Chapter 105: I hate her enough
Spell creation works with a couple of steps;
You bring together the Arcane symbols that are meant to be composed within your soon-to-be-created spell circle, you add in the ’Binding Factor’—which could be unique or it could be a copy of someone else’s as Caius had been trying to do when he wasn’t having success discovering his own—and then you ’force’ them to cooperate.
The steps are simple enough. It’s the execution that’s incredibly difficult, especially if you’re working with components that are violently against mixing together.
In the days he had spent researching the Arcane Codex in preparation for spell creation, Caius had picked out multiple Arcane symbols and gauged how well they could work together. The problem was that there was no way to actually know if his gauges and analysis were accurate until it came to the point of trying for a mix. He was discovering now that he had been way off.
So many of his selected Arcane symbols were refusing to come together and his ’Binding Factor’ seemed just as opposed which was especially strange. For hours, he worked to no success. He mismatched the symbols in so many different ways and always came up empty.
There were so many times when some symbols would be violent against each other but still be holding on and then, Caius would add one more and the whole thing would implode. Fortunately, the implosions were never enough to cause him great pain but with every failure, his handsome face was becoming more and more contorted and he looked close to losing it.
Spell creation was a delicate thing but it’s difficult to keep that in mind when you’re on your 50th failure in two short hours.
Samantha watched him by the side looking to be torn between pity at his struggles and hilarity at the look on his face. He still looked cute though.
And then, well past the Third hour of work, close to the halfway mark of the Fourth, Caius finally had his first success.
"I did it!" he said in a breathless voice. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead but his smile was a bright and proud one as he raised the hand where a Spell circle of the same hue of purple as his eyes, was levitating about two inches above his palm.
A Dark Magic spell.
Caius had felt it was only right to start with that.