Mage's Profound Truths

Chapter 22: Fireball Spell

Outside the ancient castle, a cold wind howled and heavy snowflakes fell from the sky, blanketing the ground in ice, yet Merlin did not feel the slightest chill; on the contrary, he felt waves of heat, and even took off his thick fur coat, leaving only a thin shirt.

The spell model of the Fireball Spell had finally been simulated in his sea of consciousness, and what Merlin needed to do next was test its power.

Merlin glanced around the room; the environment here was not suitable for testing the Fireball Spell, so he put his coat back on, pushed open the door, and went out.

He remembered that within Wilson Castle, there was a secret underground chamber, very hidden and quite spacious, known only to Old Wilson, the butler, and Merlin himself.

To test the Fireball Spell's power, the underground chamber was the best place.

Following the memory in his mind, Merlin went straight to Old Wilson’s room and lightly pressed a brick on the wall—this was the trigger for the underground passage.

“Click.”

With a crisp sound, one of the walls in Old Wilson's room began to part to the sides, releasing some falling dust that scattered across the floor.

Before long, a dark hole appeared before Merlin. He reached for the candlestick on Old Wilson’s desk, lit a few candles on it, and with their dim light, stepped into the opening.

The passage was dark, and since no one had entered it for a long time, it carried a stale and unpleasant odor. Merlin carefully continued forward.

The passage sloped downward into a long stone staircase that led about a hundred meters underground. On both sides of the passage, there were many candlesticks, and Merlin lit each candle he passed. Soon, the dark passage was brightly illuminated.

After walking for several minutes, the stone steps ended, and Merlin entered a spacious underground chamber.

This underground room was essentially a large hall, and around it were over a dozen smaller rooms that stored weapons, shields, and armor.

Merlin remembered that when he was ten years old, Old Wilson had brought him here a few times. When building the castle, Old Wilson had referred to military fortress structures and constructed this underground room accordingly—it could only accommodate one person, and could serve as a shelter in times of danger.

If preparations were made in advance and the chamber was fully stocked, its supplies could support several hundred people for an entire year.

But over the years, Blackwater City had remained peaceful without any wars or turmoil, so the underground room gradually fell into neglect.

Although the chamber had fallen into disuse, it happened to provide Merlin with a spacious enough space—perfect for testing the power of the Fireball Spell.

So Merlin stood in the center of the underground hall and quietly focused on the spell model in his sea of consciousness.

At this moment, the spell model in his consciousness was still slowly rotating, and even underground, strands of fire elements were gradually merging into it.

The fire elements absorbed by the spell model were the caster's magical power! The longer the model existed, the more magic it accumulated, so once a spell model was constructed, it would automatically accumulate magic without further interference.

Merlin had thoroughly read Old Etta’s spell notes and clearly understood how to cast a spell. It was simple—he only needed to stimulate the spell model with mental power to instantly trigger it.

“Fireball!”

Merlin gave a low shout, and his mental power directly stimulated the Fireball Spell model. Instantly, a ball of flame radiating intense heat appeared out of thin air, hovering less than a meter away from him.

Merlin felt a surge of joy, but he failed to control his mental power properly, and the fireball dissipated in the blink of an eye.

The fireball vanished because Merlin failed to maintain mental control—after being cast, a fireball still required the caster’s mental power to guide it.

Though he failed the first time, Merlin wasn’t discouraged. He reflected on his mistake and cast another fireball.

This time, he firmly held the fireball with mental power and carefully guided it to wobble and fly around the air.

“Bang.”

The fireball smashed hard against the solid wall; though only the size of a fist, it seemed to contain immense power, causing the wall to tremble slightly and leaving a half-inch deep hole, scorched into it by the fireball.

That alone was not enough to truly demonstrate the power of the fireball spell. Merlin took a suit of heavy armor from the basement’s storage.

This was standard equipment for heavy cavalry knights—once worn, even sharp knight’s lances couldn’t pierce it.

Using it to test the fireball spell’s power was naturally the perfect choice.

He hung the heavy armor on the wall but didn’t cast the fireball spell again right away; instead, he sat down to rest.

