Ron studied the wand in his hand, tracing every curve and glimmer.
Just holding it, he felt something no metal or earthly substance could replicate—as if the world itself fit into his palm. Even without a spell, the elements in sky and sea seemed to whisper at the edge of his senses.
At the tip, the Elven Pearl glowed with a faint rainbow light. It felt like an eternal flame burning quietly, never dimming.
"An ordinary wand… this is called ordinary?" he murmured. If this was the baseline, what did a higher tier look like?
Impatience tugged at him. He faced the open sea and gave the wand a light flick.
A low hum.
He did not construct a rune in his spiritual sea. The Elven Pearl flashed instead, and a complete rune bloomed within the bead—clear as a carving in crystal.
An instant later, a Wind Blade sprang into being and shot over the water.
"…What?"
Ron froze.
How long had that taken? Half a second? A quarter?
No—faster.
The moment he formed the intent, the rune was already shaped inside the pearl and the spell was gone. The entire sequence could not have been more than a tenth of a second.
Reduce casting time? This wasn't a reduction. It erased the casting time. It was instantaneous.
And the cost… he felt it at once. The drain on his spirit was tiny—less than a fifth of what it used to be.
Lower spiritual consumption? This was nearly a perpetual engine. His natural recovery almost matched the cost of a Wind Blade.
"So without a wand, a magician isn't a magician at all…"
He stared at the Elven Wand, stunned.
He had reached thirty Spirit and his thoughts moved dozens of times faster than ordinary people, yet his casting delay and spiritual burn had kept him from exploiting that speed. At best, he avoided ambushes. He certainly could not chain spells freely, and even rune research forced him into stop-start drudgery—an hour of study for ten minutes of real progress.
Now he understood. What he lacked wasn't talent or will. It was the magician's most essential tool.
"Only now do I count as a true magician."
A wry smile tugged at his lips.
He had sworn to push harder, focus sharper, wring every drop of efficiency from derivative rune research. Without this wand, that was grinding sand with bare hands.
He moved the wand again.
Fireball.
Multiple Wind Blades.
Multiple Fireballs.
One after another, spells blossomed and crashed across the sea.
"Basic first-tier spells are almost instant now. The cost feels like a tenth of before."
"The enhanced first-tier spells drop under half a second, and the consumption is roughly cut to a fifth."
He organized the wand's effects in his head and couldn't help another helpless smile. No wonder everything had felt wrong before. How could a proud magician be winded after a few spells? How could a mage—who should never fear numbers—be troubled by a crowd?
"The boost is smaller for enhanced first tier, so second tier and above will probably see diminished returns. Even so, casting will still be faster and cheaper."
He kept testing, refining his estimates.
After a while he lowered the wand, stared at the glittering horizon and laughed softly at himself.
He had even wondered if he should toughen his body. Without enough spirit and without a spell that could end a fight instantly, he had worried about a fatal weakness.
Not anymore.
Spirit rules all.
With his current thought speed and near-instant casting, even close combat held no terror. Reaching him would be a problem for others, not for him. Once he mastered protection magic and space magic, what did it matter if his flesh was not hard as iron?
In some worlds, the mind alone crushes all. No gaps. No dead angles.
That was a magician in full.
…
On a rocky shore, Ron sat beneath a massive reef and studied the cliff face.
"Let's try this."
He raised the Elven Wand. Golden lines gathered in the air, weaving into a rune.
Boom.
It collapsed the instant it formed.
Ron shook his head and tried again, adjusting a single external line from the prior pattern.
Boom.
It shattered once more.
Unbothered, he continued.
Before the wand, a dozen such attempts would have drained him dry and forced him into meditation. Now a single rune's cost was a tenth of what it had been. Combined with his steady passive recovery, each failure barely skimmed his reserves. He could test again and again without pause.
By midday he had confirmed a core insight: wind's derivative runes must evolve from the base rune, and the core cannot change.
About one third of a rune's lines form the core. Fix the heart, and only the outer two thirds remain for exploration.
So he proceeded by exhaustion of possibilities, enumerating and testing each feasible variation.
He suspected a better method existed, some more elegant path to derivation, but with no experience to guide him, he chose the simplest road: change one piece at a time and try them all.
With the wand's help, he could test a dozen patterns per minute. Only after half an hour did his spirit skim bottom and need a brief, light meditation.
Half a day passed. He had attempted more than a thousand combinations. No success.
He did not grow discouraged. His efficiency already dwarfed his old pace. Given enough trials, the right pattern would appear.
One day.
Two days.
Three.
On the fourth evening, after close to ten thousand variations, a new rune finally held.
The golden seal did not burst. It flared softly, and the winds from every direction converged. A tiny cyclone spun before the cliff and whistled in place.
A chime rang in his mind.
[Tip: You have mastered one Wind Derivative Rune.]
[Tip: Achievement Unlocked — Rune Explorer. Reward: 1 Achievement Point.]
Ron's fingers tightened around the Elven Wand as the miniature storm purred at his command.
He smiled. The path forward had opened—and now, with a true magician's tool in hand, he could sprint.
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