Training Before The Mission I

"You called?" Arc responded in less than a second after Kies tapped the bracelet.

"Yeah."

"It looks like you are back in demon territory. Did some issues arise that made it so that you could not go back to the tower?"

"Sort of."

"I see. It is a shame, but another opportunity may arise in the future. Anyway, why did you call for me then?"

"I think there's something wrong with my memory. I keep forgetting things." Kies explained to Arc how he had been forgetting a lot of things recently, mainly of the life he had back in Silverfield. By the time he finished telling Arc everything, he had made it to the hut in the middle of the forest. "And it also seems that my emotions are going away," he added at the very end.

Kies had gotten so used to the bare trees in the undead forest that he had to take a moment to adjust to seeing all the green around him again. Judging from the sun's position, it was around late afternoon. And since it was spring, the birds were chirping and overall making a huge ruckus throughout the forest with so many of them singing at the same time.

"That is the first time I heard something like this happen with an Aeos. I will look into it. Is there anything else you want to ask me?" Arc asked.

"Are there any requirements to creating a spell?"

"Depends on what kind of spell you want to create. But generally, creating a spell requires a lot of trial and error because you need to find the right words for the spell to do exactly what you want. Even a single word or phrase can change the entire spell."

"Oh, that makes sense." After listening to Arc's explanation, Kies understood why his spell felt so wonky. When he had used the wind lance spell earlier, it felt really unstable, as if the spell might suddenly stop working any moment. That was probably the reason why the lance exploded after he attacked Ammine with it.

"From what you are saying, I am guessing that you tried to create your own spell?"

"Yeah I tried, but it feels like there is something wrong with it." To show Arc what he meant, Kies chanted the wind lance spell. The spell only lasted for a few seconds before the winds started shaking furiously and the spell exploded.

"The second line of your chant is very wrong," Arc pointed out the problem with the spell after seeing the spell only a single time. "You are asking for the winds to take to the skies when you intend for them to stay as a lance."

"So what should I change it to?"

"Try, 'take form and pierce through my foe,'" Arc suggested.

"That sounds way too similar to another spell. Are you sure it will work?"

"What spell is it similar to?"

"Winds, gather, form, and pierce." Kies demonstrated Wind Javelin to Arc.

"I see. It makes sense for that spell to sound similar since the two spells are very similar to each other."

"Are they? Oh wait, they are." Wind Javelin and the wind lance spell were in fact very similar to each other. The shapes they took were nearly identical so it made sense for the spells to have nearly identical chants too.

Kies held his hands out and tried chanting the spell with Arc's second line. "Winds, heed my call and serve my will. Take form and pierce my foe." The winds gathered to Kies' hands and took the form of a lance. But unlike the lance with Kies' chant, this lance didn't feel like it might fall apart at any moment.

Kies went over to a nearby tree and slashed at its bark several times before driving the entire lance through the tree. *Crack* The tree tilted towards him and fell. Kies hurriedly moved away from the tree to avoid being crushed by it. The top of the tree almost fell on top of the hut. It was only a few inches from it. "Maybe I should have chosen a tree that was further away." He was lucky that the tree didn't hit the hut as revenge for cutting it down.

"The 'take form' part is required if you want the winds to be a certain shape. Many other types of magic also use the phrase 'take form' a lot in their spells. As for what shape or form the spell takes, it depends on what is said after it. You can even tell your magic to take a certain shape if you really want it to," Arc explained to Kies.

"So if I tell it to take the form of a sword, then it will become a sword instead of a lance?"

"Yes, though it will be a strange-looking sword with that chant."

"Really?" Kies tried chanting the spell again, this time changing the words a bit to create a sword instead of a lance. The winds flew to his hand and took the shape of a needle-like sword. Kies drove the sword through the stump of the tree that he just cut down, drilling a small hole in it. Seeing how sharp the sword was, Kies tried slashing at the stump with it, but the winds dispersed upon impact with the stump.

It seemed that the sword was only good for stabbing. It probably had something to do with how the original form was a lance, a weapon whose primary purpose is for stabbing enemies. Regardless, Arc was right, it was one strange sword.

"That form is not as efficient as the lance," Arc commented, though Kies already knew so too. If he was going to stab someone, a lance was probably the choice out of the two, especially when both of them weighed nothing.

Kies tried experimenting with other variants of the spell and found that no matter what form he asked the winds to take, it would end up being skinny every single time. After concluding that the lance was indeed the best form for that spell to take, Kies moved on to trying to create new spells with this newfound knowledge. But before he could, Arc interrupted him and said, "Before you start trying to create a bunch of new spells, I must warn you that it is very dangerous."

"What is?" Kies asked for clarity, not understanding what Arc was referring to when saying that "it" was dangerous.

"Creating spells is dangerous."

"Really? How?"

"There are many reasons. You may not always know the outcome of the spells and end up hurting yourself, and also, you do not know how much magic they require to cast, so if they require more magic than you have, you will exhaust your magic pool and die. Those are just two of the many reasons, so be careful," Arc warned Kies.

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