Seed Of Speed

The next few weeks of Diego's life blended together as it was lecture after lecture on the elements and the Illusionary Arts and Mind Arts. Since it was only the "fundamentals" class, they only six runes for each of the classes and expound upon the minor details of the rune and why it acts a certain way. With only six runes to teach, the class would normally grow stale as a teacher could only explain so much. To alleviate that problem, the teacher for the class was changed out each week, giving them a day to focus on a single rune. Receiving a variety of description of the same concept aloud students an easier time of finding their own path.

After his first week of classes, he was summoned back to Shadowbolt's tower. She had prepared a list of simple spells for him to purchase, and the pellets he would need, but Diego used this chance to ask for enough to buy the cloning spells he needed to complete his quest. She had been skeptical at first, but after he explained his {Harmonizing Technique}, she agreed that it should be able to further bolster his ability.

His time outside of classes, when not eating or sleeping, he devoted to practicing magic. Shadowbolt's tower proved to be an excellent place to meditate on the seven elements as each floor not only represented them, but somehow, she had isolated the mana in each floor so that only earth, water, and the others were the only elements of mana in the area. But the wonders did not stop there as she also had the 'Room of Illusion' in her underground workspace.

Equipped with his [Speed Clone], he would spend his time on each of the floors while having his clone use {Tranquil Heart} since, aside from helping cultivation breakthroughs, it also proved to help with meditating on the principles of magic. This did not go unnoticed by his fellow disciples, and if not for Shadowbolt's order, the entire sect would likely know as well. Of course, the Grand Master had already reported Diego's Soul Singer abilities, but the plan was to keep it quiet until he, himself, revealed his abilities. That did not stop Moonfall, and even Dreamcaller, from conveniently appearing on whichever floor he would be practicing on.

With Katalina's help, it would have been no problem to make a powerful custom spell, but the problem he was having was truly combining normal magic with bardic abilities. He could cast spells or play a song, but doing both at the same time seemed impossible, even when he split the tasks between his two bodies. Even after developing [Parallel Thinking] which allowed him to split his mind perfectly between the two bodies, he was still unable to figure out the problem.

On one of his days off, Diego sat on the water floor of the tower while one body meditate, actually sitting in a pool of water, while his other leaned back against the wall under one of the waterfalls. Moonfall and Dreamcaller were also meditating on the floor while he absentmindedly strummed his ki'ta while whistling a familiar tune: "Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding.

"Sittin' in the mornin' sun,

I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes,

Watchin' the sh.i.p.s roll in,

Then I watch 'em roll away again.

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay

Watchin' the tide, roll away

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay

Wastin' time…"

Despite the fact that this was likely over the hundredth song he had played he had played while meditating inside the tower, something was different. Constantly visualizing the elements and their runes would grow boring to even the most studious of mages, so 'both' of his minds began to focus more on the music than solely the concept of water. That was when he felt the gentle drain on his mana and opened his eyes of the body that was just meditating as he felt the drain come from his other body.

The spray from the waterfall began to collect and float over the head of his other body. As it formed a thin pool, the water would pulse in rhythm with the song until waves could be seen rolling back and forth to the music. When he whistled the last part, the entire pool of water formed one solid wave that rolled away then back, just as he finished the song, but with the music gone, so was the magic and the water came crashing down on him, drenching him.

He cursed as he dismissed his other body before anyone could see that its clothes were also wet. His outburst caused the other two to awaken and give him puzzled looks, but his focus was on the alert dancing in front of his eyes.

::{Symphony of Sorcery} created::

Reading the description of the skill, Diego started laughing in an excited manner, causing his disciple-sisters to worry more about him. This was the skill he had been trying to create for the past month, granting him the ability to combine the runes of magic with the notes of music, but of course, there were limitations. He would not be able to strum his guitar and cast a fireball at someone, at least not yet.

{Symphony of Sorcery} was meant for complex spells were the notes of his song became the runes of the spell. Although he would need to visualize the completed Spell Sigil while he played and the effect would start instantons with the first of his notes, the spell would grow more powerful as the notes layered together like an orc.h.e.s.tra. With this ability under his belt, he could finally start creating his custom spell.

"I'm sorry for my outburst, senior-disciple sisters. I just had a small breakthrough. I'm heading back to my room," Diego said once he stopped laughing and stood up, the ki'ta vanishing from his hands.

Dreamcaller merely nodded before closing her eyes to return to her meditations, but Moonfall still looked at him with curiosity. Clearly, she wanted to ask about his breakthrough, but she knew that it was inappropriate to ask. Diego made his way out of the tower and back to his room in record time. He did not stop and headed straight for the cultivation room where he promptly sat down. No sooner had he closed his eyes, than he was opening them within his mental plane.

::My, my, this is the most excited I've seen you::

Katalina appeared out of the azure void in her 'teacher' outfit as Diego stood up. He waved a hand and the normal blackboard that Katalina used for her magic lectures changed, so there were three clear sets of five straight lines. He pulled a piece of chalk out of thin air and drew a treble clef at the start of the first set. He wrote the word Space so that the bottom line was in the middle of the word then in the gap between lines he wrote the word Shadow. Like this, he continued until Light and finally Time were on the fourth space and fifth line respectively.

::I see, this makes a lot more sense for how bardic elemental magic works, but this isn't enough. Spell are complex things that can't changed at a whim like you do when using your other bardic skills::

"I understand. I will only be able to use a specific song for a specific spell. The hard part is going to be weaving the spell together with the notes of the song, but thankfully, I have the most amazing and magically gifted sister-in-law," Diego said with a big smile towards Katalina.

*Sigh* ::Show me the notes of the song you want to use and describe to me the effect you are going for, but I expect that you only use this as a guideline for your 'own' custom spell::

"Of course, of course," Diego replied, his grin growing larger.

The rest of the day he spent within his mental plane, going over what would become his trademark song. He was certainly ambitious, looking to combine illusion magic, cloning magic, and his {Encore of Battle} ability. When he finally awoke from his meditation the next day, with his new spell in hand, he raced back Grand Master Shadowbolt's tower.