The dragon's harem

Chapter 990: How Much Did you Learn?



Arad walked out of Arthur's office, following one of the maids to his room. "Please wait a moment." Mary rushed after him, "Are you sure this is all we need to do?"

Arad looked back at her, "Yes." Yog had already confirmed that Arthur's problem is solved, what remains now is up to him and how he'll spend the rest of his days. It's not like his sons are suffering, they are doing fine and just having their father's names opened a lot of opportunities for them.

What Yog wanted was for Arad to make sure Arthur would make himself more apparent in each of his children's lives, and do his best to support them in any way possible directly. That would make sure that none of them would feel left out and potentially become a problem after Arthur's death.

What Arad is now interested in is checking the strange cast he has achieved. Besides the properties of the spell itself, the casting method of magic has three variables. Speed, accuracy, and power.

Speed is how fast the mana flows out of the caster's body and can be amplified by a wand.

Accuracy is the precision of the spell's aim and targeting, which can be increased by a crystal ball.

Strength which is the size of the mana coming out at any given time. That can be increased by using a staff.

To nerf Arthur's lightning he had used the electrified nails to draw the lightning and reduce Arthur's accuracy. And to fly he modified the speed and power of his fire magic to turn it into an explosion.

Till this point, Arad had thought that casting speed was just as it seemed. The higher his speed, the faster he'll be able to fling the spells. And that casting strength would mean his spell power would go up as it goes up as well. That understanding was both right and wrong. Right as it works like that, but wrong since that explanation isn't deep enough.

Arad walked into his room with Mary following him. He sat on his desk and pulled a clean paper and a charcoal pen. "Look at this." He started drawing. "This is my current casting speed and strength."

Arad wrote 50MP/second for speed and 35MP/second max output for strength. This means that in one second, he can only cast spells of up to 35MP cost each, and no more than 50MP can escape his body in each second.

This means that in a single second, he could cast two spells, one is 35MP and another of 15MP to saturate his casting ability. Any individual spell can't exceed the casting power{35MP}, and the total mana flowing in a second can't go past 50MP.

"This is how magic works, right." Mary knew the basics, "So, where is the difference you're talking about?"

"This is the difference." Arad circulated the 35MP/second for his casting strength. "The body doesn't just spit a solid 35MP, it's not like that amount comes out and the rest of the second is empty. The body gradually releases it. The limit of casting strength is in the body's magic circuit ability to hold mana, like how much air you can hold inside your lungs. Speed is how fast you can exhale it out." He lifted his hand and it glowed faint blue with magic.

"Have you ever heard of the waves of magic? The things wizards use to track or identify magic belonging to different people." The magic burned above Arad's hand like flames, flickering and twisting.

"I don't get it, does that matter? As long as the spell comes out and does its job." Mary tilted her head, staring at Arad's magic. She then went and picked a chair, sitting beside him.

Echidna and Mesharra knocked on the door and walked in, followed by a cheerful Plum, "My dear! I came back!" Plum raced to sit on Arad's head.

"What are you doing?" Mesharra pulled a chair and sat down, Echidna did the same and they looked at the magic around Arad's palm. "Are you showing her your magic waves? Want you to find something you made with magic?" Echidna looked closer at Arad's palm, "It's extremely strange...like something is off about your waves."

"I know." Arad smiled, closing his fit, and quickly lifted a finger, igniting a candle flame. "Look at this, a clear stream of fire, a basic fire magic."

"Candle flame." Mary mimicked it, almost all people in this world could use that magic, it was the most common spell, [Candle Flame], and is used to light fire for cooking.

"Well, how about now?" The flames danced and popped, crackling in a firework-like series of small explosions.

"Is the spell failing?" Mesharra looked closer but quickly noticed that it wasn't the case, Arad was intentionally making it do those crackles.

"The body releases magic in small increments, those are what result in the natural waves of each person. While being aware of them, controlling them is relatively possible with enough training." Arad smiled and Echidna gasped, "Wait, you aren't..."

"Yes, I'm turning off some of those small increments, resulting in a shattered wave, which takes the form of small bursts like this." He looked out of the window, "I used this on a small scale to turn my fire magic into explosion magic. As you might expect, turning off some of those increments means I'm saving on Mana as well."

"Wait! You can do that?!" Mesharra stood, "How is that possible?" She couldn't understand, such a small nuance of magic, no one would spend years training to achieve it, especially without a clear benefit or a proof of function.

