"Hope she comes back soon." Alex sits at the counter as usual, slightly bored as he flips through a Grimoire over cleaning clothes. "Who am I kidding, I might not see her for decades." He sighed in defeat.
He got up and put the book back, not really understanding it anyway since he doesn't have any magic and doesn't understand some of the terms used.
*Ding*
'Ah, customer time~'
He turns around as the items... don't change for once?
"Hello~" A green haired girl with a sideways ponytail greets, leaning forward a bit towards Alex. With a black dress on held up by straps connected to a simple black collar around her neck, her dead purple eyes gazing at him.
"Hello Ubel." He calmly states, taking a step back from someone who might very well kill him for the fun of it. "What brings you here?"
"I heard there was a mystical little shop this way, and lo and behold what do I find?" She asks, closing the gap between them further. "So, what sort of magic do you have?"
'Did Frieren mention me? Why does she know who I am in the slightest?'
"None currently." He cautiously pushes a finger against her forehead to move her back a bit, her smirk only growing at the futile action. "Though I'm sure you can find something if you want to buy anything."
"So, you don't have spatial magic then?" She thankfully stays back, watching him as he carefully moves behind the counter. "Don't lie to me now~"
"Sorry to disappoint, but I don't." He answers honestly, hoping she'll believe him. "I'm not magical, as I'm sure you can sense. The shop does all the magic; I'm more of an intermediary."
For a second, she frowns and narrows her eyes, looking through him.
"Hmm, I said don't lie." She deadpans, a blade of air shooting next to his head, thankfully hitting and damaging nothing. "I can see your magic quite clearly as a matter of fact."
'Wait-'
"Really?" He asks, surprise and excitement shooting through him. "How much? Is it a lot?" He asks with a grin.
Ubel's frown deepens, clicking her tongue in annoyance. "So, you actually don't have any spatial techniques then. Disappointing." She rolls her eyes, the inventory in the shop finally changing as she glances over to a new shelf of different weapons, leaving him alone.
'I have magic! Sweet!'
Alex was a little preoccupied, so wasn't really watching as she shopped around a bit, concentrating instead on trying to sense his magic.
To no avail of course.
"Hey, question for ya." He calls out to Ubel, who lazily glanced back at him. "How do you sense magic? Is it something you consciously have to learn or something that comes naturally?"
"Hmm, I'll tell you, but-" she walks to the counter with a basket-'Where'd she get that?'- full of different types of potions and elixirs, nothing too outrageous, but definitely some poison, "-I want this all for free, deal?" She smirks at him, leaning casually against the counter and slightly closer to Alex.
"Hmm." He looks at the amount of stuff in her basket, mentally calculating how much it all would potentially cost. "How about you can have half of it for free, the other half for ten copper coins?" He counter offers, still unbelievably cheap in comparison to a regular store.
She pouts at him, clearly not actually angry though. "You sure you can't give me everything for free~" She leans closer, halfway on the counter as she runs a finger up his arm. "For little old me?"
'Damn, she's good.'
"You're lucky I like the crazy ones." He sighs in defeat as she stops 'seducing' him, not that he actually believed she would do anything. "Ok, it's all free, like you weren't getting it for way too cheap anyway." He grumbles, before looking at her. "Now, magic sensing?"
"Sure, it came naturally for me." She casually says, walking towards the exit.
'...I just got swindled.'
Looks like mom was right, watch out for the crazy ones, no matter how hot and yandere-Esque they seem.
"Kidding~" she says right as she reaches the door, looking halfway back at him. "You need a basic understanding of how to move your Mana, the magic in and around you. It concentrates in Mages, but you need to utilize it and refine it. When you get to the point that you can feel it leaking out of you, then you can focus on trying to feel the air around you and in others."
She fully turns around, leaning a bit on the doorway. "Understand?"
He stares at her with blank eyes, before slowly nodding. "Yeah, actually, I think I do."
Sure, he didn't get it at the beginning, but at the end it all just sort of... clicked. Looking down at his hand, he could see the faint smoke of Mana coming off of it. Concentrating heavily on it, it slowly shifts left to right, moving at his command.
"A prodigy huh?" Ubel comments calmly, a glimmer of interest in her eyes now. "Let me know if you make a technique worthwhile, got it?" She leaves without another word, leaving Alex alone.
He barely looks up as she leaves, caught up in experimenting now. "Could I..." He muttered, concentrating on himself, imagining the magic infusing into his being, strengthening his body.
Magic from Frieren is a bit science based, this is absolutely true. How else could humans completely break down Zoltraak to its base elements and make it ordinary offensive magic?
But the other 90% of that magic was imagination and feeling. If you could imagine it and had the power to back it up, it could exist. Plain and simple. Ubel, for example, could cut anything she believes she can cut. It doesn't matter what spells are on it, what protections how much magic, nothing. Cloth is cloth, and hair is hair in her mind.
Focusing hard on infusing himself with everything he had, it seemed to set in for a second, his muscles tearing at the unexpected force only to heal immediately after, his hands shaking as he forced his body through the equivalent of an intense workout, stopping after little over a second.
"O-okay... to-too much at once..." He muttered to himself, out of breath with his body on fire. Sure, it would definitely help him get stronger overtime, but it still sucked.
Especially because he knew how little magic he actually had.
Frieren and Serie were outliers, but he couldn't help but compare to them. Magical powerhouses, to the point that Serie constraining herself still had a huge radius of Mana flowing from her.
He can't even manage more than a bit of smoke centimeters from his body, with that little stunt he just did taking literally everything he had, feeling drained now.
Weak.
"I'll grow stronger though. When my magics stronger, when it can handle more..." He trails off, holding out a hand into the air with focus.
'Zoltraak.'
Nothing happened of course, but eventually it would.
He had a goal now.