Time.
It was the innate type that was at a whole another dimension in comparison to the other elemental types.
This was the reason why only the extreme few were born with this innate type.
“…So… Is it something good?”
Looking at Andal and Nainiae who were breaking in cold sweat, Riley asked with his face completely crumpled.
“Um… Since you are asking if it is something good…”
“I’m not sure.”
To Riley, it was not a matter of whether it was rare or not.
Good or bad.
Useful or inconvenient.
To Riley, these were the most important factors.
“Hey, are you guys bullying me because you two know a little bit of magic? Hurry up and tell me before I turn this entire place upside down.”
“You crazy rascal, you better not do it here.”
“Please wait a minute, young master. I’m trying to organize in my head how to explain this to you.”
Riley decided to ignore Andal who was all agitated and angry.
Instead, having noticed Nainiae in deep thought with a serious face, he felt like he could trust her, so he nodded in agreement and chose to wait.
“First, I was thinking about explaining each of the innate types.”
Innate type.
According to Nainiae’s explanation, when it came to the use of magic, the special characteristics of innate type were surprisingly easy to explain.
“If a person’s innate type is Fire, then it will be beneficial when using a fire element based magic. If a person’s innate type is Water, then it will be beneficial when using a water element based magic. It makes sense up to this point, right?”
“Hey. You think I’m stupid? I understood. Continue.”
“Most of magic that mages use are made of things found in nature. Fire, water, wind, earth…lightning and so forth.”
Riley nodded as he heard Nainiae’s explanation.
Riley had already read that much from a book that he read because he was interested in learning magic.
“So, most mages are born with an innate type among those elements. Still, there are cases where a mage is born with an innate type that is outside of those common elements. The best known examples are gravity, light, or darkness.”
Of those people, the people who were born with light as the innate type were known to work in the Holy Temple and worship the goddess Irenetsa.
This too was something Riley already knew about.
“Young master, your innate type is Time. The proof is in the fact that the measurement boulder appeared to be unaffected initially but gradually cracked and crumbled apart. It weathered away.”
“So?”
“With time as the innate type, it will be beneficial when using magic related to time. However, time magic is a little unique kind…”
It appeared she was not sure how to explain the rest.
Nainiae lowered her head as if she was ashamed.
“What’s wrong? You look like a doctor who just failed a surgery.”
Having noticed that Nainiae was unable to continue explaining, Andal shrugged and explained in her stead,
“To go straight to the point, it is impossible to use any other magic besides time magic.”
“What?”
“Actually, no. You could use other elemental type magic, but…you won’t be able to bring out even half of the magic’s full potential.”
Andal stopped talking and moved mana inside his body.
It looked like his body was giving off a red haze.
“Instead of explaining it in words, I’ll just show it to you. Watch.”
Fshhh!
A large chunk of flame materialized on top of Andal’s right hand.
As if it was mimicking Andal’s red hair, it looked fearsome. It looked like it would be difficult to survive a direct hit from this lump of flame.
As expected, it was a flame from a red dragon.
“I didn’t hammer in all of my innate type’s potential to create this. Anyway, this is a ‘Fireball’ within the normal parameters of what human beings know about.”
Andal added that if he created a flame that was fitting of his innate type, then the inside of the cave would be like in middle of summer. Andal lifted his left hand.
“And in comparison this is how a ‘Fireball’ would look like if you created it.”
Spark
Instead of the sound of something flaming up, a sound of something being ignited was heard.
Riley’s gaze moved toward Andal’s left hand.
“What’s this? Is it a lighter?”
Looking at the tiny seed of flame on Andal’s left hand, Riley asked as he squinted his eyes.
“What’s a lighter? Anyway… This is the fireball that you can create.”
Andal asked what a lighter was because he didn’t know about it. He couldn’t since it was an object that was from Riley’s past life that Andal was unaware of. Andal put his left hand closer to Riley so he could observe it better.
“…”
Compared to the flame on Andal’s right hand, the tiny seed of fire on his left hand was so tiny.
It was pathetic. Still, Riley wanted to have some hope, so he asked Andal,
“What about its power?”
“Watch.”
Andal slowly turned his body toward a wall inside the cave.
Starting with the fireball on his right hand,
“This is what you know as a “Fireball.”
Andal swung his right hand and threw the fireball.
The fireball left Andal’s hand and flew toward the wall with a fearsome sound. It generated a huge explosion with a loud boom as soon as it hit the wall.
The fireball’s size blew up the moment it exploded. Soon, hot wind blew toward Riley and Nainiae.
“Um.”
Riley narrowed his eyes.
This was the Fireball that Riley saw last time in the Solia’s Main Plaza when he ran into Nainiae and Astroa who launched fireballs at him.
“And this is the fireball that you will be shooting.”
With his left hand, Andal threw the tiny seed of fire. Instead of calling it a lump of flame, it was better suited to be called that. The tiny seed of fire left its owner and flew.
The way it faltered as it flew had no power. Riley felt like he knew how this was going to end. Inside of Riley’s mouth dried up quickly.
“What was that?”
Chiiiiek…
Although Andel threw it to the wall, it didn’t even get to the wall. Instead, it fell along the way. It burned for a few seconds and started to whither.
“What do you mean what? It’s the fireball you will be shooting.”
As Andal grinned, Riley furrowed his brows.
“You call that a fireball? It was just a lighter that was thrown.”
“Just what is this ‘lighter’?”
“…”
Riley turned his head and looked at where the tiny seed of fire fell.
The spot was stained a little. There wasn’t an explosion.
That was it.
That tiny bit was the full extent of its power.
“Did you throw a match?”
Having remembered that this world doesn’t have a device called a lighter, he changed the word and asked Andal.
