That time I was reincarnated as a snake (Tensura)

If an aspectual magic flame cannot be extinguished by ordinary water, can a normal flame be extinguished with aspectual magic water?

You'd think it shouldn't turn off, right?

But it must be remembered that aspectual magic is about using magicules to ignore the laws of nature. When we create an item like a fireball, we are not creating fire, we are using magicules to create a construct that mimics the properties of fire. Since these are magicules, they are not affected by the laws of nature, being immune to ordinary water.

On the other hand, when we create water to put out a common flame, we are giving the magicules the properties of water. To put out the fire, we are giving orders to the magicules of water to put out the fire, and, therefore, they do so.

Why did I bring up this topic? Because of my practice with river water.

Normally when I use my water abilities, I'm using my magicules with the water properties I asked them to have and then manipulating them to build up the pressure and fire. As for the process with regular water, it's a bit different.

The first thing I need to do is draw water from the river, then shape it into spheres, then increase the pressure, and finally shoot them out. Although I avoid having to create water with magicules, I need to maintain greater control over the manipulation of regular water.

You could look at it like this: instead of filling a balloon with water that appears out of nowhere inside the balloon, I now have to fill the balloon with a hose, while keeping the built-up pressure from escaping through the hose. Obviously, in this process both the balloon and the hose are metaphysical, created with magicules with the intention that they serve as means to make use of ordinary water.

Something like what Rimuru did with the Mejido: he used water spirits to create ordinary water, then used that ordinary water to focus the sun's rays to the point of being lethal, thus bypassing the limitations of the anti-mafia barrier.

In my case, I'm using regular water as my ammunition and my magicules as the weapon that fires it.

Although my first attempt took much longer than it would have taken the way I used to, the results were not much different than expected. Four huge cuts were visible in front of me; unlike when I used magicules as ammunition, this time the water used as ammunition could be seen in the cuts I left.

'It's interesting, when you use magicules to do magic, the moment they fulfill their purpose and are out of your control, the magicules disperse, leaving only a small trace of the magicules used. On the contrary, when making use of natural means, they do not disappear.'

That reminded me of a DxD fanfic I read a long time ago, which explained that since demon magic can shape anything, it has a limitation: it disappears when you stop supplying magic. So how do demons build the MC's house so quickly? The fanfic said that they used magic not on the result, as would be the case with creating a house out of nothing, but on the process. Magic can be used to shape, compact, and adjust the structures of existing materials, so when the magic is removed, the result remains.

'This build is perfect against anti-magic defenses, the bad thing is that I depend on being in a place with water.'

"Ah... it would be great to hire a water spirit so we could produce water anywhere," I let out a sigh.

"Whatever, I expected it to be much more difficult. I guess the biggest drawback of human magicians is their non-existent reserve of magicules in their bodies, so they only rely on their will to influence the magicules around them. With so many magic tests I've done, I can say that in this world, at least things aren't as complicated as is the case with the elements of space and time, the rest of the elements are easy."

Yes, I have tried to make use of the space element, which I am fond of, but since I don't have a clear idea of how it works, it makes its use exponentially more difficult.

As for the other elements being easy, of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that I am a monster, so I have a natural affinity for magicules and the process of manipulating them is very fluid for me when using my magicules as a means to influence the ambient magicules. It also has nothing to do with the fact that I have an ability to perceive the slightest changes in my magic, avoiding mistakes such as collapse. It also has nothing to do with the fact that I have an ability that speeds up my thought processes a hundredfold, so I can concentrate on many things at once and can simulate various operations, avoiding problems in the process of doing magic.

...

...

Well, I admit it, I have many advantages compared to humans or demi-humans!

But the main reason I'm so good at it is because the magic system in this world is one of the best I've ever encountered. All magic is, at its core, the manipulation of magical particles called magicules. So, at its core, you can view magic as a science, and while I wasn't a physicist or chemist, I did learn a lot about those disciplines while studying my degree in computer systems engineering. Plus, I was always very curious about many interesting topics I found on video platforms.

