It started to feel like the days of my life were passing by at blitzing speed. It's already been over a week since Stepmother returned.

"Now!"

My father signaled me to put up my defense. I chose to bring up a water shield to block against my father's Earth spell.

The water shield I made didn't just act as a static rectangle of liquid. Once the projectile made contact with the shield, the water surged in a predetermined direction and redirected the shot to completely miss me.

"It's still a little scary that you don't even flinch. Nonetheless, I think you've got Water magic down. Show me what you've practiced with Wind next."

"Alright."

In spite of how quick it went, it had been a busy week for me, I started learning the runes for each spell in the Elemental Set, then I greedily added another Fear Style technique to my training regiment.

While studying runes, Father had explained to me the more complex way of understanding the Elemental Set. I probably could've figured it out on my own with my past life's memories and a little intuition, but it helped to have him come out and say it.

Fire Magic burns away by adjusting heat and assigning an area or surface to attach itself to. Mana normally starts it up, but once I get a target in mind I have to adjust the flame to melt through it in one go or to spread itself over. Tethering the fire to a target raises its heat making it easier to raise it further with follow up attacks or remotely concentrate more mana to finish them off without needing to chant or gesture again.

The Fire spell I replicated from Barrett, utilized the air as its target and superheated it until it popped on the dummy and switched fuel from mana to the wood that made up the dummies.

Water Magic washes away with pressure and flow. Mana conjures the water and then I dictate the parameters, keeping it trapped with no flow causes pressure to build up rapidly, even more so when I squeezed it further with my mana. That was why the small condensed water orb suddenly exploded once it was released from my manipulation the first time.

Earth magic constructs at a point when given a location and a specific material to generate. Father specified that offensively Earth spells were quite good at forming projectiles and makeshift to high quality weapons in the middle of battle. Father also mentioned it was the only subset with the capability to make a "proper" shield, due to the fact that releasing spells from other subsets will just cause the conjured material to quickly dissipate and leave no protection. That was only if they carried little to no impact within them.

Once again, Father was reluctant to show me much about Lightning Magic. However, he still continued to show me the runes needed to apply it onto an object. Eventually by today, my father relented as he understood that just showing me the runes might be more dangerous without knowing what it could do or how.

Lightning Magic strikes at a point by selecting two locations and exchanging energy between them. The "energy" he was talking about I assumed was electrons, by siphoning them away or attaching them to a target a charge would accumulate. With the help of mana, more charge can be gathered and then rapidly find a low resistance path to the other target.

I focused my mana on the soles of my feet, gradually the air began to intensify around me causing my shirt to flap violently.

After a bit more time to stabilize I was able to maintain a lifting pressure on my body. I was hovering but it felt more like I was still standing on a pillow. Taking careful steps I was able to keep my balance and get higher and higher like walking up a flight a stairs.

Wind Magic blows away with pressure and flow, just like Water Magic, however, its abundance means you don't have to conjure it at all most of the time. Instead most Wind spells like the one I used take control of the ambient air and adjust to the desired effect. The spell my father used when practicing his magic swordsmanship took the air and concentrated onto his blade before bursting forward and replicating the sword's sharpness.

"Be careful Fred, it's not like when I lift us, if you're not careful it'll be a nasty fall."

"I got this."

I decided to mess with Father a little bit and pretended to stumble.

"Fred!"

I quickly put out my hands to show they were still gripping onto the pressured surface of air made by the spell. I smirked back at him.

Father had his hands ready to catch me with his own gravitational spell.

He looked a little furious before letting out a laugh.

A thought came to mind, why did Father need to use gestures?

"Father, why is it that mages need to use hand signs and chants? I haven't needed either."

I figured there must've been some theory over that too, or that I had lacked yet another fundamental lesson that my father chose to overlook.

"You are a special case in many ways Fred. The use of chants are needed for maintaining a conscious control on the spell and its power like I told you before. Most wizards need them including myself for spells that don't come naturally to mind. The hand signs are more so about casting technique, without them it's kind of hard to aim and focus a spell especially ones which have invisible effects. More so in battle than just in practice. In some ways the chants could be considered as a casting technique as well."

"Technique, as in repeatable and reproducible?"

