Occult Awakening: From Commoner to Archmage

It took Luca some time to recover, but before long he was back on his feet. The sight of blood spilling from his eyes had been alarming, yet there was no pain. The absence of it unsettled him almost as much as the vision itself.

He began to sift through what he had seen with Starpath Eyes. The first question he had asked was about the path to the holy water. Every variation of the Star Paths, led to the underground parish without fail.

That much was clear.

Luca had already begun restructuring his plans to account for this revelation. The adjustment came easily.

The underground parish was far more secure than what he had glimpsed during his earlier capture and interrogation.

He now realized he had only scratched the surface of its defenses. Priests and guards moved through its halls in numbers he had not grasped before. If he had underestimated them then, he could not afford to do so now.

Two things became certain. The first was that the holy water was indeed hidden beneath the city. The second was that before he made any attempt, he would need to acquire a map of the underground halls. Without it, the plan was doomed.

There was also the matter of preparing the chalk for the binding ritual.

Yet even with this knowledge, he could not shake his doubt off. The results of both his divinations lingered in his mind. The plan to trap Pestewind no longer seemed as sound as he had once convinced himself it was.

He shook his head.

"I need to try first. Otherwise there's no point in making these plans in the first place."

The other branch of Star Paths he had seen was best left alone. The outcomes had been too chaotic, and the interference behind them far was far behond his reach.

Whatever force lay there was greater than anything he could imagine. To dwell on it now would only drag him into despair.

He turned instead to the last of his catalysts. Lightning Glass.

Erina still needed time to place the Sky Tyrant feathers in the forest, so Astral Pressure would have to wait for now.

He picked up a shard of Lightning Glass from the small pouch. To the eye it seemed unremarkable, but when mana touched its surface, sparks crawled across it like writhing snakes.

BZZT.

A thin arc of blue light flashed as he pushed a stream of energy into it.

"How neat."

The process for casting Lightning Whip was almost identical to Rust Hand. One had to inscribe the glyph beforehand, then hold the catalyst while channeling the spell. Yet the more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

"It doesn't add up. There's no way mages have been casting spells like this for millennia. They'd have been wiped out completely."

He frowned. He had never seen a mage perform a full casting process outside of the Count and Moth. Both times, the spellwork had drawn directly from demonic energy, bypassing the usual limitations.

"Is that the route I should take?"

The thought left a sour taste. He had no problem with demons anymore but if he used their essence, it would narrow his path and bind him to dangers he could not yet measure. It was a compromise he did not want to accept.

"So what will it be?" he muttered, turning the shard in his fingers as it buzzed faintly with lightning.

Did other mages survive by relying on enchanted tools? His first spell, Incinerate, had been inscribed on his palms and gloves for convenience. Rust Hand was inscribed into his coat.

These methods worked, but they were fragile. What would happen if an enemy tore away his coat? What if his tools broke in the middle of a fight? Would every glyph he had painstakingly prepared be lost in an instant?

The flaw in his current approach was obvious.

"There's a large possibility I won't be able to overcome the barrier stopping low-level mages from casting without catalysts. Not without time and research. For now I need to cut down the casting process. It's the only way."

That had to be the focus. Spells like Lightning Whip and Carrion Stag required complex glyphs. Too much time, too much precision. In a battle, hesitation was death.

The glyph for Lightning Whip was simple at first glance: a lightning bolt at the center of a circle. But the tail of the bolt spiraled into intricate curves, and from its sides smaller forks radiated like veins of light. Drawing it in a hurry was almost impossible.

Carrion Stag was even worse. The glyph was a stag's skull crowned with twisting antlers. Behind it, a crescent moon enclosed the whole form. Every detail had to be etched exactly, or the spell failed.

He spent long minutes chasing solutions, yet none came. At last he decided to seek answers beyond the physical world.

He lay down on the cellar floor, closing his eyes with the Lightning Glass still clutched in hand.

WHOOSH.

The Veil embraced him. The sensation was as overwhelming as the first time he had entered. Warmth and immensity folded around him, as though the cosmos itself welcomed him home. He opened his eyes to the infinite sky, where the glyphs drifted like stars.

"Will this help?" he whispered.

Magic in the Veil was not the same as magic in the physical plane. Here, the barriers fell away. Here, one stood closest to the worlds from which energy flowed.

He spoke the Glyph of Convergence, and the world bent at his wheel. The glyph for Incinerate took shape in his mind, and before him fire roared into existence.

Such feats were possible only within the Veil, or at a higher degree of magical mastery.

In the physical world, Luca had crafted workarounds such as alismans, carvings, and engravings. But those methods were clumsy when applied to spells like Carrion Stag. That one in particular demanded he carve its glyph into a stag's antler, then imbue it with energy. Each casting consumed the antler, fracturing it until it broke entirely.

It was Wasteful. There had to be another way.

He reminded himself of the fundamentals.

"A spell is made of Intent, Medium, and Glyph."

He focused.

"The intent is the will of the caster. The aim of the spell. Right now, I want light to float above my palm, like Bjorn did."

He lifted his hand.

"The medium is the surface the spell emerges from. The sky, the ground, the body. Right now, the medium is me."

He closed his eyes and summoned the last part.

"The Glyph. The symbol of the universe used to call forth the effect."

He recalled the glyph for light from his creation of the Illumination talisman. A blank orb with rays extending from one side, resembling the sun. He shaped it within his mind and poured energy into it.

A glow appeared above his palm, a soft orb that hovered just beyond his skin.

"And the Lord said," he murmured, watching the faint light, "Let there be light."

His consciousness shifted, drawing back from the Veil. The cellar returned around him.

The Lightning Glass still pulsed in his grip, humming with static.

Within his chest, Crowley's Legacy spun with restless hunger, reaching for the shard as though it belonged to it.

"I've been thinking too small this whole time."