Chương 125: B2 Chapter 31 - Race Of Practice

Performance and input delay in VR was mostly dependent on the hardware itself, but internet connection was a close second. If one's ping was any higher than ten milliseconds or so, playing became just about impossible. Wonderwind literally didn't let anyone with a ping stably worse than thirty to enter the servers. High-speed internet was one of the reasons many played only in VR cafes these days. Luckily, that wasn't an issue at Veyra's apartment.

The delay of her internet was an amazing one milliseconds even with two players logged in at the same time and Art Of Steel downloading in the background. Two different internet providers were connected to her apartment simultaneously. Her virtual pod was designed to use both at the same time, one as a backup in case the other one went out. I also connected to both, and the backup internet was perfect for downloading games at the same time. Veyra:" Check out the guild hall spawn points.

I built something real quick a few days ago." I opened my menu to check it out. The guild hall now had two points to teleport to. The main room, Veyra's childhood home, and a new area. I batted an eye at the name but teleported there anyway. [Teleporting to Guild Hall - Bombing grounds >:)] A landscape of stone welcomed me. Quite literally. The whole area was just stone, like a flat world created in that one block game with stone as the ground.

This area had some slight bumps and elevation changes, as well as craters and cracks in the stone here and there, and a pillar that looked like a target, but I couldn't reiterate how much stone there was. I turned and saw Veyra standing majestically with her staff, as if she'd been the one to destroy the landscape to this degree. Her hat was still gone, revealing the red hair of her character. Her grin was wider here, though.

"Welcome to the place I've spent my last three days in." I glanced around once more, trying to spot anything in the empty landscape, but nothing except more crevices came up.

"Uh, so where exactly are we?"

"It's just a practice ground," she said.

"I was thinking about what would be a fitting place to practice magic, and I remembered a book I read. The mages there had cast so much magic on a forest over centuries that anything organic was just destroyed. So I used the landscaping tool to replicate their hard work in under ten minutes."

"Cool," I said.

"So you've been spamming spells here? Any progress with casting dark magic?"

"I think I have the hex down now," she said. She pointed her staff at the target pillar and initiated the hex. The purple spell circle for dark magic appeared, passing in a flash as [Hex Of Dawnbreak] was placed under the target, though nothing happened, as the piece of stone didn't have elemental resistances.

"It's not really a complex spell, and the hex doesn't have restrictions on how fast the pattern can be passed," Veyra said.

"Most other spells actually fight back a little so you can't cast them in an instant."

"Oh wow," I said.

"That was like a tenth of a second, right?"

"Yeah. It just has one hard pattern. As long as I don't miss that one, the hex is pretty much instant. I can cast it under an opponent's feet, and when they try to dodge it, I'll have a predictable spot to shoot them." To demonstrate, she shot the hex straight under the target again, and immediately cast [Ray Of Time] outside the hex, where targets could run to.

"That's insane," I said.

"Nice work."

"No, that's ordinary," Veyra said.

"That's not what I wanted to show you. I've been practicing something much more insane." I raised an eyebrow.

"What's that?" She breathed in and closed her eyes.

"I'll need you to stay silent. I can't use this one in combat yet. I'm not sure if it'll even be possible. I kinda need my eyes closed to have a chance. I still fail most of the time. Give me a minute." I stood silently beside her. With her eyes closed, Veyra began casting [Ray Of Time]. The spell circle moved through its patterns much slower than usual. Mid-way through, it dimmed, failing completely. A spell she usually completed without any issues now just failed. She tried again, only to fail twice more.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. She breathed in before the fourth attempt. I rarely saw her as focused as she was now. She initiated [Ray Of Time]. At the end of the cast, a second spell circle appeared for dark magic. That one snapped through, casting [Hex Of Dawnbreak] under the target. [Ray Of Time] shot right after, blasting the target.

"Oh, I got lucky," Veyra said.

"I got the hex under the target."

"What the fuck?" I asked, staring with my eyes wide.

"Did you just… cast two spells at the same time?" She smirked at me.

"Maybe."

"W… How? A bug?"

"Well, not quite," Veyra said.

"I sent a message to the devs asking whether I was abusing an exploit or not. They said it wasn't an intended feature, but they said it's so difficult that they'll just be impressed if I can make use of it. They won't remove it."

"Wow," I said.

