Alex traced the final lines of the lesser spark rune in the air with his [Mana Thread] and stepped back to examine his work. The simplified design, while different, flowed a lot easier than the standard spark rune. Beside him, Evan still hunched over his own attempt and notes. Alex found it funny to see his tongue sticking out between his teeth in concentration.
"All right, I think I'm ready."
"How are you so fast at this?" Evan asked in exasperation. "I literally started teaching you this just a few weeks ago. I know you’ve got that spirit skill now, but you're just way too fast. Are you some kind of hidden genius or something?"
Alex let out a snort. "Just higher stats. Give it a few more levels and you'll probably be picking stuff up too."
"Doubt it," Maelis grumbled. "Some people just got it, and that kid doesn't. He's a diligent worker though, that alone could take him far as long as he stays motivated. Tell him to stop comparing his work to your own, it only serves to discourage him." There was a pause before Maelis added, "and if you keep doing stupid nonsense , you'll be dead in a few years anyway so he’ll surpass you in the long run." Official source is noⅴelfire.net
Alex ignored Maelis and held out his hand to Valtherion as he drifted over and ran his forehead into his palm. He was thankful that his companion had been so willing to part with his mana recently; by continuing to put mana into the amulet, they'd been able to keep Maelis around through their practice so that he could see the new attempt with the lesser spark rune. Without Valtherion providing more energy to maintain the spirit, he would have already drifted back off to sleep.
"Hey, don't ignore me when I'm speaking to you. I'm your teacher and I'm telling you to take me off and put me around the young one's neck."
Alex rolled his eyes and continued to ignore the spirit. Maelis hadn’t noticed Valtherion in his first lesson, too preoccupied with Alex and their interactions, but after he noticed the bonded companion, there was a drastic shift in his attitude and the way he spoke about Val. It was at moments that Alex actually debated taking the amulet off so he would stop hearing its voice.
I'd rather hear him rant and grumble about me being useless than hear him try to suck up to Valtherion.
"You'll grow into quite the magnificent being, young one. The makings of true greatness within you. If only you weren't tied down to this sack of sand."
Val, oblivious to the praise and attention, performed a lazy loop in the air and settled on Alex's shoulder.
"Interesting how you're so nice to him," Alex muttered.
"Some beings deserve respect. Others must earn it." Maelis let out a scoff in Alex's mind.
Alex rolled his eyes and refocused on the task at hand. "Whatever. Ready to test this?"
It was Evan who responded, "Hold on!" He scribbled furiously at the final notes and adjustments on his own paper before setting down the pen and standing up to create distance. "Okay, go for it!"
Alex shook his head and gave a nervous laugh of his own. He positioned himself to face the practice dummy and, just as with the previous test, he began to weave the modified ritual circle in the air.
"Yes, remember precision over power. Consistent results are the only way to begin moving forward,” Maelis said.
Alex's jaw tightened, somewhat annoyed at the constant commentary from the spirit who just seemed bored. Regardless, he continued to channel mana into the threads and weave the spell circle into the air. The final step was adding the lesser spark rune and pressing his mana through the circle.
The difference was immediately noticeable as the mana flow was far more gentle than the previous more powerful counterpart. The energy built smoothly and without the violent fluctuations or shaking of the ritual foundation.
Alex felt his hopes begin to rise as the circle flashed into existence and settled in the air. He raised his wand and fired off a mana dart through it, though was immediately disappointed.
Even though the small dart of mana continued to move after passing through the ritual circle, it lost a significant amount of its power and a single spark flew off from the bolt, but it didn't seem to actually carry the electric power along with it. When the bolt struck the target dummy, it left a mark no bigger than a coin.
"Well…" Evan said, "at least it worked?"
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
"That can't be it. Again," Alex muttered to himself. He repeated the process three more times. While the spell circle formed flawlessly each time and it had what seemed to be a 100% chance of successfully forming, each time it produced identical results.
In frustration, Alex walked closer to the target dummy and pointed at the teeny scorch mark with his wand. "Look, you have to see now that the theory works. Right? This is a proof of concept. I just need your help to show me a better combination of runes. That has to be the answer."
"I'm not sure what you want from me in this situation—" Maelis began before Alex cut him off.
"Help me make this," he said as he pointed at the smaller scorch mark once again, "into this!" He pointed with force at the larger scorch mark from one of the few successes he'd received with the normal spark rune. "Something is wrong with the rune and I don't think that the lesser spark rune's going to work; there's no way that this can have any kind of combat application."
