Karl took a deep breath, his eyes firm as he nodded… On the vast plains outside the academy, the wind whistled, and green grass swayed.
Heng stood by, patiently watching his apprentice perform his first real spell practice.
Before this, he had meticulously taught Karl the most basic and representative offensive spell, the Fireball spell: its incantation syllables, gesture trajectory, and most importantly, the method of mental guidance to focus chaotic magic.
Karl followed the instructions, making slightly clumsy gestures and chanting the awkward ancient cosmic language.
He concentrated all his mental energy, trying to perceive, guide, and focus the chaotic magic that permeated the world.
However, the process was extremely difficult; the magic was like sticky glue.
Driven by his will, it flowed slowly, making it hard to condense and cast the spell successfully.
After dozens of attempts, what finally erupted from his fingertips was only a pitifully weak little flame.
The flame flickered a few times in the air before reluctantly extinguishing. This was even weaker than Geralt's Igni Sign… The difference was more than several times compared to the head-sized, scorching fireball that Heng had casually demonstrated earlier, which was enough to melt rocks and blast them into fragments.
The continuous failures made Karl frown deeply. He even doubted whether he possessed any talent for spellcasting, perhaps he was not suited for this path at all.
"Don't be discouraged, Karl," Heng's calm voice rang out, carrying a soothing power.
"The reason for this situation is very likely related to your unique physique.
"Your body's way of accommodating and reacting to magic is different from ordinary mages."
"This might make magic absorption and spell circuit construction more difficult, and you've only just started, so not being proficient is inevitable."
Heng stepped forward and personally corrected several subtle angles of Karl's gestures.
He also demonstrated the key ancient syllables again, emphasizing their unique resonance frequency.
"Pay attention here, raise your wrist a fraction more, and your mental guidance should be like a trickling stream, not a brute force impact… And this sound… the position of your tongue…"
As Karl adjusted according to Heng's instructions, he indeed felt that the invisible sense of obstruction from before had greatly diminished, and the magic seemed to become more obedient.
He re-immersed himself in practice, chanting spells again and again, outlining gestures, and guiding magic… Time on the plains quietly slipped away in focused repetition, from the scorching midday sun to the setting evening sun.
Heng watched the persistent Karl, estimated the time, and was about to speak to end today's lesson.
He was going to remind him that learning was not a matter of a day or two, and no apprentice could go from beginner to mastering a spell in half a day.
Just then, Heng's brow suddenly twitched slightly; he perceived that the already sparse chaotic magic in the surrounding environment.
It was gathering around Karl in an extremely slow, but definitely abnormal, manner.
This gathering method was very strange, overly calm, completely unlike the magical turbulence that should accompany the casting of a violent Fireball spell.
"Is it going to fail again?" This thought had just risen in Heng's mind.
Suddenly, with Karl as the center, the surrounding temperature sharply rose without warning, and the air in front of him distorted from the high heat.
Heng's expression changed, a hint of astonishment flashed in his eyes, and he abruptly looked at Karl in the field.
At this moment, Karl's expression was more focused than ever before, as if the entire world consisted only of him and the spell in his hands.
For the one hundred and second time, and the last time today, he accurately and completely finished the last syllable of the incantation, forming a perfect seal with his hands across his chest.
"Buzz!" In his open palms, sparks of fire emerged from thin air, no longer the faint glow from before.
Instead, they were scorching, active fire elements. These sparks rapidly gathered, collided, and merged.
Almost instantly, they expanded into a fist-sized, steadily burning, glowing orange-red fireball.
"He… he actually succeeded?!" A wave of surprise washed over Heng.
How long did it take him to master his first offensive spell? Over a month… which included the long process of familiarizing himself with incantations, practicing gestures, understanding magic, and guiding it.
And Karl, from encountering the incantation to successfully casting it, only took half a day. What kind of astonishing magical talent was this?
Although the scale of this fireball was far from what he could cast, its stability and contained heat had already met the standard.
Heng forcibly suppressed the shock in his heart, tried to maintain a calm expression, and even spoke with a perfectly timed word of encouragement: "Not bad, you've touched the threshold."
"But don't be complacent, you still have a lot to learn, and you're far from the level I was at when I first cast a spell back then…"
He said this also to temper Karl, to prevent him from becoming arrogant and complacent.
Upon hearing this, the joy that had just surfaced on Karl's face quickly receded, and he nodded solemnly.
He knew that Heng's magical attainments were extremely high, so if his teacher said so, he must not have mastered it deeply enough.
As Heng was about to ask Karl about his specific sensations during the spellcasting, in order to analyze it against the examples of ordinary mages, a sudden change occurred.
Karl's expression abruptly twisted, as if he was enduring immense pain.
He suddenly released his hands, and the newly formed fireball was unconsciously flung forward.
At the same time, he clutched his ears tightly with both hands, letting out a suppressed groan, his body slightly curling up from the piercing pain in his brain.
"Boom!" The fireball arced through the air and hit a large tree, thick enough for one person to embrace, in the distance.
Accompanied by a violent explosion, the tree trunk was instantly shattered, and wood chips flew everywhere.
A charred pit, over two meters in diameter, was left on the ground, and the soil at the edges of the pit even showed signs of melting.
However, no one was paying attention to the destruction caused by this fireball at the moment.
"Karl, what's wrong?" Heng anxiously took a step forward.
His first reaction was that Karl had made a serious mistake in spellcasting and suffered a magical backlash, a situation extremely dangerous for beginners.
"Ugh!" But Karl let out an even more painful roar, like a startled beast.
In his hearing, Heng's concerned inquiry was no less than a thunderclap exploding in his ears, making his brain throb and feel as if it would split open.
He suddenly lifted his head, and in his eyes, the originally deep pupils now emitted a terrifying, lava-like crimson glow.
His vision began to flicker and distort wildly, and the surrounding scenery rapidly switched between the real plains and an underground landscape.
What surprised him even more was that when he looked at Heng.
Heng's dark robe and underwear instantly became transparent, directly revealing the bones encased beneath.
Contracting muscles, wriggling internal organs, and distributed fatty tissues all appeared in his eyes.
Karl could not bear the sudden impact of this all-encompassing sensory enhancement.
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