“I understand your excitement but don't get carried away, you still have a long way to go.” Claire said, “The spell you will focus on creating is called Ice Spear. This will be a combination of the Ice Element and Short Range Sigils.”

“What is the best method to start carving sigils into a spell core, The book gave a few examples but I am curious what you think about it?”

“There is no best way for anyone, it will be important to not try to find a shortcut out of this. Trial and error, the process of elimination, however, you want to describe it. This means you will have to find the method that resonates with your way of doing things.”

“Are there more ways of carving Sigils than what was described in the book?”

“Short answer is yes. However, more advanced methods are used for spells that require multiple Support Sigils. You should stick with the ones described in the books. If those do not fit your style then hopefully the repetitive action of trial and error will trigger some sort of insight.”

Locke sat down cross legged on the floor to collect his thoughts, he needed to choose how he wanted to tackle this problem. The general gist of how it was described is that he needed to form the spell core which hardens the mana into a sphere. While it is described as hardened that doesn't mean it is a physical object that can be touched by you or another person. It's more the mana being frozen in place forming a shape. This will allow the caster to carve onto the sigil properly using objects that you also create by also hardening mana.

Some example methods described hardening your mana into small chisels to perform the task. Or you could form a scalpel that cuts, maybe a very tiny finger that scrapes what needs to be done on the core. Any method can work but it needs to be precise and efficient. The longer this process takes the more mana you will waste forming the spell as well as a longer cast time. Also the more intricate the object you create out of mana the higher the cost. Now while the book says higher mana costs, it isn't by much but you generally want to be as efficient as possible.

Remaining in his meditative position he was going through the beginner methods of spell creation. Several hours passed with plenty of pointers from Claire but he was no closer to creating an Ice Spear than when he started. Locke has never had any artistic talent in his life and drawing an intricate character using only his mana was extremely difficult. Having only learned how to control mana recently was of course the biggest factor in his failure. The slight movements required when using an object like a scalpel was something far outside his capabilities. The Second Brain system was doing its best to assist allowing him to visualize the core up close, almost like his vision was portrayed to him through a microscope when he focused on it.

“Cancel that spell, you carved too far to the right just now messing up the shape,” Claire said while yawning, then went back to reading her book.

The spell dissipated in Locke's hand, at this point it had been almost a full day. The main struggle he was having was his control over the object doing the carving. The way mana moved when it was further away from his palm changed frequently, it was wild and not consistent. To give an example the “hand” he was using to hold the object was shaking and his brain couldn't compensate.

“These methods all involve using an object to essentially draw the Sigil onto the core.....is it too late to say that I am really bad at drawing?” Locke decided to be honest.

“That is pretty obvious at this point, but that is not really something I can help with,” The instructor sighed, “Your talent is extremely ordinary, meaning this will take a lot of time. There is nothing else to teach you, but I can leave you with some advice. If your artistic talent is lacking, then find a method that bypasses that flaw.”

Claire began to walk towards the door but turned around to face Locke.

“This is the final step, don't lose heart now. The method you create will set you apart from the other beginner mages....for better or worse it will be yours.”

Locke didn't try to stop her or ask for any more advice. There were many reasons for this, but he had a feeling that it might cloud his thoughts. If the method that is to be created is more suited to him then any outside influence also has the chance to be detrimental rather than helpful.

He began sorting through what his strengths and weaknesses were for a while before deciding the next move. There were several skills he had from playing previous games but none of those would help here. What could swordplay, control of a spear, and or footwork accomplish? How about talents outside of the game? Decent cooking skills, average at sports, no artistic talent...etc. Locke began to go through everything until he stopped at one thought. He had extremely good memory and puzzle solving skills.

Now the problem was how could he apply that talent to spell creation. After some time he decided to do a few experiments. Even though many of his ideas failed or were dead ends there was one experiment that bore fruit. There was one similarity that all the known methods given to him to create a custom spell had, you use an object to carve into the stationary spherical core. Nothing stated specifically that the core needed to remain motionless though. With this thought pushing him forward Locke was able to use his mana to spin the core in any direction. He was spinning the core from the bottom which was closer to the palm of his hand. The important part was the mana was extremely close to his body allowing it to be controlled easier.

