Character Information - Who is who?

Because I have created quite a variety of characters, I will now create little cheat sheets before a chapter for the characters who will appear in the chapter, but not for those who haven't. Please open the spoiler if you need some reminders. (Be careful, it can be a spoiler for the chapter!)

Alexander K. Leonandra (Wolf-kin)

* Transmigrated from the Earth and the MC

* The fourth child of the current Leonandra household

* Golden eyes

* Snow-white fur and hair color

Janina M. Leonandra (Wolf-kin)

* The fifth child of the current Leonandra household

* Sister of the MC

* Green eyes

* Black fur and hair color

Francesca Leonandra (Butterfly-kin)

* Maid of the Leonandra estate

* Personal maid of the MC

* Dark-blue eyes

* Black hair color

Marisia S. Leonandra (Wolf-kin)

* Lady of the Leonandra household

* A user of the wild-demon energy

* Mother of the MC

* Golden eyes

* Crimson red fur and hair color

Ocilia Leonandra (Spider-kin)

* Disciple of the MC

* Specialized in magic/alchemy-oriented threads

* Purple eyes

* Purplish-black hair color

...

"Big browda! Are you ready?!"

A small, black-haired, green-eyed wolf-kin girl rushed toward Alexander after he finished training with Sarah, who, as usual, had beaten him up badly. He was exhausted, but today, he would give in to his little sister, who had nagged him daily for the last weeks.

She began to speak overly cutely and misspeak every time she was elated. Alexander didn't know if she was a genius or did it by instinct. Either way, it was a little scary since she could speak perfectly well.

He patted her head while she hugged him from the side, "Sure, are you really ready? We don't want to have the same problem as the last time."

She showed her fangs with a broad smile while her tail swung wildly, "I wanna do it!"

He walked to his office while she weighed him down, "Sure, sure. Do you also remember what story you wanted me to show you?"

She screamed, "Redhood!"

Alexander smiled tiredly and patted her, "OK, like you wanted, just give me an hour or a little more. I will come to your room after I look at what Ocilia is up to, ok? Go get two of my servants and tell them to come to me."

The little bundle of energy nodded a couple of times and ran away, yelling in her wake, "OK!"

And like that, she was gone. Alexander needed to conserve his energy for what he wanted to do. It would be hell on his mind, but he was ready. The to-be mage tried something really cool around a month ago, the day after Green left to get her stuff sorted out so she could get the materials he needed to learn magic.

On that day, he played with Janina, his little sister, and, like always, told her stories from his previous life with a bit of change here and there. Redhood, Cinderella, Hercules, the little mermaid, etc. Only basic stuff with just a change of the race, that instead of humans, they were all beast-kin.

Redhood was a bunny-kin, Cinderella a swan-kin, Hercules, of course, was a wolf-kin, and so on. It was fun, but at one point, he made a giant mistake which he, honestly, thought at first would be really cool.

He remembered that it was weeks ago.

...

Weeks ago

His sister babbled from the side after he told the story of Little Red Riding Hood. She snuggled in her bed, "I can't imagine how bad a big bad human bandit would look like..."

Alexander grimaced stupidly, opened his arms towards her like he wanted to claw her, and made a silly villain voice. At the same time, he showed his fangs, "Really baaaaaaaaad!"

What he got was a pillow thrown from Janina toward his face, "This sounds..." and she copied his voice, "...duuuuuuuuumb!"

He took the pillow and knew that this little brat had too much attitude since his other siblings from Earth loved his voice changing. Maybe.

He had all the fairy tales remembered since they adored them, and it was better than TV, so he always told them the stories till one evening, when his little sister turned into a mean asshole, and he could remember her words clearly, 'I AM NOT LITTLE ANYMORE! LET ME ALONE!' It was a sad day, so he ignored this traumatic experience quickly again.

Alexander looked at Janina, and it was weird. He felt a strong familial bond with his new family. He loved them and, at first, had an inkling that there would be no bond after some time, but he really adored them more and more. This is why he started to tell stories a couple of years ago after Janina was born, after he confirmed that his mother's uterus wasn't a portal to another world.

