<~> Chapter 174Everyone was chatting happily as we got ba the carriage. Bel and I had been fishing and she caught 3 fish. I... didn't catbsp;anything. But hey, it was the first time I ever remember fishing, not even as remnants of my previous life, so this robably just a fluke. Everyone was excited about adding fish to our dionight, Man was able to jure some ice by using the water mana by the ke to keep the fish cold so we were able to store them in a little homemade ice box as we kept going.

  Theo signaled for me to sit across from him as I climbed aboard. I had been ied in learning some enha magi the way but was doing it while moving the best idea?

  "Lilith! Now that we're on our way we should get to practig some magic!" Theo looked excited to finally have something to do. The puy must be bored out of his mind right now.

  I took the seat across from him. "Sure, practig magic sounds fun but is that something we should be doing in a traveling carriage?"

  He made a shooing motion. "You worry too much. Most enha magi't all that dangerous. Even failed spells will usually just fizzle out harmlessly. We probably won't get to casting right away anyway, I first o see what we're w with. Go ahead and tell me ells you have avaible."

  I raised an eyebrow at him.

  "Hey now, I know that's private but if I'm going to be teag you magibsp;I 't just do it blind. I o know what kind of affinities you have."

  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 the nguage Bel had taught me.

  Spells:

  Light Magic:Light OrbFirefliesLight BeamLight SignalLight ScribingLight BurstLight Ward

  Luck Magibsp;Melee Hex FlipDie NudgeBckjackA Touch of Good Luck

  Enha Magic:Fme ImbueBde WaltzFocused PerceptionLight ImbueLightfoot

  Are Magibsp;Are Varient Zone of Truth

  I handed him the list. "These are the spells I've gotten through the system, I also use ritual magic. So far I have a minor affinity ihing I've tried except fht and holy, light I have a medium affinity for, and holy I have no affinity for."

  He skimmed the list before looking up with an odd expression. "I've taught a lot of people magic over the years and I holy tell you this is the weirdest spell list I've ever looked at. You don't even know fireball or jure fire. Also, I don't even reize most of the spells on this list. What kind of weird things are you doing with yic? What level is yht magibsp;

  "My light magic skill is at level ten, light manipution is at level twelve," I replied.

  "Ten and twelve? That's bizarre, I've never seen anyone who betting light magic above level five. What kinds of things you do with it? What's this light scribing spell do?" he asked.

  I looked around at the moving carriage. I wonder if light scribing is retive to my speed or not. I started animating a basic water ritual spell using light scribing, luckily casting it is retive to my speed so I don't o worry about the light moving away as it drew itself. I fihe ritual and activated it to create a small bubble of water.

  "Fasat—" The bubble of water however was not retive to my speed so it fell out and spshed right against Theo's fabsp;

  I couldn't help but ugh as he wiped water out of his face. "Sorry." I had a huge grin on my fabsp;but I was trying to keep my giggles in.

  He looked mildly irritated now. "It's fine. How exactly did you e across this spell? I've never heard of anyone using light magic to cast rituals before."

  "Oh, this is ohat was created when 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 scribing and I have to do the 'animation' part of the spell manually. It took a lot of light manipution before I could get anywhere with it but it led to light scribing suddenly being created."

  "So I assume this is the spell that got you Sorsette's notice?" he asked.

  I nodded. "This is the one, yes. It was nibsp;being reized for it, I think this spell is really cool."

  "Cool and incredibly dangerous," he replied.

  "Dangerous?"

  "Yes," he said with a nod. "We just came from a city ravaged by demons, what do you think would happen if demon summot ahold of this spell? It could speed up summoning tenfold."

  I raised an eyebrow. "So demon summoning is just an application of ritual magic then."

  "It is. They are usually more plex rituals and they generally require more physical sacrifices than most ritual magibsp;but at the core, both are the same. The only real difference is that some spellcasting csses let you automate summoning using the system, either for demons or other things."

  "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 css?" I asked.

  "That's correbsp;However, it's gotten to the point tely that most people have normal spellcasting csses and just use the rituals. Actually having a demon summoner css equipped in public makes you a target, it makes demonic miasma easier to detebsp;and some csses have abilities that track them when they're nearby."

  "There are demon hunter csses?" I asked.

  "There are csses for most things. In this case, the Tamin church has spent a lot of time developing them. They have a lot of i in demon hunting." Theo sighed and leaned ba the couch. "Regardless we're getting off topic. Just be careful with that spell. But on the topic of enha magic, you already have a few good spells here. That'll make it easy to teabsp;you how to wild cast enha magibsp;Use any of them enough and they'll be given to you as a system spell whibsp; e in handy. You have two imbue type spells so we should start with that, paring the two will make it easier to use a different magic type with the imbue spell as well."

