Chapter 4
We walked amidst towering trees that stretched high into the sky, their wide branches spiraling into each other, a natural three-dimensional labyrinth unfolded within the forest.
Snowflakes were slowly descending through the air, casting a slightly mystical ambiance.
It was winter already. Time sure flew when you were busy.
With a cloak around my shoulders and warm clothes beneath I almost felt like I was back in Lanova.
The only difference compared to back then would be the dagger secured on my belt in my lower back.
It had been a productive few months regarding my physical fitness and ability usage. I had certainly not wasted my time.
Proof of it was that despite walking for hours through the forest I remained invigorated, and I'd been currently using my ability with minimal strain this whole time as well.
Constant warmth was kept near my body while the humidity and water were kept out of my new clothes. The dust was similarly being kept away and the winds above a certain speed parted before me. Finally, thanks to electromagnetism I made myself slip-proof.
A pretty dull series of effects you could say, and I would agree. But the formulas needed for these were pretty easy to keep up with and kept all my elemental affinities working.
Meaning that at any possible moment, I could use any of the elements individually without any of the others lashing out. Thanks to this formula, there hadn't been any accidental fires around me lately. So the villagers couldn't tease me as much anymore.
Besides, being warm, dry, clean, windproof, and slip-proof was great.
The forest was pretty quiet, only the crunching of my footsteps and soft rustling of the leaves could be heard despite me not being alone.
With me was the only Level 2 of the village.
The Savior Hunter. Or that was what I was told was his alias. Apparently, when you reached Level 2 the gods granted you a nickname.
To me, after hearing some of the aliases they gave out, it seemed like they were taking the pis.
Anyway, It seemed that the hunter was mildly famous in Orario for saving newbie adventurers from bad situations and doing rescue missions in general.
Therefore, considering his specialty was escort missions, I was probably in good hands while we were in the wild.
"Regis, come here." I heard the quiet voice of the hunter. I took a couple of faster steps and then took a look at what he was pointing at.
"See these footprints?" At my nod, he continued. "These are from a boar. Come on, follow me, we'll see if we can track it."
After that, while tracking the animal, he continued teaching me about the forest. Which plants were good to eat, tricks to navigate the forest without getting lost, a few landmarks, etc.
Eventually, we approached a stream and there we found our prey. An adult boar was sipping on some water from the stream. The hunter signaled me to stop and to crouch. Then with a single smooth movement, he took his bow from his back and nocked an arrow in it.
Then he effortlessly drew the bow and shot in the blink of an eye.
The arrow perfectly hits the boar in the eye.
That single action gave me a full-body chill.
I didn't like bows, okay?
The archers in the Chaos Trials kept killing me for the first few months until I learned how to use my spells for cover. I knew it wasn't rational, but there are some things you just couldn't help.
The hunter gestured for me to follow him. He then demonstrated the proper way to field dress the animal, preparing it for packing and transport back to the village.
When we finished, we continued trekking through the forest. And I couldn't keep the question to myself anymore.
"Isn't it too quiet?" Ever since I met the hunter and started walking through the forest, this silence had been bugging me. I suspected that it had something to do with a Skill but I still haven't refined my ability to analyze sound waves.
Something to add to the checklist I guessed.
"Ah, don't worry too much about it. It's just a Skill of mine that helps me go unnoticed," he replied, his voice being quieter than it should be.
His reply quickly picked my interest though.
A skill that lets someone go unnoticed and at least affect sound waves was pretty interesting and useful.
Wanting to see how it worked, I started observing the hunter and tried to filter the feedback of my ability. After a few seconds, I could start feeling it.
The chaotic light blue wisps that represented Air, became tamer around the hunter as if going through a filter. There was more to it, but before I could examine it further the hunter started speaking.
"Anyway, this is the last place I wanted to show you today."
I looked at what he was referring to and was amazed.
In front of me, a serene glade cradled a donut-shaped lake. From an extreme, the stream we had been following since we hunted the boar connected to it. But what truly captured my attention was the source of the lake's water. Gazing upward, I saw the towering tree canopies weaving a circular waterfall that cascaded into the tranquil waters below.
An extremely thin but smooth curtain of water fell on the lake.
This couldn't possibly be normal. I looked at the hunter whose eyes smiled at my amazement. "Impressive isn't it? The legends say that once upon a time a water spirit was born here. But nobody knows if it's true. What we know for certain, is that monsters will never get close to this place. So, if someday you get in trouble while in the forest and you can't get to the village, make sure to come to this place. Alright?" At my nod, he smiled and signaled me to get going and we made our way back to the village.
/////////////
The crackling sound of the hearth and the smell of lacquered wood accompanied me as usual now that the village grew quiet and the moon was high in the sky.
In front of me lying on the table were my last batch of rectangular wooden cards, ready for me to start etching runes into.
The formula to make these cards was one that I'd been experimenting with and perfecting since I discovered my ability. They were important because these were perfect for practicing my enchanting and also were the first step to making Arcana.
Not that I was even remotely close to figuring out how to make Arcana without Chaos Gems.
Anyway, I picked up my recently acquired knife and started etching the wood with runes.
In Lanova, there were two different systems of runes.
First, we had the runes known as Chaos runes. Despite the name, they were the least volatile system of the two.
It was the most used and widely spread system since it was used for almost everything. This language allowed us to enchant the properties of the five elements into objects. It was also really widespread because it was instrumental in the creation of Arcana. The only limitation was that it only truly worked to its truest potential in Lanova.
The second system was known by many names, Universal Runes, Aether Runes, Divine Runes, etc… With this system, you could theoretically do anything. An example of the things done with this system were the relics that transported my soul between worlds. The problem with it was that it was stupidly dangerous to use. You could use the exact same Runes in two different enchantments and if your mind were to wander for even a split second, you could pass from creating a portal before two known locations to inviting Cthulhu to your home.
The only people who used this system were the most talented masters like Master Sura, the most desperate like me, the clinically insane like I was when I decided to use it to escape, or the exceptionally moronic, which was probably me too.
Did I say that I was practically committing suicide when I decided to jump worlds? Because when I said that the risks were high I was understating it severely.
Anyway, I wasn't planning on touching the second system with a ten-foot pole any time soon if I could avoid it.
What I was currently trying to enchant, was insulation.
Mundane, I know.
But it was winter and my hut had more holes than a golf course.
The process of etching runes was simple in principle but hard to master. You had to etch or paint if you had a special paint which I didn't and didn't feel like using my blood the runes into the object you're enchanting. And while you etched, you had to keep the exact effects you wanted to enchant in your mind while you did it.
While etching the runes perfectly required practice, the hard part was the mental component. Since you had to know the exact limits of each rune and how to connect them coherently. Otherwise, you would have an explosion in your hands.
Thankfully, I've been using my powers mentally for a while so this part was easier than it was in Lanova. I simply kept the formulas of heat transfer I used the other day in the smithy to keep myself cool in mind but kept the heat transfer as close to zero as I could. Then I had to input things like what was the reach and dimensions I wanted the enchantment to have and finally the triggers to control it. I decided to designate three points in the card that I could heat up or cool down with my ability to control how good the heat transfer of the walls would be.
With my enchantment done, I walked up the wall next to my bed where I extracted the wood to begin with and slotted the card inside. With a few seconds of calculations and a flex of will the card fused to the wall.
The effects were instantaneous to my perception. I could tell how the red wisps of heat stopped going through the walls and rebounded instead.
With the job done, I decided to lie down in bed. It was already stupidly late and I was tired from the long day.
Today apart from being my first hunting/forestry lessons with the hunter, I also began my combat lessons.
They started easy enough with the hunter teaching me how to throw a punch and the basics of knife combat. Which boiled down to little more than "stab with the pointy end Regis, don't cut yourself."
