Chapter 189 Back On Tracks [3]
Ryfin's lighting died out only a second after hitting its target—which was a shorter time period compared to the previous one. The magic circle disappeared as he pulled back his arm and inserted it in his pocket.
Time passed, but the dummy did not heal itself.
After all, what it did was healing not regeneration, and even that was only possible to a certain extent. There was no way it could heal when the substance the dummy was made of was itself burned and turned to nothing; the mass where the hole had opened was now nowhere to be found.
"See? That's the difference a magic circle can make. Some attributes were changed but it was the same spell,' Ryfin mentioned and stood to face us.
His eyes were wandering and scanning us when they suddenly stopped at one student in the second row who had raised his hand…no, her hand.
"Yes?" he pointed at the girl.
"Before you said that you will be using the same spell, but now you are saying that some attributes were changed. Why is that?" the girl said, presenting her queries in front of Ryfin.
"Now, that's a good question," he remarked and signaled the girl to put her hand down afterward.
"Some attributes were changed when I cast the spell via a magic circle, or so I said. And there is a reason for this, I'm actually glad that you asked since knowing this will help you later on.
"You see, wherever you convert a spell that was originally made to be activated through incantation into a spell that is used using a magic circle, making minor changes is unavoidable. Because without that the spell won't work since it was not made to be activated by a magic circle. To understand this the easy way, let me explain it to you by taking the lighting spell "Spark Pulse" I used as an example.
"That spell was founded years before I was born, and was originally an incantation-driven magic spell. But later on, when the magic circle method turned out to be more efficient, it was converted into a magic circle-driven spell along with many others.
"But here's the catch. The way incarnation-driven spells are programmed is different from how the magic circle-driven ones are programmed.
"You will learn that later since there's a whole topic and an R & D branch dedicated to the conversion of spells and how they were programmed, but let me explain it to you in short.
"You all know how a spell is broken down into small pieces of information such as the amount of mana required to activate the spell, its area of effect, strength, range, span, and such. Usually, the more details you add, the larger the magic circle is, and the harder it is to maintain it. The same is the case with incantations.
"The more details you add, the longer the incantation will be; which is a negative point since it'll take more time to cast the spell. That's why the mages came up with shortcuts to cut the length of the chants.
"Like they combined the area of effect and the strength of the spell together with the amount of mana required to cast the spell. This way a connection was formed which ensured that the area affected by the spell and its strength will be directly proportional to the amount of mana you will provide.
"If you give more mana, the more powerful the spell will be. If you give less, the weaker the spell will be…" he paused and looked at the students to see if someone had any questions.
When he received no such response, he continued.
"But you can't do this when you're creating magic circles since combining three attributes will cause the circle to malfunction. And as a matter of fact, it is not impossible to do this, it's just that no one has been successful; many tried but failed.
"Now, back to the topic. Combining three attributes in one is not possible in a magic circle-driven spell, but those attributes are one in the incantation-driven spell you are trying to convert into a magic circle one. So what will you do to make it work?" he launched the question toward us, hoping that someone would catch it.
𝑓r𝘦𝘦𝘄eb𝒏𝙤vel.c𝙤𝙢
A round of mumbling started among the students but no one could gather the confidence to raise their hand and answer. Probably because they were not hundred percent sure and at the same time, worried that they might make a fool out of themselves if they spoke the wrong answer. 𝐟𝓇e𝐞𝚠𝚎𝒃n𝒐ѵe𝒍.coｍ
As for me, I was no different. I had a few theories—more like hunches—but kept them to myself.
Seeing the behavior of the class, Ryfin gave them a disappointed look. Although it only lasted for the span of a second since he switched to explaining right after that.
"Since we can't combine three attributes in the magic circle, the only choice we have is to use the three attributes separately as they were bound to be used and guess the values based on how the spell was used by the majority.
"If 7 out of 10 people cast the spell with 10 mana and out of it 5 mana were directed toward strength, then the value assigned to the strength attribute in the final magic circle we will make will be 5 too—since that is the widely used value.
"Of course, you can change the value by changing the magic circle to your liking but we are talking about the premade magic circle right now. And the value assigned to them is the same as the average value found in the surveys that were conducted on large scales...do you all get it now?"
Some of the students nodded while some remained as they were.
"In short," he said. "The small difference which comes between the incantation version and the magic circle version of the same spell is the attributes that were changed during the conversion—along with the change in efficiency, of course."
He paused again, and this time almost all the students looked like they understood the gist of it.