Arcane Exfil
Chapter 39: Multicasting

Three more days of chess had beaten the mental enhancement technique into something approaching second nature. The neurological equivalent of breaking in boots – initial blisters giving way to a custom fit. The headaches had tapered off by day two; kinda like building alcohol tolerance, minus the liver damage. Verna kept cycling opponents, throwing in time constraints, before joining in herself – textbook pressure-testing. Or rather, textbook as ‘textbook’ got, considering thought-accelerating magic in some alternate universe.

After they’d sealed the deal with chess, they moved onto juggling, and boy, did the transition prove her point about divided attention. Chess was sequential problem-solving – juggling was parallel, both in terms of the task itself and the integration of physical enhancement.

One ball, two, then five – standard progression, just as Verna had initially demonstrated. By day five, Cole had hit ten before dropping one, right as Ethan hit twelve – the smug bastard. Mack topped out at eleven, Miles at nine, bitching the whole time about how this wasn’t what high-speed badasses were built for – while still attacking the task with religious dedication.

Nobody missed the tactical importance. Mental enhancement without physical action was just theoretical masturbation; juggling married the two systems into something combat-applicable. It was as simple as force multiplication; essentially amplifying their natural expertise through magical steroids.

The tedium was offset by clear, measurable improvement – the mental equivalent of hitting new PRs at the gym. More telling than raw numbers was how the dual enhancement gradually faded into background noise, like maintaining situational awareness. It just… was. Present, crucial, but not consciously managed.

The magic was becoming just another tool in the operational loadout – no different from night vision, a radio, or even earth magic. Once everyone could maintain acceleration during physical tasks without conscious overhead, Verna deemed them ready for combat applications. About fucking time.

Mental calisthenics were fine for foundation-building, but the actual implementation – putting steel or spell on target – that was where the real value proposition lay.

“Today,” Verna announced, leading them to a cordoned section of the grounds, “we shall address multicasting.”

Like most of the other training ranges, this one was situated outside, set up like a shooting gallery. But Verna had done her due diligence; this area was significantly more fortified than the one they’d used for the plasmaball demonstration.

“Multicasting is the act of sustaining multiple spells at once – not fused, nor shared, but borne apart, each complete. Therein lies its difficulty. And do not mistake this for combinatory work. A combinatory spell is singular in nature, however many forces it unites. It does not qualify as multicasting. That said, one may sustain two such workings at once – provided neither is permitted to collapse into the other, whereafter disaster tends to follow.”

“So like… multitasking?” Mack asked.

“Indeed.” She formed two modernized fireballs, mimicking Mack’s original design, before flicking them at a dummy in the distance. She turned her back to the blast, allowing it to silhouette her form before continuing, “Now, that was but prelude. The method itself is less prone to spectacle, but far more telling. You shall proceed with elemental spellcasting in its simplest form.”

This time she formed a single fireball in her right hand – standard issue, nothing fancy – and simultaneously manifested an ice dagger in her left. She stood there, effortlessly maintaining both constructs, letting them rotate independently above her palms.

Cole never expected to be reeled in, but the demonstration was fascinating despite its simplicity. Flashier shit usually got Mack or Miles going, but this was the good stuff – the foundational capability that would unlock everything else. Not boring at all, actually; this was the precipice of leveling up.

“In multicasting, each spell demands its own reasoning – as multitasking does,” Verna explained. “Fire and ice, for instance, do not admit synthesis; their principles oppose one another. That they may be held together at all is a matter of separation, not spell combination – and of discipline more than invention.”

The statement wasn’t entirely true. At least, not under a modern scientific lens with its extreme pressures and points of equilibrium, but Cole got the gist. It wasn’t unlike patting his head with one hand and rubbing his stomach with the other – two contradictory motions that demanded split focus.

Verna stepped forward and sent the two constructs toward separate targets, like some action movie hero dual-wielding pistols with perfect aim. The fire curved left while the ice darted right, slamming into their respective goalposts. The targets exploded almost at the same time: one in flames, the other shattering into frozen chunks.

It almost looked easy; deceptively so, but Cole knew damn well it wasn’t – not when the caster had to deal with varying trajectories. And to top it all off, this was just with stationary targets. Fuck if Cole knew how tough it’d be trying to pull this off against a foe like K’hinnum.

Miles gave a low whistle. “That’s a neat party trick.”

She grinned like she’d just caught him slipping, and hell, maybe she had. “If that is considered a party trick, then I begin to suspect our definitions of diversion differ somewhat. Most who attempt the same leave little more than a mess – and rather less dignity.”

