Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! Chapter 13: 13-What If He Ended Up Hating Magic?

Read chapter 13 of Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! by A_Random_Turtle on NovelPedia.

Merlin lay sprawled on his bed, ceiling gazing in the darkness like he always did whenever he’d had his mood soured, the events of the day flashing through his mind. He couldn’t get himself to stop thinking about what might have happened to him if Janeth hadn’t stepped in out of instinct to shove him out of the way before Nora’s Air ball had hit. And that brought him to a painful realization, that even with the System, he was still very much useless. All he had going for him was his ability to deconstruct spells, but even that wasn’t all powerful. And, from what had happened earlier, he had learned that when he couldn’t use his ability, he would be left vulnerable. Which, in his current state, would be more often than not. From what he recalled in Singularity Mage, spells were divided into two classifications: Novice and Advanced. And both had tiers that went up to three. A Novice spell was simply a spell that was still in its basic state; the mana it was cast with was crude, and the Mage doing the casting had little to no experience with magic. These types of spells were also referred to as Novice, Tier I, in spell casting. Tier II was when the spell could now be launched, and which implied a substantial improvement in the Mage’s mana control. And, then, there was Tier III, when the Mage had achieved mana perfection on the basic level, and could launch spells without being faced with much or any difficulties. It did not take a genius to see that Nora was well on that path. A few more days, tops, and she would have achieved Novice spell casting, Tier III. Merlin, however, felt like he was barely making any progress. At this rate, practicing with Nora would just be equivalent to him holding her back. That would eat him alive. And he didn’t even want to consider how things would turn out when she’d become an Advanced spell caster. At that point, she would just be better off not having anything magic related to do with him. After all, he could get hurt. But Merlin didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be so far back behind his sister. He didn’t want to feel like a deadweight. And he knew sulking would not get him out of the slump he was in. The sensible option for him right now, was to double—no, triple—his work process. Three hours in the morning was not enough time for him to see significant progress. He had to level up his Strength as quickly as possible, and move on to his Intelligence. And that wasn’t all. He also had to find a way to protect himself if it ever turned out that he was unable to deconstruct a spell. For that, he could only think of one solution. The Warrior route. Merlin gnashed his teeth in frustration. Honestly, it was senseless of him to loathe being a Warrior so much. For one, Kieran had been somewhat of one in Singularity Mage. Of course, not fully, since the journey of Kieran through the web novel was focused on him growing as a Mage despite his circumstances. But the protagonist had dabbled in a bit of sword fighting as a means to be able to protect himself at the start. The thing, though, was, Merlin had no problems reading about a sword wielding protagonist, and it was not like he had completely self inserted into Kieran. He had just wanted to see things from the point of view of a Mage who could cast no spells at the time, that was all. And maybe that was why he was so pissed. He had never once thought that he would end up the way he had, but it had happened, and, now, in his ears was a voice whispering, telling him that if he picked up a sword and not a Grimoire, it would mean that he was giving up on his dream of becoming a Mage. It would mean that he had accepted that he would never become a Mage. That scared Merlin. He was not as strong willed as Kieran, and neither did he possess the talent of the protagonist. Kieran had had all the odds against him—no access to his world’s library, nor its Academies for being a commoner, as well as ending up with a little mana pool—but he had pulled through. And