Merlin rubbed his temples slightly with both hands. After just two fireball spells, he found that the mana stored in the spell model was already depleted.

If he wanted to cast another fireball spell, he would have to wait until the mana recovered.

Looking at the spell model in his sea of consciousness slowly absorbing fire elements from the outside world, Merlin muttered thoughtfully,

“It seems that because the spell model was constructed not long ago, it can only release two fireballs at most.”

Merlin could do nothing about the scarcity of mana; it could only be accumulated slowly by the spell model over time—there was no shortcut.

An hour later, the spell model gradually recovered, and Merlin could finally cast the fireball spell again.

“Go!”

This time, Merlin was already quite skilled at casting the fireball spell and quickly summoned another fireball, directing it at the heavy armor on the wall.

“Hiss hiss.”

There was no imagined loud noise, but the chestplate—the strongest part of the armor’s defense—was directly burned through by the small fireball, leaving a fist-sized hole with wisps of smoke curling around it.

“Hiss—”

Even Merlin couldn’t help but gasp; he was shocked. Though he had expected the fireball spell to be powerful, he hadn’t thought it would be this strong.

This was heavy armor made from refined iron, among the top tier in terms of defense—strong enough that even a knight’s lance couldn’t pierce it.

Yet this extremely durable armor was easily pierced by the fireball spell. The small fireball Merlin had cast held terrifying heat.

“Huh? What’s this?”

Merlin came back to his senses, and while checking the spell model in his sea of consciousness, he suddenly made a new discovery: beside the slowly rotating spell model, there was actually a gray horizontal bar.

The appearance of this gray horizontal bar in the sea of consciousness, especially surrounding the spell model, raised Merlin's concern.

“When did this appear?”

Merlin frowned tightly; he remembered very clearly that when he first constructed the spell model, there was no such gray bar—it must have appeared recently.

So he observed more closely and found that most of the area of the gray bar had faintly lit up, while a small part remained gray.

Merlin observed for a long time but couldn't figure out what exactly this horizontal bar was, nor when it had appeared in the sea of consciousness. Still, he didn’t plan to waste more time studying it—he still needed a long time to gradually familiarize himself with the process of casting Fireball.

So, Merlin once again released a fireball. His spiritual power guided the fireball directly onto the heavy armor.

“Boom.”

This time, the entire fireball exploded, scattering in all directions, and even the highly defensive heavy armor was blasted into a pile of scrap metal.

This was the effect of spiritual power—spiritual power could not only guide the direction of a spell but also introduce many variations, such as causing a fireball to explode violently upon contact with an enemy. If the target was a hard object, then the fireball shouldn't explode but rather rely on its high temperature to burn through.

These were some of the techniques for casting spells, which could only be gradually discovered through long-term practice or real combat.

Since Merlin had only recently constructed his spell model, usually casting two Fireballs would exhaust his mana. At that point, he had to rest and wait for his mana to slowly recover.

If he forcibly stimulated the spell model, it could very likely cause the model to collapse, resulting in serious harm to the caster.

These taboos in the casting process were recorded in great detail in Old Etta’s spell notes, and Merlin had memorized them all.

During his rest, Merlin once again noticed the horizontal bar in his sea of consciousness. Strangely, it was no longer gray, but had turned red.

Looking at the red bar, Merlin felt an unusual sensation in his heart. He then tried to touch the red bar with his spiritual power.

“Buzz.”

Suddenly, stimulated by Merlin’s spiritual power, the red bar emitted a brilliant light, and the spell model, which had been quietly recovering, began to spin fiercely again.

At the same time, the small amount of mana that had just recovered was instantly drained by the spell model. Before Merlin could figure out what was happening, a massive fireball suddenly appeared in front of him, floating silently in the air.

Moreover, the inside of the fireball seemed highly unstable, as if it could explode at any moment.

Merlin stared dumbfounded at the massive fireball. If the previous ones were only the size of a fist, then this fireball was at least the size of three or four fists.

“Not good.”

Without Merlin’s spiritual guidance and with the fireball being so unstable, it seemed ready to explode. Merlin sensed the danger and immediately directed the fireball to crash into the ground.