A few more days passed, and Arya finally got a chance to be with Armin while he trained outside on the grass.

Sweat dripped down Armin's face as he chanted a spell once again.

"Arcia Virtu"

A series of translucent red concentric rings floated in the air in front of him, before beginning to turn like clockwork.

However before the spell could take effect, the rings stopped rotating, before slowly disappearing.

"Kukk," grunted Armin, his eyes heavy from expanding so much mana.

"Armin, what spell are you trying?" asked Arya in his babyish voice.

'Seriously, my larynx should hurry up and mature. I'm tired of sounding like a baby,'

"It's called base magic. It's a pretty useless element though," grunted Armin in reply before chanting again, forming the rings once more.

"What does it do?"

As Arya asked this question, Armin's rings stopped rotated, before disappearing once more.

"Can you shut up, you're distracti- s-sorry Arya," shouted Armin, before quickly composing himself.

'It's not like I care. As soon as I learn magic I'm out of here,' thought Arya to himself, the sting from Armin's outbreak causing him to remember how nice it was to be anti-social.

"Hmm, can you teach me how to cast that spell?" asked Arya, taking advantage of Armin's apology.

"You know, mom's right. If you didn't sound like a baby, I would've thought that your Bardori is at the same level as mine," commented Armin, before lying down next to Arya. (AN: Bardori is their language,)

"Baby's can't really cast magic yet. But it won't hurt to teach you anyway," Armin said, a bitter smile on his face as he thought about how hurt his baby brother would be once he realized he couldn't use magic.

"So here's your first lesson," said Armin, wiping the sweat off his forehead, the cool midmorning breeze blowing past them as he began his lecture.

"Spells have two stages. The chant stage, and the manifestation stage, well according to what the old man told me at least,"

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"Old man? Father, you mean?"

"No, but that doesn't matter right now,"

"The chanting stage is pretty easy, you just have to word it precisely. For instance, the spell I'm casting is Arcia virtu," he said, mouthing it slowly.

"Arcia Virtu?"

"Yes, but your tone is a bit wrong. I guess you can't escape that since you're still a baby,"

'No wonder I couldn't cast them myself,' realized Arya.

"But what does Arcia Virtu mean?" asked Arya, a curious look on his face.

"I never asked. I just wanted to cast the spell, but I guess you have a point. I should probably ask the old man the next time I got to his house," murmured Armin to himself.

"Okay, the next stage is the manifestation stage."

"You imagine that there's a warm glowing ball at your core, after that you have to imagine that a series of concentric rings are being projected from that ball",

"After you have all that done, you chant and then turn the rings to a specific position."

"For instance, for the spell I'm casting, the first three outer rings should have the top rune up, while the inner three should have them down," continued Armin, drawing the rings on the ground.

"Ahh," muttered Arya, staring intently at the drawing.

"You probably don't understand this part, but you can just practice mouthing it for now," continued Armin, dusting his finger off.

"This manifestation stage, what is it? Why do you have to do it to cast a spell?" asked Arya once more, absorbing the knowledge that Armin had just taught him.

"I don't know, but I don't think it's something to be worried about."

"I asked mom, and even she doesn't know, but she's still able to cast spells," said Armin, shaking his head before standing up to continue his practice.

'That's not the point Armin. What good is an application if we have no idea of its workings,' thought Arya, the engineer in him questioning all his teachings.

'Okay, so first imagine there's a ball within my core, and then imagine projecting it as a series of rings,' thought Arya as he tried putting what he had learned to practice.

Meanwhile, some else had been listening in on the conversation.

Gray stood behind a wall, trying to do what Armin had taught Arya as well.

"Kukk, just like I thought," he sighed to himself. This wasn't the first time he had tried casting magic, and it wasn't the first time it ended in disappointment.

You see, Armin and everyone else had instructed to imagine that there was a ball in your core. However Gray couldn't do that, to him there was no ball, nothing to project rings out of.

"But this is good. The squirt will learn that his foolish interest in magic is nothing but a fool's endeavor," whispered Gray before walking back to complete his chores.

"I think I can faintly feel the ball," whispered Arya to himself.

"Arcia Virthu,"

"Not Virthu, Virt-" Armin's voice trailed off as he a series of golden rings appear in front of Arya.

However they were ever so faint, Armin had to squint his eyes just to see its outline.

Sadly, in the end, the spell ended in failure. Right as the rings appeared, they disappeared.

"Ahh, I didn't say it correctly," complained Arya. He wanted to try again, however before he could raise his hands to try the spell, he blacked out.

He had expended all his mana in trying that spell.

'Was I dreaming? Even if the midwife was wrong about Arya not having magic, there's no such thing as golden rings.'

'There's no element acuity that gives the rings that color,' thought Armin as he picked Arya off the ground and took him inside, his mind lost in thought.