"So it's possible to double your firepower?"

"Not really," Veyra said.

"It's only possible for a select few spells. Two separate spell patterns can't be cast at the same time. So for double casting, the patterns need to be combined, at least partly. That means the two skills need to have one similar rune somewhere in their pattern." I tilted my head a little, as if to say I wasn't following.

"Let's imagine it this way," Veyra said.

"You have spell A, and spell B. Let's say the pattern for spell A is a circle, a triangle, and a rectangle. Not that shapes like that would ever be real patterns, but let's just make it simple. Spell B has a square, a heart, and a straight line. Those two spells can't be double cast because they don't share any patterns. The spell patterns are entirely separate."

"Alright," I said, mostly understanding.

"Now, introducing spell C," Veyra continued.

"The pattern for that is a star, a triangle, a hexagon. Going back to spell A, that one has a triangle in the middle as well. The similarity qualifies the two spells for double casting. Is this making sense so far?"

"So to double cast a spell, you need them to share one rune within their pattern?" I asked.

"Yep," Veyra said.

"That's the absolute minimum requirement. The second requirement is that both spells need to finish at the same time, so they come out simultaneously. Otherwise, it won't work. That means that, ideally, the intersecting pattern of the spells needs to be at the same spot within the two spell patterns. In our case, the triangle needs to be in the middle with both spells. If it's at the start or end, technically it's possible with a machine, but it gets way too complicated to humanly pull off."

"Alright, makes sense. How does it actually work though?" Veyra held her staff like a walking stick. The more she talked, the more her focus just went to her thoughts.

"I'm getting to that. Let's use the imaginary spells again. In this case, I start two spells in my head at the same time separately. I imagine the circle of spell A and the star of spell C. Now, when the triangle comes, I combine the pattern into one, imagining it for both spells, before completing both patterns for the spells. If I manage to do that at the exact same time, both spells come out at the same time. With real spells, the patterns you need to combine get much more complex, though."

"Wow," I said.

"That sounds way too insane to actually use in combat."

"And it is," Veyra said.

"If there's any interruption in either one, they both just get canceled out. I'm not sure if I can make it work. So far, the only spell I can do it with is Ray Of Time. They both have this weird Y-pattern near the end. It's just barely doable." I grinned at her.

"You're way too cute when you explain things, by the way." She blinked and immediately fixed her posture.

"What do you mean?" I chuckled.

"Your voice is also very cute when you get surprised."

"Okay, shut up," she said, face red.

"Sorry," I said.

"I did mean it, though." She looked away.

"Well… Thanks?"

"That's amazing, though. You versus FireBrand won't even be a debate soon."

"About that," Veyra said.

"FireBrand actually invited me to practice with him." I raised my eyebrows.

"Oh, really? What was the offer?"

"Nothing complex. He said he found a new trick, and asked if I was interested in joining him for a quick-casting bootcamp for a few weeks. That's the word he used, but I think he just means to practice online in his guild hall. Funnily enough, the new trick he found is also double casting. He's practicing the same trick with Enkindle for fire magic."

"That's insane," I said.

"Aren't you the first fire mage to popularize combining enkindlers and igniters to one?"

"I guess I was the first to do it," she said with an awkward smile.

"But what do you think? Should I go with FireBrand? I'm leaning toward a yes. Are you okay with that?"

"It's your decision, obviously," I said.

"Having a practice partner could be useful for sure, especially if you're both learning a new tech."

"FireBrand will probably benefit more, but I'll also progress faster, and it'll be more fun than sitting alone here all day," Veyra said. She thought for a bit, then said, "I think I'll go with him. That means most of my time will go to practice, though. Is that fine with you?"

"Yeah, I'm also practicing right now," I said.

"A practice race sounds awesome." Although, I felt like I was currently losing, and by a long shot. If Veyra managed to get good at double-casting, I was falling behind and fast.

"Alright," she said.

"That decides it. We're holding a practice race. Who wins and how, though?"

"Hm," I said.

"Let's say… When we return from practice, whoever gets more upvotes with our first clip on the forums pays for our next date after that." She laughed.

"Sure. That's stupid, but I like it. Let's go with that."

"Two weeks of pure practice, then," I said.

"Send me a message if you need me in real life."

"Yep," she said.

"Good luck, and see you here again in two weeks."