I might have feigned a little ignorance during the whole lesson because even if I usually used something with a little range in Lanova, there were plenty of close combat arcana where you needed to know how to punch.
But it was good to know that I wasn't doing it totally incorrectly.
No one had ever taught me how to fight. So having someone experienced guide me was nice for a change of pace.
Well, it was nice until he decided I knew enough to start sparring. Then I ate dirt for a couple of hours.
I already knew back in Lanova that my close combat was horrible. But it really hit home when after an hour the hunter said how much I sucked at this.
In my defense, I decided to keep my formulas up the whole time because I really needed to train my mental resilience. If in the future in a serious fight, I were to lose my concentration, it would be game over.
So, with my mind half distracted with math and the other half dealing with my instincts that were honed to fighting like a wizard which were screaming at me to maintain distance but to not be too far away against an opponent far faster, stronger and with more reach than me, the results were obvious.
At least, as long as I didn't use magic.
I decided to hide it for now because I didn't know how the villagers would react and I wanted to learn how to defend myself a little without it.
The question was: If I used my Chaoskinesis could I stand a chance?
After some ruminating, I concluded that as I was right now, probably not.
My cast time was way too slow and I've noticed weird phenomena with my ability when I'm near the villagers. So until I've improved a lot and figured out what was going on, I wasn't going to know for certain.
A yawn came to me and I decided I'd enough thinking for today.
Goodnight. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Soup_Kitten, CILinkz, TheFatGuy2020 and 236 othersMystic QuillAug 30, 2024Reader modeAdd bookmark Threadmarks Threadmarks Chapter 5 Threadmarks Mystic QuillGetting sticky.Aug 30, 2024Add bookmark#9Chapter 5
The sky was clear, with the sun shining high overhead. A light, cold breeze stirred the air, and the slightly damp earth beneath me felt really comfortable. The temperature was even cool enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay.
It was early spring, my favorite time of the year. Everything was perfect for an afternoon nap.
Now if only there wasn't a lunatic hellbent in almost stabbing me.
"Come on Regis, we're still not done. Get up and fight me." The hunter said, his patience running out because of my nonsense.
With a sigh, I stood up from where the hunter threw me in our previous spar and raised my knife in the guarding pose the hunter had taught me.
After a second where the tension in the air increased, the hunter shot forward towards me. With half an eye on the hunter and the other on my esp senses, I was able to read the initial feint and parry the second knife strike with my dagger. Slightly hopping and keeping my core tight, I managed to use the momentum from the strike to win a little bit of space.
But, by the time my foot touched the ground, the hunter was already there, ready to strike again. I ducked beneath and tried to retaliate with my knife just to have to throw myself sideways to avoid a knee to my face.
After rolling a couple of times on the ground, I managed to get my feet under me and sidestepped, knowing without looking that a strike aimed at my neck was on its way. I tried to counterattack again but had to dodge backward to avoid the kick that followed.
Lately, the training spars between us went like this. Where he tried to hit me in any way he could and I dodged him by the slightest margin while trying to find an opportunity to counterattack. Not that I ever saw a decent one or got a solid hit on him.
It was still much better than at the beginning where he just threw me around the place because I, like an idiot, was trying to keep myself clean with my ability instead of using it to read him.
I intellectually knew that most espers of any level in Academy City had some level of precognition. It just took me a couple of days of eating dirt to come to the conclusion that I could probably do the same.
From what I had seen, there were two aspects to this precognition that I could tap into. The first was the physical aspect. I could read the momentum in which he moved his body and the steel in his knife was like a bonfire to my senses. So with that data, calculating at which places the knife or his body was going to be was difficult but doable.
The other aspect was probably more psychometry than precognition. After a lot of observing the villagers and the hunter with my esp perception, I'd kind of come to learn to read the mess of an aura that they wore like clothes. I still hadn't figured out the math to reliably read them. But when you see the same pattern in the aura of someone when they were about to stab you in the face, you kind of got the instinct of 'Oh I've seen this pattern before, gotta duck if I don't want to eat dirt again'.
Still, while I became able to read the moves of the hunter much better, I wasn't fast enough to avoid him forever. Much less when he slowly started to accelerate during the spar.
Knife strikes that I'd dodged by a couple of inches at the beginning, slowly became one inch, and then he was landing glancing blows on me.
Finally, he got a good hit to my gut and I fell to the ground. Again.
I was hacking to the ground when he sat next to me and put a hand on my back.
"You've improved, Regis." The hunter said, patting my back while I tried not puking lunch.
"The pain in my gut disagrees," I replied.
"It probably doesn't seem that way to you, but I have to hold back my speed less and less every day. Your reaction speed is getting a little ridiculous for someone who's not an adventurer." Of course, he noticed.
"I just became used to your movements and your cues. Pain is a great motivator too." I replied dryly, finally having regained my breath.
"I'm glad you agree." He said grinning.
This sadistic geriatric.
"Well, what do you think you did wrong today?" he asked.
"Exist? Existence feels pretty awful right about now." I said ducking the slap from behind my head from the hunter. Who said 'be serious' with a glare.
I sighed. "I lack speed and strength I guess."
"You're right, you're still young and your body is not physically gifted but that's not something you did wrong. That's simply that you're weak and you're already working to get stronger, so try again" He said.
I tried to think what he was trying to teach me and recalled our last few spars. Well more than spars, they were more like games of tag with me trying to survive while he hunted me…
Wait, maybe that's it?
"I'm only trying to survive. I'm not aggressive enough" I said to which he smiled.
"Exactly, you're weaker than me Regis. From the beginning, you shouldn't even be trying to fight someone stronger than yourself. But if you find yourself facing someone stronger, then what you can't absolutely do, is give up the initiative. It's all about initiative, if you don't have a plan then you're following the plan of someone else. And if neither of you have a plan then the stronger one wins 9 times out of 10." He said with a serious expression.
Initiative, eh. Thinking back to my experiences in the Trials, I was always reacting to everything. It was only when I found a good combination of arcana and relics and thought of a plan to break through opponents that I actually got to Master Sura's throne room.
My passivity against stronger opponents was probably a bad habit from my fights against the Elemental Lords. Every time I tried to match them spell for a spell they ended up overwhelming me. So I got used to waiting for them to commit a mistake for me to exploit.
Still… "What could I plan against you? You're stronger and faster and far more experienced than me. Unless I suddenly awakened amazing magical powers, I don't see myself beating you." I said.
"Of course, you're not beating me, even with fictional magical powers."He said with a condescending smile. "But we're training, you still have to try, only then you'll improve." He said with a more serious face that slowly morphed into a thoughtful one. "But you were right about something, fighting only me won't help you improve." He pierced me with a look as if searching for something and said. "Yeah, I think you're ready."
"You mean…" He nodded.
"It's about time you faced a monster."
////////////
The dark entrance to the forest seemed far more sinister than usual.
Despite having been in the forest almost every day for the past few months, I've always been there in the afternoon. Just after the hunter had patrolled and eliminated any monster that had wandered around. So I hadn't even really seen a monster from this world yet.
The closest thing I had were the fragmented memories that resided in my body and the stories of the villagers.
To tell the truth, I felt a little naked without the hunter with me, even if I knew that he wasn't too far away.
With a deep breath, I began running my sensing formulas and started patrolling through the route the hunter had shown me the night prior.
Earth, air, heat, sound, and electromagnetic fields overlapped into my vision letting me sense far more than most people ever would.
Seeing that apart from a few squirrels and some insects there wasn't anyone around, I allowed myself to relax a little which made my trekking through the forest a little easier.
