He had just cast his first spell. His mind was racing, this is amazing; he can cast magic and it’s so easy. He apparently has the gift and dear lord... This is actually real.

All of this went through his mind at the same time, his face went from amazement, curiosity and intrigue, interested, happy and at the end a certain sense of dread. If this is true then he is indeed in another world. His family, his friends, his goldfish.

“What's the matter?” the question snapped him back to.. Well.. to reality, apparently. Angela looked at him a bit confused. “You succeeded with your first spell, at an incredible speed as well. You should be happy, why... do you look horrified?”

She did look a bit worried at the end.

“I... My family and friends, my pet.. Everyone I ever knew... If I really am in a different world then...” his lack of focus on the magic he was controlling had its stability fade and with a flash, almost like a lightbulb burning out, the spell fizzled and faded into nothing.

He looked towards it almost insultingly, like the spell dared to fail like this, but this changed back to sadness.

“My family was never really that loving but it’s still something losing them... Unless..”

His face determined with a question turned back to Angela. “Is there a way for me to go back?”

Angela shook her head and shrugged a bit. “I’m afraid I cannot answer that, I don’t understand magic that well, at least not outside of my own ability. But you can probably talk to someone better than me. Or learn it yourself?”

The latter sounded like hard work and effort, not something Gilliam was against but it was still a very foreign concept to him. He apparently had the gift of magic but from Angela’s earlier explanation there was a possibility that he might have the gift in some other magic, rather than what’s needed to send him home?

Talking to someone better didn’t sound like a bad idea.

“Let’s do that, can you take me to someone more know*” His sentence was cut short to the sound of his own stomach growling like an angry dog. Forcing him to stare blankly at Angela for a second before chuckling.

“I don’t suppose I can trouble you for some food?” The forced smile was awkward but surprisingly honest.

Angela chuckled at the scene, determination and goals suddenly interrupted by hunger.

“Let’s go have something to eat. I should still have some good meat left.” She smiled honestly as she, for the first time since they met, calmly walked somewhere. Entering the cottage again and heading for the kitchen.

Gilliam’s mind refocused on the book he was given. Though she opened the page on the very simplest of practice spell, now that this was real and he might have to at least help learn of a way to get home... learning magic didn’t seem like a dumb idea... In fact it sounded like an incredibly interesting idea.

Flipping to the next page he found a simple spell that would levitate an object, according to the description the amount of mana you fuel the spell with would dictate how heavy an object you can lift. Or rather, like with muscle power, when you lift something you will need to add more and more until you surpass its weight. The book recommended starting with something soft and light, a feather is a very good start, or something like leaves. Compared to the light spell this spell recommended the use of a Foci, as new students might find that this requires a bit more mana and would be made simpler with a Foci.

Since the light spell only took him a minute of reading, Gilliam decided to give this a go as well, even without a Foci.. whatever that was, he could read up on that later. There were plenty of leaves in the jungle so he was not lacking light objects to try with. Continuing to read he realized that he understood how this worked with surprising simplicity, it just made sense; like reading how to use a key in a lock it was surprisingly simple to understand the why’s and how’s of how this worked. Angela did explain that this book was for novices wanting to learn, it seems they have written it with lacking base-knowledge in mind, making everything so much easier to understand.

Walking outside he picked up the first leaf he found on the ground and placed it in his palm. The needed movement and magical words were simple as most magic apparently needed affinity with the element in question and a mental picture. Certain spells were things that every mage could do, like the light spell and the simplest of tasks.

He said the words and did the movements, the leaf started levitating on its own right away, Gilliam was ecstatic, this was fun, he was learning actual magic!

A simple, gentle, gust of wind flew by and sent his leaf flying. Though still hovering it was not being controlled in all three dimensions, just upwards, so it started flying away from him.

Quickly checking the book again he read up on what he needed to do to control direction, it acted something akin to certain haptic games he had tried out, namely VR games.

He pointed his hand towards the leaf and made a slow pulling motion, the leaf stopped and now resisted the wind.

His smile only grew and for a moment he forgot the situation he was in. A sharp pulling motion followed by opening his hand had the leaf fly into it, pressing itself against his palm. He had now caught the leaf from a longer distance. Adrenaline was powering through his veins and he wondered what else he could lift. The leaf was practically weightless so he couldn’t feel it being a problem.

Quickly looking around he found some sticks. Aiming at one of them and repeating the words and movements had the stick flying around as well. This had a bit more weight to it, he could feel the momentum being a real force, but like holding something stronger you just needed to add a tiny bit of extra force. The momentum ceased to be an issue as soon as he did that, which just increased his joy yet again.

Stopping to focus on the spell cut the energy feed to it and the stick simply fell to the ground. Immediately he looked around for something heavier, locking his eyes on a melon-sized rock.

Repeating the movements and words, feeding the spell with a tiny bit extra energy and the rock started flying as well!

“Yes!” he realized after proclaiming his success that he had done a fistpump... With the hand he used to lift the rock....

