BOOK 1, CHAPTER 13 – FIGURING IT OUT

“You didn’t let me get near it.” Little Green complained.

“It’s not my fault you ran ahead. What was I supposed to do? I’m practicing spells, not force.”

Artien followed Little Green back to the cave, his feet heavy with frustration.

“Yes, well, you should have left some of it behind. Even the beast core was gone.”

“How would I know the force of a three meter fireball would be that destructive.” He defended himself.

“It’s all gone.”

Defeated, he changed the topic. “Yes, but we can try again. I’ll study a bit more about the strength of spells cast. Then we’ll go back out and try again.”

“You can study all you want. I’ll be back after I hunt some more beasts for the cores.” She emphasized the last word.

“Will you stop already! Sorry for destroying the beast core. I’ll make it up to you. When I get the hang of casting, we’ll hunt a ton.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” With a blur, Little Green was gone.

He arrived at the cave entrance, heading straight to the books. He found three on the fundamentals and theories on magic and casting, reading them thoroughly. He then went through some basic spells to see the similarities. They all hinted at the level of the user, and the mana control. Nothing was confirmed within the information.

He slammed a book shut. “This is all so vague. Why? Is it required to have a teacher? Or is this a form of controlling magic use?”

He pulled out a book from the general world pile and read up on society structure. “So it’s true. Those talented in mana control are taken in by magic academies across the kingdom. Each student has a teacher. Upon graduation they enter into service under an elf. Upon retire they support the kingdom under the King.”

He put the book down and stood, stretching his muscles. “Forget that. I’ll teach myself.”

He then turned to the spell books and flipped through them. He practiced the basic spells carefully. The basic spells consisted of using the elements in some way. There were attacks, like the fireball. There were enhancements, like using wind to lighten one’s movements, carry the scent in a different direction, or carry sounds from far away to one’s ear.

There were common elements such as fire, wind, water, and earth. There were uncommon like wood or metal. There were rare ones, light and dark. Some books detailed forbidden spells over life and death. He found a few mythical spells that didn’t make sense and were told as legends.

He trained in one spell from each element. He had the fireball, water shield, wind blades, and earth wall. He memorized the chant of each and tried them out several times. When he felt comfortable casting them all, he went to the cave entrance. There he waited for Little Green.

He was sitting practicing when Little Green showed up. She watched him in surprise as he recounted and casted each element. He noticed her after a bit and smiled, standing. “Let’s try this again.”

They headed out back towards the scorpion-tailed red lizard territory. On the way, he told her what spells he was going to practice and how they worked. Together, they formulated a plan of attack. Little Green would attack and draw the enemy’s attention. Artien would follow up with fireball or wind blade.

If they switched positions, he could practice water shield and earth wall. Little Green was fine with this, and they both looked for beasts. A short while after entering the right territory, they found a lone beast. Little Green took off, circling around the beast to get it’s back to Artien. Artien kept mana in his hand and the image ready and only chanted when Little Green was ready.

This time he aimed for the tail, using fireball to blast the stinger off. The stinger fell to the ground and the lizard screeched in pain. It turned towards him and charged. He quickly thought of earth wall a distance ahead of him. The mana in his hand shot towards the ground and a large three foot thick wall rose up ten feet high and twelve feet long.

The lizard crashed against the wall and shattered it. It slowed down and shook it’s head, disoriented. It looked around and saw Artien. It charged again. This time, it crawled over the earth wall and leapt at him. He quickly created a water shield and tunneled mana furiously into it. It grew to cover a two-meter circle in front.

The lizard slammed into the shield and was forced back. The energy of the slam into the water shield rippled across the shield, completely absorbed. However, from the one strike, mana was quickly consumed. Artien felt he could only handle a few more strikes before the shield would collapse. The lizard rose back to it’s feet and tore at the water.

“Little Green!” He yelled.

A green blur entered the area from behind the lizard. Little Green launched herself from the ground towards the back of the lizard. She bit into it’s neck as she landed, injecting some venom. She quickly threw herself back off and shot towards Artien. They both hid behind the shield and watched the lizard screech as it tore at it’s neck.

Underneath the bite wound the flesh blackened. A foul stench arrived and Artien grimaced. The venom ate away at the lizard, only stopping after it consumed it’s neck and chest area. The lizard fell to the ground and twitched before it was still.

Not waiting, Little Green raced to the lizard and tore out a core from it’s head. She swallowed it on the spot, showing a satisfied face. “It wasn’t broken this time.”

He rolled his eyes. “As long as it wasn’t broken. Come on, we should leave here. I need to meditate and recover some mana.”

“You’re low? After one fight?”

“That lizard is stronger than it looks.”

They walked some distance away and found a secluded spot among a grove of tall trees. Little Green kept watch while he meditated. When he was full on mana, they went out hunting. They hunted for three days straight before going back to the cave. Seora seemed impressed.

“You are doing well?” She said.

“We’re hunting one beast every four hours!” Little Green boasted.

“I see. And you?” She asked Artien.

“I’ll need more practice on spells. I have some questions but no one to ask. Back to the books.” He said, as he made his way there.

Little Green didn’t hesitate and went back out hunting. She avoided the places good to hunt with a party of two. A bonus to her constant hunting was that the birds didn’t dare hang out near the cave entrance anymore. They roosted in the highest trees far away. As she passed them she eyed them with a smug smile.

