Fireball +10

"This Skill Panel was more incomplete than I expected..."

When he looked at other unfamiliar magic systems, he had not thought much of it, only feeling that the spells on the Skill Tree were as vast as the sea.

But now that it was a field he knew well, Manus could naturally tell just how much was missing from this Skill Tree.

"There are many spells I don't know, even spells I never knew existed, but an enormous number of spells I do know have also vanished."

After studying it carefully, Manus's frown gradually eased.

The missing spells were certainly partly due to the Skill Panel's incompleteness, but more importantly, it was the mechanism of the Skill Tree itself. The spells on it seemed to exist only in their "original forms."

Take Fireball, for example. Since its creation, this spell had undergone countless iterations and produced innumerable branches. Even the widely circulated versions had long differed somewhat from the original.

As a student who had written papers on the subject, Manus knew the spell's developmental history extremely well.

And after consuming 1 Skill Point, the spell model provided by the Skill Tree was the original Fireball.

"So this upgrade is basically an iteration of Fireball?"

The Fireball spell model was not complicated. Coupled with his familiarity with the spell, Manus could say that he remembered it perfectly. After examining it several times to reinforce his memory, he chose to upgrade it.

"This upgrade effect..."

Comparing the spell models before and after the upgrade of [Fireball +1], Manus fell into thought.

How should he put it? [Fireball +1] had been enhanced very evenly.

Temperature, range, speed, size... all of them had been enhanced, and the changes were visible to the naked eye. They were not especially dramatic, but neither were they the kind of enhancement that was almost impossible to notice.

But the problem was that this kind of enhancement was somewhat mediocre in terms of practicality.

While everything had been enhanced across the board, the effort needed to construct [Fireball +1]... well, he did not need to construct this spell model himself, but its mana consumption had risen in tandem.

Even if the increase was not much compared to the original Fireball, if the same cost were used to enhance only one aspect, the result would far surpass this evenly distributed method of enhancement.

"It can still be upgraded... but what's the point?"

A trace of confusion flashed through Manus's eyes.

If this spell could be enhanced without limit, then given the power the system had displayed so far, he did not doubt it could enhance a Fireball to the level of Ninth Circle or even Legendary Magic.

Though he had no idea how a three-dimensional spell model could be upgraded into something comparable to a Ninth Circle spell model, the kind that was almost constantly changing.

And according to this enhancement method, even if it could be done, then by that point, even without considering the difficulty of constructing the model, the Fireball would consume far more mana than an ordinary Ninth Circle spell.

If so, why not simply use Skill Points to learn a Ninth Circle spell instead?

After testing it, Manus discovered that he could at most learn spells equivalent to the Second Circle from the world before his transmigration through the Skill Panel.

He was unable to learn Third Circle spells and above through the Skill Panel due to the system's incompleteness, but the system's creator could not possibly have failed to consider that.

"Whether they're Zero Circle, First Circle, or Second Circle, every spell only costs 1 Skill Point to unlock. I don't know whether learning a Ninth Circle spell would also cost only 1 Skill Point, but such an unreasonable cost must have a reason, a deeper reason."

"Either Skill Point enhancements have a limit, and a very low one at that. Or Skill Point enhancements bring about certain special changes that cannot be seen from a single enhancement. Otherwise, there's no way to explain such an unreasonable cost."

Manus stared at the Fireball model that had already been enhanced to level two. After memorizing it, he chose to enhance it again.

"Let me see your limit!"

As Skill Points were consumed one after another, Manus memorized the changes to the Fireball model again and again. In the end, he stopped at [Fireball +10].

"Level 10 is a qualitative change. It allows the model to choose a direction for specialized integration."

Manus memorized this particularly unusual change.

Some unnecessary structures that had appeared in the Fireball model during the first nine upgrades were integrated and optimized. Redundant portions were removed, reducing both the difficulty of construction and the mana consumption by a considerable amount.

At the same time, the space freed up made the effects of the tenth upgrade especially pronounced.

Moreover, the tenth upgrade allowed him to choose a direction for Fireball's specialized upgrade.

The available options were practically countless. At a glance, Manus saw broad directions such as power, as well as more detailed directions like heat, size, and explosion.

Although Fireball had long been eliminated from his own tactical school, and although he now had an inexhaustible supply of Skill Points, Manus had no intention of wasting them.

Besides, given his current state of starting over from scratch, he had no idea how many years it would take before he could use the school from his previous life. By the time he was capable of doing so, he would probably have already developed a new school.

"Hm? There's actually even a direction like this?"

Manus's eyes lit up.

This enhancement direction was a more specialized branch of ignition, capable of gathering the power of the fire element.

But based on his experience, Manus inferred that this enhancement direction should add part of the structure of the Rekindling Spell to Fireball, thereby making the flames caused by Fireball burn longer.

If that was the case...

"This should be it. Is there really a direction that can fuse parts of the structures of Fireball and Tar Spell? How does it do that?"

Slightly excited, Manus chose the upgrade. The model, whose structure had already been optimized, began undergoing further changes.

"Brilliant! Structural conflict is unavoidable, so it constructs additional structures to make use of the effects of those conflicts. Normally, that's more trouble than it's worth. It would be better to use two First Circle spells."

Manus widened his eyes as he observed the upgraded [Fireball +10] model.

"But it actually combines parts of other structures to form this additional structure. Those seemingly useless, mediocre enhancements from before actually came into play at this point..."

Manus tried to derive it himself based on this model, but halfway through, he felt a swelling pain in his brain.

Right. He was only four years old now. The reason he could memorize so many spell models and perform such a massive amount of calculation was partly because he already had a certain foundation, and partly because of the meditation he had practiced since childhood.

His mental strength no longer supported continued research...

He could not push himself to such extremes again in the future. He was still developing, and mental damage would affect his future.

Manus meditated for a while. After recovering from his mental fatigue, he did nothing else. Instead, he changed directly into his pajamas, lay down on the bed, and slept until Aivina came to call him for dinner.