Before trying to cast a spell, Magna closed all his curtains first, plunging the room into darkness with only a few candle flames flickering against the walls.
Checking for presences outside his door, he sensed only the same maid on day shift, still waiting outside.
Now that he was properly secluded, he began to chant.
"O Vein of the Living World, River that has flowed since before the First Dawn, Silent Mother of Rain and Sea."
He chanted the honorific names of the Matriarch of Life first.
He didn’t feel any change while chanting those words, but he pushed forward anyway, moving into the final line for the basic Water Sapphire spell.
"Give me pure water."
This time, he actually felt something.
With every word that left his mouth, he could feel the pool of energy inside him ripple and stretch outward.
Still, in the end, he couldn’t produce any water sapphire, not even a trace of dampness in the air.
That was fine though, since he already knew exactly why.
’Voice... I just need to find the right tones while chanting. ’ He grew more excited, now convinced he could actually pull this off.
Before chanting again, he started making strange sounds first, testing out different tones to see which ones affected his mana and how.
"Ahhh, ohhh, huuu..."
Strange sounds, some high and sharp, some low and grating, began echoing through the room.
Luckily, the room’s soundproofing wasn’t too bad, so the maid outside probably couldn’t hear much. Whatever little sound did reach her likely just sounded like a kid playing around.
As Magna kept experimenting with different tones, he noticed that lower tones made his mana expand and spread out through his abdomen. Higher tones had a different effect. They split the mana apart and sent it in different directions.
That splitting and spreading looked almost like a spiderweb inside him.
He could sense countless thin lines and follow each one. They seemed to run through something like veins, or maybe some kind of mana circulation channel he didn’t have a name for yet.
After spending a while with the higher pitched sounds, he realized these channels covered every part of his body.
He could move and direct his mana all the way from the tips of his toes to somewhere behind his eyes, just by controlling his voice.
He kept experimenting further. He tried a resonant tone that vibrated to push the mana along faster. He tried a nasal tone that came out narrower and more focused through his nose. He even tried a powerful, high, operatic tone, projecting his voice through the whole room like some kind of silky, angelic singer.
Every tone was making him move his mana differently in his body like a voice controller.
Thanks to the vocal cord mutation from his very first option, he was able to produce all kinds of sounds without any trouble.
He suddenly froze mid experiment when the door burst open, the maid stepping in with worry and curiosity written across her face.
"Young Lord, are you alright?" She asked, her eyes scanning the dark room until she finally spotted him sitting cross legged on the floor.
"Ah, yes, I’m fine. Just singing." Magna felt a flicker of frustration at having his experiment interrupted, though he kept his voice calm and warm.
The maid didn’t look entirely convinced, but she nodded anyway, clearly relieved he was okay, and closed the door again.
’I need to be more careful with the high notes,’ Magna noted to himself before going back to his experiment, this time sticking to lower tones.
The sheer number of pathways and distribution patterns for his mana made him realize something important about spellcasting.
His guess was that all these different pathways formed specific combinations, and when mana followed the right combination to the right destination, it triggered a particular spell.
The problem was, the number of possible combinations was massive, possibly reaching millions or even more.
Finding the right one on his own would take forever, unless he could learn it directly from someone who already knew.
This made him realize the importance of the words. Usually, Witches who knew the words could remember and produce the correct sounds more accurately, making their spellcasting easier.
’How did Green used to sound when casting the water sapphire spell?’
He tried to recall her voice, the one he had grown up listening to.
As he tried to remember, he started mimicking those same sounds.
Sometimes he growled low in his throat like a goblin, sometimes he actually spoke the chanting words out loud, until eventually, he felt his mana settle into a pattern.
Sensing that this time it might actually work, he began chanting again.
"O Vein of the Living World, River that has flowed since before the First Dawn, Silent Mother of Rain and Sea. Give me pure water."
As the final words left his mouth, he raised his right hand as a portion of his mana gathered right in his palm as the point of origin.
From there, droplets of water began rising upward, until finally they formed a clear, glowing orb of water floating just above his palm.
"I did it..." Eyes shining with excitement, Magna shot to his feet, thrilled by his own success.
But the moment he stood up, the water sapphire burst apart and fell to the floor, the entire mana pattern collapsing through his channels and settling back into its dormant state in his abdomen.
’So I need to stay focused to keep the mana in place within my channels.’
This had only been his first real attempt, so there was clearly still a lot to learn. But at least now he had proof that he could actually cast spells.
He checked his status panel to see how much had changed.
Mana 1.4%
His mana had indeed dropped, but only by 0.1, roughly the amount that a single spoonful of soup was worth.
Of course, the Water Sapphire spell was just a basic one, one that barely consumed any mana at all.
Without letting the rush of success go to his head, he sat back down on the floor, crossing his legs again, and this time tried casting the spell without chanting at all.
He simply murmured the necessary sounds needed to cast Water Sapphire, moving the mana through his body the same way as before.
Unfortunately, even though he managed to recreate the exact same pattern inside his mana channels, no water came out this time.
’Is it because I didn’t chant the honorific names of the Matriarch of Life?’
He thought it over, then tried chanting only the honorific names this time, producing just the sounds for the final line instead of actually saying "Give me pure water."
"O Vein of the Living World, River that has flowed since before the First Dawn, Silent Mother of Rain and Sea."
It actually worked. A pool of water rose above his palm once again, floating and rippling gently in the air.
Still needing to chant the honorific names was a bit of a downside, but at least he had learned he could skip the final part entirely, which alone could significantly speed up his spellcasting.
As for the honorific names, he still had hope that in time he could find a way to bypass them as well.
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