Spell Weaver [Book 2 Complete]

Alex sat cross-legged on the training room floor, still watching Kazuo’s hands dance through the air. Through his mana sight, he could see the spell take shape like a constellation. There were delicate lines of power that were connected by bright nodes of concentrated mana, which he now knew were the control nodes.

“Each point must maintain balance,” Kazuo said as his fingers pinched together in the air to create another knot of mana. “It says to think of a river flowing between stones. The placement of large or small rocks guides currents.”

[Parallel Mind] was still running, which let Alex split his focus to absorb the teaching while the other overlaid the principles onto his modified ritual circles over his left hand. His mind raced with possibilities and potential outcomes.

“Most here think System skills are the only path forward,” Kazuo said while shaking his head. “But you understand importance of foundation, yes?”

Alex nodded in response. “Could you show me that first pattern again?” Alex asked and leaned forward. “The one with the three nodes?”

Kazuo smiled and was clearly pleased to have someone else enthusiastic about his magic. The mana between his hands twisted together into another intricate pattern. “Node placement very important. Too close, and pressure builds. Too far apart, control slips away.”

Another hour slipped by as they worked through increasingly complex formations until they reached the point that Kazuo had been practicing when Alex first saw him. With control much higher than the older man’s, Alex was able to quite easily mimic the movements of his mana and even find a few small areas where it could potentially be improved.

Kazuo demonstrated different node arrangements where some were dense and tightly packed, and others were spread in wider configurations. Each different variation, though, showed Alex new possibilities and potential pitfalls with his own modified circles.

“Why are you putting more wraps… here,” Alex said as he pointed with a finger at a spot in the air.

“More wraps mean more control and slower flow. Like thread on spool. Tight wraps slow power down. Loose wraps let power flow at same speed but delay travel. “

Alex’s mind continued to work at maximum speed as he thought through the implications. The modified circles had failed because the power wasn’t being controlled properly. But with the nodes integrated at key points…

Sarah appeared at the window occasionally to check on their progress. Once, she spoke through the intercom to let them know that the Hunters were still working with their specialist to attempt to track through the cloth, though there were no results. Several others came and went, most taking note of what Kazuo was working on.

In some of the downtime, as Kazuo waited for his mana to regenerate, they talked of some of the special teams and projects that the HA had established. His group was apparently one where they’d selected small groups to focus on magic without the use of skills. There were others, testing limits of single stat builds and strange class selections, but Kazuo was happy with his recruitment and seemed to wear the fact that he was the last remaining member of his group as a badge of honor.

Alex kept working, and their conversation tapered off as he grasped the concepts and needed to focus more on testing than learning. Unsure of how much time had passed, Alex reached a point where he felt confident in conducting a test. Excitement built in his chest as he stood and accidentally startled Kazuo, who was sitting quietly with his eyes closed, recovering mana.

“I think I’m ready to try something,” Alex said.

“Try what?”

“My magic. But…” Alex glanced at the glass wall, where there were still several people looking at them with passing interest. “I’d prefer some privacy.

“I can turn on the privacy mode.”

Alex nodded and walked to the glass. Sarah happened to be there, watching them. He pressed the button to open the door and spoke with her quietly. “I’m going to test something. We’re going to black out the room. It shuts the cameras off, right?”

“Yes. They have metal coverings that block them off physically as well. What are you working on in there?”

He gave a sly smile. “Kazuo may have helped me find the piece missing to my research. If this works, I think it’ll be fully functional. Is it okay to cast it in there? Will it mess up the enchantments?”

“Do your worst,” she said with a shake of her head. “They’re pretty durable. All of the rooms on this floor were built with this kind of testing and training in mind.”

“All right. I’m going to give it a shot. See you in a few.” He looked around at the faces in the hallway. Some people were looking at them with interest, but none in a way that set off alarm bells in Alex’s head.

I guess I did just give a speech on a new kind of magic. It makes sense they are hoping to see a bit of it in action.

“Be careful,” Sarah said as he moved back into the room.

Responding with a thumbs up, Alex activated the room’s black out function. The glass walls darkened to pitch black and Alex watched as metal shields slid over the cameras with a soft click. The room felt more secure to him now that there weren’t people actively watching, other than Kazuo.

“You might want to leave,” Alex warned Kazuo. “I’m not entirely sure how this will work.”

“No, no. I see the magic.” Kazuo’s eyes lit with interest, but he created more space from Alex by moving to the far corner of the room. “I will stay.”

Alex nodded and raised both hands while deactivating his [Parallel Mind] skill. The knowledge of his test over the last several hours came to his mind, and he focused on them with his full mental stats. Knowing the path he would try first, the one that he thought had the best chance of success, he activated [Mana Thread]. Streams of threads spilled from his fingertips, and he began to weave them into a familiar pattern.

This time, however, he added the control nodes at key intersections. The modified ritual circle took shape and was smaller than the previous two uses of the enlarged spark rune-empowered ritual circle.

