“James. Stop the magic. Quiz me,” said Leah.

James and Leah were in Spanish. The class had been split up into pairs of two, and each group was supposed to be quizzing each other on some vocabulary.

“Um...okay.” James’ eyes were not focused on anything in particular, but he was concentrating extremely hard. “Uh... ¿Cómo se dice "eggs" en español? (How do you say eggs in Spanish?)”

“Los huertos,” said Leah.

“...” James didn’t respond. He remained practically motionless, staring at nothing.

“Hello?”

“Ah!” James relaxed, and the imitation of a magic core that he was forming collapsed. “What did you say? Los huertos? No, that means orchard. Eggs are ‘huevos’.”

Leah was behind compared to the rest of the Spanish class, since she missed years of classes. After all, she’d just forced her way into the school a few weeks ago. But she was picking things up ridiculously quickly. If she kept going at this rate, she’d be better at Spanish than English in a month or two.

“James, you are becoming a workaholic. Always practicing.”

That’s right. He was practicing magic. More specifically, his magic control. In order to get the “basics” of magic down, James needed to create a magic core in his own body. It was possible, but it was hard and required concentration. He wouldn’t be able to focus on casting the actual magic while maintaining the core. So, he took whatever chances he could get to get a feel for it. Ideally, he’d be able to construct the core like it was second nature, allowing him to focus on the magic itself.

Not only did James practice for hours every night when he was in the dungeon, he also practiced when he was awake. It was doubly hard on Earth, because James had to make sure that no mana leaked out of his body while he was forming the core. However, James was confident enough that he could contain the mana if he focused on only that. It was harder, but James rose up to the challenge.

Leah, who could sense the magic inside of James, knew what he was doing, and called him a workaholic. This was not an unfounded description. James didn’t really mind her calling him that, partially because he knew it was true.

The other part was that Leah actually knew what he was doing, unlike his friends. They’d been slightly confused by the way James had been acting for the past few days:

“You look like you need to take a shit and you’re holding it in,” Mo had said during one of their English classes. “The veins on your forehead are visible and everything.”

Jack had leaned over, peered at him, and said: “I was going to say that you looked like you had a bad stomach ache, but now that you mention it…”

Of course, James wasn’t a monk that could ignore all physical distractions, so his concentration had been broken and he yelled at the two for a bit, while Leah attempted to stifle her laughter in the background. That was a fun day.

“Have I been too focused on magic? Am I addicted?” James asked Leah.

He did feel like he was spending a lot of time on practice, more than 10 hours daily. He never would have imagined spending as much time on anything else: violin, schoolwork, or even his leisure activities, like video games.

Then again, James didn’t really have to sleep - his body rested and got sleep while he was in the dungeon, and he had already gotten used to dealing with the mental fatigue. He did need to crash every once in a while, but he shuddered when he thought what the public school system would do if students didn’t need to sleep.

“Yes,” Leah said without an ounce of deliberation.

“...could you be a little less blunt next time?”

“Understand, most people get very excited when they first discover magic. Me, Beck, Mike, all were like that. But eventually, magic becomes tedious. As you study more, you get less results with the same amount of effort. It is no different from another class. ”

James understood. This didn’t apply to only magic. Anything you did too much became work, not leisure. James’ parents often told him this, repeatedly saying that professional video game players hated playing video games. Their efforts were pointless, as James had no intentions of becoming a pro gamer in the first place.

“Well, this is a bit different, because one’s strength hinges on it. It can be a matter of life and death for dungeon explorers,” Leah continued.

“I don’t agree with that, actually. Because the dungeon itself is. I’ve only cleared the 1st tier floors, and I could easily make a living off of the dungeon.”

“Hmm. That is true. But I basically don’t have to worry about dying in a freak accident.”

The two became silent, thinking about deep topics, while the people around them searched up curse words in Spanish.

“By the way, we released the ad.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“We have already seen an increase in online orders.”

“That’s cool.”