"What do you mean?"

Father smirked and waited for my reply.

At times, Father still treated me as a child, wanting me to articulate more despite knowing what it is I'm trying to say.

"I mean, it's something that other people can do and works the same way for everyone that uses it. That is, if they can learn to do it in the first place."

"Yes, that's correct."

Another burning question surfaced.

"There are other magic casting techniques?"

I knew that rune carved tools and objects in general were one other way of expressing magic, as well as a passing knowledge of wands and staffs.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Several, I don't really teach the others I know of to you or your siblings. Mostly because I'm unfamiliar with how exactly they all work and because I want each of you to decide how you'd like to cast magic once you head over to the academy."

"Can you tell me about them?"

"Sure but first you should get down, your mana pool is probably hitting close to its limit just maintaining that isn't it?"

Father had a good amount of intuition, I hadn't hit the exact limit of my pool but it was still quite draining to levitate using Wind Magic.

I slowly reduced the wind's pressure lifting my body before finally letting go and reaching the firm ground again.

It made me feel wobbly similar to going for a swim and feeling an imaginary wave moving you later the same day.

"There."

I tried to smooth out the wrinkles that appeared on my clothes from standing on the constantly blowing wind.

"Good. Now, where to begin? You know chant casting is just reciting the spell's full incantation, and hand signs are part of gestured casting but not the full breadth of its capabilities. You can practically assign any movement of your body to a specific spell. Winking, shrugging, tapping your foot. I once knew a guy who sucked his teeth every time he had to fight, and a full suit of armor would form around him."

"That's the one you use the most?"

"Yep, my father taught it to me, and I've shown it to your older siblings. There's a little more to gestured casting, it's a more refined and evolved form of an older casting technique. That one is called burst casting."

"What's that one like?"

"I'll show you, but you have seen me do it before."

Father conjured a stone dummy before he continued to speak.

"Remember when I told you about the spell I cast over my fist before I strike the boulders I practice with? Well, I'm using burst casting. Instead of a complex or thought out spell, you just pour out as much mana as you want just before you're about to make contact with your target and activate the spell. Like so."

Father proceeded to show off his skills punching rocks.

The force behind his fist was exponentially more than a human should be capable of.

The stone dummy shattered and its fragments shot out to the woods behind where it stood.

"But if the caster needs chants?"

I blurted out, it occurred to me that the technique might be lacking in subtlety. It was practically telegraphed even with just the abbreviations.

"Well, originally this was how the Father God taught his disciples. He said that it was the technique he was originally taught. He claimed it was mostly impractical other than for training. Some later students of his disciples figured out it still had its use cases. You could chant without intending to cast a spell just to put your enemy on edge. Burst casting also works in a pinch if you end up against a close range enemy. Push them back with a quick cast and jab then back off and return to your more comfortable casting technique."

"I get it."

"Then I'll move on to Infusion casting. It refers to any and all objects which are the focus of channeling magic through rather than pure mana manipulation. It's like I demonstrated before with my sword. I merely swing to release the spell, or in the case of Lightning magic, I charge the weapon up and unleash it against my target. Infusion casting is by far the most diverse in expression and and variety."

"What other ways do magicians use infusion casting?"

"Some magus might decide to combine the effects of a rune-carved item along with their own magic to produce a new spell. I know one of the empire's regiment of archers is exclusively made up of those that practice magic archery. They attach a spell to their individual arrows and then fire them off, I'm not quite sure how they do it but there's something about how a spell is added to a projectile that makes the spell have lingering effects without needing as much mana. Normally you'd need impact to do such things but they hardly have any Cardinal ranked casters among their ranks."

"Would rune-carving fit under infusion casting or is it its own separate casting technique?"

"It would fit under, which is why I say infusion casting is quite wide spanning. For this next one Fred, I'll just outright say it. I hate it, I don't want any of you to ever choose this casting technique. I know it may sound hypocritical because I said I wanted each of you to choose once you were at the academy, but I want you all to steer clear of this one. It's called alchemy casting."

Father didn't seem to want to discuss this casting technique much like other past scars he still bore.

"What's wrong about it?"

I at least wanted to hear what exactly it was.

