Chapter 119 – Mage Armor (II)

Jace sat honestly to the side and watched as Marin got up and straightened his collar.

It was finally this moment, finally access to one of the top protective schools of magic in the human world.

“This mantra is the Dragon Mantra, and it’s very long, so listen to it once, and don’t expect to memorize it completely all at once, just get the feel of the chanting right, and memorize the rhythms between it and the gestures a little bit, to form an initial impression.”

Marin said as he took out a tome piled with ash, flipping it open and skillfully finding one of the pages, accordingly picking up the heavy book and walking to the center of the room.

“Rock Pottery, Alcanoa ……”

As Marin chanted, Jace had felt arcane energies wafting through the air, swirling rhythmically like a flock of flying chimes. An ethereal arcane starlight gradually coalesced around his body.

Jace had certainly never seen a spell cast on this scale before and couldn’t help but look a little dumbfounded. Just when Jace thought the spell was about to be completed, Marin continued to chant.

“Zlodatu, Unibel Soko Arun, Inguruku, Izikutu ……”

That long?

Jace gradually felt that he should prepare a spell memorization book like those mages in the movies and games, and carry it around with him, so that he could flip it out and read it when he needed to cast a spell. Especially for spells like Mage Armor, he couldn’t expect himself to memorize such a long spell to cast it, after all, if he suddenly memorized it wrong one day, he might get burned, literally burned.

By this point, Marin’s chanting was nearly singing, his voice getting thicker and thicker, and Jace could feel the arcane energy engaged in vocalization.

The surrounding arcane energy was reflecting the entire house in a very pale, light purple color, and all of the arcane energy in Marin’s body had flown away, some of it even flying out of the windows and outside the doorways.

Jace knew that this was the process of the arcane arts seeking out the elements and reshaping them, and these arcane energies flew off like a pack of hunters driven by Marin’s incantation, hunting everywhere for the elemental forces that Marin wanted.

“Irementalak, Itakshi, Bediinkatu, Nazazuinsa!”

There’s so much more!

This time, however, it was finally over, and after Marin recited the last line of the spell, his hand snapped, and all the arcane energy instantly focused from everywhere, and Jace saw what seemed like a rainbow of light suddenly tighten and gather on Marin all at once, a colorful, mirrored layer of arcane light covering his robes, his cheeks, and his hair, which was shaking from the winds of magic.

It took Jace grabbing the table and planting his feet to avoid not getting caught in this gust of wind on Marin.

“Mage Armor.” Marin let out a deep breath, looked over at Jace, and said, “It’s a done deal, I haven’t touched this spell in a long, long time, and even thought I might be failing this time.” Jace could only describe the spell casting as spectacular, the entire room literally turned into an ethereal ballroom as Marin channeled the arcane spell.

Considering that in the game it was an instantaneous gain spell, a quick press of a shortcut button and you were done, it was pretty simple and brutal.

“Do you want to give it a try?” Marin asked.

“May I?”

Jace took the grimoire and walked over to where Marin had been standing before, his afterimage seeing that Marin had his wand out, ready to extinguish any uncontrolled elementals that might pop up.

“With the help of Arcane Wisdom, it should be possible to try.” Marin said, pointing to the line of incantation on the book.

It was a dragon language plus a generic note, and Jace was able to see that the generic note was subtly different in a few places from the incantation Marin had just recited.

Perhaps it was because, while Marin was reciting the true pronunciation of the dragon language, the notation was just to help memorize it, like Gagin had done earlier when he had memorized the Life Absorption spell.

That said, following this note would certainly not achieve the effect of Marin.

Fortunately, though, Jace had listened to Marin’s recitation of the spell just now under the auspices of Arcane Wisdom, and he was so focused that with the cues of those notes, and mimicking Marin’s tone of voice, he felt confident that he would be able to reproduce the spell for the Mage’s Armor in its entirety.

Includes gestures ……

“I’m ready.” Jace said.

Marin nodded and said, “I’m ready too.”

Jace glanced at Marin, swallowed, and began to chant.

“Rock Pottery, Alcanoa …… Molodato.”

As he spoke, he followed Marin’s example of waving his hand in the air, guiding the stray arcane energies to come to him and accept his commands.

It went well at first, and Jace’s afterglow caught a glimpse of some arcane starlight beginning to gather in the air.

But as these energies gradually gathered, Jace felt his mental tugging on them was a bit of a struggle, these arcane energies were scurrying around the lake like schools of fish, while the ones in Jace’s hand were grasping seven or eight fishing poles, having to tug on them as if they were fish trying to get away with such force.

Marin, too, had his eyes drawn away by the stray arcane energy he had awakened, and he hadn’t noticed that some of the arcane energy that was still shimmering with a faintly colored light in his own body had also disengaged a little bit with Jace’s recitation of the incantation, like dissipating pixel dots.

Jace coughed, and Marin’s eyes flicked back to Jace almost instantly.

“Don’t cut it off in the middle when you get to this stage, Jace, go on.”

Jace nodded, looked out the window, and said, “Unibelso Aaron, Inguruku, Zongzikutu ……”

As he read, his fatigue began to accelerate and weigh on him, was his energy reaching its ceiling? Was his spell casting substandard, or was the incantation substandard?

Maybe it was because he wasn’t focused enough …… No, Jace knew he couldn’t ruminate anymore and had to focus on finishing the spell!

Arcane energy had flown off and spun under Jace’s guidance, and everything had gone so smoothly, so unexpectedly well, that even Marin had stood up.

He seemed to notice that Jace was already showing signs of exhaustion, and tried to open his mouth a few times as if to stop Jace from continuing his spells, but every time he tried to open his mouth he ended up slowly closing it, just looking at the arcane stars that had reanimated the entire house into a magical corridor.

Just hold on one more sentence ……

Jace told himself to hold on one more time.

“Irementalak!”

He took a breath and forced himself to read, “Itakshi, Bediinkatu, Nazazuinza!”

Jace followed Marin’s example and clenched his hand so hard that his field of vision seemed to shrink so much that he could see nothing but his own clenched fist, and it had all gone black around the center.

A frantic whirlwind of elements wrapped itself around him, and dazzling rays of light came down from all directions struggling to illuminate the darkness of his vision, which nonetheless swiftly devoured the last bit of his vision, even the last hint of it ……

Jace felt an intense ringing in his ears fill the last vestiges of his senses, and his feet went limp and he knew nothing else.