Magic circles, while a safer alternative to casting spells directly through the body, are noticeably slower at executing the required spell due to drawing out the magic circle and channeling mana through the ‘Seraion’ or ‘mana funnel’. This process is sufficient for simple spells, where the mana is minimal. However, complications arise when the sorcerer attempts using a singular Seraion for a spell requiring a substantial amount of mana. As there is only one Seraion, it takes a while for the mana to reach its required amount.
To fix this problem, there are a multitude of ways, however this book will focus only on the most prevalent method. The sorcerer is able to integrate multiple Seraion as long as they are encompassed by a ‘Serakinala’ or ‘mana distribution circle’. Note this method is not applicable for everything, for example, a Serakinala will not work with mana elements, which require a different type of ‘Kinala’.
An excerpt from ‘Workings of a Magic Circle: Book 1’
----------------------------------------
“Do you know why I left Eclipse without anything hiding it in illusions?”
I looked at the currently lowered Eline, with its orifice facing downwards into the ground as a rather annoyed sounding Holt loomed over it.
“Because Zolton would have seen through those illusions, instead there was something else hiding it.”
Holt continued and walked to the blocked entrance.
“I had created a strong seal for this room, so that IF Zolton had tried to enter, he would find the door impassable, and guess what happened to that seal?”
Oh, so the blocked entrance was called a ‘door’.
“Some muscle brained idiot decided to destroy that seal unknowingly.”
I watched with interest as Eline seemed to become smaller and then it spoke softly.
“Sorry.”
“Hm? Why should you be sorry for Eline? You wouldn’t perhaps know what happened to my seal?”
Holt leaned in from behind Eline overshadowing it causing Eline to start shaking.
“I'm... I'm sorry I broke the seal.”
Holt straightened up afterwards and let out a long exhale.
“You’re lucky Zolton is getting impatient and decided to do another summoning ritual.”
With that Eline earlier form straightened and it sounded significantly different from before, its tone upbeat.
“So, everything is fine!”
Holt stood silent and crossed its limbs, causing Eline to once again go smaller, its voice quieter.
“...right?”
“Eline, mind telling me what happened to Eclipse to cause it to have quite the scar?”
Eline was silent and once again got smaller, its voice becoming softer,
“... A snake ripped off its wing...”
There was a long moment of silence.
“I’ll deal with you later. However, that does bring to perspective just how weak Eclipse is currently.”
Holt went silent for a moment as it brought its appendage into its orifice and dragged it downwards.
“I want you to take Eclipse on your patrols so it can evolve faster, therefore make sure it doesn’t get fatality or permanently injured.”
“Wait really?”
Eline sounded excited, I was not as much, patrol meant another encounter with the snake.
But I did want to explore...
“I’m already regretting this... for now go back and report to Zolton about your Patrol.”
“Don’t worry I won’t disappoint you! Eclipse, I’ll see you in the Morning!”
Eline’s seemed happy as it moved quickly outside the room, briefly stopping to close the door.
“Since you now have less time to read that book, I suggest you stop wasting time.”
I looked down at the closed book, not as annoyed as I can now do something other than read it.
Even if the presence of the snake was there, it was better than only reading.
I looked up and noticed that Holt was... moving its shell? No, it was, taking it off?
I watched in confusion as the red shell covering Holt was ripped off, resulting in it falling onto the ground. Revealing the thin form of Holt, who looked like the prisoners' species. The fur on the top of its head was black, while its eyes seemed to host a green glow.
It had a brown under shell which clung close to its form ending where the upper limbs started yet covering the lower limbs. Along Holt’s upper limbs were pitch black lines which ended abruptly and started just as abruptly.
“If you're not going to sleep, don’t wake me.”
Holt didn’t seem bothered that it was missing its shell, making me think that this was, no matter how strange, a normal occurrence for its kind. It simply moved to the end of the room where it laid down on part of the floor that was dark brown and slightly higher than the rest of the floor.
Seeing nothing interesting happening other than the constant rise and fall of Holt’s body, I turned my attention back to the maroon book.
----------------------------------------
It had been a while since Holt had laid down, and I was once again getting bored of the book.
Eline said that it was coming in the ‘morning’, but when was that.
I looked at the next section of the book which talked about the use of an ‘ancient language’ in magic circles.
Well, I guess I can read one more section, this one seems a lot more interesting-
However just as my eyes passed along the introduction of the section, the door creaked open.
“Good morning, Eclipse.”
Eline moved into the room with a hushed tone.
“Let's get out of here before we wake up Holt.”
Eline held out its limb for me instead of picking me up immediately. I briefly looked at the section I was about to read before moving onto its limb.
The language can wait.
This time Eline didn’t stop anywhere before going on patrol and I was able to notice a stark difference of the outside world. It was brighter, and the sky had changed dramatically.
The black with white dots was replaced by a mass of blue with puffy streaks of white. The large light I had seen before was gone, rather off to the horizon was a blur of a far too bright yellow light which painted even the sky around it yellow with a soft orange.
