A black, spaded tail flicked back and forth behind her, and on her head was a pair of short, black horns. If it wasn’t for the rune on her forehead, I might not have been able to identify her. “Levy…? You look… different.”
The demoness who I had known practically since she was an infant-- which was less than three months ago-- giggled, smiling to me. “Toldya, I’m all grown up now. Anyways, I found the information you wanted. And mom says hi, and thanks for the tip about my race, and… I think that’s it. Need anything else?” Levy held out an old leather-bound book for me, and I accepted it.
Giving it a thought, I shook my head. “No, I’ll be heading back to Hell for a visit after we meet up with Dariel again. Until then, I want you to practice your own Enchanting and Origin magic as much as you can.”
Smirking, she gave me a nod, as well as an exaggerated salute. “Aye aye.” She realized that I had to make it sound like an assignment, so that her bond would kick in and grant her the increased learning rate. I had also assumed that she already took the information on my item and space creation spells out of my head to use to study.
Not yet, but I was going to if you wanted. I found a reply to my thoughts waiting for me, and I gave my consent. Thanks. I’ll have some scrolls drawn up for you with my beast Origin research when you visit.
Nodding my head, I smiled to her. “Okay, see you in a week or so. There is a Hellgate not very far from here, if you’d rather use that than directly teleporting back.”
Levy nodded, still keeping that wide smile on her face. “Thanks. Mom hasn’t taught me how to shadow step yet, so I have to use the gates. Of course, being able to summon them helps, but I try not to do that.” Closing her eyes, she was briefly surrounded by a spell diagram on the ground before vanishing.
Now that she was gone, the other two seemed to have regained their senses. Cynthia, like usual, was the first to chime in. “That… that was Levy?!” Since she met Levy during her initial training before her evolution, there was quite a bit of difference between the two now. In fact, Levy looks closer to her mom than she does to her former self.
“Yup. That was her. Now, think you can give me a bit of time to work on this?” I held up the book, smiling. Cynthia nodded her head quickly, eager to let me finish the project I had told them about. Denise just let out a sigh, turning her attention back to guiding Midnight. I was the one with the Navigation talent, so I had already told her which way we needed to go.
Sitting back in the wagon, I opened up the book and began reading through it. I could tell the age of the book because, like the first one I had read from Hell, this refers to magic levels by their ranks rather than tiers. As I had expected, any spell that uses two or more diagrams is automatically labeled as a Royal spell. In order to be a Grand spell, it has to meet the requirements of power, complexity, and scale.
That is to say, a Royal magic isn’t necessarily weaker than a Grand magic. If a Royal spell creates a magic sword of godly strength, it would match the power and complexity for a Grand spell, but not the scale. That godly sword might be able to erase Grand spell defenses, despite being a lower rank. In that sense, my Thunderstorm spell met the condition for complexity, but not likely power and scale.
In order to enchant such spells consisting of layered diagrams, you have to arrange each diagram in a circle. Starting from the topmost diagram, you place each consecutive layer on the next clockwise position. After that, you connect the layers via a series of semicircles. Finally, between each diagram there was a pattern detailed in the book that needed to be drawn, and another one to be drawn at the center.
Deciding to wait until we camped for the night to try this, I kept on reading through the book to make sure I fully understood what I was getting into. Thankfully, I gained two more levels in Enchanting, raising me up to twenty-five. I was fairly confident in being able to pull this off since I was approaching the master rank. Of course, I might not be able to enchant Grand magic until I was at that level, but I could at least do this.
I had considered making their Armor Rings, as I was calling them, infernal as well. In order to turn an item infernal, you have to be the one who created it, and bathe it in hellfire for an hour after it is finished. While being infused with the demonic energies, the appearance of the item will warp to match its nature. For my Foresight, the golden earring turned pitch black, with red runes carved along the inside. When I tried it on one of the many staffs I made, the wood became twisted shadows which barely held form when it wasn’t being grasped.
Of course, infernal items are all Unique rarity, because each one has its own name and personality. The staff Shadowspike was rather arrogant and bloodthirsty, while Foresight was calm and patient. Making an item infernal will also sometimes grant it new abilities, such as with the staff. Although I had already enchanted it with three of my darkness-oriented spells, it gained another ability when I ‘awoke’ it.
This new ability allowed it to hide in my own shadow, and be withdrawn whenever I want. Not as useful as my Artifact World, but Shadowspike had refused to be placed in that space. As such, the only option was to carry it around in my shadow. If someone used scanning magic on me, they might notice the distinct aura of the weapon, but hopefully they wouldn’t be able to identify its origin.
In the end, I chose not to make the rings demonic. This was because demonic rings might not want to be used by the girls. That was the trade off for their power, they are picky and don’t grant their strength to just anyone. Since I wanted to be sure that Denise and Cynthia could use them, I decided to make them normally.
