Disciple of War Disciple of War (Art of the Adept #4) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,2

spell practice. The recent vampire disaster had underscored his need to improve his skills as quickly as possible, for every time it seemed that they were needed he found himself lacking in some way. No matter how quickly he grew it was never enough and after seeing Linus Ethelgren and Androv in action, he knew just how far he had to go before he would be at their level.

Arrogan had told him that most wizards needed a full century to mature and come into their power, although they continued to improve even after that. He’d also mentioned that most didn’t train the way Will did. When you expect to live several hundred years, time loses some of its urgency.

He didn’t expect to become as well rounded as a wizard with a century under his belt, but if he could at least expand his repertoire and strengthen his abilities, he might be better prepared the next time the world decided to come crashing down on his head.

First, he ran through every spell he’d learned, from the simplest to the most complex, preparing and dismissing them each in turn. That list now included all the spells in Arrogan’s old journal, plus a collection of force spells that he hoped would give him more flexibility in different situations. Force-walls, domes, half-walls, spheres, and even a traveling disk that Arrogan had told him about. To that he had also added a small selection of elemental spells, including the earth-and-air travel-disk that Arrogan had used when he didn’t want to tie up his force spell abilities.

The latest spell he had mastered was the iron-body transformation, though it was still difficult and time consuming for him to prepare. For the time being, it was definitely a spell he would keep prepared since it was unlikely he would ever manage to cast the spell in a high-pressure situation if he needed it.

Once he had gone through all those spells, he began practicing his other new additions. Although he had returned Battling the Darkness to the school library, Master Courtney had allowed him to retain the book long enough to copy out the spells it contained. Although the relic, Ethelgren’s Exhortation, had been destroyed, many of the spell effects that it had been able to produce were based on spells that Ethelgren had created.

Some of the most useful, at least in Will’s opinion, were the simplest, such as the illusory chime spell. The spell was named so because it produced several different chime tones that only the caster could hear, and they communicated whether someone nearby was using a chameleon spell or similar means of hiding, as well as the direction of the detected person. He also favored the silver-sword spell and the cloak-of-light spells, as well as Ethelgren’s favored attack spell, light-darts.

The cloak-of-light spell was only useful against vampires, but the silver-sword spell greatly enhanced the cutting and destructive power of any bladed weapon it was cast upon. The light-darts spell was similar to a force-lance, except that it had several options to increase its flexibility. For one, it was tuned such that it was effective against both demons and daylight-sensitive monsters like vampires; for another, it could be altered on the fly to fire up to five missiles at once. The spell had two main drawbacks, as far as Will could see: One, it wasn’t a force spell, so even if he eventually learned to reflex cast it, it would never be quite as quick to cast as his force-lance, and two, despite being tailored for demons and vampires, the spell could still kill humans. It wasn’t quite as devastating as the fist-sized hole a force-lance ripped through a body, but it still burned a finger-sized hole through flesh, which was lethal enough, depending on where it hit.

In the end, Will’s main reason for practicing the light-darts spell was because of its range. Being an elemental type spell, it didn’t require more turyn to use over long distances, and since the attack was a type of light, it reached its target near instantaneously, even if it wasn’t a force effect. With a force-lance he was limited to forty yards at best, and at that range he could only cast it a few times before being exhausted, due to the exponential increase in turyn cost, but with Ethelgren’s light-darts spell, he could potentially strike a target up to two hundred yards distant, if his aim was good enough.

From what Laina had told him, fire-bolts were limited to