Samofthepen
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Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 29
🕑 Added 2023-11-27 16:09:36 +0000 UTCAfter returning home, it took Dad a week to catch up with administrative work that only he, as lord of the county, could authorize. Wanting to get his admin work over and done with, he was stuck in his study from morning to night with his scribes, the only time we saw him was during mealtime.
And every time we see him, he has dead eyes as he complains to us that he would rather be back at the fort fending off the enemies of the kingdom than battling against the evil forces of bureaucracy.
While Dad was recovering, Mum was not helping his situation by being… overly active… at night. How do I know this? Well, let's just say Mum is a screamer and there is only so much soundproofing can do.
One time when I was playing with Charlotte, I even had to make up an explanation on the spot when she asked me “Big Brother, are mommy and daddy’s ok? Mommy seems to be angry at Daddy and screams at him at night.”
The question made me cough to clear the saliva that went down the wrong pipe, and the maid on duty softly chuckled while blushing, but before the maid could step in to explain, I replied “Dad must just be showing off his fighting moves to mum, and Mum is just cheering Dad on.”
Hearing that, I could see the maid’s clenched lips as she was trying very hard to hold in her laughter, it did not help that Charlotte had a deep and serious face of contemplation before coming up with a conclusion, “Is that why mommy is so happy in the morning and daddy is so tired because he stayed up to show off? That's not fair I also want to see Daddy show off his fighting moves!”
At this point, even I was trying to hold back my laughter as I told Charlotte that Dad’s fighting moves are very dangerous and she will need to find someone around her age to show her fighting moves when she grows up.
When Charlotte replied, “We are around the same age, can you show me fighting moves?” I sputtered and tried to change the subject while the maid excused herself to the hallway to laugh.
Father, I salute your sacrifice of sleep to make Mum happy, but please, for the love of all that is holy and wholesome, someone please have ‘The Talk’ with Charlotte.
***
After Dad heard the news of me finally turning off my own aura he got excited to teach me and set a date a few days later so I could activate my aura with his supervision, in the meantime, it was back to more magic training.
In the months after I recovered from muscle fatigue and Dad was defending the fort, I was far from idle. As promised, Mum started teaching me the basics of 1st circle spells, which I soon found out was not that hard… at least for me.
Turns out, 1st circle spells are just the unlocked version of 0th circle spells. They could now travel as far as the user’s willpower could carry it, but the element rune in the sequence of runes was still countered as a ‘lesser elemental rune’, which was mostly non-lethal. Not to say it could not kill a weakened opponent… like a rat or rabbit, but they were non-lethal to anything bigger than the size of a small dog.
The 1st circle spells I learned were of the 6 elements. Earth, water, wind, fire, light, and darkness. I have no idea how light and dark count as elements, but when people use magic, they are using the concept of it, sooooo… yeaaah, let’s go with that for now, I will figure all that out later when I am more versed with this branch of magic.
As for what the 1st circle of magic can do, for earth, water, wind, and fire, it is mainly shooting bolts of elemental attributed to mana around. When shooting the earth element, a pebble of pseudo-stone gets launched, and when it hits the target, the pseudo-stone construct shatters, Mum cast it at my hand as lightly as she could, and let me tell you, it hurts like catching a very fast baseball barehanded, if it hits someone on the head, it would be a bad booboo.
Water was mainly the same as earth but not as painful, it is cold though.
As for wind at 1st circle, it did basically no damage, but it was a lot easier to control gusts of wind to push things around.
Fire was, well… fire. I could shoot it like I do earth and water. Upon impact, it would leave a light scotch mark and I found out the hard way that it was very easy for a stray shot to set a pile of dry leaves on fire. Mum scolded me for almost burning down the backyard, luckily she was there the out out the flames.
As for the last 2 elements, light and darkness, they were just as their name advertised. 1st circle light was just conjuring a ball of light to illuminate the area. Darkness, on the other hand, was concealment, I could shroud myself in darkness to blend into dim areas.
After learning all the 1st circle spells, I was rather disappointed. Even my own molecular magic was way better than this. But there were positives, even if I reproduced 1st circle magic with molecular magic, 1st circle magic cost a lot less mana and it was basically impossible to hurt myself while using circle magic, because in the end, the elemental attributed mana I was throwing around was ultimately my own mana, if I cast any of the 1st circle spells at myself, they would just phase through me, and at this point, I am profession enough to cast the runes in my mentally as fast as I cast molecular magic.
When I proved to Mum that I was able to cast 1st circle magic fast and accurately without chants or hand gestures, I was immediately moved on to 2nd circle magic.
2nd circle magic was pretty much the same as 1st circle, but this was where things got lethal. In 1st circle spells, the only way to adjust the strength of the spell was to force more mana into the element and power control rune at the risk of the spell collapsing.
In 2nd circle magic, I was introduced to amplifier and stabilizer runes. With these runes, the earth I cast could become bigger and harder, water turned into ice shards and I could freeze water if I pump enough mana into it, my gusts of wind became air bullets that hit like a punch and I could somehow use air element to generate lightning, fire could become… hotter fire and I could do a short range flamethrower.
As for light and darkness magic, it was a bit weird. The moment light magic hit 2nd circle was when I learned about healing magic, it was just a basic spell to speed up the body’s metabolism and recovery to heal small cuts and bruises.
This got me excited to be able to heal deep gashes like Grandpa did for me and Mum, but Mum quickly shot that down and explained that to become a true healer took specialized training. At Grandpa’s level, it was counted as just dabbling in the subject. A truly specialized healer could cure diseases and even regrow lost limbs, and while I was amazed Mum left me with a grim warning.
“If you ever encounter a specialized healer, never ever fight them in melee. They are masters of the body, and all it takes is 1 touch to stop your organs, permanently disfigure you, or even paralyze you. They are monsters that are on a very light leash in every country, if you ever encounter one, run as fast as you can.” Mum warned and I nodded my head furiously while imagining the horror of my own body turning against me with a sight touch.
As for darkness magic, at 2nd circle magic, I learned the spell to manipulate shadows. Now instead of just shrouding myself to blend into dim areas, I could now also shroud a small area and create shadow silhouettes to use them for misdirection, which also seems to have great potential for some horror movie style shenanigans where fleeting shadows come and go at the corner of the protagonist’s vision, or around corners.
It took a while to practice with the 2nd circle spells to get used to the feel of balancing the amplifier and stabilizer in the rune sequence, but I eventually managed to get to where I could mentally cast within 3 months.
When I moved on to 3rd circle magic, Mum warned me this was where things got hard and where the vast majority of mages could no longer cast spells through pure mental casting. When looking back on what I learned in the last 2 circles of magic, I thought to myself, ‘I breezed through the 1st and 2nd circles, how hard could the 3rd be.’ I was right and wrong at the same time.
