A small orb emitting a soft glow floated in front of Markus, he stared at it for some time. Stretching his hand out, ‘Luminous orb’, he cast a spell. While casting the spell, he stared at the place where the new luminous orb is appearing. With his mental energy, he can sense the 2-dimensional spell structure of the spell. At least a dozen geometrical shapes unconnected from each other were inside a hexadecimal frame, giving birth to the magical effect of the spell.
A small orb emitting a soft glow appeared, no different from the already floating bright orb next to it. The two orbs side by side floated, emitting the same amount of light. Comparing the two spells Markus noted that the second orb appears to be a little bit bigger than the first one.
But this is not the effect he wanted, he wanted to make the orb brighter, not bigger. Dispelling the new orb, he closed his eyes. He had been at this for a while now, with no luck. Modifying a spell is no easy task, this kind of thing needs a lot of theoretical knowledge, which he lacked at the moment.
Pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment he took a book from a side shelf and started going through it. The book was named, “Fundamental structures of spells”, it is one of the few books circulating in the market on theoretical knowledge of magic.
It is very hard to find information about magic because the Mage society blocks them from being available to the public. Their official excuse is, ‘all of the present knowledge is the hard work of previous mages of the Mage society and to share their knowledge freely would hinder the advancement of magic and hinder the minds of future innovators, earn it by contributing.’
It is an inspiring statement, at least partially, but the truth is that to contribute to the community one has to learn basic knowledge first. To do that there must be basic theoretical knowledge available. But all of this knowledge is also being hoarded by the mage society, and sure they will allow prospective mages to learn them freely, but only under the conditions that they sign a contract with the mage society.
It is a magical contract that can bind people mystically, if someone breaks these contracts there will be a backlash that may even lead to the death of the violator. Only the mage society can make these magically binding contracts, it is one of the trump cards held by them to be a hegemon in the continent.
Finished browsing through the book, Markus again got back to casting ‘luminous orb’ and making it brighter. He kept trying to adjust the structure according to what he knew, trying to find out what controlled this spell's brightness. Even after a dozen or so tries, he couldn’t figure it out.
Becoming frustrated he stopped his experiments. ‘I need a time out.’ It’s really frustrating for him to be stuck on basic stuff like this. If he could find some ways to get his hands on at least the basic knowledge, he could be miles ahead of where he is now. Looking outside from his window he started to think of a plan.
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A week later he finds himself with three kids, not normal ones also, three budding mages. Apis, Philip and Greta, all three of them are apprenticing to become mages. There are not many mages to go around as much as hybrid warriors and as birds of the same feather flock together these three also stuck together. All three of them lived in the same neighbourhood as Markus, so he had seen and talked with them before but weren’t exactly friends.
Normally he avoids associating himself with kids as honestly, he was too old for that. The reason for his initiation to befriend these three is simple, they had knowledge he did not. Apis’s father held a senior position in the local mage society branch. This was the easiest way Markus could come up with to get access to the information he needed.
He felt somewhat bad about befriending three kids just for materialistic reasons. But he wasn’t here to harm them in any way or hinder them in their path. He will help out them as well and remember this favour.
Boom! The temperature around suddenly spiked as Markus and Greta looked up from their books.
A fire was raging just about 20 metres away from where both were sitting. As the fire receded, came the sound of arrogant laughter. A childish face covered in sweat came into view, panting somewhat.
“Did you see that? Markus, Greta? I blew up the whole dummy hahaha! Flame blitz spell is so overpowered. Hahaha! Finally, I can cast it.” Apis’s laughter continued.
“Yeah right, like someone will wait five minutes for you to finish your spell.” With that remark, the laughter died down. The one who gave the harsh comment was Philip, lazing around in the grass under a tree.
“Don’t say that Philip, it's his first time casting the spell, with practice he will get better. Nice work Apis.” sitting beside Markus, Greta voiced her congrats to her friend.
Although Markus also voiced some encouragement to Apis out loud, inside he was jealous vehemently, he also wanted to learn a spell like that. But he knew it was impossible for now. The only reason Apis can learn a spell like that was because of his father, even Philip and Greta don’t know spells of that level.
Apis came to the open hall where Markus and Greta were and sat down. “Give me a week, I’ll insta cast it. Then I’ll show you Philip” Apis shouted at Philip.
‘Kids, naive. He can’t perfect a spell at that level now, he doesn’t have the mental energy for that much control. He’ll at least need another 5 or 10 years. I bet I could do it now with my stats now. I can’t believe I’m envying a child’
“Yeah Apis, I’m sure with your talent you can learn it quickly” Markus satisfied his ego a little bit. Apis was arrogant by nature, and he was easy to keep satisfied with some flattery. Besides most of the books here were from him anyway. They were all at Apis’s place, in an open field used for training. This is the first time Markus has been here.
“You have been reading books since we got here Markus. And they’re all theoretical knowledge of magic. Why are you even reading them, it’s not like you’re a mage?” asked Apis when he saw Markus getting back to his book.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Markus lied about something else too, that he is not a mage and that he is training to become a warrior. A hybrid warrior. He wasn’t sure how they would react when he began reading their books, technically these were all mage society’s books and these three got them because they were apprenticing with the mage society. And from their parents too.
What would happen when they go home and say that they made a new friend. Their parents will be like, ‘oh what do you guys do with him?’ and the kids will answer ‘he is reading books all the time’ and their conversation could escalate to their parents questioning why is a non-apprentice reading books from the mage society.
