Here's the weekend chapter! Sorry it's slightly late. I was caught up watching the Dota 2 Shanghai Major!

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Chapter 15: The Studious Necromancer

Walking into the previously undisturbed library, Kaz’s breathing gradually became heavier and heavier until he was panting. Not even going towards the stone table in the center of the library, Kaz walked directly towards the nearest bookshelf.

“These books seem to be meticulously arranged by subject. This section seems to be….books that contain information about herbs.” Carefully taking a book from the top shelf, Kaz looked at the cover.

“Herbs of the Kaze Plains: Volume IV. Hmm, so it seems that this book is far older than I thought. I’ve read from ancient Janaroian histories that the plains where Klavan was founded used to be called the Kaze Plains by their older nomadic inhabitants.”

{How exactly did a Klavan historian, lacking in political or economical means, get his hands on a Janaroian text? That just seems odd.} Trying to steer Kaz away from subjects that he found boring, Ahriman started to ask questions unrelated to the library.

“Well, it’s not like all trade was blocked. Sure, official trade never happened, but there was a lot of smuggling going on in the Pass. Officially, Klavan military officers tried to stop all information going out of Klavan. However, what did go out was not particularly important since Janaro did not have the technological prowess or military might to force open the Pass in a straight fight. Much information about the two nations was exchanged in this manner.” Putting the herbology book right back where he found it, Kaz started to walk around the library.

“It seems that all of the writing in this library and cavern is in the old language that Ahriman taught me. Ooh, here’s the necromancy section.” Stopping right as he got to the necromancy section of the library, Kaz began to peruse the books with more attention than he was previously.

{If it’s simply knowledge of necromancy that you want, I can just blast it into your head. There’s no need to actually read these books. Just tell me what you want to know and I’ll see if I have got the spell for it. Really, can we please just get out of here? There has got to be more interesting parts of the cavern than this dump.}

“Seriously, Ahriman. How did you ever get to be that powerful of a magus if you hate learning? The pursuit of power is intrinsically linked to the pursuit of knowledge. If one does not learn, how does one get more powerful?”

{Learning from books is overrated. There were two schools of thought concerning learning when I was an apprentice just like you back in the day. The first was traditional learning, like you seem to be inclined. The second was dynamic learning, or studying through trial by fire. These schools of thought clashed so much that the Magi Civil War happened, and the learning of magic has been in decline ever since.}

“I’m shocked to learn that there were enough magi to have a civil war! Can you tell me anything else about this?” Excited more than ever, Kaz stopped looking at the books on the shelf and eagerly anticipated hearing Ahriman’s response. Walking around towards the other shelves with books containing knowledge of magic, Kaz selected several books.

{Only that it does not matter anymore. But seriously, can you just ask me to teach you something so we can go explore the other parts of the cavern?}

“No worries, Ahriman. I’ve already found several books that I want to study. Just so you don’t have to wait too long, I’ve only selected four books.” Grinning from ear to ear, Kaz brought his haul to the stone table in the middle of the library. Groaning, Ahriman had no choice but to reluctantly fall silent and observe.

As Kaz approached the stone table, he noticed that the piece of furniture was actually closer to a desk than a plain stone table. The stone desk rose about as high as Kaz’s stomach, and was about as wide as he was tall. In front of the table there was a dusty wooden chair. On the desk, there was what appeared to be a unlit magical lamp.

“Looking closely, there appear to be sigils on the table’s surface as well as on the chair. I’m also curious as to how this lamp works.”

Probing with his magical sense, Kaz could feel some of his magical power draining into the lamp as his magical sense neared it. Pouring some of his power into it, Kaz quickly stepped back from the magical lamp. Wary of any adverse side effects, Kaz quickly stepped behind a nearly shelf.

Without a hitch, the magical lamp lit up softly. A bright yellow light came from the center of the lamp.

{Wow. That lamp was totally going to explode and kill you. I don’t know what to think of you sometimes, Kaz. Sometimes you do some really smart things like enslaving the stone bear, and other times you completely baffle me. You know what your problem is? You’re just not consistent enough.}

Dusting off the chair with his hands, Kaz took a seat at the desk and laid his selected books down. Picking up the one that he thought was the most interesting, Kaz cracked open the book’s pages. Taking a deep whiff, the apprentice delved deep into the book’s contents.

“Ahh….I know it’s dusty, but nothing really beats the smell of paper pages. This particular book talks about proper magical theory. “Magical Theory Abridged,” is not exactly my first choice. But since I don’t have all the time in the world, I might as well read the abridged version.” Concentrating intently on the words in front of him, all other things lost meaning for Kaz as he read.

{....this is going to be the end of me, I just know it. I should just count the number of books on those shelves to amuse myself. Hah, I never thought that an exalted elder necromancer such as myself would ever have to do something like this…}

After several hours, Kaz finally looked up from his studies. Closing the book, Kaz rubbed his eyes as he brought out his water flask. Taking a long drink, Kaz reflected upon what he had just learned.

