“Hmmm”[Davron]

Davron was still sitting on the same spot, but now with the book Flame Spell, Grade 1 in his hands.

The spell book was grade 1, so it was a lot smaller than the books with higher grades. With higher grades, the amount of runes you need to learn increases drastically. You could easily learn a grade 1 spell in a day, but a grade 2 spell would need a whole week or even more!

With the help of AIS, Davron achieved to learn the flame spell in around 3 hours.

After having memorized the spell, he connected to the Magic Network and stored it in the network. Now he should be able to cast the spell by speaking a specific incantation. Every spell has different incantations.

However, Davron didn’t want to test it out yet, since he wanted to cast his first spell with his family.

“Luna will definitely get jealous! But I swear, someday I will find a way to cure her!”[Davron]

With his clean clothes on his body, Davron made his way home.

–

“Come”[Davron]

Right after Davron got home, he called his family and led them outside. Casting flame for the first time in a wooden house would be idiotic.

“Slow down, sweety”[Ellena]

“Do you want to show us your hunting moves again?”[Flora]

“Hahah, big brother really thought that he was cool. Haha”[Luna]

“Ahhh stop it, don’t mention it anymore!!”[Davron]

Davron stopped 20m away from their house. Then he turned around and waited for his family to arrive.

When his sisters and his mother arrived, he started his debut as a mage

“Look carefully”[Davron]

With his stretched out right hand, he started to chant the incantations for the flame spell.

“Flame of life, burn like […]”[Davron]

As Davron spoke the last word, he felt all of his inner mana leaving his body. After a second, a small magic circle appeared over his right hand. The magic circle created a small flame on Davron’s hand and disappeared shortly after.

Losing all his inner mana made Davron exhausted and feel empty. He disliked this feeling.

“This is my first spell!”[Davron]

With a proud smile on his face, Davron showed the tiny flame to his family.

They were shocked with their jaws almost hitting the ground. Their Davron was a real mage now!

“Oh Darling, I’m so proud of you!”[Ellena]

The happiest one was Ellena. Seeing her son casting his first spell made her remember her adventurer days!

“Davron, hear me out, darling. Don’t show or tell others that you’re a mage, okay? … Especially in this village. People with bad intentions could sell you to a slave merchant!”[Ellena]

Mages were really rare and a hot product in the market. As a mage you needed either a good backing or sufficient strength to protect yourself, else slave traders would enslave you and sell you to the highest bidder.

“Wooow”[Luna]

While Luna was hypnotized by the tiny flame in Davron’s palm, Flora was seized with ambition! Flora couldn’t fall behind her little brother.

“I will awaken too and become a magician!”[Flora]

“Me too!”[Luna]

“Hahaha of course! We should form an adventurer party when we grow up!”[Davron]

“Is there a place for your poor mother too?”[Ellena]

“Obviously! We will find a cure for mom’s mana paths and then we can earn big money and buy a lot of meat!”[Flora]

After dreaming and planning their sweet future, Davron and his family went back to their house.

Davron ate dinner and went to sleep, which he deserved after this emotional rollercoaster of a day.

–

3 days passed after Davron’s first steps as a mage.

Sitting by his usual creek, the young mage came to a ridiculous idea. He wanted to cast a magic spell by himself, without the help of the Magic Network.

Davron had already a rough idea how to form the runes and the magic circle, but he still needed to test it out.

First, he needed to find out how to form a rune.

After countless attempts and with the help of AIS, Davron figured out how to form runes. At first, he created a mana string inside himself and then he tried to use the mana string to form the rune.

As he didn’t cast any spells and with the mana string being inside him, he didn’t waste any mana.

With the help of AIS, Davron formed a rune and then pushed it outside. The result was a rune flowing on Davron palms. While the rune was visible, the mana string was not. Davron noticed, that it costed him a bit of mana to keep it outside.

Then he tried to form the rest of the runes inside him. Every rune had its own mana string.

Davron pushed them outside and tried to form the right magic circle. After he formed the magic circle, which was floating above his right palm, he powered it with his inner mana.

BOOM

The mana circle exploded!

Luckily, it was a rather mild and small explosion.. but still, his hand felt painful.

“Ouch!”[Davron]

Davron ran to the creek to drip his hand into the cool water.

“Nah, I should stop for today”[Davron]

–

The next days, Davron tried multiple times to form the spell by himself.. until it succeeded!

“Heureka!”[Davron]

In his hand was a tiny flame.

“I finally managed to do it!”[Davron]

He felt good, having cast a spell by himself, without the help of the Magic Network.

“Hmm, I wonder if I can increase the output..”[Davron]

Usually, mages couldn’t decide how powerful the spell would be. Every spell casted with the Magic Network had a predefined strength. This meant there was no individuality. All flames created by the same flame spell, were identical, no matter which mage had casted it.

“Ah, let’s just try it”[Davron]

Davron increased the mana input and the flame grew.. till it exploded.

“Fuck! You fucking piece of shit ahhh”[Davron]

He ran to the creek! It was his holy oasis, after having his spells explode on him.

This time it was a lot more painful for Davron. He even got some burns!

“I won’t give up!”[Davron]

Davron experimented for the next days. He used both his abilities to the maximum, trying to decipher the runes and how exactly they worked. He liked the research and having his own spells under his own control.