Chapter 132 - Puzzle Piece Spells

Erin looked at me with great anticipation, waiting for me to cast the ice spell. I took a deep breath and began forming the spell within my body.

...Now that I think about it, I've never really tried to understand how magic worked. In the past, I recklessly tried to combine random segments of different spells. However, that experience was rather painful, thus I never tried that again.

There was also that time where I combined spells, casting the water spell then the ice spell soon after. The end result was a rather large chunk of ice. Yet, while I did those experiments, they were mostly on a whim, rather than any theoretical understanding.

For the first time, I decided to pay close attention to the actual formation of the spell, thanks to Erin.

My mind finished the ice spell and casted it.

I watched the formation intently.

Water began to form, as though there was some void that it was pulled out from. Then, after a few moments, it froze over, becoming an ice cube.

It fell onto my hand and was cold as expected.

I flinched.

"Ah!"

And dropped the ice cube on the floor.

Erin didn't seem to notice my strange display. Instead, she was tapping the edge of her chin with her index finger.

Eventually, she looked at me, seemingly with the secrets of the universe at the tip of her tongue.

"Did you understand anything?"

...Well, maybe not the secrets of the universe.

I coughed awkwardly.

"I mean, not really? There doesn't seem to be much to go off of."

Erin hummed curiously.

"Hm, one step at a time! What do you think happened?"

I paused for a moment.

"...Well first, a bit of water was gathered, then it froze over. Though that's not much to go off of."

Erin raised a finger in the air with a bright smile.

"How is that not much to go off of? Now that we know that, we can look at the spell diagram."

She placed a finger onto the spell parchment of the ice spell. Frankly, I was already quite familiar with the diagram, thus wasn't that concerned about looking at it closely.

I scratched the back of my head.

"So... now what."

Erin tapped the spell diagram several times and pouted.

"Look at the picture! You made some water, then made it ice! How do you think that happened from the picture?"

My eyes followed her finger and landed on the spell diagram once more.

...It was the same diagram that I used before several times, but then I remembered Erin's words.

And it was like a whole new world opened up in front of me.

Why did the spell have to be encased in mana?

What exactly did encasing it do?

What about the part of the spell that isn't encased?

I rubbed my temple with the palm of my hand.

"...Huh."

If I were to cast the water spell, then follow it up with the ice spell, it would freeze all of that water. Doesn't that mean the ice spell would be an upgrade to the ice spell?

I recalled the water diagram... but it was fundamentally different to the ice spell, disproving my theory immediately.

I rubbed my chin with my thumb and forefinger.

My mind began casting the water spell. I raised my finger and held it up next to my face. Once the water spell was completed, a swirl of magic appeared on my finger, like a miniature vortex.

...Water was not being created in this spell, but rather gathered from the air.

A ball of water gradually formed in front of me.

Does that mean it is possible to replace part of the ice spell with the water spell? If that was the case, then-

"Ah!"

The ball of water fell on my face, prompting me to scream out in surprise. The water splashed across my clothes, which really woke me up.

Erin gave me an awkward look.

"...Um."

I blinked a few times.

"This... was on purpose!"

I raised my finger in hopes of looking more professional.

"I just casted the water spell to see if it differed in how the ice spell gathers water and found out while the ice spell creates a small amount of water, the water spell gathers it from the air!"

Erin still gave me a weird look.

"...So why did you have to drop the water on yourself?"

I coughed violently.

"Um... that was unintentional."

Erin poked me on the forehead and giggled to herself.

"What are you even doing to yourself?"

I coughed awkwardly as water continued dripping down my face.

"I..."

The clothes stuck to me uncomfortably, making me squirm.

"More importantly, I think I figured something out!"

Changing the topic quickly, I decided to try something new.

"I'm going to combine the water spell and the ice spell!"

Erin gave a few soft claps.

"Ohh, ok!"

This time, I began casting the water spell. However, before it finished, I encased the entire spell with mana.

A ball of water gradually began to converge before freezing altogether.

It fell to the ground with a clear thump.

This was considerably larger than the ice cube I made before. That was probably just because the water spell created more water.

The overall complexity of the spell increased, as did the difficulty in casting it, but it was still fairly easy for me to cast it.

Erin gasped.

"Wow! Now what did you do to cast that?"

I rubbed my chin with my thumb and forefinger.

"I replaced what I thought created water in the ice spell... with the water spell itself."

Erin tapped on the ice spell diagram.

"And which part made the ice?"

I looked over at the parchment and traced the edge of the diagram.

"This part... it seems to freeze things."

Erin raised both hands in the air with a bright smile on her face.

"You figured it out!"

I let out a small gasp.

"Ah... I did."

Now that I think about it, Erin kept leading me on little by little until I understood how it worked.

I looked at Erin as an awkward smile formed on my face.

"Haha... guess I figured it out. Thanks for the help."

Erin gave me a toothy grin.

"No problem!"

My face twitched.

"Say... wasn't it me that was supposed to teach you? How did this go the other way around?"

Erin shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know!"

A chuckle escaped me.

"Well anyways, thanks for helping me out. If you didn't mention it, I wouldn't have seen the spells as bits and pieces that came together to make a whole."

Erin gave me a thumbs up.

"Hehe, it was pretty cool seeing you cast magic too!"

A bitter smile spread across my face.

"You mean splashing water on myself?"

Erin giggled.

"No, no! I can't cast magic, remember?"

I blinked a few times.

"Oh... yeah. Somehow our roles reversed. Kinda ironic, haha."

Erin clapped softly.

"Hehe, but it was still more fun to see you splash water over yourself. You're more of a kid than me!"

The corner of my lip twitched.

"You..."

Erin hopped out of her seat.

"And it's time for me to run!"

She ran away with her arms spread out to her side, giving one last remark as she left the room.

"Bye, bye!"

I watched her run off for a few moments with a twitching eyelid. Eventually, a soft sigh escaped me.

"...Bye, Erin."

I scratched the back of my head.

"I've already splashed water over myself, but not the farm."

I shook my head.

"Guess I should get to it."

With that, I made my way towards the farm, still dripping wet.

It did not take me too long to reach the back of the palace, where the farm was. As expected, the land was quite dry.

I immediately got to it, casting the water spell.

Yet, halfway through, I began questioning myself.

...The water spell gathered water, rather than creating it. Doesn't that mean the water from within the soil was being absorbed before going back?

A raging headache began to form in my head.

Some of the water should've been gathered from the air, meaning my efforts weren't useless. However, it was probably far less effective than I imagined. After all, the field was always so... dry.

A soft sigh escaped me.

...But what about the ice spell?

If I just didn't encase it, water would be created, rather than gathered.

Yes, that made perfect sense!

Putting my theory to the test, I began casting the ice spell but didn't complete it. The process was rather quick, given the simplicity of the diagram.

Then... water began coalescing at the top of my finger before falling onto the farm.

It was a success.

...But a helpless smile appeared on my face.

Simply because of how little water formed.

Although I was creating water, the amount was far too little to justify the time put into casting the spell.

Huh...

In the end, my only choice was the bucket.