jmclarke
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Chapter 662: Greed
🕑 Added 2023-08-29 20:31:55 +0000 UTC“Come in,” Professor Mangal’s voice called through the door.
‘Good, she doesn't have a class,’ Alex thought with relief as he stepped into her office.
She looked up from a notebook she was sketching in at her desk.
“Ah, Alex, pleasure to see you,” she smiled at him warmly. “How can I help you? I doubt you’re here for extra help since you’ve been mastering our lessons in class so far.”
“Professor.” He marched to her desk like a knight about to challenge a dragon. “I would like access to a sixth-tier spell-guide.”
She startled, raising an eyebrow. “Sixth-tier? Do you wish to read ahead? I know how skilled you are, Alex, but I assure you, fifth-tier spells will be complex enough; students are expected to graduate having mastered fifth-tier spells. And you are only starting your third year. Patience, my ambitious young friend.”
With a chuckle, Mangal looked back down at her notebook, picking up her pen.
“Professor,” he said quietly. “I’ve already mastered fifth-tier summoning spells.”
The professor paused, slowly looking up at him. “Pardon me?”
“I just summoned a hellchainer and an Astlanti celestial. Right now, in the Cells. I could do it again right here. Right now.”
She put the pen down. “Truly?”
“Truly,” Alex said with conviction.
“Show me the Astlanti celestial then.” Mangal leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. A dark eyebrow rose. “That is one of the most challenging of the fifth-tier summoning spells. So show me.”
Alex took a deep breath, casting the spell.
Again, the Mark's interference rose to stop him.
Again, the Traveller’s power came to help him.
With complete precision, he pronounced each syllable.
The magic circuit formed in his mana pool.
A connection built between the material world and the celestial planes.
The air beside him parted, and an ethereal form shimmered into being in front of the professor’s desk.
“Ah, thou art calling me again this soon, young master of the arcane?” The celestial said, looking at Alex imperiously. “Dost thou seek to introduce me to another sorcerer. I sense greater power from her than from thee.”
Mangal’s jaw had gone slack.
Her eyes flicked between Alex and the celestial. “What.” She said flatly.
“Ta-daaaa,” the young wizard gestured to the celestial.
“It appears I am to be part of some chicanery and buffoonery,” it sounded displeased.
“With respect, Vaunted One.” The Professor stood up. “We are simply coming to grips with certain changes, much as your people did during your transmigration.”
The celestial’s expression softened slightly. “So, thou knoweth of us. Good. I hath noted thy respect.”
“Yes, ancient one,” Alex said. “I will call you again, later.”
With that, he dismissed the celestial.
Mangal’s face was the image of disbelief. “Alex, do you know what you’ve done?”
“Yes. Summoned one of the most difficult-to-conjure spirits that can be conjured by fifth-tier magic.” Alex smiled, without a shred of false humility.
“Yes!” Mangal cried. “I recognise your exceptional affinity for summoning spells, but this is beyond my wildest imaginings. All things considered, you were still slow with the actual spellcasting, but it was done steadily and with excellent control.”
She shook her head. “What you’ve done today is remarkable, but I’m still not certain about allowing you to try sixth-tier magic. It goes without saying that casting at such high levels is daunting, there are very good reasons why one attempts such magic during graduate studies, and not before. Countless wizards never reach that level. Ever. Not even after a century. Sixth-tier isn’t quite the barrier that seventh-tier is, but it is by no means easy.”
“I know, professor,” Alex said. “But I believe I’m up to the challenge. I think if you handed me a sixth-tier summoning spell right now, I could cast it. It might take me a few tries, but I know I could do it.”
Her eyes narrowed, watching him carefully, then she scoffed at herself. “I suppose it’s not surprising that I somehow find myself on the cusp of believing you. Give me a moment to think.”
Mangal turned away, looking out the window with her brow furrowed in thought and her lips moving silently.
“Alex, stay here for a moment. Do not touch anything,” she said suddenly.
With that, Professor Mangal cast a teleportation spell—her magic forming a connection in the direction of the library—and vanished.
His mind whirling, Alex waited in silence as the minutes seemed to drag by, before she returned. Teleportation magic warned him, and she reappeared, holding three spell-guides.
