Nick couldn't believe his eyes, somehow his pitiful attempt to create a simple spell worked.
(I guess I shouldn't be surprised since the definition of a magical law is an instruction that initiates supernatural phenomena using magic. I created this spell on the basis that spells were similar in substance to mathematical proofs after seeing the structure of the spell Blue Paint. What is a mathematical proof? It's a deductive argument that demonstrates a mathematical statement is true or false. So in essence I wrote down that a certain circumstance had to be true based on mathematical reasoning and translated those reasoning into Valteese. The result was that the conclusion of my arguments became reality.)
(All that sounds reasonable but I feel like I'm missing something.)
Just then, the steaming sound that was coming from the rug became a sizzling sound.
"Huh?"
The rug burst into orange flames in front of Nick and two seconds later became nothing but grey ash.
(Now I see why Norman said that spell making was dangerous. If I had attempted that on a living thing, the same result would have probably followed. But why did the spell end up failing after the intention behind the spell was carried out?)
Nick was excited but confused.
(It could be that my arguments used in the spell weren't good enough or my conclusion was bad but it is difficult to say. I'll have to ask Norman when I see him.)
The time was a little past 6 am so Nick didn't have time to follow his normal routine so he went to the bathroom and took a shower, then got dressed, he copied his failed spell on one of the special papers and put it into his backpack and went to the cafeteria to eat breakfast and then went on to class.
On his way to class, Nick did some thinking.
(The next class is on the use of Valteese so maybe I'll learn something that can help explain my failure this morning.)
At 9 am the teacher walked into the room and Nick recognized him. He was a black man wearing an all white suit.
(Ron Gordon.)
"Good morning students, as some of you should already know, my name is Ron Gordon and I will be lecturing today on the use of Valteese. Now, all of you should now what Valteese is. It is the universal language of magic, meaning, it is the one language that can be used to manipulate all magical energy. The mechanism by which it does this is too complex for an introductory class like this so I will put it in a way that new students can understand. Valteese projects the will of the Magician into a form that makes magic respond. Not to say that Valteese is the only language that can do this but it is certainly the foundation of every Magician's spell casting and magic usage, that is, when you have learnt sufficiently you will probably be able to create your own language that controls magical energy or continue using Valteese, that's up to you..."
Nick listened for a while but couldn't bother to wait for Ron to stumble into what he wanted to discuss so Nick wanted to take the initiative to ask his questions by raising his hand half way through Ron's lecture. Ron eventually gave Nick the approval to ask his question.
"Sir, how exactly do you use Valteese to create spells, like what exactly must be written in Valteese for a spell to be effective? Also, under what conditions can your Valteesian instructions fail."
Ron Gordon rubbed his chin for a while as if he was trying to fully appreciate the meaning behind Nick's question.
"Spell making is not really what this lecture is about but I'll humor you for the benefit of the class. Like I said before, Valteese is a language used to project the will of the Magician onto magical energy, creating all sorts of phenomena so for a spell written in Valteese to be effective, it must take the form of instructions. I personally like to liken Valteese with computer languages such as C# or python that you would use to make computers do something. All computer code is ultimately written as instructions for a computer to follow; there may be sample data and explanations written in code for a compiler to analyze such as in machine learning but if all the computer code doesn't actually tell the computer to do a coherent thing, what use is it, after all, we could write in python what it means for the computer to make the screen light up but that's not really the same thing as telling it to light up the screen now is it?. So, the conditions under which most spells written in Valteese fail have to do with the Magician not stating his intentions clearly enough in the form of commands, so to speak."
Ron ended his explanation there, so Nick nodded his head and returned to his thoughts.
(Is that my problem, I didn't state my intentions clear enough? Most of my spell was just filled with arguments that I got from my math text but I feel like my intentions were clear.)
Nick silently shrugged his shoulders, he couldn't be sure until he spoke to Norman so after about three more hours of Ron's lecture Nick made his way to the spell creation club. When Nick walked in, only two people were in the room, a white young man with short black hair and Lana, the woman Nick had met yesterday. Nick thought that he might as well greet them.
"Good afternoon Lana, it is good to see you again."
Lana looked up from some papers she had at the desk she was sitting at and replied:
"Same here."
She then returned to her work. Nick then turned his attention to the young man. He was wearing a white buttoned up shirt with a pair of tan long pants. He had been writing some Valteese on the white board but stopped to pay attention To Nick.
"Hello, my name is Nick Capitol, a first year, it's nice to meet you."
