“Hmm, true. It’s just not often that a spell of this level is traded amongst people. Generally, Grand spells are a closely guarded secret by those who make them, possibly given only to the one the mage chooses to pass on their powers to. According to my information, you currently possess… the two from the first Archmage, this one, and I believe I heard that you acquired the Emperor Storm as well. Though, you haven’t gotten the chance to use that one, yet.”
This time it was my turn to be surprised. Nobody aside from Denise and my traveling party should know about the Emperor Storm. “How did you..?”
Lilith smiled, shaking her head. “Dremor is a demon of knowledge. His people are everywhere, and even spy on magical communication to gather information. Still, four Grand spells would be quite the achievement for someone your age.”
“Oh? Have you heard anything else about the other mage?”
Lilith shook her head. “He’s not very interesting, after all. A couple weeks after you gave him the information on his Deific Dictum, he stopped advancing his magic and took up knight training.”
Denise, who had been quiet ever since we entered the library, finally spoke up. “Really… he went through all that trouble for nothing.” Looking back, I saw that Cynthia and Midnight were back in one of the aisles of books, looking around.
“Well, following the path of magic can be seen to be considerably harder than martial practice.” If I were to fight Cynthia seriously after she caught up with me, I’m not sure I could win without some quick thinking. “The difference is that we learn a wider range of abilities.” Denise nodded at my words, smirking when she remembered just how varied my abilities were.
“Well, there have been rumors of other human mages starting to appear as well, though we haven’t confirmed if they were foreigners. Most of the new foreigner mages are from the elves.” Lilith smirked, showing off her information network.
“I see. Thank you. I’ll leave the management of this place to you, Lilith. Your demons are, of course, free to use the library whenever they want.” I smiled to her, getting ready to head back.
“Leaving so soon?” She tilted her head, pouting slightly.
“Promised Dariel I’d be there before long. I’m having the elves make me some new items before we leave, and then I planned to pay a visit to Hell.”
Hearing my plans, Lilith returned to her usual smiling appearance. “Alright. We’ll be waiting.”
Nodding, I went back with Denise to gather up Cynthia and Midnight, then returned with the Twin Travel spell. We appeared exactly as we had left, though without the cramped feeling this time. Beneath us was the book we had used the first time, which I stored in my Artifact World.
“Okay, let’s head on and find Dariel. She should be expecting us.” I smiled, hopping back on the wagon. Sure enough, a short distance inside the forest was Dariel, a tall elven woman with fair skin, blonde hair, and green eyes. She was wearing a white shirt and pants, embroidered with symbols of leaves.
“There you are. I was beginning to wonder if you would ever get here.” She laughed brightly, looking us over. “Well, we can’t exactly take Midnight up there, and I wouldn’t have him stay in the forest. Would you be alright with taking him to the nearby village, and then meeting up with us, Denise?”
The human woman nodded her head. “Sure thing. You going to have someone waiting to take me up there, or leaving it up to me to find my way?” She smirked playfully.
“I’ll have one of our men wait for you, and he’ll bring you to my home after you are ready.” Dariel smiled, and then looked to Cynthia and myself. “Are the two of you ready to head on up?”
When the two of us got off the wagon, and gave our consent, Dariel summoned a vine for each of us, which we held onto for dear life. Once our grip was firm, the vine pulled us into the air, quickly propelling us through the forest until we arrived at the Vinehaven city.
Chapter 19
“So, before we get to doing anything else, why don’t you give me that silk so I can have your robes started?” Dariel smiled to me as the three of us landed on a wooden platform hundreds of feet above the forest floor. The Vinehaven clan lived among the tops of the trees, in carved out structures that had little more than curtains for doors. Between the trees were various rope bridges that the elves walked across, but to travel to and from the surface you had to take vines. At least, that’s how it used to be. I wasn’t sure if they had changed that aspect yet.
“Ah, right.” I held my hand out, and four spools of softly glowing silk appeared in it. Given how often she spies on me, I was certain that Dariel had already known about the Artifact World.
“Now that’s quite the handy spell. It.. stores objects, right? I saw you use it a couple times so far.” She held her hand out to accept the silk, and then passed it off to another elf that had been waiting nearby.
“Thanks, and yeah. I came up with it on my way here. There’s also another spell that I made and wanted to tell you about. I actually finished it just before we got into the forest.”
“That flash of light where you disappeared?” Dariel smiled at me brightly.
“Exactly. Well, those were two different spells. The first one was a sort of divination spell…” I briefly explained the library to Dariel, and told her I was working on making a key to enter it.
“You do plan to give me one of those, right?” She asked with a wicked smirk. “You can’t just tease a girl with the sum of all written knowledge and not share.”
