SakSak
Unbound
- Location
- The Cold Wastes of the North
No, wait, I was sure a long timeframe was mentioned somewhere, and I found it! Could be hyperbole since it is in-character perspective, but still:
So at least Mathilde believes it entirely in-character for Elves to meditate on a single spell for several decades before attempting to cast it. Whereas humans get confident enough to try, then try, likely fail or eat a miscast, but learn from the failure so that their next try is more likely to succeed.
Once more you're surrounded in a cloud of turbulent fog as you barely manage to finish the spell, and once more you consider yourself quite lucky to have both a staff and a testing chamber perfectly suited for this activity. The first time casting a new spell is always troublesome, but it sure beats the Elven method where a spell candidate is meditated on for decades to study it for any possible flaw. You make the requisite corrections to your casting notes, perform the spell a few more times in perfect conditions to be sure, then you move onto stage two of testing.
So at least Mathilde believes it entirely in-character for Elves to meditate on a single spell for several decades before attempting to cast it. Whereas humans get confident enough to try, then try, likely fail or eat a miscast, but learn from the failure so that their next try is more likely to succeed.