Chapter 24
The guild had been even livelier than usual lately.
Mostly because of its newest little menace—Natsu, the boy who ate fire.
That one problem child caused as much destruction as ten grown men combined. Marshall had even heard that Natsu had already burned down the boys’ dormitory.
Makarov had held him up by the collar and yelled at him for what felt like half the day, then warned every boy in the guild that if they destroyed the dormitory again, he would refuse to rebuild it.
Unfortunately, Natsu was a walking disaster.
He could fight Gray seven times in a single day, had already set parts of the guildhall on fire more than once, and was rapidly driving Makarov toward complete baldness.
The chaos continued until Erza returned from a job.
"You two are going to get along from now on! Do you understand me?!"
"A-aye..." they answered together.
"No more using magic inside the guild! No more fighting! Is that clear?!"
"C-Clear..."
Two enormously swollen heads knelt neatly in front of Erza, neither boy daring to breathe too loudly.
"Good. You should both learn from Marshall. He’s younger than either of you, yet he behaves far more responsibly."
Watching Erza tame both troublemakers almost instantly, Cana lost all interest.
She had been hoping to unite the three of them in rebellion against Erza’s iron-fisted rule, but it seemed that dream was already dead!
"Erza is still ridiculously overpowered," Cana muttered. "Laxus might be the only one in the guild who can beat her. He might not qualify this year, but he’ll definitely become an S-Class Mage next year. S-Class at sixteen... I’m jealous."
"He’s older than you. Give it a few years, and I’m sure you’ll make it too..."
Marshall’s answer was distracted and rather flat.
He had been unbelievably busy lately.
Ever since learning Celestial Spirit Magic, he had become slightly obsessed.
Marshall was scribbling calculations and diagrams into a small notebook while Cana sat beside him, hugging a round-faced pink "puppy" with a drill-shaped nose.
The creature was Nikora, the Celestial Spirit of Canis Minor.
It had signed a contract allowing Marshall to summon it at any time, seven days a week.
Maintaining its presence consumed less magic power than Marshall naturally recovered, so he had begun treating it like a permanent pet.
Several days ago, after successfully summoning his first Celestial Spirit, a new skill had appeared on his panel.
[Celestial Spirit Magic LV0: 1/1,000]
Apparently, simply maintaining a summon was enough to generate experience.
The problem was that the experience gain was slower than anything Marshall had ever seen.
Several days had passed, during which he had repeatedly summoned different spirits and kept Nikora present almost constantly.
He had earned only four additional experience points.
That could only mean one of two things.
Either Marshall had catastrophically poor compatibility with Celestial Spirit Magic, or his training method was completely wrong.
Difficulty did not matter much, of course.
Marshall had a system.
He eventually spent one thousand Inspiration to force the skill to Level One.
Then something terrifying happened.
Celestial Spirit Magic split apart! And the skill itself vanished completely.
[Celestial Spirit Magic LV1]
→ [Spatial Magic EXP +1,000]
+ [Link Magic LV1]
+ [Star Magic LV1]
+ [Time Magic LV1]
+ [Contract Magic LV1]
+ [Soul Magic LV1]
+ [Attribute Conversion Magic LV1]
The sudden change had left Marshall completely stunned.
Never in his wildest dreams had he expected Celestial Spirit Magic to pull something so absurd.
Was the system seriously telling him that this supposedly basic magic—something almost anyone could learn—was actually an advanced composite made from seven separate branches of magic?
It was one hell of an eye-opener.
Who could have imagined that spending only one thousand Inspiration would teach him six completely unfamiliar kinds of magic?
Unfortunately, it also meant that fully mastering Celestial Spirit Magic might require seven times the normal amount of experience.
Spatial Magic needed no explanation.
Summoning a spirit from another dimension obviously involved extremely advanced manipulation of space.
Link Magic established the magical connection between a Mage and their Celestial Spirit.
Star Magic drew upon the power of the stars themselves.
The functions of those three were easy enough to identify.
Time Magic, however, made far less sense.
Marshall experimented with it and discovered that he could reverse the "time" of inanimate objects, though only to a limited extent.
