In an instant, I could sense the mana flowing through my body. I could feel my mana core in my stomach, and I could feel a significantly smaller concentration of mana near my heart. The mana needed to travel from my stomach to my heart for me to use it.
As I fed my mana into the spell, mana flowed from my heart into the spell. A second later, mana from my stomach flowed up to my heart to replace the spent mana. The flow between the two cores was slow, however, and it would take about ten seconds for my upper core to refill.
The great talpa roared and tried to lung toward me. After the second ice spear, it noticed my presence. The ground cracked beneath it, and its claws began to bleed faster, but the ice shards kept it pinned in place.
My wand flashed twice more, and I flew into the air. My upper core was almost depleted of mana because of me casting the two spells so quickly, but it refilled by the time I had flown into position.
I righted my orientation to get a better shot, and I released the last two ice spears at the great talpa’s rear claws. The spears hit their marks, pinning the great talpa more thoroughly to the ground. It screeched and thrashed, but all it managed to do was fall onto its side.
I flew about a dozen meters into the air and looked down at the wounded talpa. I could have killed it with Hellfire by heating it so much that its insides cooked, but that would have rendered its carapace unrecognizable. No, for my plan to work, I needed to pull a trophy out of this creature’s carcass.
It was time for me to use my ultimate attack. There was one spell I learned under Beltane’s tutelage that was far stronger than any spell I could reasonably cast at my level. Under most circumstances, I could not use the spell in combat. It simply took far too long to cast. This, however, was the perfect situation for me to use that spell.
I made an arcane sign with my free hand to serve as the somatic component for the spell as I started chanting. “Confirma magicae, di potentes, di silvestres, di daemones ultores. Exalta me usque ad mundum geometrica…”
That was called ritual casting. By increasing the length of the incantation by one minute, a mage could temporarily increase his casting level by twenty. Casting as a ritual also allowed the caster to spend much more time pouring mana into the spell. For someone like me who had a massive mana reserve and an unimpressive mana conductivity, it meant that I could put way more mana into the spell.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
As I chanted the spell, I spent every second pouring more and more mana into the spell. By the time I was done, I had poured 120 mana into the spell. The air around me fizzled with arcane energy, and bright flashes of electricity sparked through the air. My hair stood on its end as the air near me became massively charged. The crackling of the air became so loud that I had to shout to hear myself as I reached the end of the ritual.
“Mysteria mihi universi pande. Obsecro ut hoc facere.” I reached the end of the generic empowerment part of the ritual, and the arcane power surrounding my body reached a fever pitch. All that was left was to chant the spell and craft the arcane energy into the right form. “Sagitta fulgur!”
The oppressive layer of energy that was weighing down on my body suddenly dissipated as all of it was funneled into a single spell. A line of blinding light arced between me and the great talpa’s midsection. The main body of the conjured lightning bolt hit its target squarely, but several smaller bolts struck the ground near the tulpa with cataclysmic force.
Wherever my roiling bolt of pure electricity hit the ground, sand turned into glass and rock turned into magma. Even I was surprised by the apocalyptic force of the attack.
A fifty-centimeter diameter cylinder of flesh in the great talpa’s body was instantaneously vaporized. Simultaneously, millions of volts coursed through its body, causing it to convulse and spasm as its muscles were tightened by the electric current. The heat of the lightning bolt dealt minimal damage compared to the voltage. The great talpa’s organs and nervous system were instantaneously destroyed long before it stopped moving. It only continued to move because it was motivated by the electrical current still moving through its body.
A smile appeared on my face as I adjusted my vision to look at the long line of fire that started at the corpse of the great talpa and extended into the forest for about a hundred meters. Dozens of trees had fallen to the ground, and a small brushfire had started underfoot. My lightning bolt had escaped my control for an instant, allowing it to wreak havoc on the local wildlife.
There it was, evidence of the power that I had acquired over the past six years. I had set off that day with the intent to kill a great talpa, and I had done it easily. I looked at the small canyon my lightning bolt had carved into the ground and imagined how else I could use such power.
Level up!
The System informed me that I had just reached level 20. This would open up a whole new world of spells for me to learn. Reaching that level also meant that I would be able to ritual cast spells that were locked to level 40 casters. Here, in front of me, was the power for which I had given up my comfortable childhood. This was the product of those six years of training.
As the forest burned and the massive beast finally stopped moving, I laughed, joyful to see the evidence of my own power.