He returned from his inner crisis and looked around to take in this surreal scene he couldn't get used to. Janina grabbed another goose-feathered pillow lined with silk in a beautiful flower pattern and hugged it. Her and his pajama were made from special threads from spider-kin tailors, which regulated the heat very well. On the side was a servant who was at his call at all times, Francesca, who sat and read something, waiting for anything they needed.

He found it weird to be filthy rich and have people serve all of his needs, but after some time, it became more natural, but he couldn't get used to it nonetheless, 'In the end, they get paid well, so everyone wins.'

Also, this was a very different world than Earth. Being a servant who got paid well with their housing and food provided was like being middle-class. The only problem was that their whole life depended on the whims of the noble they worked for. Not like they could sue if they got abused.

Besides Francesca, he saw some water and color paste Janina used to paint for fun and suddenly got an idea. He looked back at Janina, smiled at his little sister viciously, crawled towards her on the bed, and said in an ominous voice, "Do you really want to know what he looked like?"

This scared her a little bit, and she took another pillow and hugged it tightly while nodding. Alexander opened, without her knowing, the chest with all the color paste inside, with his air contraption. Out came colorful paste, and he mixed it with water in the air and from the cup she used to wet the painting brush.

All candles were blown out, and multiple small fireballs ascended, illuminating the room in green as he used the little copper ring around the brush, which held the bristles together, to produce such an effect.

The water collected at the bottom of the bed while opening the jars and the color paste of different colors, primarily red, blue, and brown. They flew out into the air, where they slowly swirled around.

He could swear that every time he tried to be more artistic, everything he did create made more fun. It was pure satisfaction when he let his creativity express itself with alchemy or magic.

On the other hand, even if he wanted to express himself without restrictions, the technical aspect of his endeavors was always the hard limit. It also didn't matter if he used contraptions or constructions. Both had their positives and negatives.

To craft magical spell constructs, there was no real need to interact with the non-magical world. The construct was created and filled with mana, which probably represented the phenomenon created. What the actual words of the chant did, which were just a shortened version of what the magician wanted to do, was like a call to action for the construct to actually do something.

Of course, spell-crafting had other essential aspects, as he discovered how to build it as efficiently as possible. The [Algorithmics] skill could be used precisely in this case.

Alchemical contraptions, on the other hand, the mana he used to control the particles was far more efficient in terms of the mana he used for constructions. Still, it drained his stamina like nothing good and strained his will immensely.

This was the difference between alchemy and magic: The mana needed to use alchemy could be minuscule since the alchemist, as much as he understood from his point of view, was creating the outcomes indirectly with his mana.

The problem came as he also needed a lot of stamina and willpower. In the best case, the mana he needed to redirect the pockets of elements would be barely used.

But it didn't mean an alchemist with willpower out of steel and infinite stamina could create contraptions infinitely. Water is finite, like specific gases in the air and many more elements that needed to be extracted before he could even use them.

Here was the most prevalent problem with alchemy. If done right, the mana used to create, for example, a floating ball of water, would be negligible, but the strain on the mind would be enormous.

What is water? What is a ball? How did it hold itself together? Where do you get the water? How do you get the water? Where does it float? How does it float? What is pressure? Airflow? And much more.

Everything needed to be accounted for, and the more detailed and precise the thoughts and imaginations were, the less mana was required to replace the missing parts. If not done right, more mana would be needed for an alchemical contraption than a regular spell construct when the missing parts were replaced.

However, this contraption he tried to build for Janina was very different, and he could've sworn that he used all his artistic skills like [Drawing] too. He couldn't just imagine a figure, and it would be created. Form and structure needed to be manually adjusted, or other skills used for this. If not, the contraption would become random or try to fall into a default state in the best case. Worst case, it would just dissolve or blow up in his face.

The color paste came together with the water, creating a watercolor body. Janina watched it, and her eyes bulged like two giant saucers.

She backed away to the back of the bed as it slowly took the form of a human, and as color mixed more, brown became the fur of a wolf that hung around the shoulder and his facial hair. He had an eye patch and smiled viciously with a red, only saw in hell.

