My head isn’t in pain anymore, mainly because of the elixir inside a bottle that I can identify as an ungodly bitter medicine with a little bit of mint kick at the back. The green bottle is sitting right next to my bed and a glass of water. It’s been three days since I awoke in this world, and all I do is wander around my bedroom.
Class is an odd thing, to be honest. Supposedly, according to Rachel, class and people's personality usually matches, and it rarely doesn’t. Rachel is an apothecary. Her little quirk is the ability to mix chemicals easily, including heating and cooling them. However, she also has several offensive spells that she showed to me, such as fireballs, or ice spheres that she creates for my entertainment.
----------------------------------------
“Helen, are you sure you are fine with this? I’m not going to force you to learn.” Albert looks at me while I am looking at the spoon located right in front of me. The subject matter at the moment is metal bending.
Albert doesn’t look like someone whom I will associate with a smith. He doesn’t have any charred black face from continuous exposure to burning coal, and neither does he have a very muscular build from continuously beating metal on an anvil with a hammer.
He looks just like an ordinary man, with glasses and a rather casual uniform consisting of a white shirt and black pants alongside a revolver holstered on his hip. So, in short, he looks intelligent, at the very least.
“I’m fine, so Albert, what are we going to do with the spoon?” I ask.
“Well, young ma’am, I’m glad you ask. Since your mother reported to me that you have some sort of memory loss, then we’ll start from the basics. Do you remember the basics of materialmancy?” Albert asked as he opens a big book right in front of me.
I shake my head. The quick answer is no. I don’t know how materialmancy works, besides the extra magical screen that I currently have at the moment. Other than that, I don’t even know how to use it in the first place. So, yeah, I don’t know a thing.
“Well,” Albert sighs, “Let’s get back to the basics. It’s separated into three main categories. Shaping, removing and adding. Those three are the most basic form of materialmancy, but there are other categories. Let’s get to the easiest one first, shaping.”
Albert grabs the spoon from the table, suddenly, sometime after he picked it up, the end of the spoon bends to the right, then it bends to the left before it straightens itself again and Albert puts the spoon back into the table. “That’s how shaping works. By definition, shaping is a process where materialmancer changes the shape of an item by manipulating the shape of an item using the imaginary magical blueprint.”
So the menu that I opened several days ago is the imaginary magical blueprint? I pick up the spoon from the table and looked at it like a child looking at something new at the first time, “Awesome. Can it do more?”
“Yup, but let’s start from the basics first, shall we?” He asks. “Let’s open your material blueprint while you are touching the spoon. Can you do that, Helen?” He puts his gaze towards the same spoon. I just nodded.
Wait… how to open the magical holographic screen? The last time, my mother opened it up for me. I immediately scratch my head, looking for ideas on how to open the magical holographic screen that showed up the last time.
I use my mind, ‘open stats!’ Nothing happens. ‘Show me the stats?’ It doesn’t open either. I get irked. ‘Stats, open window!’ Nothing happens either. I sigh. “Sir, can you show me the way how to open the magical screen?”
“Sure thing, first, focus your mind on a rectangular shape.” I imagine that there is an imaginary blue rectangle in front of my vision. I imagine there is a big LCD screen in front of my eyes. “After that, say open personal status window.”
‘Open personal status window.’
----------------------------------------
[Helen]
Race: Angelic Wolf-kin
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Level: 1
HP: 80%
MP: 100%
Class: [Materialmancer]
Skill: [Material Manipulation I]
General Health Status: [Abdominal Puncture] [Light Blood Loss]
[Quest]
----------------------------------------
“What’s a quest?” I ask.
“Quest? What do you mean? There are only three descriptions, right? Class, skill, and general health status. Other than that, I don’t know if there’s something different. It’s probably a little bit of flaw in your magical screen,” he doesn’t explain it to me, but I get the conclusion that the menu is not supposed to be existing.
