Practice

The servants were going about their everyday business until a shout echoed through the halls, and the door to the young master's room burst open.

"EVERYONE IS FIRED!" the young master, Amit Neant, screamed.

The immediate gasps from the servants revealed just how shocked they were.

The servants had been surprised by Amit's recent behavior, but no one expected anything like this.

The servants began to gather around the young master, trying to convince him to change his mind.

A woman with brown hair tried to speak to him. "Please, young master Amit, please reconsider! I don't have anywhere to go!"

And it wasn't just her—soon many servants began talking over each other. The commotion slowly brought all the house staff in the vacation house to gather around the young master's room.

The young master seemed to consider their words, walking into his room and then coming out with a bag of coins in his hand.

"I don't care, but if you must, I will offer everyone one gold coin if you agree to leave town afterward."

There was an immediate silence. One gold coin?

That was more than they made in a year! Scratch that—it was more than they made in five years!

There were around 20 servants in the house. They all had a variety of skills, so they didn't need more staff. They barely worked, only keeping the house clean for when the Neant family might use it.

All 20 servants agreed to Amit's proposal.

And within an hour, they had all packed up and left.

**********

As I watched the last of the house staff leave, I chuckled to myself.

It was surprisingly easy.

I just threw gold coins at them, and they dropped everything and left.

Money really is the king of everything! Being rich really is the best!

Too bad money in this world can't bring back my phone.

I sighed.

Why did I decide to kick out all the servants, you may ask? Well, it was because I just didn't like the idea of people in my house.

I mean, I haven't lived with anyone else for a long time since my parents died in a car crash when I turned 16.

Womp womp, I know. The good part is, my parents were pretty well-off, so I could survive off the money left for a little bit.

The reason I gave the house staff money to move out of town? I don't know. Maybe it was guilt, because I knew I wouldn't save the rest of the fake town people. But it was probably to get them out faster. Yeah, that was it.

Anyways, it was time for something I'd been itching to try: magic!

As I now traveled the now-empty manor, I marveled at the extravagant things, like the bathroom with a gold toilet! The Neant family really was rich!

It felt really empty now that all the servants were gone. Even though I hadn't personally walked through it before, using Amit's memories to recall what it was like before made it feel weird, but more comfortable for me.

I reached the door to the basement of the manor and switched on the aether-powered lights.

It revealed a training room filled with dummies, weapons—and is that a gravity training room?

Damn, the Neant family really was too rich!

I turned on the second switch, which filled the training room with aether.

Magic in the world of WOZ was a little different. There was no mana—well, there was, but it was called aether, the energy of the world.

Aether powered everything in this world, from aether-powered carriages to aether-powered lights to power spells and, in some cases, skills.

Another thing in the game was that skills weren't locked to a certain use like spells were. Most of the time, they were more general.

For example, there was no [Fireball] skill, while there was a fireball spell. But if you wanted a skill that could use fireballs, you'd have to find something like [Pyrokinesis].

There were some skills that were just passive, such as the [Fast Learner] skill, which I'd get as a reward from that death sentence of a quest.

Something I found really weird was that Amit had no skills. I mean, Amit wasn't that strong, but he should've surely had skills as a son of an archduke.

Even as I went through his memories, it seemed that for some dumb reason, he never bothered to buy any.

He knew some spells, like Fireball, Wind Swipe, and his most powerful spell, Water Geyser, but damn, even though I was technically Amit now, I had to say he was trash.

He was a total noob! He was a rich boy with all the money in the world and didn't even try to get stronger. The only reason he learned the spells he knew was because his father had instructors beat them into him until even he gave up on him.

I wouldn't be like that. I would grow so strong until I could kill the Monistar with my own hands!

Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll have to deal with this incoming Zelk attack first. And for that, I need to learn how to wield spells.

I sat down cross-legged and reached out into my aether pool.

It was like grabbing something from a bowl, but inside yourself. I can't really explain it, but I was able to grab it and mold it into a string that came out of my hand.

It felt weird, like trying to mold clay, but if the clay was formless and instead of using your hands, you were using your mind and willpower.

I pulled my aether out into a string. It obeyed. I wove it into a knot, then into a scarf with little effort. It seemed I hadn't lost Amit's basic aether manipulation prowess, so I moved to something more interesting.

I unweaved the scarf and started moving the string faster, creating something more complex. In around five seconds, I had made the spell construct for [Fireball].

I powered it up and shot it towards a dummy.

Boom!

One of the was now dummies was charred and burning and soon the flame died out but i smiled.

My casting time was shit, but it worked.

It was surreal to cast actual magic, but at the same time, a part of me wasn't surprised that it worked because I had Amit's memories, who actually lived in this world.

I started weaving more aether into another spell.

[Wind Swipe].

The wind flew in three blades, and when they collided with the dummy, they left three cut marks.

Again, I wove another spell.

[Water Geyser].

A water stream flew toward a dummy, putting a hole in it.

And again, I started weaving another spell. Again, and again.

I will practice until I drop.