"No, no, no," Darius shook his head as he continued to tell me, "You're trying to force it as you would a Sonic Spell. Remember, while the Communication and Sonic branches of Magic may seem similar at first glance, they are inherently different."

"It's kind of like the difference between Life and Light Magic. Yes, the two appear to be almost exactly the same thing, but Life Magic was made for auxiliary purposes while Light Magic is all-purpose," He concluded.

I guess it made sense when he put it that way, seeing as in just my second attempt, I had formed a stable transparent Communication Magic Circle. Actually, now that I think of it, his explanation was exactly what I needed to answer why I couldn't learn the Transmission Spell despite being able to learn Sonic Magic through my Bloodline.

Sonic Magic was almost entirely composed of offensive Spells. I'm talking: Spells to shock, confuse, and paralyze targets for long enough to easily hit them directly, as well as Spells that penetrated through conventional defense and dealt internal damage to the ears and organs.

Communication Magic, now that I think about it, doesn't even sound like it's capable of harming anyone. I wouldn't know since I only have Darius' lesson on the Transmission Spell to go off of, but, I imagine only the Intent Spell is capable of being offensively useful in a fight. Darius had mentioned a couple times how strong people sometimes used the Spell to intimidate their enemies, not unlike a Sonic Spell.

"Hey, is this thing working?" I tested out my Tier 0 Transmission Spell.

[New Skill "Transmission Lvl 1" Created!]

[Title Earned: Communication Magic Novice]

"Nevermind, then..."

"What?! How could you learn it just like that? Even if your voice projection is distorted and weak, it took me nearly half a day to get there when I was learning the Transmission Spell!" Darius whined as he kicked at some mud.

"Must be one of the perks of being an Eagle, buddy. Now, quit your damn whining!" He slightly jumped back as a response to my yelling. Even as he began to look at me apprehensively, I continued to say, "You already mentioned you're pretty much doomed to never get far when it comes to magic, so get over it and try something else."

"B-but," he stuttered, "I'm only bad at Magic because of my poor reserves!" He looked at me with hardly concealed envy as he said, "I actually picked up the Transmission Spell pretty quickly when I entered the School of Mages in Violeteast City. Compared to my peers, back when we were just starting out on Tier 0 Spells, I was actually one of the top students in my class!"

"So, you're not an idiot, you're just a cripple or something, right?" I asked, causing him to flinch. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't humans have some alchemy to treat whatever your problem is? I can't see what all the fuss is about if your dad could have just bought a pill or potion to cure your naturally small Mana Pool."

"Just bought a pill?!" He fumed as he pointed an accusatory finger at me, "Do you know how expensive it would be to buy a pill that could cure me?"

"Not really, no," I snorted at him.

"Well, let's just say it would bankrupt my nearly A Ranked father and even then, there's a chance I would die while digesting it!"

"It sounds to me like that's a 'you' problem," I rolled my eyes as he nearly foamed at the mouth. "Look," I continued saying, "forget about Magic for now, ok? You can't fix your problem, your family couldn't fix it, and I can't fix it either."

"So, what? I should just give up and die?!"

"You'll die sooner or later if you keep fighting this uphill battle against your genetics; especially with your bitching attracting all these fucking Monsters," I said before launching a Tier 1 Fireball at a bat that approaching Darius from the side.

As the now-charred bat corpse fell into the swamp waters below, I turned to Darius, fired up another Transmission Spell, and said, "Right now, you should focus on getting strong enough to survive on your own. And if that means that pursuing Combat Magic is out of reach for you, naturally, you'll have to turn to something else."

"Are you… suggesting I fight," Darius raised his rusty sword, "like a Warrior? A degenerate, barbaric, meathead!?" He nearly threw the sword away, he was so mad.

"Hey!" Now, I was mad as I aggressively walked over to him with a wing ready to bonk him on the head as I asked, "You better not tell me you haven't given it some critical thought!"

"Critical thought? What is there to think abou—"

Bonk!

"What the hell?!" Darius cursed at me.

"'What the hell?' What the hell is wrong with you!" I nearly bonked him again as I said, "What's your problem with Warriors?"

"Warriors are an inferior Class!" He proudly shouted, completely disregarding my rapidly degenerating expression as he said, "They waste all their time swinging their weapons, prancing around, and eating, and at the end of the day, they're all at the mercy of a single Spell from a superior Mage!"

Bonk!

He looked like he was about to shout at me, but after I 'very carefully' surrounded him with Fire Magic Circles, he quickly froze up as I transmitted, "Are you completely fucking retarded?! Or has your upbringing been filled with Mage and Magic propaganda?! For you to actually come up to me talking about superior and inferior Classes… What a joke!"

