<~> Chapter 21Bel tapped on the cover of my ritual magic book. “By the way, have you had any luck actually uanding this? I’ve been w through my nature magic book but a lot of it is going over my head.”

  “Ehh, yes and no. For the most part I was just reading through it without trying anything and this book is mostly just introductory ritual magione of it is really theory or anything. Even some of the basics for each of the magic types are pretty cool though. A basic fire ritual creates fire, o rub wood together. Another creates drinkable water. sidering I potentially use all of these, it’ll make camping and every day life easier.”

  “Sounds pretty good. My book has a lot about being oh nature aing into the right mi before even casting anything. It’s a little dry but it’s probably good foundation for when I actually get to the spell parts. I know how to read but this is my first opportunity to really study anything without being told to.”

  “Do you think it would be a problem to do some magi the inn?”

  “Well, it probably wouldn't be an issue as long as you don’t break anything. I would suggest not lighting the furniture on fire,” she said with a ugh.

  I grabbed a cup from the table a o the chalkboard. I then copied the water ruo it using the magic chalk. I found that drawing the circle and water sigils inside came easily to me, as if I had almost perfect trol over the marks I g. I get the feeling I did have a background in art in my past life and I’m retrieving some sort of muscle memory.

  Once I felt satisfied with my create water magic circle, I tilted it over the cup and was able to piy body into the ruhe feeling was odd, like stretg a muscle I never knew I had but after gaining illusion and light magic I had the instinct I o trol some of the magiside of me. My magifused the rune and it softly began to gloale blue light as it activated. First a trickle then a spout of water poured out of the magic circle as if it was attached to a garden hose. With a little bit of flexing of my new magic muscles, I was able to restrict the flow of water to a dribble or let it pour out of the circle full bst. Needless to say I had made a bit of a mess. I used a towel from the other room to sop up the floor. Once I had released the magic the lines of the chalk burned away with the st of the water.

  [Ritual Magic Lv.1 Unlocked - For successfully creating, activating, and maintaining a ritual magic circle.]

  , I got the skill for it too.

  [Ritual Magic - on Skill]The Ritual Magic Skill governs the ability to memorize, activate, modute, transcribe, uand, destrud create new Magic Circles. Higher ranks improves the ease of these tasks and improves instincts reted to this skill.

  This skill seems pretty useful. It seems that just knowing about magic circles isn’t enough to level the skill, I actually have to put it in practiprove the skill. Had I not gohrough the trouble of transting everything I may have never gotten Sightspeak though, which will be a godsend ter so it’s not like it was wasted time or anything.

  After that small success I decided to ge gears a little and moved on to practig light magic for a bit. Even with only one level in light magic it wasn’t very difficult to create a glowing ball above my hand. I knew what I was doing right now wasn’t the same thing as a spell, which was more or less like a magic pattern that unwound into an effect. I could tell because I was able to cast Zone of Silence which had several pieces. It took in a fixed amount of mana, had one clear effect, it designated an area of effect, then it cast for a fixed amount of time. It was like using a pattern for domihen flig the first o knocked down eae in sequend the paths branched off to take care of their own piece of the design.

  What I was doing right now was different though. Rather than using something as structured as a spell, I was just pushing mana into a ball above my hand. It was so cool that I could just DO this now, I didn’t have to do something crazy to unlock the secrets of magibsp;I just HAD it now. Though in fairness I kind of stole this ability from Bitaybe talking about how easy it is for me may not be very fair.

  I moved the ball of magic around the room, it was a bit of a strain to push the mana around with the new magic muscles I suddenly had but I was doing it. After I got a little tired of that I started seeing how I could deform the ball. I squished it ft, pulled it into a long string, made it bigger but less dense, squeezed it all into a small pinprick of light that hurt my eyes and just kept pying with it. I noticed I could fiddle with some of the properties, but it was like trying to do fine work with mittens on. I could tell what I wao do but I couldn’t grab where I wanted and I kept knog stuff over. At one point I figured out how to ge the color of the light and I ying with that so much that Bel even asked me to quit. Apparently my little light show was making it hard for her to read haha.

  I had been making the magic do figure eights around the room with sparkly after image trails for about ten miraight when I felt that ringing in the bay head. I opehe notification and saw something super cool.

