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

Cross Leonandra (Wolf-kin)

* Personal protector of the lady of the Leonandra household

* Commander of the Leonandra military

* Specialized in sword/shield style

* Greenish-brown eyes

* Chestnut brown fur and hair color

Ocilia Leonandra (Spider-kin)

* Disciple of the MC

* Specialized in magic/alchemy-oriented threads

* Purple eyes

* Purplish-black hair color

Green (III) from the Forest of Fallen Wishes (Fairy)

* Messenger of the temple

* Head of a temple branch in the east of Moorgrel

* Teaches the MC magic

* Specialized in healing, herbalism, agriculture, and administration

* Light-green eyes

* Greenish hair

* Autumn-colored wings

...

"Wow, the lady was really sure to restrict you, huh."

"Can you please not?"

Green looked at his new anti-mana collar and was fascinated by it, "It is not the child version but the one amateurish war mages are wearing, so it seems that the other was one too weak?"

From the side came a nervous tone from Ocilia, interrupting the chat between Green and Alexander, "Ms. Green... I don't think I can teach him..."

Without turning away, Green said solemnly, "Just the basics."

Ocilia looked to the side and saw Cross, who sat beside her. She immediately looked down as he looked back and nodded toward her. Alexander helped him get [Mana Sense], and now he wanted to learn how to get [Mana Manipulation]. Thus he was here.

But there were some problems as he emitted an aura of discipline and strictness, which he tried to suppress in front of the poor spider-kin girl, which twitched every time he moved. He was oppressive, to say the least.

Alexander also chimed in, "Don't worry, Lia. Cross will listen to you. Look how concentrated he is."

"Thi... This is the problem..." Cross sat beside her and stared down at her, ready to receive any information he could and start with his training. However, Ocilia wasn't acquainted with such an attitude. It made her incredibly nervous since all her lessons with her master or Green, were very relaxed.

Alexander looked at him and saw the problem, "Listen, Cross, can you relax a bit? You make her nervous... and look at Maurice. He is about to lay an egg."

On the other side sat Maurice, sweating heavily. Not a hair on his body dared to move. Cross noticed this too and nodded, straightening himself even more, "Don't worry, Mr. Alexander and..." he looked at Ocilia and almost yelled at her, "...Lia, you will just teach me the basics, so please relax!"

Him being suddenly louder, let her reel back, and her upper eyes changed to blue, representing fear and anxiety, "O... Ok, Mr... I mean Cross."

While Ocilia stuttered through her explanation and Maurice didn't dare to breathe too loudly, Green concentrated on the new collar, "So, why this one? Did something happen to the most basic version?"

"Oh yeah, you heard about it, right? We got a ton of mana items from the Cold-Snouts because I cracked one of their collars open."

She tilted her head, "You broke it?"

Alexander shook his head and became proud as he was about to tell his new skill, "Nah, I tried to invade it with my mana skills while it was around my neck. While doing so, I tried to..."

Before he could say more, Green panicked and closed his mouth with her hand, "Stop! Never tell this to anyone! You wanted to tell me you received a skill starting with the letter H, right?"

Alexander nodded, and she started to sweat, "This is a skill that was outlawed to secure the intellectual property for the biggest artificer's unions. They lobbied strongly to the crown to make the skill illegal, and it is only allowed if you receive special consent from the crown or for military purposes."

She nervously smiled, "So, let's just think this has never happened, ok?"

Alexander nodded, and she slowly took her hand away. For Green, this student was literally a walking catastrophe, and she sometimes thought if it would be better for him to be born somewhere in a barely populated village where he didn't have any resources but also no eyes on him as he could do as he wished.

However, she hoped he wouldn't run around and announce his new skill to everyone. The [Hacking] skill was highly sought after in the underworld, and the holders of such a skill would be paid heavily to analyze certain artifacts or just crack them open. Someone who could do it needed to be a mage with great mana skills and an artificer with a lot of knowledge about artifacts and how to disable them.

