12, The Tower, Next Floors and First Spell. Part 1

It took very little time for Octatus to heal my wrist considering the semi-serious injury, in a little over a minute it was as good as new.

"I am sorry it took so long to heal. My specialty is attack and assassination, not rejuvenation. But I did learn some weaker spells for emergency purposes. I would appreciate it if you didn't mention my earlier lack of control. I used a little bit more power than necessary butI wasn't in the right state of mind to control it all."

I knew that this was a chance to have the head of a clan owe me one, so I flashed him my brightest smile and decided to remember this incident in the future.

It could potentially be a get out of jail free card.

"It's fine. It doesn't hurt now. Besides, it hurts you for far longer when people die. You can cry if you need to. It feels good to let it out."

He gave a genuine smile that hit his eyes and ruffled my hair.

"You're quite mature for your age aren't you, you didn't cry out at all after breaking your wrist. You must be quite tough, that will serve you well in the future. Come on now, let's go to the next floor."

My heart stopped for a second at his words but relaxed after as my worries seemed to be unfounded.

He took my hand in his and we went on our way.

As we walked up the staircase, I saw that it was also lined with the belts belonging to the dead.

"Are all of the walls on every floor covered with them?"

I asked this because it seemed like there was a good chance it would be how my people in this life honored their dead.

The stairway was a little wider than 5m, enough that a large group could walk through easily, and about 12m long going up at a steep angle.

"Unfortunately yes they all are. We keep them here for a few reasons: The first is so we remember that despite magic being amazing and powerful it is not a toy. And it should be treated with the utmost respect that the power deserves. Second, you should cherish the magic that you have since all these belts belong to those who desired to have it but failed to get it or studied and practiced with it until their demise. Finally this is a place for the living to remember the dead. Since it is not very often we are left with a corpse when magic goes wrong, we have this place to remember them by."

"Oh."

This was all I could think to say as I began to realize the risk I had taken while forming my core, as well as the burden I would have shoved onto my father if I had failed.

To be a parent with these traditions must not be easy.

To struggle to raise a child, only to then have them risk their lives in hopes of attaining magic.

Then it dawned on me.

The nervous kid from the day of the ceremony, stood in front of Octatus.

He must have failed to create his core and died.

So the reason that the clan head came to my family wasn't due to my outstandingness, but because he wanted someone to nurture and to ease his sorrow.

With this realization I looked to the man walking up the stairs with me in a new light.

I had a newfound respect for the strength of will this man had.

Noticing my gaze he smiled widely at me and I made another promise to myself.

'I will never make my parents hang my belt in the tower.'

'I will become so powerful that no matter the situation I will survive at any cost.'

Not long after I made this promise to myself, we arrived at the top of the stairs.

The second floor was a similar shape to the first floor with it being a large circular room, but there were no large tables in this room and the belts hanging there were slightly different.

Some of the belts encircling the room now had stones on them.

It wasn't every belt, but at least a third of them had one stone.

Throughout the inside of the room instead of being like the first floor, there were no structures.

Tons of intricately carved circles with a cushion either inside or beside them were scattered around the room.

Several of the circles were occupied and in a few of them I could see who was inside but most were shrouded in fog, blocking my vision.

In the non foggy circles, the individuals were mainly practicing simple martial art forms loosely resembling Tai-Chi or meditating silently on a pillow.

The entire room was dead silent so my voice seemed especially loud when I asked Octatus a question I had been thinking about for some time.

"Why do some belts have many stones on them and others have none? I know that those who have more have greater influence than those with less, but no one would tell me what I need to do in order to get a stone."

"You are very ambitious indeed, that will be beneficial in the future if you have a strong work ethic."

This caused a small blush to appear on my face along with a happy smile.

"The stones on your belt can be earned in two ways. The first way is to add a new spell to our collection. We would take the spell and place its partly completed version into its corresponding collection according to its element and power. That would earn you a single stone. The second way is to master a spell to the point you can either cast it instantly or within 3 seconds. But in reality you should have enough control over the spell to use it in live combat. This would get you a stone for each spell you can use proficiently."

