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  [colpse]Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Five - Great Balls of Fire

  “This is a very iing variation on the Fireball. There’s a simple spell called Magic Projectile that has a lot of variations. A Fire Mage, Victor Wargenheimer, decided to adapt some of those to his fireball, but he did all of the work manually,” Rosaline said.

  “Manually?” I asked.

  We’d moved outside and past the pretty gardens to a courtyard that had tall stone walls all around it. It was an exercise yard, with a few weights left out, and a stomped-on track ground around the edges. The walls were pitted with little craters and divots. We wouldn’t be the first ones learning magic here, I guessed.

  Rosaline o her two eager students, that was, myself and Awen. “Yes. See, if you were to get the Fireball skill, then all the variations of fireball and then some would e to you naturally. It’s why, while less versatile than skills like mana-manipution, direbat skills aren’t anything to scoff at.”

  I thought about that for a moment.

  “So if I had Fire Mana Manipution, I could easily cast any fire spell, but I’d still o know the spells. Whereas with the fireball skill, I would only be able to cast fireballs, but they could be all kinds of different fireballs?” I asked.

  “That’s it!” Rosaline said. “There’s usually more potential in wider-ranging skills, but to get to that potential requires a lot of time and work, and in the end you might still not be able to hit as hard.”

  I cpped my hands. “That sounds so cool.”

  “The middle ground are skills that encapsute a cept based around a kind of magic. The Pyromania skill is entirely non-magical at first, but at higher tiers it singe off a mage with Fire Magiipution’s tail feathers.”

  “So like my ing skill,” I said.

  She nodded. “So, since we want to teach you some offensive skills, we’ll start with a few variations of Fireball. This one is by Wargenheimer, like I said, he created dozens of variations of an otherwise on spell manually.”

  I nodded. “So what do we start with?” I asked.

  “Let’s see you cast a normal fireball,” she said befesturing to a well-worn wooden figure at the far end of the courtyard. It was a bit smaller than a harpy, with a pair of wings made of what looked like coat hangers on its back. “Hit the wooden sylph with yours.”

  “Uh,” I said. But it wasn’t the time to poke at the obvious specism, it was time fic!

  I ched my fist while p magic out around my hand. Then, while stepping forwards, I spurands of hot magito a ball with a trailing tail.

  My fist shot out iraight jab, the missile h behind it ung forwards with a whoosh.

  It crossed the courtyard, no faster than a thrown ball, and with a bit of a wobble. It zipped right past the dummy and spshed off the wall behind it.

  “Ah. Oops?”

  Rosaline giggled. “We’ll have to work on your aim too.”

  My face burned in the dummy’s stead. “I guess so. My ing magic is a lot easier to aim with.” I threw another pund a ball of ing magic zipped out of my fist, shot across the courtyard faster than the eye could track, and smacked against the dummy with the strength of a spoon smag someone’s hand when they were reag for the cookie jar.

  Rosaliilted her head to one side. “bat ing magiot something you see every day. And... not that effective, it seems.”

  “It works on some things,” I defended. “And it’s really handy. I go entire weeks without sh.”

  “B-Broccoli, you’re not supposed to tell people that.”

  Rosaline blinked a few times. “Well. Okay. Right! Fireball variations.” We had stopped by the house’s huge library for a bit so that Rosaline could gather a few books. She pulled one of those out and used the tabs set into the pages to find the one she was looking for. “This is the one I want you to practice with.”

  I eyed the open page before me.

  Wargenheimer’s Multicast FireballA staple variation of the standard Fireball spell. Sacrifig power for the ability to cast the same spell up to three times with a single cast. Increased mana cost and standard casting time.

  The rest of the page had a few illustrations that showed what the spell was meant to look like. It was, for the most part, a normal fireball. Or rather, three of them. Each was linked by a thin fiment of mana that I reized as the ‘trigger’ to the normal fireball only ed around to all three.

  “Oh, that’s clever,” I said.

  “It might help with your aim a little,” Rosaline said. “ is this one.”

  Wargenheimer’s Stig FireballA staple variation of the standard Fireball spell. By bining the standard Fire-attuned magic with Stig-attuned mana, the spell loses most of its damage on impact, but will spread across the impact area and burn until its mana runs out.

  “Uh,” I said. That sounded a lot like firing a ball of fming napalm. Awesome. “What’s Stig attuned mana?”

  Rosaline blinked. “Ah... darn.”

  “W-what is it?” Awen asked.

  “I fot to expiaphysical mana,” Rosaline said. She huffed. If she was Amaryllis, it would be a ‘I’m disappointed in myself but won’t admit it’ kind of huff, but I wasn’t sure if the sister’s huffs transted perfectly. “Well, whatever. There are kinds of mana for nearly everything. The most on, of course, are the physical ones. Dirt, fire, air, water, things that are part of nature, then we see less on but still physical things. Lightning, Gss, Metals, Ash. those are still tangible. But what about things like ing? you fill a bucket with liness?”

  “Um, I guess not,” I said.

  “Exactly. You ’t grab a fistfull of justice, or a pot full of love, but those are kinds of mana, they are legitimate fuels for spellwork. They’re just a lot harder to your talons around.”

  “So there is Friendship aspect mana!” I said.

  “Of course there is,” Rosaline said. “It’s probably really hard to make and use, but it definitely exists.”

  Could I bine Friendship magic with Fireballs?

  I tightened my fists.

  I would bine Friendship magic with Fireballs.

