Sorrinn’s mind was plunged into deep focus as he directed the waves of his mystic wealth through the spell pathways resulting in Stone Shard. It was the spell he spent the least time optimizing since he didn’t believe he’d rely on it much in the future. Be that as it may, he still wanted to demonstrate good results to Lua when he returned to her. He couldn’t hone every other spell, then cough up something pitiable yet passable with Stone Shard. That wasn’t his style.

After minutes of focusing, his mystic energy reached the actualization threshold. The imperceptible substance flooded out of him like a tempestuous windstorm centered around himself. The grass hissed and raved whilst his long strands of hair danced atop his head. Those distorting, hissing, whispering waves of force soon descended over him. They caressed his body, drowning him in a sense of euphoria, before grabbing at the threads of his limbs. His left arm swept halfway to the side, palm open, then swept back, opened hand bundling into a trembling, unrelenting fist shaking before his chest. That fist tensely unlocked, his quivering fingers like claws. At that moment, a galaxy-ressemblent vortex of dust particles rushing in from nowhere coalesced into an asymmetric, spear-tipped shard of brown rock above his palm.

Sorrinn snapped back to his senses. He’d once again cast magic he didn’t remember executing. That whole thing about Luminaries was true, he supposed. Despite his absence, the wisdom was burned into his pathways. The shard wasn’t that long, nor that sharp when he poked his finger at its point. In fact, it looked awfully porous, and small pieces of sand were already crumbling off. If he instilled it with a great enough intent of acceleration, it would definitely hurt, but he was dubious of its lethality if striking anywhere save the head.

Out of curiosity, he pushed more of his mystic energy through the activated spell current—a small amount. More materialized dust rushed to the formation and added to its scale. It was larger by about ten percent, but it hadn’t become any sharper, nor any sturdier. The added volume was still porous and crumbly, a wrong breath away from exploding into fine sand over his hand.

He extended his hand forward, then surged a moderate intent of acceleration through the current. The shard fired forward with an arrow’s speed; however, the pressure of the wind resisting against it proved too much for its integrity to bear. It evaporated into dust riding the breeze after perhaps twenty feet of distance.

He wowed at how useless the spell at its base level was. Considering the shard’s integrity would falter quicker if he fired it any harder, its effective range was abysmal. Someone would have to be in lunging range to get any mileage from it, and it’d necessitate a lot of focus on that one spell to reach a point where he could evoke it faster than a man could lunge at him with a knife. There must’ve been a way to amp its density, but pouring more energy into it only seemed to make it grow.

Reflecting on it, he had observed an order of operations to Creation spells. First was a window for expending additional wealth to increase the spell’s volume, then a window for expending wealth to increase the spell’s acceleration. Things such as what matter or energy was created, spell effect, and shape were defined through the mystic pathways pre-actualization, unable to be influenced. But what if he was wrong in parts of that assumption? What if there was another window earlier in the order of operations preceding the window for defining the volume he was overlooking dedicated to expending wealth to amplify the stone’s density? Perhaps somewhere during the period where the matter was materializing and starting to coalesce.

Eager to test his theory, he spent another few minutes reaching the actualization threshold for Stone Shard. His energies rose and The Mystic Force cascaded. He executed the form to precise perfection, and as the particles of dust vortexed toward a central point above his palm, he injected more energy into the process. The dust proliferated, swarming like locusts, compacting with such ardor, he could feel the exhaling heat against his skin.

That time, the asymmetric shard born was solid, of a smooth, tough, dark gray, white-streaked stone, and was sharp enough at the point for his finger to leap away upon instinct when he sampled its sharpness. Not a fleck of dust was forfeited from its form. But he could also feel the toll on his wealth as evidently as he could discern the spell’s superiority to what he’d first produced.

He then introduced more wealth, growing the spell to be taller and wider than himself. The added density made increasing scale even more wealth-devouring. It felt as if the void was slurping up his mystic energy like a ramen noodle from a bowl of broth. His wealth was hacking and wheezing by the time he finished growing it to the desired size, so he dropped it on its wide, flat base in front of him. Why he’d created it: The plain was barren short of a few far between saplings. He was in need of a durable practice target for future sessions.

*Bing*

[+1! Arcana has increased to 39!]

Almost there toward the halfway point to his PV’s cap. Though he could already feel the frequency relative to the expended effort declining. It was only going to get grindier the higher he climbed. It felt like exploring new things related to the attribute provided a good burst of attribute experience. Core revelations and insights provided the most like when he discovered his mystic wealth. New experiences and new training methods provided chunks. And repeated training provided experience toward diminishing returns which seemed to be able to be bumped back up through the acquisition of XP-boosting skills and leveling them up.

Speaking of leveling up skills, he still wasn’t sure how to do so.

