Chapter 187: Spell Practice
At the edge of the open grounds stood a wooden post half as tall as a person, its cut surface fresh, clearly set up only recently. Under Duncan's control, the post rapidly changed shape. Its trunk lengthened, a square-jawed head grew on top, and long limbs sprouted from its sides. Its mouth opened and closed as its body wobbled and shuffled to other places. This was the limit of what Duncan could presently achieve with Transfiguration.
With his preparations complete, Duncan turned his gaze to the spellbook raised in one hand and carefully read over a spell he had finally chosen. The upper half of the page contained a brief introduction to the spell along with casting essentials and cautions, while the lower half was like an old photograph set into the page. Inside it, an old man in coarse homespun, his face aged and his teeth about to fall out, glared with clouded eyes and barked out the incantation.
"I've studied this for days. If I try it carefully once, it shouldn't be too big a problem, right?"
Duncan thought for a moment. Imitating the old man's movements and words, he raised his wand. First, he cautiously pointed left and drew it across some distance, then brought it back and traced two oval loops. As the incantation left his lips, a pale point of light appeared at the tip of Duncan's wand.
In an instant, the whole wand seemed to turn into a block of thousand-year-old ice, giving off wisps of white vapor, biting cold in his hand.
"Did it work?" Duncan looked at this strange scene, doubt filling his heart, because it wasn't quite the same as what he had read in the book's description.
The next second answered his question. The light at his wand-tip swelled rapidly, and in the blink of an eye expanded to the size of a basketball. A deathly chill swept over him. Duncan couldn't help but feel a tremor in his heart. The hairs on his arms stood on end, alarm bells rang in his head, and a bad premonition took hold.
Duncan hurriedly stopped casting and dived sideways to run for his life, but although his reaction was quick, he was still a step too late.
A thunderous sound burst forth. The explosion caused by the orb of light rang in Duncan's ears, and his whole body was hurled by a great force into the distance. The ground was blown into a large pit. Fine clods of earth rained down like droplets, and a thin layer of silvery frost covered the entire grounds. It was as if someone had just dragged the whole patch of ground into a freezer at minus fifty degrees for several dozen seconds and then put it back again.
The violent explosion startled the surrounding magical creatures. After several dozen seconds, the little Unicorn Gale cautiously poked its head out from behind a tree. Fear flickered in its eyes as it warily observed the situation in the middle of the grounds. Only when it saw the hem of Duncan's school robes among the scattered earth did its pupils suddenly dilate.
Gale froze for a heartbeat, then rushed out from behind the tree, galloped to the mound, and scraped Duncan out with rapid strokes of its little hooves.
"Duncan, Duncan, are you all right?" Gale gently nuzzled Duncan's arm and called out anxiously, trying to wake him.
But Duncan kept his eyes tightly shut and did not respond. Gale grew flustered at once, and a milky-white healing light surged ceaselessly from its body. A moment later, Duncan regained consciousness from his faint. Seeing Gale at his side, he gave a weak smile and said, "Thank you, Gale. Put your magic away. I feel much better already. There's no problem."
"Oh." Gale nodded, its large eyes fixed on Duncan as he got up. "Duncan, what just happened to you? You scared me to death. I thought…"
Although Gale didn't finish, Duncan already understood what it meant.
"It's okay, don't worry too much," he said. "I just ran into a small problem while practicing a spell."
"That's still far too dangerous, Duncan," Gale said worriedly. "How about changing to a different spell and not practicing that one?"
"It's fine," Duncan replied. "I just made a mistake. This time I'll be more careful, and it should be fine."
Gale hesitated, pacing uneasily in place, still wanting to persuade Duncan to give up.
"I'll try one last time," Duncan said with a smile. "You go wait at the side first. If it still doesn't work, then you can rush over and save me!"
"All right…" Gale nodded with great reluctance, looking back at every step as it walked to the edge of the grounds and took up its place behind the trees again.
Duncan bent down and searched the ground for a moment, prying his wand and the spellbook out of the dirt, then carefully re-examined the details on the page. By now the other creatures of the forest had also arrived, anxiously checking on Duncan. He fobbed them off with a few casual words and shooed them to the sides.
Two Thunderbirds circled in the sky, their gazes locked tightly onto Duncan. The Unicorn and the pixies watched him with concern, ready to rescue him at any time. Duncan calmed his mind and stood at the center of the grounds. He closed his eyes and recalled, bit by bit, the old man's casting movements as shown on the page.
"I should be a little faster…"
Duncan opened his eyes. He raised his wand, spoke the incantation, and swung the wand as before—only faster. The pale point of light appeared again, but this time the wand did not become like ice as before. Its temperature and feel showed no change.
"This time it should be steady!" Duncan thought, and, quite confident, executed the final movement of the wand.
A crystal-clear ice spike formed before Duncan in an instant and, obeying his command, shot forward at extreme speed. With a bang, the ice spike, carrying great force, struck the dummy's chest. It staggered back two steps, then abruptly froze in place. At once, the ice spike melted. A deathly chill spread. In the blink of an eye, the dummy turned into a lump of ice, gleaming dazzlingly in the sunlight.
"Duncan, you did it!" "Absolutely perfect—Duncan's a genius!" "I told you—there's no spell Duncan can't handle!"
Seeing this, the creatures around him let out the breaths they'd been holding and, one after another, switched into "rainbow-fart" mode, scrambling to praise Duncan.
"Hold on a moment. Don't come over yet. This spell has another way to use it. I'll give it another try."
Smiling at the praise in his ear, Duncan stopped the creatures who wanted to approach. Kray and the rest held their breath again and stayed quietly in place without moving.
Duncan cast Transfiguration, and several more dummies appeared ahead on the grounds, shuffling about with slow steps. Then he raised his wand and cast the same magic again—only adding one more movement at the end, yanking his wand sharply downward.
A semi-transparent ice spike appeared and shot forward again, but this time it exploded halfway, scattering into crystalline snowflakes that drifted down. A thin layer of frost quickly coated the dummies, and their movements at once became unbearably labored and slow.