Forest fire!

After she cried her heart out she calms down. Now her goal is to make her late mother proud. I must say, it is a noble goal. But to make it real she has to train.

"What do you want to start with?"

"Can you teach me magic?"

Magic. How can I describe it with words? Controlling it with intent. That's how I do it. But I have a gut feeling that there is something more. I will be teaching Lydia and maybe someone else in the future. So I have to come up with a way that can be understood by others too.

"You don't have much mana. we will increase it in the future. For now, don't expect any big magic. Even I can't do them."

"So what we start with now?"

"You will try to do magic. With the way I do it. I have a strange feeling about this."

"Okay?"

I don't know the source of this feeling but I will pay attention to it.

She opened her palm and focus on it. Trying to gather mana. It is not something you can do on the first try. At least, with her mana eyes, she can feel the mana on her body. It is a good effect.

On the seventh try, she succeeded. The real thing begins now. I show her how I do my magic. I shaped the mana with my intent.

I need new magics. Now that found a way to increase my mana I will study more magic after this.

She studied the way I shaped mana with her mana eyes. Unfortunately, she couldn't do the magic with the way I do it. This is troublesome. I don't know what caused this neither how do we solve it.

"I can't do magic..."

She became teary-eyed. She is going to cry. That's bad. I have to do something.

"Try one more time. I will try something."

"Okay."

She clearly lacks motivation. Well, can't blame her. She tries to do magic one more time. I focused my mana eyes one more time. But this time I pushed it to the extreme. I felt like my eyes are burning. Nonetheless, it was a success.

Lydia can't shape mana with her intent alone. How to solve this... In the common fantasy settings mage often chants to do magic. I wonder will it work.

"The reason why you can't do it is you can't shape mana with your intent alone."

"Then how am I supposed to do it?"

"Chanting, maybe?"

"Cringe chantings?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Unfortunately no. How should I start?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I have no idea regarding the chanting. I didn't need it, till now I could shape mana with my intent alone.

Which magic would be easier to chant? Thunder, water, fire, wind, and earth. These are the most basic elements of magic.

"Which element do you want to try?"

Since this is for Lydia, I asked her. I already have thunder magic and water manipulation possibly magic too.

"Which one is easier? I want to try it."

That's a tough question. Earth is hardest the to control. I know this because I tried it. But chanting is changing everything.

"Let's see. Earth has resistance to mana, wind is surrounded by inactive mana so it is even harder to gain control over. I use thunder but it is unstable. So water or fire. Probably fire would be easier."

"Why would be fire easier?"

"No matter how much I tried, I couldn't create water from mana. But I can create sparks of fire."

"I see. Fire it is."

Fire magic. Let's see. A strong image and wors according to the image. This should be a starting point of chanting. Now use this on fire magic. A strong image. A fire that burns down trees until their ashes. Words... that is difficult. And cringe.

Er... fire burns the tree. The tree can be replaced with nature. So, the fire burns down nature? Hmm... nope. Something is missing. Maybe I should add some words about mana shaping.

"I have an idea. Let me try it first."

"Sure. I wanna hear some cringe chanting."

"You will do this too."

"But after you."

Right. It still cringes. But have to do this. For the sake of magic. As the First Mage on earth, it is my duty.

"Oh, fire gather my mana and burn down the nature!"

It didn't work. But I have felt it. Mana inside of my body reacted. What could be wrong? Words and images must be right. I have enough mana too.

Maybe I should gather mana on my throat and chant that way. At this point, everything works. I gathered a little mana on my throat and tried again.

[Oh, fire gathers my mana and burns down nature!]

Suddenly mana violently gushes out of my body. Mana changed and took the shape of a great fireball. I fell onto the ground because of mana depletion. When I looked up I saw hell.

Fireball impacted trees and started a fire. Surrounding trees quickly get caught in the fire too. It became a forest fire. This...

"Oscar..."

"It worked..."

"You started a forest fire goddammit! How are we suppose to put it off?!"

I take a bottle of liquid mana and quickly drink it. I can feel my mana pool getting slightly larger. Now is not the time. After fully recovering my mana I get up.

What to do... ı can't create water from anything. Can't cut its connection with air either. There is a lake but it is not near here. We don't have much time, fire with mana burns trees faster than normal.

"Lydia..."

"Please tell me you have an idea."

"..."

"We are screwed."

What if we make it rain? It can solve this. I can shot a lightning bolt into the clouds and possibly make them rain. I don't really believe this but everything works now.

"I can make it rain."

"You can?! We can stop this fire, yes! What do you need?"

"Clouds."

We both looked up at the same time. The sky was even more clear than my future.

"I guess we are cursed by the deity of misfortune."

I couldn't refute it. This morning everywhere I looked up was clouds. But when I actually need them, they are gone. At the same time, the fire grew more violent. This is bad. No, this is the worst!

"Hey, can you take away the mana at the fire?!"

"That's a good idea. Let me try it."

I created two mana strings and send them to the tree that is burning. Especially where a large amount of mana is gathered. When strings connected with the mana I tried to siphon it. But it didn't work. Instead, it made things worse. Forest fire grew even more violent.

"Seems like you were right. We truly are cursed."