James felt like he had already passed the point of apathy when it came to dealing with Leah and her antics. Through experience, he discovered that resisting would only lead to more suffering. The best he could do was minimize the damage.

He didn’t realize how large the ad campaign was until he tried to watch a video online later that day and was greeted by his own face.

==========

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Dark. Light.

James sat in the training room of the dungeon, relaxing on the cushions he had brought - the floor was hard and made his ass sore if he sat on it too long. Now that he had gotten the hang of constantly condensing the mana core, he was practicing generating each of the elements. He generated elements from both of his hands, the most natural place, as well from the bottoms of his feet, since he felt that there would be many useful applications. He tried generating magic from his mouth too, but he couldn’t speak the chants.

The chants were not in English. Chants, Viann wrote in the grimoire, were actually fragments of Dragontongue runes, modified over the years to become efficient for humans who wished to cast magic. As a result of reliance on intent, James could read and replicate the chants despite him not knowing runic language. The intent could be used to communicate, but it could also affect the world. After all, it was technically a form of magic.

Magic was simplified if you knew the chant - all you had to do was speak or draw them out and put mana into them, and the magic would come out. It was like a pre-calculated formula or a computer program - easy, efficient, and consistent, but with some restraints.

Of course, it was possible to manipulate magic directly, but this was incredibly difficult. For most people, it was basically unfeasible. James could make the fire in his hand waver a bit if he tried, but he couldn’t control how it moved around. And that was for a flame no bigger than one you would find on a candle. Larger spells would be harder to control.

Unless you were a Great Sage, of course. In fact, James wasn’t sure, but he had a suspicion that it was this ability to control mana exactly the way he envisioned it that made Viann powerful enough to become a great sage.

What about Ajartum? What made him so powerful?

James had no idea. He’d asked the beanie, but was told to learn basic magic first. Through that, he would develop the necessary inner magic flow to follow the warrior’s path.

“Also,” Ajartum continued. “People are usually more excited about throwing fireballs than punching things harder than normal. I’m considering making you study Viann’s magic until you’re sick of it, so that you’ll study aura harder. You’re definitely going to study both.”

Aura, James learned, was a relatively advanced keystone technique of the physical fighting style. One needed to master body enhancement before even trying to learn it. Yet, the beanie made it sound as if there was an even higher level of techniques beyond aura.

“One step at a time, James, one step at a time,” he muttered to himself.

James stood up and opened his eyes.

An icicle about the size of a tent stake, launched itself forwards. It struck and embedded itself in one of the outer rings of the red and white target.

This time, it was a ball of compressed air that headed towards the target. It would’ve been invisible if not for the fact that it subtly distorted light, creating a visual effect similar to heat distortion. However, the chant, and therefore the magic, was slightly different. There was a line of mana that connected the compressed air to James’ hand.

When the sphere of wind approached the target, James chanted the last part of the spell and caused the sphere to explode.

This was a technique called remote spell manipulation. It allowed for a magic user to manipulate the spell even after it had already been launched. If he hadn’t used this technique, he wouldn't have been able to detonate the wind "bomb" remotely.

Its more advanced applications also allowed mages to cast spells outside of their body. Ayla, the earth mage whom James had briefly met, used this to spawn spikes from the ground and turn the earth into a bog even when her target was far away from her.

“Two weeks for basic spells and another two days after that to learn the basics of remote spell manipulation. Not bad at all,” said Ajartum.

James laughed. “If I had worked on condensing my magic core earlier, it would’ve been much faster.”

“Your progress is still remarkable nonetheless,” Ajartum said.

“Kyu!” Leo the bear seemed excited too, even if he didn’t know what was going on.

James yawned - he hadn’t had real sleep in a while, and he was tired from practicing magic.

“Ah, that hurts.”

When he stretched his body, he felt a soreness in his muscles. He had continued his physical exercise while he was learning magic.

“I think I’ll turn in early today. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the 6th floor. I think I can handle a few goblin mini-bosses coming at me even without magic. Plus, I’m almost out of magic stones.”

“Kyu!”