Back to the topic: I had actually conducted several tests with various elements, but the results weren't that great. In the tests, the elements I was able to use most easily, as I had already speculated from my possible relationship with Veldora, were the water and wind elements. Space I didn't know how to test as I didn't understand it. While fire and earth were very difficult for me to handle. If with water I needed twenty units of magicules to do something, with earth that number shot up to dozens of times. With fire it wasn't that bad, just a few times, I speculated that it might be due to the ratio of super efficiencies between elements.

As for light and darkness, although the consumption is greater than that of fire, it is possible for me to use light.

'How can you use light? You are a monster, a dark being!'

Yes and no. Yes, my affinity for darkness is higher than light, but light and darkness are not mutually exclusive. Sure, they harm each other, but that doesn't stop me from using some level of light. But I wouldn't use the light element much, my affinity for that element is almost as bad as earth.

The element that is mutually exclusive with monsters is the holy element, as it is composed of holy power, the nemesis of the magicules of which I am composed.

As for my affinity with darkness, I assumed it was because of Mira. I'm not sure if shadows are a branch of dark magic or are purely aspectual magic, something like necromancy that has to do with resentment and souls.

But it's certain that Mira has an affinity for darkness, because I had done tests before evolving with the connection with Mira. After which my affinity with darkness had increased. My affinity isn't as good as water and wind, but it's better than the rest. Although I don't really know how to use darkness, I only remember some dark magics used by demons and they were all nuclear grade, I doubt I could survive them even if I could cast them, which I don't think I can.

So that's why guys, monsters, even though they don't have a rule that prevents them from using other elements, almost no one would choose to use those they aren't akin to. It's a waste of time to practice using them, and even with practice it would be a bigger waste of magicules than if you simply focused on your own elements.

Having finished my trials in the river, I returned to the mansion. When I returned, I could see Mira lying by the pool, with one of her paws splashing in the water.

"What do we have here, the kitten likes to play with water?" I said as I approached her.

She turned her head in my direction upon hearing me.

"Aren't you the one who enjoys playing with water the most?" she said in a playful tone.

"You got me there," I said magnanimously.

"How's your training going? Have you gotten the skill yet?" I said in a curious tone.

She raised her head.

"Ugh, of course, how could I, The Great Mira, not obtain such a tasteless skill?" she said proudly.

"Harsh words for someone who took over a month to acquire it and needed a lot of my help to do so," I said mockingly.

"What do you know, getting a skill in such a short time is already an incredible achievement. It took me several years to create some of my skills," she said resentfully.

"True, but that was because you didn't have me to help you at the time" I raised my head proudly.

To which Mira responded by rolling her eyes.

"Yes, yes, you are amazing at teaching, Master Kai. What are you going to teach your beautiful student now?" Mira said seductively.

I swallowed at that tone.

'Calm down, Kai, they don't have human bodies, you can't fall into temptation.'

I saw Mira looking at me with loving eyes.

'Damn it, I must find a way to get us into human forms.'

"Hahaha, you should see your face" Mira said changing her expression to one of mockery.

'I knew she was playing with me, but that gives me more reason to get us human forms and make her pay for this.'

Seeing that I seemed to be planning something for her, Mira wisely decided to change the subject.

"So what do we do now? We've already arrived at the capital. You said that when we got there you would tell me the plan," Mira said curiously.

Giving up my thoughts of revenge, I proceeded to explain.

"I have one goal in coming here: to infiltrate the royal library that should be inside the castle we saw when we arrived and learn all the knowledge there."

"That's it? Why don't we do it right now?" Mira said.

"Oh, my dear Mira, I ask you, do you know how to read their written language?" I said in a flat tone.

Mira just froze for a moment at my question.

"Exactly, I can't read it either. Although we can understand and communicate with others through speech thanks to magicules, this doesn't work with books. So the first step is to learn their language or some magic to translate books."

"And how will we do it?" said Mira.

"Simple, we capture some wizards in the capital and extract all the information they know. They should know if there is any translation magic," I said in a gangster tone.

"Okay, let's go, I'm bored of being here," Mira said impatiently.