The young man nodded with his right arm stretched out for a hand shake.
"Hello, my name is Derek Drake, although I'm in a higher year we can probably both learn from each other, welcome."
Nick looked at his hand for a while and said awkwardly:
"Sorry, I'm a bit uncomfortable with touching other people, do you mind if we don't do hand shakes?"
Derek took back his hand, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly.
"No problem Nick, we all have our quirks, I don't have a big enough stick up my ass as to mind."
Nick nodded his head, saying:
"Thanks, I'm going to speak to Master Norman about something, see you later."
Derek nodded and got back to his work but before Nick turned around, he heard Norman's voice.
"You want to speak with me? So did you practice duplicating the scrolls that I gave you yesterday, did you learn anything?"
Nick turned to face Norman with a sincere expression. He took his scroll out of his backpack and gave it to Norman.
"Well...after analyzing the spell Blue Paint, I kind of jumped the gun and tried to create my own spell. You see, I'm interested in mathematics so I realized that the spell looked similar in structure to a math proof and tried to create one using a proof in one of my texts. The spell is supposed to shrink something by half but...it worked then it caused my rug to burst into flames and turned to ash."
Derek and Lana both looked over at the same time that Nick finished speaking and burst into laughter.
Derek said:
"You actually destroyed your own rug trying to cast such a spell on it when you just started...wait, did you say that you actually got the spell to work on your first try?"
"Yes, it did work."
Nick confirmed.
After fully understanding what Nick had said, Lana also stopped laughing. Norman raised his hand and a scroll paper appeared in it. Norman looked at Nick's scroll and the same writing appeared on Norman's scroll. Norman gave Nick his scroll back and tore his. Norman didn't speak, but waited for about one minute to see the effects of the spell. One of the desks started steaming, ten seconds later and it indeed became half its size but soon after burst into flames and turned to ash.
Derek and Lana seemed impressed for some reason. Norman looked at Nick and said:
"Well Nick, it looks like you have some talent for spell making. Although your spell is a failure, the fact that you were able to make it this far on your first try and without instruction is pretty impressive, although...trying to create your own spell so soon was not such a wise decision because if it had resulted in a backlash, your rug's fate could have been yours."
Nick swallowed his saliva.
"Well..anyway, what's done is done. Aright, let's discuss what's so amazing about your feat. Usually a novice can't create effective spells because, one, their Valteese is poor and they aren't able to write coherent instructions and two, they don't understand what they are even trying to do, at least not enough to make a spell. Think about it, even if you have all the ingredients to make a cake you can't make the cake without even knowing what a cake is. You said that you wrote this spell based on a mathematical proof, hmmm...well I suppose mathematical proofs are akin to instructions, granted that you have the write theory but they are only similar to instructions and are not actually instructions, that is, they make arguments for something that could be true but that's not the same thing as laying out how something can be done practically and that's probably why your spell failed in the end, the laws are incomplete. If we said that your spell was a construction company, you have all the materials and people to build a house but you have no directions and methods to do so and that's why that desk there turned into ash after your spell was used on it. I'm still impressed though, as you should already know, writing a spell in Valteese is all about projecting your will into a form that can affect magic, you did that without even knowing all that much. It's easy to duplicate a spell once its created because that Valteese makes your instructions via your will a universal 'law' so once a spell has been created successfully, anybody can copy it once they have the Valteese that was used to create it but making a spell from scratch is difficult because it is very much dependent on the unique will of the Magician as well as the instructions the Magician uses according to his knowledge. You did great but be more careful."
With that Norman raised his hand and a book appeared in front of Nick floating in midair.
"Your next club task is to read that book within the next two months and at the end of every week, you have to tell me what you have learnt until you finish the book."
Norman gave Nick a stack of special papers and left for the other room without even waiting for Nick to respond to any of what he had said.
(I guess talking any more won't make too much of a difference, I have to work harder.)
The look that Derek and Lana gave Nick had changed from one of friendly indifference to one of ambivalence. Nick recognized that look, it was the same one that his peers in high school gave him when they found out that the quiet, simple boy got higher grades than them. Nick ignored it. He said his goodbyes and went back to his dorm room.
First he did his push ups since he didn't get the chance to do them this morning, he then showered and then ate some snacks that he had in his bag that he got from the cafeteria that morning. He sat down at his desk and put a fairly thin book in front of him, its title is "The Art and Method of Meditation". It was the book that he got from the library and since it was just 6 pm he was going to spend the next three hours reading it.
"Okay, let's begin."