6 months passed since Mordred became the Court Magician's student.
During this time, Mordred had gone through an extremely packed and intense learning program under Sofia which resulted in him having already learned all the basics on Magic that normally took people 2 years.
He had already mastered all elemental Attack Magic at Intermediate rank and many at Advanced rank.
The only reason he had not mastered all Advanced ranked spells yet was because he couldn't cast these several spells inside the tower without damaging it, or without hurting himself or others; these were all large area of effect spells that could easily cause collateral damage.
Apart from that, his Healing Magic reached Advanced rank and Detoxification Magic Intermediate rank.
He also learned the most basic Elementary-ranked Divine and Barrier Magic.
Although the Milis Church officially forbade people from teaching Divine and Barrier Magic regardless of rank, according to Sofia no one will care about mere Elementary-ranked spells, so she did it anyway.
After casting them for the first time, he then repeatedly practiced to reach the level of Silent Casting with all of these spells, including Healing and Barrier Magic.
His memorization ability itself was amazing, but he felt that under normal circumstances he might still forget how to cast spells that he didn't use often – although he could eventually grasp Silent Casting, he didn't have Rudeus's ability of instantly copying the flow of Magic Power.
However, during this time Mordred had discovered a secret use of his Magic Circuits.
Using Magic Circuits, he could surprisingly record and store information on them and could even use them to assist in performing complex calculations, using them akin to a notepad or an excel sheet on a computer!
He wasn't versed enough in the Fate universe's complicated Magic system to know if it was something normal or a result of a mutation due to his body having dual origins, but the fact remained that his Magic Circuits granted him this benefit. It was like an extra brain or an extension of his nervous system.
'Recording' in the Magic Circuits a certain flow of Magic Power of the spells he learned was also possible, but 'writing down' simple information like the words of Chants was far simpler and more practical, so he did that for the most part while only fully engraving a few life-saving spells.
Like this, there wasn't a spell he couldn't cast Silently, and he would not forget any of them.
He was primarily a swordsman and not a Magician, so it was understandable that his talent for casting Magic spells would not be top-tier, but he was still able to achieve a lot.
Learning Magic did not even feel that difficult.
Mordred explained it by the virtue of his age.
Although it is just a widely misunderstood myth back on Earth, the younger you are in this world, the easier it apparently is to learn anything - and it seems especially Magic! It's a rule.
Apart from that, he remembered that in an alternate world where Artoria had picked up Magic instead of the sword, she still became a powerful Mage while training under Merlin, and only lacked Mana to compete with top Casters because she did not receive the Aspect of a Red Dragon this time around.
So it appeared that the Pendragons had good talent for manipulating Mana in general.
Additionally, Mordred also partially had Dragon Blood and perhaps even Morgan's blood of a Primordial Fay, which Caster Artoria would not. His Magic Aptitude might have already been high, but on top of that he had cheated the system even more by practicing from a very young age.
All this manifested in Mordred being able to also learn three very special and unique types of Magic.
1. Firstly, thanks to his skill of Mana Release and external Structure Analysis, Mordred was able to learn 'Disrupt Magic', or perhaps invent his own version of it.
Disrupt Magic was a method of using your own magic Power to interfere with the formation of the opponent's spell and disrupt it at a low cost. It was basically a magical interrupt.
It sounded like a basic ability in an MMORPG game, but in Mushoku Tensei it was actually a legendary skill which was just as mysterious and rare as Silent Casting.
In the novel, Rudeus had only learned it after experiencing Orsted use it against him. Apart from Orsted, there might not be anyone else alive who can use it.
2. Next, the second type of special Magic he grasped was also something related to his unique disposition as Mordred. It was Mana Burst!
Mordred fully grasped it after he set up his personal gym and Magic training area in his secondary room in the Court Magician's tower.
He learned how to accumulate Magical Energy in his body and then instantaneously release it in a sudden burst to momentarily reinforce himself over the limit, increasing his explosive strength and speed for a single movement.
It was basically Mana Reinforcement overload.