I recognized that at this moment, I was overly conscious of my own mortality, despite having been in more than a thousand battles to the death, I knew that those deaths wouldn't be final. Now I didn't have that reassurance.
While keeping my math and senses sharp on the environment, my mind wandered about what I should do about my ability. Should I show it to the villagers? Or should I keep it hidden?
There were benefits and demerits to both options, I've ascertained that the villagers were good people, but they were also all adventurers. Meaning that they had allegiances to a deity that I didn't know anything about.
That was what mainly put me off.
I wanted to show them. Being able to use my power to help around the village would be a lot of help for me in finding new ways to practice. The villagers' feedback would also be useful since all of them were so experienced.
I was still ruminating when my heat, sound, and electromagnetic formulas showed me I had company. Unsheathing my dagger, I put my back to a tree and closed my eyes. My mind already triangulating the position of the enemy.
There were two of them. They were humanoid in appearance, a little smaller than me.
Considering this information, I judged them to be goblins.
Whose existence was really weird to me. Why were basic RPG video games mobs a real thing in this world? Honestly, despite having heard stories from the villagers, deep down I still had difficulty accepting they existed until this moment.
Anyway, after checking that there weren't any new enemies nearby, I switched my formulas to the ones I used for precognition and slowly got closer to the monsters.
But it seemed that despite trying to sneak on them, I wasn't as good at stealth as I thought.
Because by the time I could see them with my eyes, they were making eye contact back.
I really need to learn how the hunter's Skill worked because this was pathetic.
After an instant of sizing each other, the goblins rushed me and tried to stab me with their knives. Not seeing a way to attack, I rolled sideways and managed to avoid them.
I tried to counterattack, but something that I understood really quickly, was that just like the hunter, these two were stronger and more agile than me.
I remember being told that even the weakest of monsters had the strength of a full-grown adult. And with what I was experiencing now, I couldn't disagree.
I started parrying their strikes with my dagger, and while they pushed my back because of their strength, with my precognition and the skill I cultivated with the hunter, dealing with their attacks wasn't a problem.
But I started having the same problem I had yesterday with the hunter. I was on the defensive again and while they were far worse combatants than him, it was still two against one. So, I couldn't really find an opening to counterattack. I could use my ability to create an opening, but I had the hunch that the hunter was around spectating the fight. And I still didn't know if I wanted to reveal my ability to him.
After dancing around the goblins for a few more seconds, I decided that enough was enough. At our next clash, I dodged low and grabbed some dirt from the ground. A couple of formulas were taking shape in my head while I dodged backward. One of the goblins tried to stab me again and I threw the sand to his face. Due to the extra force imparted by my ability on the earth, the goblin was knocked backward. Giving me a brief instance where instead of one vs two, It was one-on-one.
Jumping backward again, I found my back against a tree and acted surprised. The goblin that hadn't eaten dirt took the opening for what it was and rushed at me. When the dagger was about to touch me, I sidestepped, and the goblin found himself surprised as the dagger lodged itself into the tree. I might have laid an electromagnetic field on the dagger's path so that it possessed enough force to penetrate the tree.
I didn't waste such an opening and stabbed my dagger through the goblin's ear reaching into the brain and killing it in an instant.
My instinct screamed at me and I shifted just enough for the strike from the other goblin to miss me. Seeing that in his rage he over-committed, I grabbed his wrist and threw him away, giving me enough time to extract the dagger from the dead goblin who moments later exploded into a cloud of ashes. But I wasn't paying attention to that.
My eyes were laser-focused on the goblin that was still alive and my mind conjured a couple of electromagnetic rails that concluded on the goblin's face. I shifted the grip on my knife and threw it at him.
My makeshift imitation of the third-ranked esper signature move wasn't particularly impressive. I didn't have the effortless energy generation capabilities she had. At least not yet. I didn't want them at this particular moment either. I just wanted my knife to fly straight and true.
That's exactly what it did. The knife followed the path laid by my electromagnetic fields and stabbed the goblin in the eye who died moments later in a cloud of ash.
I let out a breath and tried to relax. My heart was pounding way too hard for what was an unimpressive and easy fight. The monsters weren't particularly smart, and if I wanted I could have possibly defeated them without the subtle usage of my ability.
I was pretty happy with my performance though.
Once my cardiac rhythm slowed down to normal, I made my way to my dagger. When the bush to my right exploded in action.
A hulking black silhouette emerged from its claws ready to tear me apart.
A silhouette I knew far too well. A monster who had killed me way too many times the first few times I entered the trials.
How could this thing be here!?
I was literally a dimension away from their origin!
Are the nightmares from the Trials going to follow me for the rest of my life?
Any more thoughts were washed away, as fear, surprise, disbelief, and pure unadulterated hatred overwhelmed my mind and I felt myself snap.
A hand rubbing my back eventually brought me to awareness again, I found my throat hoarse from having shouted my heart out and tears were falling down my face.
Looking up, I could see that the ghoul's legs had been stabbed by earth spikes, the arm that was about to stab me had been cleanly cut apart and was lying on the ground. Its head wasn't there anymore having been blown up by an explosion if the burned flesh of its neck was any indication and there was an enormous ice shard protruding from its torso. Finally, the smell of ozone was present in the air around it.
"Regis, are you okay? No, I don't think you are." I heard the soft voice of the hunter behind me. The sound was muffled beyond what was usual.
I think I was in shock, at everything a little. I've just had my first real true battle to the death, and suddenly something like this was dropped on me. The only thing I could say was, "That thing had killed me before." My voice felt distant too.
The eyes of the hunter gleamed in recognition and said. "I think we can postpone today's patrol for another day, come on we're going back."
"Besides, you've done well for your first day. And who knew, you do have magical powers."
Fuck. I tried to think of an excuse or something, but by that point, I was hit by a wave of exhaustion and blacked out.
//////////////////
I woke up in a bed that I hadn't been in months. It was in fact the bed I found myself in when I arrived in this world.
Which meant that I was in the mayor's house, the hunter must have carried me here. My body felt sore but I didn't feel particularly hurt. So that was good.
For the moment I was going to ignore what the presence of the ghoul being in this world meant.
And how many thousands of people were going to die because of them and any other monsters from the trials that happened to be born in this world.
How did this even happen!?
No, stop Regis. Now wasn't the time.
I was about to get up from the bed when I heard the door of the house open.
The presence I felt was that of the hunter, and the mayor was also in the building. When I started hearing their muffled voices, I decided to remain in bed and simply listen in.
I didn't want to assume the worst, but the hunter had seen my ability lashing out in a fit of emotion. I didn't know how the mayor was going to take it or if the hunter was even going to tell him.
After a couple of seconds of putting the right numbers in my head, the muffled voices cleared up and I could hear them clearly.
"Well, are you going to tell me what happened? You just barged in a couple of hours ago, dumped Regis into bed, and ran outside without explaining anything." The mayor said.
"I'm sorry, but in my haste, I forgot to pick up the magic stones of the monsters Regis killed." The hunter said, his voice was more difficult to understand, but a few adjustments in the formula were all I needed to continue eavesdropping.
"So he managed to defeat the monsters? That's good, but that still doesn't explain why he's in bed now." The mayor said with a hint of impatience.
"Regis faced three monsters. First, he encountered two goblins that he defeated without too many complications. The problem was the third monster. I didn't recognize it. The closest thing I could liken it to was an irregular war shadow." The hunter said disbelief slowly creeping into his voice. "Apart from the absurdity of an irregular this far from the dungeon, the reason Regis fainted was because he was the one who killed it."
"That's impossible. Goblins or even kobolds are one thing, but something as powerful as a war shadow–"
"He used some kind of magic." The hunter cut off the mayor. "One moment, I was about to shoot the monster with my bow to save him, but suddenly my adventurer instincts kicked in and stopped me. Then I saw the area around Regis blur. Just a moment later, it cleared, and the monster was dead, brutalized by various elemental effects."