Sorrinn collapsed against the large shard’s side. He still had more in him—not a lot; enough to get more spells off with, of course—but he was a touch winded. He paused to replenish some of his wealth and catch his breath.

His gaze bound across the plain, to where Asammirr and co played. His brother was play-dueling the Eldradimon child while the others made shrill, rambunctious noise sources of themselves around them. To Sorrinn’s surprise, his brother was actually quite dextrous and quick-footed. It was all fun and games, but Asammirr came at his friend with the intensity and poise of a natural-born warrior. The swings of his stick were ferocious as well. The power they boasted was evident in the way the Canid Eldradimon stumbled and staggered every time their pretend blades clashed, almost as if he was getting manhandled by an adult twice his size.

Maybe his brother’s calling was actually martial arts instead of the mystic arts? That was weird. But, Sorrinn supposed his brother was only a Half-elf. To inherit Elven features so heavily only to bear more humanly skills was a tasteful case of cosmic irony. Especially considering how lacking his own physical abilities were. He was more Human-looking while having inherited a more stereotypically Elven skill set.

Anyway, Sorrinn hopped up and got back to it. He couldn’t do anything crazy, but he was curious what happened to the other spells when he fueled their first phase with more wealth.

Wind Burst was the spell that intrigued him the most. It was also the spell he’d dedicated the most time to increasing his suffusion efficiency with. Minor spells could have their suffusion efficiency honed easily and quickly enough once the first run was complete, so he’d worked the time it took to infuse the spell route from start to finish to just under a minute. As far as being battle-ready went, fifty-eight seconds was still too long to be viable. A little more optimizing and it’d be down to ten seconds under in no time. Mind you, every time he actualized a spell, the spell route was optimized further as well.

He reached the actualization threshold and The Mystic Force descended, guiding his motions to complete the process. That time, he was able to cling to his senses amid the waves of pleasure by clinging to his focus. Beyond his control, his right hand gracefully gyrated at the wrist in a smooth vortexing motion as his fingers flourished akin to sweeping wind. A windstorm whirled around his fingers, meandering down his palm, and cycloned around his wrist. All the while, he poured more wealth in at the earliest window. The winds became more compact and plentiful as a result. Nothing was visible, but it felt like a boa constrictor slithered and clenched around his hand.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He extended that hand toward the large shard he’d created, then fired a spark of accelerating intent. A concentrated, concussive pulse of wind thoomed into the stone, sending it sliding a minuscule distance back. The force of his own spell slammed against and tossed him. He flew short of six feet. His back struck the ground hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. He wrestled for a breath, but nothing answered his effort. Then all of the air rushed in at once in a series of long gasps.

The tears already wetted his eyes. He screamed at himself to not cry on the inside. Overcoming the youthful urges brought on by injury was difficult, nonetheless.

He really needed to stop putting himself into such conditions. Smelly physics.

He was good—no need for tears. Climbing to his feet, he cast Wind Burst again, that time testing the spell in its simplest form. It was significantly less powerful. It burst forward with the intensity of an adult Human male’s punch. It was more like a shockwave that dispersed outward from a central point, however, as opposed to a bundle of mass propelled by the rest of the body. The kinetic energy dispersed quickly, limiting its effective range to five or six feet before that punch became more like a mild shove.

*Bing*

[+1! Arcana has increased to 40!]

Sorrinn was surprised how powerful the minor spells could become merely through dumping more wealth into them. Their baselines were borderline useless, but give Stone Shard density plus adequate speed and it would easily skewer a grown man through and through. Then again, perhaps that was precisely why they were minor spells: their baseline functionality combined with their simplicity to discover and master. Higher-tiered spells likely offered more function at their baseline without the need of spending more wealth to amplify them to make them usable in exchange for following more complex spell routes.

And also, he’d have to run it by Lua or Orrillimmirr, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility he was a gross outlier. He was only four and his Arcana was already pushing forty CV. That couldn’t have been standard even amongst Asuuriian Elves. Odds were, the typical practitioner wouldn’t be able to amp their minor spells much with the capacity of wealth available to them when they started. If they started too late in life, all they’d be able to manage was baseline minor spells of Creation, at that. His perspective was polluted due to his circumstances as a reincarnation.

He moved on to Aqua Shot. His hands arose before his chest, gracing a circular motion like flowing water into perfect parallel arcs—one above, one below. Molecular droplets of water formed from nothing in the circular space between his hands and coalesced into a burbling sphere the size of a tomato. He shot its simplest form at the stone construct. The construct didn’t even budge as the water orb splashed pitifully against its face.

He proceeded to cast it a few more times to experiment with its amplifications. Providing the spell with more density strangely made the water solid without it being frozen at all. Nonetheless, the moment he released it from his control, it exploded in his face. The moment the spell was free, all of that packed in density came bursting outward.

