Chapter 140 - Combining Spells

I walked out of the writer's shop absentmindedly, still staring at the poem. That was when I heard a voice.

"Hey, what are you doing? You are supposed to stay in your home!"

I looked up to see a guard scolding me. After noticing the situation I was in, I hurriedly waved.

"Ah, alright, alright. I'm going back!"

As I closed the door, another guard next to the other one rubbed the bottom of his helmet with his thumb and forefinger.

"Huh... that guy seems familiar for some reason."

Cold sweat appeared on my back as I heard those words, but I closed the door before things got any worse.

I took a peek at the shopkeeper, only to see an empty desk.

This was probably the best time to teleport.

And so, I did.

My eyes widened while my pupils constricted while a tight feeling wrapped around me. A seed of fear festered in the process, but once I appeared on the other side, it blossomed into a tiny bit of thrill.

And with that, I sneaked through the alleyways until I made it back to the palace.

I sat down, with both the spell diagram and the empty piece of paper in front of me. It was a little meaningless to just stare at it, but that was exactly what I did.

...Simply because I had no idea where to start.

After a few moments, a soft sigh escaped me.

Maybe I should take this step by step.

So what made this spell special? The most striking difference it had from other spells was the ability to grow.

But what created this ability to grow?

That should have partially come from the ability to continue and supply the spell with mana. But how was the spell able to do that?

In terms of the spell structure, the only difference was in the pathways and that one extra miniature spell diagram that seemed a little deformed.

There was no way I was going to be able to understand what the pathways represented anytime soon, so I decided to start with the deformed miniature spell diagram.

First, I attempted to cast it on its own.

It did not take long for me to gather the mana and form the spell. However, even when I had recreated it in its entirety, it simply remained there. The sensation was similar to when I kept an almost finished spell within my body.

From this, I was more or less able to guess that this was something like a catalyst or secondary function. Rather than having a specific purpose itself, it was an addition.

After a bit of hesitation, I began casting the earth spell and attempted to connect them together. Mana slowly flowed from the cores and gradually connected.

...Then, I spat out a mouthful of blood.

The spell disassembled immediately, cutting up my insides. Thankfully, I was able to cover my mouth in time, thus no blood spilled onto the table.

After feeling the pain subside, I continued.

I tried to connect the earth spell with the deformed diagram differently.

Then, I coughed up blood again.

I continued to stubbornly try different ways to connect the spell together. However, the only thing I accomplished was making my hand redder than a tomato with all the blood.

At some point, a strong sense of vertigo and weakness assaulted me. The loss of blood had taken its toll. I hurriedly casted the healing spell, restoring my wounds.

I let out a soft sigh and decided to try something new.

This time, I tried to connect that deformed spell diagram with the firebolt spell.

The only question was how I could connect the two spells together. Because the deformed spell diagram had several cores, there were several different combinations to connect the core.

As for the firebolt spell, it had even more cores to connect to.

In other words, just for these relatively basic spells, there were countless combinations. It wouldn't take me too long for me to explore all the combinations for this spell. At most, it would be a little bit of blood and the rest of the day.

However, it made me think of the future. Wouldn't spells just get even more and more complex as time went on?

Trial and error simply wasn't an answer at that point.

...But I didn't know what else to do.

And so, I sat there awkwardly.

Eventually, I shook my head. Though this wasn't the most efficient method, it was the only one available to me. First, I had to create a success to make a successful example.

With that example, I would be able to slowly pick apart what made that one right and the other one wrong.

...Taking a step back and thinking about it, I realized that the path before me was quite scary.

I sighed, then took a step down that path.

First, was finding the correct example. And so, I went through a series of failed attempts, vomiting blood, and healing spells. Halfway through I was beginning to lose hope that I was even doing the right thing and was tempted to just give up.

However, I persisted.

Soon, I came to the very last combination. I held up my finger and stared at the tip intently.

...Then sighed.

I finished casting the spell, but nothing had shown up. But, right before I could complain, I realized that some of the mana was remaining stagnant in my body.

It succeeded.

I smiled bitterly to myself. After all, it only worked once the last combination happened.

How bad was my luck?

I shook my head, putting those thoughts past me. In the end, it worked, so I should focus on that. From there, I tried to gather more mana and try to add it into the diagram.

After an uncomfortably long time, a tiny flicker of flame appeared above my finger. As for the amount of mana I gathered, it was enough to cast the firebolt spell two times over.

My eyebrow twitched.

I guess this is why this was only used for the vine spell and not others. Or maybe it just wasn't optimized?

Well, I wouldn't know.

At the very least, I could conclude that the purpose of this strange deformed diagram was to allow continuous expansion. Simply out of curiosity, I continued to funnel mana into the small flame above my finger.

After a while, it had expanded to the size of a fireball. This definitely wasn't worth the amount of time it took to create, but it seemed like there either wasn't a limit or that it could expand even further.

So I continued to pour mana into the spell.

It felt as though I was slowly dragging my feet through a marsh, but the spell eventually became the size of a firebolt. Despite reaching the size of the original spell, it still felt limitless.

As such, I continued to pour mana in, mostly out of curiosity compared to anything else. My efforts eventually paid off, becoming a fairly large fireball. It was nearly the size of a large beach ball.

Although I still felt like I could take it further, I was satisfied for now.

Well, more so I didn't want to continue spending so much time expanding it.

There was definitely potential, but the absurd amount of time required to build up to such a state wasn't worth it in the slightest. Not to mention, the amount of mana consumed was far too much for its effect.

I stared at the fireball above my finger, flames still dancing.

It was only at this point did I realize there was no easy way to dispose of it.

...Erin was able to realize casting spells willy nilly was a bad idea, without even casting the spell itself. Yet, even when it was slowly forming in front of me, I didn't think about any of the consequences.

I looked around, as though something nearby would be able to help me.

My eyebrow twitched.

I walked closer to the palace entrance, then when I felt like I had an angle, threw the fireball high up into the sky.

...That would be fine, right?

"What the-"

"A fireball!"

"We are under attack!"

I slinked far back into the palace, all the way to the courtyard so that they wouldn't notice me. For a few moments, I questioned whether or not I did something stupid.

...It was probably fine.

Probably.

While still a little frazzled, I stumbled into the courtyard. My head slowly lifted to see Ned in front of me. He was sitting on the path casually, but looked at me with widened eyes.

"Are you alright?"

I blinked a few times.

"Uh, yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

Ned pointed at me, with a slightly shaking finger.

"You are covered in so much blood."

I looked down and saw that my body was indeed completely covered in blood.

"Ah right, that."