Contrary to what she was expecting, the walking actually wasn’t all that hard. Thanks to her position behind the carriages, she could walk in the trails of the spokes in relative comfort since they packed down the paths. The wind and rain weren’t even too bad of an issue since the carriages once again made life easier by blocking the majority of the weather. It was so easy, in fact, that Quinn had begun to read a mere hour after walking out of the city gates.

Reading while walking was… difficult to say the least. For some people, that is. Quinn had no issues in this regard. Years of practice reading scientific reports and essays while walking from one place to the next had equipped her rather well to read and walk at the same time. And that was when she was terribly out of shape. Now her rather lithe body easily held enough stability for her to peruse her books for insights. Realistically, the biggest issue was the rain getting on her books. Or at least that was the case with regular books. Her books were all enchanted with not only some kind of invisibility but also preservation magic. Rain slid right off the pages as if they were laminated.

Specifically, the ex-scientist was looking into more magic she could learn. Now that she knew more of the basics, a lot of parts in the assorted books she carried made sense. She better understood the warnings about stability, cost, and control that came with most of the simple magics in the books.

She skipped the majority of the spells and only settled on the wind and water types. Three evoked her interest, two of wind and one of water. The two wind ones were Breeze’s Edge - tier one - and Wind Blade - tier two. The water magic was called Magellan’s Drink - a tier one.

Breeze’s Edge was quite a simple spell that condensed the surrounding wind onto a weapon’s edge, reinforcing and sharpening the weapon. It didn’t seem to make the weapon incredibly sharp, but just a slight enhancement. The book described its effect mathematically. Say a sharp dagger with a sharpness level of ten, and Breeze’s Edge increased that level by one. A one-level increase wasn’t nuts, but it appealed to Quinn’s sense of utility. The biggest drawback of Breeze’s Edge was its low durability. Just like a breeze, it would vanish upon its first use.

Wind Blade did kind of the same thing but without the requirement of having a weapon. The caster could send out a sharp blade made purely out of wind that was capable of cutting through most things weaker than iron. It wasn’t an insanely powerful attack by any means. Its practicality, however, couldn’t be looked down on. Imagine getting in a fight with someone, defending their sword’s attack, and then getting sliced in the arm by a sharp blade of wind you couldn’t even see coming. According to the book, it was the first step into being a Wind Mage.

The only problem with Wind Blade was its tier, tier two. Quinn had yet to cast a tier two spell, and she was nervous, to say the least. Both of her books warned against jumping straight into tier two spells since they were considered the entry-level into being a mage. Of course, the mana cost jacked up with a higher tier spell, but the real danger came in its increased modifier count. She would have to memorize and perfectly draw out twelve runes in short order if she wanted to cast Wind Blade. It was practically three times as hard as a tier-one spell at four.

The Water Magic was named after a familiar face; the adventurer extraordinaire Rimor Magellan. It was a very basic spell that summoned a couple of gulps of water to quench thirst. Simple and nice to have. The newby magician would hopefully never have to worry about going thirsty again.

“What are you doing?” Mikeal’s voice came from her side. She looked up to see him staring at her like she was a lunatic.

“Um… reading?” She held the book up to his face.

His eyes peered right through her book and his eyebrows pulled back slightly. “Are you okay? Like, mentally?”

What the hell? What a weird question to ask- right, the books were invisible. “Ah ha ha… I was joking.”

“Right. Whatever you say.” Mikeal stepped a few steps away but continued to walk alongside her. He didn’t have a choice since the carriage behind them was practically breathing down his neck. Or rather, the horses pulling the carriage were literally breathing down his neck.

“I, uh, I was actually practicing controlling my mana. Right, that's what I was doing.” Quinn laughed once more as she looked around at the terrain. And what interesting terrain it was. She had lost interest in the same-looking mountains and hills a while back, but it was suddenly so fascinating.

Sure, most mountains covered in rocky outcroppings looked the same, but the gentle bend of its boulders was just… and they were so tall! Maybe since the caravan was taking a gorge between two mountains as its path, but the mountains appeared extraordinarily tall. Quinn had to crane her neck just to see the snowy tops. The stones were just so… stony.

