Chapter 84: Spellcasting - Markets and Multiverses
After figuring out how to use ‘extinguish,’ I spent several minutes making the attack more and more effective, more and more mine. The attack was still very rough and unpolished, and it was still incredibly difficult to pull off, but I knew with time it would become a combat-ready spell if I just practiced enough. And I was determined to squeeze in as much practice as I could, because I was excited to make this spell work.
However, unfortunately, I didn’t have unlimited alteration essence. After practicing for several minutes, I was tapped out, which meant my practice came to an end. Which made me grind my teeth in impatience; now that I had finally mastered a technique wholly my own, I wanted to practice it as much as possible.
Luckily, I had something to distract me from my impatience.
When I had accepted Ella as my teacher, she had promised me that she wouldn’t let my talent as a spellcaster go to waste. She had promised that she would leverage her connections to get me some books to study, and some teachers, to make sure I was still a competent spellcaster at the end of my apprenticeship.
Ella had already arranged for a spellcasting teacher for the afternoon, and by the time I ran out of alteration essence, it was already lunchtime. Ella made our lunch herself, tossing together a couple different kinds of mushrooms and fish, which she had apparently learned was my favorite food, and then chatted with me about inane and unimportant topics. It seemed she wanted to take a little bit of time letting me warm up to her more before really getting to know me, which I appreciated. We didn’t talk about anything important, but I was definitely feeling better and better about taking Ella as my teacher. I didn’t think many masters would cook lunch for their apprentice and then sit down and chat with them while eating, almost like a second mother or father. Then again, maybe this was standard practice in the city.
Before I knew it, it was past lunchtime, and my spellcasting teacher had come for my first lesson.
A wizened old man, with a magnificent brown beard came into the house, before he sat down in Ella’s practice chamber across from me. He gave me a polite grin as he inspected me. I, for my part, gave the man a curious stare as I waited for him to break the silence.
Finally, the wizard nodded. “You have a lot of patience for a kid. That’s good. Learning to cast spells requires a lot of patience, especially when trying out a new spell. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but it’s worth repeating, because it’s so vital for a caster to keep in mind. If you mess up while casting a spell, you could very easily kill yourself. Especially with higher circle spells. So being patient and willing to wait and listen is a good quality in spellcasters that want to live to old age,” he said, finally giving me a grin.
I didn’t know if I was supposed to say anything, so I simply nodded.
The old man’s smile deepened even further, and this time, he held out his wizened hand for me to shake. “I’m Matthias, but you can just call me Matt. I’ll be the one who teaches you spellcasting, when I have time. Ella mentioned she would probably get a few other spellcasters she has good relations with to fill in the gaps if I’m busy or not around, but I’m going to be responsible for most of your spellcasting education. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Miria.”
“Nice to meet you as well, Matthias. Thank you for coming all of this way and spending time teaching me spellcasting. I really appreciate it,” I said.
He gave me an odd look, and I wondered if I had sounded too mature for a normal twelve year old. I should probably try harder to mimic Anise. Perhaps I should have discussed becoming a super witch with Matt?
His curious gaze lingered on me for a few more moments, before he chuckled.
“Quite mature for your age, aren’t you? No matter. That makes this even easier. Personally, I think it’s best to start with definitions, since they lay an important foundation for the rest of your spellcasting education. Can you tell me what a magic circle is?”
I frowned. “It’s what determines the power and rank of a spell?”
“That’s correct, but that’s not the full story,” he said. “Here, I brought a diagram to help you visualize everything. When I was learning spellcasting, this was what made the most sense to me.”
After that, the wizard handed me a piece of paper, with several circles inscribed on it. Starting from the center of the paper, every circle was enclosed by a larger one, making the piece of paper look extremely similar to a target one might use for archery.
“This is the most common representation of what magic circles look like. And most importantly, understanding this circle is critical to how we cast spells,” said Matt. “Do you see the smallest circle, in the center of the page? That represents the first circle of magic. The circle around it represents the second circle of magic, and so on. First circle spells, obviously, are where I’m going to start your education. A first circle spell contains exactly one magic symbol. No more, no less.”
“Is that so?” I asked.
