Chapter 13 - The Apprentice Regalia

The change in my core was different then my breakthroughs before now, the core expanded and stretched but showed no signs of cracking. Instead it seemed the core was changing shape. Again the core subconsciously devoured all forms of natural mana and used it to fuel the change, this looked to be a qualitative change in the core. In hindsight I should have probably researched this progress seeing as it was a huge leap in power.

I concentrate on the changes the core is exhibiting as I said before it seemed to be changing form into, well at this point I couldn't tell. I felt the core merging closer to my soul, forming a connection between me and it and at this point I did something probably stupid in hindsight, I moved my spiritual sea from where it was previously located, in my gut, to my head. Bad idea from a pain perspective as immediately I started to scream like a banshee possible good idea from what I may gain… I will come back to that as I have no idea if there is any benefit. My core started to change shape faster and then split in two. The now two cores morphed into entirely different forms. One formed what looked to be a huge circlet looking crown, if in the real world it would probably have a radius of half a foot, it was completely silver and had so many characters of the deus-en script on it that it gave one a headache from looking at it. The other core changed into an honest to god wizard staff, it looked to be made of ebony and somewhat blue metal. It was a simple metre and a half metal staff with a small metal circle at one end of the staff. The two new cores orbited each other and all the elemental cores in turn orbited the spiritual cores, or the now spiritual objects.

I started playing around with the new cores and found out a few very interesting things. One my base power and stamina has increased tremendously, somewhere along the lines of multiplied by 40.

Strange thing about my cores, I could only channel magic through the staff and could only form the spells by using the crown. It also seemed that all spells that I had complete were somehow stored in the crown, sort of a spell memory. I loosely named the crown “the crown of magic”. The staff acted as sort of a highly sensitive magic controler. Using multiple element at the same time and in specific amounts and ratios was now a breeze. Essentially one functioned as a spell archive and formed templates for the spell in my mind, and a staff that gave better control over magic itself.

Smiling from my recent discoveries and power ups I decided to embark on a project that would give me more spare time. The idea was to make a golem of some sort to do my job, unfortunately the idea fell flat on its face when I inscribed a continuous spell on the rudimentary golem I made with earth magic crumbled into pieces. I then realised something, I probably needed some sort of fantasy magic retaining material to make most of my ideas work.

I sighed in slight defeat then went to find Charon to relay I had broken through to the apprentice stage and to find out more about said stage and future stages.

“You broke through to the apprentice stage, good for you boy” I had found charon pondering over a martial arts book, reasons unknown.

“Thanks, I was wondering what you could tell me about the stages, this one and others” We had largely began talking like equals, not like a preteen and 50 year old usually would.

“I take it you have formed your regalia then? The new form of your core”

“Yes, two of them”

“Not unheard of but also very rare good for you boy, at this level they don't have much of a function only when you reach the high magnus stages, speaking of the next few stages is master and magus. You will find out more later. The difference between a master and an apprentice are their regalia spells.”

“Regalia spell” I asked the implied question.

“Spells that you engrave upon your regalia, to use them immediately with no cast time nor spoken word, instant spells if you will”

I like the sound of that.

“Be careful, once you engrave a spell it is there forever, do not waste the space upon your regalias, put thought into it”

I nodded and accepted the information. It made sense, to put quality spells on the regalia, however wasn't my crown already covered in script? I would need to to do some researching and experimentation.

“Before I go Charon, materials for enchanting am I right in assuming that they need to be special?”

“Yes, however you must find a way to get them yourself, yet another reason why our services are so demanded is that to harvest certain materials you need to be a magus”

Nodding I gave my thanks for the information and left. I was planning on immediately dive into research but on my way back to my residence it was akin to a path of destruction, left and right things were destroyed and people were broken so I begrudgingly started on my task whilst simultaneously walking home. The ordeal didn't tire me like it usually would so my mood did not become grumpy and or sadistic. By the time I had reached my house I had done more repair work in a single hour than I would usually do in a week and I still did not feel tired the spells were even on a grander scale, I was very pleased with my new reserves. In other news the reason for destruction was a martial skill practiced by a female cultivator called “aphrodisiac lure” needless to say the day was eventful afterwards. When I finally reached my house I found Adruis passed out in an armchair with a loaf of bread in his mouth. I decided to enlist Flynns help in waking him up, a huge scratching cat tongue in the face later Adrius was awake and trying to wipe of cat saliva.

He gave me a reproachful glare and then I reminded him he was eating my bread, he failed to see any correlation. Turns out he was here to talk about a trip he was taking, well more of mission, and he needed my assistance. He told me they were going to clear out a horde of beasts that had gathered over a twilight metal deposit, twilight metal apparently being a useful material for enchanting, this made me intrigued. The real selling point was the length of which was about half a year back and forth and my duties of fixer man being suspended. In other words on this trip I could make, test and practice spells however I wanted. So I jumped at the opportunity. We were scheduled to leave a week later, courtney was apparently coming along with two other students and Adrius himself was bringing a friend of his.

With a few parting remarks and me making him give me some money for the bread he took our conversation ended. I decided to consolidate my new power base by practicing my spells and what better and unfortunate way than to repair everything in sight. I used repair spells for hours upon hours which in difference to before in which I could use one or two spells then take a break, a marked improvement. Going over my repertoire of spells I realized something, I didn't have basic low cost attack and defence spells. I had no mana shield nor earth wall neither fire bolt nor rock bullet. This needed to be remedied. While he did have the fire crow spell it seems it was a spell that no matter what took huge amounts of power, possibly due to its nature and form?

I planned to make at least basic attack and one basic shield spell before it came time to leave. Starting with the attack spell I decided on a fire spell. I made it as basic as possible but also variable. It had three circles of formation with the script reading on the outer line, each circle was connected by a single line. The script read “The power of fire may it charge in circle second waiting for release, when given its freedom let the fire fly forth bringing the power of fire and the impact of wind” It had taken me awhile to input the wind part, before I added it was just a fireball that flew to the target and then went out. Adding the wind however made it a fire bolt in the way that with impact it created a small explosion. The part about charging in the circle second was a way to control and increase the power output for the spell while keeping it as a point and shoot spell and not an active one. Speaking of active spells that is the spell that I made next.

I was originally thinking to make the classic rock wall spell but I felt that going against cultivators or anything else that could smash apart castle walls with ease, wall that i'm pretty sure that are strengthened somehow it would be a good idea. So I decided to make an active defence spell based with nature mana and earth mana. It would focus on diverting the attacks away from me while still being able to consolidate into a single wall like point in case of an urgent need for protection, essentially it was a vine/root wall spell. I know that classically this kind of spell would have some attack properties but the first rounds of tests with that implemented drained me heavily at a constant rate due to its active nature. The spell formation positioned itself behind my back and was made from a single square for the script and it had dotted connections that connected to a single output spell circle that was beneath my feet. The script was a bit complicated due to me wanting a low cost active spell “May the roots of nature beneath my feet be blessed with the power of earth and come to my aid, protecting me from the attacks of my enemies, may they deflect harmful attacks to keep me safe from harm” Setting the script spinning caused a constant drain on mana but 5 roots appeared around me and when I moved they retreated under the earth but I could still feel them and in case of attack they would appear. I deactivated the spell and I had finished just in time to pack clothes and such a day before we were set to head out. I had decided to take Flynn with me, lester had elected to stay behind as the home protector in other words he was lazy. He also made some excuse about an upcoming breakthrough.

The next day came and with my preparations finished I went to meet my compatriots for the journey.