Heiter's Cabin
Within the spare bedroom that is shared amongst the girls of two beds, one bed has Frieren sleeping on her side under her covers with a spot beside her empty. Across the room, is another bed but small, and empty.
The door to the guest room is left slightly ajar as Fern exits her room with a yawn, covering her mouth as she does so as she walks through the cabin in the early morning.
As Fern enters the kitchen area, she is greeted to the sight of the half elf daughter of Master Frieren in the midst of putting together some things into her suitcase of hers.
"Early riser too?" Teufel questioned idly at Fern as the half elf girl finished stowing away her things into her suitcase before clasping it closed with a click of its latches.
"Mhm." Fern nodded slowly as she rubbed the early morning sand from her eyes, and approached the island counter where Teufel was standing with her Stool, "You leaving somewhere?" she asked curiously.
"Not anywhere far, really." Teufel answered the girl as she pulled her suitcase off from the counter and took it with her as she hopped off from the stool, before facing Fern with a straight look in the eye, "Just going to find a place to practice some spells I've been working on."
"Oh!" Fern remarks with a more curious look in her eyes as she spoke with Teufel, the young girl's attention was now on Teufel as the half elf girl made her way to the exit. "Can I come watch?" she asked with a spark in her eyes.
Teufel, as she approached the exit door, turned to look back at Fern with an uncertain look, "I suppose you can." she answered, earning a small smile of excitement from Fern.
Later
It took a bit of a while to truly understand the system of magic that was available to her in this third world she's come to know, over eighty years of her half elf life was spent studying the intricate ways she could cast magic from the modist amount of spells that her mother has taught her.
Standing atop a hill that overlooked a massive lake, Teufel held with her the magic staff her mother gifted her; beside Teufel was the haphazardly made equipment of measuring her mana output to give her a read on casting her spell for their duration, power, length and so on and so forth.
Sitting in the grass not far from her, Fern sat atop a lone rock as she watched Teufel bring out her equipment; when she asked what everything was out of childish wonder, the half elf girl answered to the best of her ability for the young girl to understand.
Teufel, as she used her mana measure tools, wanted to be sure of her experimentation of spells she held at her fingertips, or in this case, at the tip of her staff. It was one thing to just feel the mana you were casting from her body, it was another to get the exact measurements of what she was doing. Sure, she could never make a tool that could measure the max strength of her mother's mana pool, she didn't have the equipment built to handle it.
"Hmm." Teufel pursed her lips in thought as she started up the spell for Zoltraak, only pouring enough mana in to make a small bead of light to exist at the tip of her staff; her eyes drift to the propped up time beside her, noting the mana stone bobbing up and down a little, while the gyroscope like circlets around it spun in place around the object as it floated above the measuring box she built.
Her eyes then drift to the circlet bracelet on her wrist, to make sure the two were in synchronized between each other; willing magic to her eyes to view her own mana pool, Teufel is able to see the device she has created siphon off from the bracelet she put on her wrist for the device to work remotely. Ceasing the action, Teufel nodded to herself and initiated the spell Zoltraak, and shot out a thin beam through the air.
Thwip
Like a whistling beam of a bullet flying through the air, but without the boom of the gun itself, Teufel took notice that her modified Zoltraak spell only managed to make it several few yards away from her staff starting point. The whole point of this exercise was to get a general gist of her mana output and measure it, and how little a viable Zoltraak spell was if it was condensed further down to a thin-like needle attack.
It was barely anything really, in the grand scheme of all the other spells her mother had shown her, as Zoltraak was far from the only attack spell, but it was a key factor of why mage shields and magic clothing today are different. Once what was pretty much a dangerous spell, was and has been reverse engineered by mages to improve on and develop better defenses against.
For Fern, the young girl was curious as to why Teufel casted such a weak version of Zoltraak, barely any better than her best attempt. But then she noted that Teufel was barely trying with the spell, so she was probably just making a practice shot before actually casting anything meaningful.
For Teufel, as she stared outside across the lake with her staff held aloft, Zoltraak was just another spell in her arsenal, but for her mother, father and their party that had to go up against Qual that the spell originated from at the time, it was one of the most dangerous demon spells they had gone up against at the time.
Blinking to herself as Teufel removed her wrist circelet so that she could utilize her full mana pool without breaking her measuring device, she stewed over her thoughts more as the morning sun broke over the trees, its sunlight reflecting off the surface of the lake she stood not far from.
The more time she spent in this world, studying its magic system, its available grimoires, the more Teufel found that she did in fact enjoy magic to the fact that it was pretty much a field of study that could be developed on, to be researched, to be invented with. It was practically a wild west field of study, even years after the Great Mage Flamme passing.
