Elas stood in front of the cabin's main table. His hands were raised in front of him, palms facing down towards the table. The table was covered in black skystone sand, each grain a near perfect sphere a millimeter in diameter.

The grains of sand danced and snaked on the tabletop rapidly transitioning from shape to shape according to Elas’s will. He glared at the table with his full attention. Scrutinizing every piece of sand daring any to disobey his will.

Each skystone grain was a tiny fragment of great floating islands that had long since fallen from the sky as the magic of the world waned. Even when undoubtedly a degenerated form of grander materials the skystones were still a sought after magical resource. For one thing they had become the standard practice tool for improving mana control. Their light weight and incredible mana conductivity allowed even an apprentice to practice with them for hours with little fatigue.

Elas had awoken before sunrise after only a couple hours of sleep which he supplemented by drinking a higher dose of vigor potion than his usual. The gnawing need to make sure his magic had not deteriorated due to the haphazard fusion of two minds had made it impossible to get any real sleep. He had found himself testing his mana control for the past two hours.

Mana danced under his control, forming the sand into beautiful recreations of the paintings he remembered from his time in the capital and from Earth. His control was immaculate which alleviated his concerns somewhat.

This result supported his theory that the strangeness he felt while moving was due to having two conflicting sets of memories to take from. He only had one set of memories pertaining to magic discounting fiction stories which was probably the reason his skill in the area was unchanged.

With a wave of his hands he directed all the sand back to the vial they came from. Now that he has confirmed that he could still control his mana properly it was time for a practical test.

He walked towards his collection of staves by the fireplace. Each staff was unique in its material and shape. Staves are what one would call a ritual focus. Their material and shape were custom built to aid with the casting of specific spells. The unique shape of each staff head was a cheat sheet that the mage references while casting while its materials help filter the specific type of mana needed for the spell. Staves were to a mage as measuring tools are to an engineer it wasn't impossible to do one's job without one but it sure would be far harder and less precise.

Mages of course had space within their mage heart for keeping their most important spells ready at all times. But using such spell structures causes them to fade and soon enough one had to take several hours to entire weeks just to repair one's repertoire.

Elas himself only had four spells in his mage heart all of which were for alchemy. He had a spell for fire manipulation and ice manipulation which were primarily for controlling temperature during alchemy. He also had lesser earth manipulation and a standard kinesis for controlling materials inside his cauldron. All the spells themselves were incredibly versatile as they were general control spells allowing him to emulate most other fire, ice, earth and force spells albeit with much more effort and immense cost compared to using specific spell structures. And with just those four spells his mage heart was at its limit. To be fair, general manipulation spells tend to be several times larger and more complicated than more specific spells.

He picked a dark metal staff that was perfectly straight and had few adornments. Its head resembled an ominous hand grasping toward the sky. It used to be his combat staff before he succeeded his father and claimed the family heirloom. The staff looked simple because it was simple. It was for casting firebolt, his favored combat spell.

Fireball was a simple spell that tended to be the very first combat spell apprentices learn. Firebolt was its more complex cousin. Instead of compressing fire magic into an explosive orb. Firebolt heats material, shapes it into a projectile then accelerates it with kinesis. One can technically use anything as material but solids with high thermal mass were preferred. Elas usually just used rocks and soil as ammunition.

The average journeyman imperial soldier can take a fireball to the face and come out of it horrifically burned but alive. The same soldier would not have a head left if a firebolt hits him. Of course battle mages specializing in fireball could enhance the normally underwhelming spell to an absurd degree but Elas was no battlemage and he had no plans to change profession.

Elas stared down at his messy robe. There was little point in taking a bath right before he walked around the forest and got dirty again. Nonetheless he grabbed a bundle of clothes from his wardrobe and a potion of warmth from his alchemy shelf. There should be plenty of small streams on his path now that the snow is starting to melt he could bathe on his way back.

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Elas stuffed a ration brick into his mouth and drank water as he chewed. He expected this outing to take the better part of the day. Practicing his motor skills until he was confident at not messing up tomorrow's ritual will take hours. The receiving ritual wasn't even close to being physically demanding as far as mass rituals go but it was several hours of standing while waving his hands around.

He grabbed a bottle of salt, sulfur, mercury and a bunch of other mundane ritual materials and stuffed them into a cloth bag with his clothes. He was not going to waste actual precious material for his tests so these would do.