That night, while Cynthia and Denise were setting up camp, I created a large canvas on the back of the wagon and got to work. This was the first time I had drawn by hand in a long time, as usually I used a stone tablet. Having to be careful with my work made me take considerably longer, but after a little over an hour and a half I had finished drawing both diagrams, and connecting them as the book detailed.
Over the next few minutes, I made the two rings that would be the base for the enchantments. Each ring had a series of rubies placed equally along its outside. Of course, the rings themselves weren’t that valuable, since my magic only made things of average quality at this level. Likely the gems would have several flaws in them, but it would be enough for what I needed.
Placing the first ring in the center of the canvas, I moved off the wagon while the other two watched. Placing my hand on the first diagram of the Artifact World spell, I began pouring my mana into it. I had already placed limitations within the runes of these circles so that the rings would only work on arms and armor, and placed the activation method in my mind. Like when I learned my first advanced enchanting formula, this had special requirements for making mana storage items such as the rubies. Those, too, had been taken care of.
Each line of the formula in front of me slowly lit up, one by one until the entire canvas was glowing. Following that, the light began pouring into the ring, causing it to hover a few inches above the surface of the paper. I had to focus on keeping the enchantment firmly in my mind until it was completed, which was more difficult this time than it had ever been before.
After several minutes of concentration, the glow faded and the ring dropped down onto it. Tapping into the power of Foresight, I looked over the ring and saw that it was really enchanted. Not only that, but the tooltip that appeared when I took hold of it cleared any doubts.
Enchanting has increased to 26
Origin Magic has increased to 22
Armor Ring
Created by: Jin
Rarity: Rare
Durability: 50/50
Special Effect: This ring can act as a storage device for any number of arms or armor. Whenever a new weapon or armour is called, it replaces the existing one, unless the wielder intends to dual-wield weapons.
Smiling at my work, I handed the ring to Cynthia. She definitely had the greatest need of it, and immediately began putting stuff into the ring. By the time
she was done, she was no longer carrying either her armor, swords, shield, or her spear. Her clothes consisted of a simple pair of cloth pants and a shirt obviously meant to fit under armor. After rummaging through her packed supplies, she pulled out a small dress and changed into that.
“Oh yes! Finally out of that armor… My body feels so light now!” She exclaimed happily, jumping and dancing around. In order to test it out, she held a hand out in front of her. “Flaming bastard sword.” Briefly, a light shone out from the ring before the sword appeared in her hand. “Iron fortress. Knight’s armor.”
Her dress faded away as her armor came back, as well as her heavy shield. Smiling, she changed back into her dress and put the sword and shield away again. “Thank you so much, Jin. It’ll be so much easier to move around now.”
I chuckled, looking over to her while putting the second ring on the diagram. “You can also collect powerful weapons and armor, and switch between them when you need a specific effect.” Her eyes went wide as I pointed out that possibility. Of course, I would enchant any armor or weapon for her that she brought me. Even doing the enchantment myself would let me make an item infernal, if she wanted that.
Putting my hand on the parchment again, I began the process for enchanting the second ring. This one had the same conditions as the other one, so I wasn’t surprised when the result was identical. As soon as it was finished, Denise was already there with a hand outstretched, grinning while waiting for me to hand it over.
Of course, I did hand it to her, after letting out a brief laugh. “You don’t even use a lot of equipment.” Denise’s only weapons were her infernal scimitar and bow, and her normal scimitar and bow. For her purposes, the bracelet would suffice. Of course, the bracelet was limited to a single object of each type, so if she wanted to appear as a normal civilian it was impossible.
“Hey, no fair~.” Denise laughed, before snatching the ring. “You can’t just give her a present without giving me one too. It’s totally against the rules.” She put the ring on, and then transferred all of her weapons into it, as well as her leather armor. All that Denise was left in was tight-fitting green cloth pants and a shirt. Unlike Cynthia, she didn’t bother getting a new outfit out and just relaxed at the campsite.
“I’m going to call Dariel, and let her know that we are just a few days out.” I walked a bit away, and cast my Tongues spell, before sending the Message.
“Hey, Jin!” Dariel’s voice greeted me as soon as the spell was cast, causing me to chuckle.
“Up to your old tricks?” Dariel had a habit of scrying on me, ever since we first left the Vinehaven clan home.
“Maybe. Nice work making the Emperor Storm, by the way. That really surprised me.”
“Heh, you saw that too, huh?”
“Yup. So, you’re going to be here in just a few days? Are you going to be staying long?” There was a tinge of hope in her voice when she asked that.
“Actually, there was one thing I was hoping to get before I left.” I hadn’t planned on staying long, but a thought had just occurred to me.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“If I supply enough Mana Silk, can you have a pair of robes commissioned for me?”
“You’ve got Mana Silk?”
