With that Xilna left to allow Jeff to process that bombshell. In fact he zoned out half of his magic lesson before his tutor hit him on the side of the head with a stone shard.
“ Now that I got your attention. Care to tell me how earth and water affinity mix in a spell?”
With a frown and rubbing the new lump on his head, Jeff looked at the fading away stone shard he was hit with.
“ It is based on a number of factors. But the most basic is the amount of each affinity is added to the spell. A spell that has an eighty percent stone to twenty water ratio is more of a wet rock than say the opposite, which is close to a ball of mud. Of course, if you add in other elements as well. Say five percent overall air, then the wet rock becomes a frozen rock that is much harder and resistant to melting. While five percent fire to the mudball turns it into a concussive bomb.”
The dwarven mage nods his head to this.
“ Very good, you did do your homework. But I was explaining the structure of the spell. Since I know you are elemental neutral, I do not expect you to be able to cast the spell, but this is more for recognizing spell structure than casting.”
Jeff nods and tries to recall what he half-paid attention to. Raising his hand, a clear three-dimensional model of complex geometric shapes appears. It took him over a week to get this far and it is something that normally takes the average mage a year of study to get to.
“ I assume you mean balancing and focusing each element into the key points of a spell. Such as having the core of the spell as earth and water to the coating to having the water in the core to the stone as the coating.”
“ Ah, so you did pay some attention, good. Do you know that we always have the core of a spell at least half the total mana of a single element, or why?”
Jeff looked at his spell form a moment and took a guess.
“ If I had to make a guess there are two reasons, simplicity and stability.”
The dwarf smiles at this before taking a drink from a nearby mug.
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“ Good, that is two parts of it. It is simple because this allows you to work with less structure of a spell. Take your cards for example. They take half the mana to form the actual card in a mana-to-mass conversion. The other half facilitates the actual spell. Now as for stability, the core gives a foundation for everything else to work off of. Earth magic does this best because it is literally a rock most of the time. Now tell me what else could be the reason for this.”
Jeff considered it a moment but after a few minutes he just shrugged his shoulders. The dwarf sighs in disappointment.
“ Alas, the difference between otherworld theory crafting and native thousands of years of practice and experience shows it’s head again. There are many other factors, but the big one is affinity.”
The dwarf raises his hand to mimic the spell constructed in Jeff’s own hand.
“ I am a earth and water mage. Which is why I use those elements as an example. The reason for that is because it is easier for me to work those elements. Naturally, I can add small amounts of other elements as well after decades of practice, trial and error, and a small fortune. And here you children come and do stuff that took me a lifetime to master.”
The dwarf sighs again as the spell construct finishes being filled with mana and a new stone is formed. This one covered in a layer of frost.
“ Affinity is the most important aspect of magic. For us natives it comes down to two categories. Single and duo affinity. As you can guess. The duo one is rarer, and harder to master, but those that do are several times stronger.
Then you otherworlders come in and add in a bunch of new rules to the mix. Having a perfect affinity for all six elements then your learning bonuses on top of it.”
The dwarf then grabs the frozen rock spell and crushes it by gripping it in his fist.
“ Then there are those like you. Those who have no talent in the elemental craft. Still, I teach you, do you know why?”
Jeff held back a snide remark about he was being made to and took one of his cards out of his vault.
“ Because knowledge is power. And if I learn about magic I might be able to learn how to counter it if I ever need to.”
As he said that Jeff tossed the card to the side so it would form where it landed. A scrawny male construct looked at the dwarf with expectations. Who in turn raised an eyebrow to the action.
“ I suppose it is that point in our lessons. But I wonder, did anyone ever tell you about tier zero spells?”
Jeff shook his head and the dwarf sighs.
“ Figures my predecessor didn’t, lazy prick. So, he probably told you tier one spells are those spells that anyone can learn as long as you got the affinity. Like a fireball for the fire affinity. Tier two is those with the affinity learn at level ten and three is twenty and so on. Tier zero is able to be learned by anyone, no matter the affinity.”
The surprise on Jeff’s face made the dwarf smile.
“ However do not expect much from these spells. By the hells most mages do not learn them till they hit level thirty.”
“ And why is that?”
“ Money, they either are so rich that they have servants to do the tasks that they need to be done but do not care to have to do themselves, or it takes them that long to earn a scroll of learning that contains the spell.”
“ Scroll of learning?”
“ Aye, a one-use item that allows someone who qualifies to instantly learn the spell. And mind you there is a huge difference between learning a spell and mastering it.”
“ What other items are like this scroll? And what zero tier spell are there.”
The dwarf squints his eyes and stares at Jeff before relenting. Knowing this is going to turn into one of those otherworlder things.