Sorcerer Wants to Enjoy Poya Poya

Chapter 2 The Magic Textbook

Lately, Mato couldn’t tell the difference between himself and Ricardo. It was as if his mind was regressing along with this young body. When he concentrated, he was able to think more clearly, but when he was distracted, he reverted back to the lethargic and absent-minded Ricardo who could only think childishly.

After two months of working at the mansion, Alexander came back after a long time.

Ricardo, who also served as the gatekeeper, opened the gate and welcomed his master. Alexander shouted loudly once he entered the house.

“Massimo, come here for a minute!”

Massimo, the apprentice, was usually upstairs in his study, reading and studying the magic books that Alexander had collected. When he came downstairs, Massimo saw Alexander’s stern face and hurried up, but instead stepped off and fell.

Massimo rolled down the stairs like a ball and knocked Alexander down like a bowling pin.

Ricardo whispered at the sight.

“Nice strike.”

Alexander got up with a groan.

“Hey, are you okay?”

He walked over to the unconscious Massimo and tried to help him up. He glared at Ricardo and ordered.

“Don’t just stand there and help me out!”

Ricardo ran towards Alexander to help out Massimo.

Massimo opened his eyes and groaned.

“Aaahh… It hurts like hell. I feel like I hit my head hard.”

Massimo sat up and examined his heavy body for any abnormalities, but everything seemed to be fine.

Alexander, who was worried, checked Massimo for any injuries.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. There is something more important than this, right?”

The worried Alexander turned serious.

“I have a job for you. The Viscount’s second son has decided to start studying magic. I want you to transcribe three beginner books.”

Massimo was an obese boy who liked to laze around in his room and was not very good at actual combat.

Ricardo wasn’t sure if he’s really bad at it or not because he hadn’t actually seen him use magic. He just got that impression from his conversation with Alexander.

“When do I have to finish the manuscripts?”

“The first one should be done in five days, the next in ten days, and the last one is a bit thicker, so it will take about a month in total.”

Ricardo could see Massimo’s face twitching, as he realised that if he followed Alexander’s instructions, he would have to copy for the next month.

“Would you be having dinner at home?”

Ricardo asked, and Alexander frowned, shaking his head. The food at the mansion was prepared by a lady who lived nearby, and it was the same as what the common people of the city usually ate. The black bread was hard, but the quantity was sufficient.

But Alexander, who usually ate at the castle dining hall, would definitely find it tasteless.

Massimo called out Ricardo after Alexander left the mansion.

“You’ve learnt to write, haven’t you?”

“Uhhh… yes.”

Hearing Ricardo’s reply, Massimo laughed with satisfaction. Ricardo understood what would happen next.

“I’m busy studying, so you’ll have to copy it for me.”

…… I knew it. I knew it. Someone who cheats like this could never be successful as a sorcerer. Ricardo thought, but at the same time, knew that people like this would get ahead in their careers. When Mato was a teacher, the head teacher of his year group was this kind of person, and he rose to become the vice principal the next year.

Ricardo entered the study for the first time after the manuscript was forced upon him. There were two hundred books in this study. He thought most of the books would be related to magic, but there were many history books, stories, biographies, philosophy books, and research books on magical beasts as well.

There was only one shelf that held magic books, and it only had about thirty books.

Massimo pulled out one of the books from the shelf and handed it to Ricardo.

“The first book is due in five days. Make sure you finish it.”

Massimo gave Ricardo some paper and materials to write, and then told Ricardo to do the copying in his own room. In this study, there were many books more important than those textbooks, and Massimo didn’t want Ricardo to see them.

Ricardo couldn’t accept being forced to do the transcribing. He thought for a moment and made one request.

“I’ve never done a manuscript before, so I’m sure I’ll make a lot of mistakes. Can I have some extra paper?”

Massimo made a grim face, but he knew he had to do something about it.

“Paper is expensive. Don’t waste it.”

“I understand.”

Ricardo returned to the attic with the first magic book, writing tools, and paper.

There was a table in the corner of the room with one leg missing, so he repaired it and used it as a desk. He leant on a large pillar as a backrest and sat down.

Ricardo opened the book titled “Basic Concepts of Magic”.

As he read through it, he understood what magic was. The magic power used in magic seemed to be a substance floating in the air. It was written that humans and magical beasts took in magic power by breathing and stored it in their cardiac muscle.

