Robert Meta
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Brockton Bay's Marvelous Mage - Chapter Fifty Nine
🕑 Added 2024-11-19 16:37:23 +0000 UTCI spent the rest of the night designing and practicing some lower-level spells, measuring my success, and gauging how well the process worked. As I did, I solidified several theories that I had formed while perusing the information I gained, as well as when I made the flashlight spell. Perhaps the most interesting, if not the most important, was how the investment into quick casting affected the spells that I was making.
Once I designed and cast a functioning spell, the subject would activate. It was subtle at first, but the more I used the spell, the more I could feel how to cast the spell with just a thought and a push of energy. I practiced with the flashlight spell for maybe ten minutes before it all clicked, and the chant felt unnecessary. The light created by the spell was slightly less intense, but I could simply push more mana into the spell to increase the lumens.
That was all on top of the instant help I was getting from the quick cast subject. It instantly affected how my ingrained, purchased spells worked. A huge swath of my lighting spell subject didn't require any action to cast save a vague gesture and a bit of concentration.
However, while the quick cast subject had very quickly changed how I used my magic, it was also clear that it wouldn't help with everything. There was only so much of a spell I could rush, and while investing more points into the subject would probably extend that, I could feel it had an inherent limit. My most potent lightning spell, which was now shortened to Fulgura meum, would likely never get shorter than two words. The more complicated the magic, the less I could force it to be more simple or faster.
Which was where a spellbook was going to come in handy.
Most wizards and mages would be next to useless without a spellbook. Take away their notes and chanting guides, and they would lose access to everything but lowest-level spells that they either memorized or were ingrained enough to cast without the chant.
With the Marvelous Mage system, however, I could survive pretty well without a spellbook since the spells that I purchased, like lightning and healing spells, were forever downloaded into my head. Unfortunately, now that I would be pushing into spells I made myself, I would definitely need a place to have them written down. Spellbooks were not just fancy-looking notebooks, after all. They were specifically created to be used to hold the owner's spells and could be enchanted to react to the owner's thoughts, reinforced to withstand the elements, sealed so only the owner could access them, and even more.
A few days ago, I didn't even know spellbooks existed past seeing them in media, like in D&D or TV shows. Thankfully, crafting one from the ground up was included in the arcane focus creation subject since turning one into an arcane focus required a few extra steps in the crafting phase.
The fact that I got access to that, just after losing my staff and just before I would start desperately needing a spellbook… Well, if I needed proof that whoever had dropped me here was still watching and affecting what I got from the cycle's "random" subject, this was it.
I worked through the night, slowly working out a handful of spells, stopping after each one to practice and memorize it. None of them were particularly overpowering, but being able to use magic beyond lightning and healing spells was exhilarating. I stood on the outskirts of the clearing, firing out pressurized jets of water, bursts of air, and balls of fire. By the time the sun started to rise, I had around a dozen new lower-level spells, the last of which I made when I realized I was going to be exhausted for the next day.
"Renovare vim, lassitudinem repellere," I chanted, holding my hand above my head, my palm facing upwards.
A band of silvery glowing mana expanded from my palm, with three symbols floating around it. It continued to grow, only stopping when it was large enough to fit around me. When it was, a few seconds later, it slowly sank to the ground, passing around me easily. I had to fight a shiver as it did, my body feeling refreshed and energized. When the spell faded completely, I shook myself a bit, letting out a long breath.
"Well… I guess I don't have to sleep anymore…" I said, not exactly happy about it.
"You should sleep regardless," Alya advised me, concern in her voice.
Kali also expressed her concern, a slight weight on my shoulder, and a feeling of worry coming through our connection.
"I will, I can't imagine it would be mentally healthy, even if physically I could," I assured them. "Just not happy knowing that, with my work drive, I will be skipping more than I probably would like to."
Despite how early it was, I quickly got ready for the day. I had an early morning patrol, followed by my normal daily visits to the PRT and the hospital. After that… I had so much work to do. I had seven rituals to design and perform, a spellbook to make, an arcane focus to make, as well as spells to design. I had a whole list of spells I wanted and needed to develop in my notebook, and it was only getting longer.
I shook my head at my growing list of things to do before hopping up on Troy's back and riding him out of the forest. The early morning chill hit me harder than I expected once I left Kali's area of influence, but I pushed on, totting down the trail to the city. By the time I reached the previously agreed upon spot, Olivia was already waiting for me, sitting in an alley on a couple of milk crates, her costume already on. She was leaning back against the brickwork behind her, and as I got closer, she jerked forward suddenly, looking over at me.
