I spent the next hour carefully reading Vabazon's book. The theory took up only a single page—the rest of the book consisted of two hundred useful spells given as examples. I could say the method of creating encapsulated spells was embarrassingly simple. All you had to do was take a piece of paper and write, at the top, two magical symbols invented by Vabazon. Beneath them, you had to write the name of the spell—something simple and easy to remember, like "Spell No. 21" or "Firestarter." Then came the spell's description, which you could copy from any of the classic magic tomes. At the bottom, the page had to end with another set of two special symbols created by Vabazon—and that was it.
These special symbols, the mage assured, were meant not only to access the spell but also to protect you if something went wrong. If the spell failed, for whatever reason, you wouldn't suffer the usual negative consequences that came with traditional casting. Executing the spell was just as simple: you only had to hold the folded piece of paper in your hand or pocket and mentally pronounce its name.
"Could it really be that simple?" I wondered. There was only one way to find out. I immediately grabbed a sheet of paper and clumsily copied the symbols from Vabazon's book. Drawing wasn't my strong suit, but the result was decent. I opened the magic manual and copied, word for word, the description of the first spell. I clearly remembered my failure in the first lesson, when I had been unable to make a coin land heads ten times in a row.
I finished transcribing the spell and carefully folded the paper. Holding the folded sheet tightly in my hand, I mentally said, "Spell Number One." Nothing visible happened—but I hadn't expected it to. It was just a simple beginner spell, with no flashy effects. I pulled out a coin and started tossing it.
Heads! Heads again! And again! Could it really be working? Two more tosses, and both landed heads. I paused briefly, then tossed again. Four more times, the same result: heads! Then I stopped, doubt creeping in. I threw the coin as high as I could and let it roll across the floor. Still heads. I tossed the coin twenty times, and every time it came up heads.
Skepticism began to settle in again. How could I be sure that my success was truly due to magic? Perhaps the result was just a product of skill—or dumb luck. Should I consider the possibility of self-suggestion? Maybe I was so desperate that I had begun to hallucinate and imagine I could influence coin tosses with magic.
I recalled that when working scientifically, a basic requirement is to account for all variables that could affect the outcome. I immediately realized that a proper scientific study was out of the question—I had no representative sample and no control group. I had to make do with my modest experiments, even if they weren't statistically significant.
I decided to repeat the coin tosses, this time without invoking the spell from the manual. The results returned to normal—sometimes heads, sometimes tails, with no consistent pattern. After twenty tosses, I was convinced the results were completely random.
"Good," I said to myself. It was time to test the spell again. This time, when I invoked it in my mind, I decided that the coin should come up on the other side—tails. If the next tosses all landed tails, I could be fairly sure the spell was working. Not absolutely certain, of course, but certain enough. Holding my breath, I began tossing the coin again. Much to my relief, the next tosses confirmed that everything was alright: tails came up twenty times in a row, an outcome highly unlikely by chance. Until proven otherwise, I was convinced that the spells in Vabazon's book actually worked.
I stood up and looked at the folded piece of paper in my hand. A small hope began to bloom in my heart. If this method worked with other spells, maybe I had a chance to redeem myself in front of the Academy.
Using Vabazon's symbols, I managed to cast several simple spells from the magic manual. I ignited a tiny splinter of wood chipped from the edge of the bed just by looking at it. Then, I bent a metal key from my keychain using only the power of my mind. If I'd been home in Boston, I was sure the TV networks would've invited me to a talk show to demonstrate my newfound psychic powers. Or maybe spoon bending was no longer in style?
Just when I'd grown wildly optimistic, my ability to cast spells stopped suddenly.
Worried, I began reading the mage's book again, searching for an explanation. After a few pages, I found it. Apparently, each spell required the mage's body to expend energy. The amount varied depending on the complexity and duration of the spell. A true mage wouldn't have had any trouble with the simple spells from the manual, since mages held large reserves of magical energy within their bodies. Even if they temporarily depleted it, a single night's rest was enough to restore it.
For non-mages, things were different. Their magical energy was weak—almost nonexistent. Vabazon recommended using magical energy crystals whenever problems like this occurred. I had heard that some mages used such crystals, but I didn't have any on hand. I looked around desperately, searching for a solution. My eyes landed on the small lamp on the table. It had a crystal that captured sunlight during the day and released it at night. That kind of crystal was exactly what I needed. I carefully removed the crystal from the lamp and slipped it into my pocket. I tested a few more spells from the manual, and all of them worked perfectly. I had finally found the solution to my problems.
I spent part of the night preparing everything for the next day. Toward morning, exhausted, I collapsed into a deep, dreamless sleep.