Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Trying my Hand at a Cheat Skill (Failure)

“Now then, Yuuri.”

“Yes, Teacher!”

“Yesterday… I noticed that for you, it’s kind of, impossible.”

“Please don’t abandon me.”

If I’m driven from here, I won’t have anywhere to go.

At least let me have these [Sealing Glasses].

“No one said anything about abandoning you. Anyways, body training is too dangerous for Yuuri.”

“At this rate, I be considered something like a Geroine. (TL: I think it’s a play on heroine, but substituting the hero with gero – meaning gross or disgusting.)

“And so, this is what we’ll do. I do think it’s too soon and we’re getting ahead of ourselves… but considering Yuuri’s gifts I’ve decided it should be fine.

“Why are you so seemingly reluctant?”

“From today onwards, I’ll have you study [Body Strengthening] magic.”

“Finally! Physical boost!”

If you’re talking fantasy, physical strengthening type magic is pretty standard, right?!

“This magic is my hidden teaching, so I don’t really want to go round teaching it…”

“Don’t be so stingy. Let’s get at it already, Teacher.”

“Iya, it’s dangerous, since you pour magic directly into the body. Adding to that, you have to do so continuously. You have to refine the magic in your body, then eject it all at once… clearly very different from normal magic.”

“So hidden teaching-y! Awesome!”

With the appearance of this standard magic, I was in high spirits.

That day, I was crushed by the magic lessons that followed.

The next day

“Listen, Yuuri. The main effect of this magic is taking from your magic power (MAG) and transferring it to your other stats.”

“Yessir!”

“The activation and maintenance of this magic is difficult, but its ability to preset stat value distribution is the key.”

“Preset?”

“At activation, you can set to what stat and how much to transfer. Since a steep increase a stat can put an excessive burden on the body, balance is important.”

“Fumu, fumu.”

“Up until now, most of the magic you’ve used resolve after activation. But for this magic, you have to continuously maintain its effect. You mustn’t forget that because of this, its magic consumption is rather intense.”

“Yes, Teacher!”

“Incidentally, with my mind (MND) stat, 10 seconds is my limit.”

“Wasn’t teachers mind stat four times that of a normal person!?”

“Around that high… but even with that, it’s only around 10 seconds. Goes to show how ridiculous the magic consumption is for it.”

Constructing and invoking magic is done with Magic (MAG); bringing forth that Magic is done with Mind (MND).

You can think of it as Magic Power being the greatest amount of magic that can be released, and Mind as the greatest amount of magic that can be produced — something like a water storage tank and a faucet. (TL: Sounds like I may need to go back and change one of them for MP/Mana, but lets not worry about it fr now.)

Despite having a Mind stat exceeding four times that of a normal person, Teacher can only maintain it for 10 seconds.

Calculating from Teachers stats, 1 second consumes 4 Mind.

So in my case, since I have approximately 1840… 460 seconds? A whole seven minutes and 40 seconds!

“Really. As much as both Ultraman plus half.” (TL: reference to some Japanese superhero thing I don’t know – maybe something like power rangers with transformation time limits.)

I’ve got plenty of time!

“I’m not sure what Ultraman is, but … it really is dangerous. Understand?”

“I understand. But, with a time restriction, doesn’t this deviate from the original purpose of training?”

“It’s because your self-protection is the top-priority goal…”

Teacher looks away with a blank expression.

With only seven minutes, it’ll be difficult to do all the chores and housework.

After letting his sight drift for a while, Teacher curtly stiffens his expression.

“In addition to the maintenance time restriction, this magic has one more basic flaw.

“Another flaw? It’s just a defective product – this hidden teaching.”

“I won’t teach you anymore!”

Sulking, Teacher draws a の symbol (TL: you’ve probably seen this in anime. It’s when a character feels dejected and squats on the floor and traces の on the floor. Usually with a gloomy face and/or saying something along the lines of “no one cares what I think anyways” etc.)

PLEASE STOP. You’re a grown man for goodness sake.

“Alright. The truth is, you can strengthen Vitality with one other stat.”

“So, Vitality + a different stat?”

“Of course, you don’t have to include your Vitality”

“In other words, by using [Body Strengthening], you can increase

Dexterity,

Dexterity + Vitality,

Speed,

Speed + Vitality,

Strength,

Strength + Vitality,

Vitality,

Mind,

Mind + Vitality

— increase your stats in these nine different ways, right?”

“Exactly”

“I wonder why Vitality treated differently from the other stats.”

Hearing that, teacher made a difficult face as he searches for the right words. He’s making a curious face.

“hmmm… the basic procedure for producing magic is to start by refining magical power within the body. Then emit it outside of the body and construct a magic formation – do you understand so far?”

“Yes! Through guiding magic power into a magic formation (TL: magic circle/square), you can invoke the phenomenon composed by the formation. Right?”

“With [Body Strengthening], magic that has already once been emitted behaves according to a peculiar pattern upon being reabsorbed by the body. After passing once through the inside of the body – in other words vitality – the magic can then be diverted to the desired stat faculty… is how you can think of it. But I can’t say that is how it is for certain.”

“That’s pretty vague. So I can picture it like the route of the magic starting by first passing through Vitality and then splitting into the selected Stat, right?”

“It might just be like that… Well then, even though I’m a bit anxious, it should be ok since you’re immortal. Anyways, why don’t you give it a try?”

Teacher backs up a few steps… no, a lot of steps away from me.

“Teacher, why did you back away so far?”

“Using this magic for the first time usually ends in failure.”

“Is it really that dangerous of a magic?”

“I already said so, didn’t I? It’s a hidden technique.”

I feel like I now finally understand why teacher’s body is tempered to such an unnatural degree.

