Chapter 11.5: Magic Skills And Combos

Ramza sighed as he flipped page after page through the book Master Makarov gave him a few days back. Levy had translated a few parts of the book for him, but majority of the characters on the page were still intelligible for him.

He sat on the Fairy Tail bar, taking an exasperated sip from his cup filled with iced coffee. He scrunched his eyebrows on concentration on his book like someone looking down on a telescope. He threw his hands up in defeat as he had no progress on what any of the words of book meant.

A few members inside the guild looked at him weirdly, but then resumed to their own activities.

"Note to self." Ramza grumbled, "Do your research in private."

He then left the guild quietly, and nobody noticed that he was gone. Ramza took off into the forest, where he could train and nobody could interrupt him. If his memory serves correct, he knows only of a few words in the book, which were the ones that Levy had translated for him.

Ignaten, the incendiary spell. Aqua, the water stream spell. Fulminus, the lightning zap spell. Aerogan, the wind blast spell. Bramn, the shield spell.

He practiced casting the Sacred Script spells on various targets in the woods. He fired off an Ignaten spell into the sky, making it look like a miniature firework. He shot an Aqua spell at several trees, leaving small dents in the wood. Casting a Fulminus spell, he zapped at a stone, shattering it to pieces. Ramza wrote an Aerogan spell in the air and whacked it with his hand, sending strong breezes throughout the forest.

He experimented on his Sacred Script in various tests next. As unlike before, the Sacred Script spells didn't need the caster to stand still, but the rune. The caster was free to move anywhere in a twenty meter radius, anything beyond that would make the rune expire, but the rune would stay in place. The energy cost of the spells were definitely low, since Ramza could cast several of them and would not feel exhausted in any way. The only time he started to feel tired was when he had cast numerous spells, at that time the count being twenty-two.

Ramza found out that the effects of the spells could be changed by the size of how the rune was written. If an Ignaten spell was casted at the size of one's hand, a flame of approximately the same size would appear. If the same spell was casted at the size of a tree, then a flame the size of a tree would appear. So that means he could choose between speed and strength. A small rune requires almost no time at all, but it's strength would be lackluster. If one would draw a large rune, they could amass a large offensive, but it would take forever to cast.

Ramza practiced his spells until he felt his arms grow tired from all the writing, and then he took a break. He now has a sort of knowledge of how his spells work and a bit of experience under that. All spells, except the shield spell since there was nothing to shield from, had a sort of depth in Ramza's magical journey. He cast an Aqua spell to douse him in water, then an Aerogan spell to blow him dry. This somehow revitalized him whenever he felt tired, though Ramza didn't know why. It just did, and he was thankful for that.

He stood up again and prepared himself to practice casting his spells again, but a memory from before jogged his memory.

"Frigis!" Ramza snapped his fingers.

It was the only word that he had known from the book prior to asking Levy for help. He opened the book, looking for a rune that was placed beside the word.

"There!" Ramza's finger pointed at the word 'Frigis' in the book. There was a drawing of a symbol of a snowflake that branched out in intricate patterns.

"So, an ice spell." Ramza deduced.

He drew the corresponding symbol for Frigis in the air, taking care to imitate the drawn snowflake in the book. It took more time than the other runes to draw, since there were complex lines and designs inlined in the symbol. When the casting was finished and the rune hoverered in the air, Ramza hit it with every ounce of strength he had.

"Frigis!" Ramza yelled, and a cold wind blasted from the rune. Soft, white snow emerged from the casting, coating the forest floor in a thin layer of ice.

"As expected." Ramza nodded. "Definitely cool."

He sighed. "Dang, I never would have thought that I'd wield magic. But now, it feels that I'm at a sort of peace. All those guys in Fairy Tail, and the team that I'm on, wow. It feels like a miracle."

Ramza looked at his hand, quickly turning it into a closed fist. "So what's this feeling? Why do I feel so sad when I see the other guys doing magic? Shouldn't I be happy?"