"So, Regis is in bed due to mind down?" The mayor said its voice was still filled with incredulity.
Mind down? Ah, since the mana pool of the people of this world was in our head, that's probably what they called it when someone ran out of mana. Even if that's not really what I thought it was happening.
Now that I understood more about the astral body I didn't think that we had a mana pool at all.
"Probably, but I think that he was also in shock. Before fainting, he told me that that monster had killed him before. He was obviously exaggerating because he's still alive. But there's a chance this was the monster that attacked the carriage he was in before the adventurers from Astraea Familia brought him to us?" The hunter said.
"So a combination of a few things and it's a possibility. But it's still strange that an irregular monster was so near the forest. We knew to expect an increasing amount of monsters these following months but I read nothing about irregulars. Was there anything else that was strange or other irregular monsters around?" The mayor asked.
"If there were any, I didn't find them. But the magic stone of the irregular was strange. Look at its transparency, it seems more like a gem than a stone." The hunter said
A stone similar to a gem that came out of the ghoul? My eyes widened to the remote possibility that that stone had the properties of a proper chaos gem. I was about to get up and ask if I could keep it when I heard the hunter speak.
"Are you going to contact Lord Ganesha about this?" A simple question, but one that froze me completely in place.
"No." The mayor said and I let out a breath I hadn't noticed I was holding. "I received a letter from the Familia saying that Orario was in chaos because of Evilus. Regis may have a special magic, and the possibility of more of this new irregular monster is alarming. But we don't have that much time left, and if the message were to be intercepted by these rogue elements of Evilus. We could have far more problems than these irregulars. Besides, Regis doesn't deserve to have all the attention from the gods an innate magic like his would receive. I know that Lord Ganesha is wise but he's also loud." The mayor said.
"Ain't that an understatement," The hunter said with humor in his voice. "And I agree, we came here to retire from all the mayhem in Orario. Regis, despite being a twat when I tried to teach him how to use the bow, has been nothing but helpful to the village. He really doesn't deserve to be hunted by greedy deities."
At that point, I stopped eavesdropping. Tears were falling from my eyes onto my lap. Guilt, relief, and then more guilt at the relief were breaking me up inside.
I didn't deserve it, I thought.
Countless lives were going to be extinguished because of my presence in this world if monsters from the Trials started spawning.
But still, these people believed in me. They were going to kick me out eventually, but I could feel that they were doing it for my benefit.
I wanted to repay them somehow.
But, at this moment, I couldn't do anything to help anyone. My power was limited, but there were a lot of things that I thought could help in the future.
In this world, where my relic brought me because of the chance to find a home.
I was going to do anything to deserve it. Even if thousands were going to die because of me. I was going to save a thousand and one from something else.
And that started with getting up from the bed, getting that stone, and starting to work.
Because I already knew what was going to be my first Arcana.
Strands of harsh sunlight streamed through the dense canopy of the forest and the hot weather made it clear that summer was upon us.
I was trying a new route through the forest for the first time today.
Instead of going through the well-traversed routes that were clear of foliage and vegetation, today I was going high among the trees, dashing from branch to branch with the skill of a monkey.
Alright, I admit it, I didn't have that kind of skill, what I did have was a mastery of the elements around me and my sparkling new artifact that made dashing far easier than it would otherwise be.
After getting up that day back in spring, I asked if I could keep the stone that came off from the ghoul. The mayor and hunter gave it up without much problems, I think they thought that I wanted it as a way to remind myself that that ghoul was dead.
After getting my hands on that gem I was puzzled though. The stone, despite having the exact appearance of a chaos gem wasn't one. I could immediately tell when I made contact, it simply didn't emanate the familiarity that Chaos Gem would give.
The Chaos Trials were vital for many reasons, from having a place for wizards to try out new spells and enchantments safely, to proving your strength and gaining status. But the most important reason was the creation of Chaos Gems.
Chaos gems were special in that they were vital in the creation of arcana. They were a concentration of chaotic elements given order. Their seemingly contradictory existence was an important aspect of what made them special.
When a wizard entered the Trials and defeated the monsters inside, the chaos gems that dropped from it were made from the essence of the monsters and the mana from the wizard that killed it, which created a catalyst for the creation of arcana for that wizard with unparalleled compatibility.
A wizard usually had two or three elemental affinities at most, so those gems would also have the capability to create arcana with those affinities.
It was one of the reasons the Chaos Gems I got from my Trials were in such high demand and how I got a Tome with so many signature spells from different wizards. My Chaos gems, with an affinity for all elements, chaos included, were widely sought after since everyone could use them. I was the equivalent of a universal donor within the wizard community. And for the old arch wizards who didn't have the energy to enter the trials anymore, my gems were the next best thing.
That was why I was surprised when I held the magic stone with the appearance of a chaos gem. I couldn't do Arcana with that thing. But what it allowed me to do was decipher what the hell the magic stone was.
And let me tell you, it was a goldmine of information.
It wasn't the first time that I had seen a magic stone, the hunter had shown me a few before, and the housewife who was the alchemist of the village had taught me how to mix basic healing potions, that by the way were fascinating how they work, but I digressed.
When I inspected a magic stone with my ability, I could tell the properties and the amount of energy it possessed. There was mana in there too, and where there was mana there was data.
But when I tried to decipher the data in the crystal I always just got gibberish and a headache.
But with the magic stone from the ghoul, I could extract a painfully familiar code.
There was a branch of Chaos Arcana that specialized in golem slash creature creation. The code in the stone wasn't the same language that Master Sura and other wizards in Lanova used, but it was written in an old primal dialect that I could understand.
Which in itself was telling of what the hell was going on with this world, but I digressed.
Again.
I swear, lately my mind has been a chaotic mess of thoughts and it was getting worse. I guessed it came with the territory of thinking like an esper…
Anyway, what was I thinking about again? Oh, right, the code was interesting. But what was even more interesting was the magic stone itself. And by that, I meant the hardware. Here I had a primitive computer capable of directly interacting with my ability, and I discovered a way to interact with it.
That was huge.
What proceeded was the next few months of working me my ass off to replicate it with my ability.
In the process, I learned a ton.
I discovered that my ability had the capability of matter generation and I had two ways of doing it, the easy way and the hard way.
The easy way, I just had to calculate the overall characteristics of what I wanted, and the matter was instantly created depending on what I had in mind. It was an imprecise method that only lasted as long as I kept those formulas in my mind. In my spars against the hunter, I confirmed that while useful, prolonged contact with the AIM fields of more powerful combatants increased the strain of maintaining that matter, or it downright rapidly deteriorated and disappeared.
The hard way was using Einstein's most famous formula E = m * C².
Yeah, talk about the nuclear option.
I was never going to use this monstrosity in combat, I knew that at the most minute mistake, I could accidentally delete my general area from the map. But if I used it correctly, I could generate permanent matter that I didn't need to maintain. It was downright nerve-wracking to use and it was the most power-hungry of the formulas I figured out since I could barely create a few grams at a time without exhausting myself.
But it was worth it.
In these past few months, I managed to create enough crystals to create an artifact that took the form of a phone-sized hard drive.
This artifact could store information and do basic calculations with simple logic. Essentially an extremely primitive computer, well, more like a glorified notebook with an integrated calculator.
Where it shined was that I could access and control it with my ability. Formulas that were too long or complicated that would take me way too much time to record physically or memorize, and now I could access and experiment with them at will.
It didn't have the internal battery that Arcana had that allowed wizards to simply flip a mental switch and have a fireball on command.
