Chương 45: New Spells

Ch 45: New Spells Niko was the only one pulling an all-nighter to help stamp the hundreds of copies of my new spell designs that would arm our private army tomorrow. We were working in the small cleaning room that had once been my gambling ring and was now converted into a spell production line, conveniently hidden from the school administration by that illusion door.

I was loading the modules of the spells in my Casting Assistant, soaking the magic circles made of pure mana in conductive ink, and taking advantage of the ink's adherence to mana currents to create copy after copy of the same two spells through stamping. Niko would then take those spells and glue another layer of paper over the runes. This process was meant to both prevent the runes from being seen and potentially copied, and also to shape them into wristbands, which was a requirement for this particular design.

"Don't you think that our new employees will need a few days of training before they can hope to help you with your fight with Lord Krosak, Eric?" When Niko asked that question, it had been a few minutes since either of us had spoken to focus on the work, so it took me a few moments to finish stamping the spell in front of me before I could reply to him.

"I thought about that too, but no. Both spells have their own auto-aim illusion, and the moment the wristbands activate, the user will see a very user-friendly interface." I added, "The whole thing is so simple that I expect they will learn how to use it in a matter of minutes."

"How are you so sure?" Niko asked, raising one of the finished wristbands right in front of his eyes and inspecting it from up close.

"I for one can't even figure out how to activate it, so how can you be so confident they will know how to use it?" I stopped for a moment and just stared at the big furball. He had been working with me for hours creating those spells, so why had he mentioned just now that he had no idea what he was helping me create? I was certain that if Sahirah had been there she wouldn't have let me get tunnel-visioned so badly in my spell creation process that I forgot to introduce Niko to the very spells we were creating...

"Let's fix this gap in knowledge right now," I said.

"You and the rest of the sales team will be responsible for arming the hires, you have to know how to use the thing." Niko nodded, and I walked toward the shelves where we stored the finished wristbands, searching for the oldest batch, the ones whose glue had already had time to dry. When I found them, I reached for one wristband of each kind. First, my own version of the Mana Needle spell. And then the other, an unnamed spell that was my very own original creation.

"Extend both arms," I said to Niko.

"Once the wristband's tips are connected around your arms, they can't be removed without the paper being destroyed." Niko's eyes narrowed, watching attentively as I glued both ends of the spell around his wrists with a single drop of liquid glue, ensuring that the black traces on both sides of the paper overlapped perfectly. Once I was done with his right arm, I moved to the other, repeating the same process as he watched.

When I finished, he raised both arms and inspected them up close, going so far as to sniff the wristbands. Not that it helped with that look of confusion.

"I don't understand, Eric. How I am supposed to activate this spell?" I smiled.

"You are not," I said.

"First lesson, none of those spells can be activated by a single person. Think of it as a safety feature. The moment it's glued around your arms it's already drinking from your mana, but it remains in standby unless an activation key is used." I reached into my pocket, retrieving a small rectangular piece of paper that I had inscribed by hand with tiny runes drawn on both sides. The moment I powered it with my mana and touched it to Niko's wristband, all the runes activated at once.

His eyes widened as his chest fur was bathed by blue light, all of it coming from one of the wristbands now active around his left arm.

"Why am I seeing two red lines with a red dot in the middle everywhere I look?" The huge furball was confused by the illusion of the scope, which was not that surprising, I realized. After all, even though any human would instantly recognize the scope of a gun even if it was rendered with the graphics of an old video game, a Zufi obviously lacked the cultural background to understand the meaning behind that illusion.

"The important thing is never aiming the red dot at me or anything you don't want to hurt," I said, "But you don't need to worry too much, a misfire should be nearly impossible with the five-second firing time of this spell." The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Before explaining the rest, I reached across our work table and got a blank sheet of paper. With my quill, I quickly drew a target, not even caring about how out of proportion the circles were.

I walked toward the wall, and glued the improvised target there.

"You can aim here for a test," I said.

"When you want to fire, just inject a tiny amount of mana into the wristband and it will handle the firing sequence by itself." Even when I stepped aside and pointed at the target, Niko still hesitated.

"Isn't your spell dangerous to test indoors?" What? When had this huge furball become so concerned about safety? Could it be that getting an elf girlfriend had ruined my friend?

"Go ahead. Aim and fire," I said.

"The worst that can happen is some small-scale damage to the wall." Niko sighed for some reason. He then raised his arms, focusing on the target. Only then did I see a small mana fluctuation around his wrist, proving that the firing sequence had been triggered. First, the glow intensified, the small wristband only resisting the intensity of the mana flow because of the high quality paper and ink.

Next, his mana started to leave his body and accumulate in a tiny space, taking the shape of a needle and growing denser and denser with each second. That tiny needle became the brightest object in the room for a moment.

