Hurry up and catch up with us. Even trash talents would work at this rate!
When we pulled up as close as we could to shore, the three of us jumped off and managed a leap that carried us almost to shore. Granted, I had to cast enchantments on myself in order to do it, but the other two did it leisurely. Once I was able to touch the bottom, I summoned Midnight to the shore and made my way back to the ship. It was time to try this out.
As soon as I was in front of the ship, I placed my hand on it and focused, pulling the spell up in my mind. “Open now, Pandora’s Box.Behold the treasures of the tomb. What I hold, no man shall know. My craft is mine alone. Shadowed space, become my trove of treasures and await your king’s return.” A dark light spread out from my fingers, moving to wrap around the entire ship. I was positive that if this didn’t take so long, I wouldn’t have the necessary mana, because I saw my bar plummeting until the ship finally vanished.
Chapter 17
After returning to shore, I pulled the wagon out of my Artifact World, and we got on to head towards our first stop. Of course, we had to decide where we wanted our first stop to be. “Cynthia, got a question for you.”
Startled by the sudden attention, Cynthia jerked her head up to look at me. “Yeah, Jin?”
“A few days away from here, there should be a city called Coatin. It’s a really good trading city, and probably the only pit stop for a week. If you want, we can stop there to upgrade your equipment. Otherwise, you can wait until we get to the dwarven mountains and you learn blacksmithing to make it yourself.”
She thought over her options, and then glanced at me. “Do we have enough food to make it if we go around Coatin..?”
I nodded, smiling slightly. “Yeah. If we start running too low, I can just teleport us somewhere for a meal. I’d just like to take this journey the normal method.”
“Okay… How good is the quality there?”
“Of weapons, you mean? Well, I didn’t look at the higher-grade weapons while we were there, but they should be pretty good. Coatin is almost entirely a trade city. Though, I doubt their weapons and armor are as good as those produced by the dwarves.”
She nodded slowly, thinking it over. “Okay… let’s go around. Is that okay?”
I chuckled softly, nodding my head. “Of course. I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t. Now, if you’ll give me a bit, I need to place a call.” I smirked slightly, reciting the incantation for the Message spell. “Wings of light, signs of beginning, may my voice reach the farthest corners.”
There was a delay for a few seconds, and then a familiar voice, albeit one more mature than I remembered, answered the call. “Hmm? Jin, is that you?”
“Levy..? You sound… different.”
There was a feminine laugh on the other end, before she responded. “Well, I’d hope so. I’m all grown up now. Just reached my evolution a couple days ago.”
“Very nice. I don’t suppose you know what you’re called?”
“Not a clue! I look kind of like a succubus, but I’ve still got that rune on my forehead. Whatever I am, it gave me an incredible boost to my magic when I evolved. Oh! Right, by the way, I worked the kink out of the monster spell. I can make them fully grown, now.”
“I’m impressed. I actually had a question I was hoping you could look up for me. There is a different diagram for enchanting between spells that are a single line, and ones that have a diagram. I’m guessing that there is also a different enchanting method for spells that use multiple diagrams.”
“Ooh, you’re wanting to enchant tier four magic?”
I blinked, pausing for a moment. “Tier four?”
“Uhm… Right, the old name was Royal magic. From what I’ve heard, the first five levels of magic have been renamed in the last few hundred years to tiers. Since nobody has managed to create a Divine spell, they haven’t even bothered making a sixth tier yet.”
So… those books I read in Hell were that outdated? “Then yes… I want to do tier four enchanting. Can you find the information?”
“Righto, boss. I’ll head on over to you once I get it.”
“Thanks. By the way, did you manage to create your own type of monster yet?”
“Yup! That was another thing my evolution helped me with. Somehow I’ve gotten a repository of runes in my head now, kinda like you do whenever you’re focusing. I’m able to pick out all the different ones and put them together to make what I want.”
“I see your mother wasn’t exaggerating when she claimed you were better than me at Origin magic. Keep this up and you can really become the current Sage of Origin.”
I heard another laugh on the other end. “Yeah, mom told me about that. Nice title. Oh, another thing. I think the link became stronger with my evolution.”
“What do you mean?”
Though I asked verbally, I was surprised when I received a mental response. Testing? I can hear your thoughts even in Hell if I focus. Should be able to send, too.
Yup, I’m hearing you.
As if to carry on the conversation normally, she responded verbally. “Just a few twists here and there. I’ll fill you in when I get there, and you can find out what my new race is.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I smirked, shaking my head. “I’ll see if there is anything I can find out on my end until then.”
“Cool. Seeya soon!” And with that, the call was cut. I was left sitting in the wagon, shaking my head with a quiet laugh.
“What’s going on..?” Cynthia looked curiously over to me, seeing the state I was in after the call.
