Wind
Lawrence covered Wind, a book he must have read dozens, if not hundreds, of times by now.
It was a spellbook he knew so intimately he could almost see it when he closed his eyes.
He had read it again and again during his travels, whenever he found a spare moment, and by now there should have been no part of it left that could trip him up.
Slowly, Lawrence extended both hands in front of him.
In his mind rose the image of free, unbounded wind.
The sight of a sky he’d wandered through in dreams took hold of the boy’s imagination.
“Wind.”
The quiet trigger word completed the spell.
A small breeze answered Lawrence’s call.
A single breath of air. The wind that wrapped around the workshop sent the pages fluttering.
He tried to catch the Wind as it writhed out of control.
The moment his mana took command and the wind yielded to the mage’s will.
Like a ball with all the air let out of it, the Wind vanished without a trace.
Failure again.
As you could see, using Wind itself wasn’t the problem.
But the instant he tried to control it, it scattered like bubbles and disappeared.
At this rate, he couldn’t use Wind at all.
Magic that couldn’t be controlled was nothing but danger.
It inevitably caused harm beyond the caster himself.
And yet he couldn’t tell what he was doing wrong.
He had thought he’d learn quickly, given how clear the image in his mind was.
But when he actually opened the lid, so to speak, he found himself wandering a maze with no exit.
Lawrence sorted through his thoughts.
There was nothing wrong with the process of Wind itself.
His mana flowed out normally.
The spell’s completion was clear enough for anyone to see.
The problem was what came after.
“Wind.”
He recited the trigger word once more.
He reached toward the wind that swirled as it pleased.
As if it had been waiting for him, the Wind slipped between his fingers.
The result didn’t change.
He let out a sigh at the now quiet workshop.
Lawrence sat in a chair and looked out the window.
Though darkness had fallen over the workshop district, lights still burned everywhere.
Were they solving assignments from the magic tower?
Or carrying out personal research?
Or perhaps practicing magic?
He could feel a fervor in every direction, no different from broad daylight.
The haze that had briefly clouded his eyes cleared.
This wasn’t the time to stand still.
Talent was only a starting point. To make that talent shine, he needed effort built up through blood and sweat.
After struggling with Wind, Lawrence cast Water.
There was no problem controlling it.
Shape manipulation was no different, though it took a bit of effort.
Next came Fire.
Then Shadow.
They were all basic spells of the same sort.
Why did these work, while Wind did not?
With his chin resting on one hand, Lawrence suddenly thought of something.
Maybe the problem was that he’d been treating it like the other spells.
Just as no two people were exactly alike from beginning to end.
Even basic spells with the same name could have completely different properties.
In that case, maybe he needed to change his approach.
If the image of wind could be summed up in one word, it was freedom.
Wind that moved freely, never bound to any one place.
By contrast, the image of fire was a wolf running wild.
From beginning to end, if you didn’t hold the leash, you never knew what it might do.
Even Fire, a basic spell, was like that.
If he failed to control it by even a little, soot would be left all over the workshop.
And if anyone else happened to be nearby, it was easy to imagine what might happen.
Clearly, holding the leash was necessary.
And yet, in focusing too much on gripping it tightly, he felt as though he was overlooking something far more important.
Lawrence rose and headed down to the basement.
Something hazy was beginning to come into view.
Just a little more. If he pushed a little farther, it felt like he might be able to grasp it.
Holding the leash was, at its core, for the sake of control.
Then what if, instead of gripping it, he let it go and simply pointed it in a direction?
If he could show it the path it should follow, maybe he wouldn’t need to hold on so tightly at all.
Lawrence cast Fire.
Like Shadow, it was now one of the spells he knew best.
It was also the second spell he had ever learned.
He had relied on it countless times just to heat water for bathing.
For Lawrence, who liked washing up, it was practically indispensable.
Fire spiraled through the basement in accordance with his will.
Its range wasn’t very long.
Its destructive power was laughable compared to Fire Tail.
