Mila realized one thing: elf physiology was vastly different from that of humans. The organs were the same, yet every cell in an Elf's body seemed to breathe in a harmony that was much slower than time. There were no signs of the cellular degradation—the wrinkles, the creaking joints, the fading stamina—usually found in humans of Vienna's age. For an Elf, the body was not merely flesh and blood, but a perfect vessel for storing [Mana] over spans of time that outlasted civilizations.
Yes, that's the key.
[Mana].
Mila also realized that a [Spell] was not as simple as basic visualization. She had to first understand [Mana] and the logic behind its magical structure.
For a mage in this world, simply imagining "fire" would trigger nothing if they did not understand how [Mana] must be compressed and ignited to create heat. It was like trying to start a car by just thinking about driving; without understanding the internal combustion or the spark, the engine stays silent.
Vienna's mother once said that if there was even a shred of doubt in her logic—for instance, if she did not believe that water could appear from thin air—then the magic would fail completely.
Impossibility in the mind is a permanent wall for a mage.
To manifest a [Spell], one must blend belief with logic.
'I regret not studying more science,' Mila lamented, leaning her head against the rough bark of a tree. 'If I knew the exact chemical composition of oxygen or the physics of friction, would my fire be hotter?'
But that's alright. Let's try [Ignite] first.
Mila closed her eyes, feeling the warm flow of [Mana] traveling from her chest toward the tip of her index finger. It felt like a liquid gold coursing through her veins.
She pointed her finger at a dry twig in front of her.
Then she began to assemble the structure of [Mana] in the air, a simple formula she had learned from Vienna's grandmother's notes.
She imagined the air molecules in front of her finger vibrating violently, rubbing against each other, heating up, and finally... pfft.
'Yes! It worked!'
A small spark appeared, consuming oxygen and turning into a reddish flicker of flame dancing at the tip of the wood.
Well, it wasn't some grand destructive magic, but for Mila, it was proof that her logic had touched the reality of this world.
She then tried to observe the [Mana] within herself.
'Oh, the amount doesn't seem to have budged at all.'
She didn't know what an appropriate amount was in this world to be considered a lot or a little, but if Mila were to be subjective, this amount was quite plenty for her. Enough to cast [Ignite] for ten years, maybe.
Suddenly…
A faint, desperate grumble sounded from her belly. It was loud enough to startle a nearby bird.
'Uh, when was the last time I ate…? Hmmm, I think I still have some beef jerky in the bag.'
She reached into a small pouch that looked like Vienna's emergency bag, and uh, there were so many plants inside. She searched through her memories and finally found the jerky wrapped in a leaf. The meat was dry, very dry, but it was the only food available. She took a bite, and it tasted like salty cardboard.
'Hm, it looks like this will only last until tomorrow. I have to hunt. But… how?!'
As someone with a modern mind where everything was easy and available in her world—where "hunting" meant finding the right aisle in a supermarket—she could only rely on Vienna's memories. Her father had once taught her to hunt, as it was one of the basic survival lessons.
But the problem was, there were many methods—snares, bows, or tracking—and she didn't know which one to use in this situation.
Mila had almost given up and decided to just start eating plants—hopefully, none of them were poisonous—when she suddenly heard a rustle from behind the bushes.
She immediately braced herself, her heart hammering against her ribs.
'Shit, I don't know any combat spells at all!'
The sound from the bushes grew clearer, a frantic thump-thump-thump, and then…
…a rabbit hopped out.
'Ah, just a rabbit, apparently. Hmmm, I have to catch it. But wait…'
There was something strange about that rabbit. Its shape was the same as those on Earth, but there was one small difference. Well, a pretty big one. The rabbit had a single, spiraling horn protruding from its forehead, glowing with a faint, eerie light.
Vienna's memory provided the information: it turned out the rabbit was a [Horn Rabbit]. A rabbit that absorbs mana through its horn, and if Vienna's memory was correct…
'Uh, I need to run! That thing isn't a pet, it's a projectile!'