"Argh!" Ramza snarled at the ground. "This is too much for me. I should probably train some more."

He stood up and practiced his Sacred Script again. He lit the sky on fire, dented holes in trees, blasted stones to bits, sent winds rolling through the trees, and blanketed the forest with snow.

"Tsk!" Ramza's face contorted in anger. "Not enough!"

He stopped casting his Sacred Script spells and switched to his wind magic. He summoned his wind bow and drew back a transparent arrow. He let go of the string, and let the arrow fly. The arrow exploded in a blast of winds when it hit a tree. Said tree was uprooted when the arrow hit it, sending it sailing through the air. It landed in the dirt with a loud thud.

"More powerful than Sacred Script." Ramza muttered, "At the cost of being more taxing."

He shot a few more arrows, loosening more trees from the dirt. To challenge himself, he shot the trees as they were sent flying. The wood spilt in two as the arrow crashed into it. Then he positioned himself under the falling trees, wind-make buckler ready. He slammed his small shield into the incoming debris, sending the wood to the side. He practiced his wind skills until his head hurt from all the magical strain on him.

"Now that's out," He concentrated, despite the strain, and summoned his wakizashi. "I'll make use of this."

He gripped his sword with confidence, since it was the weapon besides the bow that he had grown up with. He imagined that there was imaginary opponent that was fighting him, and sliced. He ducked, rolled and evaded the imaginary foe, sending counter-strikes when there was an opening. He practiced swinging his sword in the lessons that were taught by Erza, and swung until he felt like his arms were going to drop.

Not to worry, because a simple Aqua and Aerogan spell had revitalized him. Now energized once again, he requipped his short sword into his bow and arrows.

He fired off a few arrows into the distance, until he realized that there was nobody to pick it for him. Ramza began to walk to the arrows, until he had idea. 'Why should I manually pick up the arrows,' Ramza thought, 'If magic can do the job?'

"Let's try this..." A magic circle appeared in Ramza's hand, winds swirling around it. "Wind Make: Rope!"

A lengthy, transparent rope shot out from the magic circle in Ramza's hand and flew towards where the arrows had landed. He pulled and sure enough, the windy rope brought back the arrows, albeit in pieces. He sweatdropped at the broken arrows and made a mental note that the rope didn't have precision controls. Ramza sighed as he pocketed the remains of his arrows.

"While we're at it," Ramza said to himself, "I wanna try this too."

He wrote an Ignaten rune in the air and let it float. He then nocked a new arrow in his bow and aimed it at the rune.

"If I hit it with my hand, just the element comes out. I wonder what happens if I shoot something through it?" Ramza asked aloud.

He shot his arrow and to his delight, the arrow sailed past the rune, now on fire. After a short while though, the arrow had burned up in the air.

"Sweet!" Ramza grinned. "Now let's try it with other runes."

When the arrow flew through the Aqua rune, it became coated with water and promptly fell down to the ground, thanks to the extra weight. When it went past the Fulminus rune, it began to spark up in blue electricity. After a short delay, the arrow began to zip into random directions, making Ramza cut the arrow with his sword when it stood momentarily still. The Aerogan rune was probably the most useful, causing the arrow to fly at faster speeds, despite that being the only function. The Bramn rune was definitely a shield rune since when the arrow neared, it enlarged into a shield and the projectile bounced off. The Frigis rune was different, making the arrow turn into ice when it sped past it. It shattered against a tree trunk, exploding into crystals.

Ramza wiped the sweat off his brow when he finished trying out the new combinations of magic, but he looked over his shoulder and noticed that the sun was lower than expected. It was late afternoon and nearing the night.

"Time passes quickly, huh?" Ramza said to no one in particular.

Ramza looked forward to the ice cold coffee that awaited at home, as well as the bathtub that would soothe his aches. He smiled to himself as he walked back to his house, content with all the training and the new discoveries for today.