Vel and I left the clinic and went home directly. After the crowded ceremony and long afternoon, I wanted to spend some quality time with my girlfriend. I prepared two bowls of salad for us. The base was a mix of leafy greens, the crunchy texture and fairly neutral taste went with everything. Then I added some cut vegetables on top and seeds for garnish. To finish it, I sprinkled a vinegar and oil based sauce on top.
"Oh, it looks delicious," Vel said.
"I wanted to make something nice for you," I said, "even if it's not fancy."
"I prefer simple when it comes to your cooking," Vel teased me, "I still remember …"
I shut her up by kissing her. There would be no more talk of the venison incident, ever. We moved to the garden outside the house and found a nice and comfortable spot under a tree. Vel leaned against me and started to nibble on her salad.
"So, how was your day," Vel asked.
"Desk duty," I said, "I had plenty of time to read. Lots of theory."
"Hmmmm. Aelrie had me practice my new skills in the greenhouse. It's … hard to describe. I can do so much now and … feel so much. About the plants."
"Not too overwhelming? I remember when I unlocked Mana Perception, so many headaches."
The perk had appeared by itself when my system had finished forming. Now it was just a part of my life, the subtle currents of mana flowing all around, suffusing everything and everyone.
"Not that bad and I need to channel it."
"Good," I nodded.
"I haven't tried any spells yet," Vel said, "Aelrie had me memorize a few earth and healing spells but I didn't get to cast them."
"I didn't even go that far."
"I bet you were way too fascinated by the theory," she teased.
"You know me so well."
We finished our meal leisurely, Vel talked more about what her Plant Shaman class was capable of. It was based around the Plant Control skill, not too surprising, and Plant Growth. For the moment, she couldn't control too many plants at once or grow them that fast but the advantage of focused classes was the high scaling. Skills simply got better faster than generalist classes.
"Let's do some magic," I pulled out the spell book from my bag.
There were three requirements to cast a spell. Having the required magic skill to convert raw mana into the right type, having a high enough level to cast it, and enough memory slots available. Currently, I could cast either level one or two spells depending in which slot I saved them.
I focused on the page and, with some effort, I managed to memorize the first level fire spell, Flame Dance.
Spells were represented by what was commonly referred to as a magic circle, though it was a bit of a misnomer since they could take other geometric shapes as well. Each pattern had sigils and pathways to guide and modify the flow of mana to form the effect. Nature spells had organic-looking patterns of elegant curves and swirly sigils.
Casting was instinctive. I let the skill guide me and pushed a small amount of mana outward. The small magic circle formed on top of my index finger and a flame the size of my fist appeared above it.
"Try not to set anything on fire," Vel said.
With Mana Perception, I could see the flow of magic through the spell. How it changed flavor from raw mana to nature mana as it traveled through my arms and its change to magical flame as it passed through the circle. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to decipher the spell circle itself. It seemed that I was limited to observing only the effect of the spell but not its inner workings.
"I have it under control," I said with a smile.
I move the flame around my hand, the spell consumed a trickle of mana while active. I pushed more mana into the construct and a second flame appeared opposite the first. The strain on my mind increased slightly, there was a limited volume and quantity of fire I could control with this spell. Satisfied, I cut the flow of mana to the spell and the flames fizzled out of the air harmlessly.
"That was pretty cool," Vel said, "let's see …"
I watched the mana coalesce around her. A spell circle appeared under her hand and the earth around her bubbled. A clump of dirt raised up in the air and Vel started to shape it into different forms. She started with a sphere and moved on to more complex shapes, a blade, a leaf, a tree.
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"Impressive," I said, "did you get Mental Mastery?"
"Yes, Aelrie told me to pick it. It helps with visualization."
I gave Vel a kiss and returned back to the spell book. With three major slots and five minor, I planned to dedicate at least one of each to healing. The obvious choices were Rejuvenation and Cleanse, the first one was a flexible healing spell that could both heal instantly or over time and the latter was a multi-purpose poison and disease remover.
