Chapter 174<div>
<h3 style="letter-spacing:-0.015em"><strong><~> Chapter 174</strong>
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Everyone was chattinghappilyas we got back on the carriage. Be and I had been fishingandshe caught3fish. I...didn''tcatchanything.But hey,it was the first time I<em>ever</em>remember fishing, not even as remnants of my previous life, so this was probably just a fluke. Everyone was excited about adding fish to our dinner tonight, Morriganwas able to conjure some ice by using the water mana by theke to keep the fish coldsowewere able tostore them in a little homemade ice box as we kept going.
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Theo signaled for me to sit across from him as I climbed aboard. I<em>had</em>been interested in learning some enhancement magic on the waybutwas doing it while moving the best idea?
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"Lilith! Now that we''re on ourwaywe shouldget to practicingsome magic!" Theo looked excited to<em>finally</em>have something to do. The poor guy must be bored out of his mind right now.
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I took the seat across from him. "Sure, practicing magic sounds funbutis that something we should be doing in a traveling carriage?"
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He made a shooing motion. "You worry too much. Most enhancement magic isn''t all that dangerous. Even failed spells will usuallyjustfizzle out harmlessly. We probably won''t get to casting right away anyway, Ifirst need to see what we''re working with. Go ahead and tell me what spells you have avable."
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I raised an eyebrow at him.
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"Hey now, I know that''s privatebutif I''m going tobe teachingyoumagicI can''t just do it blind. I need to know what kind of affinities you have."
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I sighed and pulled a journal out of my backpack. "It''s best if I just write it all down." I copied over my system list of spells in thenguage Be had taught me.
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Spells:
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Light Magic:
Light Orb
Fireflies
Light Beam
Light Signal
Light Scribing
Light Burst
Light Ward
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Luck Magic:
Melee Hex
Coin Flip
Die Nudge
ckjack
A Touch of Good Luck
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Enhancement Magic:
me Imbue
de Waltz
Focused Perception
Light Imbue
Lightfoot
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Arcane Magic:
Arcane Varient Zone of Truth
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I handed him the list. "These are the spells I''ve gotten through the system, Ican also use ritual magic. SofarI have a minor affinity in everything I''ve tried except for light and holy, lightI have a medium affinity for, and holy I have no affinity for."
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He skimmed the list before looking up with an odd expression. "I''ve taught a lot of people magic over the yearsandI can honestly tell you this is the<em>weirdest</em>spell list I''ve everlooked at.<em>You don''t even know fireball or conjure fire.</em>Also,I don''t even recognize most of the spells on this list.What kind of weird things are you doing with your magic? What level is your light magic?"
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"My light magic skill is at level ten, lightmaniption is at level twelve," I replied.
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"Ten and twelve? That''s bizarre, I''venever seen anyone who bothered getting light magic above level five. What kinds of things can you do with it? What''s this light scribing spell do?" he asked.
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I looked around at the moving carriage. I wonder if light scribing is rtive to my speed or not. I started animating a basic water ritual spell using light scribing, luckilycastingit<em>is</em>rtive to my speedsoI don''t need to worry about the light moving away as it drew itself. I finished the ritual and activated it to create a smallbubble of water.
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"Fascinat—" The bubble of waterhowever<em>was not</em>rtive to my speedsoit fell out and sshed right against Theo''s face.
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I couldn''t help butugh as he wiped waterout ofhis face. "Sorry." I had ahugegrin on my facebutI was trying to keep my giggles in.
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He looked mildly irritated now. "It''s<em>fine.</em>How exactly did youe across this spell? I''ve never heard of anyone using light magic to cast rituals before."
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"Oh, thisis one thatwas createdwhen I was trying to do the same thing with light signal." I drew out Theo''s name using the ribbon of magic light from light signal. "Light signal is much more clumsy and awkward to use for this than light scribingandI have to do the ''animation'' part of the spell manually.It took a lot of light maniption before I could get anywherewith itbutit led to light scribing suddenly being created."
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"So I assume this is the spell that got you Sorsette''s notice?" he asked.
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I nodded. "This is the one, yes. It was nicebeing recognizedfor it, Ithink this spell is really cool."
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"Cool and incredibly dangerous," he replied.
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"Dangerous?"
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"Yes," he said with a nod. "We just came from a city ravaged by demons, whatdo you think would happen if demon summoners got ahold of this spell? It could speed up summoning tenfold."
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I raised an eyebrow. "So demon summoning<em>is</em>just an application of ritual magic then."
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"It is.Theyare usually moreplex ritualsandthey generallyrequire more physical sacrifices than most ritual magicbutat the core, both are the same. The only<em>real</em>difference is that some spellcasting sses let you automate summoning using the system, either for demons or other things."
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"So when people refer to demon summoners, they aren''t always referring to people who summon demons. They''re sometimes referring to people with a demon summoning ss?" I asked.
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"That''s correct.However, it''s gotten to the pointelythat most people have normal spellcasting sses andjustuse the rituals.Actuallyhavinga demon summoner ss equipped in public makes you a target, itmakes demonic miasma easier to detectandsome sses have abilities that can track them when they''re nearby."
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"There are demon hunter sses?" I asked.
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"There are sses for most things. In this case, the Tamin church has spenta lot oftime developing them. They have a lot of interest in demon hunting." Theo sighed and leaned back on the couch. "Regardlesswe''regetting off topic. Just be careful with that spell. But onthe topic ofenhancement magic, you already have a few good spells here.That''ll makeit easy to teachyou how to wild cast enhancement magic.Use any of them enoughandthey''llbe givento you as a system spellwhichcane in handy. You have two imbue type spellssowe should start with that,paringthe two will make it easier to use a different magic type with the imbue spes well."
