Chapter 137: That tedious but important mother of learning
For spells with sustained damage, that way of creating them was fine. Dividing the power in that way would, under certain circumstances, make the magic travel much faster, although it would be less powerful.
But for an Armamentalist’s spells, this isn’t very useful. It reduces their power, and although the bullets can concentrate this in a small point, it’s still not perfect.
That’s why compact magic was much better. All the attack power would be concentrated in a single point, increasing its power and making it more accurate.
However, the process of creating compact spells was much more complex. When creating the fabric, your intention must be strong enough to control the element and make it much smaller without losing power.
That’s easier said than done. The Arkanometric Fabric will likely explode. How can this be avoided?
Just as Louis’ magic was compactly formed, the fabric exploded, leaving him stunned.
He couldn’t understand why it exploded, as he didn’t think he had made a mistake.
But Hardrial knew.
"Compact magic has a natural resistance to everything around it. This resistance is created because, by making it much more compact, it has more mass gathered in a single point."
"Because of this, if you don’t have sufficient control over the Fabric, it’s natural for it to get out of control very easily and explode. Since it’s a matter of magic and control, it’s difficult to perceive. But that’s what happened," he said.
"How do I avoid it?" Louis asked. "By practicing the speed of creating a Fabric more?"
Hardrial nodded. "In part, that’s true. Academically speaking, there is a way to avoid it: by increasing the speed of creation. But in reality, this is false. We don’t really seek speed in creation; what we seek is what one of the laws of magic dictates."
"Be so good at creating a Fabric that you can ignore it after the small mental image required, and it still forms."
"In other words, you don’t need to pay attention to the fabric; you should focus on creating the magic itself. The fabric isn’t the magic; it’s just its transmitter. The fabric allows you to use magic, and if it explodes, what’s really exploding is the magic and, therefore, its transmitter. So if you manage to create a fabric without having to think too much about it, you’ll be able to create much more compact and powerful magic, because you’ll be focusing your power on what really matters: the magic."
"That will also improve your speed."
Hardrial stood up and moved closer to the river, motioning for him to follow.
"Watch this. I’ll create the same magic you’re creating in the two ways we know."
"The first will be by paying attention to the Fabric and leaving the magic as secondary, but making it compact."
He immediately began moving his hand as if drawing in the air. His hand moved quickly, selecting threads that gradually glowed golden, until it was complete in about three seconds.
Finally, he took out his gun, reloaded a bullet with that magic, and fired.
The shot was powerful for such weak magic, but considering his total magical power, that was normal. This shot traveled quickly through the water at first, but after about 30 meters, it lost all its power and stopped.
"The speed of creation decreased, and the power of the shot is not that great. Now, watch what happens the other way around."
He immediately cast another spell. This time, it was done with absurd speed, taking less than a second to complete. Despite the speed, Louis could feel how it had changed just by looking at its texture.
It looked more polished, somehow.
He reloaded a bullet with that magic, immediately putting it in the revolver, and fired again.
From the start, the firing power was much greater, and it traveled 50 meters downhill before finally coming to a stop.
"Even though it took me less time to create it, because I put more effort into the magic than into the Fabric, it turned out much more powerful than the first one. Do you understand now?"
Louis nodded.
That would be difficult to do, but he set to work again under Hardrial’s instructions.
He had to repeat the process many times. After all, repetition is the mother of learning, so there was nothing he could do about it.
He was quite motivated, so he soon immersed himself in it.
Meanwhile, it took Laura 30 minutes to lift her head out of the water and put on another water orb before diving back in.
She had enormous difficulty with this.
First, she was underwater, and she had to withstand the water pressure with her body and strength, because otherwise she would be swept away by the current.
Luckily for her, Hardrial had her do this in a place where the current wasn’t so strong, thanks to the small island in the middle of the huge river. Because of this, she could withstand it without too much trouble.
Second, she had to hold the other orbs with her magic at her side so that they would not be carried away by the current, and she could not let them scatter, which increased the difficulty several times over. It should be noted that these spells were already cast.
That is, they were not in the form of Arkanometric Fabric, but rather in their final form of Magic: an orb of water.
That was why it was so difficult to achieve.
Third, the mission Hardrial had given her was more difficult than she had imagined. During the first 30 minutes, she couldn’t even figure out how to do it.
She was tempted to go out and ask him, but she knew he wanted her to figure it out on her own. So she had to be strong and use her head as much as possible to create those orbs. So far, it was too difficult.
-
For Louis, the difficulty wasn’t really too much for now. In fact, he thought it would take him longer, but after four hours of creating this magic more than 50 times, he managed to create his first Fabric without paying attention to it.
In a record time of two minutes.
Hardrial’s eyes lit up. He thought about talking to him, but realized he was too excited and immediately tried to make another one.
In a moment, he had reduced the speed by 10 seconds, taking less than 2 minutes to create one. But he stopped immediately after that.
He had run out of mana.
Luckily for him, mana potions were cheap. So without hesitation, he took one out and drank it.
Hardrial approached him. "Why did you drink something so expensive? This river can restore mana quite quickly," he said.
Louis looked up at him. "Really? How long would it take?" he asked, in shock.
"An hour at most. That’s why we bring the students here. Some are so talented that they see their mana restored in 30 minutes."
Louis nodded. It was incredible speed, but he liked the potion better. It would take one minute to fully recover him if it were of good quality.
"All right. When I feel full of potions, I’ll choose the river as my restorer," he replied.
Hardrial sighed. "Tsk, rich people have peculiar ways of wasting money, but this time I can’t say you’re wasting it, because it’s for your growth," he complained.
He saw the magic Louis had created and nodded.
"Water is special because it is so tangible. Thanks to this peculiarity of water, which is almost liquid earth in its composition, all the basic magics of its element will allow you to walk on it. You could create it quickly this time and maintain it even though you were creating others. So, follow me. Use what you learned to do what I do."
Hardrial immediately began walking through the water, but not toward the island, rather toward the waterfall flowing from the other mountain.
Louis frowned and looked at the magic.
Based on what he had seen, Hardrial created this magic on his feet, so... Should he put them on like shoes?
’I’ll try it,’ he thought.
When he tried it, he realized that it wasn’t like shoes but rather like tiles. It was implanted into the soles of his feet as if they were tiles.
It felt like he had a very compact bullet in his foot, but surprisingly, it felt fine.
He took one step into the water and then another. Soon, he was standing on the water as if it were land, but with one peculiarity: it moved too much.
At first, he lost his balance due to all the movement. It seemed he was shaking, so he staggered and fell into the water.
Soaked, he got out and tried again.
Once again, the drastic movement caused him to lose his balance, but this time, he didn’t fall. He simply staggered.
’Walking will be quite difficult,’ he thought, as he dried himself with a cloth.
He hadn’t planned on taking a bath at this hour, but he could do nothing for now except continue his staggering journey forward.