I jump back to gain some distance, and as fast as my mouth can run, I start chanting.
"Eislehdi, Goddess of Ice, give me your aid. Create the ice that freezes the sun, and so generously allow me to control it."
A sphere of ice appears in my hands, which I promptly throw at my opponent.
It was useless, of course it would be. It was just a normal ball of ice. It couldn't even serve as a distraction.
But that's fine. The reason I'm doing this is because I'm learning to use spells in high-pressure situations.
I jump back again.
I thought on what spells I could use right now. All of them were beginner spells. Which meant, all of them just summoned something.
I didn't have a spell that moved like Fireball, every single beginner spell was stationary.
But it's not like spells were the only things I knew.
"Erdia, Goddess of Earth, you are awesome as hell!"
It wasn't a spell, and it wasn't a conventional chant either. Instead, it was something akin to praise.
If the words were genuine and enough mana was given, then I would get a blessing. It didn't even matter what words were said.
It was kind of similar to a Miracle, but it didn't address Solevitasn.
What did the blessing do?
It blessed you with the power of earth, of course.
'Alright, it feels like I got it.'
Thankfully, only your words had to be genuine. It didn't matter if you actually thought Erdia was cool or not, so even I could get the blessing.
Now that that's done, I started spreading my mana through the ground beneath me.
Normally, it would reject me, but this time around, it accepted my mana and welcomed me.
Almost too easily I gained control of the earth beneath me.
With that, I started making walls in front of my opponent while jumping away.
My opponent smashed through the earth walls with no problem, while I scrambled to try and somehow gain more distance.
I tried to remove the earth from below their feet, but they could see what I was planning, so they just avoided the patches of earth that had my mana in it. Like that, even making spikes appear from the ground was useless.
Even if I surrounded them fully with my mana, they just jumped over the encirclement.
'Ngh. Just like I thought, magic at the start is pretty useless, huh?'
The only ranged attack I could do with magic was creating an ice ball or an earth ball and then throwing it.
The spells I knew had no 'movement' characteristic, so I was just stuck with taking over the earth with the Earth Blessing.
I tried to raise yet another wall in front of my opponent... but nothing happened.
'The blessing ran out.'
My mana was running low at this point.
Now, with almost no mana and no blessing, I just decided to have some fun.
For the first time since the start of the fight, I jumped forward.
"Railiht, God of Light, give me your aid. Allow me to light the everything up with your unstoppable radiance."
'Now I'll sacrifice heat for more illumination, and use it behind me!'
Just like that, I could barely see anything.
Even though the light source was behind me, it still lit up everything in the area, so all I saw was white. And it also hurt my eyes a bit.
Nevertheless, even then, I managed to spot my target.
I put a hand inside my pocket.
'Ah, I've always wanted to say this.'
"Pocket saaand!!!"
Just like that, I threw sand at my opponent's eyes.
My light spell ran out, but my opponent was still blinded because of the sand that was hitting their face.
Just like that, I manage to hit them in the fac―
"Owowow! That hurt so much!"
It felt like I hit literal metal!
What the hell was that sturdiness?!
"You dumbass, I told you to only attack with magic! Did you think that was advice for her sake?!"
"Of course I did! And even if I didn't, why the pancake does it feel like hitting literal metal?!"
"I told you she was stronger than me! Why the hell did you take that lightly?!"
"I didn't! I was fully prepared for her to be faster than my eye can follow her, and for her to hit like a truck, but I didn't expect for her skin to be as strong as metal!"
"Um, I'm right here, you know?"
I bow my head.
"Right. Sorry for ignoring you, Angelica, bantering with Jagon is just really fun."
Angelica chuckled and waved her hand as if saying 'Keep going'.
"What is that sudden change in attitude?! Why can't you give me that kind of respect?!"
I bowed to her with a smile once again, and then turned to Jagon with a comical expression.
"Well, maybe if you acted like someone respectable I'd do it. But you don't! Hell, even the kids don't respect you, while they follow Angelica's every word! You're just that pathetic!"
I smirked while giving Jagon a condescending look.
"In fact, they have more respect for me than you! Me, a kid, is more respectable in their eyes than you! Hey, tell me, how humiliating is that?"
He smiled, but it wasn't in jest.
The look in his eyes... it was almost like he felt proud.