The intrepid explorer rapidly lost interest once more. “Hey, Mikeal? Do you know how long we’ll be in the mountains?”

He tapped his chin in thought several times. “Well, I think seven or eight days? And then about a day’s walk to Hartenbach once we leave the mountains? I don’t know for sure. I wasn’t paying attention on the way in. I was more focused on getting to Mauershein and enjoying a nice hot meal.”

Another week of mountains!? Could she even make it? Mountaineering was extraordinarily tiring, even when she had trained for it back in her old world. The route the Schel Caravan Company decided to take wasn’t too bad overall, but it was still draining to walk down a mountainous path. Still though, at least they weren’t walking uphill. That would be a true torture.

“You said you were practicing mana control? Are you trying to become a mage?” Mikeal asked as he adjusted his sagen to better block the rain.

At some point, it had amped up slightly into a light rain. Judging by the darker splotches of clouds heading their way, Quinn felt as though they would get drenched sooner than later. “Emphasis on try.”

“I get it. When I first learned magic, I thought I was a lost cause… but now look at me! I’m well on my way to being an archmage.” Mikeal spread his arms as if to draw all attention to himself. He was rather successful as the nearby people glanced over.

Quinn waited till they lost interest. “What happened?”

“A series of unfortunate events.” The light in Mikeal’s eyes died almost immediately. “They weren’t all bad though. I gained a drive to learn magic from that day on… Anyways, if you ever need help in learning some magic, I will assist if I can. I’m particularly skilled at light and wind manipulation.”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Wind and water for me.” She thought it best not to mention her Gravity Magic. And he didn’t mention his primary attribute either, so maybe there was some kind of taboo there?

“Oh? What have you cast so far?”

“Just Gale and Spout. I was thinking about trying Wind Blade though…” She rubbed the back of her neck. Maybe tier-two magic was a bad idea for now. The chances that something could go wrong were… more than optimal.

He glanced over at her in surprise. “Have you drawn your circle yet?”

She frowned. “No? Am I supposed to?”

“I'm slightly shocked you could even cast magic without drawing out a circle first. The initial drawing of a circle is step one for learning new magic. Most mages keep a tome full of their magic on them so we don’t forget a spell.” He rooted through his bag briefly before flashing a small leather-bound journal at her. “Of course, this is just one of several dozen copies that I keep.”

That would make sense. Quinn had noticed earlier, but the magic had the potential to be extremely unstable. Especially when casting it for the first time. Drawing out the circle would vastly help in not only visualizing how to place mana but also help her remember which rune went where and what each of them did.

“Either way, you should definitely start drawing out the magic you want to cast, especially if it is of a higher tier. It's like Archmage Torvald always says,” His voice changed to that of an elderly old man, “‘Visualization is the key to Magic!’”

“I will.” The more she thought about it, the more she figured it was a good idea. An additional benefit, if she remembered her college years, was writing down information that should help her memory. Memory was one of the core issues when casting spells of a higher tier, according to her books.

It was also the perfect solution for a problem that had been plaguing her. The Hellion Language Grimoire, still enchanted, had just been hanging out in her bag since she used it. It had felt quite wasteful to just toss the enchanted book away, so she had kept it all this time. Originally, she was planning to just draw in or something, but it would make the perfect magical tome. It had the added benefits of being weather-protected and invisible.

The only issue was her lack of a good writing utensil. This was solved by asking some of the merchants traveling with the caravan. One of them sold her a metal pen and an additional capsule of ink. Regretfully, the pen cost two silver. Pens being a relatively new invention nullified a tiny bit of her sadness to part with her hard-earned money. She only had eight gold, eighteen silver, and a couple of copper after her stent in the city. It was still enough to let a farmer live well for a decade, but she couldn’t help feeling it wasn’t enough. Knowledge was expensive after all…

With her new pen, she began to inscribe her new magic into the book along with some notes and thoughts. Naturally, she wrote most of the words in her native language so nobody would be able to read what she wrote even if they stripped the ex-grimoire of its enchantments. Even then, she didn’t write too much down. Just some simple stuff and some basic theories she had regarding the world and energy systems she had stumbled across.