She produced the same fire and ice spells. “Now, we depart the realm of your ‘party tricks.’ The third spell is where most begin to question their ambitions – or else never come quite so far as regret, depending on how cleanly they fail.”

She added a third spell: a chunk of rock shaped into a small spear, positioned right over her head. “The strain does not rise by neat proportion. Most expect a tidy progression. What they receive is rather more educational.”

Miles strained his eyes like some grandpa squinting at his phone. “Yeah, I believe ya alright. Head’s hurtin’ just lookin’ at that.”

Verna giggled. “My old instructor once likened it to juggling torches whilst reciting verse and keeping figures in one’s head – absurd, to be sure, though not without some merit.”

“Not so absurd when you’re multicastin’ spell combos, I reckon,” Miles said.

Verna added a fourth spell – an enhanced fireball – and let all four constructs loose. “Quite. One just hopes the reckoning arrives before the collapse. Most accomplished battlemages will never exceed this threshold in practical combat unless copycasting, or casting the simplest of spells.”

Mack jumped on the new term. “Copycasting – spamming the same spell, I’m guessing?”

Verna nodded, though she didn’t seem to vibe with the way Mack put it. “In essence, yes. However, I’d not explain it as such facing Sir Fotham. Now, copycasting may saturate a field, to be sure – repetition from multiple angles achieves its own form of pressure. However, multicasting differs in strategy: it divides not the field, but the mind. One spell holds ground; another forces movement; a third allows you to avoid a strike; and a fourth counters.”

Both approaches had their uses. Spamming fireballs at K’hinnum, for example, would’ve meant more targets to track. Could’ve bought enough distraction for cleaner Flashbang placement earlier on. Add faster mud trap deployment, and they might’ve taken down that bloodsucking bastard without getting their asses kicked first – without having to worry about Elina.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

“Your targets,” she continued, “needless to say, will seldom oblige you by remaining still. No, they shall have the discourtesy to move and thus, the result for most novices is disarray. Watch carefully and… do enhance your senses.”

Enhance senses? To keep up? Now that was interesting.

“Ready,” Cole reported.

Verna raised a dozen dummies and walked into the fray, standing before her targets. Then, in a split second, she staggered a set of barrier shields, all at different heights like some point defense array. She moved these barriers around, effectively securing the defense offered by an all-encompassing barrier but without the excessive mana cost.

She threaded a dozen firebolts through the literal – but not figurative – gaps she’d left, all while breaking right with an ankle-snapping cut that would’ve left an NFL cornerback in the dust. Or a Nevskor, for that matter.

And if that wasn’t enough, she also reshaped the terrain while dodging, raising walls that separated any hypothetical reinforcements from her targets.

It was one of the most impressive displays Cole had seen in spellcasting until now, K’hinnum’s insane multicasting exempted, of course. Five different spell tracks, including mental and physical enhancement, all running simultaneously. It looked flashy, but unlike the anime pizzazz he’d grown accustomed to, everything here had tactical meaning.

“Questions?” Verna asked, barely giving them any time to actually process what they’d just witnessed.

She probably assumed they were using their mental enhancement wisely. And if she was actually testing for that, then Ethan passed with flying colors; he already had a question raring to go.

“Does similarity between spells reduce the processing overhead?” he asked. “Like, fire and fire compared to fire and ice – or water.”

“Similarity?” She tilted her head. “It offers no special leniency. You presume that like conjures with like more easily than with its opposite. A natural thought, however misleading. There are many mages who cannot fathom holding ice in one hand and fire upon the other. There are many mages for whom this is of no concern.

It depends entirely on your visualization, as does any other form of magic. Clarity in the act is the only constant. Thus, see with your mind’s eye with sufficient clarity, and you may well juggle thunder and dirt.”

Ethan got it. “So, our imagination’s the only limiting factor. And how many thoughts we can handle at once.”

Verna nodded. “Any further questions?”

Cole didn’t have any, and neither did the others, going off the shaking of heads.

Verna clasped her hands. “Then, shall we attempt an exercise?”

All that chess and juggling had been building up to this moment. He’d waited long enough but finally, a tangible power spike. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

“We shall begin with the simplest variation,” Verna instructed. “Instance replication – copycasting. Form a single fireball, then duplicate it.”

Walking before running. It was a bit of a blueballer, but a logical toe-dipper.

Cole formed a fireball – standard issue, nothing fancy. The familiar heat gathered above his palm, compact and controlled. Once it stabilized, he began the duplication process. Not a second, independent casting, but a mirroring of the first – same parameters, same everything.

The second fireball materialized above his left hand, no Advils or Tylenols needed – not by a long shot. It truly was as simple as copying and pasting.

