15 Chapter 15: Using A Wand

After waking up and doing some basic fitness, Villin checked his classes for the day. Today it was Tuesday and he had 'Basic Spell Casting' followed by 'Rune Magic'.

He still had some time left so he leisurely ate the breakfast that had appeared in his chest before grabbed the paper Amelia had slipped him the previous day. Just as they parted at the doorway of the Cut and Crease training grounds she slipped him half a sheet of paper. It seemed rather obvious she was hiding this from Aiden.

Since she said she would give him twenty units of magic crystals if he won, he was extremely driven. Even though he had yet to use the thirty magic crystals he still had on him, he knew that every bit was important. The library was a good example, apparently just entering the library at ten crystals an hour got you access to the paper books. On the other hand, if you had enough crystals you could get spell blueprints from there as well.

When practicing with the paper he tried to morph it into a spike for a bit before noticing how helpless it was. Even though he could turn his magic power into a spike without a problem, this became many times harder when you were controlling an object.

He did learn to control it better, however, after practicing casually for an hour he noticed the leakage of magic power that always existed when it was out of his body had decreased by half even though the load he was carrying this time around doubled.

The speed of the paper had also increased making him feel like he was doing a good job at improving himself.

Seeing how he still had half an hour left while the walk to the first class was only ten minutes Villin still decided to get there early. Once he was there he could practice the illumination spell a bit and perhaps if the teacher saw a fault they would correct them.Well, even if they didn't, there was nothing wrong with showing some talent.

And so soon Villin arrived at the classroom. When he got inside there was only one other student there immersed in her books. This classroom was a lot darker than the one where they had the 'studies of the web' class. The walls were a dark grey and they had to sit in the regular wooden school chairs. There was no enchanted window or chandelier on the ceiling, the whole room felt extremely empty.

When Villin sat down in a chair around the middle of the class, he was very pleasantly surprised. The seemingly hard wooden chairs actually felt soft and relatively comfortable. Even though it wasn't quite as nice as the armchairs, it wasn't too far off.

When Villin grabbed his wand he hesitated a bit. Wands had three purposes. The first one was to store spells. A first-grade basic wand such as his own was supposed to be able to store a single spell at a time but he had no idea how to do it. The second purpose of a wand was to concentrate a spell into a single point. The final purpose was to make casting spells slightly easier and cheaper.

So Villin decided to try cast the illumination spell bare-handed this time. It was just that he was wondering how it would look in this form. When he cast it with his wand the tip of it emitted a bright light. So would it cause his entire palm to lit up bit a bit dimmer or something else?

The difference between casting with and without wand wasn't as big as Villin had expected so he managed to cast the spell after five minutes. Just as the final nodes connected something weird happened.

The air around Villin was glowing, emitting a pretty decent amount of light. The few students that had arrived now all looked at him in wonder.

After a few seconds, his eyes started to hurt slightly by being so close to the source of light so he terminated the spell, yet the light didn't disappear. Villin felt stunned and after a moment of hesitation, he stood up and walked a few steps away. And as expected, the light didn't follow. Now that he could see it from the outside it really did look rather nice. The source of light formed something similar to a rectangle being two meters in height and one meter in width.

It was at this moment the teacher suddenly appeared on the stage at the front of the class. This teacher seemed to be a rather old male dwarf. He was about to put his books down when he noticed the light.

"Oh an Illuminatus spell cast wandless on the third day of school? Who cast this spell?"

Villin didn't try to hide the matter and even if he tried he wouldn't be able to so he simply raised his hand "It was me professor."

"Ah, Villin Grey, yes Edgard did tell me you seemed to be somewhat talented." After saying this he threw over a nail-sized magic crystal. "Ten magic crystals for you then, for being the first of your class to cast a spell."

Even though Villin wasn't sure who this 'Edgard' was he smiled as he caught the magic crystal "Thank you, professor!"

The professor didn't reply as he got his papers in order and after reaching out with his hand the teacher's desk shrank to his size.

A few moments later the light Villin had cast started dimming before disappearing completely. Villin was lost in thought for a moment. The 'Illuminatus spell' as the teacher called it was quite different when casting with a wand compared to without and both had their own uses. When cast with a wand the light would obviously come with you as you moved your wand, the wandless cast, on the other hand, was stationary but did a better job at illuminating the surroundings

Something else of note was that when he cast the spell with his wand he couldn't cast anything else until he terminated the spell, then again the termination would be instant, unlike the wandless version.

Each version had its pros and cons being useful in different situations. Villin felt quite happy when noticing he really seemed to have gotten two different spells using a single spell model.

Soon the final students arrived and the class started.

"Spells are of great importance. A single powerful spell could finish a fight instantly, the weakness of stronger spells however if that they take longer to cast most of the time. This is what wands are for, my wand, for example, can store up to three spells each consisting of thirty nodes."

After saying this he pointed his wand to the air above the students and instantly a streak of red shot out. When it got just above the students it blew up causing fireworks to appear.

"Normally I would've needed twenty seconds to cast this spell yet I just did it instantly, this is the true strength of a wand!"

After the short demonstration, he started explaining how to store a spell in your wand. As Villin had a basic wand he could store a single spell with up to ten nodes. This was something that came incredibly easy for him as he managed to store the illumination spell in just a few tries. Sadly he was about one second slower than Kayley, who had a good wand further decreasing the difficulty. Since she was the first the teacher gave her twenty magic crystals.

It was surprising to see such things. It looked like magic crystals would be given as a reward whenever you truly excelled. Perhaps if he told professor Messen he had managed to awaken all the nodes in his class he would've also rewarded him, this thought made him slightly salty over the missed opportunity.

Once this class finished it was time for the class Villin felt was the most important out of all the classes available 'Rune Magic'.