Casual Heroing, Chapter 82

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SO! MUCH! MORE! MAGIC THEORY! 🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️

2/4 chapters this week!

Next chapter comes out tomorrow!

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Chapter 82 – Mistakes

After eating enough pasta to feed three adults, I turn to the floating spellbook.

I have 529 Cantrips to complete and still need to finish the first. Plus, I have to ask the book about Enchanting.

I put my hand in my—what’s it called again? Holding bag? The bottomless sack? Dimensional fanny pack?

Anyway, I take out some water to drink before looking cockily at the book.

“Yo, book, watch this.”

[Advanced Mana Sense]

[Deep Focus]

I weave the spell matrixes, carefully creating two anchor points in the first anti-matrix to define the distance. Then I strike both [Lights] with another superimposed anti-matrix to make them spin.

Huh.

I look at the two [Lights] I just generated and realize they are not going at the same speed.

Dammit.

Let me try again.

Given that the part I’m using for the hit of the ping-pong balls is the same, shouldn’t they be running at the same speed? I mean, I understand every spell matrix is slightly different from the next because the base nature varies with the environment. Of course, this also begs the question of how you write down living, moving spell matrixes like the one the book showed me. Whatever. Listen, let’s try again. I’m sure I missed something the first time around.

I repeat the steps, carefully calibrating everything to perfection, considering I’m multi-casting the two spells. And yes, multi-casting anti-matrixes is not that easy.

Two small but bright [Light] orbs materialize before me, and they start spinning at a sustained pace. But one is a bit faster than the other.

Goddamnit.

Is this a joke?

What now?

I wait for the [Lights] to dispel as I keep thinking about a solution.

Come on, Joey, you have five hundred twenty-nine stupid Cantrips to go through, and you’re still working on the first one.

I start recreating the two spell matrixes in the air. This time, I let my instincts guide me, and when I create the two orbs—

There’s still some asynchrony.

For Pete’s sake!

I’m getting antsy.

I firmly believe that the book will zap me to death if I don’t manage to complete this stupid homework. I see the book moving around at the edge of my magic-infused vision. Still, I ignore the stupid thing to focus on finishing this five-hundred-twenty-nine times damned exercise.

Let’s try again.

This time, as soon as I visualize the matrixes in the energy world, I breathe deeply, looking at the ever-moving squiggly lines.

The problem is that no two matrixes are the same, so I have to adapt each one’s polarity to the individual matrix. However, it presents the problem of multi-casting the two orbs simultaneously. It’s too much for a human mind. It’s like drawing with both left and right hands and expecting the same result.

“Stupid book, this is so—”

And I get zapped.

It’s only a mild current, but the book hovers maliciously in front of me and opens to a page. I don’t even read what it’s saying, turning away to look at two new spell matrixes.

I observe the two hovering matrixes.

Is there a workaround?

I trace the spell matrixes again, looking at how much energy they both contain.

There’s a faint pulsation as I trace the anti-matrix responsible for polarity.

And the two pulsating matrixes have slightly different… rhythms.

Then, I suddenly notice that they seem to pulsate in synch. It’s like they are moving as a part of the same spell now.

Gotcha.

I start tracing the base matrix very carefully, following the pulses of energy, regulating the speed and quantity of Mana based on these waves of energy that pervade the two spells at once. It looks like when fans in a stadium raise their hands to form waves. I was treating them as two completely different things, but when you have two spells this close, they are sensibly influencing each other.

Again, isn’t this tremendously complicated to be the first Cantrip? I personally believe so. I mean, if the levels of the Cantrips scale up in difficulty, as I imagine they do, I’ll have to actually dedicate much less time to baking.

The idea excites me a little.

But I don’t feel a shock coming from the book.

So, what was that?

I mean, I can probably still do some baking on the side, right? But I guess that if my life is on the line, there’s no way I can put the Cantrips aside. Hell, I’d even tell Clodia about it. Like, ‘yo, I got this thing that will kill me unless I do an insane amount of homework—I’ll try to work whenever I can, but yeah, saving my own life kinda takes the priority.’

So, with the thickness of these lines adjusted and the tempo in order, I finished the spell in about two minutes. It’s not exactly a perfect job, but it’s definitely looking much better than before.

I turn off [Advanced Mana Sense] and [Deep Focus] to save my mental energy and because I don’t actually need them to watch some [Lights] spin.

And spin, they do.

I summoned the two [Lights] on top of my palm—now, they are perfectly synchronized. And I mean perfectly: they are equidistant, their speed is exactly the same, and they keep going and going. If there’s any difference in speed, it’s not something the naked eye can perceive.

Well, that was a dreadful amount of work for two stupid spinning [Lights], wasn’t it?

I have to admit, though; they are beautiful. There is something hypnotic even in this tiny amount of magic, something that feels like I was swimming in the sky. It’s like the first time you dip your toes in the sea and realize you are part of something much, much bigger than yourself.

