Scholar of Magic (Art of the Adept #3) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,88

his notes. He could try it out once and then keep it prepared for use that night. As long as he only needed it once, that would be fine. The time required to learn it, though, meant he’d have to forego learning anything else but one or two of the simpler fire spells.

He thumbed through the other book he had ‘borrowed’ from the school library, Fire Spells for Fun and Profit. The author turned out to have quite a sense of humor, though the man had apparently not thought much of using fire in battle.

Fire is arguably the least imaginative form of attack. Easily seen, easily countered, dangerous to self and enemy alike, it is the first choice of fools and novices. To master it, one should learn to use it as a tool first, rather than for battle, and for battle it should generally be one’s last option.

“Damn,” muttered Will. “He didn’t beat around the bush.” He flipped through the pages and then went to the index in the back to find the page numbers for actual spells. He didn’t have time to spend on philosophy lessons.

He found a variety of different spells, some quite simple and others vastly more complicated. One that caught his eye was a spell that launched a small number of flaming spheres at an enemy, but when he turned to its page, it was fourth-order at least. He wouldn’t have time. Eventually he settled on a third-order spell called ‘bonfire.’ It was essentially an enhanced fire starter that included parameters to allow the user to start as well as maintain larger fires. It wouldn’t be much use in combat, but against an unmoving target it would be handy. He figured he could use it to get rid of vampire remains.

Maybe I should tell Janice not to worry about the ingredients for alchemical fire. I might not need them if I can use this spell. He’d have to bring it up when he saw her later.

With that decision made he turned to the third spell he needed to learn, the iron-body transformation. He had only glanced at it the day before, but it was as he remembered, hideously complex. It was also an old spell, and not officially rated for its difficulty, but he guessed it was at least eighth-order, or possibly even ninth. This one could take weeks, assuming I’m even able to manage it. He had only just succeeded with his first eighth-order spell that morning.

Will took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. It was easy to let things overwhelm him, but he’d learned to manage by breaking problems down into small pieces. Ethelgren’s Illumination was doable, so he would work until he had succeeded once, then prepare it for later. After that he would memorize the bonfire spell. It was simple enough he would be able to recreate it when needed. Once those two things were done, he would spend half an hour on the new iron-body transformation.

The trick with complex spell constructs was to approach them slowly and methodically. With Selene’s Solution he had done the same thing, familiarized himself, then spent a short period of time each day attempting to construct it. It was simply a matter of patience and perseverance. While most second-year students were still fussing over third- and fourth-order spells, he had just succeeded with an eighth-order spell.

Ethelgren’s Illumination took him a little longer than he had anticipated, but the bonfire spell took less. After his self-imposed hour of familiarization with the iron-body spell, he used his remaining time to run through his daily practice of forming and dismissing each spell he had learned up to that point, everything from the source-link to the sleep spell. Now that included Selene’s Solution as well. The point of the exercise was to ensure that he retained all the skills he had previously acquired.

Arrogan had told him that such a routine would eventually result in him being able to reflex cast almost anything he had learned, though it might take years, or even decades for the more complex spells. At the moment the only thing he could reflex cast was the point-defense shield, and that had proved enormously useful, having saved his life at least a dozen times already.

He even finished that routine with some