Descending Into A Novel-Chapter 59:First Mission (6)

"Frost blast!"

Raymond had long since moved past the time when he still had to chant the spells he casted out loud. He had also long since moved past the need to use a medium like a staff or a wand, along with the need to wave/point said medium.

But he still did all of those things.

Why?

Because it made his life easier. That was all.

Saying the chant out loud helped to reduce the mental strain he would have to do. Using a magic medium improved his spells based on the medium and waving or pointing the medium helped him to aim his spells more accurately.

Sure, he could not do any of those things. But when given the option to make your life easier, why wouldn’t you make your life easier?

He would only ever not do any of them if he truly had to. If he was fighting an intelligent race for example, he wouldn’t just yell out the names of his spells out loud—that was just a stupid thing to do.

His mind briefly flashed an image of Zachary, only to be quickly wiped away.

Sure, he didn’t have to use a staff or a wand or even the beginner technique of hand incantations. But they helped to channel his mana better, so of course he used them unless he wanted to hide that he was casting a spell. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

As for pointing his staff at enemies? It was just a convenient way for him to aim at things, and the spell would naturally follow the direction of his motions so it saved him the effort.

Each and every one of these techniques were small things. But combined together, they made his life much more easier.

These techniques were the mage equivalent of a warrior’s footwork and weapon art. While mages had magic disciplines, warriors had their Arts.

Naturally, there were always exceptions. Mages could learn Arts and warriors could learn magic, theoretically.

Some Arts helped to improve mana efficiency, making them usable for both. The aura that nearly all warriors used was merely an extremely common Art.

Raymond himself, was really regretting not learning any footwork Arts for running. Something for preserving his stamina would have massively helped right now.

He huffed, clutching his sides as he keeled over slightly. His heart was so loud it was nearly all he could hear.

Tightening the grip on his wand. He aimed it at the swarm. Choking out another frost blast in between his breaths.

Yes, he was using the wand form rather then the default staff form. He had always used the staff simply because it was what he was most comfortable with.

That, and its effect to increase the power of his spells was always useful.

In contrast, the wand would improve his mana efficiency. Letting him use a little bit less with each spell.

With how weak the hornets were individually, he had made the decision to use the wand form over the staff form.

Gritting his teeth, he forced his legs to keep him moving. Ignoring the clenching pain in his sides.

Why were these guys so trash at defending him!

Seriously, as the mage. He should have received the best protection. Top tier defense that would shield him from anything.

Yet it more often then not seemed like they were just off trying to kill as many as they could while Raymond ran rings around the hornets.

If not for his shield spells, he would have gotten stung several times already. His lacking physique was inadequate when it came to physical activity. Even as the perfect human, as a mage, he was just too weak.

At least Ellen tried to help him out. But her arrows were also wholly unsuited for this.

He mentally made a note to berate them all about this later.

For now, he kept running, occasionally jogging or walking whenever he was far away enough. Many hornets still reached him, but moving like this helped to reduce the amount that did.

While moving, he mentally made a rough count of how many hornets were left. There were at least one thousand something in each nest, with Raymond’s ice dome—he could isolate parts of the infested power line. With at least a dozen nests each time he did, that made for a minimum of around twelve thousand.

Raymond had managed to snipe out two almost full nests when he had first set up the ice dome and when the hornets were still mostly in their nests and power lines, so there was around ten thousand.

After nearly an hour of fighting, the number had been whittled down to only around two thousand? Raymond’s mental processing capabilities were a lot slower then what he was used to but it seemed about right.

He fortified his shield, taking a deep breath as he aimed at his wand in the air.

There was a reason he was using the wand form, firstly—he hated the feeling of mana burn. Yesterday, he had recovered relatively quickly since he hadn’t truly overused his mana. Letting it recover from next to nothing in between sections. But also because he was saving his mana for a new spell he had created.