“Alright, if you wish to do this, then you’ll do it under my direct supervision. I have no classes for the next two hours and had planned on spending the time working on a personal project, but now you’ve piqued my curiosity, so that can wait for now.”
“If you want to take care of your project, this can wait, professor.” Alex said.
“Believe me, I do not wish for this to wait,” Professor Mangal assured him, pressing the three spell-guides into his hands. “I do have some doubts that you will manage to cast sixth-tier, but—if you do—you and I will have much to discuss. Better that we do this sooner than later.”
“Alright,” Alex said. “Whatever you say.”
“Good, now which Cell were you working in?” she asked.
“314,” Alex said.
“Very good, if your time isn’t up, I’ll teleport there with you,” she said.
“Actually, I can get back myself, so I’ll just meet you there,” Alex said.
Concentrating, he teleported back to the hall in front of Cell 314, passing his student card over the door to open it and a heartbeat or two later, Professor Mangal appeared beside him.
“You really did teleport here by yourself,” she said. “One day you must explain to me how you do that; I saw you use it in the Grand Battle and the malicious side of me very much enjoyed watching you confuse your competition,” she smiled at the memory. “Most wizards tend to keep the secrets of their unique gifts to themselves, but if you are willing to share, I would love to know more.”
“One day, I promise I’ll explain,” Alex said. “But for now, I’m eager to get started, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Professor Mangal said, following Alex into the room.
She greeted Bubbles politely before nodding to the spell-guides she’d handed him. “Take a look at those.”
Alex noted the title of each book.
The first was a guide for the sixth-tier spell: Summon Celestial Dire Tiger.
The second was a guide for Summon Shadow Demon.
And the last was for the sixth-tier spell, Summon Greater Water Elemental.
“Interesting choices,” Alex said.
“They range from fairly easy for their level, to quite difficult; summoning a shadow demon will be easiest, they love to be summoned to torment mortals. Then the greater water elemental—they are powerful entities and are indifferent to mortals. Celestial dire tiger—will be the hardest of the three to conjure. While good-hearted, they are also quite prideful and resistant to being summoned on command.”
“Just like the Astlanti celestial,” Alex said, handing two spell-guides to two Wizard’s Hand he’d conjured earlier, then flipping open the guide to Summon Shadow Demon. “I guess I’ll be working my way up to the others, so how many tries do I have with each spell?”
Professor Mangal’s eyes flicked to a timekeeper on the wall. “I will need a half hour to prepare for class. So you have an hour and a half. Take as many tries as you need.”
“Perfect.” Alex started reading the spell-guide.
His heart sank briefly.
The spell array and magic circuit were far more complex than he’d imagined. Six magic circuits were interconnected, forming the conjoined circuit that would power such fearsome magic, and from the looks of it, it was definitely a mana guzzler. Naturally, the circuitry was complex, but the way the circuits joined together was not only complex, but maddening.
Alex instantly understood why most wizards never cast sixth-tier spells.
‘No, don’t get discouraged,’ he thought, his finger tracing the circuit. ‘It’s complex, but it’s made up of smaller parts. You have experience with a lot of them, so just break the spell array down to its components and you’ll be able to do this.’
And so he got to work.
For over a half hour, he copied the magic circuit’s schematics into his notebook over and over again, using the Mark to avoid any mistakes he might make. By doing things in such minute detail, he was learning the spell array’s structure down to its basics.
He then moved on, practising the incantation syllable by syllable for another fifteen minutes, and when that was done, he was ready.
“Alright,” he said to Professor Mangal. “I’m either about to blow apart my mana pool, or summon some super demon lord, so if things go wrong, please save me.”
“I will try.” She cocked her head, looking down at his diagrams. “You have a very unique way of learning spells.”
“Hey, it works,” he said, turning to the summoning circle. “Here we go.”
He wrote a new entry in his notebook:
Summon Shadow Demon. 1st attempt. Progress:
Alex began chanting the incantation and knew he was in for a struggle; the sheer amount of mana being channelled by the sixth-tier spell felt like a raging ocean in his grip. He remembered watching a horse farmer in Alric trying to break a stallion; a massive, proud, wild beast who’d wanted nothing to do with either the farmer, or his reins. The horse had bucked with everything it had, determined to catapult the man from off his back and into the weeds, dirt or creek, whichever came first; the horse didn’t care. At the time, Alex felt a lot of sympathy for the horse, suddenly, he felt a lot of sympathy for the man.