From what little Teufel has learned over the years from her mother about Flamme and the era she lived in, magic was a taboo area of field to study and was seen as demonic; it was only after Flamme managed to convince the emperor at the time of the largest unified empire on the continent to allow the field of study country-wide.
But now, as Teufel stood atop the hill she picked to do a few magic spell exercises, the half elf girl could appreciate the fact she exists in a time that doesn't involve some hamstring superstition against magic.
Course, she still lived in an early era of man, but at least she wasn't in an area of witch hunting and fear of magic; being fearful of magic was irrational, being fearful of the caster was not. Same reason you should not fear a gun until some idiot picks up one and doesn't know the first thing how to properly wield it.
Analogy aside, Teufel's eyes scour the area of the place she chose to practice her spells at, and noted how serene the place felt. Hefting her staff up to her side once more to begin another practice run of spells, Teufel now wanted to test how well the spell formulas from her second life could translate into the magic system of this world.
With a free hand off from her staff, the half elf girl gently waved her palm through the air, and with some satisfaction on her part, Teufel was greeted to the sight of the observation formula that allowed her to detect a battlefield in a more detailed manner than just feeling out for mana as any other mage would.
Fern's eyes shine in childlike wonder as she witnesses a magic spell that she had never seen before, and it made her want to question Teufel ever more as time dragged on for the two of them; but Fern wanted silently watch the other girl as she casted her spell, she could ask later afterall.
Back with Teufel, It took her more than thirty years, but with a victorious smirk now gracing the half elf's lips, she was able to reverse engineer the spell to work appropriately in the magic system of this world; she had the others of course, but this spell she liked to have as its practicality won out.
Keeping the observation formula up, as she felt enough was in her mana pool to sustain it being projected out in front of her, that, and to better keep an eye on her perimeter, Teufel began a slew of other formula conversion tests.
Past
"You planning on making your own grimoire, or something?" Frieren asked her Daughter, as the two of them sat within an inn and restaurant where tables were filled by occupants, one of which was filled by Frieren and Teufel as the two of them arrived just in time to acquire an available room to sleep in.
Teufel, who was in her own chair while sitting on her knees to reach the table, looked up from her personal notebook that she had been writing into with crudely made sketches of various circles and the spell names underneath each one. "Hmm?" she hummed in questioning as she looked back at her mother's curious look.
Frieren leaned against her palm while resting her elbow on the table, and pointed at the book the Teufel was writing into, "Those spells, they look like they're made for destruction or something, from what I can read from this spot." she observed.
"Er…" Teufel mumbled something to herself, before clearing her throat to speak more clearly with her mother as she continued writing into her book, "Not really, these are just rough drafts of some spells I wanna…create…" she trailed off saying while measuring her words carefully.
"Neat." Frieren remarked, a proud smile gracing her lips as she looked at her Daughter work at creating new spells, "How long do you think it will take till you can try them out?" she questioned her daughter with a proud smile.
"It'll be a while, I don't know." Teufel answered with a shake of her head as she flipped a page to a fresh empty one, where she could continue sketching the writing down her notes, "I still need to convert what I know of the magic spells you taught me, and translate them into appropriate math formulas."
"Huh…" Frieren mused as she tilted her head a bit while still resting her chin into her palm, she expressed an excited look on her face as she watched her daughter, "Well…I look forward to seeing the fruits of your little venture." she mused.
Present
With her observation spell formulae still up, Teufel narrowed her eyes as she casted a levitation spell on several nearby rocks that rested beside the lake shore; as the half elf brought the rocks to float up next to her, she began to test the other few formulas she had been converting over to this world's magic system.
If she wanted to properly describe what it was like in making up the difference between the two world's magic systems, it was like writing a language into a different one; you had to understand the meaning, and translate it appropriately to mean almost the same thing in the one you want to work with. That was the closest of course that Teufel could represent it in her mind between the differences of the two magic systems.
Right now, as Teufel allowed her ammunition of rocks to stay afloat beside her, she began to cast an enchanted round over one of the rocks; with a green hue that covered the rock, Teufel's staff began to emit a magic circle in front of it as she held it up beside her.
An Artillery round first.' She thought to herself as she primed the rock ready to go flying across the lake and into the mountain side; frowning a bit to herself, she measured the length that she would need the spell to go, and made a few corrections to the spell.
Since she didn't have any bullets that had sealing formulas inside them for the spell to work correctly, Teufel had to readjust and add a few extra steps into the spell for it to work with mundane objects, such as rocks. She'd most likely not get the same result she would expect with a bullet, but with a few added adjustments to make sure the rock would go boom, she made as many substitutions into the spell so that she could appropriately recreate an artillery spell.
