The Power of Ten, Book Five: Versatile Wizardry

“Now, you’ve of course been told that as your Rank increases, your magic gets more versatile, and the ways you can use it start bleeding over into one another. You can make Walls of Light, or hurl it forth. You can make Walls or Vortexes of air, or harden it into windblades. You can shape the Earth into barriers, or throw it at enemies, and so forth and so on,” I waved it all away casually. “So, why can’t you do it as a Novice?”

“We were told that we don’t have the Will to bend the magic to what we wanted to have to do, and had to be satisfied with what the base spell made possible,” Red said immediately, leaning forwards intently. “Even at the Adept level, we can only play around with the edges of the magic, restrict and restrain it one way, then expand it in another. I can alter the area my Fire effects now, for instance, which I couldn’t do as a Novice, changing the shape of it instead of a default circle or bolt.”

“That is absolutely true,” I pointed to him. “So, the problem is in the parameter of the original spell.

“Gentlemen, I want you to look at your first seven Stars. I don’t care what Element they came from, just bring them up and look at them.” Their eyes all went sort of glassy as they looked inside at their Starfields. “There are seven of them, and they are all basically the same, regardless of what Mana of what Element you have stuffed into them.

“There are Seven of them, and those Seven are typified like this, are they not?” I flicked up a Holo for them to look at, listing the seven types of Stars ahead of us as we zipped down the road, ignoring the vehicles that were starting to run by in the opposite direction, returning to their homes urgently. They were giving us interested glances as we zipped on past in the opposite direction with such Magic active around us.

“Hey, that’s... pretty accurate,” Bjorn piped up, blinking at the list of Stars, and how they acted. Light was bouncy and happy, Lightning was tyrannical and hard to dominate, Fire wanted to let loose to show its power, Wind zipped around and was easy to move, Water went with the flow, Earth had to be prodded into action, and Ice was distant and had to be cajoled into position.

Soon they were all nodding in agreement, looking at those Seven Stars.

“The attitudes of those Seven Stars are reflected to every single other Set of Stars that you have. Every gathering of Seven that you have is exactly the same set of Seven Stars, with the same attitudes.”

They all stared at the Stars in their Starfields, comparing them, and their stunned expressions as they realized it were almost comical.

“To top it all off, the Adept spell you know is not reliant in the slightest on the Novice spell you know. They have different foundation arrangements. This, for instance, is the core connection of the Novice Light spell.” The stars floating above me turned yellow, and rearranged themselves into a particular row before linking up. “Yes?” I confirmed to the two Light-users back there.

Glenn and Red both checked the combination, and nodded together. “Yes, that’s the combination...” the former confirmed.

“But this pattern isn’t used on the Startrail for the Adept spell at all, is it?” I inquired, pretty certain of the fact given what Light Magic I’d seen.

Both of them blinked again, looking at the layout of the seven sets of Stars in the Startrail.

“No,” Red confirmed first. “None of the seven Patterns are arranged that way...”

“And so the effect is completely different,” I stated calmly. “Yet you don’t experiment with other combinations, why?”

All of them flinched, despite themselves. “Because an improper linking can explode one of our Stars, which effectively cripples our Casting ability in that Element. We’ll never advance in it again, unless by some miracle we can recondense the missing Star!” Red said firmly. “There’s a LOT of evidence and testimony behind that. Finding new spells is almost a miracle, and nobody wants to do it for Novice magic and destroy their future. At the Mage and Archmage levels, it becomes moot, as you’ve enough control that you don’t need to do so!”

“And that is because?” I prodded calmly.

“Your Will is stronger!” Driver Sam interjected promptly.

“And?” I pressed further. They all looked at one another.

“There... are more Patterns?” the normally silent Tox suddenly spoke up.

“Very good, Master Tox!” I waved my hand, and branching Patterns suddenly filled the air in an expanding wedge in front of us all. “There are exactly seven hundred and twenty Patterns available to every one of the starting seven Elements. Your Adept Spells hold seven of them. Your Mage Spells will hold forty-nine of them. Your Archmage spells will hold an astounding three hundred and forty-three of them, and those of Sages, well, they hold them all, and more besides.”

“More besides?” half of them immediately said on cue.

“Master Tox? Care to enlighten them?” I asked the silent Plant-mage, as the Holo of choices fell back down to the default seven Stars, winking in front of us all.

He stared at it, then his eyes glassed over for a moment. His head jerked, eyes shifting back and forth, and he audibly gasped. “There’s no Earth Stars in my Plant Element!” he blurted out in shock.

“Just so,” I confirmed for him. “And all the Patterns of your Plant Element start out with Water, then Light, correct?”

He checked, blinking in astonishment again. “Yes! All Seven of them! There’s a second Light Star in every Pattern!”

“Which is the defining characteristic of White Magic,” I informed them all loftily.

After a few breaths of me not saying anything, the Mick spoke up, “That was right in front of me, but I never realized it, and I know nobody has ever mentioned it to me before. They... can’t have missed it for all these years, right?” He looked at me doubtfully. “I mean, we’re told the Stars have natures, but not Elemental ones, so that we can connect them in the right order...”

