A Tyrant, Sort Of

It turned out shaping the raw, primordial essence of magic wasn’t the simplest task. No walk in the park.

Even getting started took more effort than Sable expected. Unlike her first fumbling attempts in the snowy peaks, freshly reborn, she had a tutor now, so she made progress—but it came slowly.

Roman had said spells began with a key-rune, but really, they began with drawing mana. Exactly as she’d said, unlike a [Warrior] class or something similar, a [Mage]—of which Sable was specifically a [Frostfire Sorceress]—had to undergo a complicated process to use even the most fundamental aspects of her abilities.

Though, not all of her skills were limited in such a way. Sable had a few freebies, like [Soar] and [Horrifying Aura]. But the ones related to her magecraft—those were difficult to get going.

Drawing mana, she found, was much the same as breathing fire. In a way. There was a congruence in the process, though a difference, too. The separate pools of enigmatic energy sitting inside her were different. Her flames felt hotter to the mental touch—which made sense.

Mana was a resource with a more … alien feel? Almost? Hot and cold at the same time. Buzzing and enigmatic. She got the mental image of oil on water, catching the light right—iridescent.

When it came to ‘freeform’ casting, which were spells cast from a key-rune, rather than an activated ‘freebie’ skill, mana first had to be siphoned from a mana pool, then grasped within one’s mind. Using that essence, Sable could draw lines of power directly into the world, sketching as Roman had earlier.

Even that initial step—getting mana into ‘ink-form’, so to say—had been a headache. Actually sketching with it, though?

Well, it made sense why Roman had emphasized ‘line quality’ as something a beginner needed to focus on.

Sable stared, aghast, at the circle she’d drawn into the air. A toddler could have done a better job. It was jagged, misshapen, and sloppy enough that whether or not it could be called a circle at all was up for debate.

Dragons probably weren’t supposed to act embarrassed, even after such a blatantly amateurish performance. It would be undignified. A dragon would claim even her mistakes with pride.

But when Roman looked her way, quirking an eyebrow, Sable could swear she felt a blush rise onto her cheeks. Fortunately, she didn’t think it showed through her scales, or whether the reaction was a physical one at all—just a phantom one from once being human.

Roman seemed to intuit Sable’s embarrassment, either way. Her lips twisted up, and she gave a quick snort.

“It’s better than most novices,” she said. “You managed to close the circle, even. That’s not so bad. I’ve seen much worse from novices.”

That abomination was better than average?

“Now try your key-rune,” Roman said. “Don’t let the inscription destabilize by taking too long. You can’t hold it as well as I can. It’s already fading.”

Indeed, the blue-white circle she’d drawn was already shaking, wisping away as seconds ticked by.

Key-rune next. The one bit of intuition her skill [Arcana Specialty: Frostfire] had given her was what the key-rune of frostfire should look like. So, she was able to draw directly from memory.

Not that it helped. The rune came out mangled. Not remotely what it should look like.

“And finally,” Roman said, not commenting on the disaster Sable had created, “copy this.” She held her staff out and etched a rune for demonstration. It looked similar to an arrowhead with a squiggly line through it.

“Anywhere is fine,” Roman said. “It’ll be your only decorator, so it doesn’t matter where on the margin you put it. Means expel. Raw effect, then expel. It’s as bare-bones of a spell as we can make.”

Sable did as she was told. The end result was appropriately embarrassing. One large, barely-qualifies-as-a-circle circle, an equally sloppy key-rune of frostfire, and a decorator attached to the north portion of the border that, supposedly, should mean expel, but was so shakily drawn it only resembled in the most general way of Roman’s neatly drawn rune.

“Now solidify it,” Roman said. “That part shouldn’t be hard. Feed it your intent.”

Focusing on the diagram, she asked politely but firmly for the spell to become a spell.

The spell wobbled, then impacted into reality in the same way Roman’s had. It was a sixth sense, of sort, a loud clap of mental noise that Sable was sure she could have felt from miles away. Though it had been noticeably less intense than Roman’s—but still louder, strangely. Because she had less control, Sable assumed? Could any spellcaster feel it? Was there a way to mask the so-called noise, should she need to be more subtle?

Questions for later. Upon the spell solidifying, the ‘creation stage’ completed, a link opened between her and the spell. A ‘channel’, Roman had called it. A way to pour that primordial resource, mana, into the spell, and thus finish manifesting it. In fact, it happened almost without her input, like a dam being broken: mana poured into the ability, and, to Sable’s surprise, the horribly made spell worked.

Liquid white frost poured from the circle, blasting outward in a large gout, coating the ground and nearby foliage. Ice crystals sprouted where the liquid touched, solidifying in an instant, and strangely, igniting the nearby ground too, sending up swirling black strands of smoke. Frostfire. A mix between ice and flame. Interesting to see in action, however much she should have expected it.

Sable adjusted the flow of mana. She experimented, briefly, expanding the ‘channel’, then restricting it, both empowering and weakening the spell in turn. But only briefly. As Roman had said, a poorly made spell cost more mana than a properly constructed one, and Sable’s spell had been about as poorly made as possible, a stark novice’s first attempt.

