Low-Fantasy Occultist Isekai

"Ouch!" Nick yelped, dismissing the third attempt at covering himself with electricity.

From an objective standpoint, it couldn't possibly be a good idea. Lightning was wild, and it very much liked zapping anyone foolish enough to think they could tame it.

There was a reason, after all, why Arthur had told him to ensure that all his attempts were aimed away from himself first.

Looking at the reddened skin on his left arm, Nick sighed. I'm not really making progress. Every time I try to extend [Spark] beyond my hand, I lose control and get zapped.

Arthur had made it clear that it would take him time to even be able to attempt [Lightning Armor] safely, but he had hoped it would be another challenge he could overcome.

Having a Lightning Affinity made it a lot easier to master basic spells, but Nick might have been a bit too arrogant to believe he could learn a spell he had no frame of reference for without putting in the time.

Hmm, actually, maybe that's the way to go. I should first learn an armor spell, and once I have that down, I can try mixing in lightning.

Yes, that seemed like a much smarter course of action. Momentarily abandoning his attempts to tame lightning, Nick turned to the one element he knew he could control easily.

The wind readily responded to his call. It barely took a thought to shape it around him, but while he successfully formed a thin barrier of air just an inch from his skin, it soon became clear that making it into a spell wouldn't be as quick as he had hoped.

At least it's not hurting me. That makes trial and error much easier.

"Alright, what am I missing? Elemental armors don't look like much more than a simple layer over the caster, but that is evidently not the case. There must be more to this."

With a flex of his will, the wind sheet he'd constructed around himself dispersed, though he didn't relinquish his grip. "There must be a reactive component to it. I seriously doubt people are constantly accounting for every shift and movement. While that might be possible in a training setting, it would be absurd to split your attention like that in combat." He muttered, trying to work his way through the problem.

Holding his hand up, Nick coalesced the winds around it. He tried to instill a sense of adaptability into them, which proved to be easier than anticipated, thanks to the air's very nature.

When he moved his hand, swishing it around, the thin layer of compressed air followed, making him smile. Unfortunately, it immediately unraveled when he released his grip on the construct and tried to keep moving. "Aargh! Why is this so difficult?!"

Sitting down on the ground, Nick took a moment to breathe through his frustration. It wasn't often that he failed at magic these days, especially not with wind magic, but he might have gotten too used to success if this was how he reacted to the first inconvenience.

"Let's take it from the top. What did Arthur say about [Lightning Armor]? There must be something I'm forgetting." Given how high his mental stats were these days, recalling the conversation took only a moment. He had been somewhat distracted by the constant crackling emitted by the spell, but Arthur had given an actual explanation.

"[Lightning Armor] is as much a spell as a skill. It creates a circuit of active electricity throughout your body and releases it into the world, granting you increased physicality and making it very dangerous to touch you. It will be harder for you to learn, as it requires not just power but also instinctive understanding." Had been his words. Yes, I remember now.

And with that, Nick had the answer. He couldn't impose his will upon the element from the outside like he did for his offensive spells. This wasn't a one-and-done effect; it wouldn't benefit from being rendered unstable if left beyond his direct control.

No, this was meant to be a constant cycle between his body and magic. I need to find a way to establish a feedback loop between the two components. But how do I…

Nick abruptly stood up. He took a deep breath and held it in for a moment before releasing it, feeling the mana move through his channels. The Stalking Gait was something he didn't find much use for these days, aside from being a concentration aid. He rarely needed the physical boost or the stealth benefit, but there was another component to it.

It passively moved his mana in and out of his body without his input. That was something he had never considered, but it now dawned on him that it was exactly what he had been missing. In a way, it was the opposite of [Aura]. Where his father needed to work to crystallize his will into effect, Nick was too used to doing that. Instead, he needed to operate within his body's limitations and strengths for the first time.

Focusing on his breathing, Nick brought up the underlying matrix. Though the [Stalking Gait] was a skill, and it lacked the artful touches of a spell, it remained beautiful in its simplicity. The underlying concept was clear: a predator would become one with its surroundings to hunt down prey. Everything else stemmed from that.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Nick observed how this seemingly simple principle caused a series of secondary effects. The breathing pattern was the method through which the predator took in the environment, and by exhaling, it influenced the world around it.

It was much deeper than he had ever realized, and now he understood how people like his mother and Akari could have a successful adventuring career by using it as their foundational skill.

Given Nick's affinity for the air, it was even easier for him to understand how those concepts were intertwined with the act of breathing. By accepting portions of the World into himself, he was allowed to affect the World in return.

That is what I need. Arthur had only provided him with the bare minimum, and if Nick hadn't had the Stalking Gait to rely on, he was certain it would have taken him weeks, if not months, to finally figure out what he needed to do to develop a proper armor spell.

But now he felt confident that he could actually do it. At least with Wind; Lightning might take some more time.

Taking another deep breath, Nick didn't follow the prescribed pattern. Though it felt wrong for a moment, as he had spent months incorporating it and it had become second nature, he managed. At the same time, he began actively feeding mana into the wind construct, condensing and empowering the glove of air around his hand.

Integrating the conceptual symbiosis of the Stalking Gait felt less like the artificial joining of two pieces of magic and more like slotting in a perfectly fitting puzzle piece.

Keeping his grip tight around the construct, Nick observed how it reacted to the new component.

The thin sheet of wind moved from hovering above his skin by exactly one inch—as had been his command—to embracing his hand, adapting to every shift without requiring his input at all.

Nick couldn't suppress the laughter that bubbled up, and even as he shook with happiness, the glove remained solid.

Slowly, he relaxed his grip, allowing the spell to stand on its own. When it didn't react at all to the change, the System finally acknowledged his efforts.