But what it allowed me to do, was to double-check the complex and dangerous formulas I needed for dashes through the forest. This way, I could confidently compare the formulas in my mind with the debugged and reliable ones saved in the artifact, ensuring I wouldn't make any mistakes.
As I got to the next landmark in my patrol, I used a couple of seconds to search through my Tome for a certain electromagnetic searching formula that was far more complicated than what I usually used.
I think I was going to call the artifact 'Tome' since 'artifact' or 'grimoire' were kind of a mouthful.
Anyway using this formula, I could sense a far greater area, and I rapidly found a few monsters that were in range.
Quickly shifting my math to the formulas of my dash with the Tome, I made my way there and created three spikes made of ice. When I could finally sense them with my ordinary esp senses, I calculated a vector toward each of what I could recognize as goblins and shot the icicles toward them.
Three head shots later, I got a little closer and simply ripped their magic stones with a flex of my ability, and the corpses puffed in ashes.
After pocketing the magic stones, I continued my patrol.
That was another thing I'd figured out, I couldn't manipulate the bodies of other living beings while they were alive. The aura that all of them possessed instinctively blocked any kind of direct manipulation. Not to mention that trying to model flesh with the math of my ability was a herculean task.
There was a reason that healing magic wasn't a thing in Lanova.
But well, since I spent the last few months obsessing over magic stones, I learned how to model them well enough to rip them out of the monsters' bodies when they were already dead.
So, no more bloody work for me. I could already feel the jealous gazes of the adventurers.
Heh.
Dashing through the trees, I finally arrived at my destination—the reason I took the faster route.
A magnificent donut-shaped lake with a stunning circular waterfall lay before me. I landed and began walking towards the lake. Using a quick formula to enhance the surface tension of the water, I walked across the lake, heading straight for the small isle at its center. As I passed through, I briefly curved the laminar flow of the waterfall so I didn't get wet.
Once I reached the isle, I used a specialized air-based sensing formula, This one was made to sense a certain sound filter from a very sneaky hunter. Not sensing him within my range, I let out a sigh of relief. It wasn't that I didn't trust him, but I would rather avoid having to explain what I was about to do.
It wasn't like I was going to do anything bad.
Anyway, I unsheathed my dagger and cleared the earth from the ground until I reached the rock beneath. Then I used a quick formula to smoothen it and I knelt on the ground and put myself to work.
An hour of intense concentration later, I let out another sigh of relief.
In front of me, an intricate circle full of runes was carved on the rock. Making a quick cut on my finger with my knife, I poured a single drop of blood into each of the runes which glowed briefly. Finally, I distributed the earth I removed earlier gently without touching the etching to try to make the ritual a little less obvious.
With my objective complete, I quickly made myself scarce. I was already way behind schedule. I would rather not worry the villagers, so I took to the trees and continued with my patrol, easily killing the few monsters I found on my way in the same manner I dispatched the ones before. In the end, I didn't find anything other than goblins.
What I did back in the lake was a bit of a long shot. I wonder if it would work, to be honest. The enchanted objects that I had created with Chaos Runes only really worked when I was near them or at least that's what I had observed. The conclusion I reached was that they were powered by my mana field. It was also the reason I dropped some of my blood on the magic circle. I hoped that my blood carried enough of my mana to keep the ritual running.
If it worked, I might get a companion out of it after all.
///////////
When I was about fifteen minutes away from the village my senses alerted me of an arrow directed my way. A quick electromagnetic field made the arrow curve a few feet away from me and around me where with some quick math I returned it to where it came from.
Thinking quickly I started dashing upwards through the branches towards the canopy of the trees. When I was about to reach them, I sensed the hunter behind me. A quick flex of my ability made the wind spin me 180 degrees while I unsheathed my dagger just in time to see the hunter flying towards me, his knife already making its way towards me.
I strongly magnetized my dagger so that my late parry could attract his dagger while unleashing a gust of wind to try to disengage. To my annoyance it didn't reach him, his aura partly dispersing it. The hunter was always annoyingly resistant to any kind of wind attack I tried on him. So midway I simply concentrated the wind between us and ignited it which created a little explosion.
That did the trick and I was able to disengage with his knife still trapped in mine. With a quick formula, I created an ice spike in my hand which I stabbed into a tree nearby to give me enough leverage to impulse myself to the branch I was going to initially land.
Having reached the highest branch without breaching the canopy I turned back to search for the hunter.
Not seeing him and my usual sensing formulas not finding him I panicked, after a second, I remembered the sensing formula I used on the lake and decided to use it. It was more complicated to calculate, but if I didn't find him now, I was going to lose.
Only for that to be my downfall. I was so preoccupied with finding the hunter that I sacrificed some range from my usual sensing formulas to use the more powerful variant that didn't sense the arrow he shot until it was 10 feet away from me. This arrow went far faster than the one he shot at the beginning of the ambush. Thus, by the time I was over my surprise and reacted to calculate a defense, the arrow had already scratched my arm signaling the end of the spar.
Letting out an annoyed sigh and relaxing, I sat on the branch, took a potion from my pocket, and drank it. While my arm was starting to heal, I sensed the hunter jumping through the trees like a goddamn ninja making his way towards me.
I swear he was gloating.
Did he really need to do triple backflips every other jump? It looked ridiculous.
Okay, it was kinda cool to be able to do that, and I was a little envious of his skill. But I would rather die again than admit it.
So with my most deadpan expression, I waited for him to land next to me.
"So how many times is it again?" The hunter said with a disgusting shit-eating grin.
"I don't know, I lost count," I replied.
"Liar. I know you enough by this point that you simply do not forget." He said teasingly.
"A hundred eighty-five," I murmured with a sigh just to get on with it.
"So, one hundred eighty-five wins for me to zero wins to little Regis. Well, what do you think you did wrong today?" he asked a little more seriously.
Replaying the battle in my head I could only conclude that everything went downhill when I lost the hunter after our clash.
"When I lost sight of you," I said to which he smiled. "I also don't know why I tried to use wind against you either." I did know that he resisted it. But air was my fastest element with mass, that's why I usually use it when I try to disengage and slow my opponent.
"Well, you're not wrong. You're a bit of a contradiction compared to other mages. You're far more capable at close range than at a distance. You should have used that fancy fast step of yours to keep me close." He said while scratching his chin.
I knew that, and it kind of irked me because my long-range weakness was for a stupid reason.
By now I've used my ability enough to know how it worked in general. And the reason my magic was more powerful the closer I was, was kind of childish.
Since I used a cartesian coordinate system to decide the positioning of all my magic, my center of mass was always the zero and if it wasn't, the math didn't work. So the closer I tried to manifest my magic, the smaller the numbers I needed to use to calculate my vectorial equations. Ergo, the closer to myself I cast, the faster I could calculate and the more powerful my magic was.
Not to mention that for some reason, my ability was more difficult to use the farther I was from the village.
I needed to pour more will and increase the number of calculations per second for it to work the farther I was from the village. Which slowed me down even more.
Sometimes I felt like I was in a constant mental screaming match with the world. The one who insisted faster and louder was the one who decided what was happening in reality and for some reason, the world wasn't as loud in the village as it was in the forest.
Anyway, he knew that me keeping him close was near impossible. I swear this old man was a ninja.
"I would have tried, but you're almost a monkey, how do you move so fast among the trees anyway? All the time, I tried to chase you, you somehow turned back and attacked me faster than I could react. And when I don't chase you, you pick the high ground and shoot me down with that disgusting bow." I replied with annoyance in my voice.
The laugh that followed just made me more irritated.
"Experience and practice, Regis. Don't worry too much. You're improving quickly. You'll still need at least 10 years to beat me at the pace you're going though." He replied tauntingly.
