Kotaro, Gina and Kana were walking toward the mountain, deep enough until no one else could see them. As the scent of the earth and the wind wafted to their's nose, they gradually saw two figures, Sen and Shinichi, leaning on a tree while hiding from the sunray under the shades of trees.

It looked like they were gradually coming to believe Kotaro. Last night, when Kana and Grandpa suddenly backing Kotaro. Sen and Shinichi voice had been initially filled with suspicion, thinking it was nothing but their pranks, but it didn't take long for them to believe in him when they saw Kotaro's glowing hand and floating dirt.

Sen instantly ran toward Kotaro when he noticed them. As he did, he looked the surrounding area, before showing Kotaro a bunch of pictures.

"Take a look of what I brought~" Said Sen.

The pictures of magic circles starting from simple pentagrams to complex octagrams. Perfectly copied by a pencil.

If someone were seeing them right now, it wouldn't wrong for them to assume those children were part of an occult, minus the gloomy cloak.

"I do some research on my end too." Said Shinichi.

In his hands were stacks of paper, everything from the news about paranormal phenomena to the video game guide.

"But what happened to you two?" Shinichi continued.

Two kids, Kotaro and Gina, staring at the sky almost looked like their souls were ready to fly out from their mouths.

"...It's useless... I can't make 100 friends, I can't make 100 friends, I can't make 100 friends." Gina muttered repeatedly, almost felt like she was chanting the sutra.

"I can't do it. No matter what, I can't sit still for six hours without doing anything. I can't ask for the second portion, I don't want to do any homework."  Breathed Kotaro, creeping to the window and pushing it up so they could talk through the bars.

Kana put her hand on her head before letting out a wry smile. "Kotaro... if you don't do well in school, we won't help you with this too. As for Gina, you can make friends with your friend's friends, right?"

"I'll help whether you go or don't go to s-" Sen immediately stopped saying more words after Kana was glaring at him.

Kotaro went silent and groaned to himself for a while. "U-urgh... I-I know... geez..." 

At the same time, Gina stayed silent for a while and eventually gasped. "You're right!! You are a genius Kana-nee!"

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" Said Shinichi after the two kids had their spirits back.

When Kotaro looked at the letters from Shinichi's papers, he noticed some of it were words from a language clearly not Japanese. 

Shinichi already explained simple things to them last night, and before he went to school, he even making his own hypothesis about this. Yet he still went the extra mile by accumulating more knowledge, fact and data about this kind of things.

In the end, Shinichi said two things he had concluded.

"The first thing is about the common game terms. It's pretty standard and I already wrote everything in this notebook, make sure you read it after we got home, Kotaro."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Ahem." Kana coughed as Kotaro's face turned blue when he heard the word read.

"...I mean after you do your homework. Anyway, let's continue to the second thing. It is about Kotaro’s current situation. From his story, every time he gets a new skill, he always does the related activity to the said skill. Hide and Seek is hiding and searching, or in his case, Stealth and Tracking. For the magic, I assume it happened because he touched the earth."

"Anyway, Kotaro. Why don't you imagine throwing this rock to that tree?" Said Shinichi as he handed several small pebbles to Kotaro.

Kotaro simply nodded. With a face full of confidence, he turned to the tree and did the same thing as yesterday. His right hand started glowing and the pebbles started floating. However, while he might able to make them float, Kotaro couldn't make the pebbles flying to the target tree.

"...Like this, no? Ugh... my body feels like a leaked balloon or something."

Though Kotaro complained with his mouth, he was still somewhat happy and excited, so he couldn’t help but smile.

But... "It's no use!!! I can't make this rock fly to that tree!!" He shouted as the light started dimming out.

Kotaro might have imagined himself using magic to do cool stuff countless times since yesterday break, but no matter how much or precise he imagined the pebbles flying forward, he just couldn't do it.

Everyone was putting their hands on their chins and started to think deeply why he couldn't do that. "Ah~ Kotaro~ when you try to throw the pebbles, what do you imagine?" Said Sen.

"Umm... I guess I just imagining them moving over there." Said Kotaro.

"Then, how about imagining it like a gun?"

"...?" Kotaro tilted his head.

"Yep~ like a gun, you know, you point it with your finger and it goes bang!" Said Sen.

"...With a bang, huh."

Once again, after sensing magic flowing out from his body to the pebbles Kotaro made the pebbles floated just like the usual. But this time, rather than imagining them to move forward, Kotaro imagined... no, rather than imagined he felt something was ready to launch the pebbles forward, just like a slingshot had been stretched out to its maximum stretching point.

And the trigger to release it was. "Rock bullet!!" Shouted Kotaro.

With a clear image, the name just popped into Kotaro's head. And as Kotaro chanted those two words, suddenly, though still weak, one of the pebbles was propelled to the direction his finger was facing. It was only strong enough to make a nail sized dent than an actual hole, but when everyone saw the spell take effect, they couldn’t help but react in different ways.

"Well done!! Marvellous! Marvellous!! Now let's try with the magic circles!!" Shouted Sen as he leapt toward Kotaro in high spirit, ready to hug his little brother. 

"...I see it seems hard for continuously moving the pebbles forward, but if he thinks it like flicking a marble, he doesn't need that much magic power or in his case, Aether power huh. But what's the deal with its name? Oh, by the way, Kotaro, can you check how much aether power you have left?" Shinichi muttered all by himself as he took the note.  

"Kotaro, how did you - What the -?" Kana's mouth fell open as the full impact of what she was seeing just now, even though she already imagined it herself.

Gina clapped loudly and cheered. "Do it again!" Or that was what she supposed to say.

But before Gina even able to say that, Kotaro already casted Rock Bullet after Rock Bullet with a foolish expression on his face. "Gahahahahahaha!!!"

Later at the same night.

"Keep it as a secret?! Why?!" Protested Kotaro to Grandpa.

"Hmph! Back in my day, people will always try experimenting on something that doesn't make any sense. Do you want it? Do you want to get dissected like a rat lab?! Do you want to study 24 hours a day without any rest?!" Said Grandpa.

When Kotaro heard that, he imagined that he was in a white room, with big window glass and address tag SUPER CHILD-01 attached to the steel door. Scientist goggled through the glass at him as he studied, did a series of boring test. He saw Gina's face in the crowd and shouted out, asking for help, but Gina only clapped as she watched him shooting rocks.

"G-guh... t-that... Gina! You stupid! Why don't you help me!!" Said Kotaro from out of nowhere.

Surprised, Gina only looking at Kotaro while tilting her head in confusion. "...? Do you need help with your homework?" Asked Gina.

"That's good if you understand. Now go take a bath and do your homework!" Said Grandpa.

...

As Kotaro was taking a bath.

Hey!! Listen! Hey! Hey! Listen! Hey! Look at your status!!! You get a new skill 'Water Magic Lvl 1!'

Hey!! Listen! Hey! Hey! Listen! Hey! Look at your status!!! Your 'Heat Resistance' is now Lvl 2!