While the Design stage was undoubtedly the most complex step of the Magical Method, as it required great talent and magical knowledge experience, the Experiment stage was the most dangerous.
This was where one would 'activate' the spell internally to find out if the sequence was stable. Here, if your Theory was extravagant and your Design sub-par, as well as filled with holes, you would be digging your grave more often than not.
For example, going back to the 'I want to cut off the heads of 100 men using the wind' example, one could have set it in the Design stage that wind blades would be released that randomly or specifically targeted the nearest 100 people.
However, a common mistake low-tier Journeymen with barely any talent/experience would make would be failing to exclude themselves!
As a result, one could easily end up as one of the '100 men' who would lose their heads!
As far as Darius was aware, the only ones who could bend the Laws of Faust to avoid Friendly Fire and strike their foes autonomously were those under the influence of the Supreme System, in other words, himself and his Branded Servants.
Even if one excluded themselves, they could easily have made a mistake in the flow of mana, leading to it erupting/blocking a certain channel.
This would obviously deal damage to the mage in question, and whether they could recover from it would depend on their resources as well as their resilience.
One would have to carry it out slowly and surely over time. There was no point in rushing it to hurt oneself, so what most did was akin to flipping on a simple circuit.
When a normal circuit was activated, the breaker was sealed and current was introduced. However since electricity moved faster than the human eye can follow, it was as if the circuit was suddenly filled at once.
In truth, this was mostly it.
However, only a fool would confidently fill the 'circuit' that made up their designed spell, for if they met an obstacle, the ending would be catastrophic.
Think of it as a Nascar racetrack. While the cars were going full speed around the small oval, if an obstacle appeared before them that they couldn't dodge, just how bad would the collision be?
Now compare that to a car moving at a steady speed of 10-20km/h around the same track. If an obstacle appeared, what would be the outcome?
Either they would swerve, since they were going fast enough - this depends on their reaction speed and the size/nature of the obstacle - or they would hit it, but the damage would be a dented bumper and some dissatisfaction.
This was why, despite there being so many trash spellbooks out there, the mages who made them hadn't died in the process. They usually spent weeks to months in this stage, carefully feeling it out until the 'main pathway' that the spell had to pass was safe.
Of course, if they ignored other side dangers that could be 'skipped' or 'ignored' this would create a faulty spell that would fail to be cast at times, cause backlash, or would be weaker than it had been intended.
The Verify stage was the next step after Experiment and was like an evolution. Where one had to activate the spell within their body to make sure there were no flaws, this stage basically required one to actually cast it outward to see how it manifested.
If one were to use a hypothetical scenario of manufacturing a car, then the Experiment stage would be turning the engine on to see if the fuel rods, exhaust, A/C, and power generator were working while the car stood in one place.
After the car was sparked and seemed to be able to stay on without any issues, one would naturally have to check if could accelerate, brake, and move well on the road. The Verify stage was just like that.
Technically it was not any less dangerous than the one that came before, but it was also shorter and easier. If the spell achieved the effects you wanted it to, it was good to go!
Of course, most mages had a large margin of error depending on their circumstances and talent. Otherwise, those flimsy spellbooks would never be able to see the light of day.
Sticking with the example of the wind spell cutting 100 heads, as long as it could cut 20 heads within a range of 50 meters, a high-tier Journeyman would be satisfied.
That seemed too low? One should know, the average Journeyman would be happy if he could slice of 2-5 heads within 5 meters of himself, much less the dregs who would create faulty spells that could barely work.
As for the Conclusion stage, it was obvious. Once everything was peachy, one would put an end to the spell creation process and append a name to their newly created spell.
Here, they could then pen it down into an Unused Spell Manual to create a portable and learnable version of their spell to either sell or use to teach their (Un)Official Apprentices or kin.
Theorize, Design, Experiment, Verify and Conclude. Five seemingly simple stages, but if even one was handled carelessly, it could easily cost you your life.
As one could expect, despite his advantages over many others, Darius didn't dare to play around. Over the past 5 years, Darius had created almost 10 unique spells that had required him to research and probe on many things.
Spatial Mark, what he used on the Dungeon Core in his territory, was one of them. Another one was Soul Sense, while his most prized creation to date was a horrific and unholy spell of the Spirit element called Soul Extraction.
As for its function, the name alone was enough of a giveaway.
He was surprised by how much talent he had with the Spirit and Spatial elements against all others, but he judged that it was likely due to the fact that he had used spatial spells and items the most, while his high Luck gave him stronger spiritual senses.
