Sigils.

  They were the foundation of his power. Everything he was capable of, and everything he would ever be capable of, was born from those conceptual fragments. They were ideas made into structure, principles hammered into shape, rules rendered into symbols. They were the building blocks he acquired by analyzing other people’s spells, the raw materials he used to forge his own Thauma.

  With the Sigils he collected, he could recreate the exact same spell he had just witnessed. For example, he could, if he wished, conjure a hovering orb of water precisely like the one Orloth was holding above his palm. A perfect imitation.

  Or he could alter it. Modify it. Mix different Sigils to create different effects. Put together the little pieces of the puzzle to produce the final image that he had envisioned.

  Better still, Sigils were not bound to the element from which they were obtained. Even though the two Sigils he had just earned came from a water-creating spell, he could use them to craft a Thauma that conjured a sphere of burning flame, or compressed earth, or swirling air.

  After all, the element of a Thauma was not dictated by the Sigils used to make it, but by his Masteries. And currently, he had Tier I Mastery in all four disciplines. Which meant he could craft Thauma that mimicked low-level spells of every element: Fire, Water, Earth, Air.

  That fact alone could make any archmage seethe with envy. They had spent years, decades even, mastering a single path, and only after attaining a respectable rank would they dare peek at another branch. But he? He could use “spells” of all four elements right from the start. Not to mention, two of them, Earth and Water, were beyond the reach of any mage of this world. Sure, what he could recreate now were just low-level magic, but as he grew, he would be able to craft more powerful Thauma, and unlock more Masteries along the way.

  “We are not mages, Viktor, we are Thaumaturgists,” his old master had once told him. “We don’t cast spells. We make wonders.”

  Yes, wonders. That was the right word.

  And now, inside him, rested the first bricks of creation. His first Sigils.

  It had cost him three Insight Tokens to obtain a Sigil of Making and a Sigil of Controlling. Not all Sigils were equal; some were more “expensive” than the others. After all, creating something from nothing was not the same as manipulating what had already existed. That was why the former cost two Tokens while the latter cost only one.

  And the cost of Sigils affected everything.

  The Tokens required reflected the complexity of the spell he wanted to study, and his ability to extract Sigils was restricted by both his current Mastery level and the cost of the spell’s components. With his Water Mastery at Tier I, he could only analyze spells totaling five Tokens or fewer.

  The cost of Sigils also dictated the Focus required to cast the Thauma he forged. A Thauma assembled from two two-cost Sigils and a one-cost Sigil would require five Focus points. Once again, his Mastery limited what he could create, just like how it limited what he could learn. Right now, he could not construct Thauma costing more than five Focus points.

  In order to raise his Water Mastery, he would need to study more water spells. And conveniently, he had exactly the right resource in front of him: Orloth, the Acolyte of the Deep, the living library of water-based magic.

  “Can you create a bigger sphere of water?”

  The Acolyte nodded, then slowly, he raised both of his hands. Water poured into existence, swirling together above his head, coalescing into a massive sphere that glimmered in the dungeon’s artificial light.

  As Viktor activated his Insight Mode—

  Well, that one had to cost more than five Tokens, more than what he could handle in his current state.

  “Alright, let’s try something smaller.”

  Orloth tilted his head slightly, before throwing the sphere of water away with a casual flick of his wrist. Then he raised one hand and conjured a new sphere. This one was smaller than the last, only roughly twice the size of the first orb Viktor had prompted him to create.

  Analyzing the same spell repeatedly yielded diminishing returns. If Viktor observed two identical spells, then the second would give him nothing. If the second one was the stronger version, then he would only gain the difference between them, not the full components. That was why, from this five-cost water creation spell, he had obtained just one additional Sigil of Making.

  He glanced at Orloth. “Aren’t you curious why I’m having you do all this?”

  The Acolyte shrugged. “If you want me to know, you’ll tell me yourself. If not... well, it’s not my place to question orders. My job is to obey your every command.”

  “Good,” Viktor said with a chuckle. “Then let us continue.”

  And continue they did. At his prompt, Orloth cast several spells in quick succession. He destroyed the orb of water he had just conjured, making it vanish into nothingness, as if it had never existed. He walked to the edge of the water and bent the currents, steering the flow, much like Fianna did when she glided Viktor’s boat across this water realm. He lifted the water high, shaping a moving wall that threatened to crush anything in its path. Clearly, the Acolyte could do everything the mermaids could, and then some.

  Viktor now had his Water Mastery at Tier II. It was time to push the boundaries. So he ordered Orloth to conjure the great sphere of water again, which yielded him two more Sigils of Making and one Sigil of Controlling, at the cost of five Tokens.

  Not a bad haul. Viktor chuckled as he looked at the Sigils he had collected. He still had seven Tokens left. Is there anything else I can extract?

  Ah, yes.

  “Can you cast the water-walking spell?”

  Once again, Orloth set to work.

  “You don’t have to chant to cast the spell?” Viktor asked, recalling the eerie, echoing hymn the other Acolyte had sung when using this spell on Sebekton.

  Orloth shook his head. “I guessed you didn’t like it, so I refrained from doing so.”

  “But if you can cast the spell without the song, why bother with it at all?”

  “It’s a triggering mechanism, Master.”

  “A what?”

  “A trigger,” Orloth said. “Something to activate the spell. Well, you might not know this, but mages don’t actually need to do anything physical to cast magic. They can do it with pure thought alone. The thing is, doing all the manipulation only in your head is difficult, especially when the spell is complex, or when someone’s trying to stab you. So mages usually bind their spells to a trigger so they can cast faster and more reliably. An incantation. A hand gesture. Or sometimes even an object. Wand, staff, scroll, book, anything. It doesn’t really matter which, as long as you pick one and stick with it. Once activated, your subconscious mind will handle the rest automatically.”

  “Sounds convenient,” Viktor said. Since he had never been an actual mage, he didn’t get to learn the basics of magic. In a way, it wasn’t so different from the way he organized his Thauma.

  “It does.” Orloth nodded. “Especially with very complicated spells that require multiple mages working together. Each person has a specific task, a specific moment to act, but it’s hard to coordinate all that if everyone is doing everything silently in their heads. In those cases, the triggering mechanism becomes a full-blown ritual. A way to assign who does what, when, and where.”

  “Like the magic circle you guys used to summon that gargantuan tentacle.”

  “Exactly,” the Acolyte said. “On the other hand, if a spell is simple enough, or if the mage has drilled it for a long time, they can cast it instantly with a single thought. Those are called Rotes. Every mage keeps a few on hand.”

  “You seem able to do that with every spell you’ve cast so far.”

  Orloth shrugged. “It’s the benefit of having a long life. Give it enough time and anything can become a Rote.”

  “Then again, why do the other Acolytes need to chant?”

  “The chant is not only for casting the spell. It’s also to pay respect to the Great One, and to ask for His blessing. We believe it will strengthen the spell.”

  “Believe? Does it actually make the spell stronger?”

  “Well... sometimes.”

  Hardly a surprise. Just because you asked a god for their favor didn’t mean they would grant it to you.

  The conversation had made Viktor curious about the tentacle-summoning spell. But he had only two Tokens left. And more importantly, it didn’t seem to align with any of his current Masteries. It summoned an extension of a god into this world, so he guessed it was some sort of spatial manipulation magic. If that was the case, then there was no point in thinking about it at the moment. After all, Mastery of Space could only be unlocked at Level 60.

  He turned to Orloth. “That’s all for today. You’re dismissed.”

  The Acolyte bowed, then disappeared into the water from which he came.

  After he left, Viktor checked his stat screen again.

  Not a bad haul, indeed.