358 Testing and Re-testing
As he stood in front of the two, Megan extended one of her hands just above the boy’s blond hair.
“Zaikiradis Water Fall.” She recited.
A steady stream of water fell on Adrian’s face as he struggled in the sand begging for forgiveness. The beach sand went flying everywhere, and the mark of the movement of the boy’s arms and legs was marked on the beach. Now Adrian’s uniform was completely soiled with sand and drenched with water.
When Megan stopped pouring water in the boy’s face, he quickly stood up and shook his hair trying to get some of the water out, the sand and water droplets flying off. Luke dodged it so it wouldn’t fall on him or his tail. Adrian was wet from the top of his head to the tip of his toes, his clothes were wet again and his hair had completely covered his eyes.
He then went about with his hand trying to fix his hair the way he normally left it. Adrian, as much as he was a boy who talked a lot and had an attitude that appeared to lack maturity, was quite intelligent when it came to the magical arts.
His knowledge of the basic elements and the many possible variations of magic was extraordinary for his age, to say the least. This was one of the reasons that made him one of Zhanid’s assistants, this proximity to the old magician was extremely beneficial to the boy, who learned the many uses of magic and the unusual and unique techniques that only the old magician had developed.
Besides Megan, only Adrian was aware of the spells that Zhanid had created. Not because of any secrecy about these spells, but because of the simple fact that the old magician and Adrian were still developing a book to publish the new spells that Zhanid had created.
The laboratory of magic on the beach where the three young men were, was a facility precisely for the development and improvement of these new spells, as well as the organization of the projects for the book. Currently there were only two projects going on within that laboratory, the unification of the spells of the continent and the editing of Grand Master Wizard Zhanid’s spell book.
Adrian was the closest student to that old wizard, so as immature as he appeared, he was still an extraordinary student. However, his knowledge did not change his nature.
“My clothes were finally dry, you need to stop this, Megan!” the boy said in a depressed tone of voice, still fixing his hair.
“If you keep getting in our way, the next spell I throw in your face is going to hurt a lot more! Come to think of it, it will be a fire spell!” replied the girl, crossing her arms.
The blond-haired boy then held out both hands, in one he again created a sphere of wind, and in the other he conjured a small sphere of fire. It was the same spell he had used earlier to dry himself. It was, in the end, an application of the concentration of mana in fire magic.
Luke was again bothered by the simplicity with which the two magicians in front of him mastered that fire spell. Curious about it, he decided to ask the two of them a question.
“How long did it take you two to learn to control that little sphere?” said the half-wolf.
“Hmm, less than a minute maybe.” Commented Megan, she then continued explaining. “What took the longest was Lord Zhanid’s explanation, actually.”
They both then turned to Adrian, curious what his answer would be.
“I believe around two weeks for her to be able to take shape, and another week to be able to move it.” He said, with a confused face as he tilted his head slightly, showing his doubt.
This answer took a weight off Luke’s back, who easily managed to complete the first part of the spell. But when Megan heard this answer, with one of her hands on her chin, she faced the half-wolf with a face that showed she was thinking something.
The newcomer to the academy then decided to try again using this same spell, he repeated the process again with his eyes closed. As the previous times, everything went smoothly, but with each movement Luke made, Adrian let out a surprised sigh. When Luke finished creating the fire sphere, it came out much larger than the one Adrian had just made.
This caused him to let out a bigger sigh of surprise, disconcerting the half-wolf. When it came time to move the sphere, it slowed down to a significantly smaller size, and then disappeared into the sea.
“I can’t believe you’ve already advanced that fast on that magic! You’re amazing man!” He spoke.
“Shut your mouth, Adrian.” Answered Megan, making a gesture with her fingers asking for silence.
Now the two mages were watching the half-wolf perform the spell. A few more attempts followed. On the first one, Luke was able to move a relatively large energy sphere forward, it even advanced into the water, but collapsed falling into the sea.
On the second attempt, Luke tried to put a little less mana into the sphere, and it got into a smaller size. Something around the size of an apple. Even though it was smaller compared to the previous spells, it was still much larger than when Adrian and Megan conjured the spell.
On the third attempt, Luke decided to go even smaller, concentrating on giving as little mana as possible, the fire sphere became the size of a grape. It was exactly as Adrian and Megan demonstrated. However, when the half-wolf tried to move the spell forward, the sphere increased in size, growing until it became again the size of an apple. Until it collapsed and fell into the water.
Luke was struggling to find different ways to perform this spell, but still, with each attempt, new possibilities and challenges appeared. Channeling and creating that sphere didn’t seem to be a problem, but controlling its size and movement was an extremely challenging task for the half-wolf. This situation created a great deal of doubt in Luke’s mind, wondering whether it was a practical matter or some fundamental error in his attempts.
After about five consecutive failures, Luke decided to sit down. While he was focused on his thoughts, in complete silence and oblivious to the outside world. Megan and Adrian were talking trying to think of a way to help their new companion.
“I remember Zhanid had explained that the mana condensation in the second stage needs to be continuous, is he still putting in enough energy to keep the sphere at the initial stage without overloading it?” Adrian said.
“Of course, he is! I can feel his intense mana flow, but the oscillations in control happen at the end of the second stage.” Answered Megan.
The two continued talking, both with one hand on their chin, watching Luke. That conversation was another demonstration of the vast notion of the two young men, who began trying to replicate the same spell while the young man was apparently meditating.
Megan asked Adrian to channel that sphere on a slightly larger scale, and tried to analyze what might be happening, trying to visualize the different mana flows in the two cases. Then the blond-haired magician began to observe how he himself manipulated that sphere of magic.
A few minutes passed, and the two continued to talk energetically about what might be going wrong, and in the end, nothing seemed to be wrong. However, they were so focused on thinking about how Luke might be failing at that magic, that they didn’t notice what the half-wolf himself was doing.
When the two turned around, they found themselves again with Luke completely immersed in his thoughts, sitting meditating. Even after something like fifteen minutes.
Adrian approached the young man, and began to run his hand over Luke’s face. Megan followed close behind trying to stop the wizard, but she then also found it strange that the half-wolf simply did not react. It was as if he was asleep, or in a state of trance.
To both of them, Luke was just sitting still, motionless, really as if he was just meditating. But in the young man’s mind, something very different was happening.
The moment Luke sat down on the sand, he activated his Skill <Eye of Horus>. Even with the effects that using his skills for too long caused on his body, the half-wolf chose to have a little more time to think and talk to Balance.
[You still need to be careful with your skill use Luke, we don’t even know if using that mana inside you might not be even more detrimental to the curse].
‘Don’t worry, we are getting closer every day to solving this. Megan already trusts me, I don’t think it will be a problem to ask for help regarding this curse.’
[Anyways, I already know what’s your problem, big boy.]