'What are you so proud of, you hulk of muscle?'
"Ah whatever whatever. Yeah, it's very humiliating. Now then, what did you learn by sparring with Angelica?"
My temperament changes at the serious question.
"Well, beginner spells are really hard to use effectively in a fight. At my current capabilities, getting the Earth Blessing is way more useful. Also, I cannot just control mana that is not connected to me."
I already knew pretty much all of that though. It's the last part that's really important.
You cannot control mana that is not connected to you. If my mana isn't connected in some way to my body, I cannot control it, even though it is mine.
So far, I have only made shapes close to me, so I didn't notice it before, but that's something important to know.
"Also, lightning's chant is too long. I didn't manage to cast it before I was forced to stop it in order to catch my breath."
I was close to casting it, but close wasn't good enough.
"So, you bastard, will you tell me why lightning is considered so strong now?"
It has always nagged me, to the point that I accidentaly made a hole through paper while tapping my pen in thought.
"Ah, you didn't notice until now?"
He looked genuinely surprised, there was no malicious intent.
I glared at him.
"Right, you have low mana capacity, so it is no surprise."
He laughed it off like he always does.
"Alright then, you must've realized it by now, but spells have a limit on their power."
...Well, duh.
You can sacrifice attributes for the sake of other attributes, but you couldn't make all attributes stronger at the same time. After all, it took into account the balance, not the amount of mana.
Even if you were to use a lot of mana on a beginner spell, it would just make it stick around for longer.
You couldn't do something as absurd as 'overload' a spell to make it more powerful.
"I thought that was obvious?"
"Well, not everyone realizes it. Anyway, what I was getting at... is that lightning is the sole exception to that."
He held his finger up with a knowing look. Was he trying to act smart or something?
"...So a low level spell can have the same power as a high level spell?"
"Yes, and the only reason it is that way, is because lightning doesn't have the 'time' attribute. No matter what you do with a lightning spell, it will not last longer. Every lightning spell has a predetermined amount of time it will take."
...I see.
Since in other types of magic the overall amount of mana directly coincides with 'time', in lightning the overall amount of mana coincides with 'power' instead.
'So that's why it's the strongest.'
Indeed, for all other types of magic, you would need different spells for different amounts of power.
For lightning, just learning one spell is enough. Since you can control its power, you can make sure to always spend the perfect amount of mana to do what you need to do.
"So... it's completely useless to me."
"Haha! That's right!"
I had a low amount of mana, so I was mostly going to rely on tricks to win.
Pure power was pretty useless to me, and lightning seemed like a type of magic focused solely on strong offensive power.
It couldn't make the floor slippery like ice, it couldn't make mist to lower visibility like water and fire combined, and it couldn't even serve as a momentary distraction like light magic, considering that casting it took so long.
"...What do you think about the rankings of the types of magic, Jagon?"
"Me? I think it is pretty accurate. Of course there are exceptions depending on the situation, but it's very well rated for conventional mages."
I look at him with a 'seriously?' face.
"Conventional mages... Aha... I get it. Veeery funny joke."
I slap my face.
'So I'll have to find out what's good for me on my own.'
Some spells that are considered useless might be godsends to me. Water, which is considered the second weakest, might become my main.
'No, maybe not to that extent.'
I can see ice and earth becoming my mains. The ability to make something solid is strong.
I also have some ideas for wind too...
'Argh, goddammit! I have so many ideas, but I can't realize them because I suck at magic!'
"Ouch."
Suddenly, my forehead was flicked.
"Don't get lost in thoughts, we are still not done. Now that you've fought Angelica, I want to find something out."
Just like that, he glared at me.
I waited... but nothing happened. What was he doing?
"Tch, you still can't feel it, can you?"
"No, what are you talking about?"
"Killing intent. Even children can sense killing intent to some extent... but you can't at all. Remember when we first met?"
I searched my memories.
"Well, I remember seeing you in your boxers, and I also remember the six month time limit, but not much else. It was too long ago."
Jagon nodded.
"Makes sense. Well, back then, I also radiated killing intent, but you didn't react. That is the reason why I asked "Just how easy of a life have you led?", because it was really surprising. Even the kids Angelica watches over can sense it... and yet, you can't."
I frown.
