Quest Around the Multiverse

I can see a lone house in the middle of a forest. It was sitting next to a beautiful river.

"Welcome to my safe house. You are the third person to know about this place."

"You did not take the other Rune Practitioner to this place, huh?"

"Nope~ This is where I train anyone who wants to learn about magic."

"I see."

"Come on~ I will show you around."

I follow her, and as we get closer, I can feel like I'm walking past an invisible wall.

"What was that?"

"Hmmm? Ah, that. It was the barrier I made in the past to make sure no one could find this place except the people I bring with me. It is really impressive you can feel them~ I make sure to make them not be felt by anyone."

I shrug a little and keep walking. As we got inside the house, I could see it was a very cozy home. There is a fireplace in the living room, and the carpet looks soft.

"This is the living room and over there in the kitchen. You can use it if you are hungry. There should be a fair amount of food inside. The upstairs is the bedroom. There are two of them. Mine is on the left, and yours will be on the right. Make sure you did not get stranded in my room, okay?~ I will let you get in there if you grow a little. Fufufufu~"

I shudder a little at her words. Is she a succubus?

"We will start in two hours. You can take a bath or eat something while I prepare for our training."

"I will. Thank you, teacher."

"Fufufufu~ Don't mention it."

I see her get upstairs and start to walk toward the kitchen. I open up the food cupboard, and to my surprise, it is cold. Oh! Did she use magic to make this cupboard cold, huh? I opened the other one and saw it was filled with ice blocks. Oh! She also makes a freezer.

Hmmm, there are many kinds of ingredients. What kind of food should I make? It's been a while since I cooked some proper food.

After thinking about it for a few seconds, I decide to take the chicken and a bunch of vegetables from the cupboard.

~Two hours later~

After eating and taking a bath, I find Jeane already waiting for me downstairs.

"Fufufufufu~ It is good you are here. Come on. We will start your first lesson here. Please take a seat. Your first lesson will be theory first before we do the practical training."

I nod my head and take a seat on the sofa.

"First thing first, what do you know about magic?"

"It was a phenomenon where magicians mold mana around the world to create some miracle."

"Hmmm, close enough. A magician is truly using the mana around us to create a miracle, but you forgot one step. Humans generally cannot mold mana around the world because it is toxic to the human body."

"Hmm, that means we need to filter it first before using it."

"Good~ You are correct. Humans need to filter the mana around the world first before they can use the mana to cast magic, but it will take a long time to do it. Mana is unpredictable. They cannot stay in one place, and you need a special containment to trap them. Can you guess what kind of container they use? Here, I have three pictures of the well-known magician in this Queendom. Can you tell me what kind of container they use to hold the filtered mana?"

I frown a little and continue to look at the picture she shows me before something is connected inside my brain.

"Gem. They have too much jewelry on their body."

"Wonderful! Magicians use gems and other precious stones. There is a saying among the commoner 'Magician is the worst and the best target for a bandit.' Do you know why?"

"Hmmm… Because they carry many kinds of gems on their body. That many gems will give them a lot of money. However, the magician can use that gem to cast spells, which means the bandits will have a hard fight."

"That is correct. If you see someone wearing too many precious stones on their body, they are either a powerful magician or someone who wants to fool the other that they are a powerful magician. Many merchants try to use this tactic to fool the bandits, and it works most of the time."

"Hmmm, what about noble and royalty? They will wear many jewels, right?"

"Yes and no. Some countries will let their nobles wear an excessive amount of jewelry but most countries, including this one, forbid their nobles to do so. Only if that said noble is a magician can they wear a large number of the precious stones."

"And why is that?"

"Because the Royal Magician did not like non-magician people wearing that many jewels. It was a waste of good gems, they said."

"Fair enough."

"Yup~ The noble is good enough to respect the magician they hired and the magician in the royal court, but the commoner and the merchant did not really care. Anyway, shall we continue?~"

I nod my head and look at the blackboard. I can see Jeane draw something on the board. She drew a human and some kind of energy around it.

"Humans cannot use wild mana in the air directly, but they can gather it around their hands and filter it."

I can see her hand glow a little.

"As you can see, I gather the mana around my hand and create a filter using a Rune Orb."

"Rune Orb… I see! That is why all the magicians in the picture are carrying a Rune Orb around their neck."

"That's right~ Each Rune Orb has a different effect on the mana. Fire Rune is a good choice for destructive magic and some support magic, while Water Rune does the opposite, good at support but bad at destructive magic."

"Then what is the difference between Fire Rune and Lightning Rune? Both of them are destructive runes, right?"

"Good question. Believe it or not, Lightning Rune is used for stealth missions or an assassination."

"What?"

"Yes. Hard to believe, isn't it?~ Lightning Rune is used to bend the light and create an invisibility spell. Not only that, for some reason, Lightning Rune can make a silencing spell. The most common use for mana coming from Lightning Rune is for support magic like increasing your speed or increasing your vision range. Combine it all together; you have the ultimate assassination attack."

"Coating yourself and all your tools with an invisibility spell and silencing spell then increases your vision range. Enchant your bow and arrow with increased speed, then fire it at your target. The enemy will not know where the attack is coming from and is too panicked to search your location. Perfect kill."

"Fufufufu~ I like the way you are already thinking about the scenario where you can use this spell combination."

I smile a little at her praise and continue listening to her lecture.

"Wind Rune is half and half in support and destruction spells, and Earth Rune is mostly used for support magic, the most common use is for construction."

I nod my head and see her take out a small Rune Orb from the table.

"Now… Let me show you how to gather man from around you and transfer it to the gems."