Without wasting any time, we both dove into our shadows and headed to the place with the most magic users in the capital.

A super exclusive place for the elite among the elite.

Agile Magic Academy, the only place in this entire kingdom where magic can be learned systematically and officially. Its students are mostly children of nobles, as well as important officials. Only a tiny portion of its students are very talented commoners who were lucky enough to be recommended by the entire kingdom.

If ordinary people saw it for the first time, they would be fascinated by its incredible size, similar to that of the Vatican, the smallest country in my old world, which is a waste in my opinion. Why do you need so much space if there are no more than a few hundred students at a time?

Without getting too involved, we infiltrated it. Apparently, they had some sort of barrier, possibly to warn against invasions, a barrier that didn't matter much to us. Moving through shadow space, we are essentially outside the world, so the barrier detection was ineffective.

I decided to spy on some of the students for a while to see if I could glean some useful information.

We spent the rest of the day following some students and teachers. I couldn't just kidnap some random guy this time. Most of them are nobles; if one went missing, it would only attract attention and make my investigation harder if whoever I kidnapped didn't know what I wanted.

As the hours passed, I began to lose my patience. I may have been cautious by nature, but that didn't mean I had much patience.

I just needed a damn translation spell, nothing more. Is that too much to ask?!

Night came, with no useful clues and Mira and I upset about the loss of time.

"To hell with this, I don't have this strength for anything."

"Mira, let's go find the strongest guy in this school," I said, completely impatient.

Mira just nodded.

We split up throughout the academy, looking for the guy we felt was the strongest.

It took us a while, because of the size of the campus.

But both Mira and I, without warning, arrived near the same building.

The strong guy was here.

Without wasting any time, we prepared for the kidnapping.

At the top of a stone tower, an old man could be seen experimenting with various ingredients. Some were crushed, others boiled or dissolved in other ingredients. It was the very image of a wizard practicing potion making.

The old man, after each reaction of the materials, took a scroll and proceeded to take notes, always concentrating on any change.

Behind him, in the shadows, two beings were ready to kidnap him.

"You do it, Mira. You're faster and more skilled at this, just knock him out and we'll take him to the base. If you have any problems, I'll help you. We must prevent this guy from escaping or committing suicide" I said seriously.

Mira just nodded and prepared herself. Her moment came when the old man lowered his head to take notes, not missing the opportunity, Mira lunged at him. Stepping out of the shadows, she prepared to give him a good blow to the head and knock him out. But at the moment of contact, something happened. A defensive barrier surrounded his body, impeding Mira's blow.

"Hahaha, I knew it, I felt your gaze since you arrived, I was just waiting for you to come out to catch you" said the old man turning around with a mocking smile on his face.

With his words, a barrier appeared surrounding Mira, preventing her from leaving. She tried to hit it with all her might, used her magic to attack the barrier, even tried to return to her shadow, but it was all useless.

"Don't waste your strength, this barrier is something I spent a lot of money on hiring those bastards from the Luminas Church to install for me. It's strong enough to hold back a Greater Demon with ease, and it's specialized in preventing escape abilities," the old man said with pain for spending so much money and pride for catching her.

'Wow, I didn't know the Luminous Church did this kind of outsourcing work. Where's the so-called holy majesty?' I sneered in my mind.

I could see that Mira wasn't too unhappy about being caught so easily. As the old man mocked Mira, I, using stealth, stepped out from the shadows and prepared to take away this old man's pride. Spreading stealth, I prepared to fire a primal pulse at him.

Like a cliché villain, he kept talking about how great he was, how he would use Mira for his experiments, that he had a big one, you know, villain stuff.

And like any villain who starts to monologue, in an instant, without him realizing it, his arms and legs were cut off, causing his head and torso to crash against the ground.

"Hahaha, you were caught by this guy?" I said mockingly to Mira.

"You say that as if you wouldn't have been caught if you had been the first to act," Mira said with a pout.

"There is no 'what if'," I said dismissively. I turned my gaze to this guy who had turned into a worm.

