In the next few days Nick decided it was finally time to formally divide his spell system into different categories, now that his understanding was growing more and more complex each day.
Lesser spells, that were conjured using only the intent of the caster to achieve the desired effect, much more versatile and not constrained by the inherent structure of a chant or Ritual.
Common Spells that required the use of chanting, they used simple symbolism in approximately one sentence, powerful effect, the only one practically useful in a fight.
Greater spells that required using 3 sentence chants with complicated meaning and that took a lot of time to cast, however effects bordering on miracles.
And finally, Rituals which used were complicated rigid and structured, required a meaning to anchor them and an offering to power them, they were essentially extremely powerful pieces of magic that allowed you to perform miracles on par with what the Gods could achieve.
Since all of their tests had been completed they immediately returned to the car where the driver was patiently waiting under a Confusion Spell, when he promptly drove them back to the mansion.
Upon returning to the mansion, Nick and Jonathan immediately repeated the same Ritual but this time, object of enhancement was Jonathan.
This time the testing of the results could just be done in the back garden of the mansion as the efficiency of the chants would be much weaker due to Jonathan being a mortal and not having any divine connection to the Air Element.
Upon testing it seems that his Greater Charms behaved almost exactly in nature to his Common charm, if they used the same overall intent. While he was completely unable to do any sort of casting using only his mind.
Jonathan also got an intelligence boost due to the Ritual, but he didn't develop any sort of 6th sense, Nick figured that he only got it due to his already more powerful soul and mind gifted from his mother.
Even so in the next few days if somebody were allowed access to his studies one could see Jonathan behaving just like a little kid constantly testing out his new ability to command the Air Element.
Though he could only rely on Nicholas' already created spells, as Nicholas tried teaching him about how words connected to symbols and how they wove together into a spell. But they weren't having much luck explaining what his prescience gave him on a silver platter proved to be much more complex than Nick thought.
They spent months before Nick could hammer it into Jonathans head why and how which symbols connected to which word and how they were connected, though at the end they were semi successful.
He even surprised Nicholas by creating a Greater Spell focused on mind enhancement that would boost his own intelligence by using the connection the Air Element had to the mind and soul, even though the spell was effectively a copycat of an Ancient Greek Ritual.
Surprisingly the effect even allowed him to mimic Nicholas' own intelligence blessing magic that he repurposed from the Norse Prayer for Clarity, even if the effect was a lot weaker, similar to his Common Spell.
In the next few days Nicholas managed to test out the other Greater Spells that he previously created. In the past pre Ritual they all behaved quite like cantrips but now, all of the spells have become enhanced while the Elemental Spells have grown significantly improved even compared to the others.
For example, the cleaning spell that could barely clean a room could now achieve the same effect with the spell reworded to be a Common Spell.
The way he came upon this discovery was that once he tried to cast it as a Greater Spell it cleaned the whole house instead of just one room. (That was one long exhausting afternoon on casting confusion charms which he also had to reword into Common spells after he realized that his previous cantrips were now more powerful)
All of the Elemental spell rose by a rank, The Greater Fire Manipulation spell that once could only give someone a blister now turned into a proper Fire Ball capable of even killing an unprepared mortal.
The Greater Earth Manipulation Spell now allowed him to create real stone sculptures rivaling even master craftsmen and as for combat uses it allowed him to grow Earth Spikes capable of killing a tiger or an Earth Wall tall enough to use for defense
The Greater Water Manipulation Spell now allowed him to control enough water to cause a small flood in the bathroom, similar to Percy in the first book.
For each of the other Elemental spell he also created their Common Spell variants and also attempted intent casting, though it was unsurprisingly unsuccessful. The other spells also all got varying boosts though way less than any of the spells calling upon the Elements.
He also retested his Greater War and Wisdom related charms, which got a major boost, only slightly below the Elemental spells.
His Greater Swift-Eye spell got a major boost, as he could now cast it as a common spell to get the same effect as before while enjoying the significant cut in casting time while if he cast it as its Greater Form his reflexes could comfortably observe the path of bullets though now his speed was lagging behind.
He could already imagine what a fantastic combination his Common Wind Speed charm and his Owl-Eye spell would be. It would allow him to almost be the mini version of Hermes
His Aegis and Spear Spells also got the same boost, with their defensive ability rising from 40% protection from his attack to about 70% and strength boost rising from 3 times to 6 times in their Greater spell form.
Nick and Jonathan also went back to the forest, this time to test how the Elemental Rituals would boost his spell power. The Air Element Ritual effect was disappointing at best since all he had access to was mundane materials. It barely increased his hurricane spells power by approximately 50%.
He guessed that the reason the result was so disappointing was that there was a limit to what mundane offerings could do, even if the person performing it was extraordinary.
This guess was later confirmed by the Rituals Earth and Water (He didn't want to test the Fire Ritual as he was afraid of burning down the forest), which resulted in power that was only approximately 20% less than the previously performed Air Ritual.
The Water Ritual using an offering of a codfish caused a flood to burst from the Earth and create a 60-meter-wide lake, while the Earth Ritual with an offering of a bull caused a minor earthquake and shards of earth to sprout from the same lake, creating a peculiar sight of an island 50 meters wide surrounded by a moat of water.
These attempts finally gave him the confidence he needed to survive in this world, when the sight of the invincible power of nature that he was able to unleash. His newly acquired domain over the Air put him at the same level as a child of the Big 3 Greek Gods and his Rituals gave him unparalleled versatility.
He could heal, burn, create cause floods and earthquakes and burn entire forests down, but it still wasn't enough, any minor god could still wipe the floor with him.
He was still so insignificant that he could be murdered by simply a God appearing in their true form.
No, he still had a lot progress to do before he could truly be safe and finally get his fate in his own hands, and to do so his first move was to repeat the Favored of the Air Ritual, but for the other 4 Elements.
However, that presented a unique problem, as the water, earth and air Elements were relatively self-explanatory as to what the offering to anchor the Ritual should be, fish, bulls, and birds respectively.
The Fire Element didn't have that clarity. Thinking it over he came upon the following possibilities, either it would metaphorically be fiery in nature such as the lion or the rhino. Or it would be a type of mundane animal that typically gets associated with fire, such as the Komodo dragon or other reptilian creatures.
Using his prescience he managed to divine that the best type of creature to use would be the Komodo dragon.
When he divined why it gave him flashing images of the place filled with fire and lakes of lava, something that looked vaguely like the Komodo dragon talking to a woman next to a gigantic tree full of golden colored fruits, and various images of gigantic scaled monsters breathing fire.
It truly didn't take a genius to realize that it was drawing upon the symbolism given to it by the Dragons and the Devil from various myth.
However, this still didn't fix his problem as the Komodo dragons were an endangered species and so were absurdly expensive and tedious to acquire, thus he settled on the next best thing. That being the snake, as it was way easier to acquire and would drawn on the exact same symbolisms, if only somewhat less.
Once it was decided he immediately went to his father, and they ordered all of the materials he needed to start the Ritual.
While Jonathan was busy with acquiring the items, Nicholas threw himself wholeheartedly into creating the 3 remaining Rituals he needed.