This was... bad. No, it was not just bad, it was awful.
If other creatures in this world can sense killing intent, then sneak attacks against them will be impossible, while I will be extremely vulnerable to sneak attacks.
It was a disadvantage I had compared to people of this world.
"Don't make such a face, you have an advantage compared to other people, you know?"
"Are you talking about my strong body?"
"Nope. Right now, think about hurting me."
'Ah, I really want to punch this guy in the gut for revenge.'
"Good, now, think about killing me."
'―――'
Jagon nodded.
"Yep, just like I thought, you are exceptional at controlling your own killing intent."
I stopped thinking about killing him and tilted my head in confusion.
"Could you please explain it a bit better?"
Jagon smirked.
"As long as you don't think of literally killing them, your killing intent doesn't exist. Normally, even when people attack with the intention of hurting, they emit a small amount of killing intent. Hell, it doesn't even have to be attacking, as long as you have negative feelings for someone, your killing intent can slip through. You don't have that problem at all."
Well, that makes sense.
For me, killing and not killing have extreme differences. More accurately, death and living are compeltely different to me. And it was not just because of the morals from my old world.
As such, unless I am thinking of killing someone at this exact moment, I do not emit killing intent.
'So I can sneak attack. Just, as long as I don't think of killing them with that sneak attack.'
Now that I think about it, when I first fought against a bear, it didn't notice me, even though I was planning to kill it. Previously I thought it was because it was asleep, but it must've been because I was thinking of making the bear blind during the sneak attack, and I only started thinking of killing the bear after I dealt enough damage for it to bleed out.
"You said "Just like I thought". Did you already suspect this?"
"I mean... yeah. Nobody else's sneak attacks work, ever. And yet, your always do. Not only that, monsters can track where you are by your killing intent, even with all other senses being compromised. The fact that they sometimes don't know where you are while being blind, means that you don't have any killing intent at some moments."
I looked at Jagon with some slight surprise.
But then, my expression twisted into a frown.
"...You bastard, why the hell are you smirking?"
"Well, it's not like you're completely special. There are ways to train yourself to stop emiting killing intent. Still... you are way above something like that. Even the most supreme assassins aren't at your level."
"You didn't answer my question."
I glared at him, to which he just shrugged and started walking away from me.
"Don't worry about it."
The frown did not leave my face.
'What, did he mean to tell me that I should become an assassin or something?'
Well, I wasn't going to become one no matter what. Assassins make a lot of enemies, and I don't want any enemies, since having them is a straight path to death.
And I don't want to die. Not like that's something anyone needs a reminder on though.
***
My eyes opened. Immediately, there were three things I had to do.
First, I turned off my Natural Body-Strengthening.
Second, I ignored the emptiness in my heart.
Third, I forgot about the immense pressure that felt like it could crush me.
With that all done, I yawned and got out of bed.
When looking out the window, it was pretty clear that it was very early. So early, that nobody was awake yet.
'Revenge time?'
I thought back to that time and nodded.
'Revenge time.'
Breaking my usual routine, I started dressing right away. Silently, I exited my room and entered Jagon's.
I gently shook Angelica awake. It was about time for her to wake up anyway.
"Mmn, what is it?"
"Shh, please be quiet for now. Can you please not wake Jagon up? I have a surprise for him."
Angelica agreed without much trouble. She wasn't quite good after waking up, which is why she woke up so early, to be fully ready by the time all the others woke up, so to say.
Now, it was only me and the sleeping Jagon left in the room.
I gently nudge him.
He stirs and starts slowly opening his eyes. I take a deep breath.
"GOOD MORNING! I HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD NIGHT!!"
I shouted point blank. Jagon looked at me, not at all pleased.
"You... Was that revenge? From months in the past?"
I nodded.
"You betcha. I don't forget grudges."
He had also once shouted at me the moment I woke up. It might've been months ago, but in my memory it was as clear as day.
"What kind of person doesn't forgive such a petty grudge after five months?"
I smiled at him. He sighed.
"Right, a nasty one."
He was annoyed, exhasperated and sad all at the same time. I was a master at making others feel awful. I was very proud of that.
Jagon noticed my expression.
"What kind of person feels smug about ruining other people's day?"
I smiled at him. He sighed.
"Right... a nasty one."
My day has been officially made.