Supreme Magus novel Chapter 60

When Lith realized what he had done, it was already too late. His face blushed up, even the end of his ears turned to bright red.

- "Smooth move, stud." Solus mocked him mercilessly. "Too bad you forgot the flowers, the chocolate, and more importantly, the ring. What will she think of such poor performance?" -

Professor Nalear giggled, making Lith turn to an even brighter shade of red. He felt so ashamed of himself, that he could only hide his face between his hands, incapable of watching her, while banging his head on the desk.

- "You f*cking idiot!" He inwardly screamed. "Since when do I have a d*ck for brains? Just when I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, I turn out to be my worst enemy." -

"I’m honestly flattered by your feelings..." She said while still chuckling.

"... but I’m not into kids. I’m looking for a tall and strong mage as a life companion. If in six years I’m still single and you haven’t changed your mind, I will be happy to resume this conversation."

Lith wanted to cry and run away, spending the rest of his life hiding in the deepest hole he could find. But he had already made a fool out of himself, there was no reason to add insult to injury.

He took some deep breaths to calm down, using water magic to cool down both his face and nether regions, finally regaining his focus.

- "If I apologize, I will make everything worse." He thought. "She reacted like I was joking, let’s play along. The more I stir it, the more it will stink." -

"Now, before going back to the course’s topic, one last word of warning for you scum. The next time I catch you doing something disrespectful towards one of your classmates, I will make every single one of you regret not having a Guilty Ballot.

Are we clear?"

No one dared to reply.

"Perfect. Let’s forget about your pathetic, miserable existences, so I can explain to you what Principles of Advanced Magic is about."

She approached the chalkboard, a long and thin piece of mineral appeared out of thin air in her hand, allowing her to draw a human silhouette.

"As you should already know from your first three years, every human possesses a certain degree of talent for magic. The extent of such talent is defined by the amount of mana one has stored into his mana well."

Lith followed her speech with interest.

- "So, they really have no concept of the mana core." He thought. -

"An individual talent can be roughly split into three categories: the normal human, ..." She hit the chalkboard at the level of the silhouette’s knees, and suddenly the empty space within it was filled by a glowing blue light up to that point.

"... the magico/magica, ..." This time the mineral hit at the chest level, and the light rose up accordingly.

"...and finally, the mage." The whole empty space within the silhouette was now filled to the brim with a pulsing blue colour.

"While performing the first three tiers of magic, hands signs and magic words are the equivalent of a bucket, that once dropped in the mana well allows you to extract the right amount of power.

Hence, the spellcasting will be successful, as long as you are capable of forming a perfect bucket. Sadly, from tier four and up, this process no longer works.

This kind of magic requires such an amount of mana, that there are only two ways of extracting it from the well. The first one, that you can learn in minor academies or in the books available for purchase, is to create a bigger bucket.

This method is feasible, but most of the time impractical. It requires so many magic words, hand signs so complicated that either your opponent is a rock, or you work with a team that keeps it occupied during a very long spellcasting time.

Just like using a bucket too big and heavy, extracting mana that way out of the well requires much more time and effort than just using the old bucket twice."

- "What the f*ck?! This is exactly what I learned from Lark’s books. This explains why it took me so long to perform them correctly with fake magic." -

"The second one, is only available in one of the six great academies. What I am going to teach you, has its roots in the first magic’s multi casting skills. Professor Trasque should have stressed already the importance of first magic, right?"

The whole class nodded.

"Multi casting means the talent to form and control more than one bucket at the time. Let’s say that a mage capable of double casting, potentially can control up to two buckets. That’s the minimum requirement for tier four spells.

Some may require even three, while only tier five magic demands an even higher multi casting capability. Please, understand that all this talk about buckets and water is just an oversimplification.

In advanced magic, mental visualization is a key element for success. You can choose to imagine it as a jar of wine, a chest full of gold, whatever fits your bill is fine. Always remember that the second method has a much faster cast time in exchange for a greater focus and mental strength.

It’s up to you to learn how to form and control more than one ’bucket’ at the time. Hand signs and magic words are still necessary to form the first one, then you need to be able to sense it and generate as many copies as you can.