He had no idea where Time Magic fit into Celestial Spirit Magic.
Contract Magic was straightforward.
It commonly appeared in the form of magical contracts and was frequently used by merchant guilds, though ordinary Mages rarely had much need for it.
Soul Magic was a pleasant surprise.
Marshall had already planned to study Thought Projection, a clone-like spell that belonged to the Soul Magic branch.
Now that he had learned its foundation in advance, mastering Thought Projection later should be much easier.
The final skill, Attribute Conversion Magic, left him completely lost.
He had never even heard of such a branch before. Marshall suspected the system had generated the name by interpreting the concept through his own understanding.
After experimenting with it, he discovered that the spell could transform the elemental nature of magic power.
Fire-aligned magic power could be converted into ice-aligned magic power, for example, though some energy was lost during the conversion.
Marshall still did not understand its role.
Perhaps Celestial Spirit Magic used it to convert the power of the stars into usable magic power?
The sheer volume of new information made Marshall feel as if his brain were growing extra folds.
At the same time, he could not shake the feeling that he had accidentally uncovered an extraordinary secret.
That was why he had spent nearly all his recent time organizing everything he knew about Celestial Spirit Magic.
Until he understood how its various components interacted, creating a new form of Summoning Magic would be impossible.
Who could have guessed that the supposedly easy Celestial Spirit Magic was actually a hidden final boss?
It had nearly scared the poor child to death.
Still, those minor problems were nothing compared to what he had gained.
Even ignoring the six new branches of magic he had acquired almost for free, studying Celestial Spirit Magic had caused inspiration to pour into his mind.
The one thousand points he spent had already returned more than tenfold.
Marshall knew more and more kinds of magic, but he no longer had enough time to practice them all.
His skill list was now packed with abilities stuck at Level One.
As for using Inspiration to raise them directly?
Ridiculous!
Marshall already felt as though he never had enough Inspiration, especially after discovering that improving Meditation increased the rate at which his maximum magic power grew.
He needed to save his points for Meditation.
His current situation was simple.
He did not have enough Inspiration.
He did not have enough time.
And lately, he did not feel as though he had enough brainpower either.
It was making him anxious.
It felt as though countless mountains of treasure stood before him.
He knew that spending enough time digging into any one of them would reveal incredible riches, but there were so many mountains that he could not decide which one to excavate first.
The frustration was enough to make him cry.
Looking back, Marshall realized that his approach had been far too conservative.
He could have been much more extreme.
Practicing magic and gaining experience should have been integrated into every part of his daily life long ago.
His next step would be to completely abandon the inefficient act of walking.
He planned to learn Wind Magic or Gravity Magic and keep himself floating at all times, allowing him to train continuously and farm experience every moment of the day.
After that, he could stop using utensils while eating, write without using his hands to train Magic Power Control, bathe with Water Magic, dress with Requip, and replace sleep with Meditation.
After spending Inspiration, Marshall’s Meditation had already reached Level Three.
Its effect on his maximum magic power had tripled, and meditating now restored both mental energy and magic power.
He still could not meditate through an entire night without sleeping, but he believed he was moving in the right direction.
Once he saved one million Inspiration, he planned to raise Meditation to Level Four first.
At that point, surpassing Erza’s magic power would only be a matter of time.
He still had more than five hundred thousand Inspiration left after spending over a hundred thousand.
At his current rate of accumulation, he should reach one million in less than a year.
So, Marshall’s upcoming schedule included mastering the different components of Celestial Spirit Magic, learning Wind Magic and Gravity Magic, creating an entirely new form of Summoning Magic for Cana, finding a chance to study Dragon Slayer Magic, training, researching, updating Naruto, and making time to be hugged by his ’sisters’...
He was far too busy!
He wished he could grow six additional brains and split himself into seven Vegapunks!
After learning Celestial Spirit Magic, a completely new door had opened before him.
This was only the second time since arriving in this world that magic had shaken his understanding so deeply.
The first had been the moment he cast Telepathy Magic.
Where would Marshall’s path through magic lead him next?