“Yeah, I planned to give it to you. I have another way into the library, since I put up a Hellgate there.”
She nodded, seemingly understanding why I would do that. “And you said it won’t be ready for a little while yet? I imagine it has quite a lot of ground to cover. Not only this world, but possibly the others as well.”
“Exactly… And until it’s done, I’m stuck with only half of my magic.”
She blinked, looking me over. “Half..? You don’t seem that much weaker than the last time I saw you.”
I tried to remember when the last time she saw me was. It should have been just before the dragon killed us. I was level one-fifty, at the time, right? “Yeah, I’ve made a lot of progress since then. Though, I’ll probably be slowing down now.”
All I had really managed up to this point was grinding the levels of my lesser ranked talents. Naturally, that would be less effective the higher they got. Especially the gap between twenty-five to thirty seemed to take a while.
Denise nodded, smiling again. “Well, we should renew the summoning contract as well, before we forget.”
“Oh, right.” Honestly, I had already forgotten about that. However, I held out my hand to her. “Do you, Dariel Vinehaven, agree to be my sword and my shield, in times of need?”
Laughing lightly, she accepted my hand in her own. “I do.”
“Then.. by spoken pact, may this deal be final.” Green strands of light rose up from my arm, twisting around hers like snakes before fading near her elbow. Once that was clear, I had received a prompt telling me that the contract was successful.
Out of curiosity, I used the Status Goggles to check her level, and was surprised when it read as four hundred. Most of her stats were divided between Wisdom, Intelligence, and Agility, so while she might not recover mana as fast as I do, she easily has the same amount. Not only that, but she is much faster than I am.
“Something wrong, Jin?” Cynthia spoke up from behind me.
“Oh, no, sorry..” I shook my head quickly, dismissing the window. “So, did you learn the human language, Dariel?” I hadn’t heard her cast the Tongues spell, so I wasn’t sure.
“Yes, a few people in the clan decided to learn the language. Though, some aren’t quite fluent in it yet. Did you prepare translation magic for your friends this time?” She cast a look over towards Cynthia.
“Not yet, I had forgotten about that after making the library.” I chuckled softly, looking around the area. “Got somewhere that I can wo
rk? It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Sure, let’s head to my place.” The elf smiled again, leading us through the bridges until we arrived at a familiar, hollowed out tree. There wasn’t an abundance of space within, but it was enough for her, and had been enough for Denise and myself the night we stayed. “Mind if I watch?”
“Go ahead. It’s not that impressive.” I said that, and then immediately felt a hand smacking against the back of my head.
Cynthia bowed politely to Dariel after hitting me, speaking in a low voice. “Yes it is... “
The elf woman let out a laugh as I got to work, sitting down in the center of the wooden floor. I didn’t bother with chants this time, because Tongues is not a powerful magic and enchanting it would take hardly any energy. Instead, I simply held my hands out in front of me, cupping them as if I were to receive water.
Blue strands of light rose from my hands, rising up like gases before falling back down and swimming within my palms. It was amusing, each time I cast this spell the lights acted slightly different. Sometimes, they would ‘sew’ an object, others they would simply gather. But at least it didn’t manifest the spell diagrams like the others. A wizard never reveals his secrets!
Those blue strands had begun to take the shape of a green ring, embossed with leaf patterns. Once it had finished, it paused to allow me to make any corrections before applying the enchantment. It had been ages since I had performed the most basic enchantment formula, but it was still fresh in my mind, waiting to be used.
Once the magic had filled the ring, it silently dropped down into my hand, the lights fading away. Taking the ring, I tossed it towards Cynthia, taking a few slow breaths while my mana recovered enough to begin the next one. This time, the lights appeared as a nebula, spiraling around the center of my hand while converging in to form a ring that looked identical to the last one.
I hadn’t even been given the prompt this time, and the rings were simply named ‘Rings of Comprehend Languages’. I personally liked my naming sense better, but what are you going to do?
“You’re right, Cynthia. That was pretty impressive.” Dariel smiled to the red headed girl, patting her head playfully. Cynthia had never been good with strangers, but was beginning to warm up to Dariel.
“Thanks, I guess? By the way, have you heard any rumors lately? Something like powerful monsters appearing?” I glanced up to the two of them, rising to my feet as I asked the question.
“Powerful monsters? Well, nothing on the level of that dragon, for sure. I’ve heard some of the foreigners that pass by talk about dungeons appearing, though. Is that what you mean?”
I nodded my head quickly. “Yeah, that would be it.” I hadn’t been in a dungeon yet, not really. The last one we entered was just a disguise for the Hellgate, so I don’t count it. “They should have started a bit after the dragon was killed, right?”
Dariel nodded slightly, looking confused as she did so. “Is that important?”
