A bright and sunny morning. Back in her room, Roxy sighed and started scribbling down her thoughts in her journal.

A year and a half had passed since the time that Roxy began her job teaching Rudeus. And during that time, she came to one conclusion: she wasn't qualified to teach him.

The magic lessons progressed smoothly, of course. Rudeus was a bonafide genius. And Roxy was certain that he would have reached an incredible level even if he didn't have a teacher. He was just that talented... No, not just talented. Rudeus was incredibly diligent as well.

No matter what Roxy said, Rudeus took it upon himself to faithfully listen to every word and memorize it. And when she quizzed him, not only did he repeat what she said verbatim, but he always rephrased it afterwards in simpler terms.

He said it was because he wasn't smart enough to understand the complex things... but it was the opposite.

Rather than being unable to understand complex concepts, Rudeus was able to distill everything down to its essence. Well enough that Roxy was sure he could explain it to another child and that child would understand.

If Roxy wasn't sure about how innocent Rudeus was, she would almost think that he was being patronizing. But he wasn't.

And that was the most incredible part about it. He was this incredible, and yet he still thought he was nothing special. No, he thought that Roxy was more incredible. He thought that his teacher was better than him and would always be better than him.

Roxy set down her pen and held out her right hand. As she did, she focused.

Carefully, slowly... she called forth her mana and traced out a familiar pattern...

And then a ball of water formed in her hand.

Roxy gave it a strange look and then sighed, dispersing the water ball. "One year, and I'm only this far?"

Following her student's line of questionings, Roxy started to do more research into direct spellcasting. Ignoring the chant and magic circles and directly forming the spell with mana.

It was difficult.

The main obstacle was the fact that she couldn't see the flow of mana. Since she used it so much, it was possible for her to recreate <Water Ball>, but more complex spells were definitely impossible.

No, not impossible, but infeasible.

Perhaps if she had a Demon Eye of Magic Power... No. Even then, it would be difficult.

But Rudeus could do it.

He always made sure to diligently cast the spell with the incantation and the magic circle at least once. But afterwards, he would be able to cast the spell with just a thought. Not only that, but he could freely manipulate it as well.

...In fact, it was strange.

For Rudeus, it seemed to be harder for him to use incantations than to just directly cast the spell.

Since the... rather disastrous trial run of intermediate spells that will never be mentioned again, Roxy discovered that Rudeus wasn't suited for incantations.

If he used magic circles, there were no problems. And from what he said, he could directly trace out the magic circles with his mana as well by memorizing the picture.

And *that* was another thing that made Roxy doubt her qualifications.

Rudeus's memory was unreal.

The first few times, Roxy had doubted Rudeus's claim of being able to copy magic circles. So, under the guise of memorization practice, she had him draw out the magic circles of the elementary-ranked spells by hand outside in the dirt.

The result?

Flawless. Not a single part of the magic circle was missing and when Roxy poured mana into them, it even cast the spell.

Roxy stared at her journal and the notes for the next day's lesson and sighed. "...I'm running out of things to teach you, Rudy."

Even with the strange quirk in having difficulty with incantations, Rudeus was easily able to cast up to Advanced-ranked spells in every element. And Roxy was certain that if she had the material for Advanced-Rank healing magic and Summoning magic, he would be able to use that as well.

But most importantly... all of this was without a wand.

Yes. In all the excitement, Roxy had forgotten the most important tradition of making a wand for her student to help cast magic-

Wait.

Roxy blinked and then she groaned. "That would explain the difficulty..."

Spells weren't meant to be cast without a focus. You could, but it was dangerous. Starting from the Intermediate-ranked spells onwards, there was a high possibility of a spell going awry without something to control it. That was why all magicians had at least a wand.

But this entire time, Rudeus had been casting spells without one. And Roxy had just let him. She let him, and he somehow managed to not only get over that trouble, but he could control chanted Intermediate-ranked spells now without a wand.

"Hah. Roxy, you dummy..."

She had to fix that. It would be a bit awkward presenting him with a wand this late, but it was her duty as his teacher to make one for him.

The problem was that she didn't have a magic crystal to use as its core- Ah wait.

Roxy looked over to her bag and rummaged around. "There should be a few around here, right...?"

Because of the recent surge in magical creatures in the forest, Paul had come across a decent amount from killing them. He had also given some to Roxy see if she could make some use out of them since she was a magician.

And so...

"Here they are."

Six magic stones. They weren't too big. All six of them together barely covered Roxy's small palm. They were also pretty low quality... and not very pretty. But they would work.

"...The wood will be a problem, but if the forest is as dense in mana as Paul said..." Roxy hummed.