Riley looked like he was threatening Andal, saying cut this bullcrap. However, Andal cracked a smile and responded,
“In that case, can you please spread a rumor about me? The red dragon Andalobena uses a match instead of his own flame.”
Riley slowly turned his head and looked at Nainiae.
It was to ask if what Andal just demonstrated was the true extent of what Riley would be able to do.
“…”
Nainiae could not respond in words. Instead, she only nodded.
Andal shrugged and started to make fun of Riley,
“Well, it’s like being an impotent man in magic.”
By the word ‘impotent,’ Riley’s head quickly turned to Andal.
“Impotent! Fuck! Who’s impotent!?”
“Just give up.”
“I can’t… So, what kind of magic spells are there in time magic?”
Grinding his teeth, Riley asked about the time magic to find other potentials.
“I’m not sure. Time magic… What kind of spells are there?”
“There are probably a lot of magic spells related to speed. Things like hastening spells that would enable you to make something faster and slowing spells that would make something work slower.”
“That would be speed magic instead of being time magic, wouldn’t it?”
“Ah haha…”
Nainiae laughed awkwardly.
Andal shrugged and started to explain time magic that he knew,
“Well, back when my grandfather was alive, I heard there was a human that could rewind or fast forward time to travel through the past and present.”
“Hey, you rascal. Don’t bring up stories about your grandfather. It makes me dizzy.”
It was not a matter of it being several hundreds or thousands of years.
If he was talking about Andal’s grandfather’s time period, he was talking about a world that was several tens of thousands of years ago.
It was so old that Riley was having a hard time believing it.
“Anything else?”
“That is… Young master, as I explained earlier, only the extreme few have time as their innate type. On top of that, even smaller fraction of people learn magic with time as their innate type. So…”
When Nainiae blurred the end of her sentence, Andal added,
“What she is trying to say is that the number of magic spells related to time are very limited.”
“I read in a book that my teacher Peruda gave me. Currently, most of the time magic spells are dead. There are a few that are commonly used still. There are things like hastening and slowing magic… Ah! There are also magic for increasing or decreasing the speed of time! Alchemists sometimes use such spells when doing…their experiments.”
Having realized Riley’s face growing more violent by the minute, Nainiae’s voice became tinier than a rat’s tail.
“Is there a magic that can rewind time?”
Riley turned away from Nainiae and looked at Andal.
Andal was a dragon afterall, and he was a mage that had reached Nine Circles. Riley wanted to ask Andal because of this reason.
“I don’t know either.”
Andal heartlessly crushed Riley’s expectations.
“How about a magic that will stop time?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know anything? Are you really a dragon?”
“Should I swear to you in the dragon language? I’m telling you. I really don’t know.”
Now it was Andal what was cringing. He started to explain about the time magic that could rewind or stop time,
“Well, I think there is a magic spell for rewinding time to fix a broken object, but when it comes to time magic that could affect living things to rewind or force it to be held in a stopped time, such spells are… They belong to the Ten Circles magic. Even at the absolute minimum requirement, you will need Nine Circles.”
Ten Circles.
It was a height that even dragons could not reach. It was quite literally the realm of gods.
“That’s assuming such magic existed at all.”
Andal murmured as he shrugged. Andal looked at Riley.
“Even if such spells existed, it is not like you are going to work hard to find them. You are not the type.”
“Go to hell…”
As if he was frustrated, Riley aggressively scratched the back of his head.
Not knowing what to do, Nainiae in the back said with a forced smile,
“Y-Young master! Still… At least you won’t have to touch the apple tree.”
“What?”
“If you cast a time hastening magic on an apple, it will mature quickly, and when a matured apple falls on its own, you can eat that one. Now that I think about it, it looks like you won’t have to wait for apple seasons either.”
Clap
Nainiae said as she clapped.
Riley gave a vacant stare at her face.
“…”
“As for other magic, although it will not be powerful, I can teach you a wind magic that will be still strong enough to catch a falling apple. Something like an Aircushion.”
Listening to Nainiae trying to convince him to settle down, Riley sighed heavily enough to make the ground sink and said,
“…You pick them.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, you go ahead and pick the apples.”
***
Riley had a serious talk with Andal about time magic that he could use and the cleanup of Tes merchant company.
Having finished the conversation, Riley and Nainiae started heading back to the mansion in the carriage. Riley was trying out magic while riding on the carriage.
“…Light.”
Riley managed to float up a small ball of light on top of his palm in just three tries.
Nainiae, who was driving the carriage, took a quick look at Riley and opened her eye widely.
“You can already do it?”
“Oh? So this is how it feels. It’s quite mysterious.”
The light that Riley created was rather small, but it was carrying out its task to the full extent.
Before they realized, there was already a link in his heart that was spinning.
It meant Riley had succeeded in achieving the One Circle.
“That was going to be your practice tomorrow, but you already did it. Um… It looks like I’ll have to think hard about this.”
“Think hard?”
“They say getting started is the hardest part. Actually, generating the One Circle’s Light is very difficult. This was the reason why I thought we should figure out your innate type today and focus on the Light magic tomorrow. But… You already succeeded in it.”
As she drove the carriage, she used wind magic to push away tree branches that could reach Riley’s hair.
“Although it is not very effective, there are time magic spells even for Two Circles, so… Tomorrow, I think it would be good to practice by focusing on that. We can practice other elemental magic here and there as well.”
“Two Circles, huh…”
“You can think of it as taking steps that fit your innate type.”
Riley noticed the mansion could be seen in the distance.
He turned off the light he had floating on his palm.
“…Um?”
The carriage bumped once and arrived at the mansion’s entrance. Riley narrowed his eyes.
It was because there was a carriage that he had never seen before that was parked in front of the mansion.
‘That carriage is?’