Blessed Time: A LitRPG Adventure

by Cale Plamann

  School Life

  After two weeks, Micah truly started enjoying his time at the Academy. As upsetting as his time with the Golden Drakes had been, especially when Brenden would simply tell him to drop a course of study because it wouldn’t benefit his “build,” the Academy felt like it was going to make it all worthwhile. The nobles might be snobs, and the scholarship students might be too terrified to bother with, but finally, he was actually learning something.

  Of course, that didn’t mean that Micah wasn’t trying to make some friends despite his handicaps, however ill-advised that might be.

  “Micah, look!” Bart shouted, his eyes wide as he pointed at the bored and vaguely malnourished-looking tiger.

  Micah felt for the creature. It was just trying to get some sleep while Bart and a handful of entitled noble children shrieked at it from just outside the enclosure.

  “I see the tiger, Bart.” Micah tried to smile, hoping that his overly enthusiastic friend wouldn’t notice how forced the expression was. “Tigers certainly are majestic creatures, but there’s no real need to get overly excited. We are at a zoo, after all; there are plenty of animals on display.”

  “You don’t understand, Micah.” Bart turned back to him, joy written across his face. “You grew up in the country and actually had a chance to adventure before you were sent to the Royal Academy. I’m from the city and my dad’s a stonemason. Other than horses, I’ve never gotten a chance to see anything larger than a dog.”

  “What about leveling?” Micah frowned slightly as he asked the question. “Don’t you have to delve into your dungeon with your batman too? I’d expect you to encounter all kinds of fantastic creatures down there.”

  “That doesn’t count.” Bart’s happiness disappeared like a snuffed torch. “Reginald scares the hell out of me and keeps threatening to kill me if I don’t meet his benchmarks. He won’t even tell me what the ‘benchmarks’ are. Plus, everything down there is trying to kill me. It just isn’t the same.”

  “How about we go to the HJ Thiel Aquatic Exhibit next?” Micah asked, trying to rekindle Bart’s earlier excitement. “Basil’s Cove is by the ocean; we don’t have access to many freshwater biomes. From what I’ve read in the pamphlets, there should be a bunch of species that neither of us have seen there.”

  “That sounds splendid, Micah!” Bart’s smile lit up his face before he led the way toward the indoor aquatic exhibit. Apparently, the water needed careful temperature regulation provided by enchantments, meaning smaller, enclosed and indoor exhibits.

  Quickly, he caught up to Bart, a slight smile on his face despite himself. Micah wasn’t entirely sure how Bart had picked up a Mythic Blessing from an intermediate deity; the man was slightly dumber than the average pile of bricks. Still, the larger man was earnest, friendly, and sported an infectious laugh.

  Under ordinary circumstances, he probably wouldn’t have even befriended Bart. A simpleton was far from his speed. That said, he was glad he’d taken the time. There was something straightforward and sincere about Bart, like a large, friendly dog.

  Whenever they spent time together, Micah didn’t have to watch his every word. Mostly because Bart was too stupid to actually blackmail him, but also because Bart was loyal to a fault. As far as Bart was concerned, they were friends and that was the end of it. Through thick and thin, they’d have each other’s backs.

  Micah suspected that the world wouldn’t let them off that easily. The Royal Academy was the sort of place that ate naive and trusting souls like Bart alive, but at least for now, he was a friend and a refuge from the constant stress of their training.

  “Look at him go.” Bart whistled in awe as Micah walked up behind him. For some reason, Bart had made a beeline past the merfolk, kelpie, and diamondfish exhibits, instead standing enraptured before the tank devoted to a family of river otters.

  One of the sleek mammals darted past, catching one of the silvery fish loaded into their tank by the keepers. Quickly, the creature surfaced, rolling over onto its back to eat its treat while making eye contact with Bart and Micah.

  “They’re beautiful animals, aren’t they?” Micah nodded in the otter’s direction, barely able to draw Bart’s attention as the other man pressed his face against the glass of the cage.