This is his trump card in close quarters combat.

“ — Well then, here I GO!”

A crater was made in the middle of the forest.

I invoked the magic. Then as result of raising my speed-oriented agility stat to the max, I surpassed the speed of sound.

The activation itself was a success. There were also no problems with maintaining it.

After checking that there were no problems with maintaining the magic, I decided that I should go ahead and try breaking out into a light run. The moment I kicked off the ground, the ground beneath my feet literally exploded.

With that explosion and recoil from kicking the ground, I inadvertently broke through the sound barrier.

I slammed into a wall faster than the speed of sound, and, not having strengthened my vitality, my body scattered in all directions.

“UguuuuuuuUUuuuuuUUuuuuuuuuuu…….”

“Iya, that’s the first time I have ever seen anything accelerate that fast. Amazing. Truly.”

“FuguuuuuUUuuuuuu”

“Under rapid acceleration, most people would lose their balance and fall flat on their face, only breaking a few bones but…”

“Higiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii”

“You really will regenerate after one hour, correct? That make me feel a bit relived.”

Even if I regenerate and come back to life, it’s not like the memory of the intense pain I experienced will go away.

Teacher calmly looks over me as I writhe in the memory of the intense pain I just experienced.

“UnnuuuUuuu, but I won’t forget your teary eyed concerned face!”

“Does it hurt here? Hm?”

Teacher pokes the leg that first got caught in the explosion with a small stick.

“GinyaaaaAaaaaaa!!!”

Internally I reached a decision: I will definitely learn this magic.

Also, my [Sealing Glasses] broke, so I now have [Sealing Glasses Mk2].

The next day

In front of me is a large boulder – a steep cliff. It’s the perfect location for training.

Like breaking apart a boulder barehanded, It’s a man’s dream.

“Fuf Fuf Fuu. I’ll split this boulder and surpass Teacher.”

Yesterday, I may have failed, but it’s painfully clear that the reason was my high Magic stat.

Let’s decrease the amount allocated in muscle strengthening by 70%, and the remainder I’ll redistribute to Vitality.

“Break into pieces! For the sake of my ambition!”

It broke into piece… my hand, that is.

“NuaaaAaaaaaaaaaa!

“You…. No matter how you look at it, that was just unreasonable.”

“Ginueeeeeee”

“Suddenly hearing a ‘bang’ I came here running, and look what I find…”

“hagyaaaaAaaaa”

“Seeing your right arm fly off from your shoulder, of course I was surprised.”

Teacher looked down on me with eyes that almost say ‘I’ve completely given up on you.’

It gave me a bit of a chill.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

And the next day.

I haven’t given up… since I’m immortal.

“Barehanded was no good. But if I use a weapon, my hand won’t break!”

Today I came with a weapon.

Not with a wooden sword, but with a real sword strapped across my back. It’s heavy.

“Check it out, check it out! With [Body Strengthening], even this heavy sword feels lighter than paper.”

I say that, but I can’t maintain this technique for more than seven minutes. Let’s try a quick slash technique. With my right hand, I hold the sword with an underhand grip and face my left hand forwards. Then I twist my body… If were talking fantasy, It’s got to be this move.

“There no reason I should lose to a boulder! Take this! Avan Strash!”

A fast sword strike — Clad with a shock wave, the sword easily breaks the boulder!

Passing through the boulder, the shock wave cuts the cliff… and even the slices part of the mountain.

No able to withstand the impact, the sword broke pelting me with shattered fragments and blinding me.

“I’m begging you. Please don’t do anything crazy.”

“Ugugugu…”

Teacher is making a troubled face while imploring me. I feel like I’ve reached a new low in his mind.

“Even if you’re immortal, dying all bloodied is bad for my heart.”

“I…”

“I?”

“I’m not finished yet! Absolutely not finished yet! I’ve still got another hand to play!”

“I’m going to tie you up tomorrow, you know?”

Additionally, I’ve already move on to [Sealing Glasseses Mk3]

So that it won’t break, it has a really sturdy black frame.

It’s extremely unfashionable. I can feel them lowering my Pretty Girl power (TL: Bishoujo-ness)falling when I wear them, but it can’t be helped.

And the next day

As expected, Teacher grounded me and I’m not allowed to go outside.

That’s why I’m practicing metal carving in my room.

“Hm? Since I can also strengthen dexterity, shouldn’t I be able to use it to carve more complex and detailed magic formations?”

Immediately after coming up with the idea, I decided to try it out.

I take out an amulet in preparation. On its surface, I’ll try carving a tiny magic formation.

The model for this will be the [Sealing Glasses] Teacher made. The carved formation on the tool is already closely compact. This is pretty amazing.

“I won’t suddenly learn the Magic Formation ability, but in exchange, I’ll develop my own method — !!”

For godly precision, physical strength is needed also… Before I realized it, the capillaries in my arm were swelling and rupturing with a *pa pa pa*.

“At the very least, I must praise your tenacity. But why do you always invest the maximum amount of magic possible…?”

“Unuuuuuu”

Unable to move my arm, I was made to sit by side of my bed and eat porridge as Teacher continued scolding me.

“There’s no need to use it all. With your amount of magic, Yuuri, just a small portion will allow for strong enough result.”

“But the magic consumption won’t decrease, and so nor will the tie limit increase.”

“Would it not be fine to use the remaining magic power for other magic?”

“—–! That’s it!”

“Just go to sleep already. Don’t do anything else that’s uncalled for today.”

“I guess it can’t be helped. Teacher. Seconds Please!” (TL: Okawari Kudasai)

I may have failed at magic, but I feel some strange sense of fulfillment. I deem today’s efforts acceptable!