Spell System

The current world was a real world, and the Wizard Spell System was also a real system. Thus, it had gone through a series of stages such as birth, development, maturation, and change.

According to the Chapter of Munro, the Spell System had originated from the Ancient Wizard Civilization.

Long ago, the earliest group of Wizards had relied on their wisdom and abilities to create the first spells, forming the prototype of a system.

Later, over the course of countless years, after the improvements and development of many outstanding Wizards, that prototype had gradually evolved into a mature and vast system, complex and precise.

At the same time, the entire Ancient Wizard Civilization had developed to its peak. It had established inexhaustible sources of energy, Babel Wizard Towers that pierced the sky, Floating Cities capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people, and had even once left its birthplace to explore a wider world and universe.

But one day, a catastrophe had suddenly descended. No records explained what that catastrophe was or how it had come about. All that was known was that it had destroyed the entire Ancient Wizard Civilization at an unimaginable speed.

What followed was a long dark age, an age without any historical records.

Perhaps hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years had passed before the remnants of the ancient civilization gradually developed into a new civilization. With the scattered fragments of knowledge that had been passed down, the new generation of Wizards began the difficult task of restoring the former Spell System.

During that process, the loss of many spells had been unavoidable. Perhaps, after another long period of development, they could all be recovered—or perhaps they could not. But regardless, what had ultimately been restored was an incomplete Spell System: the system that currently existed.

According to the Chapter of Munro, this system had five levels: Spell System → Spell Category → Spell Branch → Spell Sub-branch → Spell School.

Spell Categories were the beginning of the Spell System's classification. At present, a total of nine major categories had been restored: Evocation Spells, Mental Spells, Transmutation Spells, Divination Spells, Summoning Spells, Spatial Spells, Time Spells, Magic Rune Spells, and Other Spells.

Evocation Spells, as the name implied, were spells that shaped, controlled, and utilized energy. Fireballs, Ice Cones, Wind Blades, lightning, and the like all fell under this category. It was the most common, most practical, and currently the largest Spell Category.

This category was further divided into nine Spell Branches: Water Element, Wind Element, Fire Element, Earth Element, Wood Element, Lightning Element, Dark Energy, Light Energy, and Pure Energy.

Some Spell Branches had only one Spell Sub-branch, while others had several. For example, the Water Element Branch had the Water Sub-branch, Ice Sub-branch, and Acid Branch.

If a Wizard made great contributions within a Spell Sub-branch and created a series of related spells, it would develop into a Spell School.

For example, within the Ice Sub-branch, there was the Scorno School, created by a Wizard named Scorno. It contained a series of spells: Scorno's Snowball (Zero Ring), Scorno's Ice Cone (Zero Ring), Scorno's Ice Rain (Zero Ring), Scorno's Ice Storm (First Ring), and Scorno's Arctic Cold (Second Ring).

After Evocation Spells came Mental Spells.

Mental Spells, as the name implied, were spells that acted upon a person's brain, mind, or consciousness. They had five Spell Branches—attack, defense, illusion, control, and soul—with one to three Spell Sub-branches under each. They were the second-largest existing Spell Category.

The spells of the attack, defense, and illusion branches were fairly normal, but Control Spells could directly alter a person's mind and turn them into completely obedient slaves. Some lecherous Wizards even used spells from this branch to control large numbers of young and beautiful women, keeping them as their private playthings and enjoying them day and night. There were even twin sisters and mother-daughter pairs among them. Thus, they were condemned by quite a few righteous Wizards.

Next came Transmutation Spells.

Transmutation Spells were spells that caused temporary or permanent changes to a living creature as a whole or to a part of it. They were the third-largest existing Spell Category.

Many of the spells within were bizarre and evil. While powerful, they severely challenged morality and even human ethics. For example, there was a spell called Attach Corpse to Flesh, which required a Wizard to have intercourse with a corpse and draw terrifying attack power, defense, and regenerative ability from it. The Wizard could instantly transform into a humanoid fighting machine capable of fighting for three days and three nights without rest.

There was also a spell called Black Death Tides, which could cause a plague to sweep across an entire kingdom in just a few days and spread into neighboring countries, directly destroying an entire region. Its effect was astonishing, but once it went out of control, it could very likely destroy the entire world. Therefore, even the most insane Wizards did not dare to conduct in-depth research into this type of spell.

