After calming Luna down and getting things back together, Alex took to resting for a whole day. He felt bored, and wanting to begin his learning, he attempted to try using magic secretly in his room. However, he was always busted whenever his magic teacher, Lucia, came rushing in and scolding him for trying to use magic in his injured state.

“I'm perfectly fine, miss!” He would insist, showing her his healed hands and head. “You healed me so I'm feeling perfectly normal.”

She shook her head and replied sternly, “No, Alex! You're healed, but you're not fully recovered from the injury.” Then she pointed at Luna, whom she brought along with her and said, “See? You're upsetting Luna.”

His childhood friend looked sadly at him and said, “I-I'm sorry, Alex. I… It's my–!”

“No!” Alex screamed, looking stricken. “It's not your fault, so please stop blaming yourself!” Then he looked wearily at his teacher and said dryly, “Fine. I'll rest. So, please, don't do this.”

The older woman and the young girl smiled while he sighed and looked bored once more. However a day later, he quickly lept out of bed and headed out of his room to find his magic teacher, who was sitting in the hall writing something down on her notebook.

“Miss! I'm ready for our training!” He exclaimed energetically.

Lucia paused in her writing and raised her head to look serenely at him.

“It wouldn't hurt you take another day's rest,” she suggested quietly.

He shook his head vehemently and replied, “I don't have time wasting around recovering when I've got to master using that new way of magic! Come on, miss,” and he leapt forward to tug her up after grabbing her hand.

She laughed and said, “Alright. Relax. I'll come.”

The energetic student and his cheerful teacher walked out of the house in the early morning sunlight and stood at their usual training spot. A little away from them, Luna and Samuel were training like usual.

“Al! Good morning!” His father called him, waving at him while his childhood friend beamed at him. “Up and about already?”

“Yeah, dad!” Alex replied happily, smiling energetic. “How are you, Luna?”

“I'm great!” She replied happily. “Good luck with your training!”

“Thanks!” Alex said, waving at them before turning back to his teacher. “I'm going to need it.”

“I'm sure you do because you're about to try something no one has tried yet, Alex,” his teacher told him, looking intently at him. “So, don't put too much hope of succeeding on your first try.”

Her words made him raise an eyebrow and look at her in amazement before asking, “What are you saying, miss? You're the one who told me by being hopeful, my magic is channelling easily thanks to the Spirits of Life, right?”

“I did, but… I don't want to see you looking disappointed in case you failed,” she replied, looking at him with a small smile on her face.

He shook his head and winked at her while saying, “No worries, miss! Just watch,” and he extended his hand in front of him, focused on what he wanted to happen and said a singular word, “F!”

There was a moment of pause in which only the sound of the wind could be heard, with them focused on his hand. However, as the seconds went by, they realised nothing was going to happen.

“Um…” he muttered, blinking in surprise and then looking disgruntled by the first failure. He quickly recovered from the loss and said, “Alright! Try again!” He focused his mind once more and spoke aloud, this time saying two letters instead.

“F.B!”

Once again, the teacher and student remained silent and watched expectantly to see what would happen. Unfortunately, nothing happened as the seconds ticked by, making the youth look crestfallen by his failure.

“Incidentally,” his teacher began hesitantly, “what magic were you trying to perform?”

“Fireball,” he replied dully without looking at her.

“Oh…!” She said, finally understanding what he had intended to do. “The first time you used F was for the whole word, and the second time you used was Fire Ball. Right?”

“Yes,” he replied in a dull voice with a nod of his head.

His dull response made her chuckle and show a wry smile on her face as she said, “Well…! I did say you were about to do something that might be impossible to achieve.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Miss,” he began without looking at her, “if you plan to help me, please give me constructive criticism, not joke about my failure. I might lose all hope in my own ability.”

Lucia became stricken by his words and exclaimed while waving her hands wildly in panic, “Ah! No! I didn't mean to joke, it's just that… uh… I thought it might cheer you up! I didn't mean any offence!”

As she was panicking frantically at the thought of injuring her student's willpower, he suddenly looked up at her with a grin and exclaimed, “Ha! I got you!”

“Eh?” She asked, freezing on the spot and looking at him while blinking in surprise.

“Cheer up, miss!” He told her with a broad smile on his face. “I was just playing around with you.”

“Oh…!” His teacher said, finally understanding what he did and looked at him in amusement. “Good job tricking me. Here's your consolation prize. Rainfall.”

As she aimed her hand at him, small clouds forked in the air before rain began falling down on top of him. He jumped in surprise and yelped while trying to escape from it, however the rainy clouds continued following him around while drenching him completely. From the side, both his father and childhood friend glanced at them in amazement before smiling wryly.

