Tales of the Legendary Magus

Chapter 13: Casting His First Spell

When the red-haired girl arrived the only chair left was the one to the left of Villin so she swiftly went ahead and sat down.

"Hello everyone and welcome, my name is Edgard Messen and I am one of the 'studies of the web' teachers for grade one class B. If you look around you'll notice everyone here is in their first year. This is a temporary class that will remain for a month, after this month you all will be assigned new classes and will be taught alongside second years.

In 'studies of the web' we will analyze everything going on within that deepest area within our heads. I will teach you how to attack and awaken nodes and how to defend against their retaliation. Furthermore, I will show you how to read spell blueprints."

He said all of this before opening a thick metal book that was laying on the table. Instantly a massive amount of bright white dots appeared in the sky, there seemed to be about a thousand.

"Nodes in spell models are always shown in a pure white. Now what you see before me are the thousand centermost nodes. If you compare this to your own web you will see some differences, this is what makes finding the right nodes rather hard. There are some rules the nodes follow and by deciphering those we managed to find a way to share spell blueprints with one another!"

After this Professor Messen explained exactly how you could find the right nodes to follow a spell model. As an example, he showed everyone the spell modes for an illumination spell. He called this 'one of the easiest spells in existence who still had a use'. The way they could find where the correct nodes were located was by identifying the 'signature glow' of the first and last node in the spell line and trying to find them in your web. Once you did you should look if the other nodes within the spell were in similar locations compared to the spell blueprint and if they were you found the right location.

It didn't take long for Villin to find the location in his web as he decided to awaken those nodes first. Once nearly everyone had found the spell location within their web professor Messen continued.

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"The reason I picked this spell was because none of the nodes retaliate. Hence you will be absolutely safe when trying to breach the node. You all should practice manipulating your magic internally, if you want to breach any spell nodes you need to at least somewhat decrease the surface area you are attacking. Ideally, you wish to made the attacking magic as thin and possible and then move right in to penetrate the nodes. As for defending against retaliation, I'll explain that next lesson."

For the last ten minutes of the class, they were told to practice manipulating their magic internally. Villin, who was already able to create spikes out of his magic power decided to start attacking the nodes required for the illumination type spell. Surprisingly the shield around these was multiple times thinner than the ones of the previous nodes he had attacked. He managed to awaken all seven of the required nodes.

When the two-hour class had fully ended a few of the students walked up to the teacher to ask questions. Villin was amongst them and was the last to ask his question when everyone had already left.

"Professor, I have already managed to awaken all of the nodes required for the illumination spell, how do I connect them?" he asked sincerely.

Professor Messen looked him in the eyes a bit before replying casually.

"Well, connecting a spell for the first time is the hardest part. Since you already got to that point and you have no decent family backing you, you can borrow my node-namer. The first part to easy spellcasting is to give every node you have awakened a short name such as shi or mo and remember them. Multiple nodes can have the same name as long as you can remember them.

In actuality, the verbal casting doesn't do anything but help yourself remember where the nodes lay without having to close your eyes and enter your consciousness. To be honest I never use incantations but then again I am one of the few mages on this continent who doesn't.

The second step is wand movement. If you move your wand in the same way as the line between the nodes has to it might also help you visualize the connection better. This also happens to be something I don't do but it happens to help most people cast their spells quicker.

I cannot say how exactly you should connect the line, just don't reach out to nodes that aren't on the spell blueprint I showed you all and you will be fine even if you fail."

The professor smiled before walking out of the classroom leaving Villin lost in thought. So it turned out the incantations and movements weren't actually required, it was more of a trick to visualize the process within his head. Now the problem was that his photographic memory was connected to his eyes so this would still help. But he couldn't help but wonder if his increased comprehension would allow him to cast without any ado similar to this teacher of his.

His second class was 'Magic History' and well, it was just as boring as he had expected. The teacher was quite young looking to only be about thirty years old but even though she tried, she couldn't make the class very interesting. Hence Villin spent most of the class trying to find a way to connect the nodes required to cast the illumination spell.

For the first half an hour he made no progress at all. In the hour following that he finally managed to find a way to use his magic to connect nodes as he managed to connect the first and the second required nodes. In the final half an hour he managed to increase this number to being able to connect six magic nodes. Or well two times three. After all, during the entire process of casting a spell, you had to have your magic inhibit the first and final magical node, otherwise, you might accidentally cast a different spell.

When the class ended the teacher cast the vanishing spell he had witnessed earlier as the students left the room but Villin kept sitting still. His wand secretly held in his right hand.

Kayley the red-haired girl was the person who took the longest to put her books away since she noticed Villin wasn't moving and was observing her. Just as she was about to ask him what he was doing a bright light came from the tip of his wand illuminating the area.

"You! You cast the illuminating spell already?"

The girl looked somewhat stunned as she questioned him.

After about a second the spell broke and the light disappeared as Villin looked ecstatic, even though it wasn't the best spell, he had still just cast magic!

"Yeah! Just managed to finish it, I'll still need to polish it a bit if I want to be able to cast it within a short period of time though!"

He didn't even look at the girl as he just answered the question he had been asked, he was still trying to memorize the feeling he got after casting the spell.

"You!" The girl was about to get angry due to his lack of manners when she noticed the boy's face had turned serious again as he looked as if he was concentrating on something.

The girl stopped herself from speaking anymore as he didn't want to ruin his concentration as she headed out of the door.