"Alchemy casting is pretty much the result of the most devoted members of the Church of the Ruling Gods, taking the Father God's words literally. The Father God shared a preference for humanity. So the scholars of the Church of the Ruling Gods extrapolated that it must mean that among all the other living things within the Seven Sphere world, humankind was a cut above the rest. I'm not saying I disagree or agree with that statement but the fact is alchemy casting developed from this thinking."

"Mm."

I listened intently to Father's statements.

"Alchemy casting became a study and technique on how magic interacts with the sacred flesh of man, that's how the Church describes it. It wouldn't be so bad if it merely stayed within the confines of comparing how humans are affected by the way they cast spells and use the magic of other races. But then, transmutation studies soared and took over the entire focus."

"Transmutation?"

Thoughts of a terrible form of experimentation that existed in a certain fiction that was originally drawn and then twice animated. It didn't feel as real and terrifying as now.

"The sacrificial usage of a caster's own body to cast magic. Another note before I forget, Fred, all living things generate a level of mana which gives them a bit of resistance to all spells in general. You'd be surprised how much you can through at a living person before they finally succumb to the effects of your spell."

"Alright."

I regarded his tangent as relevant, otherwise Father wouldn't have mentioned it.

"Alchemy casting, became the usage of transmutation which converts the flesh into pure mana or even into conjurations. It started with a drop of blood, a small sliver of skin, a nail. Then it's a finger, a tooth, a pound of flesh. That's the thinking of an alchemy caster. The spells they cast are more powerful than the ones made from just mana alone, and they can even conjure spells from torn limbs, even a speck of blood on the face of their opponent might be a source to activate a spell that ignores the opponent's natural resistance to magic. I'd heard of a man that carried around his mummified hand because it was soaked in so much mana that it could bypass even a wizard's aura.

I recoiled at the thought of hurting myself just to get some extra boost in potency. The thought also came that in a situation where you might die anyway a gamble existed but that was far too dire.

Father continued.

"Alchemy casting is powerful but it eats away at the mind and soul of the person that chooses to use it. It's why I can't let any of you stray into that path. Do you understand me Frederick? It's better to train up our mana pools and strengthen ourselves than to utilize self-destructive methods like that."

"Yes, Father."

"I truly hope so. It wasn't my intention to get dreary and brooding with this but it's my honest opinion on that matter. Heh."

Father sighed at some thought as he looked away and grinned slightly.

"What is it?"

"I was so caught up warning you about that cruel casting technique I was about to forget to mention your casting technique."

"My casting technique?"

I wasn't aware that I was using anything like the ones he had named out.

"Yeah, but yours is kind of like alchemy in that it's studied more than used. And since it's also a technique you won't learn at the Magic Academy, I think it's fair to say you might just end up developing it further than change it up. You use intuitive casting. It doesn't sound like such an amazing name but it is a gift."

"Oh."

I guess it was bound to be given some label at some point. I thought.

"Not to give you any pressure or burden you too much but I do expect a lot from you. The gift you have is something even I'm astounded to witness first-hand. One of our not so distant ancestors had it too, he's the one that started passing down the techniques and manuals on the Cosmic Set in our family. Even the academy tries to press me to lend some of his writings and other works to their Cosmic Set department."

"Hah, did he also have some legend?"

"Actually yeah, he did. Travis Dreadtree. He trained and studied all his life and gave a sense of unity to the family. My father once said that after him it became the norm for nearly four generations of Dreadtrees to live under the same roof without any resentment towards who the head was even if they were younger than the oldest member of our house. Once he grew old Travis went and challenged an Etheral God."

Awe lingered as the realization of just how much deeper the rabbit hole of my family's legacy goes.

"What happened then?"

"He lost but the tale goes that he nearly won. Obviously, it's for the sake of familial pride that we'd like to think he was practically a god even without a seat."

"I don't think that's just from having intuitive casting then. He must've been way more special."

"I know you want to be humble, but that gift of yours is also known as the Father God's casting."

"I thought you didn't want to put any pressure on me."

"Hahaha, I'm not, I'm just letting you know so you don't end up finding out in a bad way."

I appreciate the PSA then dad. I thought.