Chapter 10 Synergy Like a Boss

We had made it back to my dorm room after making a quick stop by Marsha's room to pick up some gym clothes. In order to insure that Marsha had the best chance of survival, any extra fitness we could achieve would be idea, even if it wasn't a whole lot considering we only had a week. Further I was hoping to train her in some way such as myself by having her gain better manna control by slowly using manna while straining her body. It was difficult but clearly effective based off my results.

I decided I wouldn't teach her about mixing spells together yet as I hadn't even started mastering that skill yet. Perhaps if we both survive I would work with her more on this later. For now though getting the basics down was the best we could do.

"Marsha, what I am about to tell you will change how you use magic. You can speak of this to no one or it could get not only you killed but also myself. It is a form of magic this world hasn't quite seen yet."

I warned Marsha one last time to make sure she understood the potential dangers of being found out. I then explained to her and told her the true names for her spells instead of the ones Octavius gave her. She looked absolutely shocked. I had her practice the difference between the two spells to show her the proof.

While she already knew Octavius spell she was able to call it out loud shortly using one manna making a small fireball the size of a baseball that fizzled out in her hand. However, after some concentration focusing on the new word for her fire spell she was able to call it out using one manna and almost doubling the size of the ball.

Not only that but the heat emmanating off the ball was more intense than any one manna spell should have been. "What is going on?" I asked Lilly?

Lilly said, "She has a strong soul. By sticking to her ideals and practicing what little magic she has her soul is easily a well evolved level 3 soul. Perhaps training her won't be so bad if you can use her to provide you with protection. Make sure she cannot use your teachings against you."

With that Lilly went quiet again. She still had no desire to help me train Marsha. Lilly felt she was interfering with the human race enough by training me just so she could live. I was on my own here.

I then taught Marsha the proper wind spell. When she used it, a great gust of wind blew out of her hands. Raw and not incredibly accurate. With practice it would be great to protect herself from lower level fireballs.

After she had grown accustomed to using these spells I asked her if she knew any other spells, perhaps some she may have learned in school that required a steady supply of manna over time. She did have one spell. It was a small healing spell that would increase one person's regenerative ability by 10 percent.

Based off how she described it she could use it for a total of ten minutes before getting running out of manna herself. She said if she wanted to though, she could lower the effectiveness of the ability to about 2% allowing her to use it indefinitely until her soul became exhausted.

With this we were able to start our next step of training of maintaining spells while exercising. I explained the gist of the training and how she would need to utilize her spell on herself at a constant rate.

Making a wild guess based off what Marsha had told me, I guessed this spell to work at the 10% regenerative property took roughly four manna a minute and that Marsha contained around roughly 20 manna to work with. Her regeneration was incredibly low due to not using constant practice with her magic. That being said she at least understood the basics of soul exhaustion and knew how to monitor herself to keep from over extending her soul with the use of magic and collapsing like I did last week in the shower.

After our workout we decided to call training quits for the night to practice study on our own. Afterall I needed to start working on my spell synergy if I wanted to get stronger.

Lilly explained to me in my dorm that when you cast a spell there were a few ways to change it up. Modifying the wording of the spell would affect its properties as well as how effective it was with the soul it was working with. Further, you could also combine together different spells and wording to create a combination effect which Lilly called synergy. Lastly, there was the amount of manna used, the strength of the soul, and the intent of the caster. Manna use was simple. The more manna, the more spell power. A stronger soul could get a stronger spell from less manna. Intent was where things became more interesting.

Before when I had thrown a fireball, my intent was to throw fire. However with a strong enough will, I could instead spread the fireballs fire out into a small fire wall that could be used for minor blocking purposes. While this wall in theory would not be as strong to block fire as say using the wind spell, it would still be good practice as in more advanced forms of magic intent would become crucial. Even then Lilly warned that at some point a spell will have its limits and intent cannot overcome it.

The first challenge I faced was being able to combine one manna of fire with one manna of air spell. These two spells were taught to everyone in school before I came here. However, due to the danger of teenagers using uncontrolled magic, most everything was taught in theory. Some people were even able to learn basic telekinesis and basic body enhancement spells. When I asked Lilly how their body enhancement spells were different from mine she told me that they could only enhance one part of their body at a time for a very short moment and that it cost a lot more manna.

Further my enhancement spell had the benefit of recovery added onto a full body boost so that the gains in my physical conditioning would be able to increase the more I was able to utilize my spell. After learning more about my modification spell I asked if I could combine it together with either the wind or fire spell.

Lilly mentioned that I could but that in order to fully utilize this combo, I would need to be able to combine at least 3 spells together to fully gain a benefit and that I was far to weak right now. That is why my focus began on combining the wind and fire spell.

It was not going great so far. Lilly told me the combo linker to the spells was to add the spell link "a" in between each spell. However, the challenge came with controlling the release of manna. After saying the first spell, the manna immediately wanted to rush out but strong control was needed to link it together. Thus the spell spoke looked like, 'fayeraar.' The spell could also be cast as 'arafayer' however that would heat the air first.

Spell synergy worked by using the first word as the main spell, the a as a chain to combine, and the second spell as the extra effect. Getting the spells to chain was the hardest part and without knowing it was even possible was why no one in the world besides the Prophet and Apostles knew they could even do this.

After wasting a bunch of manna and having to let it regenerate, I was beginning to become exhausted. I had one more try in me tonight before I needed to go to bed. I spent a few minutes letting my manna regenerate and tried one last time.

A fireball the size of my head came out of my hands then immediately dispersed into a windblown stream of fire to the ceiling charring the white tile above me. I was panting but I had finally been able to achieve it. The results were extraordinary. This was far more powerful than even a basic 3 manna fire spell. Not only was the ball bigger and had I thrown it the explosion would have been more powerful, I was able to release a short raging flamethrower from my hand.

When I formed the spell I didn't want to toss the ball and in my panic I wanted the fireball to dispel quickly and without explosion. Because of that, the fire went from the ball and streamed out in front of me. With just this little bit of intent I was already able to change how my spell would work. I now had to attacks in my arsenal. An explosive fireball as well as a flame thrower. One for long distance and an attack for short distance.

Most common people didn't know many attack spells. The majority were weak telekinesis and body amplification as well as a few fire and wind. The problem with that was wind was more defensive and fire was dangerous up close due to the explosive nature of the fireball. With this I would be the only one in the training class to have an up close attack. I needed to perfect this immediately!

Not only this but Lilly told me that once I learned how to modify both spells to function with my soul perfectly, the power would again drastically increase. For once I felt like I had a legitimate chance to make things happen. I felt like I could not only change myself but maybe even have the power to affect others around me.

I couldn't wait to sleep so I could continue to train tomorrow.

Chapter Title "Like a Boss" by Lonely Island