Magic. It truly is a fascinating thing for Allegra to behold. During the past year, she had begun to sit in on Rudeus' lessons. After learning to read, she had filled herself in on the intricacies of magic through the book, Guide to Magic, that Paul had in his office. Through that book, she had learned the different types of magic in this world (Attack, Healing, Summoning) as well as how it was used (Incantation, Array). Once she understood the basics, she started properly watching Rudy and Roxy perform magic in order to give herself a good visual basis. The only problem she had with magic was ...that it was too loud.
In fact, that was a problem she had had ever since she came to this world. Everything was always too loud and hurt her ears. However, Rudy and everyone else seemed just fine with the noise.
'Was I born with a defect?'
Allegra couldn't help but ponder over her auditory issues. In the end, she chose to simply push through the annoyance and learn magic anyway. Another roadblock for her was that, simply, she wasn't allowed to participate in the lessons!
Rudeus always insisted that she was too young to learn magic and that it was dangerous. Roxy didn't seem to care. Her parents also were against it, for differing reasons, of course. Zenith agreed with Rudy that she was too young, while Paul wanted her to learn swordsmanship. Apparently, before Rudeus' birth, Paul and Zenith had made a deal that if it was a girl, they would teach her to be a mage, and if it was a boy, they would teach him to be a swordsman. Since this deal had been broken with Rudeus becoming a mage, Paul wanted his comeuppance by making Allegra a swordsman.
Truth be told, Allegra wasn't against learning swordsmanship under Paul. In her past life, she had learned some swordsmanship through Taekwondo, so she had a decent base to build off for this life. However, the sheer fantasy-esque quality of magic called for her attention way more than swordsmanship. In the end, she could only begrudgingly accept to learn under Paul and practice her magic by herself through the book.
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'Tired...'
That was the state of Allegra Greyrat after a rough morning and afternoon of training with Paul. Due to her being only two years old, Paul couldn't just give her a sword and start training her. As such, Paul was using her early years to try and get her into shape so that she would be prepared to use a sword in a couple of years. From push-ups, sit-ups, and squats to cardio and stamina building, Paul stressed quite hard on building her basics.
As for Rudeus, he had gotten away from having to do physical training for the most part due to him being busy with his magic lessons. Nevertheless, Paul would make him join the two of them for the afternoon. Thankfully, Allegra did get her rest days. These days came when Paul had to go to work. See, Paul was the delegated knight of the village they lived in and was also technically a noble, so he was a very important member of the place. He oversaw the farmer's situation, mediated conflicts, and defended the village from magical creatures. Fortunately, the village had plenty of young men who swapped in for Paul, so he only really worked on occasion in the morning or when there was an attack.
Stumbling her way into Paul's office, she hoisted the book, Guide to Magic, down and opened it up. While night was falling, Allegra could not afford to waste time. Especially when Rudeus was improving every day. She had to at least match him. Her pride demanded it.
Magic was a remarkably difficult thing for Allegra to wrap her head around. It could do things that seemed to break many universal laws from her old world and had its own form of laws and rules that it worked on. Using knowledge she had obtained from the book as well as trial and error, Allegra formed a few key rules when it came to magic spells in particular.
Firstly, to perform a spell, one needed to have a specific image or idea in mind for what they wanted to create. For example, if you wanted a blazing ember, it was important to visualize an ember in your head. Using this image, one could then manipulate mana into the shape you imagined. From what Allegra could tell, it was impossible to form a spell without imagining it first.
Secondly, you had to manage the size of the spell with the amount of mana you add after you initially form the shape. It was easy for Allegra to imagine this as controlling the size of a flame by manipulating the amount of fuel you added to the fire.
Third, you adjust the velocity. If you don't add more mana to give the spell propulsion, it'll simply fall to the ground or float where it was cast. This reminded Allegra of Isaac Newton's first law of motion,
"An object at rest remains at rest, or if in motion, remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted on by a net external force."
In this case, it was the last bit of mana that acted as the external force. Think of it like this, first you make your ball based on a shape in your head, then you make it bigger or smaller by filling or deflating it with air, finally you make it move by hitting it with an external force. The ball was the spell, the air was the initial addition of mana, and the external force was more mana that you slammed into the ball instead of filling it. It is important to note that after slamming this mana into your spell, the spell will immediately fire. So, you can control where and how fast your spell travels by controlling where you hit the spell from and with how much mana you hit the spell.
According to the magic guide, in this world, spells are only really used with either an incantation or a magic array. With magic arrays mostly being phased out, incantations and subsequently the speed one can say incantations are what are really important. However, for Allegra, incantations were useless and entirely unnecessary. The purpose of the incantation was to help someone better visualize and shape their spell, while also adding a bit of easy-to-remember motions to allow for quicker firing of spells. However, with her knowledge of science and experience with images on the internet, visualizing and forming spells was a breeze for Allegra. In fact, this ease at forming spells was the final nail in the coffin for her to conclude that Rudeus was definitely another isekaid individual.
And so, Allegra spent hours into the night practicing spells and firing them out the window. With everyone in their rooms, she didn't have to worry about being caught as long as she was careful not to perform a Rudeus and explode the wall. The only problem was...the distracting noise filling the house.
'They're at it again...f-cking rabbits those two, I swear...'
Shaking her head, exasperated at her parents, Allegra tried to simply block out their noise and focus on the magic she was performing.