Rudeus's fifth birthday was coming up, wasn't it? In that case...

A knock on the door. After that, a male voice called out. "Roxy? Are you decent?"

Roxy put the magic stones back in her bag and then said, "Yes. Did you need something, Paul?"

The door opened and Paul walked in. "Yeah. Rudy's tagging along with Lilia today to run some tasks down at the village. Are you free to help Zenith and I clear out the monsters in the forest?"

Roxy stood up and frowned. "More monsters?"

Paul sighed. "Yeah. We think that there's a magical item buried somewhere causing all of this, but we aren't too sure exactly what it is. We were hoping you could help us find it."

"Hm." Roxy grabbed her staff and nodded. "I can do that. But strange... Why would something like that be out here in Buina village?"

Paul shrugged. "Beats me. But it is, so we need to deal with it before things get out of hand." He frowned and said, "The rate of magical creatures being created is increasing these days too. It's every other day now instead of every week."

"That bad?" Roxy frowned.

"Yep? But we can talk more on that later." Paul left the room and said, "How's Rudy been doing? We haven't had a chance to talk much about his progress recently, have we?"

Roxy followed after Paul and sighed. "I'm beginning to think that I'm unqualified to be his teacher. Rudy is... Rudy learns very quickly."

Paul laughed. "Tell me about it. If you told me a pipsqueak like that could pick up the basics from all three sword styles before he turned five before I met him, I'd think you were drunk."

Roxy blinked and said, "Does that mean that Rudy is elementary-ranked then?"

"Not quite." Paul adjusted the sword on his side and said, "He's still too small to actually practice, but it looks like he has the forms down. I'm thinking of starting up on actual drills soon. But I wanted to talk with you about that first. Rudy has a habit of going a bit overboard in training..." He sighed. "Honestly. He's a bit too earnest. Since he's that good, it'd be fine to relax every now and then, you know?"

Footsteps approached and then Zenith appeared, dressed for travel as well. Her blonde hair was tied up in a practical ponytail and she wore leather armor. A typical adventurer outfit.

She frowned at Paul and said, "And laze around like you, Paul? If you really practiced instead of just swinging that sword around to look good, you'd probably be at Saint-ranked by now."

Paul shrugged. "Training is boring. Besides, there's no need to get stronger if I'm the strongest, right?"

"Hmph." Zenith shook her head and said, "That thinking's going to make Rudy catch up to you in no time. Is your dignity as a father going to remain in tact when that happens, Dear?"

"Grk... W-Well, that's still a few years out, right?"

Roxy hummed. "Well. If Rudy uses magic, I think he can beat you right now."

Paul froze.

Zenith blinked and said, "Really? My Rudy's gotten that strong already?"

Roxy nodded and looked towards Paul. "I think that Rudy inherited your combat sense, Paul. He stumbles over incantations still..."

Mostly because he didn't have a wand yet, but Roxy decided to keep that bit quiet.

"...But if he uses magic circles, he can cast everything below Saint-ranked."

Paul's eyes widened. "Really? Ah, but it's with magic circles..." He frowned and said, "That's not really useful. ...Is it?"

"It is when you can form them purely from your mana."

Zenith gasped. "Really?! You taught Rudy how to do that?"

"I-I don't think I can deserve the credit for-"

Zenith ran up and hugged Roxy. "I knew you were a great tutor, Roxy!"

"Z-Zenith... I-I don't-"

"Oh! Sorry, sorry." Zenith stepped back and clapped her hands together. "I just can't believe it! Rudy's come so far!"

Paul chuckled. "As much fun as it would be to praise our son all day, Zenith, we should really get going."

"Oh! Right." Zenith smoothed her face and then looked at Roxy. "Thank you for helping today, Roxy."

"It's fine. I was planning on heading to the forest anyway."

"Huh?" Paul blinked and said, "Why's that?"

"...Secret. But if you find a decent piece of wood when we're there, I would appreciate you pointing it out."

Zenith gasped. "Oh! That's a great idea!"

Paul looked between the two women and said, "...I'm not following."

Roxy tugged her hat down and said, "Don't worry about it. Now... Let's go. It'll be dangerous if we waste time."

Paul nodded. "Alright. Then... follow me ladies! The dashing Paul Greyrat will lead the way!"

Roxy blinked and looked at Zenith. "...Is he always like this?"

"Yes. But don't worry. He won't make any passes at you if you're concerned about that. Paul likes them a bit... you know?" Zenith emphasized her chest.

"...I wasn't asking that. But thank you for the information, I suppose."

"A-Ah. Sorry."

Roxy sighed. "...Let's just go."