Chương 5: The First Flame

Sieghart's new life in the countryside developed in a rather unusual direction. His grandparents cared about him, but they weren't particularly overprotective. They made certain he ate properly, slept somewhere warm, and stayed away from anything obviously dangerous. Beyond those basic precautions, however, they allowed him far more freedom than his parents' servants ever had. When Elara and Edric went to tend the fields, they often took Sieghart with them.

At first, Elara carried him in a cloth sling across her back. Once he became more confident on his feet, they started placing him on a thick blanket near whichever section of the farm they were working on. They surrounded him with a few wooden toys, gave him something to drink, and allowed him to crawl or walk as much as he wanted. There wasn't much nearby that could injure a child. The crops were soft, the ground was mostly level, and the workers kept dangerous equipment far from him.

The livestock occupied fenced pastures on the opposite side of the farm, so he didn't need to worry about being trampled by an enormous cow with four horns. Perhaps his grandparents simply trusted the safety of their land. Or perhaps they could tell that Sieghart wasn't an ordinary baby. He never tried to swallow rocks. He didn't crawl toward open flames, wander beneath carts, or throw himself into irrigation channels. Compared to other children his age, he probably seemed suspiciously committed to staying alive.

Sieghart wasn't complaining. Their relaxed attitude was incredibly convenient. The Emberhart estate had confined him to a nursery for most of his first year. His servants had carried him a few times, but they rarely took him outside and never allowed him to explore. Here, he saw new parts of the farm almost every day. More importantly, he saw magic. A lot of it. The next time happened two days after his arrival. Edric and Elara brought him to a field filled with rows of short plants bearing pale-green leaves.

The soil appeared dry, and several leaves had begun to curl from the heat. Sieghart expected his grandparents to retrieve buckets. Instead, Elara approached a narrow stone channel running between the fields. She crouched beside it and placed one hand above the remaining water. Her eyes glowed blue. The change was subtle enough that Sieghart nearly missed it. Blue light filled her irises for less than a second before the water began to move.

It rose from the channel in several twisting streams and flowed across the nearest rows. The water didn't splash wildly. It separated into dozens of narrow ribbons, each one spreading evenly around the plants before sinking into the soil. Sieghart watched without blinking. Elara continued for perhaps two minutes before lowering her hand. The glow faded from her eyes, and she released a slow breath. Edric took over from there. He stepped between the rows and pressed one foot against the ground.

His eyes briefly shone with a dull yellow-brown light. The soil shifted around his boots, rolling outward in a shallow wave. Clumps broke apart. Small stones rose from beneath the surface and moved toward the sides. The earth arranged itself into neat raised rows around the plants as though invisible hands were shaping it. Earth magic. Actual earth magic. Sieghart forgot to pretend he was interested in his wooden lion. His grandfather walked forward while the soil moved ahead of him. It wasn't a dramatic display.

No pillars erupted from the ground, and the field didn't split open beneath his feet. The effect extended only a few meters around Edric, but it accomplished in minutes what would have required hours of manual labor. When they finished, Elara and Edric switched places with another pair of workers and rested beneath a tree. Both looked tired. Elara drank an entire cup of water before leaning against the trunk.

Edric's breathing had grown heavier, though he tried to hide it by inspecting the dirt beneath his fingernails. Sieghart looked from them to his status screen. His own mana still displayed infinity. The contrast was difficult to ignore. Over the following days, Sieghart witnessed more examples. Elara used water magic to irrigate vegetable gardens and wash mud from harvested roots. Edric used earth magic to repair shallow trenches, loosen packed soil, and remove stones that might damage farming tools.

Both of them could use fire. They didn't produce enormous fireballs or summon walls of flame. Usually, they created small sparks to ignite dry wood. Once the flames caught, Elara sometimes used wind magic to feed them, sending controlled currents of air through the fuel until it burned hotter. It was practical. Efficient. And somewhat disappointing. Sieghart had expected fantasy magic to be grander.

He wanted to see a water blast reach the clouds or a fireball reduce a tree to charcoal before the ashes could touch the ground. He wanted lightning storms, frozen rivers, floating mountains, and enormous magical beasts summoned through portals. Instead, his grandparents used magic to water cabbages. It was still more impressive than anything on Earth, but the scale fell short of what he imagined. The reason soon became obvious. Mana. Whenever his grandparents used magic, they became tired.