It was far nosier as well, I heard constant noises from creatures afar instead of just the wind rustling the leaves.
Even though it was beautiful outside, I quickly hid behind Eline, taking comfort in its shadow.
It's far too bright...
“You don’t like the day, Eclipse?”
If this was what day was...
I moved right in response even though I was sure Eline didn’t understand what that meant.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Yeah, I dislike it too! you'll get used to it, just make sure to stick close to me.”
I was planning to be staying close to Eline as much as possible anyways, my mind still replayed the moment of my wing being ripped off.
Once again, I felt the soft ground beneath my legs as I followed closely behind Eline.
Once we got under the trees, I moved out of Eline’s shadow since its red shell greatly hindered my sight, but I kept close as I looked around at the now brighter surroundings.
----------------------------------------
For a while, nothing new had appeared other than a few plants that looked similar to ‘flowers’ my knowledge was keen on telling me about. I had briefly stopped to look at some of them, especially the dark azure ones which seemed to be in abundance, but not for long as I didn’t wish to stray too far from Eline.
Eline on the other hand kept humming, but every now and then it would talk about how annoying Zolton was. And I could understand why Eline found it annoying. Zolton knew that Eline disliked the day, however it continued to make Eline go out during the day instead of the ‘night’ which I assumed was the time when sky turned black and white dots littered the sky.
It did also make me understand that Eline’s species were the colony type.
Which I wasn’t sure about before since their numbers were so small. Does that mean this is a newly created colony? And was Zolton the Queen then? I thought Queens were supposed to be the pinnacle of beauty... Thats what my knowledge told me at least. Wait, I need to stop using my knowledge about my brothers and sisters for Eline’s species! There were far too many differences!
Maybe one of the books had something to do with Eline’s species...
I was broken out of my thoughts as a large clearing of trees had appeared in front of us and I could hear a constant soft sound of swishing coming from the clearing.
“Alright Eclipse we reached our destination!”
Eline moved towards the clearing, and I hurriedly followed. Eline didn’t go into the clearing but stayed under a tree which bridged to the other side. As I got closer, I was able to see that the ground littered with leaves had changed from green grass to brown dirt and then finally an even darker brown hidden underneath the leaves which moved along it slowly.
I was confused; I had never seen leaves moving along the ground.
Curious, I moved forwards, closer to the leaves. Looking closer, I was surprised to see an eye like my brothers and sisters staring back at me. I reached out with my leg to part the leaves to see what was underneath.
Water
It was something my knowledge made sure I knew about. However, what truly captivated my attention was two pitch black orbs sat on either side of an all-white furred round head. Two black leaf-like antennas flowed peacefully as they sat curving off to the sides of the head. The next thing I noticed were wings that looked like mine, even in the same way they were positioned!
Sister?
My knowledge said she was a moth like me, one that was pretty, and I could see that to be true. But that's all, my knowledge did not understand what type of moth she was. I reached out slowly with leg, and she did the same, her leg the same pitch black as mine. As my leg touched hers, her appearance was disturbed as the water rippled.
I quickly looked around and she did too, neither understood what was happening. Just then another figure appeared behind her, and I heard Eline come behind me.
“Have you never seen your reflection, Eclipse?”
As the water stilled, I saw Eline with my supposed sister in between the gaps the leaves made, making me confused since I heard Eline behind me.
Reflection?
I looked back, to see if Eline was indeed there. It was. Eline made a noise before continuing.
“Thats you Eclipse, the water is showing what you look like.”
Looking back at the moth in the water, she looked real. So, ignoring Eline I once again reached forwards, however once again she followed what I did, and the water rippled once again disturbing her appearance.
Next, I moved back and forth, and so did she. I was confused.
But I was starting to understand that maybe it really was my reflection...
So, this was what I looked like?
I looked a little longer. My feelings were mixed, I was happy that my physical body was pleasing to look at even if it was devoid of color..., however.
Why does my knowledge not tell what type of moth I am... Why does it not know?
I would have continued to question myself, however I got distracted as I noticed that Eline had taken off its shell in the water. Quickly looking back, Eline was indeed removing its shell revealing that it looked similar to Holt. However, it was far slimmer and had a white under shell for its top and a black under shell for its lower limbs which ended just before another set of appendages appeared, these ones shorter than the ones on the upper appendages.
Eline had whitish fur on the top of its head which was long, reaching just below where two medium sized bulges appeared to be on what I assumed was the thorax. The fur was made in long strands, making it far messier as it poked in different directions.
After Eline had moved some fur to the side, I was able to see a pale light blue eye, which unlike Holt, was sparkling with emotion. I was not able to see the other eye as there was still fur covering it.
Unlike what Holt had done with its discarded shell, Eline rather brought the shell to a low hanging branch and hung it up.
I thought it was finished and I was going to approach, but then for a reason I didn’t understand, it seemed to want to take off its top under shell but stopped, a body part with a triangular point connected to either side of its head twitched once and the peaceful expression it had, had changed to one of more caution as its eye narrowed.