So, this was even more surprising to her how he could disable an anti-mana collar, 'Did my book help? It was about the basics... damn it! Should I bring him picture books now, or will he somehow conclude other things from them?!'

While Green thought about how to steer this living and breathing disaster in a direction that didn't get everyone eradicated. Alexander, on the other hand, was already at peace and understood that he needed to work on it secretly. He had much more training possibilities with all the new mana items, which he was partly allowed to inspect.

However, he wanted to ask her more, "Yeah, so I got another two mana skills, and one of them is really hard to control."

Green came out of her thoughts and scrutinized him, fearing the worst again, "What ones?"

There were other illegal mana skills that were worse than [Hacking], and she hoped dearly that he didn't receive any. However, what he said, made her even more confused, "One is [Mana Theory], which is self-explanatory, but the other is [Mana Seering], and I have no idea how to control it since I puke almost the moment I activate it."

"Wait... you have the [Mana Seering] skill? How did you get it?!"

He thought about it and told her bluntly, "Well, I just pushed all my mana into my mana veins and into the core while using my [Mana Sense] on the core while trying to isolate my other senses with [Meditation]. I kind of wanted to only sense mana..." he shrugged, "...that is how it happened."

Green's eyes bulged, and she quickly grabbed into her bag and threw at Alexander a couple of spell pamphlets while speaking fast, "[Mana Seering] is a skill which people use in dungeons, mana caves or how you want to call them, to find traps, treasures and so on. There are also a lot of other things mages can do with it. However, a mage with such a skill is a true rarity, and now you have exposed their secret and how they learned it. Here, learn this while I test it out."

She quickly flew on top of the desk and sat down. After a moment of intense breathing, she closed her eyes and didn't move. While Green was untalented as a mage and gave up the career path, she was nonetheless interested in receiving rare skills which could boost her reputation to new heights. Maybe she would need a couple of decades to bring the skill to usable levels, but it was just a blink for a race that lived a very long time.

After she bombarded him with information, he looked around and saw Cross frowning at him, "Mr. Alexander, such a skill..."

However, before he could end his sentence, Ocilia plopped onto the floor, rearranged herself into the lotus position, and started to do the same as Green. She became addicted to growth, and with her master behind her, there was no stopping as he shared his secrets freely.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

She loved this the most as she heard stories from others where one was obliged to first work on menial tasks for years to prove their loyalty before even receiving some training. Her master, on the other hand, just gave it out and expected her to learn it with diligence.

Even the menial tasks she did initially were now the servant's problems as he thought it was a waste of time for her to clean so much.

This, in turn, raised her loyalty to him immensely after she understood that he was benevolent beyond belief. The jealousy she received from other apprentices at the estate became a badge of honor for her.

After the commotion ended, Cross looked back to Alexander and continued, "Don't reveal skills so easily, is what I wanted to say before these two nutjobs started whatever they are doing now."

Alexander blinked at him and asked in confusion, "Why, though? This skill sounds incredibly helpful and could be a game-changer in campaigns against monsters and dungeons. I want to disclose it either way fully later on."

Cross frowned at him even more and needed to hold back his personality formed by decades of being in the military and observing the lady, for he was her personal protector. Also, it was the lady's son, so he couldn't even imagine what would happen to him if he started to shout at him, "Mr. Alexander, skills and other things like this should be used for leverage to get more loyal personnel."

Alexander thought about what he had said. However, something irked inside of him. It was a feeling that the skill couldn't develop if only a small group of mages could use it. Yet, such dreams were far into the future, now he thought that he needed to be careful and first become stronger before revealing everything so openly, "You are right. First, I need power, and then I can release all the skills and how to get them."

Cross became a little annoyed and wanted nothing more than to smack some sense into him, 'I didn't mean it like that, you little shithead!'

Alexander continued, "Imagine a magic school where all the knowledge is available for all the students! Research would be a bree..."

His speech was interrupted by the puking of Ocilia, "Keugh! Ah! What is this? Urgh!"

Her master wasn't amused and used the disintegration spell on the mess after she emptied her stomach. He approached her as she was lying on the floor and breathing heavily, "You got the skill too?..." He smirked at her, "...wanna try with the collar on? It feels like somebody shaking you like... well, heavily. I have no good analogy."

