Lilith: Origin of Succubi

<~> Chapter 174

Everyone was chatting happily as we got back on the carriage. Bella and I had been fishing and she caught 3 fish. I... didn't catch anything. But hey, it was the first time I ever remember fishing, not even as remnants of my previous life, so this was probably just a fluke. Everyone was excited about adding fish to our dinner tonight, Morrigan was able to conjure some ice by using the water mana by the lake to keep the fish cold so we were able to store them in a little homemade ice box as we kept going. 

Theo signaled for me to sit across from him as I climbed aboard. I had been interested in learning some enhancement magic on the way but was doing it while moving the best idea?

"Lilith! Now that we're on our way we should get to practicing some magic!" Theo looked excited to finally have something to do. The poor guy must be bored out of his mind right now. 

I took the seat across from him. "Sure, practicing magic sounds fun but is that something we should be doing in a traveling carriage?" 

He made a shooing motion. "You worry too much. Most enhancement magic isn't all that dangerous. Even failed spells will usually just fizzle out harmlessly. We probably won't get to casting right away anyway, I first need to see what we're working with. Go ahead and tell me what spells you have available." 

I raised an eyebrow at him. 

"Hey now, I know that's private but if I'm going to be teaching you magic I can't just do it blind. I need to know what kind of affinities you have." 

I sighed and pulled a journal out of my backpack. "It's best if I just write it all down." I copied over my system list of spells in the language Bella had taught me. 

Spells: 

Light Magic:
Light Orb
Fireflies
Light Beam
Light Signal
Light Scribing
Light Burst
Light Ward

Luck Magic: 
Melee Hex
Coin Flip
Die Nudge
Blackjack
A Touch of Good Luck

Enhancement Magic:
Flame Imbue
Blade Waltz
Focused Perception
Light Imbue
Lightfoot

Arcane Magic: 
Arcane Varient Zone of Truth

I handed him the list. "These are the spells I've gotten through the system, I can also use ritual magic. So far I have a minor affinity in everything I've tried except for light and holy, light I have a medium affinity for, and holy I have no affinity for."

He skimmed the list before looking up with an odd expression. "I've taught a lot of people magic over the years and I can honestly tell you this is the weirdest spell list I've ever looked at. You don't even know fireball or conjure fire. Also, I don't even recognize most of the spells on this list. What kind of weird things are you doing with your magic? What level is your light magic?" 

"My light magic skill is at level ten, light manipulation is at level twelve," I replied. 

"Ten and twelve? That's bizarre, I've never seen anyone who bothered getting light magic above level five. What kinds of things can you do with it? What's this light scribing spell do?" he asked. 

I looked around at the moving carriage. I wonder if light scribing is relative to my speed or not. I started animating a basic water ritual spell using light scribing, luckily casting it is relative to my speed so I don't need to worry about the light moving away as it drew itself. I finished the ritual and activated it to create a small bubble of water. 

"Fascinat—" The bubble of water however was not relative to my speed so it fell out and splashed right against Theo's face. 

I couldn't help but laugh as he wiped water out of his face. "Sorry." I had a huge grin on my face but I was trying to keep my giggles in. 

He looked mildly irritated now. "It's fine. How exactly did you come across this spell? I've never heard of anyone using light magic to cast rituals before." 

"Oh, this is one that was created when I was trying to do the same thing with light signal." I drew out Theo's name using the ribbon of magic light from light signal. "Light signal is much more clumsy and awkward to use for this than light scribing and I have to do the 'animation' part of the spell manually. It took a lot of light manipulation before I could get anywhere with it but it led to light scribing suddenly being created."

"So I assume this is the spell that got you Sorsette's notice?" he asked. 

I nodded. "This is the one, yes. It was nice being recognized for it, I think this spell is really cool." 

"Cool and incredibly dangerous," he replied. 

"Dangerous?" 

"Yes," he said with a nod. "We just came from a city ravaged by demons, what do you think would happen if demon summoners got ahold of this spell? It could speed up summoning tenfold." 

I raised an eyebrow. "So demon summoning is just an application of ritual magic then." 

"It is. They are usually more complex rituals and they generally require more physical sacrifices than most ritual magic but at the core, both are the same. The only real difference is that some spellcasting classes let you automate summoning using the system, either for demons or other things." 

"So when people refer to demon summoners, they aren't always referring to people who summon demons. They're sometimes referring to people with a demon summoning class?" I asked. 

"That's correct. However, it's gotten to the point lately that most people have normal spellcasting classes and just use the rituals. Actually having a demon summoner class equipped in public makes you a target, it makes demonic miasma easier to detect and some classes have abilities that can track them when they're nearby." 

"There are demon hunter classes?" I asked.

"There are classes for most things. In this case, the Tamin church has spent a lot of time developing them. They have a lot of interest in demon hunting." Theo sighed and leaned back on the couch. "Regardless we're getting off topic. Just be careful with that spell. But on the topic of enhancement magic, you already have a few good spells here. That'll make it easy to teach you how to wild cast enhancement magic. Use any of them enough and they'll be given to you as a system spell which can come in handy. You have two imbue type spells so we should start with that, comparing the two will make it easier to use a different magic type with the imbue spell as well." 