Minor spells didn't affect them much, but prolonged work left them sweating and short of breath. On the days when Elara watered a large field, she sometimes needed to rest for an hour before using magic again. Edric once used earth magic to clear a collapsed irrigation ditch. After lifting and shifting several hundred kilograms of soil, his face turned pale, and he spent the remainder of the afternoon performing the work by hand. Their magic wasn't weak because they lacked skill. Their supply of mana was limited.

Perhaps that was normal in this world. Sieghart had been thinking about magic from the perspective of stories, where powerful mages threw hundreds of spells during a single battle. Realistically, even someone capable of creating a fireball might only cast it a few times before exhausting themselves. If most people had small mana pools, magic would remain useful without completely replacing physical labor. That would also explain why this world admired strong bodies so much.

Muscles didn't become useless after five spells. Sieghart confirmed part of that theory several days later during the farm's first major harvest since his arrival. The entire household woke before sunrise. Workers entered the fields carrying baskets, ropes, and long wooden rakes. Elara placed Sieghart beneath a covered area at the edge of the field, where he could watch without being burned by the morning sun. Edric arrived carrying a strange tool. It resembled a broad metal rake attached to a wooden shaft.

Runes had been carved along the metal head, and a hollow chamber near the handle contained a blue stone about the size of a chicken egg. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. The stone glowed faintly. Sieghart immediately forgot about the bread Elara had given him. Edric carried the tool toward a field of mature golden stalks. Several workers moved away, leaving a wide space in front of him. He adjusted a metal ring near the handle. The blue stone flashed.

Wind roared across the field. A concentrated blast spread outward in a broad arc, slicing through hundreds of stalks at the same height. The severed plants flew several meters before landing together in a loose pile. Sieghart's mouth fell open. Edric moved to the next section and activated the tool again. Another blast cut through the crops, clearing several rows in an instant. The workers followed behind him. They didn't need to cut anything themselves.

They only gathered the fallen stalks, tied them into bundles, and loaded them onto carts. The tool performed the work of dozens of people. After several uses, the blue stone's glow weakened. Edric opened the compartment, removed it, and inserted another. Sieghart watched carefully. The stones were clearly consumable sources of mana. He couldn't tell whether they were naturally occurring crystals or artificially created batteries, but they powered magical tools without drawing energy from the user.

They were probably expensive. If they had been cheap and plentiful, every farmer would own several of those tools, and most manual labor would have vanished. Instead, Edric used it only for the largest field while workers harvested smaller areas with ordinary equipment. Even so, a single stone replaced hours of labor. Mana had value. Magic itself, however, might not be as highly valued as Sieghart first assumed.

If tools could reproduce common spells, then knowing how to create a gust of wind wasn't enough to make someone important. A farmer with a magical tool could accomplish the same thing. Perhaps that was why physical warriors occupied such a respected position. Maybe no one in this world could summon lightning with a snap of their fingers or drop meteors upon armies. Magic might be too limited for that. It was treated as a utility rather than an overwhelming weapon.

Sieghart glanced at the infinite symbol beside his mana. That limitation didn't apply to him. Even a simple utility spell became extraordinary if he could use it without stopping. If he learned the spell Elara used to water crops, he could create an endless supply of water. His output might begin as a trickle, but a trickle that never stopped could fill barrels, reservoirs, and eventually lakes. Given enough time, Sieghart could have the same value as a river. That wasn't particularly heroic, but it was profitable.

Perhaps his overly dramatic name had misled him. He didn't need to become a legendary mage who destroyed mountains. He could become a legendary irrigation system. His parents would be thrilled. Their firstborn son, the human water pump. Sieghart smiled to himself, then returned his attention to Edric. He watched his grandparents use magic whenever possible, but seeing the results didn't teach him the process. Elara raised her hand and water moved. Edric stepped on the ground and the soil shifted.

There were no visible runes, gestures, or incantations. The magic seemed to happen because they wanted it to happen. Unfortunately, wanting something had accomplished nothing during Sieghart's year of experiments. He needed lessons. Asking his grandparents to teach him wasn't an option yet. He was still too young to speak fluently without exposing the fact that he wasn't an ordinary child. More importantly, everyone believed he lacked the internal channels required to use magic.

If he asked for magical training at one year old, his grandparents would either think they had adopted a prodigy or become concerned that a spirit had possessed their grandson. The second guess would be uncomfortably close to the truth. For now, Sieghart could only watch. He studied every movement. He paid attention to breathing, posture, hand gestures, and even the direction his grandparents looked before casting. Then, when he returned to his room, he attempted to imitate them. Nothing worked.

