Because splitting one's soul was necessary, most people chose small, unintelligent animals as their familiars, such as owls, cats, and lizards.
Of course, some chose snakes, toads, or bats. As for why they didn't choose powerful beasts, or even magical beasts, it came down not only to the creature's intelligence, but also to the ritual's success rate.
After the falcon flew away, Borne looked at the spell model. At least a third of it had been marked red by the Chip, and the red areas indicated problems.
"This won't do. There are too many errors!"
Borne sighed. "As expected, this is too ambitious. Without enough data, relying on the Chip to work it out is still too difficult!"
Normally, a spell formula could be forcibly cast with up to one-tenth of its components wrong. With an error rate of one-third, this spell clearly wasn't viable yet.
At that point, extensive spell experiments were needed to find and correct the errors. Such experiments were precisely what consumed so much of a spellcaster's time.
Of course, there were other ways to make casting a little easier.
For example, worshipping a deity. If your faith was devout enough, the deity would give you a boost!
Especially if you were a Chosen. Even without understanding a thing about spell formulas, you could still become a spellcaster, and casting spells beyond your level was usually no problem either...
Of course, that depended on the deity treating their Chosen well and being willing to cover the cost.
Another method involved spellcasting materials!
Some spells that could use spellcasting materials had an even higher tolerance for errors, up to one-fifth.
Take the first-circle spell Feather Fall, for example. If the caster fully understood the spell formula and could construct it, they could generally cast it silently or