10 Magecrafting (2)

For Luca, the System, and plenty of the best Mage players in the game, they held a different belief. For them, the geniuses of the current Andor were a little better than average, but they wouldn't be able to hack it in a real war. The only real geniuses they recognized were those capable of casting spells with the same precision and strength as those with wands, but with either the same or better speed compared to wand-users. Wands made more geniuses, but they also created the mentality that they were essential, thus making them weaker and lazier with their abilities. This mentality, which later was colloquially termed the 'Evander Syndrome' by the players, caused generations of mages to believe that one cannot cast spells without a wand.

"I know, mentor, but I know what I'm doing. I'm better without a wand anyway. Watch," proving his point, he cast two Guidelights at once, at a reasonably quick 1.3 seconds, a time which didn't satisfy his desire to reach less than a second per cast. A mage's duel necessitates casting speed more than power with each spell, and Luca knew there would be limitless chances for such fights. While holding the two, he then made a third and began to demonstrate his exceptional control by juggling them and changing the colors as he did so. "See? No problems at all."

Stumped at seeing how easily Luca was capable of casting spells without a wand broke Ysmir's common sense as a mage, and a good two minutes of the old man staring into space out of shock passed before he recovered. Putting a hand to his head, he returned to his chair, breathing rather heavily before managing to calm his racing heart. When he had done so, he grumbled about developing a headache from the abnormal surprises of the white-haired brat, then gestured towards a nearby closet door.

Opening the door, Luca found several old chests that had seen numerous years and damaging accidents, each labeled with what it contained. Before taking any materials, he grabbed a piece of paper, which was rare in the small town but very common around large towns and cities, and a hawk-feather quill and commandeering Ysmir's aged wooden desk covered in a variety of well-used books, scraps of paper and multiple ink spots.

After managing to clear a space for his work, Luca snagged one of the books on the desk marked as 'Magecraft: A Mage's Blacksmithing'. Widely recognized as the most basic yet most important encyclopedia of magecraft remains the sole text that any true magecraft aspirer must learn. All of the fundamentals for magecraft were composed by Archmage Evander's master, Archimedes, a being better known for his titles as the Millennium Sage and the Sage of Enchanters, and his status as one of the three remaining Original Sages. Archimedes, along with his two estranged peers, were among the first Sages to bring order to Andor, and while most perished either naturally or unnaturally, the last three Sages withstood the tests of time, predating the beginning of the Sage Era by numerous years and then surviving 2000 more without falling. Though numerous masters of magecraft, who were generally called enchanters, have come and gone, making several changes to the ways of magecrafting since it was created, none have dared claim to be better than Archimedes himself. Several legends claimed that he was responsible for numerous Divine-grade artifacts, one of which was confirmed by the ancient Sage himself to be the Scales of Justice, which is known to be one of the few major deity artifacts that hold massive influence over both Factions without being a threat to either, along with having two deities connected to it. With the neutral and unwavering force of the combined Goddesses of Law and Vengeance, it has been the highest judicial force since the Heroic Era despite rarely being used.

Luca asked the System to scan and add the book's contents to the database, which was answered by actions instead of words. A faint blue glow ran up and down the book like a modern scanner, which Luca noted that Ysmir did not notice. After about a minute, it stopped as the System stated, "Scanning complete. Compiling data... storing in the database... complete. Note that this book is the 497th edition and has taken upon numerous changes. Some of such changes have been removed due to flaws upon checking. Would you like this knowledge downloaded into your brain?"

Upon agreeing, Luca felt that familiar sensation of vertigo and his mind was filled with new knowledge. Lifting a hand, an odd force-field formed in his palm. The first and most important skill for magecraft was this forcefield, termed the Archimedean Field, as it was capable of performing countless alterations to whatever was contained inside it, provided it be actively controlled with precision. Now that he had this skill, Luca was capable of his first attempt at magecraft.

The adolescent lad began by sketching out the design he had in his head, which received numerous modifications after the knowledge of magecraft was added. If any person of the modern world, such as a player, were to see his sketches, they would recognize it to be a handgun, and maybe a few would perceive it to be one of the most powerful handguns in existence, the Desert Eagle. Leaving the exterior design until later, he focused more on the internal structure due to its critical importance. Two hours of hard work passed before he stopped and asked the system to run a test simulation to ensure it worked. A pop-up window featuring the customized handgun emerged before beginning. Loading and arming it went smoothly, but upon pulling the trigger, the barrel exploded violently, causing Luca to instinctively flinch. "Replay it, but show me the internal reactions. Hide the explosion too." The simulation ran again, this time allowing Luca to see the issue. Since it was designed to fire compressed mana 'bullets' instead of ammo, the structure needed a combination of wind and fire mana to cause the combustion in place of gunpowder. The first problem was the bullet being too big and too much fire mana was injected. Having found the problems, he kept on going, testing as he did so, without resting for a minute.

Almost a day had passed before Luca was satisfied with his design. Now it would operate just like a modern Desert Eagle, except it would use mana from nature to form the bullets and his mana was only needed to fire it instead. Also, it had two scalpel-sized dagger blades on the sides of the barrel for close-range defensive combat. Exhausted from his single-minded obsession with his nonstop work, though he did eat some bread and cheese Ysmir left for him to keep himself going, Luca's satisfaction allowed him to happily drift off to sleep.