Maelis made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. "The rune's performing exactly as it's meant to. It's your ritual circle that can't handle the actual power of the normal spark rune. If anything, that's proved quite clearly by you using the lesser spark rune in the exact same formation and it working."
"What about it? The proportions are correct, the flow should be stable—"
"I don't know anything about rituals, but I'm telling you the rune is working perfectly. This is what you get when you're trying to mash together two completely different forms of magic into some shoddy system. Whatever you've done to those ritual circles is not allowing it to handle the power from the rune. It's that simple."
Alex rose as the realization hit him. "But rituals are meant to handle a ton of power and mana. I've been making them smaller and smaller over time so that I could cast them faster and it would be more mana efficient. But if the rune has too much power... What if I increase the size of the ritual again so that it can handle that power?"
"Oh no," Evan said as he recognized the gleam in Alex's eye. "Nooope. No, no, no."
Alex paused and looked down at the floor before beginning to pace and talk with himself out loud, ignoring both Evan and Maelis. He flip-flopped between ideas, unsure of the best path forward.
"If the ritual circle is too small… And it can't properly contain the power…" Alex continued to pace. "I guess I need to test both possibilities. But which one first?"
"Perhaps we should start with adjusting the smaller circles," Evan suggested. "You know… The safer option?"
Alex shook his head. "No, I think that first we need to prove the theory. If the smaller circles are the foundation of the problem, I shouldn't waste time trying to tweak and change them too much until we can confirm that they are actually the problem. If this works with the larger circle perfectly with the normal spark rune, then we can pretty safely guess that the problem is that the smaller rituals can't contain the power of the normal rune."
"And if you're wrong?" Maelis asked.
"Then I just try something else." Alex gave a shrug, feeling confident that he was onto something. He reached into his spatial pouch and pulled out a handful of mana stones and set them out in a neat row on the workbench. "But I don't think I'm wrong."
"Congratulations, Awakened," Maelis drawled in a clear mockery of the System. "You've managed to decrease your life expectancy even further than my initial estimate."
Val darted excitedly down to the stones on the table and scooped one up before flying out of reach as Alex gently tried to boop his nose.
Alex shook his head and grinned. The smile grew further as he thought about how close he was to figuring this out and how fun it was about to be to control this large amount of magic. He raised both of his hands and allowed [Mana Thread]s to begin flowing from his fingers.
It was the first large ritual circle Alex had made in weeks, but it still came together flawlessly. He did his best to keep the ratios the same as the smaller circles and adjusted one of the inner shapes on the fly, knowing that it would be more optimal to use a hexagon in its large version. He didn't hold back on the size, and as the circle continued to expand outward, Alex needed to drain a nearby mana stone to keep himself topped up.
"Alex," Evan said as he took several steps toward the far side of the room. With his mana sight showing them exactly how much power his friend was gathering, he knew that the large circle was going to have a more dramatic effect. "That's, uh, that's a lot of mana."
"Yeah, but it's really the exact same thing. This is going to work, I know it is." Alex's grin widened. "Evan, if you want to step outside, you definitely can. But I'm telling you, I can feel it even as I'm putting the circle together… This really is a lot more stable than the smaller version."
"Oh no, I want to watch. If you say it's going to work, I'm sure that it will… I hope." The last part of the statement was added so quietly that Alex couldn't hear it.
"This is either going to be amazing," Alex said, "or—"
"Catastrophic?" Maelis suggested.
Alex shook his head and his focus sharpened. "No, it's going to work. The logic checks out, and the larger circle is more stable, I can feel it." He began to slot the final piece into place, carefully writing out the spark rune within the catalyst node at the bottom of the floating circle.
"At least you decided to keep me awake for this part. That way I won't be floating in the void wondering whether or not you died. I'll know for certain."
Carefully, Alex began channeling mana from the stones and into the ritual circle, monitoring his flow of power carefully. Through his Heavenly Eye, the air crackled with energy and Valtherion darted excitedly around the edges of the massive pattern.
"You know," Alex called to Evan. His confidence grew as he felt the stability of the large formation, holding strong despite the power he was feeding it. "I think Maelis is actually going to be impressed with this one."
"Doubtful," the spirit grumbled into Alex's mind.
Evan pressed himself against the far wall and reactivated his mana sight to continue watching. "Just... Try not to blow up the workshop?"
Alex's focused expression broke into a huge boyish grin as he prepared to activate the vertical ritual. "No promises."