“Iko, I want to eat more,” he said.

“Understood.”

“Also, I want to start training my body. What do you think I should do?”

The first ideas that came to mind were walking and running, but…things like that weren’t possible for Kunon. He would only fall and get hurt.

Iko, who had seen him fall countless times, already understood that.

“Hmm… How about practice swings? You could stand in one spot to do it.”

“Practice swings? Like with a sword?”

“Exactly.”

“Could you teach me how?”

Kunon thought he understood what she was saying, but unfortunately, he had never seen it done. Asking a capable teacher to help would be better than simply using his imagination.

“Oh, I can’t. I don’t have any experience with swordplay. Why don’t you ask the marquess? If it’s just swinging, I’m sure even one of the gatekeepers could teach you.”

“Okay. Would you ask him for me?”

“Of course. I’ll ask him later today… Oh, both the marquess and marchioness are out tonight, I think. I’ll try talking to Mr. Balen about it tomorrow, okay?”

Balen was the Gurion family butler. When both the master and lady of the house were absent, management of the estate was Balen’s responsibility.

“Yes, please do,” said Kunon.

His to-do list had grown. It would be fun, though, to chip away at it.

He was certain that training his body and training his magic were two inseparable elements of a single whole.

No matter how difficult the road ahead, Kunon intended to overcome the obstacles and work as hard as necessary to gain his sight.

As far as Kunon was concerned, that was his only reason for living.

The next afternoon, as Kunon was sweating his way through his magic drills, he heard footsteps he didn’t recognize.

“Hello, young master. My name is Ouro Tauro. I’m a former instructor of the Eastern Tiger school of swordplay.”

Judging from the hoarseness of his voice, Kunon thought the speaker must be an elderly man. And because the voice came from relatively low to the ground, he was probably short.

“Ouro… Master Ouro, is it?”

Kunon thought he remembered a Master Ouro as the one who taught his elder brother swordplay.

“Yes, the very same,” the man replied. “I heard you wished to be taught how to swing a sword. I came as soon as I could.”

“Is it really okay for a well-known master like yourself to teach me…? I’m blind, as you can tell, and I can’t expect to learn properly…”

Some of Kunon’s old reticence reared its head. But the swordsman laughed.

“Ah-ha-ha. You know, swordplay isn’t ‘proper’ to begin with. It’s a way of training the body so that a weak person may become strong. Transforming a weak creature into a strong one goes against the natural order. Can you really call something like that proper?”

Well, Kunon thought. I don’t really understand what he’s talking about, but it sounds like he’s willing to teach me.

Chapter 2

The World in Color

“Five.”

“Yes.”

This is worrying.

That was Jenié’s honest reaction.

It was one of her days working at the Gurion house. She had arrived on time and was currently watching her pupil practice magic in the garden outside his detached house.

She had landed this job as a private magic tutor fresh out of magic school. The pay was high and the hours were short, and her student was a child so new to magic he probably couldn’t even spell the word. He was a novice whose water crest had only just appeared, and he didn’t know the first thing about using his power.

Even for an unremarkable sorcerer like Jenié, he was an easy pupil to teach—until five months ago. Actually, it was two months ago, to be exact.

She had blurted out one careless word, and much to her surprise, it had ignited her student’s desire to learn.

The two months since the incident had flown by.

“Six,” she called out.

“Yes.”

Her pupil had been quiet, always looking at his feet, doing only as instructed. For better or worse, he had been easy to deal with… A child who was all but dead inside. Though after that day, it was like he came to life.

Jenié had been happy at first. But soon her feelings changed.

She taught him twice a week, and every time she saw him, he was even better.

She knew he had started to enjoy magic, but it seemed his devotion was much deeper than Jenié had realized.

“…Can you make another?” she asked.

“Yes.”

He was progressing too fast.

With each of Jenié’s instructions, the number of A-ori floating around the boy increased. And he was maintaining them all at once.

At first, it was all he could do to make two of these floating spheres of water. Then he progressed to six. And now seven.

What’s more, his A-ori weren’t trembling, unstable blobs of water. They were nicely spherical and uniform in size. Their lack of fluctuation was proof that the magic was stable, and the consistency in their shape and size was evidence of the boy’s careful control.

His mastery of this most basic skill—creating water with magic—was quite high.

Jenié herself couldn’t create A-ori as fine and precise as these. At best, she could produce five, maybe six, unstable spheres, and she couldn’t maintain them for very long.

…What should I do? she wondered.

Inwardly, Jenié was at a loss.