  “Just look at their little paws, Micah.” Bart looked back at him, a slight wistful smile on his face. “Do you think that the Royal Knights will let me get a pet otter when I make full Knight? I know that’s a long way off, but all the Knights are rich, powerful, and respected. I don’t really know what I’d do with all that attunement… Maybe buy my family a better house, but I want something for myself. I just didn’t know what it was until today.”

  “Sure.” Micah tried to keep the emotion from his voice. It was hardly a sure thing that either of them would survive to graduation, let alone be in a position to demand exotic pets. “Once you become a full Royal Knight, a pet otter probably won’t be a problem at all.”

  The rest of the visit to the zoo progressed smoothly, ending with both of them paying more attunement than they should for some sort of well-seasoned grilled meat on a stick. He enjoyed the meal, but Micah couldn’t help but worry about the future. Half of the reason he spent time with Bart was to avoid thinking about the topic.

  As for his actual combat capability, Micah made steady progress. Slowly, but still at a rate that raised Martin’s bushy white eyebrows, Micah’s skills ticked up month by month. He grew in level at a slower rate now that he wasn’t simply killing monsters immobilized by Brenden, but the levels did come, bringing more mana in each of his pools that allowed Micah to cast more spells and with greater force.

  Finally, when he reached level 19 deep in the Academy’s captive dungeon, Martin motioned for him to stop. Micah leaned against the wall, sweat pouring down his body due to his exertion and the dungeon’s elemental fire theme. He’d heard that the nobles had access to dungeons whose themes didn’t make the actual act of delving in them physically uncomfortable and sweaty, but Micah did have to admit that the shorter line for the fire dungeon was a boon when he wanted to do as many runs as possible in his limited time.

  “Micah.” Despite being on the third floor of a dungeon, Martin’s voice was as stuffy as ever. “Now that you’re level 19, we need to talk about your first class specialty. You’ve been surprisingly thoughtful to date for an individual of your experience, but this is a decision that impacts your entire future.”

  “I’ve heard other students mention specialties,” Micah huffed in between taking a drag from his waterskin, “but no one really talks about them in any real detail. All I know is that they’re a big deal and they happen at level 20.”

  “That makes sense.” Martin nodded thoughtfully. “Most noble families treat their research into class specialties about as seriously as they do initial classes. As far as I know, you get one every twenty levels, with the power of the specialty raising significantly each time. Depending upon your class and skills, different options will be available. It’s fairly common to get an upgrade to a martial art or field of magic, but there are rumors that some of the noble houses have figured out how to unlock esoteric specialties that grant bonus attributes at each level.

  “Not all of the specialties are fully explored,” Martin continued, his dry voice washing over Micah. “We have some ideas about the more basic specialties, but my goal isn’t to grant you a bonus 2 HP per level or the ability to speed the research of your own spells. If you’re going to earn a knighthood, you’ll need Time magic.

  “You’ve learned well over these months,” Martin grudgingly acknowledged. “Your Spellcasting skill is at the level that you could earn a class specialty in Chronomancy, allowing you to use those spells much more freely. Unfortunately for you”—Martin smirked, quickly flashing his teeth at Micah—“the rules for getting an elemental specialty are well-known. All you need is to know one Time spell when you level up.

  “Of course”—Martin’s unpleasant smile spread ac
ross his entire face—“the lowest-tier Time spell that I’m aware of is in the fifth tier. Although you can cast some fourth-tier spells, the limit between four and five is a fairly serious one. Actually, casting a fifth-tier spell is a daunting task for anyone under level 30.”

  “But how do I learn one?” Micah frowned. “I’ve been trying to make it to fifth-tier magic for almost a full year and I still have a ways to go. I suppose I can keep practicing fourth-tier spells until my Spellcasting skill levels up enough, but that seems awfully slow.”

  “One year to cast fifth-tier magic and he’s complaining,” Martin snorted. “Boy, I can only cast sixth-tier spells. The fifth tier took me a decade. Being a prodigy gives you some shortcuts; it doesn’t let you circumvent the entire race.”

