004 - Learning Magic

“Man, when will I get an ability from Lily? I hope she is not wasting her time while I'm getting beat up here…”

After an hour of resting, my training began again, but thankfully it wasn’t anything physical this time.

“An, what do you know about magic abilities?”

I thought for a bit before answering.

“It is a way to manipulate magical energy or mana that exists all around us and in us.”

“Correct. And how would you differentiate Innate abilities and acquired abilities?”

I knew all of this as the old me had been studying very diligently to become a magic scholar as I didn’t have any magical ability. If things had been the same, I might've become a staff in this very magic sect in the future.

But that didn’t mean all that studying would be wasted now that I could manipulate magic, rather it would help me become even better as I would have a solid foundation in my studies.

“Innate abilities can be awakened by every single person after the age of nine. And acquired abilities can be learned by anyone as long as they can manipulate magic. Theoretically, although innate abilities are usually more complex than any acquired ability, anyone can learn it as long as they can understand the working behind it. Still no acquired ability can compare to a similar innate ability in terms of quality.”

“Good. But do you know why that is?”

I shook my head, even though I had an idea why.

Seeing as my acquired ability that I gained this morning, which was not related to my innate abilities, had a high proficiency requirement to progress, I could guess that it would take a lot more effort to learn something that was not related to the Innate ability.

“The difference is effort.”

I guess I was right. Still, I asked further.

“Effort?”

“Yes. Let me give you an example. Do you know Lily’s Innate Ability?”

“It’s Advanced Rank , isn’t it?”

“Correct. Now how long would you think it would take you to learn this simple Rank 1 skill that Lily took barely an hour to learn?”

She asked, while flashing me a small red scroll she had taken out of thin air.

‘I really want to learn to do that too…’

[System sub-space can be unlocked at level 10.]

‘Fuck yeah!’

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Coming back to the question, I replied hesitantly.

“A day?”

She shook her head.

“If you didn’t already have an understanding of magic theory it might’ve taken you a few weeks, but because of your knowledge, it might take a couple of days at best, but it might still take you to the end of this week for you to learn at the worst.”

“What!? Isn’t that too much?”

She gave a light chuckle at my response, but nodded her head.

“This is why Innate abilities are unfair. By the way, when she learned this in an hour, she was barely trying, if she wanted she could've learned this in a few minutes.”

“Is she a genius or something?”

What am I saying, just looking at her fire control is enough for people to mistake her ability’s rank.

“That too.” She replied.

What kind of bullshit was this? So someone with a swordsman Innate ability would learn Novice swordsmanship in minutes? What kind of a broken game was this?

“Isn’t it meaningless to learn skills not related to our innate abilities then?”

A smile came on her face as she had expected this question from me.

“No. That is where you are wrong my boy. Questions like these remind me that you are still young.”

She said as she ruffled my hair. I was a little worried as to how she had started this magic training session with a worried look on her face but looks like I was thinking too much.

She was enjoying this. I couldn’t blame her though, when I thought I was powerless, I had kind of distanced myself from her. Almost as if I didn’t want to embarrass her, and this created an invisible wall between us.

Although she still tried to show affection in her own way, she didn’t get many chances as we didn’t spend that much time together. That was especially why Lily had been appointed to be my caretaker.

What was surprising was that Lily volunteered to do so. She had been taking care of me from the day she came here and she has never complained about it.

Lily was someone my mom had brought from outside the sect, you could say she was my adopted sister in a way. She was seven years older than me and we had almost always been together.

But finally getting this chance to get close to her son, she was going all out. And I’m here for it. This kind of affection I hadn’t experienced in both of my lives combined.

Some memories of my previous life flashed in my mind, and my smiling face almost crumpled, but I didn’t let it get to me. I looked up at my mom and tried to forget about that person, who had dared to call me her son in my previous life.

These two people cannot be any more different.

Ignoring my inner thoughts, I focused back on the subject.

The studies continued.

“You see, an Innate ability while being strong is also very limiting. You know my innate ability lets me command ice like it’s another limb, but if I were to meet someone who has an opposing element to me, or something that could easily counter my abilities, then it would mean nothing, no matter how strong my ability was. So it is always better to learn skills outside of your innate ability. To cover all bases. Understanding where you lack and then compensating for that lack will make you a great warrior mage.”

I nodded in understanding, I was almost contemplating not learning the Novice swordsmanship after this week. I always wanted to be a mage, it was a fantasy of mine in both this life and the past one.

“Can we have two or more innate abilities?”

“It is possible, there are legends about people who could command that kind of power, but it’s just those legends, no one has ever met one in person. At least, I haven’t.”

Looks like she’ll meet one soon, as I recalled my two locked innate abilities.

She then explained the skill and how to use it, and allowed me to learn the scroll’s content before beginning to practice. But it was something that she said at the end that stuck with me.

“Anshe, no matter what happens, you have to learn this fire arrow skill before the end of this week. Remember, no matter what!”

“What?”