Even with my recharge rate being what it was, that would take a LOT of time, and I wouldn’t even know if it was a proper spell if I got lucky.
On the other hand, I’d just been told that Humans had actually DONE it, which meant they’d either experimented for a long time, or something had instructed them on what to do... or there had been some correlation between being able to observe the instinctive and ‘natural’ power of the magical creatures here and breaking them down to Stars.
But... that was just Sorcery, not Wizardry, effectively imitating a Bloodline ability of Magical Creatures. That wasn’t how proper Wizardry worked. Wizardry broke it all down so they could see the working parts, and then put them together in different ways.
Thus, the Schools of Wizardry, how they put the spells together, disregarding biases in the energy involved... except for Necromancy, of course, which was basically as much Elemental as School, as negative energy didn’t easily fit into any other paradigm, unlike positive energy.
For now, accenting what I was doing was all that was going to happen.
Or was it?
------
My rep counts were done. I couldn’t get them in on Valence II’s, or do Meta II’s, like Split Ray, without the right Valences open.
It was still hours to dawn, and I had no idea how long this flight was going to take. We had already covered a few thousand miles, and more were ahead of us. I was pretty sure that if I took measure of the horizon, which looked pretty damn flat, I’d find that this world was considerably larger than Earth, which wouldn’t surprise me at all. If it was another plane, it could technically be infinite in size, simply growing to accommodate any additional need for territory.
That being said, King Cloud Moon was constantly using Air Magic, even if it was at a level and breadth of power I couldn’t emulate.
I didn’t care about his Great and Ubah Powah. I only cared about the fundamentals of it.
I flicked up Detect Magic out of a I Valence, for that extra edge of detail, and just reached out to look at his Aeromancy.
He was effectively generating a slipstream for himself while buoying himself up with the Elemental power, drifting along like a balloon on a tornado-class wind that was whisking him along under absolute control. It was basically a combination of flight and wind control of incredible scale, and he was maintaining it without effort.
Well enough. It was wrought out of Will and Elemental power, but the key here was the level of control, and how the magic was resonating with the effect. I reached out and simply bade my Stars to attempt to harmonize to it.
There was immediate overlap and clashing harmonics. I withdrew all but Windy, and without any conflict with the other Stars, he meshed easily into the flow of magic all about.
Without further ado, I tried the other Stars out, one by one, and for this effect, Water came second. Lightning came next, then Fire, was instantly counterbalanced by Ice, then Earth glimmered in sixth, and Light filled in last.
I had a line-up of Stars for this magic. It was as simple as that.
Was connecting them really so straightforward? The key was to maintain resonance. If it broke out of harmony, or gained greater harmony by doing it another way, that was definitely something to work on, right?
Connecting the Stars in this basic pattern wasn’t that hard, drawing energy out of my Core to bind them with arcane energy as they rotated around my Matrix, the arcs between them spinning and then being forcibly settled into the closest harmony I could manage as I made a pattern, fixing the Stars into a uniquely-shaped orbit.
I fixed the Pattern into memory, a three-dimensional spell, as I spent a Mana point, the lowest amount of Mana which could cause a change in the Stars themselves.
I couldn’t take control of the magic around here without his approval, but he didn’t resist as suddenly a new Wind synched into his own, and blew him along just a little bit faster.
“You practice Air Magic?” he hooted in consternation. “I sense nothing of the Wind upon you, although there is a touch of Fire and Cold...”
“Just harmonizing with your own magic, Elder,” I replied, letting the spell lapse. It wasn’t powerful enough to really do anything when measured against his own, like comparing a candle to a modern spotlight, or a hand-held battery-powered fan to a hurricane.
So... was the first Star of an Elemental magic here always the one for the Element? Water to determine its pathing type, bending the Wind and making it fluid. Lightning, why Lightning? Range, speed, forking? Fire, then Cold... sounded like a conflict of energy types, releasing more energy. Earth, and then Light. Stabilizing the spell, and tying it off with the Element that influenced it the least?
It would take a lot more experimentation to figure things out adequately. Now that meant adding the fourth-dimensional aspect to it: putting the Stars together in the right configuration, but not a linear order. Would that change anything?
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For instance, the back end of the spell seemed more about generating power, while the first part inspired the form. In particular, the Fire and Ice next to one another seemed almost cancelling one another’s natures out, while the Light ended the spell with controlled serenity.
Accordingly, I tried things a different way. I assigned Wind-Water-Lightning, then paired Fire and Ice, and hooked Light on at the same time as the first three, arcane sparks popping between the opposing Stars.
There was an immediate hum of Mana inside my head, louder than before. I had done Something Right, I just didn’t know what. The spell manifested more strongly than before, as the energy built up in Fire and Ice surged out under the pressure of the first four other Stars, but Light still calmed it all down.
I modified the Runic format with the new fourth-dimensional effort, noting the increased harmonization and flow-through of the spell, and began to experiment with other configurations and the timing, to see what happened.
This was what Wizards, did, playing with the Meta construction of the spells they knew. Sorcerers tended to discover the spells, but it was the Wizards who deconstructed them and worked out the parts. Sorcs might be better at using Metamagic effects, but it was the Wizards who discovered them to be put to use.
