“You’re Alya?”

A woman in a red wizard robe asked a little girl in front of her.

“Yes!”

“Hm.”

Rachel nodded in satisfaction as she studied the girl wanting to learn magic from her.

“Since Richard recommended you himself I decided to make you my disciple. Try to do well from now on.”

“Yes! Thank you, master!”

Alya bowed deeply to show respect to her new master. Rachel showed a satisfied expression at the little girl calling her master right away.

“Alright then, I’ll be leaving now.”

“Yeah, go away you little monster.”

“Well, that was uncalled for.”

I scowled at the unexpected insult.

After our first meeting, I found out that she’s an 8th circle mage and asked her to teach me some stuff about magic. She happily agreed at that time to show off to a kid but after only a week she refused to teach me anymore since I showed too much talent in magic. As if that wasn’t enough, she’s been calling me by my most popular nickname ever since then. Well, at least I did learn a few things from her.

For example, the spells that Harry’s been teaching me are conjuration magic; there was also augmentation magic that I don’t know of. The assassins’ usage of mana that seemed so different in my eyes turned out to be augmentation magic.

When I confronted Harry about it, Rachel gave me an explanation as to why augmentation was omitted from my lessons with him.

‘Just what you would expect from a Pottre.’ she said.

Apparently, augmentation magic was considered an unorthodox method of using mana by the Magic Tower. Harry who was a scholar mage would of course not consider teaching me augmentation. Well, it’s not like I cared; I only confronted him about it because I thought he deliberately didn’t teach me the whole thing.

When I tried out performing augmentation, I found out the reason the Magic Tower doesn’t want to acknowledge this as real magic. Its usage is way too simple, you don’t even need to be a mage for this; I mean, you don’t even have to form a circle around your heart to perform augmentation. It’s just coating a surface with mana, you just need to be able to control mana. There was no need for any incantation or a magic circle.

In the end, the merit isn’t even anything to look at. All it does is harden the material you augmented, perhaps even sharpen a blade. Qi could achieve something far greater with better efficiency. To be fair though, not everyone could use qi. That said, as biased as I am against this method, in the hand of a strong enough person it could be deadly. It’s already proven by the assassins that almost killed Harry. I heard that high leveled adventurer uses magic differently, perhaps they meant augmentation too.

I asked Rachel about it and she taught me another new thing, but Harry had already taught me about it. To his relief, I was about to give him an earful too at that time. Apparently, using magic differently meant using Unique Magic. Harry did tell me about Unique Magic but we couldn’t go too deeply about it since Unique Magic is rare. Adam’s [Shadow Space] was an example of Unique Magic, healing magic was another example. Unique Magic is tricky since it runs on different principles than conjuration magic.

That said, I could already use healing magic but I kept quiet about it. Only Harry and the doctor that taught me knew about it because like I said, Unique Magic is rare therefore Unique Magic users are highly valued and the thought of being pestered by these different organizations annoys me so I kept it a secret. The doctor was close with my father too so he abides by my request.

Other than that, there was something else I was curious about. Harry had taught me about what was theorized as the pinnacle of magic which was Domain Magic. I saw Rachel performing Domain Magic when they fought that Giant Mammoth so I asked her about it. Of course, she didn’t tell me anything about her own magic but she taught me the fundamentals of Domain Magic.

It was more insightful than Harry since Harry himself couldn’t form his own Domain. There’s only a handful of people that are known to be able to form their own Domain and they are all 8th circle mages. In other words, only Great Mages could perform Domain Magic.

Does that mean Rachel was a Great Mage?

‘Wahahahahaha! You’re right! I am indeed the wandering Great Mage! Impressive, isn’t it?’

That’s what she said when I asked her.

‘Oh, so you’re that homeless wizard.’

‘Keh- what do you mean homeless?! And also, what the hell is a wizard?’

I forgot that the term wizard didn’t exist in this world so I accidentally called her one.

‘It’s nothing.’

I think she had wanted to brag to me but I wasn’t really impressed. My father was a Great Mage after all.

Well, that’s enough flashbacks. Today I brought Alya to learn magic from Rachel since told me she wanted to learn magic. Perhaps she felt pressured that Arthur and Darwyn were training in swordsmanship and that they would enroll in the Academy next year. Not wanting to be left behind, she sought the other path to the Academy; magic.

I was worried about her talent but after observing her for a while I was really surprised. She succeeded in sensing mana after 4 months; her talent is greater than most mages in their youth!

But still, I had to also focus on training the other children in swordsmanship so I left her to Rachel since she’s more than qualified to teach her. I hope she does well...

***

“That’s way too many recommendations isn’t it?”

I asked Mrs. Dorothy while sipping on a cup of tea. I felt like I was asking for too much from her, she had to write a recommendation letter for 9 people after all. Well, her husband was the one doing the writing but whatever. I could have just asked my father but these children are from the orphanage that she managed. They’re almost like her own children, it would seem right for her to prepare the recommendation letters herself.

“It’s fine, there’s no limit to how many people a noble could recommend after all.”

“I see, that’s good news.”

“How long are you going to stay here by the way?”

“I’ll return home a month before the entrance exam, I have to train those kids first.”

“I see that you take such good care of them. I’ll thank you on their behalf.”

“It’s fine, I have nothing to do anyways.”

“Fufu~ I wonder...”

She said something weird but I paid it no mind.

“Alright then, I’ll leave for now. Have a good evening.”

“Likewise.”

I exited the room and went straight to the smithy.

“Good evening!”

I shouted as I entered the smithy and Smith who was the owner greeted me back.

“Evening! Here to work?”

“Yup.”

“Hahah~ Such a hardworking lad. Just use the workshop however you like.”

Since I don’t take missions at the guild that much often anymore, I had been frequenting the smithy more as of late.

What, you think I’ve been doing nothing but training? That’s ridiculous, I’ve also been hitting metal these past few months.

I was getting bored of making swords so I make a bunch of different stuff too. Battle axes, scythes, sabers; you name it, I’d probably made it already. Of course, not all of them turned out well; my first ax, for example, the balance was way off and the tempering wasn’t done perfectly since I wasn’t used to working with shapes different from a sword. But I was improving.

Smith especially had been really helpful. He might not be an expert craftsman yet, but he had extensive experience working with adventurers’ equipment. He gave me a few tips now and then and they helped me get better at crafting different weapons. His skills as a blacksmith were actually better than mine, the only advantage I had was the mana tempering method. Smith himself wasn’t that old yet; he’s around Harry’s age which was 27 years old. He told me the smithy was owned by his teacher who was a dwarf and a master craftsman. Unfortunately, his teacher died a few years ago from sickness. He’s been managing the smithy alone since then.

His story intrigued me since dwarves are prideful craftsmen, they usually wouldn’t take in a human as their apprentice. Smith must have had something special in him that convinced the dwarf to take him in as his apprentice.

That said since he’s been helpful to me I helped him around at the smithy sometimes. Especially days when the smithy would be full of customers; I would help him repair equipment. I was also expecting some people to arrive that evening so he could get more help.

“Evening, is Richard here?”

There they are, I walked to the front door to see Smith greeting someone with a cheerful face. The guest was easily recognizable; a short burly dwarf, dark red beard, and a face that is friendly and fierce at the same time. The only person I called Master despite having many different teachers; Dhorin has arrived.