Against enemies that feared fire, like goblins or Under Wolves, it could still be useful, but against a Forest Spider or an orc, it would be more accurate to say it had almost no effect at all.
He moved the Fire toward the iron bars.
The exposed metal grew red-hot beneath the flame.
With a crackling sound, smoke began to rise.
Lawrence looked around.
Aside from the iron bars and iron door, there was nothing else down here.
His bag had been buried underground.
There was no chance of anything dangerous happening by accident.
Lawrence anticipated what would happen next.
He let go of Fire’s leash.
The instant he did, Fire ran wild as it pleased.
It sprang toward the ceiling, left soot on the floor, and turned, in every sense of the word, into a foal that had broken free of its reins.
He didn’t need to catch it.
He only needed to release the reins and point the way.
The destination was one thing.
The iron bars that had just been marked red.
But Fire ignored Lawrence’s will.
As if determined to do as it pleased, it wandered aimlessly around the space.
The first attempt failed.
He wasn’t discouraged.
You couldn’t expect to be full after the first bite.
If it failed, he would simply repeat it until it succeeded.
Lawrence cast Fire again.
The blaze was the same as ever.
Again it carved out a path on its own terms.
Apparently even letting go of the leash required skill.
He couldn’t simply set it free.
Nor could he point it in whatever direction he felt like.
He needed to make an appealing offer that would catch its interest.
Fire was a fire-aspect spell.
Fire instinctively wanted to burn something.
If it could leave soot behind, it didn’t care whether that was on the ground or on a wall.
So he would guide it.
Something in the basement that could be stained with soot.
The iron bars.
Second. Third.
Fire rejected Lawrence’s offer both times.
Then came the fourth.
This time, Fire began to change.
Was it because, no matter how wildly it ran, it couldn’t get the result it wanted?
The moment the flame showed curiosity toward the bars, it answered with fire.
To his surprise, no soot appeared.
The raging blaze swallowed the iron bars in an instant.
The bars, wrapped in fire, fell away with an unpleasant shriek.
The difference in power was unbelievable.
It was enough to make him wonder whether this was truly the same Fire.
It hadn’t merely stopped at heating the bars red.
Perhaps because the temperature of the flame itself had risen, the bars bent out of shape.
Unable to hide his excitement, Lawrence drove a fist into his palm.
This wasn’t a small success.
His hypothesis about the nature of attributes had been right.
Each spell attribute possessed its own personality and its own traits.
Just like fire did.
And not only the four basic attributes of magic.
Glow and Void surely fell within the same category as well.
It felt as though he had glimpsed a mystery one step higher than before.
A thrill close to ecstasy ran through Lawrence’s body.
Now it was Wind’s turn.
There was no need to grope around blindly just to get a feel for it.
The image of wind he had seen in the landscapes of his dreams was already firm and unwavering.
It was a different starting point from Fire, which he had learned through trial and error.
He didn’t need to hold the leash, only to let it go.
But he mustn’t try to forcibly bind the path of the wind.
What wind sang was the melody of freedom.
The place wind headed toward was a landscape that could not be tied down.
Remember.
The boy knew better than anyone what wind was.
He knew?
Of course.
That was the truth, without a single shred of falsehood.
Do not forget the scenery you experienced in the Spirit World.
Do not forget the dreamscape Veles showed you.
The memory of flying through a sky that should never have been allowed to a human body.
Nothing had been there to stop the boy drifting through the heavens.
Only as the clouds flowed.
Only as the wind flowed.
He had simply been carried along the sea of the sky.
There was no will of his own there.
Even if he wanted to go somewhere.
Even if he wanted to reach a place of his choosing.
Wind could only follow the sky as it moved.
Strangely, there was no discomfort in that.
The boundless sky, stretching on without limit, whispered to him of what true freedom was.
Even if he could not reach it now.
There was no need to resent that.
Because wind could go anywhere, if only it wished.
Freedom was like that.
If you chased it desperately, it would not come to you.
It was the lingering echo that floated into your palm only when you opened your clenched fist.
Ah. I understand now.