"Sleeping on the job?" I asked with a smirk, sliding off of Troy's back.
"I should be sleeping now regardless!" She said, shaking her head. "If I had- Uh… Arcanum… where is your mask?"
I chuckled and took a few minutes to explain what I had done to my mask. She accepted it pretty easily, as long as I didn't make her wear something similar. After my explanation, she shrugged and yawned, her back cracking several times as she stretched.
"You want me to help with that?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "I'd prefer you alert and ready if you're watching my back."
"What, you got an energy drink or a coffee somewhere in that coat?"
"Nope. Just stand still," I told her, stepping closer and raising my hand over my head before chanting. “Renovare vim, lassitudinem repellere.”
The same silver circle appeared over my head, but I continued to feed it my mana, growing the circle bigger and bigger until it could handle both of us. The spell was localized to the caster, which made the chant and symbols easier, but that also meant I had to participate every time I wanted to cast it. As the silverish glowing band sank to the ground around us, Olivia shivered before letting out a groan of appreciation.
"That was fucking fantastic," She said, shaking herself a bit like I had removed a physical weight from her. "It's like I got a full night's sleep…for three days in a row. You bastard, why haven't you shared that before?"
"It's a new one," I admitted vaguely. "Are you ready to go? You wanna ride on Troy again?"
She nodded and jumped up on Troy's back, sitting side saddle again. We left the alley behind, making our way deeper into ABB territory. After walking for about ten minutes, Crow spoke up.
"So, how did your meeting with New Wave go?" She asked, looking over her shoulder at me. "Are we screwed or...?"
"They agreed to help," I said, reaching into my jacket and handing her a piece of paper, on which I had copied down the team's patrol schedule. "They were all on board, so that's the patrols they will be doing. I basically need to fill in the gaps, and you can join me when you can."
"I can make most of these," She said after spending a few minutes reading the schedule. "Will your instant coffee light show replace sleep completely? 'Cause a few of these run pretty late."
"It can completely replace the physical need to sleep," I explained. "Which is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. I kind of regret creating it in the first place. But now we can both use it to skip sleep when necessary."
Crow's mocking laugh cut off suddenly when I pointed out she would likely be using it frequently as well. I had to step to the side to keep her from kicking me as we walked. For a moment, we patrolled quietly before Crow eventually brought us back to the original topic.
"What are you going to do if I can't join you on a patrol?"
"I'm already thinking about adding a few golems to our group," I explained. "Might even offer a few to New Wave. In fact…"
I pulled out my notebook, reaching into Troy to do so. I flipped to my spell list and added a "manipulate metal" spell to it. If I could go to a junkyard and form up some metal golems, they would most likely be able to keep up with us much better than stone, maybe even living wood., After thinking about it for a second, I also added a metal-affecting spell to my list of minor spells to make, since it would probably be useful against tinkers, Kaiser, and Hookwolf.
As the sun slowly rose higher into the sky, Crow and I were eventually relieved of duty by Crystal and Sarah, or more specifically, Laserdream and Lady Photon. After a short conversation and another cast of my wake-up spell for the mother and daughter, Crow headed back to the docks community, and I made my way first to the hospitals and then to the PRT. My day healing routine went by pretty quickly, and when I was done, I went shopping, this time for some very specific ingredients.
As I arrived back at the Forest compound, I decided that I would make an executive decision and make my spellbook first, then spend the rest of the night and into the morning designing spells. Then, after taking care of my morning duties and patrolling with Olivia, I would start working on the ritualized equipment for New Wave. When that was all done, I would finally get around to making myself a new staff. Assuming nothing happened to upend my plans, at least.
Once I had hopped off Troy and unloaded everything I had bought, I got to work with the preparations. I had purchased a dense leather book from an antique store, and that would be the heart of my spellbook. It was bound loosely, with a leather strap keeping it closed and an embossed tree decorating the front. From here, progress was simple since I was basically just following the directions in my head.
It started with a strengthening ritual, one to reinforce the book's pages, bindings, and overall resiliency. Once the ritual was complete, the future spellbook felt significantly more durable in my hands. Even the pages were now considerably resistant to tearing. When I was done examining it, I quickly laid out a secondary ritual, this one including a handful of gems and a chunk of silver to increase the magical capacity of the book.
After the rituals, it was time to start laying enchantments into the book. Now, I knew very little about enchanting. Technically, my druidcraft contained a few enchantments designed to aid in plant growth, but I never looked into them because I never needed them.