What took the longest - until nightfall - was transcribing the magic circles. She was a perfectionist, so she had to restart every time she messed up the spacing of a rune or the shape of the circle. The only good thing about it was Cleanse worked on the ink.

The tier two circle took far longer than any of the tier ones. This was in part due to the complicated nature of the spell, but also her poor experience with the upper echelons of magic. The finished product was a thick circle with four runes inscribed on it, followed by another circle with eight more runes. Paper-thin chains connected the gaps in the two circles in the empty spaces between runes.

She wanted to try and design a tier two gravity magic too, but had to stop when the sun dipped below the horizon. It wasn’t due to a lack of light. No, she could see perfectly fine in the dim moonlight, something she had been worried about as of late. Just why was it that her vision was clear with bare minimum light? Sure, everything was more subdued and less colorful. Still though, she could make out shapes and figures. Quinn decided to temporarily chalk it up to being a weird magic phenomenon.

The caravan stopped when the carriage drivers could no longer see enough to steer the horses. This wasn’t the first stop; they had meal breaks and short rest stops every once in a while. It was, however, their first night outside of the city.

Quinn couldn’t hide her excitement very well. This was the first night outside in the mountainous landscape that she wouldn’t fear for her life. First, it was the fog, then it was the random intruders in the inn. As someone who loved nighttime, it was a welcome respite. Nobody would pull anything with so many guards around.

As everyone was beginning to set up camp, she began to settle down for the night. Unlike the majority of the people who set up tents as if on a common camping trip, she was among the few who simply made themselves comfortable on the ground. She didn’t want to get trapped in a tent in case of an attack. And make no mistake, an attack was highly possible. If her experiences over the last couple of weeks taught her anything, danger lurked around every corner. This paradigm was only reinforced by the number of bloodthirsty monsters and savage creatures recorded in her books.

So, she curled up in her sagen, leaned up against one of the carriage wheels, and pulled some dried food from her pack. Mikeal joined her shortly after and they ate in blessed silence. The carriage driver glanced at them but thankfully didn’t bother chasing them off as he settled down too.

As she was eating, she couldn’t help but notice the large amount of eyes focused in their direction. More accurately, staring at Mikeal. The flickering firelight of a few small campfires reflected in their gazes as they stared at the illusion mage.

Mikeal, for his part, seemed rather ignorant of the people watching. So much so that she couldn’t resist asking him in a low voice, “Do you know what's up with all the others?”

“Hmm?” He glanced up from his bite of jerky and looked around. The dim light reflecting from his eyes skipped past her obscured form before finally locking back on. “Oh. Well… I’m a mage, right?”

“Of course.” How could she not notice that after being around the insufferable man-child for weeks? Was he dumb? Maybe amnesia was contagious considering his memory of the past few weeks seemed to be lacking.

He finished his food and gulped down some water. “Mages are treated like nobles in most places. They probably want to approach and form a connection.”

She shuttered. Would this be her future if she were to follow the path of a mage? Who was she kidding, she was definitely going to become a mage. Only magic could send her home, hopefully. “How annoying…”

“Indeed.” He tossed his shoulders back carelessly. “However, you get used to it after a while. And they shouldn’t approach yet. Maybe by the third night, a few people will work up the courage to approach.”

They continued to relax for a while before Quinn broke the silence once more. “Are you comfortable sleeping out like this?” Maybe since it was her first time with a caravan, but she was rather nervous about sleeping around so many strangers while out in the open.

“Yeah. The Schel Caravan Company guards are trustworthy and will keep watch.” He leaned back and pulled his hood over his face. The light reflecting from his eyes abruptly cut off as his face became shrouded in shadow.

‘Cause keeping watch worked out so well in Umbersnecht.’ She kept that particular thought to herself as she lay her head on her pack. It was a little uncomfortable, but it beat out the cold hard ground. Quinn fell asleep surprisingly easily as her mind tired itself out on ideas of Gravity Magic.