After finishing his breakfast and thinking about whether to synthesize a new spell or a new element, Lee comes to a decision.

Other than my healing spells, I don’t think any of my spells combine too well. Maybe Icicle Spear and Glacial Cascade could be good as well.

Sitting down at his table, Lee grabs his elemental combination list from his Hidden Cache and reviews it.

1. Fire + Earth = Magma
2. Fire + Water = Steam
3. Fire + Air = Smoke
4. Fire + Light = ???
5. Fire + Dark = ???
6. Earth + Water = Mud
7. Earth + Air = Dust
8. Earth + Light = Life
9. Earth + Dark = ???
10. Water + Air = Ice
11. Water + Light = ???
12. Water + Dark = Cold
13. Air + Light = ???
14. Air + Dark = Void
15. Light + Dark = ???

Expert: Glacial, Explosion, Ash

Master: Cataclysm.

Sighing, Lee drops the letter onto the table. Time to decide what I want and for some guessing.

I don’t have the fire element; I should see if it’s possible to obtain it with another mana infusion or not.

Earth and Light made Life, so Earth and Dark might make Death or something similar?

Water and Light… I don’t have any real idea what that would be, maybe Reflection or something?

Air and Light is another combination that I don’t have any solid guess for.

Light and Dark are polar opposites, so another that I don't have much of an idea for…

Lee, realizing that he pretty much got nowhere after thinking for a few minutes, decides to think about what kind of spell he actually wants.

A movement spell would be nice and would allow me to travel much faster in the future. An offensive spell might be another option; I really only have projectiles at the moment; maybe something else could be made.

While pondering about spell creation, a sudden thought entered Lee’s brain. This is a world of magic; surely there is new scientific magical knowledge to be learned to create spells that I don’t have the knowledge for… like enchanting.

Writing down a note on a piece of paper to remind himself of learning enchanting, Lee looks at the elements he knows of but doesn’t have. Fire, Magma, Steam, Smoke, Mud, Dust, and Void.

Ignoring the Fire combinations, Lee thinks about how these elements could be used for spells.

Mud could be used to alter the terrain to my advantage, could I also maybe shoot balls of mud to slow and muck enemies? It would probably require having earth around like my Earthen Strike spell.

Dust might be able to block lines of sight and maybe make enemies choke on the dust in the air.

Void… has all sorts of potential. Creating a vacuum could create pockets of nothing to enable no air resistance for projectiles or catch enemies off guard with invisible zones of nothing. Maybe some sort of black hole? I like the sound of that. Grinning at the thought of creating black holes, Lee came to a conclusion. Using Arcane Synthesis; Lee attempted to create the void element.

Suddenly, the familiar breeze of Air and the unnatural feeling of the darkness of Dark emerged from Lee’s mana, swirling and converging towards one another in a dance of… nothing.

Lee couldn’t ever conceptualize the feeling of ‘Nothing’ when he thought of nothing; he thought of endless black, that was not nothing. The nothing feeling that Lee got from Void was unexplainable. Lee sat there for a few minutes, mind trying to comprehend nothing as it truly was.

Slowly, Lee stood and got ready to leave for the clinic and stop by the consortium's training room. Leaving his small house, Lee made his way to the clinic to collect the spellbook and get information on his lecture.

Arriving at the clinic, Lee made his way toward Anya’s office. Knocking on the door, Lee waited until he heard a response. “Come in.” Entering the room, Lee spots Anya reading from a stack of paper on her desk; he smiles and says, “I got your letter.”

Anya looks up from her paper, returning the smile. “Perfect timing.” She reaches down to the side of her desk and takes a small key that was worn around her neck, and unlocks the side drawer, revealing a thick tome. The thick tome looked hefty but was beautiful. Silver filigree lined the edges of the white leather, which encased the gilded golden pages within. It had a beautiful silvery metal chain affixed by the top and bottom of the spine.

“I thought you said it could hold eight spells? That looks a lot more than eight to me!” Lee exclaimed, seeing the thick, beautiful, and easily twenty-pound book.

Anya barks out a short laugh. “You think a single page is going to teach someone a spell and make it reusable?” She slaps the top of the book like a car salesman making their sales pitch. “This book right here will outlive you by a long time. Resistant to nearly all damage and enchanted with self-repair and cleaning. It only cost us an extra few gold pieces to make it look good, so we went ahead and did that for the first healing spellbook ever created!” Anya is smiling and extremely happy with the outcome of the spellbook.

Looking over toward Lee, Anya changes topics. “The lecture is tomorrow at noon in the consortium’s lecture hall. After your lecture, those who can learn from the spellbook will meet with you and learn from it. Learning from the spellbook takes some time, varying from person to person mildly. Please put your healing spells into it today when you get a chance.” Anya offers over the tome by the chain, not seeming to struggle with the weight.

Reaching out, Lee grabs the chain and takes the spellbook from her, identifying it as he does so.

Raising his eyebrow, Lee looks at Anya. “What the fuck is Soul-Binding?”