Dual Casting

Dreue surveyed the side of the forest, hoping to find one-horned rabbits, they were one of the lowest level monsters, they are weak but very agile, they attack by using their hard horn.

Moving in the forest was very hard, since his sight is still bad, but at least he was safe. He could not see terrain which he was walking on, he would sometimes stumble over a stone or a trunk.

Under one of the trees, he saw a small mana silhouette with a nucleus in its center, form its appearance he was able to tell it was the one-horned rabbit.

He approached it as slowly as possible. He held his breath and focused all his attention on the rabbit, taking small steps, one at a time.

CRACK

"Sigh... No matter what I do, I still make some noise, I should try shooting form far distance even though my chance of missing with get higher" Dreue said to himself as he was looking at the rabbit which disappeared in the depth of the forest.

Dreue found another rabbit, and this time he decided to approach it only enough for fireball to hit.

BOOM

The fireball did not only miss, but it was almost shot in another direction, a mistake that can only be made by someone who just started practicing magic recently. Even though Dreue was still a mage with level 2 mana core and almost blind one, a miss this terrible was out of question.

Dreue expression was very strange, he couldn't care less about missing the shot or the escaping rabbit. Instead, his gaze was focused on his hand.

"What in the world is this?"

He casted fireball again at random direction, this time his attention was one his hand.

A stream of mana flowed from his core to his shoulder, along his arm to his hand. There, a magic circle the size of an adult head was formed, he could clearly see all of its details and distinguish each one from the others, then mana flowed from his palm into the center of the circle, where it was transformed into a small fireball. The fireball got bigger till it reached a fist size then launched forward.

All of this happened in a blink of an eye, but Dreue was able to see and understand the whole process.

He shot another fireball, and the same thing happened.

Having ran out of mana, he headed to the inn.

…..

Next day Dreue came to the forest again.

"Although I want to experiment more with this mana flow, but I can't afford to spend all my mana on it. Normally mana core would expand a bit by bit with continuous use of spells, just like how muscles would get stronger by exercise, but my core is defective, so straining myself has the opposite effect".

"I should postpone experimenting to a letter time, now I should focus one hunting monsters, I should at least hunt one today".

At the down, Dreue came out of the forest empty handed, he was not able to hunt anything, things started getting worse for him, with each passing day the pressure increase.

…..

"Sigh… If I shoot from far distance, they would have enough time to evade the fireball, if I get closer in order to take them by surprise, they would notice me and runaway".

"I would be happy to spend all of my mana in exchange for just one rabbit"

"But I am not fast enough, by the time I start casting the second fireball, it would be too late as the rabbit will have already run away".

Dreue started angerly kicking a nearby tree." DAMN IT, DAMN IT ".

"WHY DOES THE WORLD HATE ME SO MUCH, I HAVE BEEN WORKING HARD ALL OF MY LIFE, HAVE I NOT SUFFERED ENOUGH AT THE ACADEMY? IF IT WAS ONLY MY EYES, I WOULD HAVE OVERCOME IT, IF IT WAS ONLY MY MANA CORE, I WOULD HAVE OVERCOME IT, BUT ALL OF THIS TOGETHER IS TOO MUCH FOR ME".

After a while Dreue got tired, he set one the ground and started ripping grass with his bruised fists. No longer satisfied by using only one hand, he started grabbing a bunch of grass in each hand, ripping it of the ground, dirt flying around.

"Using both hands is sure better than using one" Dreue said after he calmed down, his hands with full of traces of dirt and grass, small cuts here and there and some bruises.

Dreue took a long breath, "anger will not get me anywhere, let's think rationally about what I can use".

"I can use fireball three times, I have a small digger…. "

"I also have two hands, huh"

"Both hand… two hands …. That's it !!"

…..

"Before getting my hopes high let me try it first"

Dreue casted fireball but this time with his left hand." For most people when performing tasks that require one hand, there is always a hand that is better than the other, feel more comfortable and feel more natural, that's the dominant hand".

"Spell casting is not an exception to this rule".

"Even so, all mages can cast with their non- dominant hand, producing acceptable result".

The fireball was not as good as the ones he casted using his right hand but it was still acceptable.

After that he raised both of his hands in front of him, aiming at the trees.

"To cast to two spells at the same time that's it- dual casting is a very rare skill requiring lots of mental effort that can only be achieved by high mages who spent years of training".

"My former self would have never even dreamt about doing it, but I am different now, I can see the flow of mana in my own body, I cast normally with my right hand I will depend on the reflexes of my body to produce fireball like I did before acquiring the Eye of Perception with even looking at the mana flow, at the same time I will concentrate my effort in actively guiding the mana to my left hand to cast another fireball at the same time".

.....

BOOM BOOM

The right fireball was good of course not good as solo casting even with the left hand but was still good, it hit the tree, deviating from the intended pathway the distance of a foot or two. As for the left one, it can be said that it was utter failure. In fact, it did not look like fireball at all, it appeared like throwing a piece of burning cloth on the ground.

Dreue looked at his hands, while grinning from ear to ear.

"SUCCESS!"

"This a huge leap forward in my path as a magus"

"But I have yet to solve my main problem."