Previously, Raymond had always just casted different ice spells he already knew (one of his small gripes with the system was that every spell was considered a skill, it really bloated his system interface!). Modifying them slightly to suit his tastes more. That was why he had suspected the system had never classified them as new skills. Since he technically already had them but they were just sealed.

So after waking up yesterday at two in the morning and eating a very late dinner. He had spent the rest of the time working on a new ice spell—two new spells actually but he had decided to focus on the first, with the spell being entirely original crediting him as the sole creator.

He still hadn’t fully finished it, still needing to refine and tweak a few things. Especially since it was such a low level spell, he didn’t have a lot to work with. He had to make everything count when he could.

Compared to the struggles of creating higher levelled spells, where you had too much to work with and had to meticulously balance and tie everything together. It was a pretty refreshing challenge for him.

But his new spell was usable, just a bit weaker and more draining then a typical spell of this level would be. Nevertheless, he would soon be done with his last touches as well.

With his wand in the air, he made a small circular motion with his wrist. Causing the tip of his wand to spin counter-clockwise. Drawing upon nearly all of his remaining mana, he cancelled his shield spell on himself. Grinning as he whipped his wand at the densest part of the swarm he could see.

"Arctic Winds!"

With his shout, his mana went into fueling his newly created spell. Pale blue clouds of frost swirled around him but that was only the start. A consequence of him not yet finishing the spell, causing leakage and waste.

From the tip of his wand, a lightly glittering azure tornado of chilling winds launched out of his wand. It was the size of buses, expanding in size the further away it got from Raymond (and weaker unfortunately.)

From afar, it looked as if there were two tornadoes of blue. A smaller one that encased Raymond, making him hard to see and another larger one originating from his outstretched arm.

The electro-shocking hornets that were hit stood no chance at all, not only were they flung around within the extremity of his spell. The cold caused the air to become denser, more turbulent making it harder for the hornets to control their flight. Light amounts of frost formed on their bodies, slowing their movements.

All in all, despite its current flaw. That being the leakage and massive waste of mana in the form of the winds that formed around him. The spell was unquestionably a success.

Hundreds and hundreds of hornets got caught in his spell. Moving his wand, the spell soon followed his wand movements. Catching hundreds more.

Just seeing the expressions of his classmates was enough to lift up his mood for the entire day already. The awe, the shock and the surprise from his spell!

Feeling his mana bottoming out, he dispelled the spell. Abruptly cutting off the winds from the tip of his wand. The pale winds around him slowly dissipating into the air.

Flashing Ellen a grin, he ran his hand through his hair. Flourishing his wand slightly as he exhaled. A pale mist coming out from his mouth as he did so.

He was also trying to not show his current exhaustion. It was difficult, his side was still hurting from all the running. An uncomfortable burning feeling in the areas around his cores, paired with slight nausea and extreme fatigue.

Again, he was lucky that only bottoming out and squeezing his mana reserves a little didn’t cause too severe of mana burn. Compared to last time when he was with instructor Sienna trying to figure out his mana type. It was bliss as far as he was concerned.

While cleaning up the inside of the ice dome, Thomas—helping the Livins Power Company workers carry something. Stopped halfway through to ask him something.

"Raymond, what spell did you use there near the end? As far as I can remember, I can’t recognize that spell."

"It’s a new spell I created, based on the difficulty I’m assuming it would be a second circle spell roughly?"

Spells were separated into different difficulty levels based on each circle. An average first circle mage could only ever cast a first circle spell or a circle above. Raymond had essentially managed to create a spell that skipped two major ranks. Albeit, it was definitely one of the weakest second circle spells.

He stroked his chin slightly, "I see, congratulations on the new spell. But isn’t it a waste since you don’t have an ice-attuned mana?"

Completely ignoring Raymond’s achievement, he pointed out the glaring issue with Raymond’s new creation.

Without the enhancements from having an ice-attunement mana, the spell was much weaker then if it had been cast by someone else who did.

"...It’s still usable until I figure out what my mana attunement is."