the middle of the night, did it not?"
"Umm…"
"Shall I continue? You claimed to be teaching her practical living magic, then instructed her in growth-acceleration spells. The old practice site on that mountain is now so overgrown you can barely force your way in."
"…Fine. I was wrong, all right?"
Yeah. The reason I always lost arguments with Rhea wasn't because I'd made her too well. It was because my karmic debt was simply too enormous. Before Rhea started joining our practice sessions in earnest, the materials Ha-yan and I had burned through or smashed while training could probably have paid for a whole house. At least once I built this training center, that sort of thing stopped happening—so maybe I should count my blessings.
Unable to answer Rhea properly, I walked inside with my shoulders slumped. The inner chamber was a vast space layered thick with my own mana. Short of the absolute highest-tier spells, nothing in here was going to wreck the building or cause a catastrophe. I had built it carefully myself, after all.
I approached Ha-yan, who was casting various beginner spells with her wand.
"You remember last year's exam content?"
"Of course. They started properly demanding double casting and beyond."
"For us, that stage was already middle-school level."
"Hehe. I'm always grateful to you, Siu."
"Ahem. Anyway."
"…What a spectacle."
Rhea, catching my faint embarrassment, wore an expression of pure disgust beside us. I did my best to ignore it and kept talking to Ha-yan.
"Double casting alone would put you in the upper ranks again this year, but settling for that isn't like us. Right?"
"Mhm! Exactly! Siu's the best!!"
Ha-yan's big eyes sparkled as she stared up at me, full of pure anticipation. I ruffled her hair.
"This time, let's start practicing spatial transfer. The difficulty is pretty high, but once you learn it, nothing's more convenient."
"Spatial transfer? You mean teleportation? Even Mom can't do that spell."
"Your mother's completely specialized in nature-type magic. Spatial magic is her absolute poison. You're not, so you'll be fine."
Ha-yan looked up at me, startled by the unexpected choice. I grinned.
"You think I made you a wand out of part of my own body for no reason?"
"Ah! So from the moment they said we could bring our own equipment—?"
"Obviously. Your mother already knows. Maybe that's why she told me about the exam content so early this time?"
Honestly, she had a better eye for the future than a dragon. Normally she dragged her feet as long as possible before sharing anything about her daughter's exam. This time she'd handed me the details almost immediately. At first I'd figured it was because this was the last underage magic exam before the comprehensive test to become an Adult Mage—but no. She'd been telling me in advance to make the equipment. I didn't keep my foresight running at all times, so I missed details like that. It almost felt like her prophetic sense outstripped a dragon's. Or maybe she just had more years of life under her belt than I did.
Anyway.
"Just carrying that wand will boost your other magical abilities, but I specially treated it to strengthen spatial-transfer magic in particular. When you move mana that way, it should help a lot."
"Mhm! I can already feel it! It's like this little one is guiding me on how to handle the mana!"
"Then shall we try practicing first?"
"Okay!"
Ha-yan immediately unzipped the top of her training outfit, leaving only her sports bra, and turned her bare back toward me. Rhea, who had been quietly listening to our conversation, spoke to me through a mana-voice so Ha-yan wouldn't hear.
"Please be honest with me. You planned this all along—practicing alone with Miss Ha-yan—didn't you?"
"…You keep treating me like some kind of weirdo."
"That brief pause right before you answered. I will take it as a guilty verdict."
"…"
Well. She wasn't exactly wrong. Still—I felt wronged!
Muttering that only to myself, I set my hand on Ha-yan's smooth, clean back. And then I poured my mana into her body, and our magic practice began.