Maybe he really is too paranoid, but Markus really didn’t want to limit his freedom by signing some magical contract, that wasn’t in him. So he went with a lie, saying he doesn’t have mental energy but it is his dream to become a mage. With this lie, he expects the previous conversation to be different.
When their parents question them about him reading magic books, their answers will be, ‘he is not a mage, he doesn’t have mental energy, but it’s his dream to become a mage’. Hopefully, he gets some sympathy points that allows him to stay with them for some time, especially because with Apis here, he gets to read some books that are not even available to other apprentices.
“I hope to apply some of these theories to when I fight using my affinity. I already got some ideas.” Markus answered Apis’s question.
“Oh yeah? You wanna test them now? I can help you.” with a smug look, itching for a fight Apis asked him.
“Later, you’re already drained.”
“What kind of ideas have you got? Tell me” Greta asked, who looked excited to talk about magic.
Greta is the only one in the group who seriously studies magic. Apis and Philip don’t really have the temperament a mage should have. Apis always wants to blow things up, and Philip is drowsy all day around. So it is mostly Greta and Markus chatting about mystical stuff together.
Seeing that Markus and Greta getting into their usual geek form Apis got up and went, shouting aloud about both of them being boring. Ignoring him, both Markus and Greta engrossed themselves in mystical secrets sharing their opinions. This was really helpful for Markus as he never really got to talk with mages about magic on a deep level like this. He really appreciates the new perspective this gives him about magic, he was self-taught and everything he knew are from books only, so talking like this gave him new inspiration.
As they were talking, only Greta cast spells to validate something they discussed about as in this scenario because of Markus’s lie he shouldn’t be able to cast spells.
When Markus saw a new interesting spell he asked about it, “What’s this spell? I have never seen this one. What does it do?”
“It’s called ‘Refracting light’, basically it allows a caster to bend light, not that great of a spell I know. But I heard that an upgraded version of this spell could be the ‘Invisibility spell’. It should be more vastly complex than this ‘Refracting light’, but the foundation for that spell should be this spell”
“That’s true, I remember something about ‘Invisible spell’ being connected to ‘Refracting light’ spell, I think my father mentioned it. But the invisibility spell isn’t that useful, it can only avoid sight. There are a lot of other ways to detect someone” Apis, who had appeared there at some point again, sat there eating something crunchy, while a small ball of fire danced around him.
“Really? Then most of the spells out there now must be based on or developed on these basic kinds of spell?” Greta said out loud what Markus was thinking to himself. ‘But still, Invisibility is a cool spell.’
“Yeah I guess, my ‘Flame blitz’ spell is also based on a basic ‘Fireball’ spell. Flame blitz’s main essence is it’s so much hotter than ‘Fireball’, I can make it even hotter by getting a little bit of practice, you’ll see.”
‘That must be true, but the spells that are available now must have had centuries of development by countless mages, I can’t possibly match that trying to develop advanced, complex spells on my own through these basic ones.’ Markus signed thinking about his bleak future.
‘I have to find spells through someway. I have already tried every shop here in Ravendel but all they have are very useless spells, the most complex spell I found from shops here is the ‘Cleanse’ spell. Do I try out of the city? Or maybe a black market? There must be some kind of black market running. There are always people wanting to buy things in unofficial channels or maybe even selling some illegal stuff.’
‘There must be a huge market for spells, especially with how overbearing the mage society is. The problem is how am I gonna find them? They must be hidden very deep to stay away from legal authorities. If it is harder for them to find these black markets, it’s gonna be even more difficult for him to find them.’
“Greta where did you find the ‘Refracting light’ spell? Did you buy it from a shop around here” ‘Are there any shops he didn’t know about?’ Markus was really curious as he had never seen this spell.
“No, I borrowed a book from a senior, it has a lot of spells like these basic ones. The spell was from there”
“Oh”
“Do you want to see it, I have the book with me now?”
“Can I? I mean is it okay? Aren’t those spells supposed to be restricted?”
“It’s fine silly, it’s not like these are advanced spells. Besides, what are you gonna do? Learn them?” Greta asked while giggling, different from her usual shy self.
‘That’s exactly what I’m gonna do.’ “You’re right, thanks.” ‘Geesh I’m such a douche, tricking little kids like this. Remember these favours now Markus and pay them back in the future.’ While laughing at his own hypocrisy, he took the book and checked it out.
There were some spells that Markus had never seen before, but as Greta had said all of these are very simple spells, nothing complicated. Other than the ‘Refracting light’ there were some spells that caught his eye. ‘Camouflage’, ‘Ignite’ and ‘Amplify Illusion’.
Camouflage spell lets a person hide in plain sight, but it is not that sophisticated of a spell, if a person really pays attention he may notice the camouflage.
The spell ‘Ignite’ can directly ignite something. If the spell is targeted at a piece of paper the paper may catch on fire directly, there will be no flame going from the caster to burn the piece of paper, the paper will suddenly just catch fire.
‘Amplify illusion’ can amplify a sensation or feeling of a target. If a person was feeling a heat, the spell will amplify that feeling of heat. The target will not literally burn, the target will only feel the increased heat. It will not really work on a sentient being as there are no real illusions involved but maybe can use it to scare some monsters.
Quickly Markus remembered as much as possible of the spell models so that he can note these down at home. This was the only time Markus saw any kind of spells from these three. What they mostly read were theoretical books on magic. The spells they had were learned from the mage society and they weren’t allowed to bring any books containing spells outside. So this opportunity might be the only chance he gets to read a book containing spell models from these three.