Her pupil—Kunon Gurion—was still a child of seven.

Magic was a useful skill, but it was by no means safe. For all its convenience, it could become a deadly weapon at any time. That was the nature of this power. There were spells that could kill an adult even when cast by a mere child.

The head of the Gurion family—Jenié’s employer and Kunon’s father—told her to teach his son only the basics. Jenié didn’t approve of parents who let their children have dangerous weapons, so she agreed with the Gurion house’s policy.

But Kunon had already grasped enough magic to progress to the next stage. At this rate, there weren’t many things left for Jenié to teach him. That said…

There was no way she could quit. She would lose her livelihood. She wanted to keep this cushy job at least until she found a new one—to line her pockets while she could.

And that’s why she was worried. What should she do?

Aha. And that’s when an idea had popped into her head.

If she couldn’t teach him anything new, why not show him how to further develop the skill he already had: A-ori.

His power was stable and under control, after all. The boy’s precision was already so advanced. He should be able to add some variety.

That’s it.

If she lost her job now, she wouldn’t be able to make a living. All she needed was to keep it up for another year—even half a year. She had to do her best to hold out there.

Of course, the Gurion family’s policy on higher-level magic could change, and she might be able to teach him something else. If that happened, she could probably add on another year.

Jenié wasn’t an outstanding sorcerer, but she wasn’t hopeless, either. Though not her strong suit, she could try to teach the boy some magical alterations.

Altering spells wasn’t a necessary skill until one learned intermediate-level magic. The range of things you could do with alterations was extremely varied, and so if you learned it while still inexperienced, it would be difficult to adequately master.

But that was exactly why it was perfect for buying time.

Besides, Jenié was genuinely interested as a fellow sorcerer in seeing how far Kunon could go from here.

Maybe, just maybe, this boy could reach the world’s highest magical rank: Cerulean Sorcerer.

***

“Starting today, we’re going to do something a little different,” said Jenié.

Once Kunon’s magic drills—which were becoming a bit monotonous—were over, the two of them sat down at a table Iko had prepared in the garden.

Usually, they would spend this time talking about magic over tea. But it seemed his tutor had other thoughts today.

“Different?” he asked.

Frankly, Kunon was fine with things as they were. He was still lacking in all sorts of areas and wanted to keep plugging away as he was.

He was finally able to finish his afternoon drills without collapsing. He felt like everything up until now was mere preparation, and his real practice was about to begin.

“Master Kunon,” his tutor began. “The A-ori you’ve been producing are water magic at its most basic. Essentially, it’s the first spell a water sorcerer learns. All it does is make water.”

“Yes.”

“Now, let’s classify the properties of this spell.”

“…Classify?”

“Let’s identify its features one by one. Can you think of a few?”

Kunon considered the question.

“Um… Create water, make it float, keep the water in a sphere… Something like that?”

“Excellent.”

Both his tutor and maid clapped.

“While we’re at it,” Jenié continued, “if we go further by specifying the water’s temperature and viscosity, composition, color, shape, luster, and scent—we would end up with a lot more properties. In short, what we call water comes in many forms… A-ori.”

Kunon felt his teacher’s magic stirring. He could sense two water spheres hovering in front of him.

“I just cast two A-ori in front of you, Master Kunon. Please try to touch them.”

As instructed, he reached out to touch the magic before him—

“There’s a cold one and a warm one, isn’t there?” he said.

The left sphere felt cold. The right, warm.

“Exactly. By adding such alterations, the magic gains character. This is where one sees the difference, or the disparity in talent, between sorcerers.”

“Character…? You mean like how the same spell cast by you is completely different when cast by a Royal Sorcerer?”

“Yes, that’s correct. I’m sure an A-ori cast by a Royal Sorcerer wouldn’t look a thing like mine. They are the most outstanding sorcerers in the entire country… My grades in magic school weren’t bad, but there were other students above me, alas. The requirements for Royal Sorcerers are extremely strict. That’s why their salary—”

Kunon had been the one to bring up the subject, but he wasn’t listening anymore. He pretended to pay attention to his teacher’s grumblings, but in his head, he was obsessing over the “character” of magic.

In other words, his tutor was saying that the fine details of a spell could be altered. Kunon felt that this would prove extremely relevant to his ambition to create eyes.

Obviously, an ordinary A-ori couldn’t become an eye.

But if he was to change it, alter it, add character—things might be different.

One step closer to the goal, Kunon thought, ignoring his teacher as she continued to ramble.