Chapter 227: What’s So Hard About Casting Spells?

Magna spent quite some time with the 2 women in the large blue tent.

Most of it consisted of Melisandre asking questions and taking notes while Magna answered nearly everything with a simple "I don’t know."

"How can you not know what you’ve been doing for the past 12 years?" she asked, lifting her head from the paper in front of her to give him a suspicious look.

Considering his physique and the power he had displayed so far, only an idiot would believe that nothing had happened to him during those 12 years.

She was taking notes for a report to the Grand Witches, but the page was still almost empty.

Magna shrugged. "As I said, I lost consciousness as soon as I passed that rock, and when I woke up, I was falling from the sky. Finding out that I’d grown up and ended up with this body was a shock to me too."

"What about spellcasting? When did you realize you could cast spells?" She continued asking about the important details.

She was like a hot cop interrogating a suspect while cosplaying as a Witch. It would make a perfect setup for an adult film.

But Magna wasn’t enjoying the situation nearly as much, glancing away at her question. "A while after I was adopted into Winterborne. I didn’t tell them because I thought it would cause trouble and be difficult to explain."

He felt rather uncomfortable under her strict questioning, but this was a good opportunity to establish his past in their eyes.

If he could convince them that he was simply a special child with a few extra abilities, that would be the perfect outcome.

The story he wanted them to believe was that he had been raised in a cave from infancy, then adopted into Winterborne, where he had slowly begun discovering his abilities.

So far, it was going well. Even Renna, sitting beside him at the table, showed no sign of suspicion.

Eventually, looking only partly convinced, Melisandre finished asking about his past and moved on to his current abilities.

This was the most important part of the report she would send back.

To get an idea of his mana capacity, she began with another question. "What spell did you use to freeze the Devoring Desolation?"

"Glacial Calamity," Magna answered directly.

Melisandre gave him another strange look. "That’s only a mid-tier spell..."

After passing her 20th Trial, a Witch could begin casting high-tier spells, which required more mana but were also proportionally more powerful and complex.

The Glacial Calamity Magna had used to freeze the Devoring Desolation was only a mid-tier spell, but the difference was that he had cast it without a duration limit.

Even a mid-tier spell could produce an effect comparable to a high-tier one if allowed to continue without that restriction.

"Do you know any high-tier spells?" To estimate which Trial his current mana capacity corresponded to, she first needed to know the strongest spells he could cast.

Until recently, Magna hadn’t learned any high-tier spells, apart from the spell the Stoneman Chef had taught him, whose tier he wasn’t sure about.

He didn’t even know its true power yet, since he had only used it to move the rock.

But he had recently learned a few from the book Renna had given him.

Recalling the spell that had stood out to him the most, he replied, "I think I can cast Phoenix Wings."

His low mana reserves hadn’t given him a chance to try it so far, but he was confident that he understood the pattern. "If you give me something to replenish my mana, I can show you."

"You’ve already learned that spell?" Renna interrupted, her voice rising slightly.

It had only been 3 days since she gave him the book. The idea that he was already ready to cast the spell was ridiculous.

For a Witch, learning a spell involved several stages.

Basic spells were fairly easy because their mana patterns were simple. A Witch only needed to manipulate her mana a little and guide it through a few mana channels to form the spell.

But things changed when it came to high-tier spells.

For a start, their mana patterns were extremely complicated.

A Witch’s body contained thousands of mana channels, spreading throughout it like veins thinner than needles.

Finding the correct channels to guide mana through was an undertaking in itself, much like a painter spending years working on a single painting.

Even with a finished painting to copy, reproducing every brushstroke perfectly could still take years.

What Magna was saying was that he had studied that painting for only 3 days and now needed nothing more than a brush and some paint to reproduce it perfectly.

While Renna struggled to believe how quickly he had learned the spell, Melisandre had doubts about something else.

"You used a mid-tier Ice spell earlier, and now you’re saying you can cast a high-tier Fire spell?"

Ice spells belonged to the Life branch, while Fire spells belonged to the Death branch.

It was difficult to believe that someone could be talented enough to cast spells of 2 opposing elements at that level.

Witches normally began by choosing a single element to master.

Melisandre had started with Water spells from the Life branch, then learned the related Ice spells, dedicating her entire life to studying those 2 elements.

She could cast Fire spells if she wanted, but only basic ones, since she had never trained in that area.

The main reason was that mana channels were biological structures capable of developing and adapting on their own.

Channels trained with Life spells would become highly resistant to the strain of spells from that branch’s elements, but remain vulnerable to Death spells, and vice versa.

Magna was more or less aware of this too, but he had a major advantage that most Witches lacked.

His absurdly high stamina.

Like the rest of his body, his mana channels were incredibly strong. Up to a certain point, they should be able to withstand the strain of whatever spell he used, even without years of training and refinement.

For now, that was only his assumption, since he had never tried casting a high-tier spell.

The closest he had come was the defensive Time spell he had copied from the Faceless Witch, which was also a mid-tier spell.

This was a good opportunity to test his limits.

He only needed Melisandre to agree to give him something to replenish his mana.

She considered it for a while, her emerald eyes fixed on him as she weighed her decision.

Every resource they had was precious, especially mana replenishing pills and potions, but the report she needed to send back was equally important.

Eventually, she reached into her robe, took out a pouch, and held it out to him.

"There are pills worth 30 mana drops in here. That should be enough for you to cast a high-tier spell 3 times."

Magna opened the pouch and saw a golden glow coming from the 30 small blue pills inside, each small enough to swallow in one gulp.

He grinned in satisfaction.

Even he hadn’t expected to start benefiting so quickly from revealing that he could cast spells.