Thankfully, the directions I got were pretty simple. Unfortunately, since it was so simple, I really didn't get a good feel for what was going on. I was just blindly following directions, spending an hour and a half using a simple spell to "carve" glowing, intangible runes on the leather of the book, then somehow sealing it by using another spell to burn a chunk of silver, which turned into a gas and flowed into runes one by one before it all flashed and sunk into the leather.
A quick test showed that, yes, the pages of the book now followed my mental commands. I could open the spellbook and shuffle through its blank pages, stopping suddenly or flicking it open to any specific page.
For five more hours and nearly four thousand dollars worth of silver later, I now had a leather-bound book that followed my mental commands, would return to me if I willed it to, and would let me add new, blank pages by feeding it clean paper, but wouldn't get physically thicker no matter how many pages it had. After checking to make sure everything worked properly, I carefully put it into a book holster that was strapped to my left hip.
For a moment, I stood still before holding my hand out and giving the spellbook a mental yank. The buttons of the book holster popped free, and my spellbook shot up into my hand. With another mental command, it flew open, its pages fluttering back and forth.
"Well done," Alya said. "Is it complete?"
"No, I still need to turn it into a focus," I responded, shaking my head and closing my book. "One of the biggest draws of a proper focus is being able to forgo most hand movements. If I have the book in my hand, I'll need a focus to cast two-handed spells with one hand. Or with no hands at all."
Turning the book into a focus was relatively simple, since most of what needed to be done had already been done during the creation process. The second ritual, with the gems and the silver, had prepared the book for this next step.
The spell book focus was primarily designed to be a backup, so the design was pretty basic. It started with a flat piece of wood, in this case, yew, which I sanded down with a crafting spell I got from the arcane focus creation subject. I then ritualized the wood with gold and my blood before setting a decent-sized chunk of garnet into it. I then fused that with the spine of the book, first cutting open the leather, pushing the wood inside, and then using a minor repair spell, again given to me by the focus creation subject, to seal the leather back up around the wood. Finally, I cut a circle in the leather to reveal the garnet beneath.
When it was finally complete, I made my way to the edge of the compound, looking out into the forest. With a practiced hand, I cast my zapping spell, channeling it through the focus. Rather than firing from the spine, the spell manifested above the open book, half a foot from the pages, before firing out and hitting a nearby large rock.
I repeated the test a few dozen times with a handful of spells before I was eventually satisfied with my latest creation. I carefully slid the book into my hip holster before making my way to a chair and dropping down into it. I had more than earned a break.
When I was done with a simple dinner of fruit and an avocado, I sat down with my notebook. With my spellbook complete, I had a place to copy down my completed spells, which meant it was finally time to start pushing what my spell creation subject could really do. I was done developing minor spells for now. It was time to go big.
I had all night and into the morning to work, after all, and I intended to get the absolute most out of every minute.
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Edit: I meant to add this originally, but here are Williams current subjects
Geomancy: [x][x]
Healing Spells: [x][x]
Lightning Spells: [x][x]
PM Enhancement Spells: [x]
Druidcraft: [x][x]
Ritual Design and crafting: [x][x][x]
Arcane Focus Creation: [x][x]
Spell Crafting: [x][x][x]
Quick Casting: [x][x]
Comments
OdinMage
I've been binging this and noticed something... given you're like 50 chapters beyond this now I'm not sure if you'll ever fix it, but I thought I'd mention it. In chapter 55 you have this scene: "Olivia had reacted similarly to Miss Militia when she first saw me walking around with no mask, but while the Protectorate heroine took a bit of convincing and still didn't quite believe me. Olivia took my word for it immediately. After all, she was wearing proof of just how powerful and weird my rituals could get." Then in chapter 59 you have basically the same scene with a bit more reaction: ""I should be sleeping now regardless!" She said, shaking her head. "If I had- Uh… Arcanum… where is your mask?" I chuckled and took a few minutes to explain what I had done to my mask. She accepted it pretty easily, as long as I didn't make her wear something similar. After my explanation, she shrugged and yawned, her back cracking several times as she stretched." I'm not sure if it's ever been pointed out before; it's minor and I likely only noticed it because I read the chapters within a short period, but I wanted to let you know regardless.
Pearl of the Orient
He needs Evocation and Enchantment. Then he needs to focus on a school for a bit.
Elaine
good chappie
Michael Rojas
Yo, can our MC make some golem xenomorphs? That would be cool..
Kyle Pemberton
Sounds like he needs to get enchanting magic unlocked to tier 2 or 3 as well.
SpicyGrapeSoda
If quick casting is viable I think a future charge should be spent on mana efficiency and/or magic penetration. Other than that good chapter! :)
Alex I
Thanks for the chapter!
Noob
Tftc
