Maybe it wasn't the magic itself, but the way shapes and symbols worked together that triggered the effect. Some arrangements acted like commands, shaping how energy behaved.
It still wasn't clear how everything worked, but at least it was something he could build on.
"Gather."
"Disperse."
"Stabilize."
"Flow."
One word at a time, one array at a time,he experimented relentlessly. As he repeated the process hundreds, even thousands of times, Belial began to understand the basics of how symbols, runes, and patterns combined to create magic.
The runes defined behavior. The patterns shaped the structure. Together, they formed functioning arrays.
A real spell wasn't just one big symbol, it was a whole system made up of smaller parts, each guiding the flow of magic and elements in different ways.
"A circle forms the base—it can cycle, gather, or spread depending on the attached symbols. Triangles seem to add stability. If I combine two triangles into a six-point star...
Most of these lines act as channels or walls, and the runes…
well, I still don't know exactly what half of them do."
But with what he had learned so far, Belial decided to try something basic, the classic fireball spell.
Shouldn't be too hard, right? Build a strong base, draw in enough magic, give it a launch path—simple.
He grinned, confident, and launched it.
The fireball wobbled in the air like a balloon losing air and fell apart the moment a breeze brushed against it. "Impossible. How could someone with world-shaking brains like me lose that easily?"
Belial scratched his oversized head with a single claw, trying to activate the full power of his famously brilliant mind. He cast the Fireball spell again, watching closely. Right away, the issue showed itself.
The fire elements came together just fine and shot off in the right direction… but that was it.
Inside the magic circle, the spell looked perfect—round and compact like a real fireball. But the moment it left the circle and flew on its own, it turned into nothing more than a blazing lump.
No structure. No follow-through. Ideally, the process should go like this: the fireball launches, stays stable in the air, then explodes when it hits something. Right now, he was only managing the first step.
In short, the spell needed to keep its magical structure intact even after it left his hands. It couldn't just be a messy clump of fire. He needed the magic circle's effect to last even after the fireball was out of his direct control.
Within his own energy field, that wasn't a problem, it worked just fine there. But Belial didn't want to rely on staying inside the energy field every time he cast a spell.
"Time for some serious research," he muttered.
He glanced at the book he'd been scribbling in and saw the pages were almost full. "Running out of paper. Should I grab more leather?"
He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. Thanks to nine years of mandatory schooling back on Earth, he remembered that certain fibrous plants could be turned into paper.
A little trial and error later, and he had something close enough. Ink? Easy. Burn some junk and use the charcoal. Done.
The real issue was size. His claws were massive. A pen that fit his grip would need a whole tree trunk, and then the paper would have to be huge just to match.
So, instead, he made a bigger than average sheet of paper and used a tiny stick of charcoal, smaller than even half a finger to him.
Using his Gravity Tornado spell, Belial carefully moved the little charcoal stick to write. He treated it like training for better control.
After a while, it became routine. What mattered was being able to see and lay out his thoughts on something physical.
Then he remembered the crystal ball he'd tossed into some dusty corner ages ago. The one that old wizard-looking guy had used to cast those fire chains on him.
Belial fished it out and gave it a closer look. The ball was barely bigger than his fingernail, but his dragon eyes could easily pick out every detail.
It wasn't just glass, it was made up of thin, stacked layers. Each slice was etched with strange symbols and filled with unknown materials.
Together, they made up a tightly packed magical structure. The material itself was special too. It channeled elemental energy smoothly, especially fire, and even pulled in fire elements naturally without needing to be powered.
"So how did that old man actually cast spells with this thing?" Belial frowned.
He couldn't figure that part out yet. But just seeing how the structure worked gave him a huge clue. He memorized it immediately, then copied it without much effort.
This version sucked in fire elements much faster than what he'd been using. It didn't play well with water at all and was a bit friendly with wind.
Still, a large part of the structure was blank, clearly unfinished. It wasn't the full spell from before, the one that bound him in those flaming chains.
What he had here was just a piece of a much larger system. He'd have to fill in the missing parts on his own, using his dragon-style logic and whatever he could piece together. Not like he had formal magic training or anything.
What he did have was the brain of someone raised in the internet age. Back in his old world, he could get answers to nearly anything with just a few taps. He knew how to dig for information and figure things out on his own.
Besides, there was no need to rush. He'd already absorbed half the mana vein below him. As his energy field continued to expand, the pace kept getting faster. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before he'd absorbed the whole thing.
In the meantime, Belial used the copied structure as a foundation and started filling in the missing runes with info pulled from old books.
After a bit of trial and error and a few accidental explosions, he finally pulled it off. He could cast a working fireball spell. Real progress.
From there, basic spells like Wind Blade, Water Ball, and Earth Spike came easily to him.
The real challenge was Ice Arrow. That one was a pain.
It needed a way more complex magic circle, several layers stacked together, and a lot more mana than the rest. The tricky part wasn't the power, it was shaping the arrow before it launched and cramming the ice elements into place without making the whole thing collapse.
Honestly, if all you wanted was to stab something, did it really have to be an arrow?
Still, with some time and a bit of brainpower, he figured he could crack most spells now. The hardest hurdle was already behind him.
The rest was just testing and fine-tuning. He even managed a few combo spells, like creating a high-heat steam zone by combining fire and water.
But the most exciting breakthrough came when he started experimenting with fire element buildup.
He found that if he kept gathering fire energy and suddenly dropped the containment spell while giving it a single exit point, the result was a powerful burst forward.
Then he got an idea, load a tiny rock hardened by earth magic at the front, add a spiraled path to guide it, and give it multiple bursts.
The result? A magic gun.