“Ah, sorry. Just learned a few new things.” I smiled to her, trying to reassure her. It seemed to have worked, because she nodded and went back to watching the scenery. Of course, the scenery here consisted largely of sand, rocks, bigger rocks, and more sand.
Concentrating, I opened up my interface, scrolling through the various windows. In every game I had played, there was always a party menu, friend menu, whatever that would give you some basic information about your acquaintances. Sure enough, there was one menu labeled ‘Companions’.
Denise
281 Companion
Cynthia
236 Student
Midnight
30 Mount
Levy
156 Bonded Demon
Seeing Levy’s section, I let out a small sigh, selecting her information. Theoretically, I should be able to do that the same as if I was pulling up information on Cynthia or Denise. As expected, within moments a window appeared.
124
Name: Levy
Race: Demon(Bonded Sorceress)
Title: Sage of Origin
Fame: 50
Gild: 30
Level: 156
Health: 550
Mana: 3080
Strength: 80
Agility: 60
Endurance: 100
Wisdom: 400
Intelligence: 550
Luck: 50
Attack: 50 + 14
Defense: 40 + 34
Talents: Magical Talent 30(+2), Mana Recovery 12, Mana Pool 12, Infernal Magic 15, Magical Knowledge 30(+2), Scholar 10, Nature Magic 5, Summoning Magic 5, Origin Magic 30(+5), Divination 2, Enchanting 5
Title Bonus: +2 Magical Talent/Knowledge, +5 Origin Magic
She lost her old title, and obtained the sage one? Well, she doesn’t seem to have lost any of the benefits. Curious, I selected her race, in order to see if there was any additional information.
Bonded Sorceress - Bonded with Jin
A bonded sorceress is a demon raised by one not of this world, at such a speed that a supernatural connection is born between the two while she is still an imp. In the acolyte stage, this bond manifests as the ability to sense when the other party is in danger, and communicate with them. Further, it allows the bonded demon to appear at the person’s side from anywhere.
In the sorceress stage, this connection strengthens even further. A bonded sorceress is capable of communicating across any dist
ance, even different dimensions.They may also ascertain the conditions of their bonded companion and any of his other companions at will.
Finally, a bonded sorceress receives increased experience gains when completing tasks set to them by their bonded companion. This is the lingering effect of their original relationship as student and teacher.
Wow… quite a host of abilities there…
Obviously, Levy was still eavesdropping on my head, because she chose that moment to chime in. Hmm? Did you find something out..? Oh, wow.. That’s kind of crazy.
One of these days, we would have to go over the whole personal privacy chat again. After that thought, I could swear I heard laughing in my head.
Sorry, sorry. I figured you would try something to see what you could find. It’s actually quite hard to read you from here, so I’ll stop now. But at least now I know my race! I’ll tell mom that we figured it out.
I was just getting ready to ask her how Kirasami was doing, but since there wasn’t a reply for a while I could guess she really had stopped listening in. I’ll admit, I was thankful for that. “Okay, Levy’s going to work on getting me some information I need on enchanting. After that, there’s something I want to make the two of you.”
Denise looked back suddenly, a wide grin on her face. “Ooh, presents! Do tell!”
I couldn’t help but laugh, shaking my head slowly. “If I can figure out how to make it, I want to create an improved version of the storage bracelets we got from Lilith. They’ll be based on the same spell I use to store objects, and should be able to store any number of full sets of armor and weapons.”
Cynthia, who was getting used to carrying around two swords, a large hammer, a spear, and a very heavy shield while wearing heavy armor, gave a very relieved sigh. “Oh thank the gods. Please tell me you will have this ready soon?”
Smiling, I nodded to her, reaching over and patting her head. “As soon as Levy gets the information I need, I should be able to make it. I can imagine you would like to lighten your load more than the rest of us.” To be fair, Cynthia was the smallest of the three of us, and carried far more weight than Denise and myself put together. “There’s also some other things I need to make as well, before we arrive at the elf clan. Assuming, of course, the two of you want to be able to understand them.”
Seeing my smirk, Denise let out a laugh. “Oh, you. Yeah, yeah, I remember the first time we met the elves. Guess it makes sense that we’ll be needing that spell again, won’t we?”
I nodded, and glanced around the landscape. “Two of them, huh?” Foresight had alerted me to hidden presences in the area, and I noticed two Lizardman Scouts. “Cynthia, if they attack, they’re all yours.”
“Eh? M-mine?” She looked at me in surprise, turning her head to look at the pair of Lizardmen in the distance.
“Yeah, Denise and I took on a dozen of these guys when we were nowhere near your current level.” I smiled, turning my gaze towards the Lizardman on the right, and activating the ability of my Status Glasses.
