Extraordinary wizards always had their own unusual encounters.
This spell had been born to imitate that enormous creature of unknown length that had led Fendim into an unknown world. He had hoped to find that mysterious path, that world where he had trodden on flames and which had once, like a dream, granted him an unforgettable, wondrous journey.
Unfortunately, even by the time the fellow went mad, there had been no evidence of success.
The spell's rank alone showed how long Fendim had spent trying to find that world. He might even have started as a One-Ring wizard. He had constantly refined the spell, eventually turning it into a Second-Ring Spell, yet by the time he disappeared, Fendim had been a Six-Ring wizard for so many years that even he had lost count.
Throughout those long years, he had never raised this Second-Ring Spell to a higher rank. That was something a Six-Ring wizard could certainly have accomplished. The reason it had remained this way was that the spell had not been created out of thin air.
According to Fendim's own account, the cunning fellow had acted on a wizard's instincts the moment he left that world, finding ways to preserve every trace. The remnants of those Flaming Legs, everything at the site that could be called the starting point—he had captured even the tiniest traces and never given up. Using the runes he had decoded from those traces as its core, he had created Fendim's Flaming Centipede.
Everything had been for the sake of recreating the wonder he had witnessed in his youth, of seizing another chance to change his fate. The spell had been born of that purpose, but had also been constrained by it, leaving it at the second ring.
Informing those who studied the spell about