A catalyst and a magic language were needed to activate magic. The catalysts used were usually ashes or charcoal to start a fire, fish scales or shells to summon water, bird feathers or bones to call the wind, and berries or flowers to manipulate plants.

However, these commonly-used catalysts were insufficient to do much magic.

It was said that in order to use powerful magic, sorcerers needed to use materials from magical beasts. Charcoal from the magical tree Erbil was famous as a catalyst for fire, and the horn of the unicorn fish was famous as a catalyst for water.

And if the magic language was combined with the catalyst, the magic would be activated. There were many ways to combine them, and the most common way was to spread the catalyst and cast a spell.

In the book, there was a method of igniting firewood. Ricardo thought about experimenting with it, but judged that fire magic would not be a wise choice to practise indoors, so he decided to experiment with wind magic.

He had some bird feathers that he had picked up to use as a pen, so the problem of the catalyst was solved, and the spell was also written in the book.

He opened the only window in the attic, picked up the catalyst feather, and placed it on the edge of the window.

He chanted the [Breeze] spell, imagining that he was releasing magic power from the tip of his right hand into the feather.

“Shenna, wynn.” (Wind, blow)

Nothing happened. A breeze blew in through the window and flew the feather away.

Ricardo felt so embarrassed. He felt like a little kid watching TV, imitating the main character and shouting nonsense.

He returned to the table and continued reading the book. It was stated that to use magic power, not only imagining but proper training was also required.

“How to control magic power?”

He wanted to be able to use magic, but first he had to finish copying the book.

Ricardo picked up a pen and began to transcribe the book. As he began to work, he realised that this work was much harder than expected.

On the first day, he was only able to finish about ten percent of it.

The next morning, he went back to study with the manuscript and showed it to Massimo.

He replied, “It’s okay. Keep it up and write faster.”

He said in a haughty tone after pushing his own work on him. Ricardo’s writing was overall rather clean and neat. The original textbook itself was a handwritten manuscript, so there were some unrecognizable characters and mistakes.

As a former teacher, Ricardo revised the text and tried to make it better than the original.

“Um, can I take a break from… cleaning and stuff?”

Massimo pondered for a moment, then instructed him to work as usual in the morning and use the afternoon to work on the manuscript.

“Okay. I will make sure to finish it by the deadline.”

He left the study and finished cleaning the first floor. After having lunch, he resumed his work.

His pace increased on the second and third day and he got the hang of it on the fourth day. Ricardo memorized the contents of one page of the original copy in his mind, then wrote it down without looking at the book. This was impossible for him when he was in Japan, but it was possible for the current Ricardo. It seemed like something felt different.

His transcribing speed doubled and he finished the first book on the fourth day.

Since there was one day left before the deadline, he wrote down the main points of “Basic Concepts of Magic” on another piece of paper and decided to make his own magic notebook.

On the night of the first book’s deadline, he handed the completed transcript to Massimo. Massimo checked it and then pulled the second book off the shelf and handed it to Ricardo.

“Don’t be lazy.”

Massimo’s attitude annoyed Ricardo so much. He wanted to snap back at him, ‘You’re the lazy one,’ but he knew that would only make the situation worse and his life here would get difficult.

The situation reminded Mato of the story of Cinderella that he had read in a comic book when he was a child. He remembered thinking how pitiful Cinderella was, being told to clean and do chores by her stepmother and sisters.

It’s pretty similar to my current situation. A kind prince comes to Cinderella’s rescue, but not in my case.

It reminded him of Alexander. He was not that type of gentle sorcerer. His face was smiling, but no one could tell what he’s thinking.

The second book was titled “Theory of Catalyst in Magic” and it took him three days to finish the transcription.

Ricardo wrote down the main points of the second book on a separate piece of paper, just like the first.

There were still two days left until the deadline. When he handed it to Massimo early, he looked at Ricardo strangely.

“You’re early. You didn’t cut corners, did you?”

Mato started to dislike this sorcerer’s apprentice. I’ll try not to get involved with this kind of person in the future.

Massimo was satisfied with the contents of the transcript and handed over the next book.

The third book, “Fundamentals of Magic Language”, was a thick book that took seven days to copy. Instead of handing it to Massimo immediately, he wrote down the main points of the book on a piece of paper and combined it with the notes from the first and second book to make a magic notebook.

