Every spell you cast in Ars Nouveau is made from glyphs, and with the Spell Builder you’re able to put one together here before you try it in your spell book. It’ll show you the mana it costs, the book you’ll need for it and whether the game will let you cast it, along with what each glyph and augment is going to do.
Building Your First Spell
The first spell most players make is a mining one, which is 
Touch followed by 
Break, and it only costs 15 mana, as Touch is 5 and Break is 10. Touch will cast it on the block you’re looking at, and Break mines that block the same way an 
Iron Pickaxe would, so it’s fine for 
Diamond Ore but won’t touch 
Obsidian yet.
That’s where 
Amplify comes in, as putting one after Break raises it to the same level as a 
Diamond Pickaxe, which is enough to mine Obsidian and 
Ancient Debris. It adds another 20 mana, taking the spell up to 35, and all three of these glyphs are tier one, so you’ll be able to use them with the 
Novice Spell Book you start with.
Bigger Spells and the Mage’s Spell Book
Once you’ve got the 
Mage’s Spell Book, you’re able to use tier two augments like 
AOE, which widens Break by a block each time, so two of them mine a 3×3, and 
Pierce, which mines one block deeper for each one you add. AOE costs 35 and Pierce costs 40, so a tunnelling spell with a few Pierce in it can end up costing a lot more than the small one you started with.
For Fortune you’ll need 
Luck, which is also tier two, and Break will take up to four of them, although each one costs 80 mana, which means Touch, Break and three Luck comes to 255. If you’d rather have Silk Touch, 
Extract does that for 30, and it’s worth keeping both kinds of spell in your book, as they’re only a click apart.
Frequently Asked Questions
Usually it’s because the spell doesn’t start with a form, like Projectile, Touch or Self, as the book will let you save it but it won’t cast. It might also be an augment that the glyph before it doesn’t accept, or a glyph your spell book isn’t a high enough tier for.
Each spell can hold up to ten glyphs whichever book you’re using, and every spell book has room for ten spells. The book’s tier only changes which glyphs you’re able to use, not how many will fit.
Each glyph has its own list of augments, and Amplify isn’t on all of them, so it’s worth checking before you add one. Harm, Heal and Blink will all take it, whereas Touch only takes Sensitive and Self doesn’t take any augments at all.
The 
Ring of Lesser Discount and the 
Ring of Greater Discount will take 10 and 20 mana off every spell you cast. Using fewer augments helps too, as each one adds its own cost, like the 80 mana that every Luck adds to a mining spell.