I furrowed my brows. "We're going to start with wild casting? Isn't that an advanced technique? I thought we were going to start by improving the spells I already have."

He nodded. "Wild casting is an advanced technique but you got lucky. Being able to compare two types of the same spell makes it a lot easier to learn. The sooner you learn how to wild cast spells the faster magic as a whole unlocks for you. I don't think it will be that hard for you anyway, ritual magic is a form of wild casting so you're halfway there already. The only difference is that you can't use ritual circles to focus your mana."

"Okay, that seems reasonable. How do we start?" I asked. 

Theo rummaged around his back before pulling out a case, taking two quills out of the box, and setting them on the table. "These are normal quills. I happen to know that Flame imbue doesn't have any immediate effects when cast on these, unlike a sword or something. A sword cast with Flame imbue will literally catch fire but a quill stores the energy until you write with it. A quirk in how the spell works but useful for this practice." 

I nodded. Both of the two spells mention that the effects of objects imbued with the spell vary. 

"Open up all of the mana senses you can and cast one while watching the mana closely. Once you've cast one, cast the other spell on the other quill and compare the two. There should only be one part of the mana structure that's different between the two spells, that'll be where the elemental part of the spell will be. For now, just focus on recognizing the difference. We'll have to do some practice with other spells before you'll be able to replace the mana structure with another one. I'm sure I can find a pair of similar ritual spells for that while you practice. You need to watch when casting the spells though, so once the two things have been imbued you can no longer gain any information from them, just release the enhancement magic after that. A bit of practice casting the spells repeatedly shouldn't hurt either. I'll bet that you'll get a few levels in enhancement magic before we stop for dinner." With my task given Theo rummages around his bag again and pulls out a book while mumbling to himself. 

I shift my eyes to give me mana sight and focus on my mana sense skill. I take a deep breath and once I'm ready I pick up one of the quills and cast [Flame Imbue]. There's a lot of information to parse and I'm not sure I'll be able to remember any of it at all. I pick up the other quill and cast [Light Imbue] and watch as my mana coalesces into the quill. There was way too much information to compare on the first pair of casts but I could vaguely see the pattern. I'll have to focus on that until I can start distinguishing the two. 

Releasing the two spells, I started over again. I carefully watched the mana swirl in their patterns and tried to compare where they differed. I sighed and shook my head. There was just so much information all at once. This was going to take a while. 

"Mind if I join you two?" I looked up to see Morrigan who was wearing an interested look. 

I glanced over at Theo who gave a nod. "As long as your girlfriend doesn't distract you too much. Learning to wild cast is a good skill to pick up." 

Morrigan grinned. "I'm actually a wild mage, nearly all I do is wild cast spells." 

Theo's eyebrows rose. "I must not have heard that. I would have invited you to learn with us earlier had I known." 

She nodded. "I appreciate it. Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to learn any enhancement magic so this would be good for me to pick up if I can." 

"Then please," he said while gesturing to the seat next to me. 

I scooted over and patted her on the leg. "I'm glad you're joining us. I can already tell this is going to take a while for me to learn." 

She nodded. "Learning to wild cast spells usually does, unfortunately. Even with my class and the system helping me along, it takes a long time to add new spells to my repertoire. It doesn't help that before I can even cast a new spell I need to be able to identify where the elemental magic goes, without that I can't draw environmental mana to cast it. It always requires a lot of focused attention when watching others cast spells to learn anything. The upside is that once I do figure that part out I can reliably cast that spell with any environmental mana I'm practiced with." 

Theo butted in to add to our conversation, "If you only intend to use environmental mana to cast, this spell may not actually be that useful to you. After Lilith gets the hang of wild casting imbue, I'll show the two of you a mana armor spell next. Wild casting mana armor using environmental mana can be very effective because, unlike the problem with offensive magic tending not to be useful against things that have the same affinity for that type of magic, defensive magic tends to be very strong against things that have the same affinity." 

Morrigan's eyes lit up. "That would be great! I've never had the opportunity to learn that kind of spell before! Most of the people I've been able to work with have focused on offensive magic." 

He gestured to the quills again. "Get to it then. The quicker the two of you learn this one, the faster we'll be able to get started on that mana armor spell. Lilith will also have to learn how to identify the elemental structure of spells if she wants to actually use it as a wild spell." 

And so I cast the imbue spell over and over again for the rest of the day while Morrigan watched and tried to help me understand the mass of mana that I was looking at. She was able to pick up the spell much faster than I could, but that wasn't a surprise based on her skill set. Once she was able to wild cast it herself, she started helping me identify where I should be looking and what parts could be ignored. 

By the time we stopped for dinner, I hadn't learned to wild cast it yet, but I did gain a few levels in enhancement magic. No new spells yet though.

[Enhancement magic has increased from level 2 to level 5]