Matt nodded. “So, what you need to keep in mind, first of all, is that any magic symbol is a manifestation a certain force, brought into reality with mana and magic symbols. For example, fire. If you spend hours analyzing candles, fires, and so on, eventually, you will ‘understand’ fire well enough to create fire magic symbols. From there, you can use fire magic symbols when creating spells. If you study ‘force’ long enough, you will naturally come to understand the symbol for force. And so on and so forth.”
“Does that mean that everyone can only use magic symbols for ideas they have studied?” I asked. I had always assumed that people could just copy the symbols from another spellcaster’s spells to recreate the same spell, over and over again. Learning that spellcasters might be more limited than I thought was a bit surprising, but made sense, now that I thought about it. It made it more important for people to specialize in a few specific directions when it came to spellcasting.
“Yes. Every single spellcaster needs to ‘relearn’ how to make magic symbols related to the spells they want to cast. You can’t just copy the shape of a magic symbol when trying to make a spell and hope that it somehow works. Instead, you need to genuinely understand a certain force well enough that you can manifest that force properly. Otherwise you can’t infuse understanding and intent into your magic symbols, which is the difference between a real magic symbol and a fancy glowing picture.”
“Does your own understanding of that force play a role in how the symbol works?” I asked, thinking of how runes and my attunement adapted themselves to how I personally understood the ocean. If Sallia tried to recreate my runes or my attunement, she would probably create a completely different ability, because absorption and alteration were heavily influenced by the understanding of the user.
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Matt, however, shook his head. “Magic symbols, much like math, are very strict in how they work. They aren’t like shaping, where your understanding can alter the specifics of how an attunement works. There is only one right answer when it comes to making a fire magic symbol. You need to infuse your magic symbol with the correct understanding of fire, or a fire magic symbol just won’t work. Every force has one correct symbol,” he said. “Don’t worry, it will be very obvious when you learn a symbol properly. There’s a feeling that’s hard to describe, but it’s impossible to miss or mistake for something else. You’ll know it when you feel it.”
It took me a moment to realize why my understanding wouldn’t influence the effects of certain magic symbols, but after a few moments of thought, I had a theory.
While in this world, people who used manifestation essence were called spellcasters, the Market explicitly labeled their essence manifestation. And, as I had come to realize, the names the Market used for essences were rather… on the nose. Manifestation meant to manifest, which could mean to show, or demonstrate. It didn’t create something from nothing; instead, it called out an ephemeral image of something that already existed. In other words, one needed to ‘understand’ a force of the world that was already there, and then ‘manifest’ it somehow through magic symbols and circles, copying it perfectly before commanding it and reshaping it into a spell. This left Manifestation with a much more limited room for adapting to the user’s understanding of the world.
Or at least, that was what made sense to me. I would see if the Market had any further information on this later.
“I see,” I said, a few more pieces about how the multiverse at large worked clicking into place in my mind.
“Now, a fire magic symbol on its own, stuck inside of the smallest magic circle one can form, will just create a ball of fire a few centimeters above the back of your right hand. There, it will hover in place until its mana runs out, and then it will disappear. This is not particularly useful. This brings us to the second part of spellcasting. Sub-symbols,” said Matt. “This is a magic symbol that one doesn’t need any special understanding to make. And it also does absolutely nothing on its own. Instead, it tells other magic symbols how to interact with each other, and how to interact with the world around them as well. For example, one of the magic sub-symbols can be added onto a fire symbol, to tell the magic fire to form in front of one’s palm, instead. Another magic symbol can be used to tell the fire to launch itself forward, which turns our previous useless glob of flame into a small magic heat projectile. You can also modify dozens of other things, like telling a magic symbol to spend its mana more slowly and, in exchange, last longer. Or you can make a magic symbol do the exact opposite, spending all of its mana in a flash of heat before disappearing moments later. Does that make sense?”
I nodded.
“Good. Sub-symbols are a critical component of spellcasting, and later on, I’m going to make you learn all one-hundred and twenty-seven known sub-symbols and how to add them to a magic symbol properly.”
I resisted the urge to groan. Suddenly, I was reminded of the rote memorization one might encounter when trying to learn a new language, though the exact details of when I had first encountered this were too fuzzy for me to latch onto.
“That brings us to the final aspect of a spell. That is a spell’s circle.”