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

He stood tall and bulky at two meters (~6.5ft). His leather clothes were black and brown mixed, and his skin color was slightly pinkish brown, like someone who lived and worked a lot out in the sun. He looked a little watery, but the color mixed wonderfully and, more important: terrifyingly.

The atmosphere was enhanced as white mist emerged behind the bandit and mixed a bit of red from the paint while a scary green light shone behind him.

A broad and hellishly distorted smile emerged on the face of the bandit, and he took a slow step towards the bed and raised his hand like he wanted to grab Janina.

It ended there.

She screamed.

Francesca screamed.

Guards rushed in and thought it was some monstrosity that sneaked inside the estate and attacked it on sight. No fun. Especially not for Alexander afterward.

...

15 minutes later

"ARE YOU INSANE! DO YOU HAVE GONE MAD? DO YOU WANT TO TERRIFY YOUR SISTER!"

"Mo..."

"DON'T MOM ME! IT IS ENOUGH THAT I THINK THAT YOU WILL EXPLODE FROM ONE OF YOUR STUPID EXPERIMENTS AND TAKE YOUR SERVANTS WITH YOU, BUT NOW YOU WANT TO DRIVE YOUR SISTER INTO MADNESS TOO?! LOOK!"

Alexander stood in front of his mother, head down, and behind her was a crying Janina, who was so scared that she was curled up on the bed, and Sarah was petting her, trying to calm her down.

In the last ten minutes, his mother screamed at him so loudly that even sometimes guards came in to check. He looked at her and wanted to say something, but instead, he approached Janina and looked at her. She didn't stop him and didn't say anything.

He made a big blunder and thought that children in the world were the same as on Earth. He was so wrong. He felt genuinely sorry.

There was no fun scare in this world. Alexander thought Janina would be frightened and laugh it off afterward, but he didn't expect such a severe reaction, 'This is not Earth... I need to get it into my head...'

Monsters, bandits, and many more terrible things existed, so horror would be an awful genre here. Maybe the comedy horror genre would have a chance, but even that would be stupid, as one should learn early on, if you saw a zombie who wanted to kill you, you ran or fought and didn't do a dance.

There were no zombies, living skeletons, ghosts, or monsters on Earth, and even people like bandits were relatively rare compared to this world. Here, such monsters existed and were a reality.

Alexander told her in a very soft and apologetic voice, "Janina, I am really sorry to have frightened you."

She heard him as he could see her tail and ears moving slightly, but she didn't look up. Instead, she buried herself deeper into her big sister. Sarah rolled her eyes at Alexander and gave him the death glare. He knew that the next training session would be brutal.

After a good minute, Janina calmed down slightly, and he tried to appease her so she wouldn't be frightened anymore and forgive him, "Hey, how about this? Just say something, and I will do whatever you want!"

He could practically feel his mother's frown, and before she said something, two teary green large eyes looked at Alexander. She wiped them, and a snotty voice came out, "Eweywing?"

Alexander didn't care what it would be. He did something terrible to his little sister and wanted her to feel better. He understood that he bribed her, but why not if it made her feel better and let her forget the experience? It did work with his siblings on Earth. Sometimes.

He tried to smile softly and controlled his tail and ears, so they hung down, "Yes... how about this? You like the stories I tell you, right? How about I make them come to life without anything too scary?"

She flinched slightly as he said come to life but became silent and obviously thought about it. She really liked the stories, and if her big brother would make them less scary than that monster before, wouldn't that be wonderful?

Sometimes her big brother created for her funny things out of nothing. Little fire bunnies hopping around, water birds flying and playing. Everything was so beautiful, but now this idiot needed to frighten her with such monstrosity!

But the thought of a story coming to life hung in her head. She really liked beautiful things, especially when her brother made them for her.

She also loved to draw, but it looked less funny than what he made. She copied everything she could when they were together, but it was rare that they even had time, at most twice a week.

He trained and learned the whole day, had his disciple, and now it would probably become even rarer to have alone time with him since he also wanted to learn more magic and waited for the fairy to return. So she tried it herself and drew so much that she almost reached level 25 in [Drawing].

She loved the stories, and them coming to life by her brother was like a dream for her. She decided to give it a try and forgive her lousy brother.