He had some good ones, but they were mostly Earth references she wouldn't understand. Being inside a blender with rainbow-colored dragees fitted the best.

Ocilia tried to catch her breath, "Huuuu, not now, please. I feel terrible."

Before he could say something, the next one started too, "Damn it! Urgh! What the hell is this skill?"

Alexander raised an eyebrow, "Huh, you didn't puke? How is the skill? Fun, right?"

Green got herself together very fast and smiled at her student, "I need to thank you since this skill is worth a lot... and I mean a lot."

He shrugged, "Well, you are welcome, but what do you wanna do with it? Sell? If I get a cut, I am fine with it."

Green shook her head, "No, but if I train the skill, I can do missions as a mana seer for the temple and get more influence..." She felt how Cross glared at her, so she needed to mention her student's advantages too, "...and with it, I can help you much better too."

He nodded, "All right, my level is at around 8, and it feels less shaky while the colors are less explosive."

Green nodded. She would need years to level it up to level 25 or more so it could be trained without her stomach feeling like it had become a battlefield.

She looked at the heavily breathing Ocilia and wondered, "Who was faster?"

Alexander pointed with his tail towards his disciple, "She was, but she also puked. So you both won in some way."

Green shrugged, not like she cared at this point. As long as there was a giant mountain of talent, every other mountain, even if it was high, would look like nothing more than some hill made out of dirt.

She obviously thought about Alexander, who found out how to acquire the skill first and was already at a level, she would reach in maybe a year or two.

Maurice asked suddenly and very carefully, "I don't understand what is happening, but can we continue the lesson?"

Alexander agreed, "Sure thing..." He clapped, "...Cross, tell Mom what happened, please. She will love it and..." He licked his lips slightly, "...I have more spells to learn."

He walked towards the pamphlets and looked at them more closely, "One spell is an actual attack spell... Earth bullet, huh, and it is a spell Merlin created... how interesting."

Green commented while shakingly flying over to her other students, "Don't know why he called it a bullet, but it is a good attack spell."

The spell structure and chant were so easy that Alexander learned it in 15 minutes. A literal bullet look-alike made from hard stone was conjured out of his mana, 'This bastard is truly an Earthling.'

However, he became confused, 'This shit isn't shooting... it is just floating mid-air... what the?'

Green stopped her teaching as she sideglanced at him, examining why the spell didn't do anything, and gave him a quick explanation, "Good job, but for it to do something, you need another two spells. Look at the other pamphlets."

After dissolving the spell, he grabbed the other two pamphlets, 'Air pressure and targeting... huh.'

They were as easy as the earth bullet spell. Alexander believed that it was an actual, more significant spell that was much more complex, but by dividing it into three parts, a mage could be much more flexible on the battlefield. It was also easier to learn.

'I think the mana efficiency went down by a notch, nonetheless clever... he did the same thing I did with my contraptions while doing the little movie night.'

Alexander remembered how he created and memorized fixed contraptions so he could just conjure them by pure memory, so his brain didn't fry every time he tried to create a new one and calculate everything from the beginning.

'Right, alchemy is fun, but spells are exciting, too.'

While he liked and trained in alchemy, something about magic just spoke to him. However, he believed that alchemy had a much steeper learning curve and that creating all the fantastical things he could think about would need an insane amount of metaphorical computational power or a lot of mana. Both he didn't have. Thus he went back to learning Merlin's spells.

After 20 minutes, he learned the new spells and wanted to immediately try them out. He targeted a tree outside through the open window. First, the earth bullet was created and floated before him. Afterward, he marked a tree branch. A little red target showed up on it, which only he could see. This made the puppy smile, 'How considerate.'

Third, he used the air pressure spell, which built up behind the bullet. He put a little extra mana into it, and after a moment of it building up, a giant explosion ensued when he let go. The air pressure was released, bringing chaos to the room as everyone's parchments flew around.

"Whoa!"

"Hm!"

