Chapter 8 – Wishful Thinking
At Holy Light Academy, students usually studied for 6 hours a day: three hours in the morning, and three hours in the afternoon. However Sou Jia actually studied for a total of 18 hours!
Suo Jia only slept for 6 hours a day. During the rest of his time, he would either be studying the theories behind the Moisture Technique or drawing the required magic formations over and over again. Based on the magic book’s explanations, as long as one could use the water element fluently and accurately to recreate the Moisture Technique’s respective magical diagrams, one could successfully utilize the Moisture Technique.
In the blink of an eye, two months had passed and all the girls in the class could already use the Moisture Technique. Despite the fact that Suo Jia was more diligent when studying and practiced thrice as often, he still was fruitless in his endeavor to apply the theory and could not perform the Moisture Technique.
There were two reasons for this; the first was that Suo Jia’s natural talent was definitely inferior to that of any girl in the class. A female’s natural talent in the water element was innate and could not be cultivated.
The second reason was that all the girls had staffs while Suo Jia did not. Although staffs were relatively inexpensive (the cheapest costing only 100 gold), Suo Jia, even on his death bed, refused to ask his mother to buy one for him. He saw how thin and pale his mother had become day after day, and couldn’t bring himself to ask her for one.
Suo Jia clearly understood that his mother sacrificed her own strength to maintain their current mother-son relationship. When even his mother’s life seemed to be at risk, why talk about something meaningless like a staff? Besides, he could still use magic without a staff.
A staff is simply a piece of wood embedded with a crystal, suitable for conducting magic. When releasing magical spells, the embedded crystal will maintain the energy of the spell formation. As long as one completes the spell formation at some point, the skill will activate.
However, drawing formations with one’s hands is quite different. First, the drawing speed has to be quick. The moment one’s hands moves too slowly, the magic power needed to execute the spell will be scattered. Due to not having the crystal’s storage abilities, the spell results in failure.
The second most important aspect of drawing magic formations by hand is accuracy. While drawing the magic spell formation’s multitude of lines, if even one line slightly deviates from the pattern, the spell will not activate. The truth is, the error allowance of the spell diagram is less than a millimeter; deviating by even a single millimeter could not be permitted.
Lastly, it is important to be steady. When a mage draws a formation needed to cast a spell, it must be done with a confident and unconstrained action; a very natural and flowing style of drawing. Soon after the spell is released, it must be kept steady from start to finish. If your actions become too fast or too slow, then you will definitely not be able to cast any spells successfully.
Seeing Suo Jia’s anxious expression, the female lecturer clearly knew that if Suo Jia had a staff, he would immediately be able to use the Moisture Technique. With his control over water and his diligent attitude, he would definitely have been the first child able to use the Moisture Technique. It was truly regretful however that Sou Jia did not own a staff.
Tightly wrinkling her brows, the female lecturer anxiously looked at Suo Jia, who was sitting alone in the corner practicing over and over again. After pondering for a long time, she walked towards Suo Jia’s direction.
Seeing his instructor approaching, Suo Jia stopped his training and lifted his head towards the female lecturer. Under Suo Jia’s gaze, the female lecturer helplessly said: “Suo Jia, listen to Teacher’s words. In theory, bare hands can activate magic, but after thousands of years, all mages cast magic with the borrowed power from staffs. Casting magic with bare hands has many requirements, the most important one being the large amount of magic power needed. Your current magic power cannot support the duration you need to cast the spell!”
Hearing the teacher’s words, Suo Jia’s face immediately turned ashen. Recently, he had developed quite a bit of confidence in the way he trained. Speed, accuracy, and stability had all been mastered by him. However, the arrays of the magic spells could not be maintained, and would fade away before he had the time to finish drawing them.
Suo Jia knew that if only his magic power was larger, than these magic spell arrays would be maintained for a bit longer. That way, he would successfully be able to activate magic. However the growth of magic power was not something that could be rushed all at once; it required a long time to accumulate.
He looked at the lecturer with a pale white face, his heart in utter despair. Within the past month, his mother’s body had steadily deteriorated. Soon, his mother might leave the world for an eternal rest.