This geriatric just told me to 'git gud' and that I had a skill issue didn't he?
Letting out a sigh, I decided that I had enough. I calculated the equivalent of the first Arcana I ever used and said."Well, I'm tired, I'm going to get going, old man." And immediately actualized an air slash towards the part of the branch the old man was sitting on.
The branch was severed and the hunter made his best Looney Tunes impression when he noticed that the branch under him wasn't there anymore.
The veteran adventurer still had the skill to grab the falling branch and stab the tree with it to gain enough momentum to reach another branch and avoid falling to the ground.
"Oi Regis, who are you calling old? Do you want another beating?" The old man said and all but admitted that our training was just an excuse for him to beat me up.
"I'm telling as I see it. The only reason you don't have as many wrinkles as the rest is that you are Level Two." I said back while preparing my dash. According to the villagers, each level-up granted you a few extra years of lifespan, so it wasn't like I was lying.
"Oh well, then let me show you why you should respect your elders!" He said with anger in his voice.
Oh shit, I didn't think this through, did I?
What followed was a high-speed and high-altitude chase through the forest, with me cutting branches to limit his options while he showed me why that didn't matter to him when he could just stab his fingers into the wood to find leverage.
I still got to the village without him catching me though.
Hunter 185, Regis 1. It was about time I had a win.
And yes it was a win.
No matter what the farmer said, the hunter just picked me by the scruff of the neck when I landed inside the perimeter of the village, meaning inside the housewife's perception and to win a fighting retreat you just had to survive until safety.
Thus, my win.
///////////////
The door from the hut closed behind me and I dropped to the floor, my face pressed against the warm wooden table. My body was sore and my mind was almost on fire. With a breath, I let the formulas from my mind go.
Oh, blessed silence. All the extra senses I've kept up all day diminished to the minimum and my mind finally relaxed.
Today was the first day I had managed to keep my magic working uninterrupted. It was torturous, but I guessed I could check a milestone from my checklist.
In the morning, I'd helped the farmer and the smith with their jobs. When they learned how flexible my magic was, they became more demanding with their expectations.
Today, for example, the farmer asked me to harvest and transport the grain with my magic and my body at the same time. The smith kept demanding I maintain the metals at a certain temperature or that I shape specific parts that were difficult for him to do with the tools available.
It was good practice, and I was happy to do it. But it was really hard work to stay focused for so long,
After lunch, it was time for patrol in the forest and training with the hunter. By this point, I'd become competent enough that the hunter allowed me to patrol on my own the immediate perimeter of the village while he scouted farther ahead. He told me that with my sensing being as good as it was, I could simply ambush any monster that slipped by his patrol like with the goblins of today.
In these past few months, I hadn't seen any more trial monsters so I hoped that that meant there weren't many being spawned.
Where did they spawn from anyway? When I asked the villagers, they told me that all monsters come from the dungeon in Orario. But I thought that was false. Otherwise, how did the ghouls slip by all the adventurers in Orario?
Anyway, after a patrol, came our daily spars. We used to battle in a clearing, but after my ability was discovered, we had a spar to see how we matched.
The result was that the hunter utterly demolished me.
Using my ability to attack meant that I couldn't use my precognition with as much potency as before because of my limited brainpower.
Therefore, the hunter told me that until I could attack and defend at the same time we would change to a hit-and-run approach so I could have more time to prepare myself between clashes.
That's when the parkour lessons started.
I still partially think that the hunter just wanted to show off how good he was at it.
Anyway, after a few days of sparring like that, the hunter told me that he was going to start ambushing me amidst my patrol and that the battle wouldn't end until first blood.
According to him, I needed to always be aware of my surroundings and be prepared to attack at any time. I couldn't really argue with him considering that the reason I almost died to the ghoul was because I lowered my guard after killing the goblins.
It was another bad habit I took from the Trials.
When I killed all the monsters in the rooms, it meant it was clear. There never were any ambushes. Clearly, real-life situations weren't as simple.
Letting a groan out, I took Tome out of my pocket and placed it on the table, it was digging in my but.
After a sigh of relief, I looked at the artifact and brooded a little. It took me an entire season to make this thing. I completed it yesterday and I was as of right now without an enchanting project.
I could start trying to figure out how to create a mana battery, it was the last step I had to figure out to start creating arcana.
But I was tired. No, I was exhausted.
I should have already started using this thing for what I created it for and started doing a power curriculum session.
I should also figure out what main weapon I should specialize in. I was tired of falling into decision paralysis every time I fought the hunter. It would be nice to always have something I could instinctively fall on in case I couldn't think of a counter.
I should also be figuring out what the villagers were hiding from me.
Even more when they thought they were doing me a favor by hiding it from me.
I should be doing a lot of things.
But these past few days I had been doing nothing but what I should be doing. It seemed almost like I reverted to the times I was in the trials.
Always working myself to the bone.
When I fled from there, I decided that I preferred to die than to continue to live like that.
So Regis, what do you want to do right now?
The blank answer from my mind was slowly filled by the chirps of the crickets outside.
They were kinda annoying…
I could add sound insulation to the enchantment of the hut or I could figure out music…
Music it is then.
A few hours later the door to my hut opened. The head of the mayor poked inside and said in an irritated manner. "Regis? We're all stoked that you've figured out how to produce music with your magic. But do you think it could wait until tomorrow? It's three o'clock in the dead of night…"
I took a look outside around the mayor and saw the rest of the villagers with a mix of tired, sleepy, teasing, and smirking expressions.
Oopsie.
Maybe I should have figured out sound insulation first.
Chapter 7
As I stepped out of my hut, a wall of snow greeted me, the cold biting through my half-asleep haze.
"Hmph!? Alright, I'm awake, I'm awake."
With a big yawn and a shiver to shake off the cold snow that had clung to me, I looked up. Instead of the picturesque view of a snow-covered village, I found myself staring at a wall of snow.
Holy shit.
I knew the sound and insulation of my hut were good, but somehow, a blizzard of epic proportions must have happened last night while I slept.
I mean, I could barely see the sky.
The cold weather this year had started a little crazy, but this was ridiculous.
With a sigh, I ran in my mind a few by this point very familiar calculations and started walking forward.
The snow started melting and steaming itself around me. First I did a lap around my hut. Then, I started going to the various villager's houses in search of company and breakfast.
After a couple of minutes, I reached the house closest to mine. I heard someone hitting the door from the inside.
"Open, you stupid door!" The muffled voice of the farmer came from inside.
"Stop it, old man. You're going to break it, just give me a minute." I said as I started unfreezing the snow and ice around the door.
"Oh, is that you Regis?" The farmer said while stopping to push the door from the inside.
With the door now clear of snow, I simply pulled the door handle.
"There you are! Good morning Regis" The farmer said with a smile. "Do you know what the problem with the door was…"
Yeah, from his surprised expression It was clear that he could also see that apart from the path I made to get here, the snow everywhere piled up high enough to reach the roofs of our houses.
Good to know that I wasn't dreaming because I was starting to wonder. This was nuts.
"Is this normal weather in these parts? I don't remember last year being this bad" I asked with a deadpan face.
"Ahahah, you know how the weather is." He said without looking me in the eye. "Anyway, we should be going to get the rest for breakfast."
With his hands on my shoulders, he pushed me forward towards the nearest house, my ability melting a path in front of us so that we didn't need to dig our way forward.
I tried to reign in my irritation. I was lied to, again.
Since the end of summer, the weather around the village had been crazy. Every other day, during the night, we would have strong winds or stupidly hot temperatures. Even a few downpours and storms that almost ruined our fields.
I asked around all the villagers, and everyone always told me that everything was fine, that this was normal.