Mila immediately turned around and started running.
Seeing the sudden motion, the rabbit noticed her, its eyes turning a predatory red. It began to chase Mila. But according to Vienna's memory, the rabbit wasn't that fast, and Mila had already created a large gap. She was sure she would manage to escape…
…Right?
She looked back over her shoulder.
'Ah! Why is that rabbit so fast?! It's like it has a turbo engine!'
Mila was about to try and speed up her run when…
TWEAK!
…her foot tripped on a gnarled tree root!
She tumbled forward, the world spinning until she hit the dirt with a heavy oomph.
When she looked back, the rabbit was already exactly one meter in front of her, mid-leap, with its horn aimed right at her face.
'I have to do something! Now!'
Mila tried to gather [Mana], then tried to visualize something… anything!
'Come on brain, work! Physics! Force! Momentum!'
Mila remembered how weapons on Earth worked, and the first thing she recalled wasn't a gun, but a childhood toy: a slingshot.
Mila tried to visualize soil hardening into a stone… no, not just an ordinary stone. She imagined the molecular structure of the soil being forcibly compacted by the pressure of [Mana], making it as hard as a tungsten projectile.
In front of her, the horned rabbit lunged, dust flying from its powerful kick. The one-meter distance felt like a single centimeter.
'Slingshot... spring principle!' Mila screamed in her mind.
She didn't just visualize a stone; she visualized tension. In the air between her fingertips and the rabbit's face, Mila imagined strands of mana stretching elastically like a slingshot rubber pulled to its limit. And…
"Fire!"
Wush!
The stone she formed from the soil earlier shot out with the speed of a bullet, propelled by the [Mana] "spring" she had visualized.
BAM!
The projectile hit the rabbit's horn right in the center. Its kinetic force was great enough to deflect the creature's jump, sending it tumbling sideways and crashing into a nearby oak tree with a sickening crack.
Mila panted.
Her heart was thumping hard in her throat. She looked at her own hands, which were still trembling.
"Did I just... invent a mana-railgun?" she muttered, breathless.
Ah, the rabbit! Where is it?
Mila looked toward where the rabbit fell and found it lying motionless, its neck bent at an unnatural angle. In other words, she had managed to kill it!
U-uuuh, with a feeling of immense relief, Mila sat down weakly.
After catching her breath, she approached the rabbit, her mouth already watering at the thought of fresh meat. But just as Mila was about to move, suddenly…
Shiiish
The rabbit was evaporating! Slowly, black particles replaced its body until eventually, the body vanished without a trace, leaving only the horn behind.
Ah, the rabbit's horn was indeed a sign that it was a magical creature, and according to Vienna's grandmother's grimoire, all magical creatures that die will turn into magical energy that returns to nature.
"Are you kidding me?!" Mila shouted at the empty forest. "Then what was all that struggle for?! I'm still hungry! Argh!?!?"
…
…
Mila went back to retrieve her bag near the cave.
She thought to herself, 'I need to do more spell testing, at least with the principles I know, which is... not many.'
Mila was just an ordinary girl on Earth. She studied social sciences and humanities in school, so she wasn't exposed to much hard science. That made her visualizations limited regarding many things.
Unless… the way [Spell] visualization worked wasn't as complicated as imagining complex theories…
'Ah!' Mila thought. 'At least I know how to process [Mana], let's try experimenting with something else.'
The day was very hot now, the sun beating down through the canopy with a humid intensity. The one thing Mila hated most was being overheated.
So she decided to enter the cave, and she would experiment there at the same time.
…
…
As expected, [Spell] visualization was indeed not as easy as drawing something in your head! But, at least Mila now knew how visualization worked.
Mila tried the stone projectile she had created earlier. The stone began to crack and crumble back into ordinary soil once the [Mana] binding it ran out.
