Chapter 4: Learning Curves

About five(?) months have passed since that time with my father. Just about every day since he's tried to teach me more and more.

That being said, there's not much he can teach me outside of having me copy whatever he does. I'd prefer to learn maybe some theory, or a way to make my own spells, but I guess this is way better than being permanently bored in a small room. 

From what I know, based on my mother's and father's conversations, every single person has a maximum amount of magical energy also known as mana. I can't quite make out some words, so my guess of a pure English and German mix seems to be wrong, but there seems to be a way to steadily increase it. Jin and Mary also do something, weird every two or so days. 

What, I like people watching okay?

One day, Jin will walk outside and stand there for around thirty minutes, and come in sweaty and tired. Psychic magic? Mental training? Invisible monsters? Trivago? No idea, but it seems to be a pretty regular habit for both of them. Based on their conversations afterward, I might have stumbled into something interesting.

As a person expends more mana, both their body and mind will be continually strained, resulting in anything from slight headaches to passing out entirely. With my best guess, Jin and Mary are stepping outside and practicing some kind of invisible magic, kinda like someone working out at home to stay in shape. 

In my current body, even with the four months of growth, I can at most use mana twice before either passing out or being extremely fatigued.  I hesitate now to use the term "spells" no matter how much I want to, due to the fact I have no idea how or why anything I am doing activates or how to control it.

That being said, I'm definitely blessed to have these guys as my parents in my new life. I highly doubt I would have learned this much this fast without them stumbling through being parents. On that note, I've learned of two other branches of magic, Illusory magic, and Barrier magic.

Barrier magic is self-explanatory, it can generate a small barrier of pure mana. The more mana you put into a barrier, the stronger it seems to be. I really like this one, seems pretty draining to use though. I've seen Jin do strange things with barrier magic, that I can assume I'll learn once I can actually cast and learn more about magic.

Illusion magic seems to be extremely difficult. All I've been able to conjure, even with a five-step spell made by Jin, is a small image of a red square. I'm assuming once I understand the concepts behind the magic, I'll be able to get a better grasp of it, hence my desperate want to test and learn the theories behind this stuff. What I'm doing right now feels like I'm just mixing shit in a beaker, not doing any real science.

Under both my mother's and my father's guidance, I've been able to cast the absolute bare minimum of each branch I know. Apparently, there are two other branches of magic that they flat-out refuse to tell me or teach me about. Known as light and enhancement magic, knowledge courtesy of an argument between Jin and Mary over if they could teach me it or not. 

I'm getting another itch, but I can subside it with this for now. I mean, I'm technically stealing magic info, since I shouldn't be able to understand them right? I'll cope with that for now, plus the fact I'm still a baby. 

Barrier magic seems to be what I'm absolutely best at when it comes to magic, followed by Wind. I don't know whether it's confirmation bias with the Barrier one, but I can assume Wind is up there since it was the first spell I ever learned. Either way, I've found the most success with those two, by which I mean I've found zero success with the rest.

With barrier and wind magic, I've been able to generate brand new spells! Although a small achievement, I've been able to slightly round the edges of my barriers with my barrier magic, that alone was difficult and pretty draining, which gives likely hood to the confirmation bias idea. 

The process is very simple, instead of picturing the square barrier, I focus on having the image in my mind of a circular barrier instead, I then cast the "spell" my father taught me.

I draw a box shape with my hand, then thrust my arm through it. I then open my fist and focus on sending the mana within my body out. Then, the barrier with curved corners appears! Not the circular barrier I hoped for, but it was a start. Afterward, however, I nearly always pass out.

After passing out from using all my mana, I usually wake up in what feels and seems to be about twenty or so minutes.

With wind magic, I've made what feels like significantly more progress. Instead of focusing on throwing it out of my palm, I try and force the mana to expel from my back. At first, this caused me to fall flat on my face, as a force was pushed on my back, but soon I was able to spread it out, basically giving me a small shove across my entire backside. Right now it's kinda fun moving the push around to different parts of my body, but that's about it. 

