This event takes place before Celes took the hunters to the bathhouse.

"And with that, I should be done. I'll take a rest to recover my magic power," I said to myself as I sat down on a huge rock.

I just sat there for around 30 minutes while absorbing the mana from the air into my body.

These past days I realized that I am heavily inexperienced and unknowledgeable when it comes to magic, though that is just what you'd expect from someone who just learned of its existence just recently.

That is why I have decided that today I will widen my arsenal. I will make use of the knowledge that the Earth has cultivated and develop my magic both combat and life convenience.

Starting with combat as that is what I need if I want to survive if I stumble upon a life-threatening situation.

That said, what can I use..?

…

Oh, I know. Chemical reactions… now that I think about it, I could've used that in the fight against the Marquis and his men. I could've poisoned the air with hydrogen sulfide or arsine, wind magic should be able to protect me and anyone of my choosing. I also could coat weapons with poisons. There were so many I could have done.

Right, before I make poisons or whatnot, I should first learn how I will create those chemicals.

"Let's see. For now, I will try to create it using Magic Creation just with imagination."

After saying that, I tried releasing caramel just by thinking of it.

After a few seconds, my mana flowed and only some sticky liquid materialized.

"As expected, it won't be so easy. What could I be doing wrong here?"

I pondered and came up with a simple idea. 'Why don't I think of the elements that it is composed of?' I thought.

I did just that, and this time was still a failure. Just like earlier, I released some sticky liquid, though this time they had an odd scent to them. I knew I was getting closer.

So I went further and imagined its chemical structure. This took a tax on me as it was hard to keep a clear image of it. Atoms atoms atoms atoms, I had to keep track of my thoughts hard or I will fail. I also had to control my mana, though this was simple as I only needed it to do as I thought it still made thinking of the structure harder.

As I kept imagining the structure and controlled my mana, I failed again. This time though it was because a cicada made a sudden cry, and as I vampire I heard that more than I wanted to, also because of how focused I was that it was somewhat easier to distract me.

I tried again after shooting a wind bullet at the cicada, killing it.

This time for sure.

I repeated the same process and controlled magic as I imagined.

And the end result was, my hand covered and a yellow sticky liquid that smelled just like how caramel probably would. I have never tasted caramel in itself, usually in ice creams or some dessert so I was not sure about it. And to confirm it, I started licking my hand.

First the tip. That confirmed it, but I didn't stop because it was delicious and would be a waste to just wash it off. After confirming it, I savored the flavor as I brought my fingers into my mouth to get more and a better taste of it. After my fingers, I moved on to my palm and licked it clean as my tongue climbed from the bottom to the top, dragging along the sweet caramel.

Moving on. Now that I have confirmed that, I shall now try to make something more useful. Poison or medicine for example.

Hours of failure, creation, and resting took place as noon came and soon night, then morning. I was completely engrossed in these experiments that I lost track of time or just didn't care at all.

I was able to confirm three things.

I shall start with the first discovery. I had discovered a limit to my Magic Creation, it was harder to create things that I was less familiar with. Though I was able to create weapons fairly easily as I used to act in a lot of medieval-styled stage performances.

The second would be that the smaller things I imagined, the less mana I used. After discovering that familiarity had a connection to my Magic Creation, I tried recreating caramel. It went easier but used more mana than when I imagined its chemical structure.

The first discovery applied to creating something part by part. I tried combining it with imagining the structure of atoms to try and lessen the mana cost further. It took a serious tax on my brain even though I should have a superior one. I could just make the parts one by one, but that won't be quick as I still will need to assemble them together, and who knows in the middle of combat I lost an important piece. So the only way was to create it all at once. I was successful by the morning.

Though this will need some serious training. I will make sure to improve and refine it into a technique only I can use. I shall walk the slow path that combat masters too needed to perfect techniques.

Now that I am done experimenting around, I realized that I just killed two birds with one stone. Hurray for chemistry!

The future me would be assembling extremely complicated things such as magical computer motherboards for training. Look forward to it~

*****