The Power of Ten, Book Five: Versatile Wizardry

There were indeed two schools of thought for Wizardry, one of which they were familiar with. Elemental Wizardry did indeed focus on the energy source, and how to wield it in multiple ways. Since that was the focus of Magery, I basically ignored it for the most part.

Arcane Wizardry focused on the spells instead, manipulating the structure of them, not particularly caring about the type of energy that moved through them. This was still useful to them, as it gave them an easier understanding of Universal spells that worked regardless of energy type, and the same spell would respond the same way to any of the Mana types moving through it, with only minor adjustments, instead of being a completely different spell on the Elemental side.

Visual File, for instance, was a Universal spell. It worked off basic magic, and the type wasn’t relevant since they were all imbued with the type they were using regardless.

Visual File basically organized the mind and brain into something approaching an organic computer. It allowed you to visualize things in your mind as if you were seeing them with your eyes, and interact with your own memories much like a computer screen. Oh, it wouldn’t, for instance, be able to calculate things that you couldn’t do yourself, such as figuring the precise square root of something... but it could allow you to ‘write stuff’ inside your own head and work things through very quickly that way, if you knew what you were doing.

Mostly, it was an interactive eidetic memory for all the senses, allowing you to recall anything you had seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or even touched with amazing clarity, and you could even overlay them onto reality if you so desired, ‘drawing’ stuff into existence in your own thoughts if you liked.

You could even create your own mental playlist of music and play it back to yourself, keep perfect mental spreadsheets you could update with literally a thought or a glance, and so forth.

They were all salivating to make use of it, and had to dive into the very complex organization of the spell, something incredibly different from the Magery spells and their simple arrangements of Star Patterns.

Arcane Wizardry used Schools of Magic, typified mostly by what the spells did. Evocation spells were quick and dirty battle magic, made to channel energy fast and furiously in the middle of a fight. Alteration spells changed one thing somehow, partially or completely, and as such were tremendously variable in type and nature of what they affected. Divination spells revealed things to the wielder via magic in a variety of ways. Illusion spells overlaid reality with mock reality, which when powerful enough could actually become real. Abjuration spells protected the Caster and undid hostile magic. Conjuration and Summoning magic brought things and beings from elsewhere to the Caster. Enchantment and Charm magic infused energy into objects and beings.

Necromancy and vivimancy were two sides of the same coin, Schools that were also Elements, working with energies positive and negative... and such Elements were totally ignored by Magery.

Light? Light was just a Positive aspect of Fire. Lightning? The same of Air. Ice was nothing more than yet another frozen solid, as Cold was an aspect of Earth. Metal was just a form of refined Earth, crystals with different characteristics.

The clinical, detached, and analytical view of the world, both magical and otherwise, was very seductive to logical, intelligent men. They weren’t raw students, and had plenty of ability to concentrate, to analyze and consider, and if these were new ideas, they could also sense there was huge weight behind everything they were learning.

And yet, and yet, each and every spell had to be understood in a personal way, on a personal level, and the arcane shorthand I was teaching them would always have a measure of uniqueness about it. Were they to write them down, the exact same spell would look different between them, because each would understand them differently, and they would have to puzzle out how someone else portrayed the magic.

It was very obvious to them that I could do things with this supposedly simple Cantrip that they could not, but they were dipping their toes into a massively complex world full of light and life and magic, yet one so very different from Magery...

But as they were going to soon find out, the Mana of the world loved it some nice hard Wizardry, sure enough...

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The Teleport out to go hunting was quick, and the hunting really didn’t take much more time. One Commune with Nature sent us toward the nearest cluster of Tarantulas, which were quickly slain, one Spider each enough to advance their Marks a daily increment. It kind of spooked them when they could feel the energy moving into the Marks, and see the whiteness in the things grow ever-so-slightly.

There was another short detour to pull up another thousand pounds of gold ore from a buried vein, and then they were in my Pocket and out again back at our new building.

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The Mick...

It had been six hours of instruction. He’d thought it was sixty. There’d just been so much STUFF to learn, and she’d taken him through it all, like it was one-on-one instruction, answering all his questions, varying her approach until he learned what he needed to learn, and threw out what he needed to throw out. Just the right mix of enthusiasm, challenge, total superiority, encouragement, and an absolute conviction and sense of purpose that was so undeniable, it almost made him cringe to feel it.

He would learn, or she would smack his brain around until he did!

She’d done the same with all of the others at the same time, without any real effort.

He could feel the Cantrip Visual File in the back of his head, going into his memories and starting to organize them. He had to do it deliberately, had to guide it, effectively going back into his past and sorting things out, getting everything in line, and even reliving them again if he wanted to remember them.

He was doing that now, staring at the inside of his head as he relived some of the conversations between his mother and his dad when he was three. They were talking about things he didn’t understand then, but definitely did now, as his philandering drunkard of a father came home smelling of booze again, and got into yet another argument with his mother.

In six months she would kick him out, leave, and find another man to be with, another hardass who didn’t know how to raise kids, even the daughter they had together, gone most of the time on his sales job. Eventually the man moved them one time too many, cheated on her, and that was that...

The Mick really hadn’t had a very supportive childhood, and if he hadn’t had the friends he’d finally found in high school when they stopped moving around after his mom kicked the cheat out, he had no idea how he would have ended up.