When you first swim atop crystal-clear water that allows you to see thirty feet deep, and you just feel like you are swimming... well, that ain’t nothing compared to this.

Magic puts you in a ruthless perspective. It’s unforgiving, but it’s also huge. On Earth, there’s nothing that compares to it. As a result, people are in despair – many kill themselves daily. Why? For many reasons that cannot be pinned down to one simple thing.

But many suffer the first crisis when they realize how insignificant they are and how insignificant the world is. Then comes anxiety, paranoia, and depression. I wish they could grasp the same two stupid [Lights] orbiting on my palm now.

They are so beautiful.

Even if there might be a Chinese kid who’d be much better than me at magic, I’m unfazed. There are no social media to get me depressed at seeing how much others are better than me at Cantrips. And I’ll tell you, in the span of this little moment, I allow myself to feel like a genius—to feel special.

You should have seen the way the two [Lights] wandered out of their initial center because, yes, remember, they materialize at the center. But then, they move in a sort of initial spiral before settling into their orbit.

If those people who deem themselves worthless on Earth could grasp this magic, they would realize they were a part of something much bigger, perhaps. Maybe they would start dreaming again... imagine that... a simple Cantrip capable of dispelling the worst nightmares.

Am I talking about others, or am I talking about myself?

A sad smile is painted on my lips.

My connections and bonds to Earth have been severed.

There’s so much I have lost.

So many things that I will never get back.

I dispel the [Lights] and put my face in my hands.

I sigh.

I shake my head, straighten it up again, lick my lips, and smile.

“Whassup, book, how was that?”

‘Congratulations on completing the First Cantrip. Beware, the second one is much more difficult than the first.’

Huh?

I notice that the book already has the ink on its pages—weird. Usually, it takes me asking the book before it materializes the ink. How come this time is different? And isn’t this the first version of the font? What happened to the new font?

This book is tripping.

I re-read the words to make sure I see right.

‘Congratulations on completing the First Cantrip. Beware, the second one is much more difficult than the first.’

“It’s much more difficult, huh?” I feel a deep sense of excitement, an incredible adrenaline rush.

I guess I’ll have to take time off baking to practice these damned life-murdering Cantrips, huh?

It is what it is.

What’s it going to be? Do I have to slay a stupid Dr—

You know what, let’s not even think about that before Lady Luck places a giant fire-spitting reptile in Amorium.

“So, what will it be?” I ask the book, which promptly materializes more ink.

‘For the Second Cantrip, Magister Mulligan wants you to make a [Light] spell spin on itself for ten seconds.’

Huh?

What?

Is this for real?

Wait.

Oh.

You know what? I’m stupid.

Like, I seriously think there’s something wrong with my brain.

Like, stupidly wrong.

But I’ve also read enough books to see plots in advance and have a decent hunch about stuff. A decent… what’s the word? Instinct? Isn’t there a better word? Sixth sense? Whatever.

Well, I’m not sure you know what’s happening here, but it is pretty clear to me.

And it appears that I have messed up massively.

...

If you are ever employed somewhere, you don’t particularly like, not try hard. Do not. The harder you try, the more work will be assigned to you. That’s a very simple A to B rule. You work hard, you get more work.

Do you want to do less work? No one gives more work on a deadline to someone who can barely do their job. That’s the sweet spot. Be a decent employee who cannot be fired because ‘well, he is useful – he’s just not that bright.’

The sweet spot.

What I’ve done here… is the opposite.

How?

Well, buddy, if a book tells you that the second exercise is much more difficult, but you find out that you already have a solution, guess what that means?

Yeah, I worked too hard!

Ok. First, apparently, I did not have to multi-cast the [Lights] for the Cantrip. I just checked. My dumb brain just brought me to think I had to because that was the previous exercise. When I read about two [Lights], I immediately thought about multi-casting. Well, that was the last of my problems, anyway.

You know how [Mages] control the stuff from the outside? That’s why Claudius was talking about [Telekinesis]. Suppose my understanding of [Telekinesis] is on point. In that case, it might just be some kind of Force Magic that basically smashes energy against a solid object—which is arguably extremely dumb but still functional.

So, the book suddenly hesitating in answering some of my questions makes terrible sense, doesn’t it? I was making up stuff on the go and taking a completely different approach to magic, even by the weird book’s standards.

And if, on the one hand, I’m proud of the good work, on the other, the work is too good. And if you know me, it means that this will backfire spectacularly.

How?

I don’t know yet; I don’t have a crystal ball.

But yeah, apparently, I made a huge mistake.

So, at the very least, I won’t have to spend 333 days holed up in my room trying to beat the clock to do some extremely complicated magic.

Huh?

Why am I feeling bad about that? Is it the pasta I ate? Have the sausages gone bad? Damn, these Elves clearly don’t even know how to make salami, huh? That must be it, for sure. No other explanation for this sudden weight on my stomach.

I shake my limbs in an attempt to liberate myself from this weird feeling.

More time to bake and do some actual work—that’s tremendously good... right?

To hell with magic, anyway...