So that was it, Veles.
At last, he understood why that dreamscape had been called a gift.
In learning magic, the most important thing was the image in one’s mind.
To see more.
To experience more.
That was what it meant.
What Veles had shown him was an image beyond comparison with anything else.
Magic had no limits.
The laws of the world surpassed the poverty of human imagination, endless and without border.
It wasn’t about binding it.
It wasn’t about locking it away either.
Give wind the freedom it desired, and let it simply flow.
Even if it strayed beyond the range he intended, it did not matter.
That was what wind was.
Just as the wind born of human wishes had one day reached the stars,
so too would wind that had once scattered eventually return, following freedom’s path.
“Wind.”
The rustling breeze gathered and scattered all at once.
The free wind whispered as it flowed where it pleased.
But that did not mean the spell had failed.
Wind did not disappear.
Even as it wandered, the drifting air formed Wind all the same.
This too was freedom.
The wind woven into the laws of the world laughed.
This was magic for handling wind.
A mystery entwined with wind’s own pursuit of freedom.
The Wind visible under the lamplight seemed strangely hazy.
...Tonight, more than usual, he found himself missing Veles.
* * *
Lawrence used the basement as a place to practice magic.
The resistance he had once felt like a matter of prejudice had long since faded.
The fault lay with the mage who had carried out experiments that should never have been performed, not with this basement space, which had been built with care.
As he made active use of it, Lawrence’s magical skill grew noticeably.
Until now, he had been able to study theory,
but there had been few places where he could freely handle actual magic.
No matter which village he entered, there was always nowhere suitable to practice. This basement attached to the workshop swept that worry away in an instant.
No one got hurt, even if he handled magic at full power.
Because practice took place underground, there was no need to worry about noise.
Even the old-school magic that had once made him worry about other people’s eyes could be used here without concern.
Thus, the basement’s purpose was firmly established.
What had replaced the iron bars was a straw dummy he’d bought from a street stall.
Used as a target, the straw dummy turned to ashes five or six times a day and was carried outside to be thrown away.
Once he had grown accustomed to the basic spells, Lawrence moved on to the next stage.
Fire Tail and Shadow Spear, which he usually used in actual combat, were relatively lower on the priority list.
Those two spells could be handled even without the basement.
They were comparatively free from terrain and prying eyes.
In fact, they were the spells he’d used most often during commissions.
In that sense, there was one spell that belonged in the basement.
“Shadow Trap.”
Darkness wove itself into shadow.
It was the decisive spell that had brought down Bodyanoi.
Among the Void spells Lawrence currently possessed, it was the highest-ranked old magic.
As the one taught by the Red-Eyed entity, it occupied a different order from the other old magics. He still wasn’t used to it, and he had hardly ever used it in practice.
To be exact, the problem was that he had nowhere to practice it.
Shadow Trap was a set-type spell.
Unless forcibly activated, the magic remained in place for its full duration.
While traveling by carriage, installing Shadow Trap and then continuing to keep watch over it had been practically impossible.
That didn’t mean he could lay it and leave it behind.
And if he placed it only to break it on the spot and move on, he still left behind the risk of an explosion.
This wasn’t a journey he was making alone.
With companions beside him, Shadow Trap was dangerous.
So Lawrence concentrated on practicing Shadow Trap.
The amount of mana it devoured was no joke, which meant there was a limit to how many times he could train it anyway.
Three times at most.
If he factored in other spells, the limit was really only about twice.
Each time Lawrence finished practicing magic in the basement, he set a Shadow Trap.
Anything used often was bound to become familiar sooner or later.
The first Shadow Trap he set in the basement lasted only thirty minutes. But as time passed, its duration gradually began to increase as well.
And perhaps because he had kept practicing higher-order magic.
By the time a month had passed since he’d begun staying at the workshop, he could use the Shadow Trap he had once been limited to three times no fewer than five times.
In just one month, he had grown by almost a factor of two.
The direction of his effort was steadily bearing fruit.
That gratifying fact made Lawrence happy.