257 Training IV : Zero Circle Spells

What ever political mumbo jumbo that had to be taken care of, after the beat down I just gave Shao Tie, I shamelessly left to Baeki to handle. For some reason I felt really anxious and hurried, like I had to learn really fast, and get the hell out of here, back home, and into the arms of wives and the presence of my children. Something was terribly wrong somewhere, and I could feel it in my gut.

I made my way back into the library, and Adamas flew towards me in his diminutive form. He perched on my shoulders like a bird and said to me.

"there are a million ways you could have won that fight without getting injured, 4386 ways that you would have ended that fight before it began, and another 2580 ways that you could have ended it in the first five minutes."

I looked at him with a blank expression on my face, and then he fidgeted a little, looking from left to right as he grumbled at me.

"Don't look at me like that, you know I'm exaggerating. Thenumbers aren't that high. But! What I'm saying is that, you have the tools but not the discipline or the finesse and ability to use them. After all, you can't tell a carpenter to paint a masterpiece,either can you tell a painter to build a barn. You have to learn to use it.

Now it's obvious that your physical abilities are out of sack, and you need a significant amount of time to get used to your new powerful body, along with the speed and resilience. However we're going ignore that in favor of magic, because as it stands. You have physical abilities on par with dragons, which means you can practically smash through everything that you want to.

So the refining of your physical abilities can wait, you need to learn the diligence and discipline that comes with magic. It would teach you finesse, and how to use your head more, rather than swinging your sword at every opportunity you get. Which brings us to our next step, and quite an easy one to."

Then he flew off my head, and went right outside the library again, I stifled an angry groan of frustration and followed him. I had to utilize all of my new found speed as best as I could to keep up with him, I could hardly imagine that a dragon that small, could he that fast. Though I know he has a bigger form, and I can't really understand the physics of body compression, but isn't he supposed to be slower, or was he supposed to be faster, I'm so confused.

He led me all the way back to the first temple, the one with the statues of dragons, elves, dwarves and humans. Then he perched on of them, looking dignified as he spoke.

"You might not know this, but this place is one big ass magical array. It's called the Temple of Unification. And based on it's name, you should have a rough idea about what it does. Any sort of magical or scientific experiments that require the bonding of two agents or materials are carried out here.

But it also bonds energy, and we're going to use it to make the ether in your body, combine into one with your soul energy. And after this is done, whenever you take in ether, it's refined and purified into soul energy, making soul energy the single source of energy in your body, apart from your aura, which of course is made from your emotions.

The soul energy would be used to power your spells, your skills, and your weaves. Everything would be connected, rather than disjointed. This is so, your path in magic would be as straight forward as possible, besides it's better to be a master of one, than a master of none. Especially when it comes to energy, step right to the center."

I did as he said and sat cross legged. I didn't notice it before, but the pillars weren't arranged in a circular manner, and while there was a roof over this place, there were no walls, making it seem more like stone hedge, is stone hedge was built with plaster, concrete and whatever else it was built with.

Apart from a central temple, there was an arrangement of pillars, to create a spiral around the temple, and a long walkway. So if you looked at it from above, it would like you were looking at a giant Popsicle. Adamas began to whisper what sounded like spells, and then all of the pillars lit up, shining a spot light right at where I was standing.

The light was mostly situated at my feet, but slowly I watched it begin to rise, and as it did so, so too did the energies in my body. I could feel my ether and soul energy toiling and waving around each other, so much so that there was a physical manifestation of heat wave, moving off my body, like I was the sun or really hot piece of metal being looked at from a distance.

The one thing I was really thankful for though, was the fact that this wasn't painful. It was a wonderful upgrade from the usual no pain no gain, and the fact that combining my energy was this painless, also surprised me.And so the lights continued to move up my body, causing more and more of my energy to go haywire, as they combined into one entity. And then finally the light got to the crown of my head, and finally stopped, completely disappearing like it was never there in the first place.

"Is that all there is to it?" I asked Adamas surprised.

"No!" he answered back, as he suspiciously flew into the air, keeping his distance.

"Then what's next?" I asked him, and then he answered through a psychic link. "This".

BOOOOM!

And then everything went black.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

I woke up to the feeling of water being splashed on my face, so I jolted up, only to find I was back in the library's study room, and Adamas had thrown an entire class of milk on my face. I glared at him, but he did not seem all to willing to talk to me about my dairy covered face...…..wait! That was milk right?

"Listen up carefully, I would like to teach you meditation exercise that would help you soul energy grow, by absorbing all sort of energy from the surroundings and adding them to your own. However since you're a natural, you have direct access to the most primal source of soul energy, so a mediation exercise to help you draw said energy through your gate.

Your gate even with the insane amount of energy you have, is still closed.And that's mainly due to your awakening, because I'm sure it was open before. Any way you can go look for it later. The meditating exercise can draw more energy and fill the each circle that it stands in the middle of. Now such things are not important to you, since your storage area for energy is your spine, so your gates would probably be over them.

To open the first gate and become a first circle, mage, sorcerer, wizard, or whatever you decide to choose, you have to have learnt three zero circle spells or more. The more you can learn the better, and once you do so, you can build and expand on the spell tree of those spells, by learning their first circle equivalent.

When your mental energy becomes stable enough to handle you learning and bearing the weight of a first circle spell, then you're qualified to be called a whatever class you choose of the first circle. Now you don't have to make that decision until you're ready to advance to first circle, since most if not almost all zero circle spells are not tailored for a specific magic class, and can be learned by all of them.

Now your mind can only hold three zero level spells, in return you can use them as much as you like, as long as you have the energy to use them. The same with the first circle, you can only learn three, now I said some people can learn more than three spells of a particular circle, but these are guys who are born for magic, and soul king or not, you would not be able to compare.

Now don't be upset, your mind was not made for the magical arts, neither was your body made for the physical arts, so believe me when I tell you, even with your dragon part, you would not reach the pinnacle of perfection and power in either of those two. Your fellow dragon kings probably have you beat in that aspect, and some of them you're actually better than. The thing is, everyone has the specialty, and magical arts and martial arts are not yours. The soul arts are your calling, and by the time you're done training, if you claim to be second, no one else can claim first.

Now we have to choose you zero circle spells. And trust me when I tell you, you have to be careful about this part and be very functional and wise with your choice. Each spell would serve as the template for higher circle spells, and it would be best to play to your strengths and abilities. Just know that there are no weak spells, just weak spell casters."

With that said, he stepped back leaving at least three dozen spell books in front of me. After quite a bit of deliberation I had 10 of them left with no idea how to choose the three I need.

1. Soul Flash

2. Soul Read

3. Soul Blast

4. Projection

5. Soul Bind

6. Soul Burn

7. Soul Gaze

8. Ripple Shield

9. Fire Ball

10. Wind Blade

Now what the hell can I choose, because quite honestly if I had my way, I would want each and every single one of them. But I only had to male three choices. Now most of the skills were soul oriented, and that was because soul energy was going to be the fuel that powered this spells. However just because soul spells would be a lot more powerful when powered by soul energy, it doesn't mean soul energy would be unable to power other spells. The damage and performance would just be normal.

But in the end the dilemma still remains, which three spells should I choose!