Liz's breakthrough and first spells

Now that John had his weapon he decided to look over and see how Liz was doing. He didn't expect to see a giant ball of lightning and plasma only a few hundred feet away though. The ball was quiet despite looking like a giant chaotic mess of lightning and fire. John continued to watch the ball and noticed that he could faintly see a draconic shadow in the center. The ball grew to be easily as big as an elephant but then suddenly shrunk back down into a large ball the size of large beach ball. Finally the ball faded and Liz could be seen. She still looked as she did before but now she somehow felt more noble with how the light of the sun reflected off her dark scales. John started to walk over to her and called to her when he was about halfway to her.

"Looks like your breakthrough went well. How do you feel?"

"Good. This feeling of becoming stronger is addicting you know. Especially after loosing so much of it."

"You must of been pretty strong in the past then. Oh and I chose the weapon I'll use. What do you think?" He held up his mace. The mace had a 2 and a half feet long handle with the head being only 6 inches long and 4 wide at the center. The head was covered in ribs going down it that then connected to the handle. The whole thing looked to be made of a polished iron with a translucent crystal inlaid between the ribs.

"Looks like you found a good mace and it seems to have a light attribute to it right."

"You got it right. The special function is that you can make it release a bright flash on command. It will be a good trick but I got to be careful not to blind myself. "

"It would be funny but dangerous for that to happen. Make sure to only use it when you really need it."

"Got it. So now what do we do?"

"First I'm going to teach you some basic lightning magic so you can use some ranged attacks."

"I understand wanting to teach me some ranged attacks but why lightning? Do you also have the lightning affinity?"

"I do and since it's the only one we share I should naturally teach you a few tricks. Right?"

"Thanks but how do you even use magic to begin with?"

"Well to use magic you first need to make your Mana flow. First do that a few times then inject it into a rune system. What runes you can use depends on your affinities so first I'll teach you the basic lightning rune and I'll then teach you how to cast shock."

"OK"

John remembered back to the diagram on the Law Eating method for Mana. He started to cycle it but had some trouble with not also cycling Aura at the same time. After a few rough tries he got only his Mana to flow. While he was struggling to make his Mana flow Liz was busy drawing a rune on one of her books little pages.

"Oh looks like your done. First you need to memorize this rune. After that come up with a chant that will make it easier for you to construct an image. When you combine these 2 things with some Mana, boom you got a spell."

"That easy?"

"Of course a basic spell is easy. The more complex the spell the harder it will get you know. The mind can only hold so much information at one time after. By information I mean a stable image."

"Got it. Well time to study I guess."

John began in the only way he could. Stare at the rune and draw it in his head. The rune was the made of a ring made of what looked like lightning and was surprisingly detailed. Little bits of sparks seemed to come off it at random but after looking at them they were actually situated at a regular distance. After getting the image into his head as best he could John stated to look for a patch of dirt to try and draw it in. He found a patch a little ways away from where Liz and him were sitting and began to draw. Liz would occasionally throw in some advice on how to do the sparks and the shapes.

After a few dozen tries Liz finally gave her seal of approval on my rune.

"Good now simply come up with an image like throwing a lightning bolt and you will now be able to cast basic lightning magic."

(An image? Maybe like a spear? But isn't it possible to see the charge of a lightning strike before it hits? Lets try that.)

John began to focus on his memory of the lightning rune and then his image of a lightning path. Finally after having the image set he made his Mana flow through him and then tried to will it into the correct shape on his hand. The rune showed it self as the Mana exited his hand and after taking the correct shape it became made of arcing electricity. For a split second a path formed between the rune and the spot on the ground he aimed for and doom. A sudden flash and blinding light hit John as he was knocked on to his back. Liz, of course, went with him. After the shock passed Liz looked towards John.

"What the hell! John what did you do!?"

"Um. Maybe my image was wrong?"

"Wrong! Wrong doesn't even begin to cut it! That was thunder bolt not shock!"

"So I did use the wrong image." John suddenly was hit by a massive pain from behind his eyes. It was like someone was jabbing needles into his head and moving them around wildly. He clutched his head and with a small whimper passed out.

This all left Liz with a very confused expression that quickly morphed into one of great concern.