“Now, dispel one construct and in its place, form a new spell.”

Here came the real challenge – the transition from copycasting to true multicasting. Cole opted for the demonstration Verna had used earlier: a clean shard of ice. But how could he imagine cold and warmth at the same time?

The perfect example sprung to mind: sticking his leg out from under the blanket while the AC was running. It wasn’t a one-to-one match, but still conceptually applicable – very much so. The heat in his left hand gave way to cold, flames dissipating and water coalescing before hardening into ice.

No strain yet, but then again, Cole could probably chalk that up to having the right mental image.

“Excellent, all of you. Now, release your spells.”

Cole shot both spells forward with a mental flick. The fireball hit home, the ice shard shattering against its own mark a half-second later. Across the field, the others landed their hits; everyone had managed it on the first try.

Verna completed a slow circuit around them, eyes sharp as she catalogued the results and their expressions. “Your impressions?”

“Easier than expected,” Mack offered, flexing his fingers. “Chess training really paid off, honestly.”

Ethan, naturally, didn’t seem fazed at all. Working with bombs for a living probably demanded quite a bit more than simple multicasting. “I could get used to it,” he said, playing it off.

Miles responded with similar humility, but something in his voice told Cole that it came from a different place than Ethan’s. “Ain’t too bad,” he shrugged.

Even if it wasn’t true for Miles, it sure as hell was true for Cole. “Easy,” was all he said.

Verna responded with a sly smile, tone shifting from instructional to challenging in an instant. “Easy, hm? How fortunate it is that you find it so undemanding.”

Cole knew exactly what they’d triggered – the instructor’s trap. Lure students into confidence, then crank the difficulty to humble them.

Now, he probably couldn’t throw four different spell combos at a target, but he was sure he could do something impressive – at least for day one.

“Perhaps we might dispense with this progression entirely,” Verna said. “True multicasting – as many spells as you might maintain. Let us assess your thresholds, shall we?” It wasn’t a question.

Cole centered himself. If going by raw numbers, he could pull off five distinct spells. Mental and physical enhancement were already active, his body primed. Fire and ice already brought him to four, and barrier magic made a manageable five.

The mental load was heavy by now, a tangible pressure. A soft pounding accompanied the strain – different from the one that resulted from mana exertion or running without proper oxygen intake. This was closer to the nerve-wracking stress that epitomized final exams, especially ones containing bullshit no one could have prepared for.

Cole had a sense, a gut feeling, that he could probably wrestle a six into place – or maybe even a seventh if he truly pushed. Of course, it wasn’t some Avatar-level tour de force, but for a first run, five felt like a sensible cap. He knew well enough to avoid ego-lifting, or in this case, whatever the magical equivalent was called.

With his modest repertoire, he emulated Verna’s demonstration but without the flair.

Verna hid her shock well, but her widened eyes betrayed her. Even if a nod was all she gave, it was clear that five was impressive, even for heroes.

Cole glanced around. The others were similarly engaged, not quite pulling off Verna’s craziness, but still putting on respectable shows in their own right. Everyone else maintained four spells – Mack with a bit more power to his spells and Miles moving like a cracked-out quarterback. Ethan, as usual, chose to keep it lowkey.

A crunch of boots on gravel made Cole glance up. An aide headed for Verna, stopping a few paces off and waiting respectfully.

Verna acknowledged him with a slight nod and gave their efforts one last, sweeping glance. “Commendable indeed, for an initial foray. That you did not collapse amidst your efforts is impressive. But understand this: no spell, however familiar, becomes effortless through happenstance. You dedicate yourself to repetition, and thereafter reap the fruits of your labors.”

She paused. “Though you might sustain more spells by means of further mental acceleration, it is a costly endeavor. Therefore, it shall be of greater profit to render your core spells fixed, bound by habit. Only then will the mind be fit to bear more.”

Verna turned to the aide then, who reported, “Lady Verna, Sir Fotham requests your presence in Intelligence for an analysis of Kidry’s residual magic.”

She nodded once. “Understood.” She addressed the team again. “It appears our session must conclude ahead of time. If Fotham calls for me, I can only assume he’s stumbled upon something of interest. In the meantime, the training facilities remain at your disposal.”

“Understood, ma’am,” Cole said.

With a final nod, she turned and walked off with the aide.

Mack didn’t hesitate to make a comment. “Kidry, huh? Wonder what the ol’ Director found.”

Ethan shrugged. “A lead, probably. We’ll get the SITREP if it’s relevant to us.”

“And based on her tone,” Cole added, “it probably will be soon enough. Let’s get our reps in while we still can. Hopefully, we’ll be ready before they drop the next mission on us.”