Her mother waited for a minute and wanted to say something, but Janina interrupted her before she could, "Red..."

All three in the room looked at her, which made her curl up slightly again. Sarah asked her in a soft voice, "Red?"

Janina's voice sounded more joyous, "Little Red Riding Hood."

In confusion, Sarah looked at her again, "What is Little Red Fighting Hood?"

Alexander chimed in, "Little Red Riding Rood, and it is a fairy tale, I tell her..." He looked at Janina, "...so you want me to recreate it?"

Janina merely nodded, and Alexander's smile bloomed like everything was ok, but he felt something close to his face from behind. It was the intense smell of his mother.

Her voice was slightly strained like she held back as much as possible. She whispered into her son's ear so nobody else could hear it, "If something like this happens again, you will wear an anti-mana collar for at least half a year..." Her last words sounded very threatening in a motherly way, "...do you understand?"

...

Back to the present

clank

Alexander saw Ocilia trying the ignite spell as he entered his office, and she failed. It was not that she couldn't do it, but her magic and alchemy could only be expressed through her mystic and natural skills, so to say, her thread.

He couldn't help her much in her studies anymore. There was no time, and he was so beaten up at the end of the day that he only trained alchemy for an hour before his head hit the pillow, and he instantly fell asleep.

But besides his non-existing life, which he actually liked, was the massive increase in his skill levels and that he accumulated well to Anastasia's present, which he was wearing 24/8. It became more manageable day by day to wear the magic bracelets.

Right now, he had time to help Ocilia with her stuff before he started the movie night for his little sister, which he had worked on like a madman for the last weeks.

When her master came in, she stopped her training and was elated that he finally had time for her. It was a week since he showed up after dumping his notes on her.

Ocilia knew she was pampered as a disciple, but she didn't care. She justified that it would also be positive for the estate if she progressed. She was loyal to the Leonandra household and proud of being part of them. Over time it strengthened, and now she needed guidance since she wanted to help but needed to figure out how. All she did was to train and learn, 'Well, better to be prepared for if something happens.'

Her master brought her out of her thoughts by waving in front of her face, "What's up? Do you need some help?" he clearly hoped that she would say no, as he was already tired from the day.

Ocilia ignored her master's visible fatigue and quickly spoke precisely what she needed, "I can't recreate the ignite construct... at all."

Alexander signaled her to show what she meant. He watched her as she solidly constructed the spell, a little slow but solid nonetheless. All the nodes had the same density, plus-minus a couple percent off. The lines were actually well made too.

She spoke the chant, which was good too, and nothing happened. As Alexander concentrated more on his [Mana Sense] skill, he could see the problem: The mana didn't connect with each other but was only collected.

This would be fine for alchemy, as you only need your mana to herd the non-magical components and let them connect through physical and chemical forces. Regardless, with constructs, a magician needed their mana to connect outwardly with each other.

Ambient mana could not be connected or barely moved at all, at least not by Alexander, as he tried it before. It felt like he was trying to push a truck through a needle's ear. However, the inner mana should connect to each other, but hers didn't.

After the test, he rubbed his chin while thinking about what to do. His only explanation was that her mana skills were somehow connected to her thread since it was how she received the skill in the first place. It was nothing more than a guess, as her threads always had since she awakened her mana-related abilities, a much higher mana density.

He also couldn't explain the weirdness of why it was actually like this since her [Mana Sense] or [Mana Manipulation] skills were called the same by the system. If his guess was accurate, that meant that Ocilias spider-kin body, and with this, the mana skills, remembered the feeling of mana that went through her threads and acted as if it was natural to only use it this way. He needed her to test it first, and with this came a wonderful memory from his life on Earth.

Alexander looked at her and spoke expectedly, "How about you try to use your thread for the construct?"

After thinking about it, she tilted her head in confusion and frowned at her master, "I don't get it."

She needed help understanding what he said since how could she create a construct with threads?

Alexander came over and created a thread out of the water from the air, "Imagine that this is your thread but now..."

He created more threads that whirled around each other, creating a pattern around it resembling the ignition construct, "Think of it as knitting. Knit with your threads a construct and guide your mana through them..."