I perked up, feeling a thrill of excitement as I heard about spell circles. I had already figured out that spells with more circles were more powerful. While I intended to mostly stick with oceans as my focus in magical abilities, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few backup options, especially now that I had a good, innovative way to use my primary essence in direct combat. Since it was incredibly mana intensive right now, being able to throw around fireballs or something sounded like a good backup option.
“Every single spell has a certain ‘circle’ associated with it. A higher circle spell, naturally, is stronger.
“But I’m sure you already know that. What matters is how it relates to this diagram,” said my teacher, tapping the archery target shaped diagram again. “You see, spells are called ‘first’ or ‘second’ circle spells explicitly because one needs to construct magic circles inside of their mind, and then fill them with magic symbols when they wish to cast a spell. The construction of a magic circle is permanent, but not very difficult or dangerous. I’ll get to that later. What I want you to keep in mind for now is how a spell’s circle related to the number of runes it has, and thus, its mana cost,” said Matt.
I took a closer look at the paper Matt had shown me as a way to visualize spell circles, and for the first time, I noticed that inside of every circle, there was also a symbol attached to it. I was pretty sure it was a number.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t learned to read yet. Meaning I had absolutely no clue what they meant. I needed to remind Ella to teach me to read. Not being able to read was already starting to drive me nuts.
Unaware of my irritation, Matt simply continued. “Do you see the numbers in each circle? Those represent how many symbols fit inside every single spell circle. And it also represents the mana cost for each circle of a spell.
“So, you can see how the first circle has a 1 written inside of it, right? That’s because one, and only one magic symbol can fit inside of the first circle of magic.
“The same applies to the next circle of magic. The second circle of magic can fit four magic symbols inside of it. Which means that a second circle spell costs five magic symbol’s worth of essence to create. One magic symbol to fill the first circle up, and then four magic symbols to fill up the second magic circle as well. Then, a third circle spell adds another sixteen magic symbols, meaning a third circle spell always costs 21 magic symbol’s worth of mana. And so on and so forth, with every new magic circle having four times the number of magic symbols, up to infinity. Well, theoretically. One would be hard pressed to find anyone that can cast, say, a tenth circle spell, even if they searched the entire underground. It’s just too much mana.” Matt guffawed. “Still, fourth circle spells are a common dividing line for the truly elite spellcasters in the city, since most spellcasters never learn the specific combination of magic symbols needed to make a fourth circle spell without blowing their limbs off or killing themselves, and with the number of magic symbols and runes involved in a fourth circle spell, it’s very easy to make a mistake. Fifth circle spellcasters are the best of the best, although even the spellcasters who can use fourth circle spells are quite exceptional and rare. I hear the overseer can cast eighth circle spells, although I have no idea whether that’s true. But I know he can cast seventh circle spells, and that’s already enough mana to make a man die of jealousy. An ordinary mage only has enough mana for making about 200 or so magic symbols in one day. Most regular mages use third circle spells for most of their more regular spellcasting, since that’s about the right level for a spell to pack a severe punch and overwhelm an Orukthyri’s defense against magic and seriously injure them. Since even a regular spellcaster can throw out somewhere between eight and twelve third-circle spells a day, spellcasters serve as a vital component of the city’s defenses against the creatures of the dark and the Orukthyri.”
I was happy to finally learn about concrete essence costs and magic requirements. At the same time, I wondered how many magic symbols Sallia, Felix and I could form each day. If we could nail down exactly how many magic symbols each of us could make in 24 hours, we could get a rough idea how the math behind grades actually worked. I had been wondering for a while how all of this math worked behind the scenes, and this provided me with a rough plan for figuring it out.
I also wanted to know how we stacked up against a ‘regular’ mage in this world, and how strong regular mages were compared to other monsters in this world. it would provide good context for how strong we as a species were in this dangerous Tier-4 world, and how strong a tier 4 world really was. Thus far, I had lived inside of the safety of the city, where monster attacks were unheard of and most people lived peaceful, day to day lives. However, I needed to eventually figure out how strong Sallia, Felix and I were compared to the rest of the world. Otherwise, we would never figure out how far we could push ourselves while exploring the wastes above.
Luckily, after my first spellcasting lesson ended, I would be able to see Sallia and Felix again. I couldn’t help but grin at the thought of boasting about my ‘extinguish’ spell, and showing Sallia and Felix how far I had already come.