Ethan spent most of the night talking with Vex, who had enough power from his masturbatory activities to reveal another spell. He had laid out his plan to Vex, who said what he wanted was indeed possible, but would take patience. While there were extremely powerful spells in the book, the more powerful it was, the more it taxed the caster.
She had explained that humans did indeed have souls. It was through the soul that the energy required for spells was channelled. The spell bowl took that energy and fused it with the ingredients within. Casting a spell and moving energy through a soul was taxing though and if too much was done without being ready for it, it would destroy the persons soul and leave them nothing but an empty husk incapable of even basic thought. That did not sound like something Ethan wanted to experience.
So he had to be patient, each time he cast a spell, his soul would grow accustomed to the flow of energy. The more he cast, the more his soul would be able to withstand. She had likened it to levelling up in a video game, something Ethan knew about well. Vex had also explained that was how she gained her power. When someone did something sexual, it produced a flair inside of human souls, which she could siphon off for her own reserves of power.
As interesting as he found that, he was more interested in his own power. He had asked if there was any spell that could let him control Ruby, which there was. Unfortunately, he was far from being powerful enough to cast it. Instead, she had shown him a spell called Shaded Perception.
"What is that?"
" It allows the caster to make people not notice something. This is the weaker version of the spell, so you can't make someone not notice they're missing a limb for example, but I have a feeling you'll find a use for it."
Ethan read through the spell, it described how to cast it and how it worked. It did just what Vex said. He could write something on a piece of paper and anyone within the spells vicinity would be influenced by whatever he wrote. He pondered for a while what he could write. From the look of the spell, once the focus was created, the paper could be changed at any time, so he wasn't locked into whatever choice he made.
The focus required a branch cut to exactly 22 centimetres long that could be bent into a circle. Quartz gemstones then needed to be adhered in two centimetre spaces. The spell didn't say what they must be adhered with, so Ethan just used superglue hoping that would be alright, but unsure as it wouldn't have been available when the spell was created. Finally, the focus must be activated by running the circle anti-clockwise over the flame, bathing each part of the wood.
"That seemed simple enough," Ethan commented as he finished the focus.
"This is just the minor version, the more powerful version of that spell requires much more preparation.