  “How am I supposed to learn Time magic, then?” Micah cocked his head to the side. “Everyone keeps telling me that there aren’t any known spells below the fifth tier, but there has to be some way to earn the class specialty.”

  “That’s true,” Martin agreed. Glancing about, he cast a quick spell, creating a bubble of water around the two of them that blocked out all ambient sound. “Has anyone told you the tale of Karin Dakkora?”

  “No,” Micah replied slowly, his memory flashing back to the almost-certainly illegal book “gifted” to him by Brenden. It was still in the bottom of his travel luggage; Micah hadn’t dared to bring the book out since his arrival at the Academy. After all, what was the need when the Folio retained a perfect copy of any book he read?

  “It’s not a tale that the Church would tell.” The usual boredom and arrogance in Martin’s voice were replaced by reverence. “Karin was the greatest ritual caster that this planet has ever seen. Her research was absolutely revolutionary. She posited that the magic given to us by the gods was little more than a weak and feeble thing. A toy or bauble that you’d use to distract a child to stop them from accidentally putting their hand on a hot stove. She created rituals of a magnitude and elegance that they could’ve changed the world and ushered in a new golden age.

  “But.” Martin spat on the ground. When he looked up, his eyes burned with a dangerous zeal. “The Sixteen grew jealous of her, fearing that her power had begun to rival their own, and sent their champions to lay her low. Despite a simple Rare Blessing and fighting alone, she struggled with the divine champions for a decade while she sought the ritual that would finally allow her to defeat them once and for all. Unfortunately, despite holding out for all that time, she was finally defeated.

  “And yet”—Martin practically hissed the word as he stepped closer to Micah—“some of her works survived. Collected by her followers and those interested in true power.” Martin’s smile didn’t reach his eyes as he said, “She created a ritual. One that lets a caster draw power from the life of another in lieu of mana. Right now, all that stands between you and the fifth tier is mana, right, boy?”

  Micah nodded uncomfortably. The sweat pouring down his back had little to do with the heat.

  “Good.” Martin’s eyes flashed with a predatory gleam. “I know that you’ve been focusing on ritual magic. I’m going to teach you that ritual and you’re going to use it to cast a fifth-tier Time spell the next time we venture into this dungeon. And if you don’t?” Martin snapped his fingers, causing the sphere of water to pop like a soap bubble around them. “You’ll have confirmed my suspicions about you—that you’ve been wasting my time for these past six months. By the Sixteen, boy, if you can’t make this work, I’ll kill you myself.”

  25

  The Ritual

  Micah shook his head as he read over the spell formula for Foresight. It was more than just mana; the diagram for a fifth-tier spell was exponentially more complex than a fourth tier. Even then, he struggled with casting Healing Wave, the only fourth-tier spell he’d managed to learn so far. The worst of it was that there wouldn’t be any extra chance to cast the spell. He’d have one chance to use the excess mana from the ritual to bridge the gap and cast it. If it fizzled, they might have the materials for a second try, but that’d be it. Without the mana, he was doomed to fail.

  Spells weren’t something you’d cast on your first time through. Each of them involved a complex set of nonsense words combined with precise body positioning and hand motions. Maybe a caster could succeed with a first-tier spell on their first try, but each tier became significantly more difficult. His third-tier spells all took two to five attempts before Micah mastered them well enough to cast them consistently. Healing Wave took a week of daily exercises, failure after failure followed by the long wait as he bided his time waiting for his mana to slowly recharge.

  Theoretically, Foresight was the simplest known Time spell. It would let Micah see shadowy outlines of what would happen over the course of the next second. The spell used an insane amount of mana and only lasted for five seconds, but during those five seconds, the caster was next to invulnerable. Any reasonably fit person could dodge almost any blow simply by knowing exactly where it would land.

  He closed the book he was studying from and glanced at the door to his bedroom. Ever since he and Martin returned from the dungeon, his batman had informed the Academy faculty that Micah was “feeling ill.” He’d spent almost the entire week locked in his bedroom with Martin patrolling outside, preventing any external contact.