“Hmm.. I guess you could say it is? How should I put it… This world is trying to balance itself. The foreigners are growing in power to the extent that only devastating monsters are completely safe from them. Normal ones like the Armored Bears or Iron Falcons don’t stand a chance. So, the world is fixing the balance by having more powerful creatures surface.”
It was the basis of any game, really. When the players became powerful, powerful monsters are needed to challenge them. I could only consider what had happened with the Nature Dragon as a glitch, which was why the ‘god’ of this world had me deal with it.
“I see… So, the more powerful the foreigners become, the more powerful these new creatures will get? Does that mean that eventually there could be more dragons appearing?” Dariel seemed considerably worried by that possibility.
“Eventually, it’s likely. But that shouldn’t be for several years yet. By the time they appear, there will be enough foreigners to deal with them without having to resort to calling Lilith and her generals.”
Dariel nodded, uncertainly. “Okay.. so.. how long do you think you’ll be staying this time?” Looking at me, Dariel forced a smile in order to change the topic.
“Probably until the library is finished, and I have made a key for you. It’ll probably just be a couple of days.”
She nodded again, seemingly satisfied. “That’s still longer than you spent here last time, so it’s okay. You said you would be interested in helping out if we needed anything”
My ears perked up, and I smiled. “Yeah. Did something come up?” It had been a while since I received a quest, so I was kind of looking forward to it.
“Nope. There’s usually not a lot to do around here. However, if you’d like, you could help out in another way.”
“What is it you need?” I was a bit curious at this point..
Briefly, Dariel’s smile wavered as she explained the problem. “Well, as you know our knowledge of magic has declined in the last few centuries, due to our isolation. If you could supply us with some books or scrolls that we can learn from, it would be a considerable help.”
New Quest
Renew the Vinehavens
Due to their long isolation, the Vinehaven clan of elves has lost much of its former knowledge in regards to magic. At this point, they may do little more than guess the proper procedures, which can lead to unfortunate results. Dariel Vinehaven, High Priestess of the clan, has asked you to assist in this matter by supplying the clan with some of your knowledge.
Difficulty: D
Reward: Respect with the Vinehaven clan
Glancing over the quest, I nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it.” A prompt told me the quest was accepted, and I added, “What exactly are you interested in?”
“Anything you think you can spare, truthfully. I won’t ask for your unique magic, but even basics would be helpful. Even I myself have forgotten much of the language of runes. Most of what I use is directly related to Nature Magic, so everything else has since been discarded. I spoke of enchanters, but they are not very powerful.”
“Hmm, okay. I’ve got a couple of enchanting books on me, but not the basic one. I’ll see if I can make you a book for runes, and one to teach advanced enchanting methods.”
Dariel’s smile returned in force, seeming to light up the room. “Thank you very much. I’ll leave you to that, then.” Dariel turned on her heels, and was getting ready to walk out of the tree when she bumped into Denise. “Oh, sorry.” She quickly slipped past the other woman and made her way out.
“What’s up with her?” Denise asked, looking first to Cynthia. After failing to get an answer from the younger woman, she turned her head to me.
“She asked for some books, so I told her I’d see what I could do. It shouldn’t be that hard, right?” I smiled a bit, thinking back to the library I had just made out of literally nothing.
“And how exactly are you going to do it? You asked Dremor to make sure that the books made by the library spell can’t be taken out of the library, right?”
“Right, I did. However, I could always just make another spell that gives me a copy of a book I already know, right? What they want information on is stuff I’ve already read about in other books from cover to cover. Oh, speaking of which..” I prepared a Message spell to Dremor, while Denise just sighed, sitting next to Cynthia.
“Jin, right? I was told to expect random calls whenever you wanted something.” Dremor sounded amused on the other end of the call.
“Yeah, I had an idea for something you could do with the library, though you might already be a step ahead of me. Are you working on a system to sort the books so that people can easily find them?”
“Of course. I was preparing astral servants to arrange the books by subject and location of origin, why?”
“Well, I am not sure that would be enough. I mean, that library is going to be massive. Sorting through all of those books would take years, and someone could spend a lifetime looking for something specific.”
“Hmm, y
es, you have a point. What would you suggest.” His curiosity had been piqued, so he waited to hear what I had to say.
“What about enchanting the bookcases?”
“You mean give each one a divination spell, and link it to the entrance so that someone could quickly find books on a subject? Yes, that is an option, but enchanting all of them… hmm, that rune you gave us should work, right?”
I nodded, for my own benefit. “Yeah, you should be able to get them all at once, if you wait until the library has finished expanding. You’ll have to include the enchantment in with the refreshed spell, though, or else reapplying it would be a pain.”
The Dive: Birth of a Hero Page 28