Chương 37: Three Spells Short of Rain

In the end, Sieghart's determination lasted considerably longer than his exhausted body. He remained outside the tent for several minutes, imagining wide clouds of dust rolling across the battlefield and carefully timed bursts of wind disrupting the enemy formation. He even began outlining a training schedule in his head. His five-year-old body had other plans. The moment Sieghart returned to his bedroll, the exhaustion accumulated throughout the day crashed over him.

His eyes closed before he could organize even half of his ideas. He slept without dreams, undisturbed by the soldiers walking outside, the distant cries from the medical tents, or Edric's quiet return sometime during the night. When Sieghart opened his eyes again, pale light had begun seeping through the entrance of the tent. For one confused moment, he wondered why his blankets smelled like smoke. Then he remembered the battlefield. Sieghart sat upright so quickly that the world spun around him.

He placed one hand against the ground and waited for his thoughts to settle. The camp remained quiet, aside from guards changing shifts and attendants carrying supplies. No alarm horns sounded, which meant the Firians hadn't attacked during the night. He looked toward Edric's bedroll. His grandfather was still asleep, one arm resting across his chest while the other remained close to the knife beside him. Sieghart felt slightly annoyed with himself for wasting the night, but there had been no helping it.

He possessed the memories and ambitions of an adult, yet his body was still that of a young child. The previous day had included a two-day journey's conclusion, hours of charging magical weapons, his first large-scale battle, and enough fear to exhaust someone several times his age. Falling asleep wasn't a failure. It was merely inconvenient timing. Apparently, infinite mana doesn't provide infinite working hours. I should file a complaint once I discover who designed this system.

Sieghart quietly left the tent before Edric awakened. Breakfast wouldn't be served for a while, which gave him enough time to test the most ambitious idea he had considered during the night. Making rain sounded simple when reduced to its basic stages. He needed to create water, turn it into vapor, lift that vapor into the sky, and gather enough moisture to form a cloud. Once the droplets became heavy enough, gravity should handle the final step. The theory appeared straightforward.

Unfortunately, knowing how rain formed didn't mean Sieghart knew how to reproduce the entire process with magic. Understanding that birds used their wings to fly didn't teach someone how to build an airplane. Still, Sieghart had one advantage that most people lacked. He could afford to waste as much mana as necessary while experimenting. He walked toward an unused section of the camp behind the supply tents.

Several empty barrels stood nearby, along with a shallow depression in the ground where soldiers had previously washed equipment. Sieghart checked his surroundings carefully. A pair of guards stood in the distance, but neither appeared interested in a child wandering between the tents. He extended both hands over the depression and activated Water Creation. A steady stream poured from his palms, quickly gathering within the shallow pit.

Sieghart continued until he had produced enough water to cover the ground several centimeters deep. Creating a larger volume would have been easy, but controlling it presented the real challenge. An uncontrolled flood wouldn't become rain merely because Sieghart wanted it to. He crouched beside the water and summoned a small flame above his right hand. Heat spread across the surface, and thin wisps of vapor began rising into the cool morning air. Sieghart increased the temperature gradually.

More vapor appeared, forming a pale mist above the depression. The process worked exactly as expected, which immediately made him suspicious. His magical experiments rarely remained cooperative for long. Sieghart used his left hand to create more water while maintaining the heat with his right. The rising vapor thickened, but the morning breeze carried it away before it could gather. That was where wind magic became necessary.

He tried forming a gentle current above the pit, intending to catch the vapor and push it upward. The moment the wind responded, the flame in his other hand flickered violently. Sieghart lost control of the heat. The fire expanded across the water's surface, producing a sudden cloud of steam that struck him directly in the face. Protection prevented any serious burns, but the hot moisture still forced him to stumble backward. Sieghart landed upon his backside and stared at the rapidly dispersing vapor.

