Chapter 35: Chapter 33 – Making Small Thing Wiggle Fast

Pochi and Anortha went out to a small clearing in the forest because Pochi wanted to try out some new magic and wanted Anortha to be there just in case. The elf was curious exactly what new magic this was, especially since to her knowledge, Pochi shouldn’t have known any new ones. When asked, the lupo only replied that she wasn’t sure if it would work anyway, and it would be embarrassing if it turns out it didn’t, so the new magic would be a surprise.

 

With Pochi’s small magical output and total mana, Anortha thought that it would be fine even if the lupo did something stupid, and simply watched as Pochi went around gathering dried branches and piling them up.

 

Pochi was poking and prodding the pile of wood for a while, and also occasionally closed her eyes for periods of time with her hand on top of the pile. Anortha found her actions pretty endearing, but was rather confused about what she was trying to accomplish.

 

Her odd behavior continued for some time, until the pile of branches burst into flames, along with her hand. She instantly backed away from the fire and waved her burning hand around rapidly, until Anortha fired a well aimed water ball, which extinguished the fire.

 

Anortha grabbed Pochi’s hand to find that apart from some singed fur and some minor burns, she was otherwise fine. A quick heal spell fixed the burns.

 

“I thought that nothing that bad could happen, but then you set yourself on fire. Well, I assume that fire magic was what you were trying out?”

 

Pochi grabbed a branch and wrote on the dirt floor, “Yes. Well, I tried to ignite the pile of branches from a safe distance, but it wasn’t working. When I put my hand right on the pile it worked, but then my hand was too close to the fire and it joined the combustion party.”

 

“Fire magic is usually considered intermediate magic, and most elves are not so good at it either. It’s why we have fire stones for cooking and heating, but you’ll never really see anyone selling water stones or wind stones. So what did you do to start the fire?” Anortha asked.

 

“I made the small individual parts of the branch wiggle really fast.”

 

“...What?”

 

“It worked, so my idea isn’t wrong.”

 

Anortha had no idea why that worked, and didn’t feel like questioning it.

Instead, she decided to change the topic and said, “Regardless of the method you used to create the fire, magic in general decreases in efficiency rather rapidly the further away you try to cast it. So that’s probably why you could only start the fire with your hand literally on the wood.”

 

Pochi wrote, “I guess that makes sense.”

 

“So is there anything else you want to test out while we’re out here?”

 

“I wanted to test out some light magic, but it’d be a lot easier to tell if I succeeded if it was dark.”

 

Anortha responded, “Normally I would say that light magic wouldn’t cause a problem and we can do it at home, but then you already set yourself on fire, so I don’t trust you anymore.”

 

“Fair enough. So I guess we head back out here at night?”

 

“Sure.”

 

---

After eating dinner, the two of them headed back out into the woods. At least now, Anortha knew what to expect, so she didn’t find it strange when Pochi put her hand a short distance away from a tree trunk and just stared at it.

 

Nothing much happened initially, but then soon enough, the trunk was bathed in a red light. The elf thought it was strange that the default light would be red since white is usually what happens with light magic. She wondered if this was because of her way of producing light or just the difference between elves and lupoy.

 

The answer to her question was quickly answered, as Pochi slowly changed the red light to orange, yellow, green, blue, and then purple. Even after the light faded, Pochi continued to stare at the trunk with her hands outstretched for awhile, before being satisfied with whatever she was doing.

 

“That’s neat,” Anortha complimented. “Changing the color of light is rather advanced magic, although it normally isn’t very practical. How did you do it? Was it actually making small individual parts wiggle really fast?”

 

“Pretty much,” wrote Pochi.

 

Anortha only said that as a joke, and was not expecting her to confirm it.

Deciding that she wasn't going to worry about it for now, Anortha said, “Well if you’re done experimenting we can head back now.”

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“Wait, I still haven’t tried to make white light.”

 

“That should be easier than making specific colored light though.”

 

“We’ll see if that’s the case.”

 

Pochi casted red light magic at the trunk with her right hand, and then raised her left hand and out came green light, except when she did that, the red light disappeared. She restarted the red light, only for the green light to disappear.

 

This went on for awhile, until Anortha asked, “Are you trying to dual cast red and green light?”

 

Pochi stopped what she was doing and answered, “Pretty much.”

 

“Dual casting different magic is extremely hard, so I wouldn’t bother at this stage. Actually, what does this even have to do with white light?”

 

“‘White light’ is really just a combination of all the colors of light anyways, so I was seeing if I could just mix the different colors.”

 

“Okay, but then you’d have to cast so many different spells at once to get white light, which isn’t practical.”

 

“Actually, three theoretically should be enough, but if dual casting is this hard, then triple casting wouldn’t be feasible.”

 

Anortha asked, “Couldn’t you just cast the three colors in one spell or something? Just like if you wanted to use earth magic to form something in a weird shape at once, you don’t simultaneously cast different earth magic spells and glue them together, you just cast them together.”

 

“I could try.”

 

After a few tries, the resulting light looked a bit off to Anortha, but at least it was arguably white.

 

“What colors are you using? That ‘white light’ feels like it’s missing something.”

 

“Red, green, and blue. And what do you mean by missing something? I adjusted it so it looks perfectly white.”

 

Anortha conjured up her own light ball as a reference. “This is white.”

 

Pochi created her white light onto the trunk, then looked at Anortha’s ball of light. She wrote, “It looks the same to me.”

 

“What do you mean. Your white light seems a bit more blue than mine.”

 

“Really? Well, it seems the same to me. I mean it could just be that our eyes work differently, so what I see as pure white is blueish to you.”

 

There was no reason for Pochi to be lying about the color, so Anortha thought that her explanation would be a possible reason.

 

“Is there anything more you want to experiment with?”

 

“No, I’m done for the day.”

 

On the walk home, Anortha wondered if her parents knew exactly what “making small individual parts wiggle really fast” really meant, and how that relates to fire and light magic.