"I don't get it as well." Mary leaned back on her chair with a thinking face, "I saw the explosion, but why not just blast forward with fire? Is the saved mana worth it? Is that all?"

"No." A large grin crossed Arad's face and they couldn't tell if he was happy or angry, but it was clearly something that had plagued his mind for a long time. "This simple concept had got me nearly killed...She must've felt like she was facing a toddler..." He could remember Isbert's emotionless face as she stood fine after taking his destruction blasts. As she slowly lowered her burning finger, that white flame he saw before getting incinerated.

^Now that I understood it, I can feel nothing about that besides utter shame...shit...she was that far more skilled with magic than anyone I'd ever seen...^ He thought, but suddenly stopped, ɅNo...Yog is probably far more skilled.^

"Look at this." Suddenly, the fire coming from his finger started shifting, instead of bursts it switched between fire and ice. "Mana comes out in waves, the wave that swings up makes fire and the side that swings down makes ice. To create fire with magic the spell must first gather the water in the air, separate it into smaller particles with a spark, and then burn them by adding heat with magic."

The smaller parts Arad talks about are oxygen and hydrogen, he became aware of them thanks to his void magic being able to both turn matter into energy and energy into matter. "When those particles burn they release water vapor, which the lower side of the wave freezes into ice by sucking heat out of them, and then the upper wave starts, separating the frozen water into smaller particles with a spark and circle keeps on repeating."

Arad looked at the four women with a grin, "That's right, fire and ice magic are the same. The same spell, but going in reverse." He waved his hand and the magic stopped, "Same for cold and heat magic, they are the same thing. So with this, I can conclude that fire, ice, heat, and cold magic don't exist, they are merely an illusion."

The room suddenly felt hotter, and almost immediately felt much colder, "This is the only magic that is real."

[It's called Temperatur magic. It controls the temperature of anything in its range. With it you can freeze water into ice or burn the air into flames, it's much more powerful, but still too complicated for most people to be able to understand let alone use.] Yog's voice came into

Arad's mind

"It's called Temperatur Magic. And I'm not done yet." He flicked his fingers and lit the candle on his desk. "Look at this." He rested his hand over the candle, "Depending on how well a caster can control temperature magic, absorbing heat and storing it as mana inside the mana

circuit is possible."

He could clearly remember Isbert's face, "It's hard doing it with natural fire and would be even harder against magical heat generated by another wizard. Besides understanding the magic waves, you must have a full understanding of how much your magic circuit can support, how fast it absorbs heat, and how fast the opponent is outputting it. Otherwise, you'll die burned from the inside out."

At first, Arad thought that the skill gap between him and Isbert was nothing more than a few steps, but the more he knew about magic the larger the gap between them seemed to grow. Now he can't even see the peak of the mountain she stood upon.

"Absorbing and reflecting the heat of my spells back onto my face like that...forget being aNôv(el)B\\jnn

toddler, I must've looked nothing more than an angry baby trying to bite without even having teeth." He could feel the blood rushing behind his eyes and his ears getting hotter, rage swallowed from deep inside his head and seeped out his burning eyes. He was enraged at himself, thinking that he had learned magic while still not even being close to competent

with it.

[Don't feel bad about it. You're already far past the lower cast of the lesser gods in terms of magic, heck I'd even say you're doing far better than most great wyrms while still being one year old.] Yog giggled inside his head, [Shall I set it straight for you? How far do you know

about magic?]

^Go ahead...I'd rather know how much I still have to learn.^ Arad sighed.

[I've been studying magic since before time itself was a thing. I didn't just spend billions, but

trillions of years researching and studying it, far harder than you ever did. That's why I'm the goddess of magic and the bearer of forbidden knowledge.] He could hear the smug giggle in

her voice.

ɅSo, how far I'm now?^

[Take a needle, submerge it in the sea, and take it out. If the sea is magic, the water on the needle is how much you learned. Partially nothing. You didn't even scratch the surface, but what you achieved is far more than most living beings achieve.]

Arad sighed, a bit disappointed.

[But don't worry, by the end of this training I'll make sure you at least know a cup's worth

instead of just what the needle lifted.] She laughed, [But, if you'll consider sucking my toes,

I'll teach a bucket's worth of knowledge.]

^Suck them yourself. I'll learn what I can on my own.^ Arad leaned back, thinking about what

he should experiment with next.

[I do suck my toes regularly, so you don't need to tell me to do it. I'll set you on your next

destination to learn]

^I didn't need to know that.^ Arad growled.