Mage's Profound Truths

Chapter 42: The Second Spell Model

A team of several hundred knights was galloping swiftly along a wide road, kicking up clouds of dust.

Inside a carriage within the group, Merlin was meditating with his eyes slightly closed.

"My mental strength should be about enough now—enough to construct a second spell model!"

Merlin opened his eyes, completely unconcerned by the jolting of the carriage, a faint smile playing on his lips. He was currently following Old Wilson’s knight troop, en route to Blackwater City.

As for what Old Wilson had deduced from the words of the captives, Merlin had no idea. However, judging by the heavy expression on Old Wilson’s face at the time, he had clearly learned something.

"It's only early afternoon now. At this pace, we’ll likely arrive at Blackwater City by tomorrow morning. I can use this time to simulate the Ice Spell model in my mind."

Lifting the curtain, Merlin glanced at the sky and murmured to himself in a low voice.

Back in Blackwater City, he had seized every moment to meditate. Now that over a month had passed, his mental strength had finally grown enough to support a second spell model.

Thus, Merlin planned to construct his second spell model right inside the carriage.

He reached into his robes and pulled out several slightly yellowed sheets of paper. Drawn on them were several complex spell models—these were the Ice Spell diagrams he had acquired from "Lorraine."

He had long since decided to use the Ice Spell as his second spell model, to be simulated in his mind once his mental strength was sufficient.

"Matrix, activate!"

Without hesitation, Merlin activated the Matrix. Constructing a spell model was impossible without it; given his current skill, creating a stable model manually would take who knows how long.

"Matrix activated. Please assign a task!"

"Begin analyzing the Ice Spell model!"

"Beep. Task established. Beginning analysis!"

With its powerful analytical and computational capabilities, the Matrix handled the analysis of spell models with ease. After all, Merlin had already used it once to analyze the Fireball Spell.

Roughly half an hour later, the Matrix’s familiar mechanical female voice echoed in Merlin’s mind.

"Beep. Analysis complete. A total of 126,541 spell models identified."

Merlin nodded slightly. The result was within his expectations—the last Fireball Spell analysis had yielded as many as 180,000 models.

"Select the ten most stable ones, and among them, choose the one with the highest stability and offensive power compared to the original Ice Spell prototype."

After issuing the command, Merlin quietly awaited the Matrix’s final selection.

"Beep. Matrix has selected Model Number Six for you!"

Immediately, a highly complex spell model emerged in Merlin’s mind. For ordinary people without strong mental strength, even a glance would cause dizziness and nausea.

However, Merlin's mental strength had grown severalfold due to prolonged meditation. It was now sufficient to control two spell models, and the conditions for simulating the second model in his sea of consciousness were fully met.

With this in mind, Merlin no longer hesitated. He closed his eyes slightly, channeling all his mental strength into fully simulating the newly reconstructed spell model.

Simulating a spell model with mental strength took a long time—at least several hours—and required total focus to etch the complex model deeply into the sea of consciousness.

Merlin had already experienced simulating a spell model once before, so this time, he proceeded with ease and quickly mobilized his mental power to carefully simulate the spell model.

One hour, two hours, three hours...

Merlin was completely immersed in the process of simulating the spell model; no matter how bumpy the carriage was, he felt nothing at all.

"Boom."

Finally, Merlin felt as if his mind had exploded, and a chilling aura surged into his brain. In his sea of consciousness, a brand new spell model had suddenly appeared.

"It's finally done—the spell model for Ice Bind!"

Merlin opened his eyes, his face full of joy. He quietly felt the spell model of Ice Bind in his sea of consciousness slowly absorbing the surrounding ice elements.

Even Merlin, who was wearing a thick coat, couldn't help but shiver and feel a bit cold.

The two spell models in Merlin’s sea of consciousness—one being Fireball and the other Ice Bind—were of completely different types and had opposing attributes, yet they coexisted peacefully, slowly rotating and absorbing their respective elements.

Merlin quietly assessed it for a moment. Having two spell models in his sea of consciousness was indeed a considerable burden on his mental power, but he could bear it completely. Besides, he could continue meditating to increase his mental power, and eventually, even this heavy feeling would disappear.

"Let's test the power of Ice Bind!"

Merlin directly stimulated the Ice Bind spell model with his mental power.

"Ice Bind!"

A cluster of ice crystals instantly appeared on the wooden support inside the carriage, tightly wrapping around it, emitting a chilling aura and becoming extremely hard.

"Fireball!"

Seeing the ice crystal, Merlin immediately cast Fireball, then carefully moved the fireball beneath the ice crystal under the control of his mental power.

The ice crystal actually held on for a while before it was finally melted into water droplets by the extremely high temperature of the fireball. However, Merlin was already quite satisfied. The main function of Ice Bind was not to cause damage, but to restrain opponents.

Such hard ice crystals, once someone was bound by them, even a third-level Elemental Swordsman would not be able to break free immediately.

"If I had Ice Bind before the bandit attack, I could have killed those three third-level Light Swordsmen in a single strike."

Looking at the water droplets formed by the melted ice crystals, Merlin’s eyes flickered with brilliance.

Now that he possessed a binding-type spell, his strength had increased exponentially. Even if the number of low-level Elemental Swordsmen was large, they no longer posed a threat to him.

However, since Merlin had just simulated the Ice Bind spell model in his sea of consciousness, he could only cast it two or three times for now.

Merlin did not continue casting Ice Bind. Instead, he once again immersed his mental power into his sea of consciousness to closely observe the changes around the Ice Bind spell model.

"As expected, there's a gray horizontal bar again, just like with the Fireball spell!"

Merlin was overjoyed. As he had hoped, a gray horizontal bar appeared around the Ice Bind spell model, identical to the one in front of the Fireball spell model.

This meant that after casting Ice Bind three times, he would have the chance to cast a more powerful version—possibly called Greater Ice Bind.