Spell Weaver-Chapter 110. Lesser Spark Rune

Alex stared at the scattered papers across his workshop table. Each of them was covered in variations of ritual circles that he'd drawn over the past several days. The failed attempts kept piling up but something nagging at the edge of his thoughts. He'd been running [Parallel Mind] almost nonstop for the last four days looking for a solution and he knew that he was close.

Valtherion, true to his nature, was curled protectively around an empty Oreo package with his long scale tail hanging limply off the side of the table.

Alex’s eyes drifted to an older sketch only a few inches from Val that had two coffee rings staining it. The overlapping circles caught his attention and suddenly everything clicked.

"That's it." Alex grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and began to draw furiously. "The foundation needs two circles, similar to the rail system I had thought of a few days ago…" He mumbled to himself and his pen danced across the sheet of parchment paper. "Then, a square in the inside for additional stability and containing the mana, before adding the modified catalyst node at the bottom."

He stood up and looked down at the paper and he knew that the solution just felt right. It felt so obvious now that he saw it, and it clicked into place perfectly.

"Evan!" Alex rushed to where his new friend and runic companion had fallen asleep at the other end of the table. "Wake up!"

Evan jolted upright and a piece of paper was stuck to his cheek in a comical fashion. "What? What time is it?"

"Uhh—" Alex took two steps to the side and reached across the table to grab his pocket watch from under the cover of one of his other notebooks. "Early. But I figured it out!"

That caused Evan to snap out of his stupor and he sat up straight and pulled the paper from his face. "You're sure?"

Alex nodded enthusiastically and shoved the most recent drawing and completed design toward Evan while he activated [Mana Thread] to begin practicing the shape in the air. He could hear Evan mumbling to himself as he looked at the design.

"I don't know nearly enough about rituals. You're sure that you're sure?" Evan asked once again.

"Yes, yes. Watch," Alex said. He wove the threads of mana through the air and created the new ritual circle. Two concentric circles formed first and then he put a perfect square centered in the smaller one. Each of its four corners just barely touched that inner circle. The interior of the ritual fell into place like normal, its familiar shapes being created in the matter of a few heartbeats.

Alex paused, and took a deep breath to center himself. He looked at the small and extremely modified ritual circle that hung in the air through his Heavenly Eye. The next step was to add the spark rune itself, which was when he'd started to feel instability build previously.

With great care, he used an additional thread to trace the spark rune into the catalyst node. He let out a great sigh of relief when he felt no instability.

"Okay." Alex held it there for a moment, almost too hesitant to activate it. "Here we go."

To his left, Evan looked uncomfortable, almost like he wanted to get up and create space from Alex in case there was any kind of magical backlash. Alex noticed it at the last moment before activating the ritual and gave the younger man a nod. Evan got up quickly and moved to the other side of the workshop and gave a thumbs up and a large smile.

Alex flushed his mana into the ritual directing it toward one of the nearby target dummies that had been set up just for this purpose. As his mana began to flow into the ritual he made sure that the mana flowing to the thread of the spark rune moved in the exact pattern needed for the setting process. Even though he wasn't setting the rune into an item or object specifically, the pattern of the rune and the setting process was part of what actually caused the rune to function magically.

The entire ritual flared to life and its lines glowed brightly as it flashed into existence. For a brief moment, even through his mundane right eye Alex could see the entire ritual become visible. Through his Heavenly Eye he could see a bit of mana leaking out and almost crackling through the modified ritual circle. For the barest moment it looked like it might not activate.

And then, without any further fanfare, the ritual settled in place and activated perfectly.

Alex stared open-mouthed at the success before he and Evan both started to cheer. Alex laughed out loud and knew that he needed to test it. He turned and walked over to the main workshop table where his spatial pouch lay among the scattered drawings. Reaching in, he removed his wand and rushed back over to the floating circle.

He sent a basic mana bolt through the ritual and it emerged on the other side crackling with electricity before slamming into the target dummy and causing a scorch mark with spreading lines of damage upon impact. "It works! Val, come try this!"

Hearing his name, Val perked up and flapped his wings to fly over. The wind caused several sheets of paper to flip and float lazily down to the floor. When he got to the ritual he sniffed it twice before using his own mana bolt skill. It reacted the exact same way as the mana dart from Alex's wand.

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To the naked eye, it appeared that the ethereal blue and thin dart of mana appeared in existence just in front of Valtherion's mouth before taking off at speed. However, about 2 feet in front of his face, it suddenly took on an electric quality and grew about 50% in size before slamming into one of the nearby target dummies.

"You did it!" Evan was fully awake now and grinning as his arms pumped into the air. "Try again, try again!"

Alex couldn't suppress his own grin as he reset the ritual base and felt confident in the success. But that next time, something felt off. As he activated it and ensured that he was matching the proper flow needed to set the spark rune, the mana flow stuttered and the ritual lines cracked around the edges before completely destabilizing. The entire construct shattered in a way that made it look like small particles of glass and mana dispersing uselessly into the air.

"What happened?" Evan frowned.