Soon enough he was standing outside the door staring down at the town. Upon seeing the main hall from afar Elas could not help but be tempted to go down for a proper breakfast. He had been fine munching on his ration bar for months on end before but now he had new temptations.

He shook his head as he turned towards the opposite direction. The great northern forest was just a hundred meters away. He started walking towards the forest. Throwing powerful and noisy magical projectiles anywhere near town was one way of getting the citizens to hate him so he had to travel some ways into the wilderness for his tests.

Upon reaching the forest's edge he stretched out his hand and touched the nearest tree. He sent a short pulse of magic into the tree informing the forest that he was going to enter. It was an ancient custom that the empire's citizens usually forgo but his years spent in Farhaven had made him wise about minimizing friction with the denizens of the ancient forest.

He walked while sprinkling sulfur powder on his path every few minutes. He traveled for an hour until he came upon a large boulder the size of a standing cow. He decided he was far enough away from Farhaven and laid down his bag.

First things first he placed his right hand on the boulder and sent a calm wave of mana into it spreading quickly around the area respectfully alerting any nearby magical creature to his presence. The forest rustled as weaker creatures fled from the surroundings not intelligent enough to understand the nuance of the message. A few moments later he felt waves of mana being sent as a reply from far away. The lack of close challenges meant that his claim on the area was recognized.

Without a doubt he was within the territory of one or more of the forest's denizens but territorial lines among the creatures here were fluid and ever changing. As a powerful mage few creatures would take overt offense at him claiming his own share of space. Beings of power had long since learned to live and let live as long as there is no unforgivable transgression committed. Fights between the powerful tend to be crippling to both sides.

After claiming his practice ground he walked back to where he dropped his bag and prepared to start his practice.

Firebolt was a four component spell with three kinetic spells and one fire spell. The imperial college of sorcery had greatly favored this type of spell structures with the belief that separating spells into basic components would make them easier to understand, maintain, and improve.

Elas had no real expertise on the topic of spell structures. The only spells he can claim to be an authority on were his family's own alchemy centric manipulation spells.

Firebolt was the first combat spell he learned that was both simple and effective and as such he immediately gravitated towards it as the path of least resistance. He was an imperial alchemist after all so he expected to be well protected by the empire's finest soldiers. Oh how wrong he was. Turns out the eternal emperor really liked to go on hunts and he expects all members of his inner court to go with him.

Elas became adept at casting firebolt out of necessity. When the Eternal Emperor points at you to have the honor of slaying whatever beast had been tracked down you better perform.

He flipped his staff so that the grasping hand was pointed towards the ground. then sent his mana into it to activate the greater heat spell component. The ice beneath the staff instantly melted as the fingertips of the metal hand glowed from the intense heat being generated.

Elas stabbed the staff into the snow until it reached solid ground. Scalding steam hissed into the surroundings as the extreme heat vaporized the snow around the staff. It didn't take long before the heat had carbonized the biomass in the soil surrounding the staff head and the remaining material started to turn into a molten mess. He then pushed his mana activating the shape projectile kinetic component which took some of the molten slag and formed it into a more aerodynamic shape. Before the projectile even formed he quickly activated the kinetic hold spell component to hold the projectile in the middle of the grasping hand as it formed into its final pointy shape.

Elas held the staff as still as he could. His hand had a slight tremor that irritated him but thankfully it wasn't bad enough to disrupt the spell. Finally the hard part was here. Elas prepared to aim the staff while the kinetic magic was active.

The kinetic hold spell was one of the simplest kinesis spells in existence and as such it lacked any complicated movement compensation substructures. For a spell so simple the substructure would be several times the size of the original spell and simply not worth it. In order to move the spell Elas needs to move both the spell structure and the physical projectile at the tip of his staff in near perfect sync. He imagined a smooth path from the ground where the staff head was towards the position where it would be pointing towards the boulder and took a firm hold of the spell structure before willing it to follow the path. At the same time he tried to move his body to trace his imagined path as closely as possible and immediately failed at doing so. His unsteady hands caused the staff to shake a little at the very start of the movement which resulted in the kinesis spell losing hold and the molten projectile falling back into the ground. As he expected this was going to take a long time.