“I can get some, I think.” I understood the process of making it, so theoretically I should be able to make it with my Origin magic.
“Hmm, okay. If you can supply two spools of Mana Silk for each robe, I can have them ordered. Do you want to enchant it yourself, or have one of us do it?”
I thought about that or a moment. “You can do one, but I want to do the other one myself.” Truthfully, my plan was to turn one of the robes into an infernal item, so I needed to enchant it personally. “I’m heading to the dwarves after I leave your place, so earth resistance would be good to have. In fact, could you enchant it with all of the Nature defenses?”
“I think I can do that. We aren’t the best enchanters, but there are a few in the clan that are pretty good at it. Oh, and I finished that spell, the true frozen flame.”
“Very good. What level was it?”
There was a brief pause, but I heard a smile in Dariel’s voice. “Tier four. You weren’t really expecting it to be doable less than that, were you?”
“Maybe before, but now that I’ve learned a bit more I figured the easiest way would be to build it as two spells that rapidly rewrite into it each other. Have you had the chance to try it out yet?”
“Not yet… We don’t get into fights, much. Truthfully, that day at the island was the first time I had ever cast the Emperor’s Storm. I could cast rain and wind to help with crops, but attack magic has no place with us normally.”
“I understand. Hopefully, you won’t have to use it. But if you do, at least you know it is strong enough to take out most people that would oppose you.” I smiled slightly as I tried to reassure her.
“Yeah. Oh, and I like that new girl you’ve got with you. She has grown a lot in such a short time.”
“She has.” I smiled a bit more, before my nose caught a familiar scent. “Well, I better get going, or there won’t be any dinner left for me. Let us know if you need any errands run while we’re around!” I quickly hung up the call and moved back to the campsite to eat.
Chapter 18
After eating, I stored the diagram for the Armor Rings in the Artifact World. There was no telling if it might be useful later, and since there isn’t a limit to how much I can hold I might as well keep anything that could be useful to me later. Of course, that didn’t apply to mundane weapons and armor that I could make any time I wanted with minimal effort.
The next morning, we were getting ready to continue on towards the edge of the desert. With the load having dropped by at least a couple hundred pounds, Midnight was moving considerably faster. Sitting at the front of the wagon, Denise was as cheerful as ever. “What do you say we go wipe out the Lizardman fortress? As we are now, it should be a piece of cake, right?”
I thought over the proposition for a moment, before shaking my head. “No, we shouldn’t. There’s no doubt it would be an overwhelming victory, but given what we’ve seen these past few days, it would be best not to. After all, if Kor were to show up we’d be in real trouble.”
Cynthia glanced over to me and tilted her head. “That guy that attack the bandits after we left? Why would he come after us?”
Sighing, I shook my head again. “My best guess, is that he went after the bandits to punish them for wiping out the monsters around the area, not for being what they were. The only reason he’d do that is if he was trying to keep a sort of balance between people and monsters. With that in mind, entering into such a large, unbalanced fight might be enough to draw his attention.”
Cynthia gave a slight nod, but Denise let out a heavy sigh. “Dammit, but are there really monsters in this area that will challenge us? We never had many problems before, and we were a lot weaker back then. You might barely need to use your magic in a fight against one of these groups.”
“True, but there are likely to be more powerful enemies rising up before too long. In order to combat powerful foreigners, more powerful monsters would need to be created. That dragon we fought before would be a perfect example, but it appeared way too early. When we get to Dariel’s place, we can ask if they’ve heard any rumors about powerful monsters appearing.”
“Hmm…” Denise thought my words over for a few minutes, before nodding. “Okay. But our next stop is still the dwarf mountains right? We can go hunting again after our business is done there.”
“That works. If possible, I’d like to find a dwarven mage or priest to give the racial blessing to my grimoire. I want to see what it will get next.”
“You’re such a cheat character.” Denise chuckled, shaking her head. “Well, I guess we all are, now. Even Cynthia, since she can take me on in a fair fight.”
At her words, Cynthia blushed and looked away. “You can still beat me.. I’m not that strong.�
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Glancing over to her, I couldn’t help but smile. “Cynthia, believe me, you really are that strong. But don’t think that means you shouldn’t try hard to improve yourself. If I was training you in magic, you might have already caught up to us. But since we’re having you learn physical combat it is taking a little longer. Still, you’re almost fully caught up. You might need another weapon or two, though.”
Cynthia nodded, thinking for a few moments. “Then… what about just my fists and gauntlets? And for the other one…” She seemed like she was having trouble deciding. “I don’t know.. Maybe a mace?”
I nodded to her, and got to work. Using my Create Lesser Object spell, I quickly made her a suitable pair of gauntlets to practice with. They were a bit thicker than the gauntlets on her armor, but had a row of spikes on the end to increase their damage. “After you get good with this, we’ll come up with something.”
The Dive: Birth of a Hero Page 26