"Are you sure that–" The spell fired before he could finish his sentence, hitting the improvised target in the bullseye. I laughed. After calmly walking toward the wall, I lifted the paper target and showed Niko how the mana projectile had punched a hole through the paper and made a tiny hole in the wall.

"Mana Needle is a spell the Greys consider terrible because it's very hard to aim and takes too much time to cast." I crossed my arms.

"But my version solves the aim problem with the illusion scope, and with enough people firing we don't really have to worry about the casting time." What I didn't say was that I suspected this one spell was capable of tearing through the barrier of that armor of those people who attacked Sahirah and me in that inn, likely being strong enough to damage that armor and cause it to fail if the firing rate was sufficient.

"You sound like those wise old alphas back home when they were planning the conquest of land from the other tribes, Eric." Me? A conqueror? Well, the only thing I wanted to conquer was our freedom. But I didn't need to say that and change the way my friend thought of me, right? This was when Niko stared at the other inactive wristband and asked, "What about the other one?" I laughed.

"Take off Mana Needle first. Just snap the paper, I want to show you another safety feature." He observed the glowing spell for a brief moment before following my instruction. He grabbed the paper with his fingers, and pulled it. The moment the paper snapped, both sides started to burn. He let it go immediately. Yet even if he hadn't, he wouldn't have gotten hurt. This feature wasn't meant to hurt the user, but just to prevent anyone from reusing the wristbands, effectively turning them into disposable spells.

"Why are you so worried someone will keep the wristbands or copy this spell, my friend?" asked Niko.

"I don't recall you adding so many safety features even to your system." That was a good question.

"I can't accept even the smallest possibility of advancing Grey military capabilities by accident," I said.

"This spell just can't exist after we're done with Lord Krosak." I didn't explain to Niko how dangerous things could get in case the wallhack version of the system was combined with this version of Mana Needle... Just thinking about a sniper squad equipped with those two spells made me realize that perhaps I needed even more security features than what I already had. My furry friend waited a short while before asking again, but he didn't forget about the second wristband.

"And this one?" he asked, raising his arm.

"The nastiest spell out of the two," I said, "The safety features and aiming are the same, but we won't activate that one indoors."

"Nastier? How?" I noticed a trace of shock in his gaze.

"Well," I said, "Think of it as a spell that's invisible but still can cause harm in the same way. I think this one is going to fuck with those armored soldiers that work for Lord Krosak really badly, though it's too soon to tell with absolute certainty." I wasn't going to rely on a DDoS attack this time, but something much closer to a fundamental principle of nature that the Greys didn't understand, and therefore were certainly unable to defend against.

Which meant that spell was basically a targeted and powerful electromagnetic wave emitter, the kind that even I would have a hard time coming up with a counter spell. In other words, I had relied on the mana-to-electricity conversion runes, and through a complex sequence of current and voltage manipulations, I had weaponized the same principle as the microwave oven into a nasty spell.

When targeted at people wearing that heavy armor, my prediction was that it would trigger plasma arcs all over the surfaces of their armor, destroying the rune pathways and hopefully disabling their equipment without killing them. My only worry was the people under me aiming that spell at a target that was not wearing metal armor... They would have to be warned against it, with someone like Zira in charge of the safety keys.

Or else we were talking about the risk of causing a very ugly death by having one's insides cooked while still alive, something I wouldn't even wish upon my worst enemies.

"Are those two spells all you have prepared for our people, Eric? It doesn't sound like enough to face a noble." Niko, as expected, had not really understood the implications of the invisible spell I had described.

"No," I said, "I'll prepare several copies of Haste, the Presence Erasure spell, the Pain Inducing spell, and even Kinetic Push for all of you, and those won't have all those safety features." Niko beamed, finally smiling like someone who believed I was doing the right thing.

"Oh, since you are interested in what else I have in store," I said.

"Look over there on that shelf." I was pointing at a massive sheet of red paper, the highest grade material I was able to buy. Niko's eyes followed my finger.

"What is that?"

"That, my friend," I said, "is another spell I crafted for Sahirah. FEIO causes too much area damage, and this time she has much more mana than before." Of course, Sahirah hadn't been the only one who was getting a new spell. Yeah, I had created something special for myself too. But mine wasn't inscribed in paper, and it existed only in my Mind Library for now.

Forgotten until it was needed, resting together with those two parasitic tattoos I had drafted especially for when Lord Krosak and Principal Dickhead had been captured by us.

"Let's get back to work and finish with the rest of the spell copies." I smiled at Niko and added, "Because tomorrow I'm telling Lord Krosak this adoption thing won't happen, and I want to be ready when he decides what to do about it."