  I furrowed my brows. "We're going to start with wild casting? Isn't that an advaeique? I thought we were going to start by improving the spells I already have."

  He nodded. "Wild casting is an advaeique but you got lucky. Being able to pare two types of the same spell makes it a lot easier to learn. The sooner you learn how to wild cast spells the faster magibsp;as a whole unlocks for you. I don't think it will be that hard for you anyway, ritual magic is a form of wild casting so you're halfway there already. The only difference is that you 't use ritual circles to focus your mana."

  "Okay, that seems reasonable. How do we start?" I asked.

  Theo rummaged around his back before pulling out a case, taking two quills out of the box, aing them oable. "These are normal quills. I happen to know that Fme imbue doesn't have any immediate effects when cast on these, unlike a sword or something. A sword cast with Fme imbue will literally catch fire but a quill stores the energy until you write with it. A quirk in how the spell works but useful for this practice."

  I nodded. Both of the two spells mention that the effects of objects imbued with the spell vary.

  "Open up all of the mana senses you bsp;and cast one while watg the mana closely. Once you've cast one, cast the other spell oher quill and pare the two. There should only be one part of the mana structure that's differeweewo spells, that'll be where the elemental part of the spell will be. For now, just focus nizing the difference. We'll have to do some practice with other spells before you'll be able to repce the mana structure with another one. I'm sure I find a pair of simir ritual spells for that while you practice. You o watbsp;when casting the spells though, so ohe two things have been imbued you o lain any information from them, just release the enha magic after that. A bit of practice casting the spells repeatedly shouldn't hurt either. I'll bet that you'll get a few levels in enha magic before we stop for dinner." With my task given Theo rummages around his bag again and pulls out a book while mumbling to himself.

  I shift my eyes to give me mana sight and foy mana sense skill. I take a deep breath and once I'm ready I pick up one of the quills and cast [Fme Imbue]. There's a lot of information to parse and I'm not sure I'll be able to remember any of it at all. I pick up the other quill and cast [Light Imbue] and watch as my mana coalesces into the quill. There was way too muformation to pare on the first pair of casts but I could vaguely see the pattern. I'll have to focus on that until I start distinguishing the two.

  Releasing the two spells, I started ain. I carefully watched the mana swirl in their patterns and tried to pare where they differed. I sighed and shook my head. There was just so muformation all at onbsp;This was going to take a while.

  "Mind if I join you two?" I looked up to see Man who was wearing an ied look.

  I gnced over at Theo who gave a nod. "As long as yirlfriend doesn't distract you too much. Learning to wild cast is a good skill to pick up."

  Man grinned. "I'm actually a wild mage, nearly all I do is wild cast spells."

  Theo's eyebrows rose. "I must not have heard that. I would have invited you to learn with us earlier had I known."

  She nodded. "I appreciate it. Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to learn any enha magibsp;so this would be good for me to pick up if I ."

  "Then please," he said while gesturing to the seat o me.

  I scooted over and patted her on the leg. "I'm gd you're joining us. I already tell this is going to take a while for me to learn."

  She nodded. "Learning to wild cast spells usually does, unfortunately. Even with my css and the system helping me along, it takes a long time to add new spells to my repertoire. It doesn't help that before I even cast a new spell I o be able to identify where the elemental magic goes, without that I 't draw enviroal mana to cast it. It always requires a lot of focused attention when watg others cast spells to learn anything. The upside is that once I do figure that part out I reliably cast that spell with any enviroal mana I'm practibsp;with."

  Theo butted in to add to our versation, "If you only io use enviroal 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 . Wild casting mana armor using enviroal mana be very effective because, uhe problem with offensive magiding not to be useful against things that have the same affinity for that type of magic, defensive magids to be very strong against things that have the same affinity."

  Man'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 magibsp;

  He gestured to the quills again. "Get to it then. The quicker the two of you learn this ohe 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 wants to actually use it as a wild spell."

  And so I cast the imbue spell over and ain for the rest of the day while Man watched and tried to help me uand 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 she was able to wild cast it herself, she started helping me identify where I should be looking and arts could be ignored.

  By the time we stopped for dinner, I hadn't learo wild cast it yet, but I did gain a few levels in enha magibsp;No new spells yet though.

  [Enha magic has increased from level 2 to level 5]

  Saine

  Hello! Flying! Flying es up in a lot of stories and is rarely justified in the lore. A lot of times it's just like, they have wings! How do the wings work? Magic I guess? That's fair, if you don't care to expis and bolts of how things work every time that's fine. But I feel like it's fun to explore the hows and whys around some of this stuff. In the end my answer is still 'magic' but I still enjoyed expl a bit about how something like wings could fun in my universe. What do you guys think?

  Chey other story here: Umbral Feast

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