He couldn’t see it anymore and he was getting worried, what if it hits him, the house, breaks something... But a heavy thund not far from where he picked it up had it land safely. He let out a relieved sigh, that could have been worse... What a way to thank the one who is teaching him and now feeding him, by breaking her home or hurting her...

Though this was a valuable lesson, he could throw things with this spell as well. Before he continued playing with the spell, he decided to read the rest of the description and information, absorbing it like a sponge.

It seems that this spell has two levels of understanding. There is the simple and rather inefficient variant of the spell. It was simplified in make and effect, but that was a side effect of the spell working for all elements. This spell would work just as fine for a water mage as a fire mage. Though if you happened to have an attunement with the Aether element, you could master this spell into a full fledged telekinesis spell, with much higher versatility and power.

Reading on the changes to the spell also made sense. How you would be told by a professional to lift with other muscles could increase your effect, this description also made the same kind of sense. This time reading the whole spell and not just enough to make it work, he soon felt ready to give the rock another attempt.

Turning back to it he did the upgraded changes to the physical movements, as well as the changes to the words, ending up with his right hand pointed towards the rock in question.

The rock had an odd link with his hand, he could move it around in a much more natural way than before. Rather than fueling the spell with energy in all directions like keeping a ball afloat in air currents, this felt more like he was grabbing something with his outstretched arm. The rock moved as he moved his hand. Up, down, to the sides. It was very simple. Back and forth also came with some movements and it was incredibly intuitive.

According to the book, if you did this and didn’t have the Aether attunement the spell just wouldn’t work, so this suggested that he at least had the Aether attunement!

He moved the rock around like flailing with a paper airplane, it was physically effortless but there was an odd draining effect to it. In the end he retracted his arm and made a punching motion, opening his palm at the end of it.

There was a pulse of energy that left his hand and the rock shot away at great speed into the jungle. Several thunks could be heard as it hit some trees, ending in a boulder, exploding into a million pieces. The sound of it hitting the boulder sent birds flying away in fear, it silenced the jungle and it had Angela come running out of the cottage, then over to him, looking greatly worried.

“What was that, what happened. Are we under attack?” She took a defensive pose and tried to find anyone nearby.

Gilliam forced a sheepish smile.

“I... I tried to magically throw a rock... it worked better than I expected..” Hesitantly he pointed towards where it was thrown.

Angela looked in the direction for a few seconds before her eyes widened. She darted over there right after and Gilliam followed. Further inspection showed that the rock penetrated through four trees before it met its match with the boulder. The force of this was close to a cannonball.

Angela looked amazed, Gilliam looked a bit horrified at his hands... Is this what a mage is capable of? And he started learning 10 minutes ago...

This place must be frightening.

“This is incredible!” Angela proclaimed as she turned towards Gilliam. “To be able to do this so soon after casting your first spell. And without a Foci, you must be a natural!”

She looked at him with pride and a genuine sense of happiness for him. He was just confused, a natural? He just did what the book said, the book of noob magic.

“I... I just did what the book said to do.. I just didn’t expect this power from it...” he was still a bit confused on how the mana aspect actually worked..

“Oh.. a Foci.. the book mentioned it vaguely.. What’s a Foci?” The logical question that he should have read up on before playing with magic came to light.

Angela thought for a second, collecting her thoughts before answering.

“A Foci helps the mage focus their mana, if I remember right from what my father told me, casting spells without a foci is wasteful but possible. You use more mana to achieve the same result. The best explanation is a lit candle, lighting up something on a wall. It works fine with it as it is, but if you put a reflector behind it and focus it properly, you will get a better result with less effort.”

Gilliam pondered this for a few seconds, he didn’t know what a Foci was or how it worked per se, but the idea behind it was easy to understand. This would mean that if he had one, the effect of the throw he did now would have been stronger... A frightening thought.

“But how are you doing? You look fine, but most mages are exhausted for their first few spells, especially with this much force. It takes them some time getting used to using their mana... It took me weeks of training to just get to the point where I could use my magic normally without feeling bad afterwards.”

She looked at him with a slight worry, like if he was going to pass out at any second now.

“No.. I feel fine.. Should... Should I sit down or something? Is the effect delayed?”

He was looking a bit worried, was the fatigue going to hit him like a brick to the face from nowhere?

He started sitting down in case this was going to be sudden and immediate, though he was stopped by Angela.

“No, you would feel it immediately if that was the case. Casting spells without a Foci and without feeling any side effects on the first day is unusual. Perhaps you just have a large mana pool?”

She didn’t seem to be certain either, she did mention earlier that she didn’t really have too much information on the subject, although the little info she did have shed some light on Gilliam’s possible situation.

“Well... The book said that this spell wouldn’t work unless I had an attunement for Aether, since it did work I apparently do!” He looked proud, happy and highly enjoying himself.

Not that he knew the difference of one element to another at the moment, but he was able to do this and apparently do it well.

His emotions calmed down a bit as he realized something.

