Folks, I'd like to find a book or author who uses a magic system that works similarly to this in the broad strokes:
[Some modern wizard tries to use a Fireball spell to attack a water magic user (water elemental?), which she easily deflects, but an old wizard channels the spirit of Earth's core or a flame demon from an infernal plane to directly blast fire and the power is an order of magnitude greater.
Imagine that the fireball spell is a kind of shorthand made to reduce the amount of control and experience needed, by drawing the heat within the ground for a 5 mile radius into a fireball. Or maybe by very briefly binding a little flame sprite from the infernal plane to the master's aura and channeling that power. So that a wizard of less power/experience/focus/etc could cast a fireball without being possessed or consumed by the strain.]
by Little_Common2119