“I can’t speak for all scholars, Captain, but it’s obvious that the most important thing to Lightning spells is the Lightning Mana that empowers them, so why look further? And since none of the Patterns between your spells overlap, it’s impossible to really prove one way or the other, right?”

He fell silent again, staring at his Starfield, and wondering what that meant.

Red leaned forward, and said softly, “Show us the six Light spells, and we’ll call it done for the night, Lady Fae.”

Nobody gainsaid him. I nodded once, rolling my hand, and the silver ball of Light from before came up. “Basic spell, Light. Note that the spell ends in the Ice Star.” Their eyes instantly shifted to the Pattern above, and lo, it was true. “Basic spell, Spotlight.” The Light warped, and turned into a broad, bright beam of light, much like the headlight of the oncoming cars. They watched in fascination as I played it over the passing plains, varying the brightness and area as I did so.

“It ends in Earth!” Big John pointed out for everyone.

“Basic spell, Faerie Fire.” I snapped my fingers, and all of them blinked as suddenly they were all surrounded by a harmless dancing aura of silver illumination, outlining them perfectly.

“That’s the Water spell,” murmured Bjorn, looking at the pseudo-Light flowing above his skin and big hands.

“Basic Spell, Dancing Lights.” The Faerie Fire faded away, replaced by a swirl of brightly glowing silvery butterflies dancing above my hand. I sent them zipping out ahead of me, around us all, totally ignoring the wind as they shed illumination in many colors where and when I wanted it.

“The Wind spell,” Glenn murmured, watching the Holo and the swirling, glowing butterflies.

“Basic Spell, Ride the Light.” There was a swirl of motion, and a stream of light ended up with me sixty feet in front of the rest of the Disks.

All of them burst out shouting in amazement at the execution of the Light spell ending in Fire. I naturally slowed down so they caught up in seconds, sliding back into the formation smoothly.

“Basic Spell, Laser.”

There was only a flash and flare, a radiant beam reaching out and cleanly nicking off the top of a passing shrub. All of them spun around on their Disks to watch the top of it fall off.

“The Lightning-ender,” the Mick breathed, staring at it. All of them could completely tell I’d used extremely little Mana to do all this. It was indeed a Novice spell!

Light had an offensive damage spell as a Novice Magic!

“Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the basics of Wizardry: the study of spells!” I said calmly as they all turned back, hungry looks in their eyes. “Your whole lives you’ve been using Sorcery, which is the study and use of Mana. The two things are completely different. Sorcery is the brute force and muscle of spellcasting. Wizardry... is the brains and finesse of it, particularly at the lowest Ranks.

“It doesn’t matter how much ‘talent’ you have; if you aren’t actually that smart, you aren’t going to be good at Wizardry. What Sorcery calls ‘genius’, Wizardry scoffs at. They are completely separate things. Only actual smart people need apply to learn Wizardry.”

“Fuuuuuck, where was all this stuff ten years ago?” Red murmured, clapping his hands to his face, the burn scars on his head bright crimson. “Oh my God, the difference this could have made...”

“Sorcerers don’t particularly like Wizards,” I noted for them. “Sorcerers are the muscle, Wizards are the brains. The former have the power, the latter have the versatility.”

“But... you can do both, right?” Big John asked promptly. “I mean, we can still do this Wizardry stuff, or you wouldn’t have brought it up, right?”

“Yes, but you are limited, because you took your Sorcery first.” I brought up a Light, then changed it to a ball of Lightning, then a burning orb of Fire, a swirling globe of glowing Mists, a liquid sphere of rippling illumination, a rune-carved ball of Stone, and lastly a crystalline geometric orb of purest Ice.

It was the Mick who sighed the loudest, seeing me go through a display of all Seven Elements. “Do we even want to know?” he complained for everyone.

I smiled slightly. “Wizardry starts with your very first Star,” I informed him. “That one you have before you Awaken your Elements.” I paused significantly. “A true Wizard never Awakens an Element. Doing so restricts their Wizardry.”

Their jaws dropped again as they stared at me. “You... you don’t have an Element?” the Mick gasped for all of them. “You’re not a Void Mage?” he pressed further.

“What you call Void Magery, the purest form of it, is actually completely unaligned Magic. I have only one Element, and that Element is all of them, and none of them. It appears to you as Void Magery because Void Magery is the closest Sphere of magic to it.”

“But... that means you don’t have nearly as much raw power as we do!” Red blurted out instantly, doing the math as normal.

“Sorcery is the muscle, Wizardry is the brains,” I repeated, shrugging. “I am capable of using all the spells of all of your Elements, and White, Black, and Dimensional Magic, as well.” I turned my eyes back on him. “Do you truly want to say I have less power than you, Master Red?” I asked him archly.

He thought about that, and the power I had displayed, and slowly shook his head. “No, ma’am, I don’t think I do,” he admitted. “Just commenting on raw quantity of power of having multiple Elements of Mana versus one.”

“Yes, that’s the muscle. Because of it, you’re limited in the spells you can learn by Element.”

“One more question.” I glanced over at the Mick at his words. “Two Light Stars means true White Magic, then. What about Dimensional Magic? Black Magic?”