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I furrowed my brows. "We''re going to start with wild casting? Isn''t that an advanced technique? I thought wewere going tostart by improving the spells I already have."
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He nodded. "Wild casting<em>is</em>an advanced techniquebutyou got lucky. Being able topare two types of the same spell makes it a lot easier to learn. The sooner you learn how to wild cast spellsthefaster magicas a wholeunlocks for you. I don''t think it will be that hard for you anyway, ritualmagic is a form of wild castingsoyou''re halfway there already. The only difference is that you can''t use ritual circles to focus your mana."
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"Okay, that seems reasonable. How do we start?" I asked.
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Theo rummaged around his back before pulling out a case, taking two quills out of the box, and setting them on the table. "These are normal quills. Ihappen toknow that me imbue doesn''t have any immediate effects when cast on these, unlike a sword or something. A sword cast with me imbue will literally catch firebuta quill stores the energy until you write with it. A quirk in how the spell works but useful for this practice."
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I nodded. Bothof the twospells mention that the effects of objects imbued with the spell vary.
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"Open up all of the mana sensesyou canand cast one while watching the mana closely. Once you''ve cast one, cast the other spell on the other quill andpare the two. There should only be one part of the mana structure that''s different between the two spells,that''llbewhere the elemental part of the spell will be. For now,justfocus on recognizing the difference. We''ll have to do some practice with other spells before you''ll be able to rece the mana structure with another one.I''m sureI can find a pair of simr ritual spells for that while you practice. You need to watch<em>when casting</em>the spellsthough, so once the two things havebeenimbuedyou can no longer gain any information from them,justrelease the enhancement magic after that. A bit of practice casting the spellsrepeatedlyshouldn''t hurteither. I''ll betthat you''llget a few levels in enhancement magic before we stop for dinner." With my task givenTheorummages around his bag again and pulls out a book while mumbling to himself.
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I shift my eyes to give me mana sight and focus on my mana sense skill. I take a deep breathandonce I''mreadyI pick up one of the quills and cast<em>[me Imbue].</em>There''s<em>a lot</em>of information to parseandI''m not sure I''ll be able to remember any of itat all. I pick up the other quill and cast<em>[Light Imbue]</em>and watch as my mana coalesces into the quill. There waswaytoo much information topare on the first pair of castsbutI could vaguely see the pattern. I''ll have to focus on that until I can start distinguishing the two.
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Releasing the two spells, I started over again. I carefully watched the mana swirl in their patterns and tried topare where they differed. I sighed and shook my head. There was just so much information all at once.Thiswas going to take a while.
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"Mind if I join you two?" I looked up to see Morriganwhowas wearing an interested look.
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I nced over at Theowhogave a nod. "As long as your girlfriend doesn''t distract you too much. Learning to wild cast is a good skill to pick up."
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Morrigan grinned. "I''m actually a wild mage, nearlyall I<em>do</em>is wild cast spells."
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Theo''s eyebrows rose. "I must not have heard that. I would have invited you to learn with us earlier had I known."
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She nodded. "I appreciate it. Unfortunately, I haven''t had the opportunity to learn any enhancement magicsothis would be good for me to pick up if I can."
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"Then please," he said while gesturing tothe seat next to me.
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Iscootedover and patted her on the leg. "I''m d you''re joining us. I can already tell thisis going totake a while for me to learn."
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She nodded. "Learning to wild cast spells usually does, unfortunately. Even with my ss and the system helping me along, it takes a<em>long</em>time to add new spells to my repertoire. It doesn''t help that before I can even cast a newspellI need tobe able toidentify where the elemental magic goes, withoutthatI can''t draw environmental mana to cast it.It alwaysrequires a lot of focused attentionwhen watching others cast spells to learn anything.The upside is that once Ido figure that partoutI can reliably cast that spell with any environmental manaI''m practicedwith."
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Theobutted in to addto our conversation, "If you only intend to use environmental mana to cast, this spell may not actually be that useful to you. After Lilith gets the hang of wild casting imbue, I''ll show the two of you a mana armor spell next.Wild casting mana armor using environmental mana can be very effective because, unlike the problem with offensive magic tending not to be useful against thingsthat havethe same affinity for that type of magic, defensive magic tends to be<em>very</em>strong against thingsthat havethe same affinity."
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Morrigan''s eyes lit up. "That would be great! I''ve never had the opportunity to learn that kind of spell before! Most of the people I''ve been able to work with have focused on offensive magic."
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He gestured to the quills again. "Get to it then. The quicker the two of you learn this one, the faster we''ll be able to get started on that mana armor spell. Lilith will also have to learn how to identify the elemental structure of spells if she wantsto actually use it as a wild spell."
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And so I cast the imbue spellover and over againfor the rest of the day while Morrigan watched and tried to help me understand the mass of mana that I was looking at. She was able to pick up the spell much faster than I could, but that wasn''t a surprise based on her skill set. Once shewas able towild cast it herself, she started helping me identify where I should be looking and what parts couldbe ignored.
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By the time we stopped for dinner, I hadn''t learned to wild cast it yet, but I did gaina few levels in enhancement magic.No new spells yetthough.
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<em>[Enhancement magic has increased from level 2 to level 5]</em>
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