"I see, so it's about personal power and contribution to the clan's potential power. But why do you only provide partly finished spells on the first floors?"

"This is because you need to work for everything, if you were just given a spell you would learn it and be content with how it is. If you are given an incomplete spell you will need to learn what is given and then complete it. In this process of completion you may change it slightly to fit your style of magic better, or even turn it into a completely different spell. Basically it fosters creativity in magic that will make you a better mage even if it makes things harder to learn."

This explanation made my eyes go wide, it was amazing they had thought this far into how to nurture the best mages.

"That is incredible! This keeps people who are strong in charge and stops those who are weak."

"It is one of the ways, yes. But we are still far behind the power we used to have at our peak. But enough of my ramblings, let's go to the next floor."

This surprised me as I thought we would spend more time on this floor just like the first one.

"Why are we moving on so quickly? Is there nothing here for me?"

"Not at the moment. Think of this floor as a private space to meditate and practice, you don't need to do either at the moment. Besides, the third floor is a little more exciting than this one. We can stay on the next floor for a bit but the floor we are supposed to stop at is the fourth floor."

Octatus grabbed my hand and turned around, taking me with him as he started walking up the second flight of stairs.

Once again the stairway was lined with the belts of the dead, but now there were no belts without stones and the ones with only a single stone were becoming scarce.

"What is the purpose of the fourth floor?"

Since it didn't seem like we were going to spend much time on the third floor, I figured I should ask ahead and find out as much as I could about our final destination.

Unfortunately Octatus' words ended that plan.

"I can't tell you, that would spoil the surprise."

"That's fine, what is the purpose of the third floor then?"

This time I got a better answer.

"The third floor is pretty exciting, it's for testing and developing spells in a safe area."

This answer brought a sparkle to my eyes as I asked enthusiastically.

"You mean I can see people actually casting spells in there! Like more than manipulating the ground with earth magic?!"

The excitement I felt was obvious in the sound of my voice and on my face when I heard that.

Watching so much anime in my past life made me a sucker for any and all magic.

"Well of course. If you are learning a spell you can't practice it outside. It could malfunction and hurt the caster or others around him, even the environment if the spell is powerful enough. This is why the founders built the training floor when creating the tower. You can use any spell up to the Elder Tier without any problems, regardless of element."

"What is the Elder Tier?"

"It's the common name of a high tier of magic. You don't need to worry about it too much since it's too high for you to learn now, even if you have a perfect elemental affinity."

Noticing my slightly downcast expression he asked me if I wanted to see some advanced spells.

As if I would ever say no to that question!

I charged at Octatus and gave him a bear hug to show my appreciation.

"You're the best, second father. I can't wait to see what spells you cast! You should use your strongest one!"

He chuckled at my childish request.

"How weak do you think I am? My strongest spell would be enough to change an entire terrain and my elder spells aren't exactly suited for demonstration purposes. How about I show you a few fancy high tier spells slowed down for show, instead of an elder spell?"

"That sounds awesome!"

My reply was a complete opposite to what I felt inside.

Weak?!

A high tier spell that I can't even learn if my affinity is perfect is considered weak by him!

Just how strong are the heads of the clans if just a single spell from one of them can change the landscape!

Several minutes later we reached the third floor since the staircase this time was nearly 3 times the length of the previous one.

The inside of the third floor was massive.

The walls were as expected at this point, covered in belts, and as if the size of the room didn't matter there would always be more belts to cover the walls completely.

There must have been over 10,000 belts on this floor.

It really showed me just how deep the clan's lineage is and how profound its understanding of magic must be from the many generations studying it.

On this floor the belts all now had at least 5 stones each, and most of them had 8 or more.

This made me realize that no matter how many spells you learn you can still end up dead.

Noticing my attention to the walls Octatus spoke up.

