WMFW 12 - Magic

After Raphael decided that he needed a story to captivate adults too, the only thing he could think of was what story he would make for it.

Several stories crossed his mind, mainly stories about princes and princesses, since that was the most popular thing in this world, but there was one that didn't leave his mind after Raphael thought about it...

It was a story about a little prince who was lost from his kingdom after his uncle betrayed his father, being raised by two nomads who taught the young prince to just enjoy the moment for several years, until he met his sister and decided to return to the kingdom to reclaim the throne from his traitorous uncle.

Considering that this world is still in a medieval era, a story like this would be much easier to understand and assimilate what was going on.

And even if the protagonists of the story weren't human, since it's a story about a Lion King, it still wouldn't be impossible to assimilate.

Out of curiosity, Raphael decided to search the castle library for books with anthropomorphic protagonists, and surprisingly he couldn't find anything there!

From his memories, he hadn't read anything like that in the past either.

Although there were other races in the world besides humans, such as Dwarves, Elves, or Beastmen, humans hardly ever put these races as protagonists in the stories they wrote, just as authors tended to write their own ethnicity as protagonists in the stories they made in his previous world.

But even so, there were still some human stories with Dwarf, Elf or even Beastmen protagonists, but Raphael doesn't remember having come into contact in the past with stories with animal or monster protagonists, and this was a good opportunity.

Starting to write about a topic that no one else has written about can be difficult for the pioneer, because of the uncertainty of how it would be received, but having already confirmed that this story was quite otherworldly, Raphael was more excited to try his hand at something like this.

So, after eating a delicious, hearty breakfast, Raphael sat back down at the desk in his room and began to draw a sketch of the protagonist of this new story.

With a mane as red as fire and golden fur, the drawing of an imposing lion slowly began to appear on the paper.

In the drawing, the camera depicted the view from below, in a scene where Simba looked out over the territory with pride while the wind swayed his mane majestically.

Raphael spent a few hours making this drawing, and when he finished, he had to admit that mixing the original style he remembered with the style he knew how to draw gave a new face to the classic character, giving it a more mature, serious and badass feel.

(Visual Representation on Discord.gg/NunuXD or Patreon.Com/NunuXD)

The more he looked at that drawing, the more he wanted to take more paper and do more, to make a complete book and see people's reaction to the story of that incredible character.

So, taking advantage of this desire to draw, Raphael started sketching and planning the panels for the pages of the story.

At first he thought of doing it with one image per page, just like [Hansel and Gretel], but thinking that this story should be used to convince illiterate commoners to buy and try to learn to read, it would be ideal if there were more images than text.

And nothing had more images than manga and comics, so that's the path Raphael decided to follow.

With an average of 6 frames per page, to make his work easier, Raphael started the drawing and shaded everything with black ink, leaving the colored ink to be applied only after the paper was dry, instead of painting directly with the colors he would use.

This meant that the quality of the painting wasn't as striking as [Hansel and Gretel], but it was still on a par with the paintings on the pages of Manhwas from his previous world, which was already incredible.

Unlike the manga that came out at a time when color printing was difficult, Raphael didn't have to worry about that in this world, even if the technology was far behind, since the Grimoire copied everything as perfectly as the original.

Now the question remains, wouldn't it be possible to use the grimoire to create the book directly just as he used it to make the bag of sugar?

Yes, it would be possible, but Raphael realized that making something come out of nothing was very complex, and just as asking an AI to make art was a very delicate process, having to repeat the command several times until the desired result was achieved, when Raphael tried to make a book out of nothing using the grimoire, several pages came out blurry and confused, since the image of it in his mind wasn't as clear as just doing it by hand.

So to make life easier for himself, Raphael gave up on this idea and opted to make the future books by hand first and only when all the pages were ready, to use the grimoire to put everything together.

The problem with this is that the level of work and difficulty he would have to do this book would be several times greater than what he had to do [Hansel and Gretel], since unlike a short fairy tale that could be told in 12 pages, Raphael would be retelling an entire 90-minute movie in an illustrated book, which would require at least 150 pages with much more drawing than [Hansel and Gretel], which began to worry him.

‘Even if I dedicate myself from 9 to 5 to do this every day, it would still take me several months just to finish this manga... would I leave my store without any new books for so long?’ Raphael wondered worriedly.

Sure, he realized that it would be possible to fit in adding a few more in the middle of this production, but that would further delay the development of this book that he was so excited about making.

‘Isn't there any way to speed this up?’ Raphael thought. ‘At this point it would be very useful to have a magical teacher, since then I could just learn the water control magic of this world and use that to draw the pictures quickly... wait, can't I try to learn something like that with manga from my other world?’

Thinking about the skill he wanted, Raphael remembered several characters who had water control skills that could be very useful to him, for example, Katara.

One of the most powerful water benders of her generation, even capable of bloodbending.

Unfortunately, the amount of movement required to bend water was something that would greatly hinder the delicate process of painting and drawing on a sheet of paper, so Raphael crossed that name off the list.

Naruto was also a story with several characters with powerful water skills, but almost all the skills were only useful in combat, without offering the delicate and precise control he needed.

Then a name came to Raphael's mind.

Juvia!

Juvia Lockser, a powerful Rank S Fairy Tail mage who could control water as precisely as Raphael needed!

‘If I can learn Juvia's skill, I could do an entire manga in a single day!’ Raphael thought excitedly. 'But how could I learn her skill?

In his mind came three possibilities, the first, and most complicated, would be to make the Fairy Tail manga that Juvia appears in, identical to the original and hope that Juvia's ability came up as one of the options.

The problem is that there were several characters using magic in that chapter and the chances of her ability being selected were very low.

Another possibility would be to make an original chapter of Juvia just using and training magic and hope that the grimoire accepts that and lets me learn the spells she uses in that original chapter.

The last possibility, and the ideal one, would be to make an original artwork of her on paper, or a painting, and copy that with the grimoire, hoping that it also works.

Of the three possibilities, the third was the easiest to put into practice, and the one Raphael hoped would work, but to make sure he didn't waste any time, Raphael decided to draw a scene he remembered from the original manga of Juvia battling, if the third option didn't work, he could continue it in a short original chapter, or even complete the whole chapter straight away, not having to redo the drawing three times.

So leaving the Lion King drawing aside, Raphael picked up a new piece of paper and began to draw the beautiful blue-haired character.