She looked unsure, but Alexander hoped she would at least try it a couple of times. She was young, and many youths had problems with failure and gave up too often too quickly upon encountering any. He ignored his impatience which almost killed him multiple times.

He looked at her sternly, "Can you do it?"

Alexander wanted to make it as practical as possible for her, but it also became more challenging. He thought she could probably create a flat construct, but this would become barely usable, so he went for the next step: Contorting the 2D construct into a 3D one that would take the form of a mixture of threads whirled around each other.

If she fought, having a flat burning construct in front of her would be a perfect target, but multiple burned threads were much more inconspicuous since one would think it would be a mystic skill and not try to destroy it but rather avoid it.

He understood that it would probably be better to first knit 2D models, but he wanted to push her since she had such perseverance in her education. She tried to learn everything he threw at her to the best of her abilities without giving up, so Alexander was curious about her limit since she could keep up with his teachings.

She sighed and tried it out. It was hard for her to create the pattern. Even though she had the [Knitting] skill, making a specific pattern around a linear body was much more complex than just knitting some socks for her siblings. She would need to contort the construct around a main thread and swirl further threads around it.

She expanded a single thread which was a lot thicker than usual, and around it, she weaved the spell-construct very carefully. The main thread was taut between both of her hands. Because of her mana skills, she could control her other threads excellently, even better than before, as [Mana Manipulation] aided her in this endeavor.

Alexander looked closely at her construction slowly taking shape, 'I see. The [Mana Manipulation] is an addition to her thread control and not a separate thing in itself.'

In his mind, even if she gave up as a mage, she would make an excellent tailor for unique clothing made from mana-infused spider-kin threads, but saying this would only destroy her confidence, even though he would mean it in good faith.

Her threads swirled expertly around the main thread and slowly came together like an artwork. She needed five minutes to do it but let her mana through the threads more deliberately and tried to evenly distribute it. After she was done, Ocilia spoke the chant, and the thread ignited successfully.

This surprised her so much that she almost felt down. It didn't burn her hands, and it looked beautiful as the flame permeated through her thread without it getting burned.

A surprised clapping sound woke her up from admiring her artwork. Alexander stood beside her with a broad smile and looked at her thread, "Good job, now you have a way to use spell-constructs. Did you get the skills?"

She stopped the spell and opened her system to look for the skills: [Spell-Constructing] and [Chanting].

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kiruschka/kiruschka.github.io/main/Chapter_27_Ocilia_new.svg]

She was elated and jumped until she threw herself to her master and hugged him for a good second before stopping and apologizing. Even though they were close, it was improper to do something like this in a disciple/master relationship and even less to a noble.

After the awkward hug, Alexander was happy for her, but his mind was with his sister as he needed to somehow make it through at least ten minutes of Redhood, and he hoped it wouldn't fry his brain.

The tired puppy sighed and needed to talk with his student about some things before leaving, "Listen, I am happy for you and all, but you need to practice safely."

Ocilia looked at him as if he was crazy, tilting her head. She sounded surprised, "Practice safely?"

First, he wanted to make a condom joke but quickly remembered where he was, so he tried to devise some safety procedures as she could burn the whole estate to the ground by practicing a simple ignite spell. Not like Alexander was a role model in terms of safety.

While he started to talk, he came over to her, "Yeah, while your magic can't hurt yourself..." He constructed an ignition spell on his finger and held it towards his palm, "...but if you touch with it something else..." He was at her desk and took a piece of parchment, which immediately went into flames as he touched it with his conjured spell.

He looked at her sternly, "Got it?"

She nodded and understood that there was a need to train safely, but as her master left, she looked at the half-burnt parchment on the floor and murmured under her breath, "It was my homework, though..." She looked at it and threw the ashes into the trashbin, "... never mind, I'll go and watch Redhood."

...

'There are more people than I thought...'

After getting everything he needed, he went to his little sister's room and saw at least twenty people crammed inside as he opened the door. His mother, Lorient, Narsiz, Sarah, Ocilia, and so on.

He looked at them and frowned. He suggested, "How about we change the place if so many want to watch it?"