---
Delighted at finding the nature of the Stars themselves made it easier to figure out what they did, I spent the next few hours working on variations on the basic spell.
King Cloud Moon informed me that the basic Air spell among Humans was called Wind Trail, and involved setting up a stream of air in a particular line, either just to blow stuff around, or more often to speed up the mage running along the Trail, blowing them along at greater speed.
The Novice-level spell had three tiers, each one allowing you to lay more of the Trails ahead of time to run along, and increasing the speed of the Wind and so your own running speed. It still had the downer of needing to be set up ahead of time, although if you were running in a straight line, if you were really fast you could just set up multiple Trails in front of you and use the Wind to truly flee in a long line. The Wind also helped you perform swooping turns and jumping, and could cushion you if you fell from the sky, although it wasn’t strong enough to let you fly at this Tier.
When I wove a complex interplay of Winds into his own massive Trail, he congratulated me on my control and rapid mastery of basic Air movement, as expected of someone with a Will as developed as mine.
---
I had the impression that I could have promoted early, but the dawn came, and the Renewal I had coded into my magic ticked over, the Stars seeming to pulse and bow down in accordance with the new Rules of Magic I was layering over myself.
Arcane Theurge/1, conflate Valence I Wizard Spell Engrams with Sorcery Rune Engrams and Spell Slots! +1 to effective Level of one of the two Classes, meant to bridge the gap between the limitations of a Secondary Class and a Primary... and further helped along by the Helix Method!
+1 to Wizard it was!
Arcane energies wove between the two Valence sets, and they flowed into one another, my first Valences now one Valence Ring instead of two, both sets of Engrams playing happily together. The Stars tied to my Sorcery seemed delighted with the fact, discharges of arcane energy playing around the Spell Engrams and the new forms of patterns and energy they represented curiously.
Arcane Theurge gave no Favored Class bonuses, hit dice, Skills, or proficiencies, as it was an Advanced Class. I could still buy +1 Health and Soak towards my max, and a Paid Feat or Mastery... and, as it turned out, another Racial Feat, as I was also promoted to Human/4.
So be it. “For the Human Feat, let me reclaim Sustained Effort!” I stated calmly, even though a glance at my Assay indicated I wasn’t getting any bonus Stats from this yet. “For Arcane Theurge, War Magic Mastery/1, Delimit Spell, and Force Dart Reserve for the Feat!”
Giving me something to rapidly get Rep Counts in. Force Dart Reserve basically took the Dart Cantrip and tied it to my Valences, doing an additional d4 damage for every Valence Level, usable an unlimited number of times, but still short range. It was additional damage, not a new spell, and didn’t stack with Shardcasting... but more damage was more damage, and a potential 6d4 or higher Cantrip was a nice little add-on...
However, it was not a spell and technically you couldn’t Meta it... but you could add it onto a Meta’d spell, such as it were, for additional damage.
Most appropriately, however, it gave another +1 Caster Level when using Force Spells!
Human/4 didn’t come with the Sorcery increase, nor any real benefits... ah, it actually GAVE me a bonus Feat. I promptly spent it on Iron Will, +2 to Will Saves, as it seemed that was very important for the practice of magic hereabouts.
I also received 6 Skill Points, +6 for Intellect, +1 Human bonus, for 13, and my new Ranks Cap was 4, meaning I could go up instead of sideways.
Time to fill out my Extra Traits and get the last of them out of the way. Undead Killer should apply even if I personally hadn’t fought any undead yet, as Aelryinth totally had, and Warrior of Old was basically drawing off his combat experience to prepare me for real fighting.
Good enough for me!
Sustained Effort would be useless until I started gaining Class Levels and Stats with them, but that was fine. It would be in effect for when I got there.
Wisdom bonus spell was changed from Create Food to Bless Water, which would allow me to make Holy water. Now I just needed something to put said water in so I could use it as a material component for Water/Acid spells.
There were five known ways to increase the potency of Holy water. Use a +20 Alchemy check modifier, on top of the base 15 Spellcraft check to use a Ritual to make Holy water, and you could double the strength of it. It stacked, too, so the better you were at Alchemy, the stronger you could make it.
The more normal approach was combining doses for more damage, a measly 15 + 2 per vial Skill Check involved. The extra damage was only +2 per extra vial, but technically you could get the damage a lot higher than the +20 check, you just went through a lot of Holy water to do it.
Important if you had to pay for the silver component.
You could also temporarily Empower Holy Water for +1 damage per Caster Level, max +10, one vial at Caster Level 4, 8, and 12 each, lasting a minute per CL. Alchemists with the requisite Skills could also Empower Holy water, just like their Alchemy Bombs, while those who could Channel Divine Energy could learn to infuse it into vials for additional punch, turning them into both Holy water bombs or Healing Potions to hand out, for a certain amount of time.
Alchemical material components for spells were so fun to work with, and Holy water against undead or Fiends was just too sweet to pass up, especially Boosted Holy water! Just needed the time and materials...