Then he’d Awakened Lightning, shocking just about everyone who knew him, and his life had changed.

Lightning was a warrior’s Element, the single best basic Element at striking down single foes. In his class of three hundred, there’d only been two other kids who’d Awakened Lightning, while over a dozen had Awakened Fire, the next most desired Element.

Light, Earth, and Water outnumbered everything else, with the first seen as the weakest among the kids, since the basic Spell only allowed you to create illumination. Over half the kids would never make Adept, and so they’d be little more than light bulbs for the rest of their lives.

Two of the kids in his class had killed themselves after being Awakened to Light, sure their lives were over and they were going to be basically as useless as the kids who never Awakened themselves at all.

He could even remember their names now. Joey Terrilli and Amanda Schumaker. He hadn’t known either one of them, or even thought of them in years. Going by what he could remember now, they looked like kids put under tremendous pressure by their families, and when they Awakened Light, they were judged to be complete failures.

Glenn had been almost the same way, but he had kept his eyes on the road ahead. Light at Adept Level was a defensive Element as good as Earth in its own way, and at higher Levels was extremely dangerous. All Glenn had to do was make it to Adept, and Light would have value, AND he’d get a separate Element to make up for any shortcomings!

There’d been no special Talents that he knew of at the school in the years he’d been there. The most special thing he’d heard of was a few people who Awakened the Healing Element, mostly girls, and a guy, Joe Cornwall, who’d Awakened the Plant Element as a Novice, something good enough to get him early admission to Michigan State University, one of the best agricultural schools in the world. The girls all got into good Universities on scholarships, too. Born Healers were valuable people...

Nothing like this monster called Lady Fae, who he was still having to reassure himself was Human.

A Typeless Starfield! The very idea was insane, he could barely believe it even now. He’d never read about anything like it. You only saw a Typeless Star among those people who couldn’t Awaken their magic at ALL.

She had a Starfield at Tier 7. SEVEN. Even with that vivic fire cheating and getting them so many Soul Crystals and stuff, that meant she’d gotten her mitts on forty-nine Soul Jewels, and either killed or had something kill for her forty-nine Rulers!

Or combine so many Commanders they could make a Jewel, but that was just as bad!

He reviewed his memories of her, those Darts and their long, looping Chains of death. All the strange types of Magic clinging to them, and the way they just reaved through those Ants and Spiders, and then stacked up with bursts of Magery to hammer into Commanders and Rulers alike, things he wouldn’t even be able to touch with his magic.

He brought up his hand, staring at it as Tier 5 Lightning crackled over it.

He had a full set of Commander Soul Gems, but he wasn’t finished with them, yet. It was notably harder to apply them than it had been the lower-grade Soul Crystals, but he would be finished in a day or two.

Tier 5 Lightning, already four times as powerful as a normal Caster, the equivalent of having a powerful Spirit Seed all by itself. Combined with having a St. Elmo’s Seed himself, and yeah, he could totally mess up Warrior-class Spiders and Ants by himself now, and probably make even a Commander notice him.

If he never got another level of Magery, despite how dismissive she was about his anxiety regarding advancing to the next Tier, if he advanced to Ten in this Wizard Class she was talking about, he would be tossing spells at Seventeen instead of Ten, and the foundation of his spells would be at least twice as powerful as they were now, instead of fixed in effect. Range, area, duration, penetration; everything was going to increase!

And if he could use other sorts of non-Elemental spells in addition...

Yeah, yeah, this was a really good move. A stroke of luck so deep he still wondered if he was dreaming to have encountered it, especially in a situation where they all should have died.

The thing was, this Luck was something that was totally being given away. Lady Fae had picked Light, the most common, the most unwanted Element, as the first Element to give away the extra five spells for.

Light was instantly going to become the hottest and most in-demand Element in the world, for anyone who had those spells. Its days of being the mediocre common Element were completely over with. Those Laser pulses Glenn and Red had been using had been nearly as good as Lightning spells, with a longer range and far more precise in their aim.

He didn’t care, and he didn’t mind. After all, he had the five new Lightning spells, and they were just as damn good!

Lightning Strike was the default spell, working off his Light Star ending the Startrail, a whip-like attack spell that could paralyze and stun those struck. Ride the Lightning was the Fire terminus, and unleashed a single bolt of electricity that could be used to charge to the attack, or just to leap from one location to another rapidly, much like Void Magic’s Blink spell.

Lightning Bugs, of Air, conjured up a swarm of crackling beetles which could be sent out to harry and track creatures, as he desired. Shocking Aura, of Water, discharged a lethal arc into anything he touched or that touched him, great for punishing anything that grabbed him. Static Field, of Earth, covered an area of ground in latent areas of static, just waiting to jump up if anything intruded in them. Sparks, the Ice terminus, maintained a constant, low-intensity flow of magic, ideal for recharging or powering something, or it could be set up as a kind of signal, discharging dancing flashes of electricity into the sky.

Where she got them all, why she was releasing them, why whoever she got them from hadn’t released them, why there was no sign of them being released anywhere for Novice Mages... they were all questions, and things she wasn’t going to answer, and he wasn’t going to ask.

She was releasing them now, and through them, and then to the world. It was enough.