His failures continued for several weeks. Then Sieghart noticed the light in their eyes. He had seen it when Elara first watered the fields, but he initially assumed it was merely a visual effect caused by mana. After observing dozens of spells, he realized that the glow appeared before the element manifested. It also changed color. Elara's eyes glowed blue when she used water magic. They shone pale green when she called the wind and orange when she created fire.

Edric's eyes turned yellow-brown when he manipulated earth. The glow was faint and brief, but it marked the precise moment when their magic began. Sieghart started watching their expressions as well. Those changed too. Whenever Elara used water magic, her face became calm. Her breathing slowed, her shoulders relaxed, and her movements flowed smoothly from one into the next. She seemed to embody the quality of the water she controlled. When she created fire, her expression sharpened.

There was focus in her eyes, along with a quiet intensity that wasn't present when she manipulated water. Edric became still and stubborn when using earth magic. His posture straightened, and he planted his feet as if nothing could move him. Perhaps magic wasn't controlled through words or gestures. Perhaps it responded to emotions. No, intention might have been the better word. Elara didn't merely imagine a flame. She formed the intent to ignite something and supported that intent with an appropriate feeling.

Her mana answered the combination. That would explain why Sieghart's visualization exercises had failed. He had imagined the appearance of a spell without understanding the mental state that produced it. He needed to stop thinking like someone operating a machine. Magic wasn't a button. It was an extension of the person using it. That night, Sieghart waited until Elara placed him in bed. As usual, she lit the candle with a flick of her fingers.

Her eyes flashed orange for an instant, and Sieghart paid close attention to the subtle tension in her expression.

"Good night, Sieg," she said.

"Night," he replied in the simplest way he could. Elara smiled, kissed his forehead, and left the door open slightly. Sieghart waited until her footsteps disappeared. Then he sat upright. The candle illuminated the room, but its flame wasn't his target. He raised one hand and extended his index finger, imitating Elara's gesture. He needed an emotion associated with fire. Passion was an obvious choice, but he wasn't particularly passionate about anything.

Determination might work, though he had spent months attempting magic with plenty of that. Anger felt more natural. Sieghart had a great deal of it. He thought about his first life. He remembered failing the entrance examination and listening to his parents compare him with more successful relatives. He recalled retreating to the library because it was the only place where he could escape their disappointed voices. Then furniture killed him. His second life had given him infinite mana and no apparent way to use it.

His new parents rejected him after a single examination. They sent him away once they had an opportunity to produce a replacement. Everyone had decided he was worthless before he learned to walk. The anger inside him grew hotter. Sieghart concentrated on it. He didn't imagine a completed flame this time. He focused on the desire to burn. He allowed his frustration to gather around that intention and tried to push it toward his extended finger. For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then he felt something move inside him. Sieghart's breath caught. The sensation came from everywhere and nowhere. It wasn't stored near his heart or inside his stomach. Mana seemed to exist throughout his entire body, vast and impossibly distant, like an ocean separated from him by a thin wall. His anger struck that wall. Something answered. Power stirred. It rushed through pathways that didn't exist, moved along channels Master Oswin had declared absent, and gathered at the tip of Sieghart's finger.

His eyes began to burn. A tiny flame appeared above his fingernail. It wasn't orange like the candle. It was black. The flame was no larger than that of a match, yet it swallowed the light around it. Thin traces of crimson moved through its dark center like cracks in cooling stone. Sieghart stared at it. He had done it. After more than a year of failure, he had created magic. The black flame trembled above his finger before vanishing.

It left no burn and produced no smoke, but the air retained a faint smell resembling scorched iron. A series of translucent screens appeared. A fundamental magical affinity has awakened. You have unlocked: Black Magic Black Magic draws power from intense emotions and converts the caster's will into destructive magical phenomena. Elemental Path Discovered: Fire Magic Fire responds to anger, passion, hunger, and the will to transform.

New Technique Acquired: Flame — Level 1 Create a small flame formed from Black Magic. Mana Cost: 1 per second Current Temperature: Low Effective Range: Touch Control: Minimal Sieghart read every line twice. Sieghart focused on the mana cost. One. Then he looked at his mana. Mana: ∞/∞ The spell was weak. Its temperature was low. Its range was limited to touch, and his control was minimal. Under normal circumstances, Black Flame might have been considered nearly worthless. Sieghart extended his finger again.

He called upon his anger and remembered the sensation of his mana answering. A second black flame appeared. Then a third. Then a fourth. The system didn't show his mana decreasing. Not even slightly. A smile spread across Sieghart's face as he extinguished the flame before Elara could notice the light beneath his door. The path of his life's story had finally become clear. His spells were weak. So he would cast them a million times.