"Visualization isn't just about what I see, huh," Mila muttered, watching the dust slip through her fingers. "But about how I believe that the soil can become hard and fly as fast as a bullet."
She realized one big secret of [Mages] in this world: Logic is the foundation, but Imagination is the limit.
If Mila imagined a slingshot, she had to truly feel the pull of that fictitious rubber on her fingers. If she imagined a stone, she had to be able to feel its "weight" and rough "texture" in her mind.
If she doubted for even a second—if she thought even for a moment that "this is just a fantasy"—then that mana would dissolve into transparent smoke.
For example, just now Mila had tried creating something very simple yet crucial for her comfort: [Improvised Air Conditioner ver. 1].
She didn't need to understand the laws of thermodynamics in depth or how an AC compressor works. She simply sat cross-legged on the cold cave floor, closed her eyes, and began calling her [Mana].
Mila imagined the air around her not as empty space, but as a collection of particles dancing wildly because of the scorching heat outside.
Her simple logic said: "If they move fast, it's hot; so I just need to force them to be still."
She imagined those air molecules slowly freezing in place, losing their energy, and turning into a soft, cool breeze.
Mila tried to "feel" the goosebumps on her skin from the cold she created herself. She built the belief in her mind that this cold air was real. And because Mila had used an AC practically every day back on Earth, it made that suggestion easier.
Fwaaaa...
A small, cool vortex of wind began to swirl around her.
"Oh, that's the stuff," she sighed, leaning back.
Well, of course, it wasn't high-level ice magic, but merely a simple temperature manipulation that was much more effective than fanning herself with leaves.
However, as she tried to maintain that breeze, Mila noticed something interesting. It turned out that keeping the visualization consistent was much more mentally draining than when she blasted the [Horn Rabbit] earlier.
"Damn, if I lose focus for even a second because I'm thinking about being hungry, the air turns warm again," she complained as a puff of humid air hit her face.
She concluded that there were two factors determining a [Mage]'s success. First, [Mana Capacity]. It is the fuel. Fortunately, Mila's tank was huge. And Second, [Mental Concentration]. The ability to maintain the "lie" inside the head so it remains "reality" in the physical world.
'Nn. At least now I'm not overheated anymore!' Mila muttered while enjoying her homemade cool air.
Once the heat problem was solved, Mila knew she had to quickly prepare another [Spell].
'Okay, no guidebook, no teacher, and only a few memories of how to light a fire. I'm truly on my own, huh,' she thought bitterly.
But precisely because there were no "official instructions" from a book, Mila felt freer to experiment.
For example, just now Mila tried doing something more abstract: [Light].
In Vienna's memory, light magic was performed by chanting a long mantra to summon a small ball of fire that wasn't hot. But Mila had a more modern reference.
Mila imagined a Flashlight. She didn't imagine fire, but a small filament or an LED diode being fed by electrical energy—or in this case, [Mana].
She concentrated [Mana] at the tip of her index finger, compressing it until the energy began to glow. She imagined the light not scattering wildly in all directions, but focused forward in a single straight line. And the result is…
Zing!
A clean white light—not reddish-yellow like a torch—emerged from her fingertip. The light was so bright it illuminated the dark corners of the cave that were previously unreachable by the eye.
"Wow... this is much brighter than the light magic Vienna's mother showed in the memory," Mila whispered in awe. "I'm basically a human... uh, elf Maglite."
However, as the light swept over the deeper parts of the cave, Mila froze.
On the damp cave walls, she saw the reflection of thousands of tiny, glittering eyes. Not a single large monster, but a swarm of magical insects that seemed attracted to—or perhaps disturbed by—the very alien white light.
"Oh no..." she whispered, her finger trembling. 'A light visualization that's too bright might not be a good idea in a dark place like this.'
As the first of the insects began to buzz toward her, Mila realized her next lesson would have to be: how to run in the dark.