Originally he could help his mother, but he had no way of breaking through at the most crucial point! Even though both his teacher and his classmates were willing to lend him their staffs, he couldn’t possibly bring another person’s staff home with him. If he couldn’t bring a staff home, then how would he use it to earn money?
To mages, their staffs are their lives; their staffs definitely could not leave their hands. How can mages let you bring their staffs home with you? Lending it to you for temporary use is already considered a great favor.
Suo Jia was in despair as he walked home, his heart a dull grey. What could he do; what could he possibly do? Did he really have to ask his mother for the money? This seemed to be the only possible way to solve his current predicaments.
Suo Jia’s thoughts were extremely conflicted; he clearly knew that asking his mother for money would solve everything. As long as he earned money, then the money lost would also be quickly recovered. However, he simply could not bring himself to open his mouth.
That night, Suo Jia did not continue studying magic spells as he usually did. Instead, he sat on his bed in a daze, unconsciously controlling a stream of water, as his mind hesitated back and forth….
Suo Jia strenuously thought about it for a long time, yet he still could not arrive at a decision. Seeing the water stream travel back and forth between his hands, Suo Jia gave up on his thoughts. He could decide later tomorrow morning. No matter what, he still needed to get his hands on a staff.
Lying with his back on his bed, Suo Jia closed his eyes. He had gotten accustomed to thinking over things just before he slept. Just as he entered a semi-awoken state, a divine light suddenly flashed through his head.
“Hu!” Suo Jia suddenly sat up, trying hard to remember that divine light that had just flashed. However, he could not recall any of it, as it was simply from a dream.
However Suo Jia knew that it definitely was not an illusion, because he had previously experienced something similar. When he had been practicing his water control at a young age, he often encountered difficulties. While in that semi-conscious state, a divine light would suddenly flash, and he would be able to think of a solution. Suo Jia believed that this case would not be any different.
The experienced Suo Jia did not continue to think too much about it. At this point in time, desperately recalling would make it even harder to remember. He put on his shoes and got off his bed to pour himself a glass of water, then calmly sat in front of the narrow window. Looking at the bright moonlight outside, he slowly organized his thought process.
Slowly, his foul mood faded away. The previously hazy event little by little appeared within his mind. Finally that miraculous divine light once again appeared in Suo Jia’s sea of consciousness, and in addition it was deeply imprinted within the depths of Suo Jia’s mind.
Inside of the dark room, Suo Jia sat peacefully on the wooden bed with his right index finger pointing out. Gently, a pale blue radiance emerged. Sitting peacefully on the wooden bed, his right hand slowly began to move. The pale blue light followed Suo Jia’s moving index finger, quickly drawing out a complex and profound formation.
Finally, Suo Jia’s right hand elegantly drew in a circular motion a sophisticated pale blue circle. In a flash, all the components within the circle fused together, forming a perfect, ideal spell. For a moment, the entire spell diagram glowed like a neon lamp, gradually lighting up.
Accompanying the radiance, a sweet and continuous water thread silently appeared across from the bed. Similar to a moisturizing fine rain, it entered the body of the woman on the bed across from him.
“Yahoo!” In order to avoid waking up his mother who was sleeping soundly, Suo Jia could only tightly curl his hands into fists, and shout ecstatically in a low voice with his face buried under his covers. After working so diligently for two months, he was finally……able to use the Moisture Technique!
After being excited for a long time, Suo Jia finally climbed out of his covers. Wanting to experience the feeling again, he gestured with his right arm. Very quickly……another magic spell was completed, and a fine mist flashed dimly with a blue light. It permeated his mother’s body, and his sleeping mother’s breathing gradually became smooth and unhindered.
Trembling from head to toe, Suo Jia quietly sat up from his bed, put on his shoes, and left the room. Today was really a day worth remembering. By utilizing his own methods, he was able to activate the Moisture Technique. From today onwards, he would be able to help his mother; Mother would no longer need to wear herself out. Historically, no person had ever activated magic using such methods. He, however had managed to achieve it.