Vesuvius was lying on his slowly expanding golden hoard, checking his new magical spells. His dragon magic leveled up a few times from last time, so he had lots to catch up with.
He focused on the first spell, information flooding into his mind, ‘This one looks really similar to the spell used to form magma spheres. Its shape is also circular, but it is split into two circles. The inner one is almost the same as the original spell for magma sphere, but the outer one is brand new.’
The dragon turned his head towards the exit from his lair and opened his mouth. The double magical circuits started to form inside of his mouth, with the inner circle forming first and the outer one following after that. Magical energy started to pour into them, their magical symbols igniting one by one.
Vesuvius wanted to start pouring magma into it when suddenly cracks spread through the outer circle. An instant later, it shattered into thousands of glowing orange shrapnel like a glass pane. An orange wave of mana from the collapsed circle erupted out and hit the inner circle causing it to shatter as well.
The headache exploded in the dragon’s head as if someone had stabbed a needle through his ear.
“Grahh!” the dragon growled in pain and frustration.
The pain quickly subsided, and Vesuvius started to think about what he had done wrong, ‘I supplied both of the circles with mana. There was no mana leak that could cause such instability. The outer circle just went out of control for no obvious reason. I need more data to find where the problem is.’
The dragon opened his mouth again, the double circle quickly forming again. Mana started to pour into it, igniting magical symbols one by one.
Vesuvius focused his mind, carefully observing both circles. Suddenly two of the magical symbols pulsed a little bit, one in each circle, and then tiny cracks spread from them.
Vesuvius quickly dispelled the double circle before it could explode.
‘Here is the problem.’ It hit him as he realised where the problem was, ‘I am such an idiot. How could I forget? Both circles are part of one spell, and I have been powering them as if they were two separate ones.’ He felt like an idiot as he played many times in past as a caster but forgot the principle of how composite spells worked.
‘To my defence, it has been a while since I last played as a caster.’
He opened his mouth for the third time, the magical inner circle forming up. Then an outer circle formed out of many magical symbols. Magical energy started to pour into it, slowly feeding the inner circle without feeding the outer one. Magical symbols quickly flared up one by one in orange light until finally, the last one ignited, and all of the symbols in the inner circle were brightly glowing. Vesuvius willed mana to leave out the last symbol and dragged it like a string, connecting it to the outer circle. Instantly magical energy flowed into it through the string, igniting magical symbols in the outer ring until all of them were glowing.
Vesuvius held his breath, ready to dispel both circles if something went wrong. Both circles were pulsing quietly, without any cracks forming. The dragon finally breathed out in relief, his hot breath turning rock red.
An orange magma with slight patches of gold gushed out of his throat, reaching the doubled circle where it quickly started to rotate, forming a magma sphere. The sphere quickly grew in size, a bright orange light radiating out of it, illuminating the whole cave. Then the outer magical circle flashed, mana leaking out and seeping into the rotating magma sphere as water into a sponge. Glowing magical symbols quickly formed on the surface of the magma sphere, orbiting around it while glowing in orange light and blending with the orange-gold light radiating out of the magma.
Finally, Vesuvius released the spell, and the magma sphere with orbiting magical symbols around it flew out the dragon’s mouth, blasting through the air at high speed. It flew out of the cave and crossed the valley between two peaks, illuminating the dark entrance tunnel as it passed through.
The magma sphere hit the opposite peak, and the magical symbols orbiting around it flared up for a split second. Then an explosion shook the mountain, lava splashing everywhere and cracks spreading through the stone cliff as the magma sphere exploded in a blazing explosion. Shockwaves spread through the surrounding, triggering an avalanche.
The explosion was violent and destructive, accompanied by a shockwave. It was different to regular magma spheres. They also exploded, but it was more akin to a popping balloon filled with water. It splashed everywhere, but there was no strong force behind it. In comparison, the new spell was more like a hand grenade.
‘I will call this magma bomb.’
Vesuvius kept looking with dreamy eyes at the glowing magma flowing down the peak, ‘No matter how many times I see dragon magic, it never ceases to amaze me. It is so elegant to use dragon organs to simplify spells and skip steps, and now this. The second circle was probably just some imprinting magic that imprinted some explosive enchantment on the sphere formed by the inner circle. That is simple and clever, compared to the setup used by human mages.’
He couldn’t keep but think about setups for explosive projectiles from his player days. Human mages often use one of the two standard setups for explosive projectiles. One of them worked on the principle of creating a mana link between a caster and a projectile. It worked as if the projectile carried behind it a wire that was connected to a caster. Then a caster would remotely force a projectile to explode through that link. Such an approach had its problems as it could be disrupted and needed casters’ attention all the way until a projectile exploded.
The second setup was changing the properties of a projectile to allow it to explode naturally, either by compressing it, adding some extra physical properties or mixing elements. That approach also had its own disadvantages as it was volatile, and a projectile took longer to form as it had a complex structure and could easily explode while still being cast.
‘Compared to that, the dragon way is better. They just imprint the magical circuit that will explode directly onto it and pump it with mana while still forming to keep it powered until it reaches its target. It feels almost like rockets with onboard computers, simply elegant. But I can see why it may not be suitable for human casters. Their mana is not even near as potent as dragon mana, so their mana used to fuel an imprinted magical circuit would likely dissipate before even reaching its target, so they would have to use either catalyst as an external battery or pump it with an obscene amount of mana.’
(AN: Please let me know if are these chapters with an exploration of magic boring or not. I personally like them more than just using the method of one sentence encompassing the whole learning process. Here is an example, “Vesuvius studied magic for hours and learned a new super cool spell.”. This way, not only will MC learn principles of magic, but readers too, hopefully increasing their immersion that way. So let me please know what you think about this approach.)