“The book mentioned that there is a test done before you start learning, to see what attunements you have. Some crystal thing that can read it. Do you have one of those?”

Angela shook her head. “The Attunement crystals are expensive and hard to both come by and make into proper detectors. Only the guilds, schools and some skilled and powerful mages have them.”

This deflated Gilliam a bit, but in a sense it was not too problematic. “Though, to find out what other attunements I have, I can just try out some simple spells from the different elements, the ones that won’t work unless you can use it?”

Angela nodded but also shook her head in a way hinting to both yes and no.

“Most mages wouldn’t do that, as it takes time to learn a spell. And time used to learn a spell you can never use would be looked at as wasteful-” she looked to the sky as she rubbed her chin with her fingers. “-Although you did learn these spells very fast, so as long as you are fine with learning simple spells you can never use, I suppose there isn’t anything against trying?”

Her tone of voice had a mixture of this being a good idea, but also that he shouldn’t get his hopes up.

“But, the food is ready, so eat first and play with magic later.” she commanded as she stopped him from opening the book again.

He nodded in agreement, though a bit deflated as trying out other magic sounded more interesting than food. But he was hungry and she had a good point. He followed her into her cottage where he found a simple dish prepared. There were two plates on the table, both of which had a small round bread and some dried meat on the side. There was a mug of water between them and two simple cups made out of bamboo.

She motioned for him to sit down as she did the same. There were no utensils and the method of eating it seemed simple; she tore off small pieces of the bread and supplemented it with the meat. A simple meal but as Gilliam found out, it tasted surprisingly good. The same concept as whole-grain bread in the modern world.

“So, tell me about yourself, about your world. You have strange clothes but from the prophecy you should be from a very different world?” Though there was a large hint of uncertainty in her voice she still nailed it quite perfectly.

Gilliam started explaining a bit about himself, which was surprisingly mundane, a student not knowing where to go in life, currently between classes due to summer break and how he was trucked to death.

The explanation about his world was more interesting to her. Tall, glass clad buildings, concrete everywhere, cars, technology and other concepts that were very hard to explain to someone without a certain level of knowledge. He did his best but there were many things he could not properly explain.

She was amazed, asking about the various things he tried to explain, which just furtherly complicated the explanations. In the end he took out his smartphone to show her. Though there was no signal and little battery left he could still show her some pictures from home, he took her picture and showed her. She had a mixture of thinking this was magic from another world to a bit scared as this little device stole her likeness.

Sadly it didn’t take much time before the phone died from low battery, it was suddenly a fancy paperweight...

After a while he turned the question to her. Her background and general info.

She explained that she is an old, but well known adventurer’s daughter, he is a very powerful healing mage, to the point that his name is well known in the magic community, especially in guilds and adventuring context.

This is a problem for her, given her unique apperance it’s often easy to just guess who she is as her father is also an Albino. Even so, she inherited healing magic from him but she can only heal herself, this has still let her surpass human levels of physique as she can heal herself when her muscles, or her body in general, gets damaged. This in turn means that she has double the amount of stamina as anyone else but also that she has taught herself to turn off the human limiter, and since she has been training at this increased level for an extended time she has become somewhat in good shape.

She was taught martial arts on the side of this and has become acceptable at it, she was traveling the world to better herself when she got the prophecy. Returning to her father to talk about it and further with a medium gave her visions, which was also how she knew where to build the cabin and wait for Gilliam.

“The visions showed us, with a few others, standing victorious after a great.. Event.. . I don’t know who anyone else is but you are supposed to do something great. People will know your name and shout it at the top of their lungs!” she ended up with a cheering fist in the air as she mimicked her explanation.

“But... I’m just some guy.. This sounds a bit much.” He was quite taken back, him becoming a hero sounded so... dumb.. He was just a random guy.

“No, the prophecy doesn’t lie, you will become a hero.” She countered with determination, as clear as stating a proven fact. “And I will follow you to the ends of Lisca to do so” her determination only growing. It was clear that this was for her own sake as well as for his.

“Besides, the prophecy and my visions had me set up this cottage here, and make the path to where you landed. Did it not?” a cheeky smile grew on her lips, suggesting that she wanted him to prove her wrong.

He inhaled to reply but stopped himself as he realized she was absolutely right. But... If the rest of the prophecy is also correct, then... He would wield great power and become a hero?

“I... I guess... but.. I still feel that it’s somewhat odd... It just feels weird.” She might have strange magical facts on her side, there was still disbelief in his voice.

“Well, let’s do it this way. I’ll follow you around for as long as you want. And I’m either right, or I’m wrong and you get a local to guide you around.” her smile was filled with a victorious apperance, and sadly she did have a point.

“But for now, to make things more fun for you, go test out some more magic. Let’s find out what elements you have!”

This kickstarted his curiosity and intrigue for the magic again, almost immediately he forgot the whole hero thing and the ordeal about his own world. He grabbed the book and went back outside with the glee of a toddler that just got a new toy.