Chapter 17 magic 101

Chapter 17 Magic 101

After five days of doing nothing but reading, sleeping, and eating, Damian finished the book for a second time. He decided to reread it just to make sure he grasped the concepts.

Damian learned the basics of Elemental theory and that there was something in this world called an elemental diagram. 4 single elements made up the four cardinal directions Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth. Tied to these were the dual elements that were most commonly created Lightning, Ice, Mud, and Lava. Outside of this were the primal Elements which made a square around these they were Life, Death, Light, and Darkness. situated in the very center was the most complicated of all the elements known as Quantum, Quantum controlled the parts that made up the fabric of reality such as Gravity, Time, and Space. Damian assumed they were all lumped together as one element because people simply didn't have the understanding to separate properly.

Going over the information again in his head he learned that there were three ways to cast spells in this universe. They were Sigil Casting, In-born Casting, and Pure Casting. Sigil Casting used physical motions and chants to force the mana in the environment to your will. This was the most common way to cast the biggest issue is that was a fairly well-known fact that this type of spell could only combine two elemental mana. Meaning most spells were only ever able to be dual elemental at most. He also learned that it took most people an extremely long time to learn dual-element casting, some people could spend their entire lives trying to learn only to fail, dual-element casting required you to have an affinity with both elements and to combine them in order to create a third element for the spell. For example, Damian's Ice element used Wind and Water, moreover, you could theoretically combine any two elements this way to create a third element. While it was hard to combine opposite elements there were people who had done it before.

In-born Casting was the term for people who had the ability to form sigils and then merge them in themselves. This took years to master and was also known as Sigiless Casting since the sigil was inside of you and could be activated quickly and discreetly without the need for chants. This is what Lisas Light shield was, Damian realized that the young girl was already heads and shoulders above other casters he age since she had an In-born spell already, "Maybe her calling herself The Great Lisa Polymorph wasn't such a bold claim." Damian thought to himself and chuckled.

Pure casting was something that had very little information in the book as it was a very advanced form of casting only being able to be done by very, very few people. It required one to be able to sense the mana in the environment and then coax it into the form you wanted without trying to force it as mana was a very unstable substance that there was very little known about. This form of spell casting is what sent the four platinum grade adventurers above all the rest as each one had the ability to pure cast and could even cast quantum spells albeit only with sigils.

Mana was something that was everywhere though not everywhere had a strong affinity for all types of mana for example it was easier to cast fire spells while a fire was nearby, the leading theory was that the fire drew fire from the environment towards it making it so that people could use that mana to cast that kind of spell easier. Whereas rivers lakes and oceans had better compatibility with water-type mana. Damian theorized that Mana and the particles he could observe were actually the same things and if that was the case then the object didn't draw mana to them but created the particles that allowed them to be cast in general. This made sense to Damian however he also remembered reading that Mana could take a physical form, He then theorized that when enough particles gathered they would start to draw more like particles together this could be why sigil casting required the movement and manipulation of mana in order to draw enough particle to get the desired effect. Damian compared the sigil to a computer program that could both simultaneously gather data and form it into new code so that it be applied to the necessary process to get the desired effect. Damian also came to the conclusion that this form of casting could theoretically use more than just two elements since it manipulated the very mana to get desired effects in a much more free form way.

The book had a few sigils in it so that people could study them and eventually learn some basic spells. Damian started trying to dissect these sigils only to come up empty-handed. He had less than 24 hours before he needed to meet up with his party so he decided to get some much-needed rest. He knew that tomorrow he had to fight with his party and that he needed to figure out a way to control his spells so that it wouldn't affect them at least not as much.

Suddenly it dawned on him that he had been thinking of the spells as programs that the executed for him but that didn't mean that he couldn't interface with them after they were cast they still used the individual particles he could see them but he never tried to manipulate them after he cast them After a few hours of testing he found that it was actually very easy to manipulate the way the particles worked after casting the spell. Instead of trying to farce the particles away which would more often than not cancel the spell. However, if he treated it more like simply a simple nudge the form of the spell would chance after about three hours of practice he could essentially aim the spell and allow certain areas inside of his storm to be safe-ish, it would still be cold and the wind was still fairly strong but at least it didn't have the flash freeze ability inside those areas.

So with that taken care of Damian went to bed in order to prepare for the next day. Little did he know that things were going to take a turn for the worst in the upcoming days.