  [Light Magic has increased from level 1 to level 2][Light Manipution Lv. 1 unlocked - Practiced and experimented extensively with maniputing light mana]

  [Light Manipution - Rare Skill]The Light Manipution Skill governs the ability to manipute all aspects of light and light affinity mana. Higher Ranks improves the ease and ability to manipute light on ber and smaller scales effectively. It also improves instincts while maniputing light and gives a greater depth of uanding on how to manipute it.

  “Ooo ooo Bel! I got a cool new skill. It’s called Light Manipution, it makes it easier for me to py with lights.”

  “Light manipution huh? Well it makes sense a skill like that would exist, both fire and water magic have simir skills but I’ve never really heard much about people using light manipution before. I think most people only use a few premade light spells at most and don’t bother fiddling with it too much. Even mages that use light magic probably wouldn’t spend much time practig it sihere aren’t many offensive uses with it. I don’t really know what good it would do other than party tricks."

  “Nah, light do a lot. You blind people, hide people, spot people, if light manipution is rare arouhen I’m pretty sure nobody has scratched the surface of what it’s capable of.”

  “If you say so…” She looked u I’m pretty sure I knew what I was talking about here. Lasers were the coolest and I’m not even talking about the hot ones. You do a lot with sers.

  At level ohough I will just have to settle for party tricks, right now I ’t focus the light enough to get a good ser going. Best I do is a fshlight, which is pretty useful already to be ho. Not that my darksight bes from it much. I’ll set this aside for now but I’m sure I’m on to something here.

  “Where do spells e from? Are they something that's made or something that’s discovered?”

  “I don’t know too much about it but most are created by mages and written into grimoires like this nature one you bought me. You also learn spells automatically when yic or reted css levels up too but a lot of times the spells you learn that way still be traced back to a creator. I don’t know why but some people learn magic that retty easily and others don’t, it seems random to me. A reted mage css like Novice Light Mage might make learning spells on level ups more on and spells you use often be added to your system magi a level up as well.”

  “So it’s possible I could create my own spells too then? Is there a reted skill for that?”

  “If you stick with using magic I’m sure you’d end up creating your own spells eventually but don’t be surprised if you find out that you created something that’s been done before. I don’t know if there’s a skill for creating spells but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  I yawn and stretch a bit. I don’t know if there’s a ana use or anything like that, I don’t seem to have an MP bar floating around but using a lot of magic seems mentally exhausting if nothing else.

  “Lets go grab some dinner and theo sleep early. We’re supposed to meet those girls in the adventuring guild tomorrow m.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She closed her book with a snap and put it bat. We bought our di the inn again and e iavern area. We chatted a bit about the town and other stuff but didn’t really talk about anything sequential. Si was just us I figured I would tiing the meat but I’ll have to set it aside if anyone else is watg. I hate to waste it and the meat tastes just as good as ever but it’s apparently kind of a big tell that I’m not a normal sheep beastkin.

  Once we finished with dinner we went back to our room. I got undressed and po sleep nude again. I could see Bel blushing as she pced her clothes in a pile, clearly pnning on joining me nude in our shared bed. I scooted uhe covers and lifted the b for her to join me once she got close.

  I gave her a hug and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m sorry but after st night I think I don’t want to py around tonight. A lot of things happeoday aerday night was just… yeah.”

  “It’s okay Lilith, I uand.” She leaned forward and pecked a kiss onto my lips before turning her head and blushing. “Is it alright if you hold me tonight at least?”

  “Sure, why don’t you turn around.” She turned away from me and I pulled her close. I ran my fihrough the fur on her belly and explored the dires of her fur. After letting me do this for a bit she ced her fingers with mine and leaned into me. It was getting a little bit warm uhe bs but it didn’t bother me, it was rather soothing being able to hold someone close like this.

  We hadn’t been together long, she was literally the sed person I met sining to this world but I felt like we had grown so close in this short time. Our retionship was maybe moving a little too fast, in some ways we barely know each other. But holding her close to me like this just reminds me how lucky I am to not have to face this new world on my own. I found someone who I trust and rely on, someone who relies on me. We move forward in this world together. A small part of me is scared that something bad will happeween us if we ti this pace but the rger part of me ’t help but get swept up in the fort Beldonna gives me.

  I kiss the back of Bel’s head and squeeze her just a bit. “Thanks for being here with me Beldonna, I’m so lucky to have you here.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I… I love you Lilith.”

  I felt the weight of her words and I khis was aep that may have been too early to take but I didn’t eveate.

  “I love you too Bel, Goodnight.”

  Saine