“Alright Eclipse stay here while I- Wait not I'm not supposed to leave you alone again...”
Eline’s face once again changed, it looked confused as it brought an appendage to scratch against its fur. Unlike Holt, Eline seemed more expressive. When I saw what Holt looked like, I could hardly understand what Holt was feeling.
After a few more moments, Eline seemed to have made up its mind as it quickly picked me up tried to head back further into the forest, however as it was grabbing its discarded shell its head slowly moved to the side as its mouth turned into an upside-down crescent annoyance clear in its eyes. A mere moment later I heard the air make a higher pitch sound as a faded thunk sounded and a stick with a furred end had embedded itself into Eline’s shell.
“Well, that's not good...”
Eline looked back clearly annoyed, but with a hint of excitement. I heard a strange sound in the distance, it sounded like a chorus of harsh rustling, but not one of leaves.
“Sorry ma’am! Our scout did not mean that! He is just on edge!”
A gruff voice sounded from the distance.
Another prisoner species?
I couldn’t tell since Eline was in the way, but it sounded like Eline’s species.
“I don't think a sorry will be enough for almost taking my head.”
“Then... is this enough?”
I heard a thud followed by a clink nearby.
Eline was silent for a moment.
“I guess it’ll do.”
“Thank you! And sorry once again, we’ll get out of your hair.”
I heard whatever had approached us move away, the chorus of harsh rustling... no, the sound was more akin to clicking and clacking, it faded away. However, Eline simply squinted its eye.
“Seems like we got ourselves some vermin Eclipse... This is annoying I was just about to take a bath too. If only they decided to attack instead of watching.”
For a moment Eline looked amused before it looked back at its shell.
“I wonder if this is that girl’s squad.”
Eline pulled out the stick out of its shell, the other end of the stick was a matte gray and triangular. Though it didn’t seem interested in the stick, promptly throwing it off to the side.
“I guess I’ll go hunting tonight, Zolton should allow me since there are mercenaries nearby... But first.”
Eline didn’t fully put its shell back where it used to be, rather it loosely wore it. It moved slowly a bit, just to be behind the trunk of the overhanging tree before I felt the air rush at me as Eline went far faster than I had expected. I saw my surroundings turn into a blur. I quickly pushed my face into Eline’s inner shell as I didn’t enjoy the feeling of the rough wind on my eyes.
“We need to get you out of here.”
I looked up at Eline and it looked happy for an odd reason, however, what was stranger was its mouth was in a crescent shape and revealed a whitish interior.
The wind had blown away enough fur to the side, allowing me to see Eline's other eye which was white and had a horizontal reddish line going through the eye. The white eye had no luster to it and had none of the strongly visible emotion like Eline’s other eye. That was strange...
But taking off one’s own shell was still stranger.
Eline was moving fast for a while before eventually slowing down looking back.
“Well, that's not fun... They didn’t even bother with a chase.”
I was placed down, and I stumbled slightly before regaining my balance. I had never been moved that fast, it was... fun.
“I was planning to go back to base, but since they didn't bother following us... Now you can get some practice with that slime over there! Should be easy enough that Holt will approve.”
Eline used one of its raised one of its appendages and pointed it too somewhere behind me. Confused, I looked back and saw... nothing, it was the same forest as always. After a few more moments I simply looked back at Eline.
“Did you miss it? Its right there!”
Eline grabbed a small ‘pebble’ from the floor of leaves, it tossed it up and down a few times.
“You need to look the other way, you got to get used to seeing these guys considering how many times we passed by them.”
Are my eyes not as good as Eline’s? I was certain I didn’t see anything resembling a creature!
Perplexed, I looked back at the same empty forest, I heard the air whish as the pebble Eline had picked up soared through the air. In another moment it collided with a tree, however rather simply bouncing off... the rock stopped just before hitting the tree?
I watched with interest as the part of the tree slipped off and fell onto the ground like liquid... however in another moment the liquid righted itself forming an ever-moving blob that looked just like the coating the trees had.
“Thats a slime! As long as it doesn’t engulf you, you should be fine!”
The ‘slime’ in turn removed the coating of the tree it had, slowly revealing colors similar to the leaves as it started to become less rigid, covering more of the ground as time went on.
“Why is it trying to hide again? Oh right! I’m here! Sorry Eclipse but I’m going to need to leave you alone or else the slime won’t bother with you.”
I quickly looked back and noticed that Eline was no longer there, worried I frantically looked around until I heard Eline’s voice right next to me. However, I still couldn’t find Eline anywhere.
“Don’t worry I’ll be around, rather you should worry about the slime, make sure you break the core to kill it or else it’ll hurt you!”
It’ll hurt me?
I quickly looked back and saw the mass of liquid regain its rigidness. It still had a mix of green and tree coating, but it stopped trying to take off the tree coating, rather it moved in a strange but intriguing way, part of its body started leaking towards me before the rest caught up with the leaked portion.
I didn’t have time to be impressed or interested, my mind was currently busy replaying what had happened during the night, I didn’t notice it before, but the air was chilly.