Arriving at the information hub, Emily, Tom, aer all step out of the transportation room into the open hall. Emily walks towards a ter without aanding before it.
“Hello, how I help you?” the female clerk behind the ter says with a friendly smile.
“I’m here to cim a spell?” Emily questions, unsure of the exaswer to give.
“Sure, what is your he clerk asks while pulling a receiver crystal out from uhe ter.
“Emily Coldstone.”
The clerk closes her eyes and is mana into the crystal. After a few moments, she opens her eyes with a nod.
“Your first spell will be given for free, what element would you like?”
“Fire please.”
“Sure, one moment please.”
The clerk turns around and walks to the bank of drawers behind her, opening a few before returning with a sheet of part and a silver sb with plicated runes and a few crystals of different colours embedded onto its surface. She pces the sb onto the ter with the part id carefully on top of it before iing it with mana and closing her eyes.
The sb lights up with a blend of blue, green and red, as red letters slowly bleed through the page. After ten seds of elling, the clerk opens her eyes and removes the part from the sb. Carefully rolling it up, she hands the part to Emily and picks up the sb.
“Will that be all?”
“Yes, thank you.” Emily steps to the side to allow Tom access to the ter as she unrolls the part to take a look. Before she finishes opening the part, the clerk calls out to her.
“Ah, please don’t look at spells in public areas. While that’s only a first circle spell, it’s bad practice to risk letting another see it.”
Right, don’t do that ime.
Emily stands idly, waiting impatiently for Tom aer to finish as a realisation strikes her.
I don’t o keep up appearances if I’m going to reset, do I?
With her mind made up, Emily quickly walks back towards the transportation rooms, leaving Tom aer fused. She makes her way back to her room ales at her desk with the spell part id out before her.
Unravelling the paper, Emily finds a simple magic circle drawn.
The circle has five runes around its inner edge, some held within circles or eometric shapes. Throughout the circle are several lines woven together in interected arcs, eg some of the runes.
At the top of the paper, the name ‘Burning Hands’ is proudly written, and at the bottom, the t:
y palms with the fires of u
and sear my enemies with burning flesh.
Yikes, that sounds stupid. Do I have to say it every time I cast?
Choosing to ighe t for now, Emily stares at the magic circle iail, memorising the runes and their pt. The moment she finishes, a new system window pops up.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
Spell memorised: Burning Hands
Sub-system unlocked: Spellbook
_____
She quickly opeatus page and finds a ab at the top.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Spellbook]
First Circle:
-Burning Hands
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[Burning Hands]
[Circle:] First
[Cost:] 30 Mana/cast
[Description:] Summon a yer of fmes across the palms for ten seds.
_____
It didn’t record the t.
Noting the peculiarity, she shoves the thought aside and begins fog on the spell to try and activate it like a skill. After a few moments of fog on the spell, she realises that nothing is happening.
What was the Spellbook for then? I already remember the spell, though I guess it was like this with the blueprint tab. I’ll have to work out how to cast the spell myself.
sidering Jenny’s emphasis oal images, Emily closes her eyes and pictures her e and white fmes. Imagining the fmes coating the palm of her hand, she says the t aloud.
“y palms with the fires of u, and sear my enemies with burning flesh.”
Opening her eyes, she sees her bare hands before her without a ge.
Okay so the t itself doesn’t do anything. Ru is.
Fog on the spell name again, the magic circle instantly appears in her mind. Willing mana into the mental picture like with maion, she feels her mana leave her body through her hands and opens her eyes. Floating in the air before her is a blue, faintly glowing matrix of runes and lines. Waiting for a few moments with an expet gaze, Emily is disappointed when the struct does nothing and colpses as she stops supplying mana.
I could have guessed that wouldn’t work. I probably he runes aal image.
Shutting her eyes again, she pictures a fme-covered palm. Holding the image, she starts thinking of the spell’s magic circle. Pushing mana into both cepts at once, she feels a stronger flow of mana and opens her eyes to see the spell’s runes f in a bzing, white-tinged e before her.
As she watches the runes slowly solidify from a translut haze, she notices the edges of the runes fraying and losing their shape, and the lines between them breaking and ref stantly. Worriedly she shuts her eyes again and focuses owo images in her mind that had begun to fade. After twenty seds of elling mana, she feels the flow stop and opens her eyes to see her palms covered in a thin sheen of shimmering fmes.
Excitedly, she reaches forward and picks up the spell part, smiling with glee as it ignites and quickly burns to ashes.
“I cast magic!”
She moves her hands around and watches the faint fming trails left in their wake. Ripping a few pages out of her notebook and watg them burn too, Emily is disappointed when the fmes vanish.
Wait that was only about five seds.
Frowning, she opeatus to check her mana.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Mana:] 323/345
_____
Hmm, it was meant to cost 30.
Leaning ba her chair, Emily bites her thumb.
Is that ana usage from my failed first attempts, the final spell failing, or something else? Wait a sed.
Struck with an idea, she checks her system skill list and pulls up the description of a skill she has been ign.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Magietwork (passive)]
A unique energy system created by User {Emily Coldstone} with the bination of [Magic Circuit] and [Neuro ]. The mana els carved into the body's vascur system to form a magic circuit have fused with the host’s neurological pathways creating a vastly enhanced energy distribution system.
