Chapter 64: Spell Weaving (III)
True to her word, Dawn conjured all the water he needed to clean himself. The backlash from her Bloodline power seemed to have quelled as a few hours passed, and though her face remained as pale as ever, she had no trouble casting some elementary spells.
"I am curious," Ember couldn't help but ask, "how many attunements do you truly have?"
He had witnessed her cast wind, fire, and kinetic force during the fight. With the addition of Life and Water, she already possessed five attunements. Was there really an element she wasn't attuned to?
Dawn cocked her head. "Are you asking figuratively, or do you genuinely want an answer?"
"If it isn't too confidential."
"Confidential? Bah! You certainly know a few big words." She waved her hand. "Well, it isn't confidential, but information on anyone's abilities is a private thing."
Ember nodded, already having known that.
"Why are you even curious about that? Attunements are quite easy to awaken. I probably have eight or nine of them, though half of them are only minor attunements."
Did she imply the other half were all Higher or Major attunements? Fire and Life certainly were, as far as he was concerned. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to perform the healing or the climactic Sunburst.
"I know I'm amazing, but there's no need to be so surprised," Dawn said, displaying her dimple. "I believe you'll likely have as many attunements once you reach Silver. The chances are even higher at Gold, but Silver rank alone makes gaining an attunement considerably easier." She paused. "That reminds me, what other attunements did you acquire along with Kinetic Force? If I'm to get you to learn six elementary spells in the quickest time, just Kinetic Attunement alone might not cut it."
"I have another," Ember answered truthfully. "Mind, but my attainment in it is even lower than Kinetic Force."
"Mind Attunement," Dawn repeated. "That's quite rare and certainly not one of the easiest ones to train. I'm afraid I know very little about the attunement to teach you much in that regard."
Ember couldn't help but feel a pang of regret hearing that, but quickly steered himself, thinking about all the spell theories he was about to learn.
"You seem to have already gotten Kinetic Push and Pull," she mumbled. "Adding Force Shield, Mana Bolt, and Elementary Telekinesis, we are still missing one."
"What about Haste?"
"Haste is trickier," she said. "It's more of an intermediate spell, and more intuitive than most spells of the same designation. Hmm, what's your Movement skill at?"
"At +6."
"That's not bad. You may have a shot at learning Haste. Quicker. Still, we shall begin with the easier ones. So, Force Shield it is."
At her beckoning, Ember sat down opposite her, a small light construct blooming between them.
"Before we get to the spell," she instructed, "let's begin with some mana exercises first. Give me three breaths of your mana. And compress them into thin strands, like before."
Ember obliged, awakening three breaths of mana from his palm. The little strands gleamed dimly as mana transferred evenly throughout them.
"For unstructured spells, which most elementary spells are, mana shaping is mostly sufficient. However, shaping is the more fundamental of mana skills, like sensing, transferring, and moulding mana into different attunements. For more complex spellwork, it's quite impossible without Mana Weaving, which I am about to teach you."
Ember raised his palm.
"Shush, no questions," she hushed him. "I will explain the basics, and then you can ask questions about anything you didn't understand."
He hesitated to tell her he had already received a prompt for the exact skill she was about to teach him. After a second thought, he kept his peace, thinking he might still have missed some of its specifics.
"Weaving is exactly as it sounds," she continued, "but you have to make the threads on your own and then bind them with your Will. You have already seen the difference it makes on Kinetic Push."
Under her instruction, Ember stitched the three threads into a braid, keeping the mana flow as even and swift as he could make it.
"This doesn't seem too difficult, does it?" she smiled. "But that's only when you're working with a small quantity of threads. For higher-tier spells, mhm, a Tier 7, for example, would require twenty-seven threads to make it work. The requirement only grows higher in advanced spells."
"Three threads seem to be enough for Tier 4," Ember said.
"Three is the bare minimum," she clarified. "For the elementary tiers, which are Tier 1 to 3, you barely need a thread or two. Anyone with a notable mana foundation can learn them intuitively. True casting begins at intermediate spells, Tier 4 for your information, whose minimum requirements are three threads, then six for Tier 5, and nine for Tier 6, and so on."
"Only nine threads for a Tier 6 spell?" Ember couldn't help but mumble. "That doesn't sound too difficult."
If he thought she would rebuke him for being cocky, she only inclined her head agreeably. "It is."
"Spellcasting only becomes more complex at Silver tiers."
He could imagine that. While nine might not sound a lot, twenty-seven was an increment of 200%. Unless one's Will and mana skills improved with their tiers, the difficulty might prove to be too high a barrier.
"Your Will and Intuition should be quite high," she said, observing him practise, "for you to get the hang of it already."
"They are my most affluent attributes along with Mystic. All three having around a hundred points in them."
"That's more than I imagined," Dawn cocked an eyebrow, "for someone who brutalised enemies with a heavy sword."