Pairing Mana Release with Mana Reinforcement, he could also release his Magic Power into the outside world in a controlled manner from any body part to use it as a Mana-jet propulsion for sudden acceleration and to make his moves carry even more speed and power.
Mordred called it 'Mana Burst' because it couldn't be anything else but this signature skill of the Pendragons!
What came with Mordred learning how to infuse his body with Magic Power to the limit, overloading it and then releasing it, was the fact that he had discovered a natural element to his Magic Power.
It was a crimson-colored lightning.
When he overloaded his body with Mana to reinforce himself, his body would manifest it as red mist around him at the extremes and also naturally convert it into red-colored lightning.
Mordred assumed that Lightning must be his 'Element' as a Magus, just like Shirou Emiya's element was 'Sword' and Rin Tohsaka's father's was 'Fire'.
He didn't know if the ability to manifest red lightning was something that Mordred received only as a Servant, or perhaps originally had from Morgan during life, but he did at least receive it from Morgan and felt grateful for it.
It was just a cool-looking visual when using Mana Burst for strengthened reinforcement, but Mordred also learned how he can use his lightning-attributed Magic Power directly in combat.
Based on that, he developed a number of spells. Some of them were:
- Electrocute: after gathering Magic Power in his body, he would expel a close-range burst of powerful electricity from his hand that shocks the target, followed by continuous lightning currents.
- Crimson Lightning: continuous attack of lightning akin to Force Lightning from Star Wars (not powerful but cool).
- Overload: an explosion of Magic Power with a shockwave that knocks away everything in a given direction.
- Lightning Overload: an explosion of lightning Magic Power around him.
- Lightning Explosion: a ball of concentrated electricity shot at the enemy that explodes on impact.
- Lightning Arrow: a lightning ball shot at the enemy, shaped into an arrow; focused on penetrating power.
- And finally Railgun.
Among those, Electrocute seemed the most powerful, but against a single target Railgun was likely the most deadly spell in his arsenal. It used Mana Burst and his lightning affinity to boost the velocity of the traditional spell of Rudeus 'Stone Cannon' to the extremes.
It was almost literally a railgun!
Mordred only hoped that he didn't accidently kill someone when he shot out his railgun bullets somewhere into the horizon a few times, far outside the city…
In fact, Mordred could use Mana Burst with any of the spells he learned to enhance their flying speed. Whether it was a Water Ball, Ice Arrow, Fireball or a Wind Blade. It is only that certain spells carried and transferred kinetic energy better, which turned out to be those like Stone Bullet that had projectiles with actual mass.
Mordred could also use Mana Burst to multiply the 'power' of various spells, but only for those instant-release types.
For example, he couldn't enhance the power of a fireball which is thrown at the enemy and then explodes, but for things released instantly to cause damage like Wind Blast, Wind Blade or Ice Smash, he could. He was naturally far stronger with those types of spells.
3. But the most special type of Magic that Mordred grasped during this time was Gravity Magic!
It lacked practicality for him so far, but it was certainly one of the most special types of Magic in this world, something that Rudeus had not managed to learn during the course of the novel and had only grasped in his later years.
It was something that Mordred learned by relying on his knowledge of physics and gravity from Earth and on observing how spells of this world ignore gravity once they take form. For example, a Stone Bullet would float in the air before it's released yet it could still be affected by external forces like pressing it down with your hand.
Mordred analysed how his Magic Power flows when he maintains a spell in the air and then learned to use this force on any other object to move them around with just his Magic Power, learning a rough form of Telekinesis.
By relying on the General Theory of Relativity, Mordred also managed to use the same method on his environment, spreading his Magic Power to affect existing gravitational force - either making it stronger or weaker.
Unfortunately, to achieve the maximum strength of his Gravity Magic, its strongest point would be near himself. And even if he tried to place it farther away, he could still never fully escape its effect. All this made the combat application of Gravity Magic quite limited.
If he wanted to slow down his enemy, for example, he would also put heavy pressure on himself. It wasn't something user friendly.