I watched Vel and she seemed to be absorbed in her own experimentation. The small spot we had chosen had already gained an impressive amount of greenery. The plants around her were growing and changing, wood and vines intertwined together to form shapes. The simple garden looked much more lively already.
On my side, I thought about which spells I wanted to memorize. Mystic Enhancement made a lot of spells redundant, a better option would be the elemental manipulation spells. They were versatile in exchange for raw power. A stone lance spell would do more damage to the target than a lance shaped with earth manipulation, but the latter could also make a wall from the same earth.
I had a good supply of essence, for twelve points, I could get both of my magic skills to the second rank and unlock more options and the option for higher level spells.
> Skill Nature Magic raised to rank 2, level 3 for 6 ES
> Skill Arcane Magic raised to rank 2, level 3 for 6 ES
Nature Magic - Rank 2, Level 3
Passive
Allows the conversion of internal mana into nature mana. Grants the ability to memorize and cast nature spells. Grants an intuitive understanding of nature spell patterns. Skill level increases available knowledge and elements.
Available Elements: Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Light, Void, Lava, Ice, Lightning, Mist, Shadow
Minor Spell Level: 2, Major Spell Level: 4
Arcane Magic - Rank 2, Level 3
Passive
Allows the conversion of internal mana into arcane mana. Grants the ability to memorize and cast arcane spells. Grants an intuitive understanding of arcane spell patterns. Skill level increases available knowledge and forms.
Available Forms: Pure, Light, Force, Shock, Frost, Scorch
Available Concepts: Conjuration, Alteration
Minor Spell Level: 2, Major Spell Level: 4
I paged further into the nature spell book to find the higher level spells. I chose Melody of Earth and Song of Thunder for my two remaining major spell slots. They were complementary, earth was more defense oriented while lightning was almost exclusively offense. For the four minor spells, I tried to round off my kit with utility. Flame Dance and Water Dance would be useful for the trial and for many other situations, it was always useful to have a portable lighter and water fountain. Finally I opted for Frozen Melody and Wind Overture, more situational elements that I wanted to explore.
----------------------------------------
After playing with nature spells for some time, I switched my focus to arcane. Unlike nature magic, which took existing natural forces and molded them, arcane magic was more about changing the rules. Both could create elemental effects like fire or ice but went about it in different ways. Arcane wasn't only about elemental effects either, it also allowed the manipulation of more abstract concepts like force, gravity, and even time.
The treatise on Arcane magic has plenty of theory but was sorely lacking on the practical side. It discussed some schemas and components of spells in detail but there weren't any complete spells. Or more precisely, no useful spells.
"I'm going to try spell crafting," I said to Vel.
"Already? Isn't that a bit … early?"
"I have no arcane spells for my Mystic class and the book Breknir gave me doesn't have any either."
"No real choice then," she said with a shrug, "is it dangerous?"
"Not for low level spells. It should just fizzle out."
The danger went up with higher spell levels of course. The more energy involved the higher the danger of an explosive failure.
I pulled out my study notebook and started to jot down ideas. As I pulled on the skill, I started to visualize the different glyphs and even partial spell circles in my mind. Unlike my Druid spells, those looked precise and orderly, more along the lines of an electronic circuit than a plant. Each component was connected to the other in precise ways with no flourishes, each sigil fulfilled only a single function.
I gnawed on the end of my pen. It almost felt like programming in a way, or hardware design. Though whoever had come up with this language needed to be shot, it was absolutely atrocious to work with for beginners.
The simplest spell I could come up with wasn't even first level, it was a cantrip. Probably the most useless cantrip I could have made, a light spell, but it was also dead simple. Turn mana into light. It was simple enough that it didn't need to be memorized, it could simply be cast as-is.
The small ball of light hovered above my palm and gave off a pale blue light like that of the crystals used to light the streets of Niu and illuminated the jungle.
"Congrats," Vel clapped.
"Thanks," I said with a smile on my face.
It was a small but important step forward. I looked around, most of the houses around the garden had dimmed their lights for the night.
"I think that's enough for today," I said as I kissed Vel, "we should go and sleep."
"Well, we can go to your room," she said. "But I don't want to sleep yet," she whispered in my ear.