-Grants +100% to mana and maa regeion
-Grants -50% mana and maa usage
-Grants +20% mental resistance
_____
Reduced mana usage! However, it’s still using more than 50% of the spell cost.
To firm her suspis, she follows the same process and casts Burning Hands again. She checks her mana when the spell fades away after six seds.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Mana:] 303/345
_____
It sted slightly lohat time, and it used 20 mana. I guess the failed attempts were using up mana then. Makes sense, I am moving mana out of my body, I just didn’t think to check during css. But does that time and mana cost difference mean I’m failing to cast the spell correctly, or just not casting it perfectly?
Emily picks up her quill and begins scribbling notes into her notebook.
Need mental image
- be assisted with t?
Need runes drawn
-No known shortcut
Current casting time is too long to be useful in a fight.
System gives ideal? results from spell cast, try to match system description before using.
Gazing at the notes and tapping her fingers on the desk, Emily drops her quill.
First, let’s test using a t and al image. If it lets me use the spell properly, I may have to swallow my pride for a bit till I learn how to mentally multi-task.
She begins casting the spell again, this time holding the magic circle in her mind and p mana into it as she speaks slowly:
“y palms with the fires of u…”
Burning e runes spring to life around her hands.
“…and sear my enemies with burning flesh.”
Her palms igh fmes. However, the e of the fmes is a noticeably duller hue, and the white streaks are missing. Emily moves her hands around and also sees the ck of shimmering trail. To her pleasant surprise, the spell fades after eight seds and a quice at her mana likewise gives hope.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Mana:] 286/345
_____
So, ting removed the interfereny mental image with the rune formation, at the cost of a much weaker mental image. Preferably I’d want a way of simplifying the rune formation so I could keep the plexity of my image, my inal fire seems much strohan this.
Looking back down at her notes, her eyes are drawn towards her word choi the sed statement.
Need runes drawn
Drawn? Could I draw the runes with my hands instead of in my mind?
Emily holds up her right hand with her pointer finger out and pushes a steady stream of mana into it. Moving the finger slowly, she draws out the shape of the first rune; a small grin growing as she sees the mana burned into the air before her holding its shape.
Finishing the first flickering rune, Emily draws a small circle around the rune and sees it solidifying pletely as she does. tinuing in the same stroke, she draws the rge circle to encapsute the whole spell ahe rune’s border solidify in shape toood, it’s holding together.
After a dozen seds of careful drawing, Emily holds her hand to the tre of the finished circle and maintains a small mana flow as she forms her mental image of the spell. Feeling a small e form in her mind, the circle ignites from the tre. As soon as the fmes reach the e, the circle begins rotating and fades out of existence as a dense burning yer appears over her palms.
She reaches for her notebook to test, and instead of ripping out a few pages, her toustantly ignites a dozen yers of paper. She quickly releases the book and waves her sleeves over it to extinguish the fmes, saving the rest of the book from beiroyed.
“Haha, now this is magic!” She gleefully chuckles to herself, staring at the glittering trails left behind by her fingers as she weaves them through the air.
This time the spell fades after a full ten seds, and Emily leans back with a satisfied grin.
The spell appears as if it’s meant to be built in parts. Every time I finished oroke, it held together its predecessor. Is that how it’s meant to be cast then? Now that I think about it, whenever Jose uel cast spells, the runes always formed around them in sequend were already coloured with their element. I guess picturing the whole magic circle at once is probably quite difficult when they get more plicated.
Leaning back over her notebook, Emily grabs her quill and moves to a page not stained by ash. In the tre of the page, she draws Burning Hands’ magic circle. Pg the quill dowo it, she holds both her hands over the first rune and curiously begins trying to line her fingers up to form the rune.
After a couple of seds, she mao find an odd position with her thumbs bent inwards and toug, and her pointer fingers ft against each other. Her middle fingers are crossed, with her right ring finger curled under her left, tucked into her left palm. Her right pinkie is in lih her middle finger, and her left is curled, f a circle with the right.
Holding this odd shape in front of her, she pulses mana through each fihat forms a line of the rune, ign those that overp with others. The rune forms across her hands, and with a light flick of her wrists, it floats to hover above her hands. Moving quickly, she unravels her fingers and spys her hands with thumbs and pointer fingers joio create a circle. With another quick pulse of mana and a slight gesture upwards, the circle rises as itself into pce around the rune, holding it together.
Grinning, she moves her hands apart and rotates ea a half-circle with a small flow of mana out of her palms. Bringing her hands back together, Emily pauses before the rune, unsure of how to tinue. She stops supplying mana to the circle as it fade, then picks up her quill and draws a diagram of the first rune’s hand sign.
For the few hours, Emily gets lost iing and optimising hand signs and movements for all of the runes and lines within the magic circle. A couple of hours after ign Juliana’s kno her door for lunch, Emily sits back, gazing with a satisfied smile at the list of hand signs drawn on a page before her.
Bringing her hands up, she starts f a mental image of her palms on fire as she quickly weaves her hands in a delicate and precise dance of gestures and shapes. After nine seds, she sps her palms together, and the glistening e and white magic circle around her hands roars to life. Pulling her hands apart, she sees her successful spell burning away happily.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
Skill created: Basic Gesture Casting (passive)
_____
Ign the system pop-up and watg the fmes till they fade; Emily nods her head and grins at the full ten-sed duration.
Perfect, if I memorise these hand motions and turn them into muscle memory, I should be able to cast this spell in five or so seds!
