The forest near Cattivo Manor wasn't much to look at — a few lazy oaks, some scrawny wolves, and lots of dirt.
But it was blissfully empty of people trying to tell me what was "safe" or "appropriate" for a seven-year-old to be doing.
Which was perfect, because what I was planning to do today was neither safe nor appropriate.
In short:
Spellcrafting experiments.
With attributes no sane mortal had ever dared to mix.
Millie had insisted I bring a guard.
I had, of course, accidentally lost him in the woods within five minutes.
(The poor knight thought I was playing hide-and-seek. Bless his tiny brain.)
Now I stood alone in a small clearing, the late afternoon sunlight slanting through the trees like golden spears, my boots half-sunk in moss.
I cracked my knuckles.
Time to make some magic history.
Objective:
Reconstruct the basic Fireball spell to incorporate Devil, Holy, and Fire attributes simultaneously.
Simple, right?
Hah.
Let's start with what a normal Fireball actually is.
Standard Fireball Construction:
(aka "the idiot's guide to setting things on fire")
Base Attribute: Fire
Circle Structure: Simple compression array
Runes: Heat Generation → Combustion → Compression → Release
Mana Flow: Single-loop, clockwise, steady-state ignition
Diagrammatically:
(A series of runes drawn in a spiraling pattern leading to a compression glyph at the center.)
Mana fills the circle, spins, compresses, and—
Boom.
Ball of fire.
Elegant. Simple.
Absolutely useless for my purposes.
Because if I tried to pour my mana into that?
Best case: it fizzles.
Worst case: localized planar collapse.
(Again.)
Problem #1: Attribute Resonance Interference.
My mana wasn't one flavor.
It was three volatile, incompatible frequencies braided into a single current.
Dumping that into a Fire-only circle would be like forcing a three-note chord into a flute designed for a single whistle.
Either the structure had to change...
Or I had to surgically filter my mana mid-casting.
Spoiler:
I'm lazy.
Solution:
Modify the circle itself to dynamically accept multi-attribute flows.
Problem #2: Core Stability during Dynamic Attribute Cycling.
During high-energy spells, the mana core pulses rhythmically.
Each pulse amplifies the current.
Normally, that's good.
But in my case, the Holy and Devil aspects could start fighting mid-cast if the Fire attribute didn't buffer them properly.
Kind of like trying to mix oil and water using gasoline.
So... I needed an internal partition system — "attribute channels" — that would guide the flow without letting them interact destructively until I wanted them to.
Which led to—
New Fireball Design:
(copyright pending)
Triple-Spiral Mana Pathways
Layered Attribute-Specific Runes
Selective Attribute Amplification Nodes
I dropped to the ground, pulling out my enchanted chalk (stolen from Father's study, of course) and started drawing in the dirt.
Step 1: Primary Circle.
A wide outer ring inscribed with neutral runes — the skeleton.
Step 2: Attribute Spirals.
Three distinct mana spirals starting from different points around the ring:
Left: Devil spiral — counterclockwise, thorned paths.
Right: Holy spiral — clockwise, radiant paths.
Center: Fire spiral — serpentine, chaotic paths.
All converging on the central Compression Glyph.
Step 3: Cross-Attribute Resonance Bridges.
Tiny linking runes positioned at spiral overlaps, tuned to harmonize the mana frequencies without letting them directly clash.
This was the trickiest part.
I spent twenty minutes carving out one particularly evil sequence of glyphs:
[Resonance Bridge Formula]
Δ(M₁) * Δ(M₂) / |F₁ - F₂| → η_res
Where:
Δ(M₁) and Δ(M₂) are the mana differentials between two attributes.
F₁ and F₂ are their dominant frequency bands.
η_res is the resonance efficiency coefficient (ideally > 0.8 to prevent magical feedback loops).
Long story short:
The bridges smoothed the transition between aspects, using micro-differentials in mana density to avoid direct harmonic clashes.
Pure genius.
No applause, please.
Final Layout:
The resulting magic circle looked like a cross between a cathedral rose window and a hellscape mandala.
Beautiful.
Deadly.
Perfect.
I stood up, cracked my neck, and started feeding mana into the circle.
Immediately, the air shivered.
The ground trembled slightly under my boots.
Mana poured from my core, spiraling down the tri-pathways, each aspect threading along its assigned track.
At the intersection points, the Resonance Bridges flared —
brief flashes of blue-white light smoothing the turbulence.
The circle spun faster.
The central glyph ignited, compressing mana into a dense, roiling mass.
And there — floating above the ground — formed my Holy-Devil-Fireball.
It was a thing of terrifying beauty:
A sphere of molten fire shot through with black veins of Devil magic and pulsing cores of radiant Holy light.
It hissed and crackled, barely contained.
I held my breath.
Test #1: Controlled Detonation.
I thrust my hand forward, releasing the binding glyph.
FWOOOM.
The fireball shot forward like a comet, smashing into a tree—
—and exploded in a burst of blinding light, black smoke, and burning golden rain.
The tree wasn't just destroyed.
It was annihilated — vaporized at the atomic level.
Only a smoldering crater remained.
The surrounding trees caught fire from the shockwave, but even the flames burned strangely: tongues of black-edged golden fire devouring wood and soil alike.
I whistled low.
"Note to self: this might be a little overkill for sparring matches."
I collapsed onto a nearby rock, panting slightly.
The backlash had been manageable — a minor drain on my stamina — but the power was intoxicating.
It wasn't just Fire.
It wasn't just Holy or Devil.
It was something new.
Something transcendent.
If standard Fireball was lighting a match, this was summoning a miniature apocalypse.
Observations from Experiment #1:
Mana Consumption:
Approximately 4x standard Fireball due to triple-attribute harmonization losses.
Solution: streamline resonance bridges in future versions.
Destructive Radius:
Approximately 10 meters — highly unstable at peripheral edges.
Solution: add tertiary containment rings to magic circle.
Emission Signature:
Holy/Devil/Fire fluctuations detectable up to 500 meters.
Solution: develop masking glyphs or risk detection during covert operations.
I jotted all this down furiously into my second notebook.
(First notebook had unfortunately been sacrificed to an earlier "minor combustion incident.")
By the time the sun began to dip behind the trees, turning the sky into a riot of crimson and purple, I had already drafted two improved versions of the triple-attribute Fireball.
One with a Spiral Containment Matrix to improve focus.
Another with a Vortex Compression Core to double explosive power at the cost of stability.
Because if you're going to rewrite reality, might as well go big.
I stood up, brushing dirt off my pants.
"Alright," I said aloud, stretching. "That's enough groundbreaking magical innovation for today."
Behind me, something creaked in the woods — probably the knight finally stumbling toward me.
I turned casually.
"Time to pretend I'm just a cute, harmless seven-year-old again," I muttered.
Then grinned.
Because really, it was their fault for underestimating me.
Soon, this whole empire would have no idea what hit it.
And I would make sure the first thing they saw when it did...
Was fire.