"I'm just magic illiterate," he mumbled. "Oh, and by the way, I've already received the prompt for Mana Weaving."
"Already? That's quite fast."
"I received it during the scuffle against the goblins."
She bobbed her head. "You should have said so earlier."
"I tried, but then you shushed me."
Dawn shot him a flat stare, unimpressed. "Anyway, we can now begin with Force Shield."
The theory behind Force Shield was more complex compared to something like Kinetic Push, and even more so in practice. Whereas with Kinetic Push, he simply needed to build up the force before releasing it, now Ember would need to revolve the same force into a magic circle in the form of a circular shield. Weaving three threads into a shield was difficult enough, but then he had to ensure his Will was adamant enough to build the force without releasing it prematurely.
The first part alone infuriated him before he even had to worry about the building pressure.
"This doesn't seem like an unstructured spell," he mumbled, wiping a line of sweat from his forehead. Combining three threads into one was definitely much, much easier than weaving them into the magic circle, which was more akin to a star chart.
"It is unstructured," Dawn explained, "because you can customise the shape of the spell at your will. You definitely wouldn't have to follow the weave I showed you, but the shield is most robust in this form."
Ember could see that, though it offered him no assistance. In the dozens of times he attempted to cast it, his shield merely came into being as a semi-corporeal barrier before dispersing into thin air. The harder he tried to arm the weave with his Will, the sooner the shield seemed to crack.
"Do not try to make it the strongest Force Shield right away," she advised. "Lower your mana flow. Only once you get the hang of the weave should you increase it."
That advice seemed to work for Ember. Although it rendered the shield as flimsy as scraped paper, he could now maintain the weave for a few more seconds before it destabilised.
"I got it," Ember said after weaving the spell a few more times. "What now?"
"Continue it a couple of hundred times."
Ember blinked. Well, that didn't sound nerve-wracking at all. Hell, he wasn't even sure he was capable of casting it a hundred times without rest.
"I want no excuses," Dawn said before he could even begin. "You definitely have the resources to continue through this. You're only lacking in experience."
He simply stared at her.
"Trust me, the strain will go away once you are unaccustomed to spellcasting."
Ember suppressed a sigh. It was definitely not going to be as easy as he acquired Kinetic Pull. But since it was his first time receiving dedicated lessons on spellcasting, he needed no more motivation to pull through the gruesome castings.
What Dawn mentioned about his resources seemed to be true, as even after casting a hundred Force Shields, only a third of his mana had been expended. Casting with your own mana was always more cost-effective. The strain on his will, though, was far more severe.
In any other situation, if he had not been chased by a mammothous basilisk and then hounded unrelentingly by an assassin and goblins, perhaps he would have had a better time casting the spell. Currently, however, even though he had rested for a few hours, his will had not yet recovered to its optimum form.
"You can take a breather," Dawn said after he finished casting his one hundred and twenty-eighth Force Shield.
[Spell learned: Force Shield (Tier 1).]
"The stupid grin on your face says the System already recognised your achievement, but don't get cocky yet."
"No, I wouldn't dare." Ember shook his head energetically. He wouldn't dare until he earned the Magic Apprentice title.
"Before we move on to another spell, I figure I should teach you a neat trick with Force Shield. Actually, it's applicable to most kinetic spells. By adjusting the weave, you could interchange between any of the elementary kinetic spells. For Force Shield to Kinetic Push is almost effortless.
"Look closely."
She demonstrated, weaving three of her own threads to form a weak Force Shield. Then, after a couple of seconds, as the pressure reached its maximum capacity, her finger snapped and all three threads straightened into a line, delivering the blow.
That seemed simple enough. Ember attempted it immediately and found his wasn't as natural as hers.
"I have years of practice for you to compare yourself to me after a few attempts."
And she likely is more talented than me as well.
"You need to acquire Mana Weaving as soon as possible. It will make casting a lot easier."
However, to gain the skill, he would require skill slots, and for skill slots, he would need the Magic Apprentice title; for the title, he would have to learn three more spells. Ultimately, it all appeared to be a feedback system, where improvement in one area led to advancement in another. Whoever had designed the system was definitely up to something. Otherwise, a manifestation of the will of the universe wouldn't be so convoluted.
After his Will recovered, Dawn taught him Elementary Telekinesis. She had him test it on a small pebble, explaining that he simply needed to wrap his kinetic mana around the object and then manipulate the thread to move it at will. It sounded easy enough and proved to be much easier in practice as well. If only the consumption of Will were lower than Force Shield.
"Elementary Telekinesis isn't very useful, so you better return to practising Force Shield after you learn the spell." She paused, scratching her nose. "While you are busy with that, let me take a look at your protective ward. I can't leave my Minion to fight Goblins without protection, can I?"