In regards to making his opponent loose footing with Zero Gravity, it was also a viable tactic, but the consequence was that he would also lose his own footing and not be able to dodge enemy attacks properly. In this world, high-ranking swordsmen can cut off your head from 50 meters away, so it's a problem.
The silver lining was that during this time Mordred also discovered that his body seemed to have a small level of resistance to Magical effects!
It once again seemed to be by the virtue of his Pendragon bloodline.
For example, Magical flames, Magical frost, or Gravity Magic, had weaker effects on him than expected.
While a normal person would have their flesh melted under Elementary rank Fireball within seconds, he instead felt as if he held his hand over a burning match.
It was still very painful, but would not kill him.
It was a nice bonus!
This Magic Resistance was active as long as Mana was flowing through his body, which was practically always – because in this world all living beings have a constant internal Mana flow.
However, if he purposefully halted his flow of Mana and withdrew his Magic Power, he would have an ordinary human's body.
Humans having an ordinary body without reinforcement seemed to be the same for both the Fate universe and the Mushoku world, unfortunately.
Going back to Gravity Magic, there was still Telekinesis.
Unfortunately, Telekinesis was difficult to use, was imprecise and not very powerful. It could also not affect living targets directly at all. So far it was just a cool trick.
What he could do is use Gravity magic to make himself lighter and faster, but according to what he knew, decreasing weight doesn't help much with speed once strength is no longer the limiting factor while it would instead make his blows weaker; additionally, it could even affect the enemy just the same if he can't control it well enough.
Lowering gravity did have some applications for movement though, and especially for air travel.
Either way, Gravity Magic was a special type of Magic that Mordred was satisfied with having grasped at this point. And rather than saying he was too young and weak to learn Gravity Magic, he believed it might be because he was this young that it made learning it easier.
Of course, the biggest contributing factor was that he figured out how to go about learning it and his knowledge of physics.
In regards to the remaining types of Magic, there was only Summoning Magic left.
It was something reliant on drawing Magic Circles rather than learning Incantations, so it was not yet in Mordred's curriculum.
What Mordred was currently learning was instead 'Melded Magic'.
Melded Magic is using a few different types of Magic in succession to create various natural phenomena. For example, by using Waterfall, Heat Island and Icicle Field in this order, you could create fog.
Apart from lessons with Sofia, Mordred would still make sure to never overcap his Magic Power and expelled his Mana each day.
While doing this, he would also practice Mana Condensation in his room - he would do it by doing things such as pouring as much Magical Energy into a fire spell as he can before dispersing it and then repeating it.
Another form of practice he often did is reinforcing his body by tightly infusing it with Magic Power, gradually improving his skill in Mana Reinforcement.
On the other hand, his control of Magic Power was mainly practiced with Telekinesis, which was very demanding in this aspect, and occasionally through creating simple Earth Magic figurines.
In his free time, Mordred would also read books on all kinds of subjects he found useful.
These were mostly books on Magical theory, but also on Monsters and their characteristics, on labyrinths, while others were popular legends like Sigu's Summoning and so on.
At one point there was a man with a Demon Eye who came to inspect whether he was a Miko. After taking a look at him, he could only determine that Mordred had an unusual amount of aggregate Magic Power.
However, that alone was enough for Mordred to become called a Miko.
...
Name: Mordred Kingdragon
Titles/nicknames: 16th Prince of Kingdragon, Magic prodigy, Miko
Age: 2 years 6 months
Strength: F+ | Intermediate rank strength when reinforced.
Endurance: D- | Early Saint rank resistance.
Agility: D- (E-) | Early Saint rank reflexes, and Early Advanced rank running speed.
Mana: D | Saint.
…
Fire, Water, Wind and Earth Magic: Advanced rank (chantless)
Healing Magic: Advanced rank (chantless)
Detoxification Magic: Intermediate rank (chantlesss)
Divine and Barrier Magic: Elementary rank (chantlesss)
Still a Noob.