But by this point, I had been in this village for around a year and a half, and last year wasn't nearly as bad.
Not to mention that in a few of the stories of the villagers, they described that the gods could know if mortals lied. And since it was an ability that all the gods had, I deduced that it was either tied to how our powers worked or a quirk of our biology that they could exploit.
After a few days of obsessing over it, I figured out how they did it. All espers powers worked by manifesting a personal reality in the real world. In this world, maybe people weren't exactly espers, but they all work similarly enough that it didn't matter.
What mattered, was what happened if an esper lied.
What would happen if they tried to twist the fabric of reality in a way that wasn't honest with their personal reality through their words?
I didn't know how it worked for unblessed people, but for adventurers, I observed that their AIM field was distorted by a split second when they lied.
Which I guessed made sense, because to manifest your ability, you had to wholeheartedly believe that it would be manifested. If you lied, then I guessed it was expected that in the duration of the lie, your AIM field would be distorted as well.
The question now was, how much did the gods see? I only sensed the distorted fields, because I was sensing my surroundings constantly.
Did they see as much as me? Or was it just a weird instinct for them?
Anyway, I digressed. The thing was that the villagers were lying to me about something.
Which I already knew, but it irritated me to see how often they did it.
"Man, this Skill of yours sure is handy isn't it?" The farmer said from behind me.
"What it is, is a pain in the ass. I don't know what you all would have done without me here. You don't know how annoying it is to use sometimes." I whined, only to sigh at the sound of my own voice.
Stupid underdeveloped thirteen-year-old body.
But to be fair, they had been running me ragged these past few months, from hunting monsters and animals to helping fix the things that were being broken because of the extreme weather…
"And I don't possess the Falna, so it isn't a Skill." I somehow heard the capital letter in his voice. "Aren't there more people like me, who can use magic without the Falna?"
"Well, people like you aren't unheard of exactly. From what I heard, the elves are capable of using magic by undergoing some secret rituals, and some noble clans in the east are said to possess innate abilities. The Crozzo clan with their magic swords is also a fairly famous example." He said while rubbing his chin. "But from what I know, all these powers come from gifts they received from spirits, race, or their ancestry."
Something in what he said piqued my attention. All naturally occurring powers come from gifts and ancestry?
The gift part made sense. If the spirit was powerful enough, and their power worked anything like mine, then running a formula to detect a certain action from people of a certain bloodline wouldn't be an impossibility. Or maybe they use something like the network of the level-upper fiasco back in Academy City?
I would have to look into it, but there were several ways I could think that would make something like this possible.
The weird thing was ancestry.
"How can ancestry grant magic? Also, I don't think my magic comes from anything you've said." I said, puzzled.
"Oh? Have we never told you about the heroes of old?" He asked, at my blank expression, he continued. "Well, according to the legends. Back when the monsters started spawning from the earth. The gods still hadn't descended, so humanity and the other races were pushed back to the brink of extinction. Then when everything seemed lost, certain people rose up against adversity. Some borrowed the strength from the spirits, but others just seemed to have been born differently. They had fantastical abilities that appeared to have come from nowhere. Eventually, these heroes procreated and thus certain clans were founded with a high chance for progeny to be born with innate abilities. We think that you could have been part of one of these clans."
This explained a lot about why the villagers didn't appear to make too much of a fuss about my abilities.
These heroes were probably gemstones like me. I didn't know if the trait of being a gemstone could be passed down though.
Well, my being a gemstone was probably a consequence of my relic plugging me into this body rather than me being from any clan.
I was about to ask more when we heard the door of the smith being hit repeatedly. Sighing at what was probably going to be my whole morning, I started shouting. "Please don't break the door! I'm going to get you out!"
Thankfully, the smith stopped trying to break his way out.
"Hurry it up brat! I'm hungry!" I heard the grumpy smith say.
I sighed again.
This was going to take a while, wasn't it?
///////////////
High among the trees, I dashed between arrows being shot by the goblins below.
Whoever decided to give the goblins frigging bows was going to get it, I swear.
With a flex of will, I concentrated and contained flammable gas with a spherical layer of non-flammable gas, finally I covered it with a layer of fire. Then I shot it towards the goblins.
The fireball reached their general position, the impact destabilizing the thin layer of inert gas and igniting the concentrated flammable gas within, creating a fiery explosion that shook up the trees nearby. I swiftly dashed upwards under a branch and waited.
A moment later a huge quantity of snow fell from the canopies of the trees burying the goblins that hadn't been obliterated by the initial fireball.
Letting myself fall to the ground, I landed with a thud on a thick layer of snow that after a second solidified under the control of my ability.
Walking forward as if I weren't on an unstable pile of snow and ice, I waited for the goblins to come out.
A minute later, I sighed.
They could at least have the courtesy of making their way upward before dying…
Letting the ice shards I had ready to kill the goblins fall to the ground, I used my magical stone-retrieving formula and pulled.
Six magic stones shot from under the snow to my hands.
With another sigh, I couldn't help but contemplate the forest around me while I pocketed the stones.
It was fairly dark and there wasn't any recognizable fauna since everything was frozen solid.
It honestly seemed like a completely different place than last year.
I remember the forest being beautiful in winter, the snow giving it a slightly mystical ambiance.
Now, the snow and ice seemed more like an infection trying to devour it.
Not to mention that the forest was far more dangerous lately since there's been a sharp increase in monsters.
And now with last night's blizzard, the place was a death trap too.
Contrary to the village, the layer on the forest floor was at most a couple of feet high. The thing was the tons of snow that had concentrated on the canopies of the trees ready to fall at any second.
The deep sound of the snow creaking above me gave me the creeps. I had never been near an avalanche, but I thought I now knew what it felt like to be near one.
The compulsion of generating a big sonic boom and seeing all the snow fall like dominoes was fairly strong, but I managed to repress my inner chaotic gremlin. The hunter had asked me to refrain when I asked, so I will try.
If he lets his sadistic tendencies out today on our spar though…
No! Bad Regis! Bad!
Shaking my head, I continued my patrol through the creepy forest dispatching goblins and kobolds alike until I reached the donut-shaped lake that despite the odds wasn't frozen solid, the waterfall still flowing like usual.
I hadn't seen trial monsters for a while, but I knew that was because the hunter had been hunting them with extreme prejudice. Every time we gave the magic stones to the major, I could see some that seemed more like chaos gems than magic stones. Though, every time the stones resembled more magic stones than gems…
Walking up to the lake while ignoring the physics that made no sense to my ability, every time I tried I only got a headache, I proceeded to the center of the tiny island.
The ritual I started more than half a year ago still hadn't reached completion. I could see that the blue pearl in the center of the circle was slightly bigger than it was the day before, but its inner light was still lacking, so I simply bled on the runes carved on the rock and continued my patrol.
A few days after I started the ritual, I confirmed that the ritual didn't advance unless I was nearby. So leaving a few drops of my blood was the only way to keep it powered for a few days at a time and if my suspicions were right, rather poorly at that.
From what I remember of the process back in Lanova, It should have taken a couple of months at most.
It had already been three times that…
In the end, it didn't matter. The ritual would be completed eventually. This was a completely different world with different rules. That it was doing anything at all was already a miracle.
Shaking myself of useless thoughts, I eventually reached a certain clearing.
The hunter was already waiting for me with his arms crossed. He had told me that today we would be having a spar in the clearing since the forest in its current conditions would be far too dangerous.
That was fine by me, I had been eagerly waiting for today's spar.
"So you've come, Regis. You seem confident today. So, let me pound some humility into that face of yours." The hunter said in his low voice slowly unsheathing his short sword.
He wasn't wrong, last night I finished a project that I'd spent a while making and my face must have shown some of my eagerness for some payback.
