Chapter 47

  “Nope. I have absolutely no idea how this works,” Luke admitted, looking at the spellform that Eli had written for him. They sat at the tables in the science room, one of the few rooms in the high school that was reserved exclusively for the use of the Arashantos guild.

  “Really?” Eli asked. “It’s pretty simple. Look, these runes here mean—”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing. Like, those runes, I understand them individually. This one is fire, and this one is Power, and this one is Connection. But how this translates into a fire lance? I have no idea,” Luke said.

  Eli frowned, looking at the simple spellform. He scratched his ear and shrugged. “Maybe its the language pack that I purchased? Or maybe it’s my class. But I see quite a bit more than that. Like, it’s basically a short story. ‘The Titan Shoshosho did say ‘burn,’ and all space between the Demon Korborsho and the Titan did ignite into a flame, leaving behind naught but ash and smoke.’ Honestly it sounds a bit like one of your spells.”

  “What do you mean it sounds like one of my spells?” Luke asked. “All I hear when I recite magic incantations is random syllables pressed together. Unless it’s in the Common Tongue, then I guess you’re not wrong.”

  Eli shook his head, pulling at his hair in frustration. “Argh, why can’t magic make sense?”

  “We’re only in the mid twenties for levels, and we’ve been studying magic for less than two weeks,” Luke said. “I’d be shocked if it did make sense to us at this point. Let’s just be glad that we can use it without actually understanding it, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Eli said. He sighed and looked at the spellform that he’d drawn out carefully on a sheet of paper. “I’m going to go outside and make certain that I can actually use this.”

  “I’ll come with,” Luke said.

  They stepped outside the science room, and immediately their bodyguards fell into ranks around them. Eli sighed, hating that the guards were necessary, but even though he’d put Mayor Raymos in charge of the Haven’s functions, if he didn’t go about with guards then everyone would try to get his attention whenever he walked about without someone to turn the attention of the low leveled refugees aside.

  “Where to, boss?” the leader of the guards asked.

  “Shooting range,” Eli answered.

  “Righto,” the guard replied, and he said something into his walkie-talkie. They walked outside to what had once been the outside athletic fields. These had been converted into a magical practice zone. It wasn’t exclusive to Eli’s party; anyone with a magical class was invited to go there to test out their abilities in relative safety. But once the two highest level magician classed individuals appeared, everyone who was watching and everyone who was practicing went silent.

  Eli sighed. He wasn’t entirely enamored with his celebrity status. But it was also useful, because the queue to stand on the ‘firing range’ magically emptied itself.

  “Sir Luke,” one of the lower leveled mages said, bowing to the mage. “We’re looking forward to your demonstration.”

  “I’m not here to show off this time,” Luke said, motioning towards Eli. “This is his show.”

  This drew some attention, as Eli hadn’t publicly displayed his abilities before. A large number of phones appeared, and Eli realized that he was about to trend online once more, one way or another.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He pulled out the Fire Dart drawing. He studied it for a moment, making certain that he understood it and that it would function the way that he thought it would. Aside from the part that conjured flame, there was a part that directed it and prevented backlash.

  Overall it was very simple, and all it required from him was a bit of mana to prime the ritual. After that it was supposed to send out a quick … dart of flame? It was a spell called Fire Dart; Eli didn’t have high hopes for it.

  So he primed it with two or three points of mana, then blinked in surprise as it suddenly yanked in a significant amount of mana from the environment. The ritual shaped the magic on its own and in a fraction of a second a fireball the size of a soccer ball was flying down the range. It connected with one of the iron targets set up for fire spells, burning brightly for a moment.

  Eli cursed and dropped the burning sheet of paper which had served as the spell’s anchor. He sighed, disappointed. “Well, that was a waste of two hours.”

  “Not really,” Luke said, scratching his chin. “That was fast, Eli. Like, okay, watch me cast that same spell.”

  He did so, speaking in a combination of Bokuto and Elvish and Draconic. Eli blinked suddenly as he realized that he was one of very few in the audience who could understand the entirety of the spell. It took him twenty seconds to complete the incantation, and the resulting effect was no more profound than the one that Eli had launched in less than a second.

  He considered the implications for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, I see your point. My magic requires more prep work, but when I use it it’s point and pull the trigger. That’s definitely an advantage.”

  “How much Mana did that cost you to activate the scroll, Eli?” Luke asked, pressing the issue further.

  “I don’t know. Two points, maybe? I’ve already regenerated the deficit.”

  “It costs me fifteen points to cast my spell. I mean, don’t get me wrong that’s a very efficient spell for me, but I noticed that your spell drew in mana from the environment, which is another definite advantage I think,” Luke said.

  “Yeah, well, we have to do something about the ‘one time use’ thing, because I’m already running into time management issues,” Eli said, sighing.

  “I have some ideas about that,” Luke said, grinning. “Do you think the spell would still work if you wrapped it around a rod?”

  Eli blinked. His mind imagined the ritual downsized a bit and rolled up. He followed the lines of power as they flowed through the ritual and found that “Yes. Actually, it seems to be specifically designed for that purpose. I have to...I’ll have to work on it a bit.”

  “Right. Well while we’re here we might as well test out your other rituals,” Luke said.

  Eli shrugged and began pulling out the other doodles he’d been working on. Functionally they worked just like the Fire Dart, except that their effects were more esoteric. “Muscle Weakness,” for example, created an orange-yellow globe which happily shot straight through the target downfield without doing any visible damage.

  He had a dozen effects like that. “Vertigo,” “Dropsy,” “Hyper-Coagulation,” “Anticoagulant,” “Confusion,” “Epilepsy.” A few other medical terms that he’d had to look up. None of the spells seemed to be designed to directly deal damage, and their effects on the target range were less than impressive.

  But Eli certainly wouldn’t want to get hit by any of them.

  Once he had concluded that the proof-of-concept drawings all worked, he stuffed the cardboard drawings back into his backpack and returned to the high school with Luke and their bodyguards, leaving behind a somewhat depressed gathering of magic enthusiasts who had been expecting more of a show from the Scholar.

  Luke explained the idea he’d had as they walked back, and so they took a detour on their way back to the Science Room.

  Instead, they went to the Shop Classroom to speak with Junior and John Sr. The tinkerer’s assured the Mage that his idea was well within the scope of reality, and promised to start work on a “Blasting Rod” for Eli as soon as possible.

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