“It seems that while magical spells increase in power very slightly as the caster increases their mastery of that particular spell, there is really one concrete way to increase the power of any spell. That way is exceedingly complicated, though. According to this book, the only way to increase the power of a spell is to increase or modify the incantation of the spell itself.”

{Or, alternatively, you can just learn an entirely new spell that’s more powerful. That’s much less effort on your part. I have a variety of spells that I think would work great with your level of understanding and power, by the way…} Stirring from his previous silent rest, Ahriman was desperate to prevent Kaz from starting another book.

“That’s just not efficient, Ahriman. Think about it, what would be the purpose of learning multiple spells that serve the same purpose, only varying in strength, instead of just strengthening one spell as the caster’s magical ability develops?”

{While I agree with you that such a way is far more efficient, it is also far more difficult. Magical theory is tricky even at the best of times, many frustrated magi have given up on modifying their incantations and just learned other spells. It’s not worth the effort to modify such weak spells. Even veteran magi rarely modify their spell incantations, and only when absolutely necessary.}

“As hard as it is, I deserve to try it out at least. Now, which spell would benefit the most from an upgrade…”

Closing his eyes, Kaz thought about which of the spells in his repertoire needed an additional boost.

“It seems that the two spells that I use the most are Frozen Spear and Mental Spike. I mainly rely on Frozen Spear to attack targets with a physical body, while Mental Spikes are for damaging targets which resist physical attacks. Although both spells are magical, they have different uses. I’ve decided, I will try to upgrade both of these spells as soon as I can.”

Looking at the second book that he had brought out, Kaz was pleasantly surprised at his selection.

{I don’t know if you planned for this, brat, but it looks really suspicious.} Surprised himself, Ahriman’s voice lacked the distinctive condescension that it usually carried.

Astonishingly, the second volume that Kaz chose was titled “Modifying Magic Incantations: Theory and Practice.”

“Heh, it looks like I really know how to pick them. I don’t even have to get up to look for books talking about modifying magical incantations. This book seems much shorter than the previous abridged book on magical theory. It’ll be a cinch to read!”

{Yeah, but what about understanding it? I can read that fast too, but I won’t get anything out of it. Since I’m much more experienced in things magic-related than you, why don’t you just let me teach you the things that you need to know?}

Never one to give up easily, the hallmark of a necromancer, Ahriman continued to prod Kaz.

“You may be more experience in things related to magic, Ahriman, but that’s only because you’ve studied it for far longer. Your scholar days are far behind you, while the life of a scholar is the only thing I’ve known until just recently. Thus, my motivation to learn is far greater than yours. What’s your ambition anyway? What did you want to accomplish with your magical ritual anyway?” Puzzled that he never thought to ask, Kaz was suddenly curious about the purpose of the magical ritual inside Ahriman’s hut.

{Bah. You wouldn’t understand it anyway. Not until you’ve actually experienced more of the necromantic arts. Go on, try to modify your spell incantations. I’ll be here when you get frustrated.}

Sulking, Ahriman fell silent.

Shrugging his shoulders, Kaz put the question of Ahriman’s magical circle to the back of his mind and opened the second book. Reading for a couple of minutes, Kaz came to a sudden realization.

“Where the book about magical theory was very brief, this book goes into great detail regarding the theory of magical incantations. I’m sure the practical part of the book will go into an equal amount of detail. I may have to spend more time on analyzing this book’s contents than I previously thought.”

Bracing himself for a long night of studying, Kaz was anything but bored. In fact, true to his scholarly tendencies, he felt no exhaustion as he concentrated intently on each and every page. As he got to the practical section of the book, Kaz had to constantly flip back to the theory section in order to understand some of the many example incantation interactions that the book gave him.

{Ugh. Maybe I shouldn’t have taught him the Chant of the Novitiate. His physical resistance increasing also means that the little bastard has a reduced need for sleep or physical rest. Looking at the current situation, this only means I have to watch him read these books for a longer period of time. At least I can watch his dreams when he has them during sleep….} Muttering to himself, Ahriman fruitlessly tried to entertain himself by counting the books on the shelves again.

An even longer period of time, compared to the time it took Kaz to read the first book, went by before Kaz finished studying the second book. Thinking about it, Kaz tried to analyze the magical incantation for his Frozen Spear.

“It appears that the ancient language that Ahriman taught me, which is used in these ruins, is the same one as magi today use to chant their incantations. Because of this extreme similarity, it’s possible to modify the incantation by changing what words are chanted when the spell is cast. What’s complicated is chaining the new incantations to the magical power that’s provided by the caster themselves.” Thinking deeply about his incantation problems, Kaz packed up the four books that he took into his knapsack. Walking back out of the library and into the cavern proper, Kaz was lost in thought as he slowly travelled back to the armory.