  “Awa, Broccoli, you look scary.”

  Rosaline snorted. “You look like Amaryllis when she’s discovered a particurly explosive spell. Anyway. Stig attuned mana is mana that embodies the idea of... stiess. I think you could repce that with ing magic. They’re far apart, but funally they’re simir enough.”

  I nodded. “That sounds doable. What will the fireball do if I repce the sticky bits with bits?”

  Rosaline shrugged. “I have no idea! It’ll be great, I’m sure. There’s this st one.”

  She flipped over a few pages and tapped another spell with the tip of her tallon.

  Wargenheimer’s Deyed-Cast FireballA staple variation of the standard Fireball spell. More of a teique than an actual unique spell, the Deyed-Cast Fireball allows the caster to unch a series of fireballs in rapid succession after preparing a set of pos for each spell and assembling them in rapid succession. Overall cast time is usually the same as casting individual fireballs, but it allows the user to cast them all in quick succession.

  The rest of the page had a lot more diagrams on it than the ones before.

  “This one’s a bit unique. See, instead of making the spell and then casting it, you make all the parts for four or five, then assemble and fire them all quickly. Iime it takes to fire four fireballs, you’ll fire four. But all four will be fired with only seds between them.”

  I... kind of uood. “It’s more about rapid firing over sustained fire, then,” I said.

  “Exactly,” she said with a dangerous grin. “You wouldn’t imagihe amount of trouble you get in or out of when you punch above your weight for just a few seds.”

  I grinned right back. There was an uandiween Rosaline and I in that moment.

  “Awa, now you’re both scary,” Awen said.

  I shen broke out into giggles. “Will you be showing me how to cast this spell?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so? I think you should figure it out for yourself. Start with the multicast Fireballs first, at least until you run out of mana. I’ll be with Awen for a bit. Gss magic is a lot trickier.”

  I nodded and took the book so that I had something to reference. I’d be very careful with it and would do my best not to light it on fire.

  “You know a lot about magic,” I said.

  “Amy probably knows more, actually. She was always dreaming of being an archmagus when she grew up.” Rosealine’s smile turned wistful. “It’s... ly something she was enced to bee. But now she’s gone and bee a Thundere. Past her first tier even. I don’t doubt that in a few years she’ll be tearing apart ndscapes with great bsts of thunder and lightning. She’ll make us proud, but in her own way.”

  I pulled Rosalio a quick hug. “You seem like a good big sister,” I said. “I wish I had a big sister, ohat was just like you.” I pulled back to see Rosaline’s face all flushed. “Amaryllis is real lucky.”

  “Ah, well... I wouldn't mind a little sister like you,” she said before rudely patting the top of my helmet right between my ears. “And you too, Awen!”

  Rose pulled Awen into a hug, because she’d gohout for entire minutes.

  “Unless you’d like to be something more?” Rosaline asked, her voice turning strange.

  Aweire body froze up and her face went very red. She looked like someone having a hard time breathing. I worried for a moment but she soon got her breath back. “Ah-awa.”

  “So cute!” Rosaline said. “e! I’m giving you your lesson one-on-one. Gss magic is real tricky, or so I’ve heard.”

  I watched the girls move over a little ways away, I could still hear them talking, Rosaline jumping right into a practical demonstration with Awen. She was being very encing.

  Maybe Amaryllis did know more about magic, but her sister was defihe better teacher. And she was supposed to be a big business woman too. Maybe she had missed out orue calling, ohing that she assionate about. I wondered if that was why she didn’t seem to begrudge Amaryllis running off to do her own thing?

  I set that aside for the moment and looked at the instrus for the first new kind of fireball I was meant to learn. Though really, it was more like a normal fireball, but in triplicate.

  I held a palm up before me and started to form ohen two, then three. It was slow going, slower than just making oire fireball by far.

  It had been a lot easier to cast a spell while I was moving. A side-effey Way of the Mysti, maybe? It had merged with my Physical Manakinesis.

  Trying cost nothing. I cupped a ball of hot almost-fire mana in my hand, then I rolled it in the air like a ball of dough. With a fliy wrist and a bit of tration I tur into an unfired Fireball.

  That had been a lot faster.

  I let it fly across the yard where it hit the ground a meter ahead of the dummy with a dull ‘thwump.’

  So, motion made crafting a spell easier. That... made sense. I’d always been a little bit of a tactile learner.

  I made a couple more Fireballs ahem fly across the yard. One of them even came close to the dummy.

  The multicast was the same as a single fireball, but three times at the same time. I sched my nose and took a ga my mana.

  Mana 85 / 125

  Plenty left iank.

  Nodding to myself, I imagined juggling with a trio of balls, the metallic sort that made cool noises when you rubbed them together. I’d pyed with something like that once, rge marbles that could be spun by waving your palm around with a slithery motion.

  I tried that with some pin old ing mana. It took some doing, but I mao create three spheres. Then all I had to do was shove my arm out while creating three tails onto the balls and they would unch ahead and across the yard. The three taps of the spells hitting the dummy head on were wonderful.

  But that was ing magic.

  I started doing the same thing, but with Fire-aspect mana. The circur motion was just shy of being unfortable as heat washed over my palm.

  The first try ended in plete failure. I ‘eeped’ as the triple fireball burped apart in my hand.

  The attempt exploded a meter ahead of me.

  The third unched one deformed fireball, and oiny fireball that flew off into the sky until it fizzled out way above me.

  I cheered. I was getting so close!

  ***