With a whirring sound as the rock began to spin that Teufel focused on 'shooting' at the faraway mountain, the half elf held her staff with both hands before releasing the rock off into the distance.
THIWP
The rock flew off life a bullet, it made a harsh whistle while doing so as it flew across the ocean, occasionally skimming down across the lake water before curving back up into the air and towards the far away mountain.
Teufel, who watched it all happen with the enchanted rock, narrowed her eyes in annoyance, as she watched the rock lamely curved through the air, making a green trail of magic trail behind it as to flew off; the half elf noted that without the nuance of having a grooved barrel and bullet to work with, of course the projectile would fly off course from their intended destination.
KRAKOOM
She watched trees and dirt get blasted into bits from her artillery spell, missing its mark by just several yards away from her intended mark.
Fern watched with an uncertain look in her eyes. From her point of view, sure, the spell was new to her, but it looked like Teufel was not expecting the outcome. The half elf was definitely unsatisfied with what she was able to do, going by the facial expression she was making.
Narrowing her eyes a bit, Teufel knew of the homing cluster spell, and decided to incorporate the homing part into her artillery round spell. It would help her aim and lock on to specific areas she wanted blasted, and she would have more control over where her spell would land.
With a fervent look on her face, Teufel held her staff more tightly as she covered another floating rock she was levitating beside her with an enchanted round spell, and had it ready to go. Mentally preparing the added layer of spells into the rock, Teufel narrowed her eyes as she fired the rock off, with another sound of a crack through the wind.
This time, as Teufel watched her projectile rock shoot through the air with a straight shot, the rock itself hurled across the lake and passed the opposite lake shore until it finally hit the far off mountain with a thunderous boom.
KRAKOOM
Teufel witnessed as her artillery spell successfully landed and caused quite the little divot into the maintain side; from the opposite side with Teufel, the young half elf looked down at her observation formulae spell that was still up, and waved her hand in front it to weave a different spell into it. The image of the far side mountain was projected into the observation spell, allowing Teufel to see her work as she weaved her hand again through her spell to zoom in.
Seeing the zoomed in image of what her artillery spell was able to do up close without having to fly all the way there and see for herself, Teufel noted with a satisfied smile that the surface was burnt black with crumbling rocks and boulders falling bit by bit until everything rested.
Fern clapped a bit for Teufel, as the other girl no doubt successfully accomplished what she set out to do.
Teufel turned to look at Fern with a confident smile, "Thank you." she remarked, before frowning, "But unfortunately, there's still some tweaking that needs to be done with that spell I casted." she groused a bit.
"Oh." Fern noted as she ceased her clapping and held her hands atop her lap as she conversed with Teufel, "But it hit the side of the mountain, wasn't that your intended target?" she asked with an attentive curious look.
Teufel shook her head while she turned to look ahead across the lake, and held her staff beside her into the ground as she inspected her work more through the zoomed in image on her observation formula spell, "Yes, but it needs more control, I don't want a spell that needs additional spells laced into it…" she began to thumb at her chin in thought, "I have the theory and practice down, all I need left is to fine tune them…" she mused.
With an ever childish wonder present on her face, Fern asked more questions, "So how long have you been working on these spells then?" she asked.
Teufel waved her hand through the air to cease her observation spell for the time being, and turned once again towards Fern to speak directly with the girl, "A few decades or so…" she answered with a momentary sideways glance once more across the lake, before she looked back at Fern.
Fern Smiled as she stood up and brushed off her lap of any grass or dirt, "This was fun to watch, but I really should head back and get some morning tea started for Master Heiter." she remarked, before Fern looked at Teufel with an uncertain look, "do you want any?" she cautiously asked.
Teufel shook her head, "No thanks." she waved her hand in denial, "I still have some koffee grounds left to last me a few more days." she answered.
"...I see…can I have some?" Fern asked with a shine in her eye.
Teufel blinked a few times, unable to keep an incredulous look from forming on her face at the child's want to drink the coffee that made her crash for the rest of the day, "...mother says I am not allowed to give children any more Koffee." Teufel answered with a straight face.
Undeterred, Fern stepped forward closer with a fervent look in her eye, "But aren't you over eighty? That's practically an adult's age." Fern argued.
With an annoyed look on her face, Taufel argues back at Fern, "...I could…but then she will ground me from learning any more spells from her for a hundred years." she reasoned.
"....ah…I see…" Fern noted with a downcast look, before looking back at Teufel with glint in her eye, "Promise you'll let me drink some when I'm older!?" she asked.
Offering a shrug to Fern, Teufel spoke with an uncertain tone, "If I can procure more of it." she answered, earning an appreciative smile from Fern.