"I'm… I'm not sure." Alex tried again. And again. Each attempt ended the same way. He was certain that he was doing things exactly the same as he had done the first time, though each time ended in failure. He was able to try three more times before he needed to stop due to the mana expenditure.

Alex ran his hand through his hair. "I don't get it. It seemed like it worked perfectly the first time." He brought his hand up to his mouth and looked down at the floor as he paced and thought through the process.

Evan stayed quiet, having seen Alex lose himself in his thoughts many times over the last two weeks.

"Val, can you help, buddy? I need some of your mana to activate the skill to talk with Maelis. Even if it doesn't work one hundred percent of the time, if I can show him even one success it should make the point that this idea has merit. Maybe he can show me what I'm doing wrong with the rune."

"I'm not an expert by any means," Evan said cautiously, "but I've seen you make that spark rune a hundred times. It looks perfect to me."

Alex shrugged his shoulders and stopped at the table before putting both hands flat on its surface and looking over his drawings again. "I'm certainly not an expert either… But I feel like I should start to charge my skill to talk to Maelis. Even though he's grumpy as all hell, he definitely knows his stuff. Give me a bit and Val and I will start to pool our mana for the skill to activate."

Evan nodded and watched as Valtherion flew over to Alex and wrapped around his shoulders.

The companion started infusing his own larger mana pool into the spirit item that was tucked under Alex’s shirt. Just before settling in, Val let out a weary sigh knowing that would be a long couple of hours spending most of their mana to discreetly charge the item.

Over the next two hours, Alex and Valtherion worked in comfortable silence to charge the amulet. Neither of them pushed far enough to cause mana fatigue to set in, but they traded off and each took turns while the other rested and allowed their mana to regenerate.

"You should grab some food," Alex said as Evan yawned for the third time. "I'm sure Gabby's got some breakfast ready by now. Then maybe you can catch a quick nap, we won’t be done for a while."

Evan stretched and stood with a thankful nod. "You should come too. When's the last time you ate? Or showered for that matter?" He wrinkled his nose. "I've never seen anyone so obsessed. It's kind of freaky how determined you get."

"Soon," Alex promised. He knew he could use a shower, but it was easier to infuse his mana into the amulet while stationary. "When it's Val's turn I'll get up and take a shower and meet you in the kitchen."

In the downtime between infusing the amulet, Alex straightened up the workshop and took a shower. He opted to skip out on breakfast, instead grabbing a bottled water and letting Evan know that he would meet him back in the workshop whenever he was ready.

Once the amulet was charged, Maelis's grumpy presence filled Alex's mind. "What now? You can't possibly be done with the exercises that I gave you."

Alex quickly caught the runic master up on what he'd been doing and demonstrated the ritual circle. Since Maelis could see the flow of mana through Alex's own Heavenly Eye, he hoped that the issue might become apparent to the ancient spirit. Alex had to siphon a mana stone from his pouch to replenish his mana for the attempt since he and Val had both put all of their available mana into the spirit item.

The circle formed perfectly and through dumb luck he managed to achieve another successful activation and demonstrate to Maelis how it should work. However, as he made a second one right next to it in the air, the new version destabilized despite being identical.

"Hmph." Maelis's tone held less derision than usual. "The foundation doesn't look completely terrible. I don't know much about this kind of magic, but your approach shows… marginal intelligence."

Alex waved away the comment, unfazed by the spirit’s backhanded compliment. "But why does it keep failing? I've made ten of them so far and only three of them have worked," Alex pressed.

"My guess is because you're forcing a full spark rune through a ritual circle that can barely contain it." Maelis sighed. "Try a lesser spark rune instead. It's weaker, yes, but it should be more stable. Though this is likely as far as you can push this particular combination of magic. I'm a little impressed you could even force it this far."

Alex ignored the criticism and doubt, focusing instead on the solution. "I didn't even know there was a lesser version of the rune." Evan, who was sitting nearby, perked up as he heard Alex's words. To him, it likely looked like Alex was just speaking to the air, even though he knew he was speaking to the spirit. "Can you show us?" Alex asked.

To Alex's surprise, Maelis agreed, showing for the first time that he was willing to flex his extremely rigid training path to teach Alex something specific. The next hour passed with Maelis projecting illusory guidelines for the new rune in Alex's mind. For his sake, Alex took copious notes and tried to replicate the mana flows and drawings as precisely as possible so he could understand what was being taught.

"The strokes are similar," Evan noted as he copied Alex's notes diligently. "But the flow of mana is completely different for setting the rune."

Alex nodded and could already see how the reduced power requirement might solve his stability issue. "It's different but definitely less complex than the normal spark rune. I think with just a couple hours of practice I should be able to give this one a try." He felt his excitement begin to build.

"Just try not to blow anything up," Maelis muttered in annoyance. "Better yet, see if you can blow up this amulet."

The two friends shared a look of determination. Even though they had different goals, they had gotten far by working together and sharing ideas. Evan was focused on expanding his enchanting repertoire and was happy to learn whatever secondhand knowledge Alex could pass along to him from Maelis. Alex was using his single-minded determination to focus on completing the necessary steps for spell circles.

The workshop filled with more scratching of pens on paper as they started up their practice again.