Ricardo began to study magic in his spare time.

From the notebook, he read the section on magic control training and tried to put it into practice.

It seemed that the basic principle of magic control was to put one’s right palm and left palm together and let the magic move from the right hand to the left. It said that the magic power would appear like a glowing white mist.

He tried it, but couldn’t even see a speck of magic. Since this was a well-established training method, it must have been the result of a lot of trial and error by the predecessors. Perhaps continuing without giving up was the key.

Since he came to a world where real magic existed, he wanted to try using it.

He decided to train every day before going to bed. Ricardo was only 9 years old, so he had plenty of time to train carefully.

However, he did not intend to waste his time. Mato had regretted that he wasted a lot of his childhood so he didn’t want to do the same in Ricardo’s life.

If only I had studied harder when I was a kid, if only I had taken my job more seriously, if only I had paid more attention to my surroundings when I was there…….

I don’t want to have any regrets anymore.

He strived to spend each day carefully. However, as a self-depraved and weak-willed person, he almost became accustomed to Ricardo’s original silly personality.

The scary thing was that, when he was not paying attention, there were instances when he passed time in a daze. During that time, his mind felt “poya poya” (fuzzy) and he felt happy at that moment.

It seemed that the original Ricardo liked this kind of “poya poya” time.

Nine days later, as he was training to control magic power, he felt as if there was something in his body that was many times denser than water. He didn’t know how to describe it, but it felt like a real, definite response.

The next moment, he saw something like a white haze permeated from his right palm.

“Oh.”

Ricardo thought it was an illusion, but when he concentrated again and tried to move the magic, he saw the white haze again. It seemed that he was able to move the magic power. But there was no momentum in the flow of magic power.

“Why is it like this?”

He remembered that in “Basic Concepts of Magic”, breathing would take in magic power and store it in the cardiac muscle.

“Maybe I’m starting from the wrong place.”

The training method described was to imagine the magic power moving from the right palm to the left palm. In fact, it went into more detail, but there was no mention of the heart.

He tried again. This time, instead of focusing on the right palm, he imagined the magic power flowing from the heart and rushing out of the right palm.

A white wind blew out of his right palm and was absorbed into the left palm. Ricardo couldn’t help but grin and his concentration broke.

“It took me ten days to realise such a simple trick. I wonder if I am not talented.”

Ricardo didn’t know this, but it was said that magic control could only be mastered after an average of six months of training. It was an amazing feat that he had mastered it in about ten days.

If the sorcerers knew about this, they would surely have rushed to make Ricardo their apprentice.

And the trick Ricardo discovered was one that was considered a secret among sorcerers. Sorcerers would teach this secret technique in exchange for a large reward. Such a system was established more than a hundred years ago.

However, even if one were to be taught this secret technique, it took a month at the earliest to master the control of magic power.

Now, it was time to try out the magic.

He tied a bundle of bird feathers on a string and hung it by the window. This was to prevent them from flying away in the wind. Excitedly, he held out his right hand toward the feather.

Concentrating his consciousness on his magic power, he cast a spell. Instantly, hot air burst out from his right palm as if from a dryer.

“Shenna, wynn.” (Wind, blow)

The moment the white mist shook the feathers, a strong breeze was generated outside the window, shaking the treetops of the garden tree. The catalytic feather turned black, crumbled and disappeared.

“Whoo-hoo-hoo, it worked!”

Ricardo twirled around on the spot and raised his hands towards the sky in joy, just like a ballet dancer.

The next day, Ricardo went to the backyard. He looked at his magic notebook, then tried the magic of [Fire].

He scattered the ashes he had brought from the cooking stove on top of the dried branches on the ground and chanted the [Ignition] spell while releasing magic power from his right hand.

“Fana, corolle.” (Fire, burn)

A small flame rose from the dried branches and began to burn.

The next step was to practise the magic of [Life]. The catalyst was fruits. After burying the grape seeds in the soil and sprinkling the grounded berries, he released the magic power and chanted the spell.

The soil in the area where the magic was applied bulged and buds sprouted. At the same time, the white powder used as a catalyst turned black and disappeared.

The magic of [Fire] and [Life] succeeded. If one was able to control magic power, it was likely that they would not fail even if they only used the elementary magic described in the first magic book.