Chapter 19 Learning About Magic

Walking into the town proper of River Landing Marcus is stunned by the number of people and beasts. Marcus sees all manner of people from commoners like him, wealthy merchants, and even nobles moving about the busy streets. However, what is even more shocking for Marcus is the number of beasts pulling carriages and people are ridding. There were of course horses, some type of large, majestic stag, a two-legged lizard that looked like some kind of dinosaur, and many others.

'Wow now this is what I imagined a fantasy city to look like, there are magic beasts all over the place and I think I see someone doing a magic performance over there.'

While Marcus was staring in awe at the amazing sites of River Landing, he had started to congest the traffic behind him when one of the people he was slowing down began to yell.

"HEY, STOP GAWKING AND GET OUT OF THE WAY I NEED TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER BEFORE THEY START TO CLOSE DOWN THE BRIDGES."

Startled by the man atop a cart yelling at him Marcus turns around and sees how he has been standing in the middle of the main thoroughfare blocking part of the road. Marcus quickly gets out of the way and stands at the edge of the road. His attention is then directed towards the magic performance that is being held in a small park off the side of the road. Marcus carefully walks towards the park making sure not to impede traffic again and joins the small gathering of people watching the performance. Marcus sees a middle-aged man in a funny get up shouting into the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I still have few more tricks up my sleeves before the end of my performance, watch now as I create the natural beauty of a rainbow right here on this cloudless day."

The performer then clasped his hands together and began chanting, after three seconds he completed his chant, and he slowly opened his hands as a bubble of water stared to form. Once it reached around a foot in diameter the man through it into the air where it popped into a cloud of mist. The man then started another chant which he completed before a small beam of light left his hands crating a rainbow. The performer then did a bow as everyone around began to clap and cheer. The performer then opened his mouth to speak once more.

"Thank you, your applause is much appreciated however, my final trick will be even more spectacular, prepare yourselves and be amazed."

Holding his hands towards the sky the man initiated a chant and when he had finished a small ball of fire that reassembled Marcus's fire shot appeared and flew into the air. Once it was around a hundred feet high it exploded reassembling a firework. The audience broke out into an even more vigorous cheer than before as the performing man took a few bows before taking off his hat and holding it out. While many people walked over and through a copper coin or two into the man's hat before heading on their way, Marcus was contemplating something seriously.

'That man certainly must have a lot of magic skills and I could not see his level so he must be higher than me, so why is he performing out here for coppers when he should be able to make more with his magic elsewhere. Also, why was he chanting when he cast spells, once I memorized the spell's formation, I was able to use it whenever I wanted. I guess I should go and ask him, maybe the chants were just part of his performance.'

After waiting for the crowd to have almost entirely dispersed Marcus walked up to the man to begin his inquiry.

"Hello sir, that was an amazing performance, I was wonder if I could ask you a few questions about magic."

Before responding the man holds out his hat and shakes it towards Marcus beckoning for a tip ahead of answering any questions. Marcus reluctantly took out his coin pouch and threw five copper coins into the performers hat. With a satisfied expression the man said, "And what would you like to know about magic miss."

"I was wondering why you needed to chant to cast your spells I thought they could be cast without any words."

The man looks at Marcus for a moment with a flabbergasted expression before he laughs a little and responds to Marcus.

"Ah miss you must have read too many stories, only the strongest of spell casters can cast spells without chants. I am afraid that this old man never had the talent to get anywhere close to that level of skill in magic."

Marcus is quite shocked when he hears this, because he has had no trouble casting spells without any chants since he was level two and even now, he could not be considered anywhere near the pinnacle of magic. Marcus collects his thoughts for a few seconds before asking his next question.

"You must have at least three magic skills from what I saw, and I do not mean to be rude but why are you out here doing these performances."

The man looks slightly offended but remembered the generous tip Marcus gave and saw the look of genuine curiosity on his face and then answers Marcus's question.

"Unfortunately miss you are mistaken again, all but the last of my spells were simple utility magic spells while my final one was just a tier one fire magic spell."

'Utility magic, I do not think I saw a skill like that when I was searching through my skill list even when I had six points. I must have either missed it or I have a really bad affinity with it. Also, he said that he used a tier one fire spell but while it looked like a fire shot mine does not explode. I should ask him how he does that it could be useful to send a signal or as a distraction.'

"I just have one more question that last spell you used looked like a fire shot but how were you able to make it exploded."

The performer looked quite shocked when he heard this question not expecting someone who seemed to know nothing of magic to recognize the differences between a normal fire shot and what he had cast.

"What I cast was not the basic fire shot that everyone gets when they obtain the fire magic skill, but another spell called exploding fire shot. I assume this must be your first time seeing a spell that was not created by the system but by people."

Marcus was blown away for a moment as he thought about all of the new information he had just learned about magic.

'I still do not know why I do not have to chant to cast spells, as far as I know I have no skill or ability that should let me bypass this fundamental rule, so it must be for another reason. I also can't believe that I did not think of the possibility that there might be more spells than the basic ones given by the system. This means there are probably dozens of more spells I can learn even with my current skill levels.'

Marcus then thanked the man for his time and bid him farewell before he moved to an isolated part of the park and took out his guide.

'I did not check the section on magic before because it seemed really straight forward, but I guess I should thoroughly read this thing when I get the time.'

Opening his newbies guide to the section on magic Marcus begins pouring over every detail. To Marcus' surprise the section was quite detailed and gave him all of the information he had just learned and plenty more.

'So, people in the past studied the existing formations of the spells given by the system and used them to create new spells. This has given rise to thousands of different spells as people continue to make more and more. I wonder if I will be able to make my own spells one of these days, however that is definitely well into the future if it's even possible. I also found the reasons why people can cast spells without chanting. The guide mentions that people with the silent casting skill are able to circumvent the need for chanting, I however, do not have the silent casting skill. What allows me to cast spells silently is because I am a monster. The guide specifies that all monsters and magic beasts are able to cast spells without the need to chant because they can store formations in their magic cores. However most magic beast and monsters do not have the intelligence for spell casting so only a few like dragons are proficient with magic. Since I am now a ghost, I am a monster with a magic core allowing me cast silently.'

Once Marcus had finished reading everything, he could about magic he put his guide back in his item box and headed out in search of a magic shop hoping to obtain some more spells.