"Here it is," Vaan spoke as he took out a book from the stash of books he had brought into his room from the library.
'Easy but Practical Instant Spell Patterns.'
It was a book written by a 7th Circle Advance Mage, Morgana Ziderwall. One of the few exceptional advanced Mages who didn't belong to the Vesta Family.
It was a basic level book that helped mages tackle their biggest weakness.
Mages are known to have strong Fire Power, in wars, mages are used as damage dealers that could deal with thousands of soldiers on their own. Even though the magic has fallen, none of the 4 Kingdoms stopped cultivating mages because they simply cannot afford to. Mages are just that important, even if they have become weaker.
However, as important as they may be, Mages have a big weakness.
Their weak defense.
It is said that once an enemy gets close to a mage, the mage is as good as dead.
It wasn't a big problem before since mages usually battled together with tanks protecting them while they cast magic. However, as the God of Magic stopped answering his believers and all other forces turned against Mages, the mages lost their layer of protection and had to fight others themselves.
No matter how strong, a mage was bound to die once the enemy gets closer. Swordsmen and assassins became a mages' nightmare.
That was when the Archmage, Alienora Vesta invented Instant Spells.
Elemental stones which were found in nature contained pure, raw Mana, at first, Mages used them to absorb Mana, it was faster than simply absorbing the Mana from the air, however, Archmage Alienora invented a completely new method to use the Elemental Stones.
An ingenious way that soon became the hope for the Mages and a nightmare to their enemies.
Storing Magic Spells inside the Elemental Stones.
Basic Magic Patterns were engraved in Elemental Stones, making it so that just with a little bit of Mana, the Magic Spell engraved into the Elemental Stones is instantly activated using the Mana stored inside the Stone without any casting time.
That meant, whenever a mage was in danger, he could simply activate an Instant Spell to defend himself. And it wasn't just stuck to simple spells like fireball or earth shield.
The more Elemental Stones were used, the stronger the spell would be.
After more research, even spells like instant teleportation started being engraved into these Elemental Stones, but of course, they required a huge number of Elemental Stones that normal mages cannot even dream to have.
Anyways, with the invention of Instant Spells, the mages' biggest weakness, the time they needed to cast a spell, was removed, the instant spells created by Alienora Vesta were one of the biggest factors why leaders of other forces couldn't defeat her.
Although they were fighting just her, she, who had already stored most of her spells in the Elemental Stones, could cast countless absurdly strong spells at the same time.
It was as if the leaders of enemy forces were fighting against many Alienora Vestas at the same time.
That was just how strong the instant spells were.
Of course, this method also had its downsides, the number of Elemental Stones was limited. Other than Alienora and some other top mages, no other mages had enough Elemental Stones to store most of their spells.
Also, the Elemental Stones weren't renewable either, after a set number of uses, their efficiency in storing Mana decreases and gets to the point where they can't be used anymore.
Alienora and other mages couldn't use these stones recklessly. They had to be careful.
However, it was still an undeniable fact that after the God of Magic's silence, the invention of Instant Spell was what brought the mages to a position where they could hold off their own against other forces.
And what was the best part?
Unlike the normal spells, where a Mage has to interpret the Magic Pattern for a said Magic Spell on their own and cannot just simply copy other mage's patterns, Instant Spells had no such limitation.
As long as the pattern a mage engraves is valid, it could be used.
What did that mean?
It meant that if one had enough Elemental Stones and knows the required Magic Pattern, one could even cast Archmage Alienora's Spells.
Of course, the only family all over Agresia who had the knowledge and resources to do something like this was the Vesta Family. This was why the Vesta Family stood tall and strong even after 5000 years had passed.
This was also one of the reasons why other forces were eyeing the Vesta Family's treasury. The spells left by Archmage Alienora that were powerful enough to fight against all the forces in the world together,
Who in the world would not want something like that?
Anyways, all of this was still not something the current Vaan should be concerned with.
He only wanted a few defense and attack instant spells that could help him whenever he is in trouble.
And of course, he had already chosen the Instant Spells he wanted to engrave into the Elemental Stones.
'Instant Burn.'
'Ignispike Pursuit'
'Earth Fort'
'Heal'
Out of these spells, Heal and Instant Burn needed 10 Elemental Stones each. Ignispike Pursuit and Earth Fort were comparably cheaper and only needed 5.
So out of the 100 Elemental Stones he had received, Vaan was planning to use 30 already.
The required patterns for all these spells were given inside the book he had gotten.
First, Vaan wanted to engrave Ignispike Pursuit, it was an instant spell that creates a 3 Meter long Fire Spear that pursued the set target until it hits it.
Yes, an absolute hit spell with firepower far higher than what his current Fire Spike combined with [Speed] and [Burn] had.
Vaan then took out another set of Elemental Stones from his drawer, however, unlike normal Elemental Stones, which were clear, shiny, and transparent like a huge diamond, these were translucent with a milky texture.
These were the used Elemental Stones which were absolutely useless now. Mages used these to practice engraving before doing it on the actual stones.
Which a determined look on his face, Vaan quickly took out an Engraving Pen, then, he absorbed the surrounding Mana, circulated the Mana throughout his body, and infused the Mana into his Engraving Pen before starting to engrave the required patterns for the instant spell, Ignispike Pursuit,
However, right as he began,
"Krrriiiiii~~"