"Hey, old man, I have some questions for you. If you answer them, I won't kill you," I said mockingly.

He looked at me with resentful eyes.

"How do I know you will keep your word?" he said angrily.

"You can take my word for it or I'll kill you right now, it's up to you," I gave him a murderous look.

After racking his brain and contemplating his options, knowing he had no chance, he committed.

"Well, what do you want to know? As long as it doesn't involve state secrets, I can tell you."

"No one is interested in this shitty kingdom," I said disdainfully. The old man was obviously annoyed by my rude comment, but he refrained from saying anything.

"First question: Do you know of any spell that allows me to understand what is written in a book in a language I don't know?"

The old man opened his eyes wide.

"¡Is this the reason you attacked me?!" the old man screamed hysterically.

"¡What do you know!

"¡Who wants to learn your stupid human languages to read a book?!" I yelled back.

He just remained silent.

"Well, it is like this…" he said reluctantly.

Over the next few hours, the old man proceeded to explain to us how the translation spell worked. It was apparently similar to how speech worked, but involved some concepts I hadn't considered.

As for how he told us all this after so many hours, yes, he should be bleeding out from having his hands and legs cut off. It's simple: he reattached them. Apparently he had a pretty potent potion. He just glued his limbs back together and poured the potion on them and voila, they were good as new.

For safety, before he could do so, I told him to release Mira. If he tried to play with us, I promised him that we would kill everyone in this academy if he didn't manage to kill us both. Seeing that he couldn't deal with the two of us together, he gave up on doing some tricks.

…

"That's all," said the old man after seeing that he could understand what was written on the scroll.

"So, this spell works for all languages?" I asked curiously.

"Yes, but it won't work if it was originally written in cipher. When you use the spell it will only show you the translation, but since you don't know how to decipher the cipher, it's useless," said the old man in a masterly tone.

"Great. Second question: do you have any studies on the transformation of werewolves or do you know where I can get one?" I asked expectantly.

He just looked at me doubtfully.

"No, why would I study that? As for where to get one, besides obviously going to their territory, which is very far away, the best option is to look for one at the noble slave auctions, which occur once a month. A few times a year, slavers get specimens of various races such as werewolves, elves, halflings, among others," he said exasperatedly.

'Great, I knew I could count on you guys, you never disappoint when it comes to capturing girls of other races' I nodded at those slave traders who should never be missing in a good fantasy world.

"Do you have the methods to summon spirits or demons?" I asked without much hope.

"Don't even think about it. Those are the royal families' best kept secrets, they don't allow anyone outside of them to learn them," he said resolutely.

"Why?" I asked with genuine curiosity.

"By Guy Crimson."

I looked at him doubtfully.

Seeing my doubt, he decided to explain to me the reason.

"There are ancient records about him, dating back millennia. They tell how he came to this world: it was because of an idiotic king who wanted to destroy an opposing kingdom. He got the idea of summoning a primordial, and after fulfilling his part, Guy Crimson, using a loophole in the contract, ordered one of his subordinates to kill the one who summoned him and then destroyed his kingdom."

"No king wants to be the next example, so they destroy or seal the method to summon demons. As for the method to summon spirits, that is also part of this. Spirits, having the advantage against demons, keep it as a trump card in case they face demons, or just because it gives them greater power compared to other ordinary magicians. So they don't want others to master it," he said resentfully.

I saw from his expression that he wanted to learn them too, but he couldn't.

"Well, that's all. If we have another chance, let's talk for a while." After saying that, I proceeded to enter my shadow and left. Seeing that I kept my promise and left without killing him, he let out a sigh of relief.

* Crash *

...

His head, still with a relaxed expression, could be seen bouncing several times on the ground as a decapitated body fell and created a pool of blood. The head was stepped on by a black paw, which crushed it and turned it into meat paste and bone fragments.

"Did you think you would run away after laughing at me?" Mira said disdainfully, as she looked at the remains of the head.

Yes, I knew Mira wouldn't tolerate being made fun of so much. Others aren't me and they get along so well with her.

I kept my promise: I did not kill him, I did not even order his death.