I press the [Material Manipulation I] on the same status window. The same blank page appears on the screen as if it is a drawing board where I can draw freely, whether it’s just a piece of spoon or a weapon blueprint.
“Helen, can you show it to me? Try saying, ‘Public Status’.”
“Public Status!”
The screen goes brighter. The holographic screen goes brighter and Albert nods at the screen. “Good, now, the next time, you don’t have to say it out loud, ok? You can do it without any sound, after all.” He then suddenly sighs. “It looks like your previous blueprint is gone. Well, I’ll just assume you forget everything about materialmancy.”
Blueprint? So Helen already had her own design? That’s quite surprising, especially considering that when I was her age, I was more inclined to watch cartoons on Sunday mornings while eating up the ice cream in the fridge that my father brought for me.
I put my hand on the top of the spoon. Suddenly, the whole image of a spoon appears right on the blueprint screen. However, the blueprint appears to be weird, as if the whole spoon is made of string that made a rectangular shape, to be precise, it looks like a 3D square grid.
“Alright, don’t be alarmed by the square grid my dear, it only represents millimeters. One grid is 1x1x1, that’s the default setting given by the higher will,” Albert comments.
How to even manipulate a millimeter square with my own feeble hand? I used a pencil, or mouse on a computer to manipulate something that’s small back then when I was working in the firearms factory. Still, the task is only to bend over the spoon, right?
So, I put my hand on the imaginary 3D model and bend the spoon with my hand. It feels as if I am pushing through thin air. There’s simply no resistance at all. “Maybe you can add a resistance magical program so your hands don’t fly off just like that. Anyway, try touching the spoon again.”
I touch the spoon with my right hand. Suddenly, the spoon bends in the direction that I want. Man, how cool is that, bending a spoon with just my hand without doing anything? No wonder magic is a convenient tool. I put the spoon down on the table and it doesn’t return.
“Now, straighten your spoon, press the undo button,” he said.
The undo button is simply a ← button. I press the button on the top left corner and the spoon returns to its previous regular shape. I put my hand on the spoon again and the spoon bends back to its ordinary state, straight and not that curved.
“The undo button is useful, especially when you are designing something complicated. However, if you do a duplicate spell, it won’t work,” he said.
“Duplicate spell?”
“A spell in which you use a physical blueprint. You can’t undo that to a blank page using the undo function. The most you can do is to undo it to the first state in which you put the blueprint in your imaginary blueprint. So… yeah, kinda convenient,” Albert shrugs. Then he comes to the realization that he is speaking with the equivalent of an elementary school student. “Sorry if it sounds too complicated for you, but you’ll understand it soon.”
I press the regular ‘X’ button to return to the previous menu, aka the first menu. Then, I notice my magical energy has gone down, thanks to the previous bending and unbending of the spoon. However, it seems mild, since the spoon is not thick at all.
----------------------------------------
[Helen]
Race: Angelic Wolf-kin
Level: 1
HP: 80%
MP: 95%
Class: [Materialmancer]
Skill: [Material Manipulation I]
General Health Status: [Abdominal Puncture] [Light Blood Loss]
[Quest]
----------------------------------------
So, bending and unbending objects requires some MP, eh? Well, it’s expected. Still, the imaginary blueprint is a 3D blueprint, meaning making something such as a bullet out of imagination won’t be too hard as long as I remember the exact measurement. Good for me, I’m a certified weapon maniac
“To make your status private again, just say private status, but as I said earlier, you don’t have to say it out loud,” Albert adds. I close down the status window by saying that and it dims back, but it doesn’t entirely disappear. “Just say close personal status window.”
‘Close personal status window’
The screen closes. Albert then continues with the real lesson for elementary schools, such as math and reading. So, yeah, the rest of the day is not that eventful. Still, if I have brass, I want to try making a bullet. Still, how far have firearms developed in this world? That revolver that Albert used is a firearm, right?