The magic raged under his control as he tried guiding it into its magic circuit. All the while, the Mark raged as well, as though the idea of the Fool even trying to wield this level of magic was a great insult.
But standing against its resistance, was the power of the Traveller, grasping his mana, helping him reach the hells.
His mind felt like it would fracture, like it was on the verge of splitting apart.
‘Why the hell is this so hard?’ he thought, trying to guide his thoughts through the torrent of past failures. ‘It feels worse than it’s ever felt before, like it’s trying to break my mind! It feels like—’
Realisation struck him like ice water.
He wasn’t imagining that the Mark was resisting harder than ever before; it was resisting harder than ever before.
Panting hard, he stopped the spell.
“I warned you it would be difficult,” Mangal said gently. “We should stop for now and—”
He held up a hand. “You said that I had an hour and a half to try, right? Which means I have about forty-five minutes left, don’t I?”
“That is true,” the professor said, “I did indeed say that.”
“Right, so let me try again,” Alex said. “I don’t want to give up yet, not without giving it everything I can.”
She shrugged easily. “It is your time, Alex. I gave it to you. Use it as you wish.”
“Thanks,” he said and turning to his notebook, he jotted down a number.
Summon Shadow Demon. 1st attempt. Progress: 2%
Alex examined the spell array as he rubbed his right shoulder.
After all this time, he was still learning things about his Mark.
‘Degrees,’ he thought. ‘It’s about degrees.’
He remembered when he’d picked up a sword on the deck of the Red Siren with Theresa. The Mark had rebelled, making him lose balance and flop oafishly on the deck.
But, when he’d torn Yantrahpretaye to pieces, the Mark’s reaction had been different, a lot more intense, and when he’d killed him, it had resisted so violently that he was sick afterward.
And while that reaction had been bad, it was nowhere near as bad as when he’d attacked the First Apostle and ripped the man’s arm off.
‘Picking up a weapon meant a small amount of resistance... Killing a demon meant more…but the monster was made of metal. Maybe the Mark didn’t consider Yantrahpretaye an actual living being? Like how I can kill bugs. But when I pulled Uldar’s priest’s arm off, it almost fried my brain and broke me in two,’ he thought.
He studied the sixth-tier spell. ‘What if it’s the same for spells? A certain level of resistance for most spells…but as soon as I get to the really powerful stuff, the Fool’s Mark fights me even harder. Like the difference between picking up a weapon and tearing off someone’s arm.’
An icy feeling began growing in his gut, spreading through the rest of his body.
‘The Traveller’s power…I think it ‘s been shielding me from the worst of it since fourth-tier,’ he thought. ‘But now that the spells are way more powerful, the Mark really doesn’t want me using them. I think I could probably manage sixth-tier spells, but seventh-tier…who knows. Eighth-tier? Ninth-tier? There may be a hard limit to the level of spell I can cast until I find a way to beat this Mark permanently.’
He shook his head. ‘But, I believe I can cast sixth-tier spells, and I can do it now. With time, I’ll figure out what’s going on with higher tiers, but that’s a later problem. Right now? The Mark’s not stopping me from summoning a damn shadow demon, if I have anything to say about it.’
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Author's Note
Hello twenty-seven cool fools, almighty chosen, wise sages, and mighty champions! Thank you for your support!
Welcome to a new week! Been a wild one for me. Rune Seeker's at over 3250 followers, so I'm real happy about that. And we're getting deeper into the book and into a fairly interesting arc, for me. But yes progression is here, which has been nice.
Cya tomorrow!
Comments
mant06
Imagine a cultivator ascends only to ends up as a summon.
Travis Fischer
Once he is able to break through the 6 tier resistance threshold, he will probably have mastered the mark to an extent that he could probably do low resistance actions that were previously impossible. This could include tier 1-2 battle magic, unarmed combat, and perhaps some kind of non-lethal weapon (it would be cool if he could put the spear-and-oar dance to use with some type of force construct quarterstaff, since the mark would make a spear or sword too difficult to use reliably)
