Shut-in Magician - Chapter 15

Chapter 015: Lifestyle Magic

He was able to purchase flour and other things from Ana.

She was familiar with Shayn food because she was from Shayn and felt that Shiu’s tastes were similar to that kind of food.

“If you like sticky food then you’ll absolutely love this.”

She recommended him some selectively bred Shayn wheat.

“However, it hasn’t been processed yet and still has the outer hull.”

“Ah, this is good!”

He could make whole wheat flour with that! He felt happy.

Bread was certainly smoother and more delicious when made from white flour. But making bread from germ and whole wheat flour was better for one’s health because it contained minerals. Ana was amazed when Shiu accidentally started to talk about this and that.

By the way, his appraisal magic had risen to level five since he started visiting that market.

He knew about the nutritional values of food from his previous life and his appraisal skill could also display this information. He was most likely able to display this information because of his knowledge from his former life. His appraisal magic also displayed this information probably because it had a basis to work on. He reached this level by binge using appraisal.

Furthermore he baked bread, practiced cooking rice and renovated a room in the separate residence. Even his production magic was level 5. Thanks to that, he could easily build a bath. He had his woodcutting skills from his old man the lumberjack and the stones he used were ones he’d picked up on his journey, so the materials were free.

Emina stuck to Shiu two days after he’d completed the bath.

Emina came to his house every three days to eat dinner with her grandfather. Shiu was also invited so they went together, but she was surprised by the bath.

“When did you make this?! I didn’t know you were making this. You were working at the shop normally!”

He turned towards Emina.

“Hey, you live over there so won’t you hurry up.”

He said.

According to old man Stan, she had said, “I want to enjoy my newlywed life” and left home. Emina was now staying in Dmitr’s small room. Old man Stan had concluded that she wanted to enjoy poor life while she was young and looked into the distance while talking.

Emina was a dreamer and she even admired adventurers. Old man Stan and Dmitr had to stop her from becoming one.

“But do I have to prepare it myself? Yeah, it’s impossible for me since I have no magic power. Ah, but if I ask Shiu-kun to do it for me .”

“Now, now Emina.”

He cautioned her. Old man Stan knew how to handle his granddaughter. Dmitr was looking at the two, troubled.

“Okay. I can still cast lifestyle magic, so I’ll try my best. Don’t overestimate yourself. Don’t do the impossible. Don’t get into debt.”

They had a family motto. Shiu, who heard this, laughed.

“Don’t laugh. I know but I want to test my limits. Ah, if only I had a little more magic power.”

” If you can draw water then you can use the bath.”

Shiu looked at old man Stan in confirmation before telling Emina this.

“Eh?”

“I attached a pump to the well so you can take a bath even without using magic.”

” Eeeeh?!”

“Emina, you’re too loud.”

Emina ignored Dmitr’s warning and stuck close to Shiu again.

“Did you use a magic tool? But it’s expensive! Eh, huh, how?!”

She wasn’t going to let go until she got the answer so old man Stan and Dmitr smiled wryly.

A useful thing called magic tools existed in this world.

Shiu thought it was something like home appliances when he first heard of this but it wasn’t like home appliances. It was so expensive that commoners hesitated to buy it. At any rate, monster cores and mana stones were used in magic tools. Monster cores and mana stones were already really expensive, so it couldn’t be helped that the price of magic tools was expensive too.

The pump was also the same. It was a magic tool so it was expensive. But Shiu knew how to make it. It was a simple pump that was easy to use. Of course, he didn’t use monster cores or mana stones to make the pump.

Magic power was generally needed to use magic tools. But ordinary people like Emina didn’t have much MP, so they couldn’t use that much magic.

Old man Stan, who had high MP, was a outcast within the Bariado family so they didn’t have many convenient magic tools.

Therefore people’s lives changed when they didn’t have magic power or money. There was nothing people could do about money but magic power differed from person to person and everyone had it. There was no one that didn’t have magic power, because people couldn’t live without magic power.

However most people had little MP. The average magic power they held was 20, so most commoners could only use simple magic. However, magic could be simplified depending on how one used it. Magic formulas could also be simplified.

Emina was grieving too much about her magic so Shiu taught her simplified lifestyle magic and saving techniques.

“Sorry, you wanted to go to the library didn’t you?”

Shiu smiled at Emina who was apologising while crestfallen in front of the Bariado Tool Shop counter.

“It’s okay, I don’t have to go there every day.”

Or rather, he didn’t need to go anymore. He had transferred most of the books into his record storage. Now all he needed was forbidden books that only special people could obtain.

Every night he would speed through the books that he’d recorded.

“I will do my best to remember this! But I wasn’t good at studying at school.”

“I don’t think magic has anything to do with being good or bad at studying.”

“Oh, really? But there’s a thing called magic theory.”

Emina attended the Second Royal Secondary School that ordinary people attended. People could attend school even if they weren’t in the Royal Capital. In the countryside, the temple taught people how to read and write and there were a lot of children who couldn’t even do that. Emina attended school until she was 15 but it seemed like she didn’t do well in school when she graduated.

She worked at a store she knew after graduation and learnt how to do calculations there, but Shiu was uneasy about her calculations.

“Learn magic saving techniques and do your calculations well.”

Emina frowned at once, even though he had said that nicely.

First, he chose fire magic as a starting point because it was simple.

Shiu secretly casted space wall around the store just to be safe and instructed Emina to cast fire magic. Emina had produced fire but the fire leaped around and was unstable. Her control wasn’t good, this was because her imagination was weak. Or there was a high possibility that she was thinking about something else.

“Hey, don’t think about other things until you get used to it.”

“Huh?”

“Women are good at multitasking, but your imagination is important until you get used to magic. Anyways, it’s important to only imagine the fire.”

“They told me to imagine at school too.”

“Was your image solid? This is magic theory but did you think about how to produce fire properly?”

“Huuuuh?!”

Emina was surprised and looked at Shiu who was still sitting down.

“Th-that’s different. You need to chant the spell. I was chanting before wasn’t I? Spirit of fire, give me the blessing of fire, ignition. You ask the fire spirit, you pray to it. The intonation of the chant and the body position are also both important.”

” Did you learn those things in school?”

He was dumbfounded. Even the old lumberjack in the countryside could cast magic if he had the right chant.

Chanting was used to make the image stronger. So the chant passage and intonation were meaningless. The important thing was the theory. Of course, there were many people who could use magic even though they didn’t know the theory behind it. The missing parts were supplemented with their large MP, so they could use magic. But that was extremely wasteful.

Shiu hid his sigh, sat in front of Emina and took out a pen and paper.

Translator: Blushy