Volume 2, Chapter 8 – Magical Limits

Under the watchful eyes of Liti and Anastasia, Fia raised her hand once more.

“[Food Creation]”

If the light from creating food with a chanted spell was merely the brightness of a lightbulb, then now, it was a powerful beam like a searchlight.

There was nothing in Fia’s hands.

Instead, a pile of… salted fish, a good ten meters high like a small mountain, suddenly appeared in front of the carriage.

Each salted fish was about twenty to thirty centimeters long, with the golden-yellow color of cured fish. This time, Fia saw the process of the food being created. At the top of the mountain was a shrinking black hole, from which salted fish were continuously pouring out.

“Eek!”

The two eight-legged horses pulling the carriage were thoroughly frightened by the sudden appearance of the small mountain. They came to a screeching halt and let out terrified whinnies. At the same time, Liti also let out a panicked cry. She had been standing at the carriage door, and when the carriage stopped abruptly, she lost her grip on the doorframe and immediately fell forward.

Almost subconsciously, Liti placed her right hand on Fia’s left shoulder, trying to steady herself. However, this effort failed to stop her forward momentum. With the force from Liti’s right hand and Fia’s attempt to catch her, Liti slid right in front of Fia.

It felt like a ball of cotton had landed on her.

Liti ended up sitting sideways on Fia’s lap.

Although this wasn’t the first time Fia and Liti had been in close contact, it was the first time Liti had sat on her lap like this. Liti’s petite and soft body made Fia instinctively lessen the force in her hands, afraid that too much strength would accidentally hurt her.

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“Are you okay?”

Fia lowered her head and asked.

“Eh?”

The sudden change startled Liti. By the time she realized what had happened, her delicate face flushed red from her neck to the tips of her ears, and her heart began to pound. Especially when her upward gaze met Fia’s, her whole body felt as if it were on a red-hot iron plate, and she reflexively jumped off Fia.

“S-sorry!”

Bowing her head deeply, Liti apologized with utmost sincerity.

“It’s nothing.”

Although Fia also felt a bit embarrassed, seeing Liti even more shy than her, the feeling of embarrassment quickly faded, replaced by a slight sense of bewilderment.

She was so forward last night, but now she’s so shy just from accidentally sitting on my lap. The contrast made Fia find her somewhat cute, fitting the “little sister” role perfectly.

Liti was probably the type who gets flustered whenever something unexpected happens.

If she had an innocent, cute, and energetic personality, I would probably want to give this little sister all the beautiful things in the world. It’s a bit of a shame, Fia lamented inwardly.

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Normally, the matter should have ended here, but Liti’s expression suggested otherwise.

When Liti saw that the magic book in Fia’s hands had been wrinkled by her, her previously shy face instantly turned pale. The blush on her face quickly faded, replaced by a deathly pallor. Fia even saw Liti’s shoulders tremble timidly for a moment.

“Sister, the book…”

Oh no.

Fia cursed inwardly.

Liti must have been reminded of the time she had wet the elf princess’s book and gotten slapped for it. That incident had left a considerable psychological scar on Liti.

Realizing this, Fia put the book aside, stood up with a wry smile, and gently patted Liti’s head.

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t affect the reading—no, even if it did, it’s fine. It’s just a book; it’s far less important than you, Liti.”

Although Liti initially looked afraid of being hit, shrinking her neck, her slightly trembling body quickly calmed down as Fia began to gently stroke her purple hair. The current Fia was not the Fia of the past. Liti’s rationality made her realize this; that indifferent sister was gone.

“Thank you, sister…” Liti mumbled.

“Let’s go down and see what on earth I created. Anastasia, have the carriage go around this ‘mountain’.”

“Yes.”

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Fia jumped down from the carriage and then, like a gentleman helping a lady, extended her hand to Liti, helping the shy, head-bowed Liti jump down from the driver’s seat.

Perhaps it was Fia’s imagination, but Anastasia, who was watching Liti from the driver’s seat, had a rather complicated look in her eyes, mixed with a hint of expectation and envy.

Mm, I’ll help Anastasia down like this next time.

With this thought, Fia walked towards the mountain of salted fish she had created.

Enhanced by [Hypercomputation], the food created by [Food Creation] was not only more plentiful but also looked more appetizing. However, when using the magic, Fia had not intended for the food to look like salted fish. The fact that the food’s appearance changed from a stone to cured salted fish should be an inherent effect of [Food Creation] itself, such as a rule like “the more mana invested, the better the food created tastes.”

Fia casually picked up a salted fish. Compared to the black stone from before, the current food was clearly edible. Due to the large quantity piled up, the air was filled with the smell of cured salted fish.

Fia broke off a small piece and put it in her mouth.

It wasn’t delicious, but it did have the taste of cured salted fish. If she had learned [Food Creation] earlier, she could have made the refugees she met last night cheer. These salted fish were enough for them to eat until they never wanted to see a fish again in their lives.

“[Food Creation] can actually make this kind of food…” Mimicking Fia, Liti picked up a golden-yellow salted fish from the small mountain, her purplish-red eyes filled with amazement. She twitched her small nose and sniffed it. “The smell is normal too. But to create so much food, how much mana must you have, sister?”

Liti’s eyes sparkled as she looked at Fia.

Fia spread her hands with a wry smile.

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“I don’t know either. I can try to find out.”

Fia set her destination as a patch of grass on the side of the road.

Consuming one-tenth of her mana to create a ten-meter-high mountain of food was already impressive in the eyes of an ordinary person, but for Fia, it was far from enough. She didn’t even feel her mana depleting when casting a Tenth-Tier spell. One-tenth of her mana should be able to create more than just this amount of food.

Magic in the real world didn’t have a “cooldown time” setting. Fia created nine more mountains of food in quick succession. In an instant, a nearly hundred-meter-long wall of golden-yellow salted fish stood abruptly on the plain.

What Fia found strange was that her mana still showed no signs of depletion. Normally, when a magic caster’s mana was exhausted, they would show symptoms like dizziness and unsteadiness; some would even faint on the spot. But after using [Food Creation] ten times, she, who should have been out of mana, felt no discomfort at all. Fia couldn’t resist using [Food Creation] one more time, and a new ten-meter-high mountain appeared before her.

“…Hmm?”

Fia tilted her head. Because the food mountains were taking up too much space, Fia had to use [Food Creation] while walking, and by now, she had moved some distance away from the carriage.

A total of eleven small mountains were now in Fia’s line of sight.

Is my mana recovery speed too fast?

Not ruling out this possibility, Fia began to run while accelerating her use of “Food Creation.” However, after creating twenty small mountains in just five seconds, Fia finally came to a conclusion.

—It wasn’t that her mana recovery speed was too fast, but that [Food Creation] had a limit.