“The spell incantation for Frozen Spear is very similar to the sigil networks that have been carved everywhere in this cavern. Are the sigils actually a way to permanently manifest magical incantations, then? Bah, I need to concentrate on one thing at a time. I guess Ahriman is right about me getting distracted easily.”

As Kaz walked back into the armory, he noticed that there was another room directly connected to the armory that he had seen before. Walking into that room, Kaz was pleasantly surprised to find a series of eight golems arranged in a semicircle like the normal armory. Setting his knapsack down near the door, Kaz walked over to analyze these new golems.

“These golems have sigils carved onto them just like the other ones, however these sigils seem to be different than the ones on the golems outside. The sigils carved onto the golems outside seem to be for resisting a different type of weapon each. These sigils seem to be purposefully for resisting magic.”

Walking around each golem individually and reading their sigil networks, Kaz was able to confirm his suspicions.

“It seems that while the other room was primarily designed to test weapons, this room was designed with the testing of magic in mind. In fact, these golems all carry about the same amount of magical protection. I don’t think any of the spells that I currently know would be able to cause significant damage to them. These stationary golems might actually be perfect for me to test modified incantations on.” Eyes glittering with anticipation, Kaz sat down on the floor.

{If you’re actually serious about going through with this, I’ll help you out a bit. But it’s not because I feel like your efforts are going to be rewarded. Rather, I feel like this is a colossal waste of time to attempt to modify spells of lesser power.}

“Well, Ahriman, I aim to prove you wrong. But, I welcome all the help that I can get. So what do you have for me?”

{Look, I’ve given up on the idea of this process being quick. I just don’t want it to be extremely long if it doesn’t have to. When you want to modify an incantation, you must first discern what part of the incantation that you wish to modify. What incantation were you looking to modify?}

“I want to try upgrading my Frozen Spear first. So if what you’re saying is correct, I would need to replace the existing words that are currently in this incantation with other words that mean different things?”

{Not exactly, you want to replace existing words in the incantation that modify the same part of the spell. For example, it’s inherently impossible to modify the Core of the Frozen Spear spell. The Core of any spell is the main word that manifests the spell. In the case of your Frozen Spear, the Core is the word for Water since the spell falls under the category of Elemental Water Magic.}

“So the words for Sharp, Rod, or even Small are fair game? How does the size modifier work for spells, by the way?”

{Those are all indeed all fair game for spell modification. Spell modification is very close to actual spell creation since both involve large amounts of magical theory to put to practice. The size modifier actually is quite odd. The size modifier actually only modifies the amount of mana that the spell is able to take from you. If you attempt to cast a spell with too large a size modifier for your mana pool, it will fail and you’ll be stuck with nothing to show for your efforts.}

Frowning as he digested Ahriman’s words, Kaz thought about what part of the Frozen Spear incantation that he wanted to modify.

After a short while, Kaz’s face broke into a smile as he stood up. Standing a fair distance from the magically protected golems, Kaz prepared his new incantation.

I’ve decided to modify the Plain sigil to Jagged, the Rod sigil to Orb, and the Single sigil to Multiple. Keeping the Small magical modifier the same would result in the mana spent being the same. Let’s test this!

Gathering mana in his hands, Kaz chanted his new incantation. Condensing the mana required in his right hand, Kaz pointed it at the nearest golem. Without a word, Kaz unleashed his spell.

With a splatter, a multitude of icy projectiles materialized in front of Kaz’s hand and shot forth to hit the golem. Spreading from their initial position, the spiked icy orbs ripped into the golems directly to the left and right of the target golem.

Flashing as they were hit, the magical protections of the golems assured that they would receive no permanent damage. Nevertheless, Kaz could see the damage that his new spell was capable of.

Deep in thought, Kaz quickly concentrated his mana and launched a Frozen Spear at the target golem.

Comparing the results, Kaz was surprised to see that the Frozen Spear made a deeper indent into the golem’s magical protection than his new spell did.

“I guess that makes sense, all of the Frozen Spear’s power is concentrated into one projectile, and the new spell’s power has been divided into multiple projectiles. Although the new spell isn’t as powerful when dealing with single targets, it is much more useful when multiple targets are in close proximity.”

{Alright...woooooo….you’ve succeeded. NOW can we get on with exploring the rest of the cavern?} Although Ahriman was slightly surprised with Kaz’s first success, he did not show it.

“Eh it can wait a moment. I still need to come up with a name for my new spell! I guess I’ll call it….Frozen Spread!” Happy with the results of his new spell, Kaz sat down and started to absorb the mana from the atmosphere in order to replenish what he had used. With a groan, Ahriman voiced his displeasure.

{All that studying has gone to your head. You’re actually really shit at naming things.}

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