This Clueless Hero

There was another reason why I was getting caught in tag so much despite being faster. More than the tricks Ned, Alyx, and Erin used, was the fact I didn't want to come into this room.

In fact, I actively avoided it, both subconsciously and consciously. Even if that would end up in me getting caught, I didn't care. To me, it was as though there was no path to this room. Instead, it was just a wall.

And I wasn't going to try to go through a wall.

However, it was at this point I was forced to confront the lie I had been telling myself.

That I had no time to practice magic.

It was more than just having my time taken up by playing tag. Upon asking myself if I could've at least tried to learn magic, there was only one answer.

In reality, if I forced myself to, I could have squeezed some time to work on learning the spells. In other words, the only reason I wasn't working was because of laziness, rather than any sort of real constraint.

It made me feel a little sad and disappointed in myself.

But more than that, it made me mad.

My head began to heat up.

I had decided to work hard in order to become stronger, to gain more power. Yet, I was already stagnating, when I knew the journey ahead was unbelievably far. A headache immediately formed, prompting me to rub my temple with my palm.

Each day, I went out to buy a piece of parchment and lay it down on the table, so quite a few blank sheets had stacked up. However, that was more for the sake of telling myself I had worked, rather than actually doing any work.

It was already getting late, and I had no plans of staying up for too long. However, I was going to use what little time I had to study the spell.

And so, I sat down and looked at the 'Control Vines' spell.

Then found myself at a loss.

...It was simply because I had no idea what else I could learn from this spell. I tried to find a pattern within the pathways of this spell, but it was far too random. Any patterns I did find, weren't really patterns. The only reason I thought that way was because I tried to stick to my belief I was on to something, even when it was a bunch of nonsense.

My progress had always been slow recently and was really demotivating. Perhaps that was part of the reason I stopped.

However, feeling demotivated was no excuse.

No matter how little progress it seemed like I was making, it was a step forward nonetheless.

And so, I forced myself to stare at the diagram, even when my mind began to feel tired and unwilling.

At some point, I looked outside and saw night had descended. I had spent the entire time trying to study the spell.

...But in the end, I wasn't able to think of anything.

A soft sigh escaped me before I went to my room and slept.

...

I woke up early once again, then repeated the same routine.

This time, I decided not to play tag with the others and spend some more time studying the spells once more.

Alyx teased me a little, but let me go.

With that, I found myself sitting down and staring blankly at a piece of paper once again.

...Somehow, this feeling of boredom was worse than debilitating pain. At the very least, I could endure pain, but there was nothing to endure like this.

I rubbed my temple with my palm and sighed. In the end, my thoughts began to wander to the games of tag I played by the others. Once I realized this, I hurriedly tried to reel those thoughts back in.

But then I remembered something.

I originally believed tag was rather simple, but found myself being outsmarted in various ways. It was only when I shifted my perspective, did I realize that there was more to it.

The reason I decided to experiment with the strange deformed diagram and see if it would let me continuously channel mana into other spells was that I discovered what the purposes of certain sections of the ice spell were.

And Erin, who steered me into thinking that way.

If I shift my focus to other spells, I may not be able to directly learn about the spell, but it would give me both direction and a better understanding of magic in general.

With those thoughts in mind, I no longer looked at the 'Control Vines' spell and instead grabbed each foundational spell there was on this table. After gathering all of them, I quickly realized I learned each of them.

Ice, water, fire, lightning, earth, wind.

However, I still looked at their diagrams intently and even used the parchment to draw their diagrams. In the back of my mind, there was the concern that my actions were not only meaningless, but wasteful.

However, hesitation would only waste more time than I was willing to give. Maybe this wasn't the right decision, but it was better than making no decision at all.

It did not take me long to finish drawing each of the foundational spells. I slowly lifted my feather and looked at the spell diagrams below me. Due to their natural simplicity, I was able to fit multiple on the same sheet of paper.

And that was when I realized that the cores of each spell were strangely similar. It occurred to me that the cores did not actually help in the actual formation of the spell. In the context of casting a foundational spell, the cores were useless.

The only reason they were there was to make casting the higher level spells easier. Since they consisted of the exact same diagram, one would only have to learn how to connect the smaller spell diagrams together.

Almost like puzzles in a puzzle piece.

I was happy that I made this revelation, but I couldn't find much practical use of this idea to apply to the control vines spell. However, a step forward is a step forward, no matter how small.

From there, I began to relearn the elementary spells I knew.

Firebolt, Encase, Tunnel.

And then learn the elementary spells I didn't know.

However, it quickly became nighttime partway through.

And so, I went to sleep.

...

Many days passed, but what I was doing remained the same.

It almost felt like I was a machine, doing the same thing over and over again. Naturally, it was beginning to feel mundane. However, I also knew what to expect each day and what to expect from myself.

I wasn't entirely sure how, but I pushed through those days with determination.

A few weeks passed.

I crouched down on the farm I had just watered.

The plants had grown to become what looked like tall grass. It was still fairly hard to tell what kind of plant they were, but that fact would probably reveal itself soon enough.

As for my progress in spells, I got a vague understanding of why the connections between the spells existed and their purpose. If multiple foundational spell diagrams were connected by their cores, the power would increase several times over.

However, it was more complicated than that. The method by which they were connected also changed how they worked.

For example, the firebolt spell was shaped similar to an arrowhead. This shape was what made it propel forward, rather than just exploding in one's hand.

With one hand, I gently traced the stalk of the mystery plant.

I hesitated for a moment.

Then began casting a derivative I made from the 'Control Vines' spell.

As the spell neared completion, my confidence in it dropped significantly, but I committed to casting despite that.

Once it finished, I coughed up blood.

The spell failed miserably, as expected.

Something was still missing.

A month passed.

Each day, I would experiment with at least one new derivative I had created the previous day. As I learned about magic, my intuitive sense grew far stronger.

It became easier for me to discern that the spell was going to fail. Sometimes it was even apparent the second I began casting.

I learned the elementary spells, now knowing each one like the back of my hand.

The elementary water spell was called 'Water Beam' and shot a beam of high pressure water for a few moments.

The elementary lightning spell was called 'Pulse' and created a strong electrical current within one's body.

The elementary wind spell was called 'Dash' and temporarily increased one's running speed by propelling one by the bottom of their feet.

As of now, I could hardly care about the function of these spells. Instead, the various insights I had let me slowly apply them to the control vines spell and create more accurate derivatives.

Several months passed.

....And I succeeded.