"Wh— How can you say that?!" Darius defiantly shouted at me.

I had to admit, for as annoying as he was, he wasn't completely irredeemable if he had the balls to argue with me when I could incinerate him at my whims.

"What the hell can a Warrior do if they face a hurricane casted by a Mage? Or a blizzard? A field of earthen spikes? Or even just a wall of flames?!"

"Uh, I don't know," I sarcastically said, "Maybe they'll use their 'superior' Speed and Defense to avoid or completely mitigate the damage? Maybe they won't let the Mage charge up their Spell by using their 'superior' Speed and Strength to kill them first?"

"A Mage would never be caught alone, without their party backing them up to stop that from happening!"

"Yeah, and how is that going to serve you? You know, since you neither have the Magic to perform high-tier Spells, nor a party to back you up? What, are you saying you'd rather die a prideful, weak, failure of a Mage, than actually work to bring yourself up as a Warrior or even a Rouge?!"

"You!" He growled at me like a dog would, but he couldn't find the words to talk back.

"Yeah, that's what I thought! Forget whatever garbage information was force-fed onto you, and let go of that pitiful pride you have as a Mage. In the real world, Monsters won't care about your Class. You're either strong enough to kill your enemies, you're competent enough to know when to quit while you're ahead, or you're neither and your fate has already been decided."

"Whatever…" Darius eventually said, "Let's just go." He might have turned away from me, but hadn't managed to hide the pained look of contemplation in his eyes before continuing his walk.

Nearly half a day would go by with us heading east before the sun started to fade over the horizon. During this time, Darius hadn't complained as much, so we'd managed to cross a couple dozen kilometers. But eventually, the man had to rest and sleep. I, however, only needed rest, since most of the Monsters that crossed our path were instantly killed by me and then eaten.

As it was starting to get dark out, I killed a young Deer-type Monster, assuming it was edible to humans, before dragging it over to a dry piece of land for Darius to skin and prepare. He grumbled a bit before looking over at me and accepting his task. Thereafter, we coordinated a rotisserie of sorts with the deer's meat and my Fire Magic.

When he had eaten his fill, I ate the rest of the Deer's edible body parts before we found a canopy of mangrove-like trees to pass the night on. That night, I remained mostly half-asleep at the top of one of the trees as I'd grown used to in my time at the Black Swamp, mostly watching out for any movements that could have been a threat to Darius down below.

Evidently, the man did not get much sleep at all. Though, I couldn't tell if it was because of his nerves or because of whatever thoughts were keeping him tossing and turning all night. From what I had seen in my transient state of consciousness, he didn't even look like he had tried at all to get any sleep.

Eventually though, before the first sun rays of dawn began to lighten up the night, he managed to go unconscious for a solid two or three hours before an ignorant Beaver Monster tried to attack him and our resulting battle — my one-sided slaughter — woke him up.

Before we got up to leave and continue our journey east, however, Darius surprised me by pulling out a book from the small bag that had been attached to his robes with a belt. He looked at the book's cover for as long as I wondered how it was possible for said book to fit in his obviously smaller bag without bulging, before he sighed and said, "This is really it, huh?"

"Excuse me?" I asked him through a transmission.

"Fuck it," he closed his eyes in resignation and remained silent for a couple seconds before adding, "I need this for more than just surviving this trip out of the Black Swamp."

"Is the lack of sleep turning you delusional?" I asked rather haughtily, I'll admit, as I added, "How's a book going to help you in any way that I can't?"

"I'm going to learn and practice basic Warrior Arts," Darius almost looked like it physically hurt for him to say those words.

"Now?" I looked at him like he really had gone insane.

"Oh, don't make me feel worse than I already do! These shitty Warrior Skills are as simple as they come. Even a child could pick them up in a couple hours."

"If it's really that easy, then why don't all you 'superior' Mages," I rolled my eyes at him, "learn those Skills to gain the benefits of Warriors?"

"You wouldn't know it, you smart-mouth little bird," his curses amused me, "but learning and mastering a Skill are two completely different things. The difference between Mages and Warriors is that Mages become immediately powerful by learning offensive Spells, while Warriors have to put in their ten-thousand hours before their bodies can make their simple techniques seem powerful in comparison."

"Is that your way of admitting that Warriors can be just as good if not better than Mages; they just can't be lazy about it?"

"Screw you," Darius snorted.

"I'll take that as a 'yes.'"