It took several hours but he finally was able to normalize the speed at which the core rotated. As long as he can control the rate it moved to be consistent then through repetition success should be possible. Locke then created a stationary needle outside that he could very simply control when it digs into the core and when it doesn't. Something like a drill press or sewing machine but obviously not as intricate. He would rotate the core in a specific way when the needle is dug into the side to draw the sigil. The core would never move from its position in the palm of his hand only rotate. Same for the needle it would always dig into the core at the exact point.

Everything was in place, it took a couple of days but he finally settled on a method. While it was not perfect he still believed this was his best chance to create a spell. Through repetition, memorization, and consistency, these key aspects will allow his brain to pick up and master this process.

Six days later the sound of ice piercing into a wooden dummy resounded throughout the training room.

“Success,” Locke muttered with a wide grin on his face. Even though the tutorial didn't let him feel tired or exhausted, these last six days were not easy. The constant thoughts of doubt plaguing his mind almost caused him to quit and change methods. However, he was able to power through and complete his own creation method in the end.

Locke opened up the spell list to take a look. It contained only two spells for now.

Firebolt - Fire Element/Long Range Projectile - 10 mana cost - Creates a small bolt of flame that impacts a target.

Ice Spear - Ice Element/Short Range Projectile - Base mana cost 8 / Maximum Mana Capacity 80 - Conjures a small icicle spear that pierces it's target.

There were a few things to be gathered here. The firebolt with a long range modifier is more expensive mana wise than a spell with a short range modifier. This means you are increasing the mana cost of your spells by adding a longer range, but the damage is staying the same. There is the “base mana cost” tag on Ice Spear indicating that the mana cost can be increased resulting in more damage. However, at this point, the maximum mana he could put into the spell seemed to be 80.

The book mentioned the mana capacity limitation could be increased, but it never specified how. That is something I will need to look into.

The instructor mentioned previously that the Firebolt spell learned from trainers is very inefficient and doesn't do much damage especially if you have a low intelligence attribute. With low intelligence the system assumes your control of the spell is garbage and most of the mana is wasted. With a high intelligence attribute, the mana is not wasted and is used to increase the damage. This means that spells learned from trainers will scale in damage as you add attribute points to intelligence. Of course, there is a set limit on how much damage a beginner Firebolt like this can do. There are higher levels of Firebolt and other such spells that can be learned from trainers to offset the balance later in the game but Locke doesn't know about this yet.

Locke slammed a few more Ice Spears into the dummy for more experiments. He had a theory that the hardest part of custom spells was creating it the first time. The amount of concentration required was so high that he could not understand how this would be useful in combat. But, the instructor never gave him any indication that this would be a problem and kept hammering into him that this was the last step. His theory was correct, there was very little effort required to cast Ice Spear now. He just raised his palm in the right direction, and then thought of casting the spell. The Second Brain system put much more effort into assisting with the carving of the Sigil, it was to the point where he barely thought about it. The only explanation he could come up with is that he taught the Second Brain the method and now it takes care of most of the grunt work.

Another experiment was attempting to use a much larger amount of mana to create the spell in the hopes of making it cause more damage. To his surprise, the spell failed to activate. Everything he had learned so far explained that custom spells were very flexible but these failures indicated otherwise. After pondering for a while he finally understood that he taught the Second Brain through repetition and consistency on how to create the ice spear. Each attempt made used an exact amount of mana to form the core and used the same motions. Two glaring problems occurred when more mana was added to the elemental layer increasing the size of the core.

1) Due to the size increase it requires more mana to rotate at the same speed at which he was doing it previously. His Second Brain was taught/programmed using a specific amount of mana to perform the task.

2) The needle is hitting the core at a different angle due to the size of the core. Thus resulting in the symbol being carved to be different.

Damn this might not be a very good spell creation method, I should talk to Claire about it to see what her thoughts are.

Locke left the training room and walked towards Claire's study.