His hair clung damply to his forehead, while droplets of water ran down his cheeks. Excellent. My first attempt at controlling the weather has successfully created an unpleasant bath. He stood, brushed dirt from his clothes, and tried again. This time, Sieghart reduced the intensity of the flame before introducing the wind. The results improved slightly. He managed to lift the vapor almost two meters above the ground before the stream of newly created water weakened.

When he corrected Water Creation, the wind became unstable and scattered everything. The difficulty wasn't caused by a lack of mana. Sieghart had practiced casting two spells simultaneously, particularly fire and wind. Feeding air into a flame had taught him how to maintain separate intentions without allowing one element to overwhelm the other. Three spells were different. Water Creation required him to maintain a steady flow.

Fire demanded careful control over temperature, while wind needed constant adjustments to capture and direct the vapor. Each spell represented a separate problem requiring continuous attention. Attempting to manage all three felt like writing with one hand, drawing with the other, and solving an equation entirely inside his head. His mentality had improved tremendously, but it didn't allow him to divide his concentration without limit. Sieghart changed his approach.

Instead of maintaining Water Creation continuously, he filled the depression first and stopped the spell. That allowed him to focus entirely upon fire and wind while converting the existing water into vapor. The result was more successful. A thin cloud formed above the depression and rose gradually under the influence of his wind. It remained far too small to produce rain, but it maintained its shape for several seconds. Sieghart smiled. Then the wind shifted naturally. This story is posted elsewhere by the author.

Help them out by reading the authentic version. His little cloud drifted sideways, passed over his head, and disappeared between the tents before he could regain control. Sieghart watched it vanish. One cloud created. Approximate area covered: enough to inconvenience a particularly small pigeon. The experiment wasn't useless. He had confirmed that his idea could work on a limited scale, but producing enough vapor to affect the battlefield would require hours of uninterrupted casting.

Even if he managed that much, controlling a cloud hundreds of meters above the ground was beyond his current range. The moisture would disperse long before he could gather enough to create rain. Sieghart returned to the pit and attempted another cycle. He formed the flame, guided the vapor upward, and concentrated upon keeping the wind confined around it. The second cloud reached three meters before collapsing. The third became denser but spread too widely.

The fourth drifted toward a supply tent and dampened several blankets hanging outside. Sieghart was preparing his fifth attempt when he heard footsteps behind him.

"I thought it looked like you were planning something." Sieghart glanced over his shoulder and found Edric standing several meters away. His grandfather had crossed his arms and was examining the wet ground, drifting vapor, and slightly scorched depression. Sieghart extinguished the flame.

"I was just trying something new." Edric looked toward the clear sky, then returned his attention to the steaming water. His eyes narrowed slightly as he connected the pieces.

"Were you trying to make a cloud?"

"A small one."

"That didn't answer my question." Sieghart considered denying it, but the evidence surrounding him made that approach pointless. He had never been talented at pretending to be an ordinary child.

"I wanted to see if I could create rain." Edric stared at him for several seconds. His expression shifted between surprise, concern, and the exhausted resignation of someone who had repeatedly discovered that his grandson considered impossible ideas reasonable training exercises.

"Can you?"

"Not yet." The honest answer didn't reassure him. Edric stepped closer and examined the water remaining inside the depression.

"You aren't going near the battlefield to try this." Sieghart almost rolled his eyes. He had heard the same warning enough times that it was beginning to feel like part of his name. Sieghart Emberhart, five years old, disappointing firstborn, and legally prohibited from approaching battlefields.

"I didn't say that I was going near the battlefield."

"You didn't say you weren't." Sieghart opened his mouth, then closed it again. His grandfather had learned to recognize his preferred methods of avoiding promises. Edric crouched until their eyes were level. The lingering redness across his forearms had become lighter, but Sieghart could still see where the heat had damaged his skin.

"You are here to charge weapons. You aren't going to help by getting close to danger." Sieghart looked at the marks upon his arms.

"What if I stay inside the camp?" Edric frowned.

"That depends on what you're planning."