"Be careful, you moron!"

"..."

The bullet flew through the open window and directly into the branch, penetrating it, "Hehe, what a nice..."

Pack

"Ow!"

Green flew angrily over and hit him on the back of his head, "Hey! This is not a testing ground! Don't use war spells inside the classroom, do you understand?!"

He rubbed the back of his head, "Yeah, got it but to my def..."

Pack

"Why again?!"

Green scolded him more, "No war spells inside closed rooms and especially no tests! Do. You. Understand?!"

Alexander nodded while smiling, "Got it, teach..." He looked down at his waist since he felt constricted, "...however, whose energy is this?"

A string made out of energy coiled around his hips and firmly held him.

Maurice answered him while sweating heavily and visibly in stress, "Mine, I didn't know what happened, but I wanted to drag you out as quickly as possible."

Cross turned toward him and nodded in acknowledgment, sternly as always and almost yelling, "Good job!"

Alexander looked at everyone, and only Ocilia was somewhat alright, 'Well, she is used to me.'

He apologized while opening his arms, "Sorry about that. I was too impatient and wanted to try it out immediately. Well, it worked well as far as I can see."

Green flew to the window and looked out, "Was your target the branch of the one tree that is far away?"

Alexander also came over, "Yeah, as far as I can see, I hit it cleanly."

"This you did..."

Green squinted her eyes and needed to think about how he could mark a target so far away. The earth bullet spell combination was a great indicator of how good a mage was.

The earth bullet needed to be stable, and without a good amount of training in [Mana Manipulation] and [Mana Emission], the bullet would break from the air pressure. The marking, on the other hand, showed the [Mana Sense] and how far someone could sense something mana related and put a spell on it. The air pressure, sometimes also called propulsion spell, needed [Mana Manipulation] too, but also a good aptitude in [Mana Emission] since the spell needed the right force while holding it together tightly. Otherwise, if let go, the air pressure would fly in all directions.

Additionally, the combination of all three spells working in tandem showed the ability to coordinate the skills. It was a test MU's did to estimate the talent of apprentice mages who didn't want to show their system window.

She looked at her grinning student, 'Talk about breaking expectations. This spell is actually non-lethal for every apprentice as they can barely hit a target 10m (11 yds) away and maybe put a bruise on someone, but he...'

She looked outside and activated one of her skills, '~130m (142 yds), and the branch was massive and stable.'

Green was brought out of her thoughts then she heard a rustle. Turning around, she saw that Ocilia was already reading the earth bullet pamphlets, 'This will actually be more interesting.'

She had no idea how the spider-kin girl wanted to replicate such a spell with her threads. Green had some ideas but wanted to let Ocilia try the spells out first so she could build independence.

However, she suddenly had an ominous feeling, 'I don't know if independence is such a good thing for the student of the one who made mana insects in the first place... need to think it through if she also maybe needs an anti-mana collar, as a preventive measure.'

Alexander came over to her, "Need help? I have no more stuff to learn for now and need a break."

Ocilia nodded without looking at him while she kept reading. On the other hand, Green flew over to her other students and tried to find a way for them to get the [Mana Manipulation] skill. She didn't want Alexander to waste his time with this since the concept was clear, and all one needed were creative ideas.

But she remembered something, "When do we make the stuff again? Tomorrow or...?"

Alexander answered her, "No idea. I will notify you since I need to..." he cringed a little with his following words, "...bless someone the day after tomorrow."

It was nice to be acknowledged by others, but it became a burden on his studies since the mana consumption was immense every time he helped to acquire the [Mana Sense] skill for someone. Luckily, with repetition, he could reduce the mana he needed from a whopping 90% to 80%. However, it was still a lot since he needed a whole day to regenerate semi-passively since he always used his [Mana Absorption]. Otherwise, he would need to meditate for six to eight hours.

This brought him a lot of headaches which he simply ignored, but he could not ignore that he couldn't train as well as before. He could stop it but didn't intend to since it benefited the estate, 'Hope mom will be happy with her skill.'

With this, they all went back to their tasks.