Back at the Lut Estate, Farma stood in the entrance hall talking with the butler as she prepared to leave. She had a large suitcase filled with exquisite clothing and jewelry she had shoved inside. While she was to receive a Leone every two months, living a commoner lifestyle had still taught her to be greedy.
One Leone was the yearly income of a lower upper-class member. Compes and Mr. Randam sat just below that threshold.
Farma finished her chat, received the first payment, and moved toward the carriage. She looked at the coin in her hand as she boarded.
She didn't believe they would keep paying her this amount, even if the Lut Countdom was one of the wealthiest in the southern part of the Eltaria Continent. But even a single year of this payment would set her up for the rest of her life. She could leave the kingdom if she wanted to and settle somewhere else, like the Free City of AHIH sitting next to the river Behatot in the jungle, which had inherited a great deal of the technology of the fallen empire since it had been its capital. And compared to this kingdom, whose name was Troc, Ahihian women had far more rights, including the ability to inherit titles and estates without being married.
She herself could have remained at the estate and kept her position, if not for her strong disdain for marrying the specific man her father Aurus had chosen, which was her own cousin.
The falling out was significant.
Her father remarried, had a baby boy, and banished her.
If her mother were still alive such thing would have never even happened.
She looked out the window as the estate grew smaller behind her.
Farma was happy. She finally saw the opportunity to leave not just the estate but the kingdom she had come to hate. All she had to do was wait for the savings to rise high enough.
. . .
14:55. Jack was in front of the well at the end of Faithful Street, in only his underwear, taking a bath by pouring cold water over himself. Every pour brought a grin out of him.
"Aah!"
I finally get to take a bath!
While washing himself he inspected the body properly for the first time. He was slightly malnourished. The ribs were visible, probably because the original Jack hadn't eaten for at least a week before the end and had likely been sick.
He also had no skin diseases, no ringworm spots or anything of the kind, which even in his previous life he had been accustomed to dealing with. This surprised him. In this pre-plumbing world, at least for commoners, not washing frequently was very common.
Then he remembered the nuns and their artifacts.
Could the healing process have cleared skin diseases? It did cover my entire body..
He stood in the hot sun to dry off. He didn't have a towel.
He thought about what had happened that day. The clay tablet. Victor's magic. He went through it all, then stopped.
Victor didn't chant when he used magic.
I assumed chanting was required. But it isn't. Or at least not always.
He kept thinking about it. Learning how to use magic was becoming necessary, not just out of curiosity but because it was the clearest path to understanding the pressure in his kidney and how to use it properly.
He went back inside, still wet and in his underwear, sat at the table, and pulled out some paper and the modified quill pen. He wrote in blue gel ink, the one he liked. It drained mana but the cost was small, nothing like the metal ink.
He began writing questions and answering them.
If magic can work without chanting, then why did the nuns chant?
Possibly theatrics. Or maybe it's needed for beginners or certain artifacts.
How do I cast magic? Is it like the pressure?
He looked at the pen in his hand.
The pen drains mana, not pressure. So they are separate. That's confirmed.
So I'm casting a spell via artifact. But the underlying logic should be similar.
He switched to green ink.
Desire can change the effects of a spell. So in that sense it is similar to pressure.
The nuns said their names before using their artifacts. The Bishopess didn't need to.
He shivered slightly. He was still cold.
He wrote out what he believed the basic spell structure was, specifically from his own observations.
Spell your name. Assign energy. Say what you want.
That should be the structure.
He kept writing, thinking about how a spell would actually look and feel as he wrote it out on the paper.
I, Jack, give my energy. Create fire.
He wanted to write it down and test it outside.
The pen began draining far more mana than usual. About 20% of his total, all at once. The paper caught fire instantly.
Jack fell backward off the chair in surprise. He grabbed the edge that wasn't burning yet and threw it outside though the window. The pen, which had also caught fire, began to regenerate once the flame went out.
The table had a scorch mark. Nothing else was damaged.
..So writing the spell down counts as casting it.
Jack sat on the floor for a moment looking at the scorch mark on the table.
15:30
Basic magical enchanting. Discovered by accident.