If this works, I can finally stop thinking about them as ritual circles. They will be my own.

He couldn’t hold in the smile as the circle took shape and was about the size of a 45-lb weight plate. While he felt he could potentially make it even smaller, he didn’t want to push things too far in his first test and knew that this was still a size range that consistently failed in previous testing.

With the nodes containing the power, this has to work.

Like he’d practiced with Kazuo, Alex created his first circle. Next, he would normally insert the rune, but instead, he added the control notes and could feel the difference immediately, even with minimal power flowing through it.

Where the previous attempts felt like trying to hold water in a paper cup, this felt solid and controlled.

He pulled out his wand and held it tightly in his right hand while his left hand added the finishing touches to the control nodes, ensuring that the mana flowed in the proper directions through the junctions of the spell circle.

As the spark rune fell into place, marking the final step, he couldn’t help but shift his weight to and from either foot. Completing the last stroke caused the spell to hum with power, and he began to funnel his mana into it to set the rune and activate the circle.

The spell activated with a fraction of the previously required mana, something easily achievable on his own, without Valtherion or additional stones, and the spell crackled into existence for the barest moment. Just as before, it was visible to his mundane eye for a brief flash before it settled in the air and hung suspended in front of him.

He lifted his wand and pushed the point of it into the circle, hand shaking slightly, while using [Mana Infusion] to push a standard seven-mana bolt through the wand. There was a horrifying sound of electricity crackling for a bare moment before the enhanced bolt of mana shot across the room and slammed into the enchanted walls. It left a small crater and spiderweb scorch marks from where the lightning branched out from the point of impact.

“It worked,” Alex breathed. He studied the damage on the wall. “Man, their walls are really sturdy. I know that spell was weaker than the one that blew a hole in my workshop by a fair amount, but still… It’s clear they’ve done some serious work on these training rooms.”

He felt his excitement building and knew that he needed to test the circle again. While the success had been solid, Alex felt a need to prove it to himself by performing another flawless cast. A blue window appeared in his vision, but he dismissed it for a moment. It felt like a huge moment for the last several months of work to all come together.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he started to form the same spell circle in the air as he’d done before. But he paused and knew that it would work and felt like he should test something else. He stopped the threads of mana in the air and thought for a long moment.

Would it be helpful to test it on a different circle?

I’ve really only got the Activation Rune and Spark Rune to work from at the moment. Maelis started to teach me about the Barrier Rune earlier today, but I’m not anywhere near ready to start using that. What other options do I have?

If I can’t change the rune, I could change the ritual base…

He worked through the growing list of Rituals he could perform on the fly.

With a nod, Alex resumed his work with the [Mana Thread] skill to build a circle in the air in front of him. He angled it so that it was aiming in a different direction than the bolt from his wand, wanting to see the difference in power for himself.

The base circle was completed quickly, and before he began to add the control nodes, he paused to look at the work through his mana sight. The concentrated heating ritual was one that he’d used to devastating effect against the slimes, though not too much outside of that in combat. It was, however, one of his only rituals that had such a clear directional component built into the ritual circle, sending the energy out in a clear line rather than simply being contained within the bounds.

He tweaked the structure slightly, angling the three triangles to better propel the energy forward before feeling satisfied enough to add the control nodes. It took him another few seconds to write in the rune, moving with deliberate slowness.

The entire way through the process, he was sure to monitor the stability of the circle. It made him giddy to recognize that the control nodes made the structure of the circle as solid as concrete. It felt unshakeable, and even as he activated the spell circle that hung in the air, he looked forward to testing them extensively.

With a pulse of his mana, the circle flickered into existence as it activated. Much like the larger ritual circle he’d activated in the woods in Missouri, there was a deafening crack as the pressure within the chamber adjusted from the large bolt of lightning that flashed across the room. He blinked rapidly, and the bolt dissipated just as fast as it had appeared- and the spell circle along with it.

He looked at the empty space in the air with some fascination. “Interesting. So by the energy being pushed out, I don’t need to send a mana bolt through it, but it also doesn’t hang in the air for the opportunity to use it more than once.” Looking past the space that the spell had been, he looked at the wall and felt a smile cross his face as there were even more marks of spidering burns from the second small crater in the wall.

The training room was so quiet that Alex could hear Kazuo’s breathing, and he noted that the older man was breathing quite quickly. Alex, though, couldn’t think of anything other than the thought that played on repeat through his mind.

It worked.

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It worked!

“It worked!” He yelled. Laughing, Alex let himself pump his fist and jogged over to the wall to look at it up close.

Once there, he could see that the damage to the wall was less than he’d thought. There were no branching cracks from the central mark. The only true damage to the wall was a small two-inch wide divot with a one-inch deep chunk of it missing within the radius.

“Damn, they really are tough.”

Alex startled as he remembered the dismissed status window and immediately felt his spirits soar even higher as he looked at it.