"Yes, even those who have mastered many spells can die unexpectedly. The world is many times more dangerous than our home here, remember that when you train. Train seriously so that in serious situations you can still train."

I repeated this phrase to memorize it and nodded saying I would remember it.

Taking my attention from the walls, I looked towards the center of the room.

Unfortunately it was empty except for the two of us.

The room was even bigger than the two floors below us combined, and had many sections of different sizes.

Some were smaller than 4 meters and others were much bigger than 15, the largest one I could see was more than 40 meters across.

A small stone wall was raised around the borders of each training spot, denoting the area of protection.

Around all of the training zones was a network of pathways like a grid, meant to provide a path to move easily throughout the room.

"How do the low walls manage to stop the spells? They are low enough that I could jump over them."

I looked towards Octatus waiting expectantly for his answer, he didn't let me down.

"The walls on the floor are just to make the spell casting areas easily distinguishable from the rest of the floor. As funny as it would be to see people walking into invisible barriers periodically, it would get quite annoying after doing it several times in a row."

'That makes sense,' I thought to myself.

"Come on, show me your magic! Show me!"

Now that we had finally reached the floor I couldn't hold myself back anymore, I was still 8 in this life after all.

I didn't need to be responsible all of the time.

Octatus just chuckled and entered one of the rooms closest to him.

He bent down and put a hand on the floor of the room and then stood up normally closing his eyes.

I guessed that when he bent down he was activating the magical barrier.

He opened his eyes and spoke in a happy voice.

"Are you ready Etanali? I will show you 3 spells. All 3 will be cast using complex elements and will be of the Advanced Tier. First up we have an Acidic Element spell."

Octatus clapped his hands together as he spoke out the name of his spell: "Myriad Dissolving Lotus".

Slowly drops of water appeared and congealed to form 9 lotus flowers which floated all around him.

His next words cause a big change to his spell.

"Activate."

At this word the 12 petals from all of the lotus flowers separated and began to cover his body, then they started to spin.

The once beautiful petals made him look like a human blender with 108 acidic blades spinning fast enough to shred the air.

After a small amount of time he let the petals return back to their flowers and then dispersed them.

"What did you think?"

This brought me out of my stunned expression as I imagined what would happen to anything caught in the range of all of those spinning blades.

I clapped my hands with a giant smile on my face

"That was Amazing!"

Octatus smiled and made an exaggerated bow.

"Next up I will show a Crystal Element spell so I will modify the terrain first, then cast it.

I need a disposable prop to best show the effect of this spell."

Without needing to do anything fancy several massive stalagmites of rock rose from the ground and were compressed down to an 1/8th of their size making them incredibly dense.

"This will allow you to see the effect of my next spell better, this one will be from a branch of spells called Animated Creation."

Once again he clapped his hands and said Animated Crystalline Creation: Blade Bat.

A small crystal appeared in front of his hands and started to grow to the size of a large fist, then a pair of wings uncoiled themselves from the crystal.

The wings were incredibly thin, as if they would break by simply blowing on them.

Octatus then said "Fly" and the bat disappeared.

I was confused as to what would happen, when seconds later the super dense stalagmites began to fall apart as if they were just piles of toothpicks.

The blade bat was still unseen but the stalagmites were all reduced to thinly cut pieces on the floor, which Octatus promptly returned to its original state.

I was about to ask where the bat went when it reappeared sitting on Octatus' shoulder.

This made my eyes nearly pop out of my sockets and my jaw slackened.

The entire event took less than 5 seconds from when he said fly, to the bat reappearing on his shoulder.

I didn't even know if the bed was too fast to see or it went invisible.

Octatus smiled with the bat leaning against his head as he asked.

"What did you think of this one?"

I struggled to close my mouth let alone find the words to respond to him.

"Come in here Etanali, I want you to try a spell now. Use the one you tried to hit me with back at my house."

Octatus reached down to the floor and deactivated the isolation zone.

Much to my despair, without dispelling his bat.