After going through the large pile of books , Artien found several spells to help him with his force. They concealed it’s use as another spell. Why they existed? A magician was physically weak from relying on just spells. To improve their odds against a force user, they used mana to enhance their own body during battle. This exhausted the mana quickly, but made up for it by saving their lives.

Only higher level magicians could use those spells. Still, it was something that was in his favor. He memorized all the incantations for the difference body enhancements. He had speed, strength, and toughness. He now can cast these and use little mana to mask the force.

While trying out spells, studying, memorizing, and fighting, 2 months passed. He found through all the experience and knowledge, something about how magic was cast didn’t seem right. There was some secret that only the masters knew. Who else than a master looking for talented children would put the basic information available, keeping the important things to themselves?

One piece of information was lightly touched upon in the books that made him curious. The foundation of spells. Apparently, just changing, mana control, and an image wasn’t all there was to casting a spell. He had noticed in some of the diagrams of spells there was a familiar shape hidden within. Symbols.

With symbols, the language of mana, as the foundation of spells, mana could be used directly. The chants were distractions for youngsters to hide the true way of magic. From this, he guessed the true meaning of the spell was the symbol itself. If one imagined the image and gave shape to it with mana, one could form a spell.

He tried this out and found without the chant the spell didn’t take form. He activated his divine eye to see what actually happened to mana during a spell and what he found was truly amazing. As he chanted the spell, the symbol appeared faintly. As mana entered and the chant finished, the symbol lit up and mana infused the symbol until the desired form took shape.

Each chant formed a separate symbol for each type of spell. The meaning of the symbol was hidden within the chant. He focused on the simplest spell fireball. He started with using the whole chant. As the symbol formed, he cut out specific words that showed no effect on exit. The whole fireball chant was shortened to ‘flame everlasting appear’.

Even with this, he wasn’t happy. If a spell could be shortened, didn’t that mean that it could be dropped all-together? The image held the symbol and he held the mana. If he used mana to directly create the symbol instead of using words to ‘draw’ it into shape? He immediately put this thought to test.

He poured mana in his hand. He replaced the image of the flame from the books with the symbol, throwing mana into it. Above his hand the symbol flashed to life almost instantly. A small ball of flame appeared and grew as the symbol absorbed more mana. To his surprise, mana from the air was also collected into the symbol and fed the fire.

As he was still in the cave, he cut the mana that fed the flame off. It floated on it’s own in place. He dropped his hand away, watching the fireball consume the nearby mana. As the mana in the air thinned, the fireball began to dim and shrink. It finally winked out when it was unstable.

The mana in the air thickened again, rejuvenated by the many mana stones lighting the walls. Another idea came to mind. He raised both his hands, igniting a symbol and gaining to small flames he let grow until stable and then cut off his mana from them. He spread his hands again, creating two more. His concentration was pushed to the limits, keeping the symbols active enough to draw mana from the air.

One flame flickered and he lost concentration. The symbols dimmed and he lost all four flames. He continued his experiments, meditating in between to recover mana. Several days passed before he left the books and headed back out with Little Green. Through trial and error he discovered many things.

With a symbol as the base, the cast time was zero. As long as the symbol is controlled continuously, the spell remained active. If he fused the symbol with enough mana, he could keep it alive for longer even when cutting it off from his own mana. The spells could be suspended with the right control. He had the ability to chose when, where, and how to use the spell almost at will.

The more mana he used, the more effective the spell is. With this at his disposal, hunting became much easier. They tackled several lizards at once. When these proved too weak, they went on to hunt large predators. They came across a fanged river bear as large as eighteen feet tall when it stood.

The bear’s hide was tough. So tough flame was brushed aside. Wind blades also had little effect. It was here that Artien had a chance to try casting small fireballs packed full of mana. He shot two right behind two wind blades towards the bear’s face.

The bear roared after the wind blades hit it’s eyes. One fireball brushed harmlessly past it’s head. The other fireball the bear somehow accidently swallowed. Artien lost control of the symbol in his shock and the flame was released inside. The bear went mad before slowly coming to a stop. It laid down, moaned, and was still. They both approached the dead bear.

Little Green looked at it, considering how to get the core out. “Can you cut it now that it’s dead?”

“You mean with wind blade? It isn’t strong enough.”

“So make it stronger.” She said, pouting. “I want that core.”

Artien rolled his eyes. “Fine. Give me some space. If it goes wrong-“

“I’m already back! Hurry up.” Little Green said from dozens of feet away.

He pursed his lips and created the symbol for wind blades. As he did, he thought on how to make it stronger. He tried making two wind blades and placed the symbols together. Overlapped, one wind blade spell consumed the other and grew in size. “This is no different than using more mana.”

Mentally shrugging, he tossed the spell towards the bear’s head. The wind blades cleanly sliced the bear’s skull open and continued to create deep furrows in the ground behind it. Dirt flew up in the air as the wind roared, then grew silent. Debris rained down. Little Green came speeding over, checking the remains.

“You broke another core! Can’t you hold back?”

Artien palmed his face. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s the magic – it’s hard to explain.”

“Well,” Little Green eyed him, “you don’t have to explain it to me. That’s your problem.”

He sighed. “Forget it. I’ll figure something out. In the mean time, let’s hunt more.”

“Great. I found a certain place that has tons of beasts and cores ready to be taken. Follow me!”

“Lead the way.” He muttered, already used to following.

Another few days passed with careful testing and fighting. Dozens of beasts fell victim to the duo. After clearing out a herd of monster-sized tusked deer, they head back.