Chapter 119 He Feels The POWER

Joseph was going to have to take care not to get addicted to this. He had been playing with spells for over two hours, and had no tiredness, or fatigue. Normally using all of his mana would make him pass out, but not only would he not suffer harm from doing so repeatedly, now he would also instantly refill his mana in his personal high mana zone.

He wasn't utilizing his other self correctly before now. It was like having two computers running separate programs. He was interacting during the day, and the other mind was working on advancing their magic. While there was nothing wrong with that under normal circumstances, compartmentalized mind worked more like dual core processors, than separate computers. Joseph could split responsibilities between them, but the real power was shown when they executed one large task that could be split between two processors. That was what he was working on.

Joseph One was writing runes and casting spells, and Joseph Two was writing loops and duplication scripts. He still hadn't quite gotten the hang of it, but was making progress. First, he made the rune for FIREBALL in the air. Then, while he focused on it, Joseph Two was busy duplicating the rune. Currently, another six runes appeared. As long as he staggered the execution, his mana had no issues. As more energy was put into the first spell, the more effort Joseph Two had to use in order to duplicate it. Still, being able to loop and fire 7 fireballs a second was impressive.

When he started a few hours ago, he could only get each of himself to cast a single spell for dual casting. By after lunch, he had switched up his training. In theory, what he was attempting wasn't as difficult as what he had done that morning.

Selena and Derek were there with him, but they were giving him a bit of space to write and draw. He was working on a new spell with a specific goal in mind. Before, he had made new spells through luck and happy accidents, but this was his first true creation of a spell that wasn't taught to him by the runes, so he was trying to do everything very carefully.

Stella was staring at him curiously. "Master Joseph, if you learned magic using runes, why are you not just drawing a rune instead of all the circles and…is that math? It has a lot of letters instead of numbers in it."

Joseph looked up briefly and then back down, before he decided a bit of a break wouldn't hurt.

"Runes are a replacement for words. Once I am done with the spell, it will have a name. Just drawing the rune will be all that's required. It's the difference between saying Stella's knife, which immediately communicates a lot of information because it is a name of something very specific, and going into a full description. One handed edged weapon, sharpened on only one side, eight-inch-long blade, no guard, slim profile of approximately one quarter of an inch thick, with thigh sheath, etc. The equations here are to make sure the spell will behave exactly the way I want to, and balance the FIRE and EARTH energies to the point where the inside of the formerly STONE MISSILE will become liquid magma, but not so much that the outside melts and the spell separates and becomes little droplets of lava heading towards the target.

So, I have to calculate the right ratio and amounts to get the effect I'm looking for. I want a very thin surface of rock to contain the lava inside, but once it strikes an object, it should break and shower the target with the contents of liquid magma."

Both Selena and Derek were nodding along, though Derek looked a little pale at the thought of what he was making, while Selena looked excited to see a new FIRE spell. Joseph's FIRE understanding was intermediate, but this also took the EARTH rune, which was only basic at the moment. So, with his thaumatology being advanced, he could barely design the spell at the level of a master magician. He wanted to make it that moment, so he was being careful, instead of waiting another few days for EARTH to reach intermediate.

"Now, the circles describe the behavior of the spell as it forms and functions. This controls how it flies, the aerodynamics, if it rotates as it flies or tumbles, which ability is used to aim it, etc. But once everything is defined, I will make a single rune that contains the name MAGMA MISSILE, and all of the other things you see before you, won't be needed because they are already incorporated. Once the spell is made, I would really only use a circle if I was needing additional help aiming, or for casting it with a large group, like when we used the GATE to move from up north."

Derek was learning eagerly, while Selena had a more considering look.

"Did that help, Stella?"

"Yes, Master Joseph. I will leave the magic to you."

Joseph sighed. He was almost done. Standing up, he activated the various equations and circles. A glowing red ball of rock appeared in front of him, and launched at one of the wooden targets he had set up earlier. The ball broke open just fine, and sticky glowing magma set the target on fire.

"Hmm. It's not quite right. The shell should be thinner and the magma hotter in the center."

Joseph reached down to tweak the equations more. Selena looked intrigued with the application, but Derek was stunned with how much damage the one spell caused. It would normally be three energy points, and was based on FIREBALL and STONE MISSILE, otherwise he couldn't have created it so quickly.

A 3-point STONE MISSILE would hit hard enough to shatter the target, and a 3-point FIREBALL would try and burn it to cinders. However, when he was done, the spell would rank at 3, 5, and 7 energy points, and have the mass of the STONE MISSILE, and the heat of the FIREBALL. Plus, it would last for a long time. The stone created by STONE MISSILE normally disappeared after the attack, but this was permanent earth.

If his apprentices all continued training, they would be able to cast 3-point spells for free, eventually, as mana emission kept upgrading for them. This would be a major spell of the wizard infantry in his kingdom in the future, because a simple RESIST FIRE still wouldn't protect anyone. He was hoping FIRE would let Selena learn it as well.

Currently, if he slapped on the maximum level of the fire resistance spell, then Selena wouldn't have any spells to stop him. He didn't want her to be so easily neutralized, as she was one of the people he depended on at the camp to protect his parents.

Joseph also thought of spells like boiling pitch and steam, but this was the only one he was sure he already had the base spells for.

The fifth test finally performed like he wanted. Drawing the EARTH and FIRE runes, to create a new LAVA rune, like LAW, was a compound rune.

MAGMA MISSILE.

Ooh, the strength increased a little now that it had a name.

(YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY CAST THE FIRST SPELL OF THE LAVA RUNE.)

(YOU HAVE GAINED 3 LIFE POINTS.)

(YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY CREATED A SPELL OF THE LAVA RUNE.)

(PROFICIENCY FOR THE SPELL IS GRANTED TO BOTH THE EARTH AND FIRE RUNES.)