I was replying to Maximum Spin, actually…
If you arn't actually opposing it then I guess I'm going with it!
Lacking any magic of my own to fight back in any lethal or nonlethal way, I surrender to the small children who have defeated me. I manage to swallow (or more like throw away entirely) whatever pride I had and laugh while helping the other children to their feet and shaking their hands. They seem entirely satisfied with this victory. They scatter to their usual playtime activities.
....I think they felt pretty good about attacking me in the end though.
Days later, we finally finish with safety and start our first
actual magic class.
Fundamentally magic requires a deep understanding of what you're actually trying to do. This is why magic takes a lifetime of work to get good at. For basic things pattern recognition works well, but if you want to do anything complex it looks like you need something approaching a scientific understanding of how it would actually work. Most people in the colony focus on one subject, usually one passed down from their family since the Church's knowledge is limited and its library is small. Back in the Kingdoms the nobles are expected to know multiple subjects deeply to give them a greater range of magical power.
This was all explained to me like I was six, so it took a lot of additional questions to get. I consider my pestering petty vengeance for letting me get sticked earlier.
As we are small children, our first magics all rely on the pattern recognition method. The teachers brought in some flint and steel. They taught us as a class how to strike it, then have each of us strike it one hundred times while watching the sparks. After that they take the steel away and have us try to make sparks without it. We keep the flint and make the same motions. Only one kid got it right the first time (the cheater from earlier), everyone else had to do at least one more set of 100 with the flint and steel before getting sparks. I got it on my second set.
This is apparently a useful survival skill here due to the low supply of metal, though the adults all do it without needing the flint or making the spark motions. The other lessons all follow the same general theme. We are given a primitive charcoal water filter to hold and watch water flow through it until we can purify water by pouring it through our empty hands. We watch our legs run until we can spend magic to run instead of stamina. We get monster part scraps for magical arts and crafts. Some kids have a natural talent for it, others are still struggling with the sparks while the rest of the class moves on.
I'm in the upper end of the class due to not actually being a small child. Somehow I'm in second place behind the cheater, but I'll take my victories where I can.
Actually casting the magic is much easier than I expected. Once you understand what you need to do it is as simple as walking or breathing. You are mostly limited to your understanding and magic storage.
Now that I actually know some magic, what should I try to do with it?
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Topic: Reborn into the Taleno Colony (Isekai SG): Small Child (Read 10863 times)