"I thought you weren't going to let me help."

"I said you aren't getting close to the enemies."

"So I can help from the camp?" His grandfather studied him suspiciously. Sieghart kept his expression as innocent as possible, although innocence was difficult to maintain while standing beside the remains of an attempted weather experiment. Edric looked toward the battlefield. The rising sun had already begun warming the eastern horizon, and faint smoke remained visible beyond the distant hills. He probably understood that preventing Sieghart from doing anything would be difficult.

The boy could produce more mana than every Restorer in the camp combined and had already seen enough of the battle to recognize the danger. Forbidding him from helping might only encourage him to act secretly. Edric sighed.

"Fine." Sieghart waited because the permission sounded far too easy.

"You can help as long as you remain inside the camp and stay away from the enemies."

"I can do that."

"If the defensive line moves toward you, then you retreat." Sieghart nodded.

"If someone orders you to leave, then you leave." Sieghart nodded again, although that promise depended heavily upon who gave the order and why. Edric noticed his hesitation.

"Sieg."

"I understand." His grandfather placed one hand upon his head but didn't disturb his hair this time. The gesture remained there for several seconds before Edric straightened.

"Come eat before you exhaust yourself." Sieghart followed him toward the area where breakfast was being served. His initial plan remained too ambitious, but Edric's permission gave him several safer options. He didn't want to reveal the full extent of his abilities. The soldiers already suspected that his mana pool was abnormal, and creating artificial rain would erase any remaining doubt. However, something simple should be acceptable.

A carefully directed dust cloud wouldn't look as impossible as changing the weather. Several wind or earth Aura users might be capable of producing a similar effect. Sieghart only needed to make his version larger, denser, and persistent enough to matter. After breakfast, Edric returned to his assigned group while Sieghart resumed training. The Firians showed no sign of attacking, exactly as he had predicted. Instead, the temperature increased steadily throughout the morning.

By midday, the camp had become hotter than it had been when they arrived. Soldiers remained beneath the shade whenever possible, conserving their strength for the evening. The Firians were probably doing the opposite. Sieghart could see several columns of smoke rising beyond the eastern hills. They were too consistent to come from scattered campfires, and their dark color suggested that the enemies were burning large quantities of dry vegetation. Sunlight might not be their only source of energy.

The Firians could be surrounding themselves with fires, absorbing heat from both the flames and the sky. If so, they were charging themselves faster than Sieghart had initially assumed. That possibility made his training even more urgent. Sieghart moved toward an open section of ground near the rear defenses. He gathered loose soil with Earth Magic, breaking the largest pieces apart until they became fine dust. The first wind blast scattered everything uncontrollably.

Several soldiers coughed and shouted at him from a nearby tent. Sieghart apologized before relocating farther away. His second attempt remained closer to the ground, but the dust cloud lacked enough density to block anyone's vision. Increasing the amount made it heavier and harder to move. Sieghart continued adjusting the balance. Earth Magic loosened the soil. Wind Magic lifted it. A second current controlled the direction and prevented the cloud from spreading toward the defenders.

That technically required three simultaneous effects, but two of them belonged to the same element. Sieghart found the process easier than maintaining water, fire, and wind together. By noon, he could create a dust curtain three meters wide. By early afternoon, it reached five meters and remained stable for almost ten seconds. The effort produced a dull ache behind his eyes, but each repetition became slightly easier. Sieghart rested only when soldiers brought him more weapons to charge.

Their suspicious looks continued, yet no one complained about receiving fully restored equipment. Some even began placing weapons near him without speaking, treating Sieghart less like a child and more like a strange magical tool that might become temperamental if disturbed. He wasn't certain whether that counted as respect. The sun continued crossing the cloudless sky. Every hour strengthened the Firians while the defenders waited behind their damaged barricades. Sieghart trained until sweat soaked his shirt.

His dust curtain eventually reached ten meters, although maintaining it at that scale required most of his concentration. The battlefield was far larger.