Chapter 229: Please Teach Me the Spell

’An entity neither bound by the laws of any realms nor forced to obey them.’

That was the first thought that came to Melisandre as she stared at the 2 enormous wings of fire spreading from the man’s back.

She finally understood why she had been made to spend 12 years in this realm searching for Magna.

To her, he was something like the Holy Grail or the Philosopher’s Stone, a treasure Witches had spent thousands of years searching for, now standing right before her.

He was living proof that a man could possess mana reserves and that a spell could be cast without the permission of the 5 Creators.

She had already begun wondering what other rules he could break and what miracles he might reveal when the wings on his back started changing, and her eyes widened further.

"How is that possible?" she murmured as blue spread through the red flames and the heat radiating from them turned cold.

Phoenix Wings belonged to the Fire branch of the Death path. Yet before her eyes, it was transforming into a spell of the Ice branch, crossing over to the opposing Life path.

She had never imagined she would witness such a thing in her lifetime.

Magna had only meant to make a few adjustments on the spell. He hadn’t been entirely satisfied with the mana pattern inside his channels, so he had started changing it.

Even he hadn’t expected those changes to produce such a drastic result, turning the heat of his flames into cold.

With his eyes still closed, he pictured the vast mana pattern as a painting on a canvas.

Adjusting its lines was like repainting parts of the scene, replacing anything that looked out of place with something he thought would fit better.

If he pictured a lemon tree but thought an apple tree would suit the scene better, he replaced it. If he pictured a river flowing between mountains, he added a bridge across it, then a few goats crossing the bridge.

Of course, the mana pattern contained no actual trees, rivers, or goats, only fine lines.

It was his imagination that gave those lines familiar shapes, much like someone looking at clouds and seeing a horse, a duck, or the silhouette of a certain president.

By the time he opened his eyes, the red flames had turned entirely blue, and the wings were sending cold air through the surroundings instead of heat.

’Oh, wow. So that’s how it works?’ He hadn’t realized just how freely he could manipulate his mana to reshape a spell and alter its properties.

The change came with a problem, however.

Switching an active spell from Fire to Ice had put a strain on his mana channels, and tiny pricks of pain traced their paths throughout his body, as though needles were pressing into him from within.

The pain was bearable, and he felt no sign of actual damage. For now, his mana channels were withstanding the strain.

But he doubted they could endure another change while the spell remained active. If he pushed them any further, he suspected they would begin to tear.

The mana cost was another concern. Activating the spell had consumed 80% of his mana, and converting it from Fire to Ice had taken another 22%. Of the 197% he had started with, only 95% remained.

That number was still falling. The 2 wings of blue flame needed a constant supply of mana to remain active, and although maintaining them cost far less than creating them, he could feel the steady drain on his reserves.

He would have to cancel the spell to avoid wasting more mana, but first, he wanted to see how it felt to fly with it.

The wings weren’t merely shapes attached to his back. He could feel them as extensions of his body, as clearly as he felt his arms and legs.

He began moving them slowly, using a motion that felt much like flexing the muscles in his shoulders.

The wings unfolded farther to either side, spreading to their full span. He then moved them gently up and down, getting used to the sensation of controlling 2 new limbs.

Once he felt comfortable with their movement, he raised both wings above his back and bent his knees slightly.

Then he swept them down in a powerful stroke.

Freezing air slammed against the ground and rushed outward as he pushed off with his feet, launching himself into the sky.

The blast struck the Witches and Shadows in the face, snapping them out of their stunned stillness. The cold felt refreshing, yet sharp enough to sting their skin.

By the time they could open their eyes and look up, all they saw was a creature with enormous blue wings flying through the crimson sky.

As the wings swept through the hot air, they left trails of mist and glittering light behind them.

"Beautiful," a Witch murmured, her eyes shining as she watched. For the first time, the sky she had always found ugly looked beautiful to her.

Melisandre appeared equally captivated. She had never seen an Ice spell like this.

There were many spells that allowed their casters to fly, but none in the Ice branch could create wings like those.

No one had even considered flying with wings made of ice. They would be solid, rigid, and heavy, making the idea seem so impractical that no Witch had bothered to research it.

But Magna’s wings weren’t made of solid ice. They moved and flickered like flames.

They weren’t fire either, but cold gases that flowed in a way that made them look as though they were burning.

For a while, everyone simply waited, watching him fly freely overhead.

Magna seemed reluctant to come down, clearly enjoying himself, but his mana reserves continued to fall. Eventually, he had to land.

He kept the wings active as he descended, beating them in slow, gentle strokes. Each downstroke sent cold air across the camp, lifting ash from the ground and scattering it around him.

Only when his feet touched the ground did he cancel the spell. The wings lost their shape and dispersed into blue wisps of gas, quickly fading into the air as the Underworld’s unpleasant dry heat returned.

Magna was looking around with a pleased smile when Melisandre’s voice drew his attention.

"How did you do that?"

He turned toward her to find that her usual look of frustrated irritation was gone.

Instead, she was looking at him with undisguised eagerness as her voice was almost pleading. "Please, teach it to me."