The previous day, I did some of the riskiest things I ever needed to do so far just for some food. But it was worth it, because this food was amazing, and with wise rationing it would easily last me a month in this room without having to leave.

  And now, I thought, I could delve deeper into actually doing Arcane Magic beyond moving things without touching them. I decided that the next piece of magic I was going to attempt was the illumination spell, since I never wanted to be in pitch black again after the staircase out of the dungeon. An illumination spell was also mechanically simple yet complicated to actually pull off.

  Instead of using mana paths, this time I need to create a somewhat spherical mana boundary, and then pushing it inward, as much as I could without feeling too much resistance, to pressurize the molecules inside. This should lead to many electrons in those associated atoms gaining energy and jumping to a higher energy level. Then, I would have to slowly let the sphere grow back outward, causing all those electrons to slowly fall back down to their ground state, which would in turn emit photons in every direction: therefore, light!

  With this knowledge in the back of my mind, I resonated with the mana and tried shaping it into a large sphere just around my orb. The larger the mana sphere, the more atoms that would be pressured together and the longer the spell would last. Of course, it takes a lot more energy if you try to use Focus Mana too far from your Focus, so I was satisfied with a mana sphere that was about the size of my Focus right now.

  I felt the mana formulate into a sphere around the orb. Now for the hard part, I thought. Furrowing my eyebrows in concentration, I tried pushing the mana sphere inward. However, my execution was clunky and the sphere deformed instead of pressuring and molecules. I realized that in order to actually make the sphere smaller and keep its shape, I would have to constantly push from all directions around the sphere equally. Though the energy required for this process was high, a light spell is primarily useful if you could hold it for a long time, and the light only comes out when you expand the sphere back slowly, and this part required a very low power allowing you to hold the spell for a long time.

  I spent a decent amount of my orb’s energy shrinking the mana sphere, and very lightly started to let go of it. Suddenly, there was a flash of light from the orb! Surprised for a moment, I lost my control over the spell and the sphere expanded back out extremely fast of its own volition due to the pressure from within. This caused a tremendous amount of light to shine out from the orb as well as a loud, hard “bang” sound, probably due to the intense pressure that was released in a short amount of time. After shaking off my disgruntlement, I decided that I should probably also note down side effects of casting spells incorrectly, since even those may have a purpose in some situations, and more knowledge is always good.

  After attempting the illumination spell again, this time holding control all the way, I stared in awe at the glowing orb in front of me. I watched until the spell wore off, or in other words, until most of the electrons already reached their ground energy state. Heart beating fast in excitement, I realized that casting the illumination spell the right way didn’t even take any significant amount of my orb’s total energy, and since the spell was so long and the rate of my orb’s energy absorption from its surroundings overshadowed the energy use from the orb, I understood that if needed, I could cycle the illumination spell indefinitely! Following this insight, I cast the spell again just for fun, before rearing up to spend the next month in this blissful state of learning Arcane Magic.

  …

  And so the days passed. I learned about the inner workings of various basic Arcane spells as I attempted them for the first time. I noted down the mechanics of each spell, what the side effects were of doing it incorrectly (or even just doing it -- I’m looking at you guys, Fireball and Rock Burst!), and how to actually cast it. When my food was running low again, I decided to put some of the magic that I learned to good use in order to prevent problems similar to what happened last time I left this room for food. I quickly read through my spell notes in order to make a mental strategy about what to do.

  Notes on Arcane Spells

  Wow, my work really paid off, huh? I thought, reliving my first experiences with each of these spells. And yes, I learned how to use the Energy Barrier before trying anything loud so that no one would hear me even if they were outside. I looked around the room, which at this point looked like the battleground of some amateur Mages. A large flat rock on the ground, a closet door covered in ash, cracks on the floor near the bathroom door, a table and its contents knocked over, and a whole lot of wet banners on the wall adorned Dabiva’s former lair.

  Again, I started laughing at the irony of my situation. I can probably do more magic than most people in this palace now! After about two months of intense learning, training, and practice, I don’t feel as vulnerable anymore. Though I realize that Arcane Magic is not a very instinctive fighting system and would only be effective when I am prepared or have a plan. Which is what I will do right now, I resolved.

  Since I need food, I have to go back to the servant’s food storage a decent distance to the right after leaving my room. I still need the bag to fit the food in, but I’ll keep the money here, I thought, since I deduced that the Oath that these servants made probably somehow restrict them from going against the Galamon family in any way, and accepting bribes from a shady person dressed like a servant probably counts against their Oath.

  Of course, I’ll take my orb staff as well, and this time I’ll make good use of it! I’ll walk towards the food storage room with a small rock in front of my face so no one would be able to recognize me if they randomly show up from the front. I’m counting on no one being behind my back because this part is pretty abandoned and the monthly cleaning already happened a few days back, if the servant walking past my room while I was making rocks was any indication. Now, I’ll quickly check to make sure no one’s walking up or down the stairs next to the room. If they are, I’ll quickly hide in another nearby room and chill in a closet until I hear them leave. If it’s all clear, I’ll create some rocks on the ground below the stairs going up so any person walking down them later either sees them and gives some reaction or slips on them. Both would alert to me that someone is there and I would run out to the nearby room and hide in a closet. I’ll also make water flow down the stairs to the floor below so that any person coming up gives some reaction or slips. Again, both would alert me of a person and again, I would perform my planned hiding maneuver.

  After I take as much food as I can without arousing suspicion, I will also take the rocks with me because someone may recognize them as magically created rocks. The water I’ll just leave there for some servants to clean up or slip on or whatever. Hopefully Selza slips on it, I snickered. But what would I do if someone comes up behind me later and sees me go into the Mage room?

  After mulling it over, I decided to simply cover the entire floor between the staircases in water to make it look like someone just spilled a tank of water without cleaning up. That should distract and slow people down enough for me to run back to the mage room, I thought. I would be able to hear anyone who reacted to the water in any way through the echo in the hallway, and I could, as planned, hide in a nearby room until I think they left.

  This is the ideal case where no one sees me, but if everything goes to shit, I will try tricking them into thinking I am a normal servant. Only if that doesn’t work would I fight, I decided.