129 Shady Dealings Part 2 (1/2)
Inside Desmond's secret base unnerving screams escaped Desmond's mouth. The chains wrapped around his arm rattle ceaselessly. Desmond tugged and squirmed with all his might he was ready to pull off his own arms to escape the pain Zane was inflicting on him.
Zane's figure stood nearby Desmond and watched him struggle. One mental attack after the assaulted Desmond's mind until he foamed at his mouth and fell unconscious. To properly torture someone you must break their mind not just their body. Zane's will etched that lesson into Desmond and he will repeatedly do so as part of Desmond's training.
Time passed and after a while, Desmond awoke from his long slumber. His entire body was shivering every muscle in Desmond's body remembered how Zane's will mutilated him and the illusions he trapped him in, but no matter where Desmond checked his body was perfectly fine.
Despite what his eyes told him everyone one of his other senses told him otherwise. The signals he received were overwhelming so he turned them all off. Desmond's body completely shut down his spirit body huddled in a corner deep inside himself fixing all the errors that he found and only reemerged when he was done.
When Desmond finished his ragdoll of a body spontaneously regained life and struggled to his feet. Desmond focused his eyes on Zane's will and then asked him.
”How long have I been unconscious this time?”.
Zane's will spared no sentiment or concern about Desmond's health he only explained and moved forward. ”You've been unconscious for 18 hours this time since we've been at this for a week none stop your mental walls in your sea of consciousness is showing signs of breaking because of this we will stop your magical training for a few days and focus on your studies”.
The sea of consciousness refers to a person's mental strength and its stability. A strong mind can significantly boost a person's control of a spell, complexity of a spell a person can use, and amount of different spells a person can use at one time. Along with various other things that are indispensable to mages and cultivators.
Desmond didn't like that he had to temporarily stop his magic training, but he also wasn't a person who was stupidly stubborn who takes unnecessary risks, so he went along with what Zane's will requested.
”That's fine, but I need you to help alter my spells. All the spells I know break apart when too much energy is inserted inside. That significantly increases my rate of failure when casting a spell when I'm not careful. Incorporating the property of my soul fire will take about 1 -2 months, but how long would it take just to increase the amount of energy I can impute into all of my spells”.
Desmond had plans to eventually return to the reserve unit before they think he deserted which implied him being out in the open for all of his enemies for long periods at a time so he didn't want to be completely defenseless. Zane's will replied, ”that will take about an hour to alter all the spells that you know.”
Desmond was amazed by how fast Zane's will could get his request done.
”How come you can get that done so quickly but not the other thing”. Desmond asked very skeptical about Zane's time frames.
”The spells that you know are only at an apprentices level which is no problem for someone with the skills of a formation path grandmaster like myself to alter. Your first request will take longer because not only do I have to create a new spell formation that suits you specifically, I have to incorporate the usage of your spirit energy that is tainted by the wills of a bunch of other souls while creating something that can add in the unique property of your soul fire”.
Zane's will's voice contained a tinge of anger because his skills were coming into question by someone who had none. Desmond clearly felt its anger so Desmond didn't question further and just did what the will wanted. Desmond removed the chains holding him down with a key that he had in his poket and then began his lessons.
The lessons Zane's will put Desmond through incorporated a wide variety of things.
herbalism, magical beast and human Anatomy, history, along with runes, math and language skills.
Listening of Zane's will preach hours on end made Desmond feel like he was back in school. Desmond only cared about the magical side of things, but even when Zane's will got to those topics it's beauty was tainted by the presence of math.
”Why is there so much math? There's more math then Magic”.
The numbers and equations Desmond was presented with would make Nobel prize-winning professors have a headache. Magic becomes exceedingly more difficult the further down the path you get to the point of performing brain surgery while doing rocket science would seem like a piece of cake.
Desmond endured 4 days worth of that torture until his mental walls healed and he could safely use magic again.
Zane's will had long since presented Desmond with the altered version of his spells. sparing no time Desmond tested them all out. Quickly he found that his spells were a bit more flexible than before. he could inject as much Magic in them as he felt like but they wouldn't break down.
But that simple alteration made each spell enormously more complex than before. That put a big cap on the amount of spells Desmond can you simultaneously. Before Desmond can only need two Spells at the same time. After the transformation he went through the strength of his soul was significantly boosted. So if he continued using the same spell formation Desmond could launch more then 10 Spells at the same time.
But because of the complexity of the spell and his own lack in Foundation Desmond can only cast five Spells at the same time.