Leon Greyrat: The Second Son - Mushoku Tensei OC

Chapter 3 - Learning

— Leon —

Following Mama through the dense grove, she eventually found a fallen log to sit on, and as she took out her book, I sat down next to her, making sure I was comfortable for the coming lecture.

"And this is... and here... okay! Ready to learn, Leon?" she asked after flipping through a few pages.

While she was inexperienced, at least she was earnest.

"Yep! I'm excited!" I said with a smile.

And that was no lie.

"Good! But remember, Leon. It's okay if you can't do it immediately, okay? You have many years to learn," she said, patting my head tenderly.

"I can do it!" I nodded.

Her eyes softened with a mix of affection and pride.

"Fufu, if you're so sure, then I'll begin now. Ahem!"

Taking one last look through the book, she then closed it before looking at me and raising her finger.

"Right, so... first! Magic requires power to work, like how a campfire needs wood to burn. This is called mana, or magic power."

That made sense.

"And the amount of magic power someone has is decided at birth, so... let's hope you have a good amount!"

I hope so, too.

"Uhh... then... there are three types... Yes! Three types of magic! And they are... umm..." Mama then opened her book once again as she seemingly forgot where to go next.

...This would be okay, right?

— Leon —

"And that's the basics of magic!" Mama said proudly.

It was a shaky start, but she got there eventually.

At first, she needed to constantly check the book, but that wasn't due to a lack of knowledge, but rather her worry that she was teaching me the wrong thing or forgetting something important.

A performance anxiety, so to say.

But after she got into the role, she got increasingly confident, and showed off the intelligence that made her one of the few S-rank healers in the world.

Basically, as she had explained, magic required magic power, or mana, to work, and one could use magic in two ways.

The first was by incantations, which is when one recited a set of words to cast a spell, and was the most common form of magic.

And the second way was with magic circles, which was when one inscribed a pattern using special ink to cast a spell by pouring magic power into said pattern.

Mama didn't really know how to use magic circles, and her book didn't describe any either, so I would be sticking to incantations for the time being.

Not that I minded, though.

I didn't exactly trust my toddler hands to do precise drawings, after all.

As for the types of magic, there were three main ones: attack magic, which, as the name implied, was meant to be used in battle; healing magic, which was used to heal others and create barriers; and summoning magic, which was used to summon things, again, as the name implied.

Delving further into it, attack magic was divided into four types: fire, water, wind, and earth, which allowed the user to cast spells relating to that element.