Another cool idea is limited by age and mana capacity I'm afraid since after about one good push I faint. 

You are reading story Reborn! A Thief’s Greed at novel35.com

After waking up from my fourth mana-nap of the day, I was rudely awoken by the sound of my door opening, and my mother grinning down at me. "Wake up sleepy head! It's time for dinner!" She said as she picked me up and brought me into the kitchen.

Our house had slowly increased in quality over time, as over the months both my mother and father would go off on different quests. I did learn some interesting news, that Jin and Mary are only twenty-two and twenty-three respectively, getting married about two years ago. 

As they went on more and more quests, they fell in love and decided to settle down. It was obvious they were slowly improving the house, getting more furniture, getting some of the red crystals to heat the house in these colder months, etc. A small family slowly building up a nice house in the decently secluded forest.

It appears the quest system in this world operated as it did in many fantasy settings, with different adventurers being able to take on quests of their respective or lower rank. My parents individually have never taken a quest rated higher than "B-Rank", which means absolutely nothing to me. They've never said their own ranks out loud, and even if they did, without a baseline, the words are meaningless.

I am curious about the ranks and ranking system, but like all things, I have to bide my time. Considering this whole operation as some sort of deep cover is how I keep sane. I haven't been forced to stay in one place for more than a year since I was a kid, so it's kinda wearing on me.

After spending my whole life learning skills, always moving and having fun, just to die in some asshole's basement over a magic rock, do you think I'm not gonna become an adventurer and put my skills to the test? I just hope this isn't the normal life of adventurers, or I may have to find a more fun area of work.

I mean, I probably blow most people out of the water with just my knowledge in my old field of work in this world anyway, it should be easy to find work once I get my feet under me.  Imagine the contracts and contacts I could get! In a magic world, imagine the shit I could steal, sell, and buy, all the people I could meet, and the money!

Oh god the money and luxury I could live in if I used my wonderful skills in the world, whether artist or adventurer!

I mean, I already have my childhood dream of magic fulfilled, now I can travel across the world, killing and stealing and looting? And be allowed and encouraged to do this through a quest system? Where is the downside?

I swear, as soon as I'm old enough to hold a sword or dagger, I'm definitely asking mom to teach me how to wield one. One part of all the various things I was taught by Sarguet, is the best fight was always the one we didn't take. Why risk life and limb in a fight when we could just cut and run? In this world, however, there might be a scenario I can't run away from.

Whatever, these are all thoughts and problems for an older Keith. Aero. My name is Aero.

All I need is to wait, grow, and expand my powers. I can already tell, every time I drain my mana completely, I can hold just that bit more. That, or the spells are getting easier to use each time. I mean, according to my parents, training magic is possible, so it could be both.

All I'm lacking now is knowledge, knowledge about how magic works, how to get more mana, how the quest system works, what's most important right now is learning.

Just like that old man used to try and drill into my head, I need to be coachable. No stubborn assumptions, no pride holding me back, just lowering my head and learning.

Imagine I'm back in the hideout, just days after being taken in by Sarguet. In this world, I know nothing, but just like before, I can learn.

Interestingly enough, just like lessons with Sarguet, the lessons are sometimes painful. It doesn't happen every time, but for some reason, I'll get a pain in my chest when I use too much mana at one time.

Hmm, weird. I'll need to do some tests to figure out exactly what causes that.

You know what they say, no pain, no gain, and brother, I'm looking to get the maximum amount of gains.

You can find story with these keywords: Reborn! A Thief’s Greed, Read Reborn! A Thief’s Greed, Reborn! A Thief’s Greed novel, Reborn! A Thief’s Greed book, Reborn! A Thief’s Greed story, Reborn! A Thief’s Greed full, Reborn! A Thief’s Greed Latest Chapter