One week later:
Rivers of lava were brightly glowing as they flowed through the valley. Everything was submerged under the darkness brought by the sky filled with thick clouds and pitch-black smoke, the only light source being the rivers of lava and occasional electrical sparks.
A mountain-sized mass of metal, crystals and dark, stone-like material was lying without moving, as if it was a real mountain. It was a giant dragon, resting with his tail curled around his body.
The dragon was staring at a small floating book before him, the pages flipping one by one at an insane speed, the dragon’s eyes looking almost blurry as he read through the lines with a speed of a machine.
‘So, this is how it works!’ Vesuvius quickly cross-referenced the knowledge contained within his inherited memory and the book’s contents. His intelligence stat and brain evolved for magic processing the data with the speed of a supercomputer.
He finally decided to take some time and properly study the fundamentals of magic, ‘My draconic, curse and space magic are all ready to evolve. But what I need now is not just new, better circuits or more raw power. I need to know how they work. When my magic skills level up, there are always small and subtle changes to my spells. Like replacing one symbol, or even just slightly altering it.’
Vesuvius kept reading, the pages of books flipping so fast that it looked like a blur.
Each page of the book contained an image of a single magical symbol together with its purpose and function. Vesuvius quickly memorized them one by one, like a child learning how to write.
The next second, the book reached its final page and closed by itself, the dragon manipulating it with the wind.
He closed his golden eyes, sorting all he had learned in the past week.
‘Before, I was like a child knowing how to write my name without knowing how to generally write and read. But now it will change.’
The more and more he studied the magic, the more he realized that each rune had a specific meaning or command. They weren’t like the alphabet. Instead, they were like Chinese letters, each having a unique meaning; they were more like whole words in one letter.
‘They are almost like functions and methods in programming. Also, even though they look similar to the runes used during enchanting, they are incompatible.’
He already distinguished that there were several archetypes of the letters. They were triggers, effects, energy management and logic runes. There was also a second division, a division to greater runes and lesser runes.
‘The greater ones have meaning by themself, while the lesser ones are used to modify or configure greater ones.’
There were also connecting lines with their starting point that determined the sequence in which the magic letters were triggered.
‘Hmm, it is much more complicated for higher-level spells with multiple starting points or the lines split into multiple paths to trigger multiple parts at once, speeding up the casting. In that case, there is a need to care about timing to keep it in sync. Otherwise, it will collapse.’
The dragon was unmoving as he was deep in thought. The longer he thought about magic, the more he realized how profound and complicated it was.𝔬𝓋𝔩𝒩xt.𝑐𝑶𝑀
‘They each affect the energy that passes through them, and the interconnected ones must be able to process that energy gained from the previous. Too much energy, and it will shatter. Too little energy, and it will be too weak. It is just like electrical circuits. Alternatively, I can use energy management runes to compensate for it. This part is similar to electro-engineering.’
He also couldn’t help but see the similarities between it and science back on Earth, ‘Is maybe magic also artificially created? It feels too unnatural.’
Vesuvius felt like his knowledge of magic was better than ever before, but he knew that there was still a lot that he didn’t know, ‘What determines which effect specific symbols will have? Is it something with angles, or is it something different?’
He even thought about asking for help with studying it. However, his pride wasn’t allowing him to publicly acknowledge that he needed help, ‘A dragon asking for a lesson. That is beyond ridiculous.’
The book vanished in a flash of light.
‘Enough of this. I have enough theory. I need to test it with something practical.’
A circle appeared in the dragon’s head, with the first rune appearing in it. It was an energy management rune to direct and stabilize mana current.
A thin line connected it to the second large rune that was larger than the rune before. It was an effect rune.
‘This one, if I am correct, should condense mana.’
Behind it was a second large effect rune, connected by lines to multiple lesser runes. It was a rune for the effect of shaping.
‘The lesser runes around it are used to define the shape it will be shaped into.’
Even though it sounded simple, there were lots of calculations behind it that were needed to define the shape and the whole transformation process. Luckily his brain was explicitly evolved to deal with it.
Vesuvius glanced at the runes before him, searching for any miscalculations.
He inwardly nodded, and finally, one last rune formed, connected at the end of the line, all of the runes behind it forming a ring around the outer edge of the magic circuit.
It was a crooked magic symbol having a single effect, ‘Move.’
‘This one should convert mana into kinetic force that will accelerate it… Wait, it misses something.’
Right before it formed three more runes, they were energy management runes needed to power it up,
The dragon checked for the last time as he eagerly held his breath. His eyes shone in mana light as he slowly fed it into the circuit in his mind.
His horns shone brightly, a replica of the circuit forming out of thin air above his head. The circuit pulsed in bright golden-blue light as the symbols ignited one by one, the mana flowing through the paths to fuel it up.
Vesuvius slowly and carefully moved the mana, observing it as he looked for any errors in the circuit.
‘It looks stable for now.’
Mana reached the condensation rune, a pure blob of golden-blue mana materializing out of nowhere while brightly glowing. The next moment it started to shift, forming into a single blue, glowing arrow.
The dragon’s anticipation grew, his heart pounding as everything went without a hitch.
Finally, mana reached the last symbol, the symbol of the move. The arrow shot forward in an instant, brightly whistling as it flew through the sky.
The golden and blue, glowing mana bolt accelerated, blasting into the distance and drawing a blue line.
Vesuvius stared at it proudly, watching as it slowly flew further away, vanishing in the black clouds.
‘It is just the most basic attack spell possible, but I made it myself.’ He was proud like a child of its sandcastle.