Race: Lizardman Scout
Difficulty: 12
Level: 50
HP: 500
MP: N/A
Notes: A standard scout for the Lizardman race. Rarely travels alone, but is not a difficult opponent for most proficient adventures.
I was a bit surprised, seeing how different the layout was between regular characters and monsters. Even city guards and other NPCs like Cynthia and Denise had full character sheets, whereas monsters only had this much. And what was with the Difficulty? I know that twelve must not be very high, so maybe that’s the suggested Talent rank to fight him with?
Although the scouts kept watching us, they let us pass without any trouble. This was fairly normal, though. About an hour later, Foresight gave me another warning. This time, there were about two dozen creatures beneath the sand along the path ahead of us.
Letting out a sigh, I signalled for Denise to stop, and told Cynthia to get off. “This is your first real combat practice. There are a large number of Lizardmen ahead, so choose what weapons you want to take with you. Anything extra will simply slow you down.”
She looked ahead cautiously, biting her lower lip and nodding. In the end, she chose to take her flaming bastard sword and a short sword with her. Denise and I weren’t even level 60 yet when we took on the Lizardmen, and Cynthia was already over two hundred. Setting her resolve, she firmly gripped the two swords and walked off ahead.
Obviously, the Lizardmen knew that their ambush had been blown when their target stopped and a single person advanced towards them. But what could one little girl do against two dozen Lizardmen warriors? Apparently, quite a lot.
The sands began to shift as each and every Lizardman came up to its feet. Each one was armed with a buckler, scimitar, and metal armor. Their flat, scaled heads along with their green, sleek bodies were the trademark of their race. Seeing that Cynthia didn’t stop in the face of their numbers, they charged all at once, trying to overwhelm her.
At first, I thought Cynthia may have been in trouble. She wasn’t quite as fast as the Lizardmen, since she didn’t invest much in Agility. In that regard, even I was faster than her, and when we fought these things I had a huge boost by merging with a werewolf summon. Still, Cynthia was undeniably defeating them.
With a flick of her wrist, she drove her blade into the first Lizardman, cleanly severing its sword before continuing on to gouge out its neck. While she couldn’t dodge them, she was able to parry their blows. The few that managed to get through and struck her armor practically did no damage at all. Meanwhile, she was calmly fighting, all of her earlier anxiety gone.
Once the Lizardmen had fully surrounded her, Cynthia reversed the grip on her short sword, holding them each out to the side. Crouching her body down, she bent her left arm to move behind her back while her right one came up to her chest. For a brief moment she gave up all attempts at defense, causing her health to start decreasing. Afterwards, she spun sharply around, extending both of her arms and lashing out with her swords like a whirlwind of steel.
Of the twenty that had been surrounding her, four died instantly, while another ten were thrown back a large distance. The six remaining in front of her were quickly dealt with. While they may be slightly faster than her, they have no hope of matching her Strength and Endurance. Looking over, I saw that Denise had a proud smile on her face while watching this.
After dealing fatal strikes to the six Lizardmen in front of her, Cynthia tried to charge at one of the ones she had thrown away. However, she was not used to fighting in the sands and quickly lost her footing. This gave the remaining Lizardmen an ideal chance to charge at her, bringing their swords down to deal what should have been fatal strikes.
“That’s enough. Earth Spear.” I raised my hand towards the airborne enemies, and dozens of stone spikes rose up around Cynthia, skewering them before they could complete their attack.
Cynthia had her hands up to cover her head, and slowly peeked out to see her attackers had all been dealt with. Sighing, she crawled away from the scene with her two swords and then stood to walk over to us. “Uhm.. thanks. I guess you kinda saved me, huh?”
“Hmm? No, you would have been able to handle them. I doubt their attacks would have done too much to you, but I figured I should end it. Looks like you need some work with fighting on this type of terrain though.” I smirked to her, causing a slight blush.
“Y-yeah… Should we… gather their items?”
Denise looked at her curiously, “Why would we? It’s not like they have anything we can’t get ourselves.” Since she had been traveling with me from the start, it was normal for her not to concern herself with monster loot. Of course, if they had been carrying Mana Stones or other magical items I still would have taken them.
“Ah… right..” Cynthia nodded her head slightly. Even though she had killed over a dozen monsters by herself, in the presence of her Mentor, she had only gained one level in Dual Wield. That likely was an indicati
on for how large the level gap was. Not to mention that, Cynthia had fully mastered Swordsmanship and Heavy Armor, so these things were practically useless against her.
“We’ll keep an eye out for magic items, but nothing else is really important “
Responding to my words, a female voice from behind us spoke up. “Right, right. Just leave all this stuff for the next guy that comes around. It’ll be a treasure trove to them!” Turning around, we saw a black haired woman wearing a flowing red robe that had a low cut, which showed off a fair amount of cleavage.
The Dive: Birth of a Hero Page 25