Interestingly, he discovered he could also either cause the water orb to boil, at which it quickly evaporated, or to freeze. So not only was the initial window for density, but also the introduction of heat-inducing and cold-inducing energies. That was interesting since cold was nothing more than the absence of heat. It seemed he was rousing an energy that was the antithesis of heat—an elemental frost, of sorts.

He learned in following tests the addition of hot/cold energy always preceded the packing of density in the order of operations. They were perhaps different phases entirely in the order, both with itty-bitty windows to influence at the head. Did that mean he could create a magma shard if he flooded an excess of energy into Stone Shard, and create both blasts of sweltering and frigid air if he played with the variety of energy in Wind Burst? He was starting to get excited.

Last of the spells he wanted to explore was Firebolt. His finger met his thumb and his hand raised to chest-level danced a mesmerizing motion kindred to flickering candle flame. Then he snapped. A small, burning spark of spherical flame ignited above his two extended fingers. He could tell off a glance it wasn’t much. The other flame spell may have been a higher-tier evolution of that one. Curious, he cast it at the practice target. The small flicker of flame raced from point A to B. The flames comprising its form rapidly dispersed when it connected, bathing the stone’s top-half in a shroud of lingering flames.

That was the differentiator. Firebolt didn’t host any explosive force; it was a conductor for engulfing whatever it hit in fire, which was actually useful by itself. He could easily imagine adding frost to it so the dispersion radius was smaller and using it whenever he needed fire.

If he’d cast Firebolt instead of the other flame spell at the time, he would’ve simply burned his house down when the flames dispersed out of control the instant it struck the wall. Fortunately for him, he was a freak of nature whose first spell was a second-tier spell that forced its way through the wall rather than the more problematic first-tier spell that would’ve firebombed his house down to the frame.

He pondered experimenting with adding heat and density to the spell, but… Adding heat would be increasing the temperature. Adding tightly-sealed density would cause the temperature to spike even further and probably produce some crazy reactions. Increasing the temperature enough would be akin to creating a plasma bomb-in-waiting which would pack some major insalubrious effluvium, as his father would put it. And with all of that squeezed in density waiting to expand at the first viable opportunity… He was good on that one. No way, Jose. Imagination would have to suffice until he gained more fluency and control in general.

By then, he was running on mystic fumes, anyway. He spent the rest of his day resting against the side of his makeshift practice target. Watching Asammirr and his friends goofing around, roughhousing, and laughing in that peaceful, undisturbed bubble of theirs was actually rather entertaining. He wondered if he’d ever know close bonds like that with someone he wasn’t blood-related to. He didn’t know if he was in the right state of mind for nurturing and maintaining friendships, either or. It felt like between ascending and his family, his bandwidth was already stretched too thin to stitch in anymore.

For that reason, he was of the mind to avoid friendships altogether even if they reared. Because it wouldn’t have been fair to the other person who would deserve more of his effort and time than he was honestly willing to offer. His priorities were his family and becoming as strong as possible so he could always live how he pleased and be his own person. If it was the last thing he did, he’d affirm he would never die such a pitiable death as such a pathetic and tragic person in his new life.

At the head of dusk, all of his older brother’s friends bid their goodbyes and left for home. Asammirr came to fetch Sorrinn where he sat against the asymmetric stone pillar. “My friends saw you practicing. They think you’re cool now.” He laughed. “They wanted to come over, but I told them nah. They really, really, really wanna see that spell now though.” He offered his hand to his little brother.

Looking up at that softly smiling face from below, Sorrinn knew then they would grow up to be good friends. He accepted his brother’s hand and Asammirr yoinked him to a stand. “Kay, Sammi. Next time.”

“Asammirr. My name is not that hard to say. C’mon, just try to say it once.” Asammirr held up a lone finger. “Once. Please.”

Sorrinn bore in his heels, repeating with a big grin, “Sammi!”

A series of sharp, mirthful exhales blowing from his nose, Asammirr scooped Sorrinn up by his armpits and tossed him over his shoulder. Effortlessly, at that. He truly was strong beyond his years.

Sorrinn yelped, caught unawares. The next he knew, he was kicking and laugh-screaming as he hung over his brother’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “What are you doing!? Put me down, put me down!” He screamed bloody murder.

Little bother in tow, Asammirr began on the way home. “I will if you call me Asammirr.”

“Never! Sammi, Sammi, Sammi!” Sorrinn’s shrill voice playfully whined in perpetuity.

Asammirr bobbed his shoulders in playful indifference. “Then nah, you can stay like that till we get home.”

Sorrinn kicked, screamed, and made a dramatic fuss every step of the way.