I've been playing Ultima I for a while now, and I've maxed my Fighter's XP and level. There's a point where I would like to have a Destroy spell in order to make progress in a particular dungeon, but as far as I can tell, every magic shoppe in the game will only sell me a few basic spells: magic missile, ladder up, ladder down, open, and unlock (no blink, destroy, or kill). Three possibilities come to mind:

1. They are for sale in some town somewhere, and I'm just overlooking it (there's a lot of towns in Ultima I!)

2. Some sort of bug (I could swear a previous character I played briefly found far more in the spell stores).

3. My character lacks a high enough Intelligence stat (it's only 20) and he won't be able to get additional selections until I raise it up.

If the answer is # 1, I'd love the name of a town I could track down. If it's # 2, then crap. If it's # 3, I can work with that.

Any help is much appreciated!

A fighter? If I'm correct, a fighter can't cast spells above a certain level. It's been a long time since I played U1 though so it's entirely possible I'm mistaken. I'll look at a bit of the documentation and search around. Might want to do so as well though as I can get derailed pretty easily.

All classes in U1 are able to cast spells, but Blink, Create, Destroy and Kill are for the Wizards class only!
Sorry Jhaeman, no way for your Fighter to obtain them.

Ah, okay. Well, Inform & Search is definitely important.
Here's the key reference, just in case: http://www.ultima-universe.com/u1manual.htm

"blink" spell suddenly appears in my fighter's inventory! why I don't know also my mace seems to have disappeared after visiting Lord British. that was before even setting foot to meet any thieves.

My understanding is that there is some way to get spells by putting water in some river or pond in a town or castle. (Note that I didn't discover this myself; I read about it online and haven't actually had a chance to try it myself.)

Also, you do need to be a Wizard to buy the higher level spells.

Apparently, other classes have their advantages. For example, apparently clerics never fail to cast their spells, which might actually make one of the stats useless for them.

By the way, if you equip certain weapons (the Triangle being the most powerful of them), the Magic Missile spell will do more damage, outdamaging even the strongest weapon. It's also worth noting that there is a situation where Magic Missile is very useful, but Kill won't work at all (or at least not in your favor). Or you could just pray and hope the barrier disappears. (Yes, this is my actual advice here, and it involves a spell that has infinite uses and is available to everyone.)