She cut the spell off, severing the flow, then checked her mana. She winced. Mana remained a resource difficult to recharge, and that spell had consumed hundreds—almost twenty percent of her pool. Having made it so atrociously, the spell had practically glutted itself on her mana pool, feeding on raw power rather than skill.

Roman whistled. “You kept it going for a while. That can’t have been cheap.”

Sable sniffed. [I could have managed much longer.] Just, it would have been a horrible waste.

Roman seemed impressed at the claim, eyebrows raising, then the expression shifted to irritation—though she didn’t say anything. Sable sympathized. Being born into such an advantage would be annoying, perceived from the less-advantaged party.

[Channeling,] Sable said. [How does it work? How much can I open it?]

“As much as you want.”

[And if I dumped my entire mana pool into a single spell?]

“Then it’d be quite strong,” Roman said, amused.

[But I assume it doesn’t scale in a linear fashion.] That seemed like it would be … broken?

Roman paused, and Sable realized she should probably avoid speaking in mathematical terms. Roman already suspected something odd was going on with her, and discussing in which manner something ‘scaled’—linearly or quadratically—gave away more than she’d prefer. It suggested an education, and, based on the standards of the world she’d seen, an advanced one. Common for even kids when it came to Earth, but here? Probably not, she’d figure.

“And by that, you mean?” Roman asked, clearly fishing for more—to expand on Sable’s slip-up.

[More mana doesn’t mean equal growth. An uneven—] she almost said correlation, but even that was probably a niche term too, when it came to a fantasy world, [increase.]

Roman studied her a second, then answered, displeased Sable had simplified her question. She suspected something. The woman was clearly keen—hence why Sable had wanted her as a tutor—and not just that, suspicious of Sable’s origin. Though, obviously, she would never be able to guess her real circumstances.

“You’d be right,” Roman said. “Balancing output for cost is a fundamental restriction all mages learn to deal with.”

As she’d suspected. [There’s a middle ground, then? Where pouring more mana in isn’t worth it?]

“It varies depending on application, preference, and so on,” Roman said. “But yes. It isn’t a common strategy to dump one’s entire mana pool into a spell.” She shrugged. “Then again, sometimes all you need is one enormously powerful ability—even if ten times the cost is only twice the strength.”

[Is that the scale? Ten to two?]

“It varies.”

Sable bit her tongue—er, her mental tongue?—on her next question. She was, naturally, intrigued at the science behind this. Had people studied the functions behind various spells? The exact manner they scaled, narrowed down to an input, mana, and an output, some simplified representation of expelled energy?

Surely they had. Math was hardly a new invention, regardless of this world’s culture. She was pretty sure calculus had come around as early as the 1600s, and simpler math, for thousands of years. Terms like ‘linear’, ‘quadratic’, and similar growth functions probably existed somewhere in this world, if only with the scholars. And certainly there were magic scholars.

In fact, Roman herself had said something about ‘professors’, hadn’t she?

But, again, best not to draw too much attention from Roman, detailing these musings and asking odd questions. Because it didn’t matter. She would do her own experiments to see how mana funneled into a spell scaled—and for which spells what quantities were ideal. Roman had said it varied, so she would have to experiment. Find her own balances, her own preferential inputs and outputs.

Plus, it would change as she became better at constructing spells. This one had been so cost inefficient because of how poorly she’d made it.

Oddly, she was pleased at that. That she’d done poorly. It meant there was room to grow—room to excel in, through her own efforts and talents. Being reborn as a dragon had come with enormous boons dropped into her lap, but she still had to work. If she wanted competence in spellcasting, it would come from diligent practice, study, and, that inscrutable quality, talent.

Though, maybe she should wish for everything to be handed to her. Sable had some enormously difficult to deal with problems to worry about, coming up at some point in the future. Dragon hunters to name one. Kingdom conflicts to name another. Other threats, impossible to predict, like the Aspect. She needed each of her staggering advantages, given by birthright, to survive. And maybe even then it wouldn’t be enough.

Still. Having to work to become a proper mage. It pleased her, regardless of whether it should or shouldn’t.

[What are the limitations?] Sable asked. [Behind a key-rune. What sorts of spells can be made?]

“It depends,” Roman said. “That’s going to be something I say a lot, so get used to it. But generalizing?” She tilted her head, considering. “Well, there’s the obvious. You won’t ever manage a teleportation spell with a rune of fire. But adjacency? Something like, say, an illumination spell from frostfire?” She see-sawed her hand, implying, maybe, maybe not. “Defining a key-runes full domain can be difficult. Oblique, in the best of circumstances. The only real way to do so is through experimentation.”

That made sense.

But, moving to more practical matters.

[Provide me other example spells,] Sable said. [Ones you think I should practice, that use frostfire. Useful in combat.]

Because that was the goal, here. Sable, ultimately, needed a more devastating arsenal. Fire breathing was nice, and her enormously strengthened body too, but in the future? Higher level monsters, or whatever else? Not nearly enough. She needed a real kit of war magic.