Scholar of Magic (Art of the Adept #3) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,157

clothes, a pair of trousers and a light tunic. A pair of boots and a belt completed his attire, and he was dressed, though he felt strangely light without his customary under-the-tunic brigandine. He would have to order another made once everything returned to normal.

That done, he went to his desk and did a quick mental assessment of his resources. Two potions of regeneration, eighteen blood-cleanse potions left, twenty vials of alchemical fire, and a foolish amount of white phosphorous. He also had his armor and weapons, which he summoned and checked briefly. One sword was badly nicked, so he spent a moment to sharpen it with a spell, then sent it back to storage.

There was still a vampire in a jar, but until the renovations were done, he couldn’t do much with it. He readied an Ethelgren’s Illumination and closed the curtains to the bedroom before summoning the jar to check its contents. His heart was pounding, but the jar was still sealed and seemed otherwise intact. Keeping the spell in hand, he untied the twine, then removed the cloth covering the jar. Nothing jumped out, and when he glanced inside, he saw that the pile of pieces had reunited into a whole—an emaciated body lay within.

One eye stared up at him, but the creature seemed too weak to move. He replaced the cloth and tied the jar shut again, speaking to it all the while. “Wait a while longer and I’ll feed you, but don’t think of leaving the jar. The sun is out.” Then he sent the creature back into storage.

He felt better after assessing everything, so he brought out his journal and began his daily ritual of running through each spell he could cast, one by one. That didn’t take long, and afterward he moved on to the new spell he was working on acquiring, the iron-body transformation.

An hour of that left him a little frustrated, but he knew it was all part of the process. The spell was slightly more complicated than Selene’s Solution, and he’d only managed to master one other eighth-order spell at that point, so it was reasonable that it would take him a while to get the hang of it. The question is whether I’ll be able to use it before I get turned into a pincushion for fangs again.

With that done, it was time for his more repetitive practice, thought that seemed almost pointless now that he was beginning to reflex cast the force-lance spell. Being able to cast the spell unconsciously was great, but he wouldn’t feel truly comfortable until he could also count on being able to do so deliberately. But once I can do that, which spell should I start working on next? Getting to the point of reflex casting took a lot of time and practice, so choosing a spell he would need to cast quickly and often was important before investing the effort.

The problem was that he had a lot of useful spells. The chameleon spell would be a great choice, but so would the unlocking spell, or the wind-wall. Or hell, even the climb spell. Then again, a larger defensive spell might be best. The force-dome used a lot of turyn, but if he was faced with a large scale attack, it might be the only option for defense, and it would be a lot easier to learn to reflex cast than the iron-body spell would be.

“After a hundred years or so, most of the spells you use frequently get to the point where they’re instinctive.” Arrogan had told him that, and he suddenly wondered what his future self might be able to do. Future Will could probably handle this whole vampire problem without breaking a sweat, he thought enviously. If only he were here instead of me.

Drawing the curtains, Will opened one of the windows and looked outside. There was a tree about twenty feet from the bedroom, so he took aim and began practicing on it with the force-lance, trying to remove individual leaves. The spell was coming together in less than a second now, but it still refused to let him cast it with merely a thought.

Glancing down, he saw the laborer he had spoken with that morning staring up at him curiously. Will smiled and waved broadly, causing the fellow