Chapter 77: Dark Forest Preparations (5)

"Lighted One, when you said early, I didn't think that this was what you meant," Pagan said with half-closed eyes. The sun had barely even risen, and Lucius was already doing his daily morning routine.

"Finally awake, huh? Took you long enough, I must've woken you up seven times," Lucius grunted as he tried his best to walk bi-pedaly. He could now walk several steps, even with his tail disrupting him.

"Call out your crux," he ordered, dropping to his regular quadrupedal stance.

"Okay," Pagan yawned, calling out his crux with familiar ease.

"Now, take a few steps back," Lucius ordered after, taking a few steps back as he said this. Pagan obliged and moved several steps back as well, till there were about two meters away from each other.

"I want you to use your pulse to inspect me from there, I'll try to do the same," Lucius called out, before sending out a pulse.

It took him a few tries, but after putting a bit of energy into it, he successfully covered a radius of 2 meters with a single pulse.

Pagan on the other hand was incapable of doing it. Try as he may, his pulses just seemed to dissipate after a radius of 1 meter was passed.

"I don't get it. Am I not putting in enough power?" Pagan asked, now fully awake.

"I don't think so. I think it has to do with the size of your crux, yours is smaller than mine," Lucius said, pointing towards his crux.

Their cruces were indeed of very different sizes, Lucius's was now the size of his pupil, whereas Pagan's was only visible due to its luminosity.

"But, that's just a theory, we still have to do a few more tests to make sure. Let's move a bit further away from the camp, I want to test a few more things out," Lucius said, before moving just outside of the camp's boundaries. Close enough to react if the camp was attacked, but so far as to not pose a threat to it with their magic.

"Now we're going to test solar burst," Lucius said, to which Pagan nodded with excitement.

"Wait! Wait! Let me step back first," he warned, nearly getting caught in Pagan's insanity.

"Oh, right," Pagan replied shyly. Once Lucius was a safe distance away, Pagan cast solar burst. The spell was like a ball of white energy engulfing an entire area. Now that Lucius had gotten a look at it, it seemed more like an incinerating attack than an explosive one. Though its quick expansion did allow it to be defined as 'explosive'

~Around a 1-meter radius,~ Lucius noted as he inspected the scorch marks on the floor. ~And not much heat was emitted from it,~ he continued, touching the soil.

Though he did notice, that not a single blade of vegetation could be spotted around the area.

"Stand back," Lucius said once he was done with his analysis.

"Further," he called out, noticing that Pagan was still too close. After there was at least a distance of 3 meters between the two, Lucius cast solar burst.

His solar burst had equal qualities of explosiveness, and incineration, expanding a good amount of heat as it was cast. His scorch marks traveled a little over 2 meters in radius, and even some vegetation that was not caught in the initial blast had been burnt a little.

"Is it because of the difference in our cruces again?" Pagan asked.

"Maybe..." Lucius replied thoughtfully. "Pagan, when you're casting the spell, what image do you have in your mind?" he asked after a moment of thought.

"The solar burst you first cast," Pagan replied.

"I see..." ~Perhaps that's another thing. How you imagine the spell seems to have an effect on its qualities. If it was a matter of power difference, I'd expect the radius, and intensity of the two spells to be different. But the difference in quality has to arise from some difference in spell casting,~ Lucius thought to himself.

Of course, he understood that these were all the theories of an amateur 'mage' if he could even call himself that.

~And I can't very well tell him to imagine a supernova if he's never even seen one,~ hed realized, before moving on to the next phase of his test.

"Next I want to test the destructive interference you were using the other day," he called out.

"Destructive what?" Pagan asked, clearly confused.

"Try to inspect me," Lucius answered briefly, to which Pagan obliged. Two quick pulses were sent in quick succession, to which Lucius replied with overwhelming pulses of his own.

"Again," Lucius called out, and once again Pagan sent out two quick pulses. This time Lucius blocked them with weaker versions, trying to match their energy levels exactly. Though he found that his were now slightly weaker, and Pagan was able to get a somewhat sloppy reading of his status.

"Again," Lucius called out. He modified his pulses a little more, getting closer to perfection this time, though it was still not quite there.

~More practice and I'll probably get it within a few days. Though I half expected that a new spell would be added to the index. Does this not count as a spell? Or am I doing something wrong?" Lucius thought to himself before turning to Pagan.

"Again?" Pagan asked.

"No I think that's enough," Lucius replied

~What's missing?~ he wondered, sitting on the ground to think things over. ~What was consistent every time I gained a new spell? What occurred before the spell was activated?~ he tried to reason, and after just a few moments it came to him.

~Visualization! It always starts with visualization. I have to have a mental image of the spell to create it,~ he realized.

~Okay, let's try this,~ he thought, letting a pulse out of his crux. However, he slowed it down as much as he could, till it was almost static.

In his mind, he visualized a force field that he had seen from some sci-fi movie he couldn't remember the name of and imagined that the pulse he had created manifested itself as that force field.