“Miss!” He called to his teacher, using his hands to cover his head. “I'm sorry! I won't do it again! Please stop this rain from chasing after me!”

Nodding in satisfaction by his plea, she smiled and closed her hand to deactivate the magic. In an instant, the rain clouds vanished and left Alex standing there soaking wet. His teacher walked over to him and began using her magic to heat up his clothing and cleaning him up.

“That went too far, miss!” He complained, looking indignantly up at her.

“Didn't you go too far when you tricked me?” She asked him back while busily using her magic.

He tilted his head slightly and asked, “True, but I was concerned because you were making fun of my failure. What if I really got hurt, miss?”

As she completed warming up his clothes and drying him with her magic, she looked sadly at him and apologised with, “I'm sorry. You're right. That was thoughtless of me. Please accept my apology, Alex.”

He nodded in satisfaction and said, “Apology accepted, but, miss, you shouldn't have the need to apologize to your student, miss.” Just then, a thought struck him and it made him ask her, “Okay. How about this? Why don't you try doing it, miss?”

“What?! Use letter magic?!” She exclaimed, looking alarmed and waving her hands defensively. “I'm sorry, Alex, but I already know that I'll fail.”

“You never know because you didn’t try!” He replied firmly, smiling brightly at her. “Come on, miss. You're very knowledgeable, you’re stronger than me, and you're very good at magic! You might be able to do it!”

“Um… I don't know…” she began hesitantly.

“Believe in yourself, miss!” He told her in a firm voice and gave her a thumbs up gesture with his hand. “You can do it!”

She became flustered by his encouragement and exclaimed, “Okay! Fine! I'll try but don't expect anything from me, okay?”

He shrugged and replied simply, “It's okay. Better to try and fail before giving up. That's my opinion.”

This caused her to raise an eyebrow before closing her eyes and smiling in satisfaction. Then she reopened them and extended her hand out in order to use her magic. She closed her eyes and silently imagined creating a fireball before saying the first letter of the magic word.

“F.”

She remained standing there with her eyes closed, hoping for the magic to activate. However, when she opened her eyes, she was unsurprised to find that nothing had happened. In fact, the only thing that happened was the change in her student's face, which transformed from excitement into horror.

“See what I mean?” She asked, looking dully at him. “It would take more than experience, strength, and control over magic to make this happen.”

He shook his head and extended his hand out before saying, “F! F.B! W.B! E.C!”

He attempted to use magic while pausing for a few seconds between each try. However, all of his attempts failed, and he was left feeling very frustrated.

“Why?! Why isn't it working?! It should be the most simplest form of magic ever!” Alex exclaimed with great annoyance.

His teacher did not immediately reply, placing a hand on her chin as she seemingly thought about it. Then, as she felt like she got some idea about why it was failing, she looked back at her student and shared her thoughts with him.

“Perhaps the reason it's failing has to do with language?”

“Language?” He asked back, looking perplexed. “Am I speaking gibberish?”

“Well,” she began with a wry smile on her face, “when you first used F.B, I honestly had no idea what it was, or what it was meant to do.”

“But the spirits should know since they can read my mind,” he replied, looking confused.

His statement made her raise an eyebrow and them shake her head in disagreement as she replied, “No. They don't have the ability to read minds.”

“What?” He asked, looking amazed. “In that case, how come they know to channel my energy and execute the spell?”

At that moment, she raised a finger and began lifting a finger each time as she gave him an explanation with the respective number to identify with.

“One, you need to properly know or have a vision of what it is that you want to happen. Two, you would need to have a firm belief and hope in the fact that it will happen, and three, you must communicate with the Spirits of Life in a choice of vocabulary that they understand and can make it happen per your wishes.

So, there is nowhere in that process do they read your mind. What they can do is read your feelings, and power the spell based on it. That's all there is to it.”

Her student looked at her in silence for a moment in awe before saying, “I see! Communication! Of course! It makes sense now! I'm basically speaking a new language that the Spirits of Life are unable to understand, resulting in nothing happening.”

His teacher nodded at him and replied, “Yes. That's what I theorise as well, but from my findings, I find it to be accurate.” She smiled and said, “You've given birth to a new language without any means for the Spirits of Life to understand how it works.”

Alex seemed to be thinking about what he heard from his teacher before looking up at her and asking, “Okay. It's a simple matter of teaching the Spirits of Life a new language. Sounds simple enough but… how do I teach beings that I don't even see?”

To that, his teacher had a ready smile as she replied by raising one finger in the air in front of her and saying, “It's simple; make an Elemental Contract with a Spirit of Life.”