Side Story: Advanced Evocation Technique 1 – Duplication

"Are you happy now?“ Uklag asks and mumbles something rude about Imps, „Somewhat, Master.“ Catherine says in an attempt to appease her master she adds, “If you want to we can move on now.” It doesn’t work “I don’t actually. I’d rather fuck right now but I did make that pact with you…Let’s move I want you to show me your advances.”

They move to the room with the metallic doll. Catherine shows her firebolts, icelances, thunderbolts and other such destructive spells. Eventually Uklag interrupts her.

“Okay, your fire is making great progress and I can see that you have somewhat got the grasp on correct control. Your lightning magic is bad however. Good for you there is a very easy fix. Look very closely how I do it.”

A single strike of white light hits the dummy. “Now you do it.” A branched out flash hits a second later. “How come your lightning is a single arch while mine branches out?” Catherine asks and looks at her hands, like they are somehow at fault. “The most basic of advanced techniques: Duplication.

And before you ask yes, it’s exactly what you think it is, you simply cast the same things twice. The same time it is not that simple, so listen very closely. Mages use Stamina and convert it into magic through Mental Fortitude. Generally that means that we have to strengthen our minds and our bodies and here is where I will explain Duplication to you.

Duplication works a lot like a muscle, if you warm it up in advance it works better. If you use the magic channels in your body for the exact same thing twice in a row, the second time will take less energy. The quicker you use the same spell in succession the less power it will take comparatively. That is basic knowledge for mages, thus lesser Evocation-users specialize in only a couple of spells.

However once you have some greater control over your magic channels, in other words your magical muscle mass, you can use lesser extends of power to warm up more channels. With that in mind I want you to cast lightning twice in a row. The first cast should use very little magic, the second one as much as you want – go.”

Catherine raises her hand and makes a concentrated face. Then a single arch of lightning hits the mannequin. “Very, very good.” Uklag muses and gives the apprentice a congratulation hug. “My hand hurts.” Cartherine says after Uklag steps back again. “Then you didn’t warm up the channels correctly. Don’t worry though, with time you will get the hang of it.” He explains. “Okay. But why did the second arch hit the target.”

“Because electricity works like that, Catherine. The first lightning was so weak that we can’t see it but it still hit the target while branching out like it usually does, the second cast used the branches to the target the first one made and took the shortest route.”

The witch nods and Uklag smiles in response. “Now I have to warn you, until you master Duplication any other Evocation-techniques are pretty dangerous to your body, so I will tell you the theory but no more praxis until you manage to master the usage of your magic channels.”