Spell Casting Consepts

Andrew stood on a platform with a severed head in his hand. Blood dripped from his mouth as his robes were drenched in his and Sabu's blood.

The severed head had a last expression of unwillingness and horror. Not expecting to die today...

Captain Lark and Guardian Sethel didn't quite expect Andrew to dive into his opponent's neck with his fangs. After all, only badshit freaks could get such an idea amidst the chaotic atmosphere of the battle.

"Did I prove myself?" Andrew repeated as he waited for Captain Lark's reply.

"You sure did" Captain Lark said with a smirk hidden under his hood.

"It's quite commendable that you managed to quickly think about the most optimal attack. If not for this unusual move, the battle would have lasted for quite a while and you certainly would have lost in a long run even against a restricted Intermediate Apprentice Mage" Captain Lark said

"I must admit, you are worthy of all those resources that have been spent on you, since your intelligence doesn't lag behind your absurd battle powers. I expect even better results in the future" Captain Lark said as the next moment the scenery in front of Andrew's and Guardian Sethel's eyes shifted as they once again appeared in the building that warped them into the cave.

The old woman was quite surprised by the sudden appearance of the duo since not many held the power and authority to ignore the rules regarding Warps in Demonic Abode.

'It must be someone of Captain rank at least' she mused in her head as she watched the duo leave the building.

Andrew's bloodied attire didn't catch any attention since it was way too common for someone to bathe in their enemy's blood. Some demons even regarded it as a symbol of victory.

Once they exited the building, Sethel turned to look at Andrew with the same old cold gaze, but it had a slight tinge of admiration and approval inside.

"I think you already know that you can get access to more and better facilities since you are a mage now, plus a special privilege granted to you by a Bronze Noble gives you a massive advantage since you don't have a time restriction in the majority of facilities" Sethel explained as he left for his old spot to meditate.

Andrew went towards Meditation Zone as he already knew what he had to test out.

Once he was in a room. He sat down and released his mana sense. He unruffled it to thoroughly scan his body as he tried to look for any abnormality that made him special, but he didn't find anything out of the ordinary as his body was similar to any other demonic mage.

"It's time to learn magic" Andrew said out loud as he couldn't contain his excitement as he started to recite the concepts of spell casting.

"There are three major steps of casting a spell and several smaller steps in order to get to the next major step. Those three major steps are:

Imagine - what it is.

Visualize - how it acts.

Manifest - cast into the physical plane.

Imagine, doesn't have any smaller steps as it only recures a mage to imagine the spell and how it acts.

Visualize, requires a mage to have a basic understanding of how that spell might work in the physical world.

Manifest, is just casting the spell either in the range of mana sense when it's unruffled or above the skin or inside the body when mana sense isn't used.

It takes quite a lot of practice for newly made mages as they are unfamiliar with casting spells" Andrew recited from the book he read in the library of Demonic Abode.

The next moment, he lifted up his right hand as he followed all the steps, trying to ignite flames.

Nothing happened after a couple of dozen tries as Andrew tried different ways of imagining, visualizing and manifesting. 

He imagined flames igniting from a small spark. He imagined how the flames grew and subsided becoming more powerful or weaker.

He visualized the flames in the physical world, by thinking about how they would behave under the wind or water.

He tried to manifest it using the mana in his body as fuel since it was the easiest and most common way to do it.

In short, he wanted to cast a simple fire that could be easily set in any suitable environment.

Slowly, small whiffs of fire started to appear over his index finger's skin. 

In the beginning, it was nothing more than a subtle presence, like a flickering light.

Gradually, those flickering flames started to generate above the skin of his other fingers, then went to his palm and lastly expanded over his entire forearm.

Those separate dots of fire slowly connected as hot flames started to amass on his forearm and palm.

Eventually, a red hue appeared over his limb as dangerous enough flames to harm a mortal started to burn over his skin.

Suddenly!

The entire forearm lit up in flames as Andrew's robes' sleeve was burnt to ashes!

The temperature of the flames reached over 100 degrees celsius!

Yet, it wasn't Andrew's limit...

The temperature kept going up...

120 C⁰!

140 C⁰!

160 C⁰!

180 C⁰!

200 C⁰!

Andrew felt like he could go higher but decided against it since he knew that it would be just a pointless waste of mana.

Andrew didn't start practicing another spell right away as he decided to polish the casting of this simple and basic spell until he successfully cast it a hundred times out of hundred tries.

Then, he went for another fairly simple spell that required him to generate a powerful gust of wind. He used the same base formula as he increased the intensity of the wind bit by bit.

Eventually, he managed to get the right casting order as he successfully managed to cast a simple gust of wind powerful enough to push a 100-kilogram sandbag for a couple of meters.

He took his time with his spell too as he improved the casting speed by a lot. He wanted to engrave the process into his mind to be able to cast anytime he wanted.

He spent another hour switching between two spells as he made sure that he didn't mess up anything. 

Only after scoring a thousand times out of thousand tries did he let himself rest as he was mentally exhausted. He spent a total of 6 hours learning and polishing two very basic spells, but at the end of the day, it was all worth it as he could cast them anytime he wanted.

Feeling content, Andrew decided to exit Meditation Zone as he went for Ranking Hall. He had to update the information about himself since he wanted to challenge someone in his phase.

He entered the facility as he headed to the cube. It was empty as usual as he spotted no soul in the Ranking Hall, he wondered why the was nobody in it.

'They are probably training in seclusion or something' he mused in his head as put his hand on the designed spot on the cube.

The cube lit up as the next line of information appeared.

ID: 0273701

Existence: Initial Apprentice Mage

Race: Demon

Age: 17 

Mana Affinity: Average

Phase Power: Average 500%

Next Breakthrough Readiness: 80% 

The already known information appeared on the screen. There was an icon at the bottom of the list.

*Would you like to update your profile? Yes/No*

Andrew obviously pressed *Yes* as he couldn't wait to test out his powers on some unfortunate ones...

He simply needed live punching bags to practice a couple of moves.

Of course, he didn't get too cocky as he expected other mages might be far better than him in casting spells, but in a brawl, he was confident that he would have an advantage.

Naturally, he would never let confidence blind his eyes as he was just a frog in the well in the world of magic...

The next moment, a sudden vibration went through one of the pockets of his robes. The token in his pocket glowed and vibrated for a few seconds.

*Update Complete*

The message said and the cube turned off.

Andrew took out the token as he looked for any outward changes, but it didn't change in appearance even a bit.

He put back the token in his pockets as he headed to one of the cubicles in the corner of Ranking Hall.

Once he got there, he put a newly updated token into a slit as a list of information appeared.

ID: 0273701

Existence: Initial Apprentice Mage

Race: Demon

Demonic Abode Ranking: #61097

Blood Devil Corps Ranking: #4307

'It seems my ranking changed quite a bit since I became a mage' he concluded as he tapped another icon.

There he saw a list of top-ranked members of Blood Devil Corps...

The information that he read next greatly stunned him!

There were Archmages! Genuine Archmages participating in the ranking!

Andrew couldn't quite believe what he was seeing...

"Does it mean I can challenge Archmages in the future?" Andrew thought out loud.