My Servant System

Chapter 701 700: Hitting the Books

"Alright, I suggest giving these both a read, and checking out the middle passages of this book as well Kat. The techniques that you can learn inside here - while not directly made for enchanting - transfer over to it thanks to the complexity of mana control in the higher levels of spell casting. The primary thing that I think you should focus on is compression and control. Learn to simplify your runes down to the very smallest amount possible and figure out how to rein in your mana and let it loose according to your needs. Being able to control your mana down the most minute amount or extract a sizable amount in an instant can be really helpful for you. Seriously."

I nodded, looking down at the books she had handed me before focusing back on her as she added "I don't like giving out praise that often, nor saying things like this, but if you keep it up Kat, you'll reach the Arch Mage level soon, same with Leone. One of the best ways to see if someone is Arch Mage caliber is how well they can control their mana. At the end of the day, the arcane studies are deeper than an ocean and taller than the sky, and anyone who thinks they know a lot, knows nothing. Even someone as vaunted as an Arch Mage only truly knows the surface level of magic. Your journey starts here, and it is a long one."

Resting her hand on my shoulder, Kolia gave me a smile and finished saying "And that's not a bad thing whatsoever, Kat. Realizing and accepting that you have the ability and desire to improve - even on things that you deem yourself an expert at - is the best way to make more progress. There is always a better way to do something, a deeper meaning or understanding to be gleaned from the world around you."

Letting go, she picked up her own books and nodded to me before walking away, leaving me alone inside the library with those last words to mull over and contemplate, words that would be beneficial if I did what she asked.

To look deeper and search for hidden meanings inside things that seem simple, to try and learn what I can from the world and shape it into something beneficial for myself.

Of course, I wasn't about to become a terrible art critique who stared at a solid pink square and 'searched for the deeper meaning hidden beneath the troubled brushstrokes of the painter', but I could understand that there was meaning in everything; I just needed to realize if that meaning actually mattered in the long run.

Sitting back down, I leaned back into the chair and opened the first book, my eyes scanning the various words swiftly as I began to read, occasionally stopping and putting the writing into practice as I tried some of them out a few times.

The first was the one that I had asked Kolia about, and it was forming the mana into threads and weaving them around; apparently it had been popular in the distant past to help visualize everything better, and I gave it a try, letting my mana seep out of my fingers and keeping them connected to my fingertips, before watching as the wispy ethereal blue mana swished around beneath my fingers.

Concentrating on them, I began to will them into the shapes of runes and tried to cast a small spell with them, narrowing my eyes as I exerted my will over the mana that was still connected to me, even if it was outside of my body already.

Unlike with the normal methods used today, trying to shape the runes and keep them shaped after I managed to do so was difficult, but maintaining that shape proved to be a nice challenge that was clear with its benefits; forcing me to get better at controlling my mana even if it was outside of my body.

With todays magic, I could just trace the mana into the air and loosely connect them to myself, the rune floating in front of me and slowly - very slowly, but still doing so - leaking the mana used to form it into the air, losing its potency.

That was why casting a spell required speed to a certain degree, and why condensing your runes from just singular, basic runes to something combined was so important.

However, with this technique I needed to maintain focus on all ten threads, keeping them shaped and at the same potency of mana, so my control had to be stellar and my concentration immaculate.

Practical?

No, not at all, but as a training exercise for control and splitting your focus, it was superb.

The next potion of the book was dedicated to manipulating your mana depending on its element, in hopes of attuning yourself to your Core even more and making the flow far more natural then if you were to just keep using the mana normally.

Flow smoothly with the Water and storm out in a gale with the Wind, while my Ice would need to be a mix between the two, though trying to wrap my head around making my mana flow more attuned with Ice was something that I was struggling with a bit, since it had different forms..?

Sometimes my Ice was solid and en masse, while other times it was shards and small amounts of crystal that plummeted the temperature thanks to the innate chill each sliver of Ice Mana possessed.

Perhaps I just needed to practice that with my Water and Wind instead, to work on the foundations of my Ice Mana and seek improvements from there.

Each passage in the book was interesting, the author having lived multiple centuries ago and providing interesting views on questions that had been answered more 'recently', giving me a new prospective on things that I had taken for granted and showing me what used to happen to get the same result.

This first book - the more I read it, and the deeper I went into the older theories and ideas - was a treasure trove of knowledge that most would take for granted today, and reading it sparked more than just an interest in the olden days inside my mind; it made me think about how certain processes - like going from long strings of runes down to the simplified runes that we used today, or amplifying their power by putting them into a Ritual Circle instead of remaining in that string.

All of those questions on the processes we use today made me want to learn more, and I began to really understand what Kolia meant earlier; thinking you knew the answer to a question as open ended as magic was stupid, since that answer could always be better.

I also understood that that question could be simplified or complicated depending on what you were looking to do, and doing so made the answers you got wildly different; changing the question or searching for a new answer all led to the same thing: a deeper understanding and appreciation for the world of magic and the arcane.