Luca had chosen the cottage for a particular reason. Sure it was fairly large and cheap, but that wasn't all.
It had a cellar. It wasn't included in the original agreement for the house itself, because the actual owner apparently had something of value hidden inside.
He didn't particularly care what was in there. Truthfully he just wanted the cellar so he'd be able to practice magic secretly.
The door to the cellar was hidden in the bedroom under a sheepskin rug and locked as tightly as possible.
Luca pulled thw rug to the side and begun tampering with the locks. He thought about breaking the locks, but it was better to be on the safer side and pick the lock instead so he'd be able to close it back without suspicion.
He stopped by Humphrey's place to get the iron scrapings. The old man was rather confused, but then again, when was Luca not confusing him.
All in all, he now had all the catalysts for the Salamander's Breath spell.
That was also the reason he needed the cellar. It's be a shame if he blew up one of the rooms by accident. How would he even explain himself then?
Luca picked the lock with the skill of an experienced burglar, smiling as the door creaked open unlocked.
The bottom wasn't dark surprisingly. A dim light was mounted on the wall, illuminating the stairs leading down. They were light crystals. A rather expensive but more sustainable alternative to torches. It was only used by nobles. Even at that, poorer nobles such as barons wouldn't necessarily use such extravagant items unless they were trying to show face.
A thought crossed his mind. Most peasants wouldn't have such an elaborately set up cellar.
"A sorcerer maybe?" he muttered out unconsciously.
From what he'd seen that wouldn't be totally out of the question. But he waited till he got to the main part of the cellar before drawing his conclusion. And…
"It's… wine?"
Barrels and barrels of wine lay stacked on each other in a long row on both sides of the very spacious room. Two more light crystals hung at the very top of the two adjacent walls, providing decent lighting all things considered.
Overall he was still a little dumbfounded by what he saw.
"Is this place really just some noble's vacation house,"
The answer stumped him for a while but in the end, it didn't really matter. All that mattered was that he could use the room to practice spellcasting.
He got to work instantly.
Salamander's Breath was rather easy to cast all things considered, but it also took far too much time for an actual battle.
First, he had to prepare the completed catalyst, which was a simple mix of every single individual catalyst. All he had to do was drop it into a bag and shake it up. They represented the element of fire which was the element being used in this spell.
The next thing was that he had to draw the glyphs for the spell using the powder. That was where the problems emerged. For each cast he would need to draw the glyphs and then channel his mana.
He let out a groan of frustration.
"That's not practical at all. Who the hell made this stupid spell?"
In fact many of the spells weren't practical at all for low-level mages. Your opponent wouldn't let you bend to draw your glyphs to perfection. It was simply illogical.
According to the large tome, higher level mages could skip the requirements and draw magic circles directly into the air. But lower ranked and even worse, initiates had to deal with the drawbacks.
It was no wonder mages were practically extinct in the Empire. Low-level mages were too weak to fight back against the church's divine magic. And of course if you had no low level mages in the first place, you would never get the stronger ones challenging your rule.
But still there had to be a way. He wouldn't subject himself to these stupid and illogical rules for nothing.
This became number one priority for him. Waiting to become a senior mage to learn how to quickcast was absolute madness.
Luca got to thinking. Unless the so-called Emperor of Heresies was actually a fraud, there should be some plausible reason why he was provided with such a useless spell model.
He tried to remember everything he knew about magic, which granted, wasn't much.
"Of course!"
The answer came more quickly than he expected.
It was the same way he cast that energy concealment spell, that's how he'd get around the requirement.
Luca wasted no more time and began drawing the magic circle… on his palm itself.
The dust seemed to burn although he hadn't even activated the circle, but it didn't take very long before he was done.
He stared at the complicated combination of three glyphs inscribed within the heptagram. He considered tampering with the spell circle but he didn't know enough glyphs to not blow himself to a million pieces.
The glyphs were Fire, Stability and Containment.
Then he activated it.
Luca thrust his palm out, pouring a steady stream of mana into the area at the same time.
"Salamander's Breath!"
WHOOSH.
A bright jet of orange flames shot out from his palm at once, scorching the dark brick walls on the opposite side of the room.
The stream lasted two seconds before disappearing. The fiery embers lingered shortly then flickered into nothingness.
Luca stared at his own palm for a few seconds, surprised that the power could even come from him
But there it was, the charred remains of a magic circle still drawn across his palm
Of course, drawing on his palm like this didn't directly solve his issue of slow casting but he could do the same thing, and permanently with items specifically made to do so.
He would go a step further and alter the requirements of spells like these so drawing the glyphs wouldn't be necessary anymore.
Lucas's eyes glowed with anticipation.
"The possibilities are endless."