A slight smile on my face was the only answer he needed to explode forward with his sword ready to stab me.
A split second before the sword was about to impale me, I had already dashed backward, a decoy made from the snow in the ground in place which he penetrated.
My magic cast at a speed incomparable to what it was yesterday.
The decoy burst into frigid winds freezing him in place for a brief moment. Icicles already forming around me pointing to nonlethal areas of the hunter's body.
An instant later they shot forward at my command. Unfortunately, the hunter wasn't such a weak opponent that such a tactic would work.
With a flex of his muscles and AIM field, the ice keeping him in place broke and he easily parried the ice spikes with his sword and gauntlet.
I gave him a mocking grin, to which he was about to continue his chase when his expression changed, and instead jumped backward sheathing his sword and grabbing his bow.
Tsk, he must have heard the slight movement of the snow between us.
His hearing, despite having a field that muted noise, was stupidly good.
Using the moment he was occupied by my attacks, I created a pitfall while I maintained the thin layer of snow in place. If he had pursued, he would have fallen inside and I could have buried him in snow.
Instead, he was already shooting me with his bow, but such an attack wouldn't work on me.
I'd already long since implanted into my subconscious a little formula that repelled arrows shot at me via electromagnetism.
Long arduous months of creating my own power curriculum program paid off as I detected the metal arrowhead and minutely nudged it to the side by a couple of degrees without having to pay too much attention to it.
Just to be surprised as another projectile came at me from the shadow of the first. This time an arrow without the metal arrowhead was about to graze my skin. Instead, strong whirling winds manifested around me. The snow in my vicinity was blown up into the air and the arrow deflected at the last second.
The snow, I was keeping in place over the pitfall, fell into the hole I had dug before at my distraction to the sneak attack.
After a couple of seconds of waiting to see if he was going to try to force his way through, I dismissed the controlled tornado.
As expected, he was already mid-air with his sword in hand about to slash me, so I dashed sideways leaving a decoy behind. My other hand was already raised with a fireball forming in his direction.
In a feat of athleticism, I could only call supernatural he spun midair and slashed my decoy with the tip of his sword. This time, instead of freezing, he used the frigid winds to change momentum in my direction.
Where he encountered my fireball ready to set him on fire. What followed was a series of events that I could only cry hacks to.
He instantly covered himself with his cloak leaving only his sword arm out and still in the air and spinning, he vertically slashed my fireball in half somehow netting him even more momentum in my direction.
The man might as well have been flying towards me this whole time.
Thankfully, I still had a card to play.
Instants before the sword reached me, iron sand exploded from one of my pouches and parried his strike. His eyes widened at the unexpected defense.
Since he started using his sword, he had been able to overpower almost any type of defensive I mustered with my ability. Only when I went all out in defense I could parry him.
Thus, he was caught by surprise when such a simple spell was able to block his slash. A surprise that I with glee took advantage of, fierce winds formed around me unleashing a whirling tornado around me knocking him up while lightly slicing his skin.
"I win," I said, panting for air. He looked at his wounds slightly bleeding, before smiling and pointing at my left ear. "No, it's a draw".
What? I raised my hand to my ear, just to feel the slightest pain. Holding my gloved hand in front of my eyes I saw it minutely tainted red.
"Not today, Regis. Not yet." He said while getting up."Still, I think you have some explaining to do. You've been casting strong spells far faster than you usually do. You've even made me go all out. So, what did you figure out?"
With a sigh, I took out a card made from flexible crystal from one of the pockets I had sewn in my cloak.
"It's thanks to this," I said while handing him the card.
"Feels a little weird, like there's an itch I can't quite scratch. What does it do?" He said while looking at the card against the sun.
Did he feel something from it? That was… Interesting.
"It is basically a cheat sheet for a single spell," I said. "Every time I cast a spell I need to go through certain mental steps. This card feeds me these steps as fast as I can go through them so I don't need to remember it all mid-battle."
Despite my efforts, I hadn't figured out how to create Arcana. There was something that I was missing. So this was the best I could do.
Using Tome in battle was way too cumbersome since I had to search through literally hundreds of spells for the one I wanted, so this was my answer.
There was also the fact that it limited my options for emergency spell-casting. Which was good since I had been struggling with decision paralysis while under pressure since I unlocked my ability.
"But, never mind that. When did you cut me? I didn't sense anything." I asked him.
"Ah, that's easy. I've noticed that you track metal objects exceedingly well, but you have problems against more complex materials. So lately, I've been carving a little and making these." He said while flicking his wrist where a goddamned wickedly sharp wooden kunai jumped into his hand.
So I was right, he was a damn ninja from the beginning!
And he wasn't wrong. While I knew how to form and detect wood attacks, modeling their structure was far more taxing than simply using metal so I wasn't as used to them as I should.
Something to work on, I guessed.
But…
"That still doesn't explain when you sneaked the dagger that hit me," I said while glaring at the stupid wooden weapon. My senses, while a little delayed, should have warned of the attack like the arrow without a metal head from the beginning of the spar.
I thought I had a new weapon that I hated.
"Well I guess this could be today's lesson, so listen carefully Regis. There's a moment when almost everyone abandons their defense. And that's when they're about to land their killing blow or in our case the winning blow. Just when you blocked my sword with that tendril of iron sand, which we're going to talk about later by the way because that has some serious potential, just when you cast the last wind spell. I threw the kunai while I was being knocked back." He said while reproducing the movement of retrieving the dagger from his sleeve and throwing it with a smooth subtle motion.
In the end, I could only be amazed at the skill involved and let myself fall on the snow knowing that even if he said it was a draw, I still lost that spar.
If he wanted, he could have aimed at my eyes and I would be dead while I at most could have made the lacerations a little deeper but nothing life-threatening.
"Are all Level Two as strong as you? If so I'm screwed," I said with a little dismay.
I've spent an entire year fighting him, and even with my magic and now pseudo arcana that let me cast simple spells almost like I was in Lanova I still wasn't able to beat him.
And if Level Two adventurers were this level of bullshit, I didn't want to even imagine what higher levels were like.
Was the Falna truly that much of an advantage?
The sound of him sniggering knocked me out of my little pity party.
"He's screwed, he says." The hunter said while trying to contain his amusement. "Regis, how old do you think I am?"
"Eeerr…" Was this a trap question? Every time I called him an old man he chased me around to give me a beating…
Steeling myself, I decided to bite the bullet. "Around 70?" I said uncertainty to which he laughed.
"I'm over 105 years old, Regis. I became an adventurer at 20 and leveled up at 27 with most of my stats at rank S because I was and still am a perfectionist. 5 years later I was granted the opportunity to level up again, but I decided not to for personal reasons." He said while looking at the sky with a nostalgic smile. "I decided to retire from the dungeon and come here 15 years ago."
So I was right, he was old as dirt.
"Wipe that smile from your face, Regis. I can tell what you're thinking." He said with a glare.
"What I was trying to say is that I'm as high as a Level Two adventurer could get. And I have over 70 years of fighting experience. Only the most talented newly risen Level Four could ever hope to match me. And you've reached my level in a single year. You're monstrous, kid. You're going to be just fine." He said while patting me on the head.
Looking at his bright blue eyes I could feel the honesty and confidence he had in me.
It made my eyes feel a little misty. Then suddenly he grabbed the hood of my cloak and said. "That's why I have to beat some humility into you while I still can. Can't let all that talent go into your head." And proceed to launch me into the air.
Oi, I thought we were having a moment here!
"Come on Regis. We're going at it again."
What happened after was a beating of epic proportions that slowly became more about mental games than about skill.
His experience vs my creativity and innovation.
Before long, I began enjoying these moments much more than I thought possible.