Then came Divination Spells.

Divination Spells used some mysterious mechanism to perceive, alter, and utilize certain information in order to achieve the caster's goals. Because too much of this category had been lost, only the three Spell Branches of detection, misdirection, and judgment, along with several subordinate Spell Sub-branches, had currently been restored.

Then there were the three major categories of Summoning Spells, Spatial Spells, and Time Spells.

Summoning Spells summoned life forms from unknown places for the caster's use. Spatial Spells caused certain changes to space in order to produce certain effects. Time Spells caused certain changes to time in order to produce certain effects.

Like Divination Spells, too much knowledge from these three Spell Categories had been lost, leaving only a handful of Spell Branches and several Spell Sub-branches. There were also gaps in the knowledge, making it difficult for the new generation of Wizards to understand what had been handed down. They were in an unavoidable state of decline.

Beyond these were Magic Rune Spells.

Magic Rune Spells used special patterns to produce specific spell effects. When this type of spell was applied to swords and blades, it could increase their durability and sharpness, and was therefore called enchanting. When applied inside a building, it could enable the entire structure to unleash powerful offensive or defensive effects, and was also called a spell formation.

Simply put, Magic Rune Spells had many uses and broad applications. Though they were an independent Spell Category, in theory, they could replace all the other major categories, because they could use patterns to perfectly reproduce the effects of other spells. Of course, this required the patterns to be inscribed with absolute precision and accuracy. The slightest mistake would result in failure.

Because of this, Magic Rune Spells were no less difficult than the three major categories of Summoning, Spatial, and Time Spells. That was why, when Richard had said that he could understand Magic Rune Spells, the dragon Gregory had suddenly fallen silent before displaying a series of strange reactions.

But in Richard's view, Magic Rune Spells really were not that difficult. In a sense, they were somewhat similar to the circuits of Modern Earth. The only difference was that they possessed some Wizard characteristics unique to this world.

Circuits were simple and complex at the same time. They were simple enough that a length of wire and a power source formed a circuit, yet complex enough that Modern Earth's most advanced technologies—computers, rockets, and satellites—were merely manifestations of countless circuits.

Magic runes were clearly simple and complex as well. They were simple enough that one merely had to inscribe them step by step, but to combine every inscribed trace in an orderly manner into a whole and thereby achieve a spell effect required extraordinary wisdom. It was like the computer languages of Modern Earth: with only the two digits "0" and "1," they could create an entire virtual world.

The night was deep, and the forest was as tranquil as a sea. Vast stretches of branches and leaves swayed in the wind beneath the moonlight, and between their rises and falls came the faint sound of waves.

"Rustle... splash, splash..."

"Rustle... splash, splash..."

In the middle of the forest, the terrain rose and fell slightly, with several mountain peaks standing still like neighboring islands in the sea.

On the smallest of those "islands" stood a black castle. Faint light shone from one of its rooms, like a lighthouse guiding ships at sea.

Inside the castle room, the White Jade Shard in Richard's hand split in half. A cluster of dark blue flames emerged and burned quietly. Richard knew that his attempt at a "Magic Rune Spell" had succeeded.

This was the release of the simplest spell, Phosphorus Candle. But since he could cast this spell, he could cast the others as well.

With magic runes, the time needed to cast spells would be greatly reduced. This would make it possible to release several, or even more than ten, spells within the time it took to cast a single spell, unleashing power that surpassed the limits of spell rings.

That way, even a First Level Apprentice could contend with a Second Level Apprentice, a Third Level Apprentice, or even a Level 1 Wizard for a short time.

This was Richard's goal, the first small-stage objective he had set for researching the entire Wizard Spell System.

Now, it seemed that achieving this goal would be somewhat difficult, but... it could still be done.

He waved a hand to extinguish the flame, put away the broken White Jade Shard, stretched his slightly stiff body, and began making a second magic rune White Jade Shard for further experiments.

Then came the third, the fourth...

The night grew late, yet the light in the castle room remained on, as though it truly intended to shine through the entire night like a lighthouse...