  Micah withdrew the Folio from his wrist and went over the conditions of the ritual once again. At least that was one spot where he was fairly confident of success. He’d taken advantage of his week of forced solitude to closely study the materials provided by Martin and Brenden.

  The ritual itself wasn’t terribly advanced; it just involved the removal of certain limiters designed to prevent an ordinary energy transference casting from running out of control. The book contained some worrying hastily scrawled notes with words such as “explosive” and “spontaneous combustion” describing what happened to casters who didn’t use one hundred percent of the mana provided by the ritual.

  He could see why the Church warned people against using the ritual. It provided extra mana, but it took almost twenty minutes to prepare for each casting. Once the ritual was completed, the caster needed to immediately use the mana channeled into them by it. Casters couldn’t hold on to any of the mana past the immediate casting of a spell, making it only useful in very specific situations such as sieges, where a spellcaster had adequate time to prepare. Worse, the chances of miscalculating the mana granted by the ritual and accidentally magically crippling yourself were astronomical.

  Still, it wasn’t like he had any options. Martin hadn’t been joking when he threatened him. Frankly, Micah wasn’t sure that Martin really joked about anything, and his next scheduled foray into the dungeon was tomorrow. For better or worse, in about twenty-four hours, he would be using a dangerous ritual to fuel casting a spell far beyond his capacity, all while a murderous assistant watched his every movement.

  Maybe if he hadn’t gone through Cornell Dover’s training in his first life, the task would appear even more daunting. The Sixteen knew that neither the Golden Drakes nor the Academy had prepared him to cast spells under pressure. Luckily, Micah had his fair share of experience casting spells beyond his capability in high-stress situations.

  For what felt like that twentieth time in the last six months, he reflected upon the different training philosophies of the Lancers and the Golden Drakes/Royal Knights. The crux of it was that the Lancers had cared the most about his willingness to push himself to the limit while training. After that, they’d put him in dangerous situations that they considered within his capabilities in order to teach him how to operate under fire and stress. Their guild might not recruit the same quality of adventurer as the higher-tier guilds, but each and every one of them, no matter how base their gift, were given a fighting shot to actually make something of themselves.

  The higher-tier training regimen of the Academy and Drakes, on the other hand, seemed strangely inefficient. His entire time with the Golden Drakes, Micah
had been coddled beyond belief. He’d learned spells from books and slew bound monsters. Only when he’d reached a decent level had he been sent to the Royal Academy, where he actually got to fight, but even then, he’d only learned a limited number of spells and martial arts, all in peaceful classroom environments.

  Now, he was given a do-or-die test. He’d always wondered about the numbers of crippled and dead candidates that Martin quoted at him. It didn’t seem to make sense that scholarship cadets were dying en masse, given how sterile and safe the training was.

  With the new “test,” everything locked into place. His fellow scholarship candidates’ silence and haunted eyes. The prodigious casualty rate. His casual dismissal by the noble and knight heirs.

  They might be in the same school, but the methods used on the scholarship students were much rougher. Martin, with the Academy’s tacit endorsement, sought to push him beyond his limits. If Micah succeeded, he’d have access to Time magic at an incredibly low level, hugely increasing his power. If he failed, in all likelihood, he’d be a burned-out husk, discarded and incapable of serving the Kingdom any further.

  Maybe then the nobles would recognize him as someone worth befriending. After the cold shoulder he’d received, Micah wasn’t sure he’d trust any of the nobles, but as he sat staring blankly at the Ageless Folio, it made a depressing kind of sense. Until he completed his tests, Micah was an unproven product. More likely to die or be discarded back into the massive pile of common citizens he’d been drawn from than to amount to anything.

  He returned the Folio to his wrist and started preparing for bed. Maybe he should have panicked, wasted the last week trying futilely to escape from the Academy, only to end up hyperventilating in the corner when he failed. It just all seemed so useless to him. At this point, worrying about factors outside of his control wouldn’t help him. He had enough skills in Ritual Magic and Spellcasting to give him a credible shot at success. There just wasn’t much more he could do. A good night’s sleep and maintaining a positive attitude tomorrow would do more to ensure this success than any more last-minute studying.