Basic, Intermediate, High-Order, Ascendant, and Law-Level...
These are the Spell Rankings according to Humanity's standards. At the Mystic Academy, only High-Order Spells are available for both students and teachers to learn. Even then, they have to go through several tests and get clearances to learn them.
Ascendant level spells and above weren't even revealed, much less taught. These spells are considered Humanity's trump cards and only a handful of people are trusted to learn them.
The only reason why Ashton is aware of their existence is thanks to the books that are now available to him. Even then, he only knew the introduction to these spells.
Aria teaching him High-Order spells should help out immensely. Well...at least he hopes it does since he's running out of options here.
Learning the spells themselves wasn't a challenge for Ashton. It's probably thanks to his keen intellect granted by his bountiful Providence. It only took him a couple of tries before getting the hang of it.
This made Aria somewhat bitter because it took her almost a month to master each one of these spells and she was hailed a genius. Whereas Ashton learned it after a couple of tries.
If she's called a genius, then what would they call Ashton then?
Well, that's not important right now. Despite being a bit jealous, Aria is more than happy to help Ashton in any way she could.
What separates High-Order Spells from Basic or Intermediate Spells were a few things: Mana Reserves, Intent, and Mediums.
To cast a High-Order Spell, the caster's mana reserves should be at least twice as big as the required amount of mana needed to cast the spell, otherwise, it will fail.
The reason behind this is due to Mana Exhaustion - a status ailment that weakens a Mage, it's triggered by emptying their mana reserves swiftly. This can be fatal, especially when casting a high-level spell.
The doubled mana reserve requirement is a failsafe for the mages who plan on casting this to avoid killing themselves.
Next is Intent, which might be vague but it is an important process when it comes to spell casting.
High-Order Spells are dangerous. They require a lot of mana to cast and their effects could prove devastating either to the enemy or to one's self.
Spell casting, and this couldn't be stressed enough, ALWAYS have a chance to fail.
Failing to cast a High-Order Spell will cause severe injuries if not, directly killing the caster.
This is where Intent comes in.
The clearer the caster's Intent when casting a spell, the lesser chance the spell will fail. A spell caster's intent comes from their Will, so the stronger one's Willpower is, the stronger their Intent. This in turn causes spell casting to become more stable.
And last but not the least, Mediums.
Again, High-Order spells are demanding. Casting them without the use of Mediums could be suicide. After all, concentrating too much mana on a single body part is too much of a burden.
Mediums act as a vessel for the spell, it helps the process of Spell Casting to become much smoother and doable. There are a lot of items out there that Mages can use as a Spell Medium.
The most common ones are wands and talismans. There are peculiar ones too like animals, bones, teeth, potions, etc. Ashton had read a lot about those and he too found those options rather weird. Then again, if it works, it works.
Magical Artifacts can become Mediums too, however, to do so, they have to have the 'Spell Medium' Trait, or else it wouldn't work.
Ashton's Cursed Book of Infinity and its sub-artifact called: Mortal Reminder, both work as a Spell Medium so this has never been an issue for him.
All in all, Ashton has everything he needs to cast High-Order Spells. And during these past few days, he had been practicing them.
The spells are already registered under the System and are now going under the Grinding Slots.
So far, he discovered that he can't accelerate the Grinding Speed of High-Order Spells for now, which is a bummer, but it's fine.
...at least he could still use them as bullets, which was the whole point of this anyways.
Actually, that's another discovery he had when he started practicing. As it turns out, High-Order Spells (Buffs) when used in conjunction with the Mortal Reminder and the Gunslinger class, become a completely new thing.
He's using the guns as a conversion tool to make buffs into offensive spells. Neat!
If he casts [Absolute Immunity] with the Mortal Reminder, he converts it into a bullet that pierces through all manner of protection. It's a shot that ignores everything and pierces right through their soul!
Of course, it'll be a buff if he shoots himself or an ally with it, but to enemies, it becomes that one painful round that they will remember at every waking moment, granted that they survive it of course.m
Trust Ashton, he would know. He tested it after all.
[Archangel's Breath] is just a woke version of Burning Rounds. This one spreads fast and is extremely lethal to demons. One lick is all it takes to wrap them completely in flames that burn them into crisp, not to mention, the pain sears to their soul. This is highly reactive to Demonic Corruption so it's a perfect tool for Demon Hunting.
[Divine Fortress] is fun. It's an AOE shot that creates a 500m cube that traps all that's caught within an inescapable bullet hell. The cube lasts for 10 minutes, enough time for Ashton to run away if he needed to.
And finally, there's the [White Emperor's Regalia], which is probably the flashiest and most 'extra' spell in his arsenal.
It shoots a signal flare, which calls down a rain of fucking weapons down the sky. Where the hell are those even coming from?
The weapons range from swords, daggers, spears, axes, arrows, hammers, chains, etc. It is so extra and Ashton fucking loves it.
The way how that bullet works completely eludes him but it's fun to watch. Each weapon looked real but non of them stays permanently. The craftsmanship of each one looks divine though, not going to lie.
It's absurd but Ashton learned to now question it. Again, if it works, it works.
With these four new spells in his arsenal, Ashton just became even deadlier.
The mana cost of each spell was around the same level which meant that he could potentially combine these spells into one bullet. His current maximum is three High-Order Spells according to Aria, which is good enough.
And the poor Nightmare Devourer though...
The moment Ashton learned these new spells, was the same moment that this demon stopped being his problem.
Right now, it has become his training dummy. Well, at least it's a simulated version. Though Ashton would be lying if he said that he's not having fun torturing the poor demon.
Either way, Ashton had been testing out combinations so far, because yes he could combine multiple High-Order Spells into a single shot apparently, hell he could even apply the lower-tiered spells along the mix.
Combining [Absolute Immunity] + [Archangel's Breath] results in a streaking shot that pierces through everything it passes and leaves a burning trail that burns everything it touches.
[Divine Fortress] + [White Emperor's Regalia] becomes a cube trap of bullet hell. Said bullets were weapons of all shapes and sizes.
[Absolute Immunity] + [White Emperor's Regalia] causes the weapons to become ethereal and deal 'true damage' if this were to be a game.
[Archangel's Flame] + [Divine Fortress] becomes an on-site cremation zone.
[Absolute Immunity] + [Divine Fortress] causes the zone to slowly shrink to nothingness.
And [Archangel's Breath] + [White Emperor's Regalia] encases the weapon with pure white flames that burn everything it touches.
It was fun to watch as the Nightmare Devourer tries so hard to survive under the harassment of his attacks. Ashton can't pick favorites since all of them were cool.
That being said, Ashton also felt Mana Exhaustion for the first time, and that was not fun. Well, he felt it through the Simulation Zone so it's not as lethal but it still hurts.
The kind of pain where every single inch of his body was throbbing, that's what Mana Exhaustion feels like. Hell, he felt pain in places he didn't think existed before.
He was thankful for the warning though cause without it, he'd probably suffer even greatly due to his enthusiasm.
Ashton had to thank his cultivation technique for this as well since that's the one that made this entirely possible in the first place.
If it weren't for the repeated refinements of his mana, its purity and quantity wouldn't have been enough for a single High-Order Spell. So he's very thankful for it.
Either way, since the Nightmare Devourer is no longer a problem, Ashton felt lighter of course. He's no longer stressed and felt like he could make his way down the tunnel network fairly safe.
All that's left for him to do, is to explore more and it won't be long until he's back on track, making his way back home.
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