I awoke the next morning to a commotion outside my room. I felt my mana drain slightly quicker than normal and figured Skelly was fighting off something weak. I rushed out of my room and saw that he was taking on three baby arachnids.
I burnt one into a cinder and realized how much stronger my flames were. No... it wasn't my flames, it was that my mana output was greater. I was able to dispense mana quicker not just from the center of my palms, but throughout my entire hand and wrist as well.
I recall that Dean was able to do this as well, so a little training helped me come a long way. I swiftly turned the other arachnids into crispy corpses. I then wondered where they were coming from. I didn't think much of it before but these arachnids were not in packs similar to the Black Forest Arachnids. Or were they elsewhere and I didn't know?
My stomach growled and I decided to go eat breakfast; a large chunk of rotting dire rat. I eyed the rats I had left and saw that they were growing mold. I almost puked but swallowed hard and pushed down the rancid taste.
Damn. That was my last decent dire rat. It would've been nice if I had an ice spell to keep them frozen.
PAIN
Screw it.
I went back to the Tower to train. I noticed dew dripping from the debris. Was it raining outside? If so, I decided to go all out and used both hands in an attempt to make a condensed stream of fire. After two hours, I was able to focus my wild cone of flames into a nice three foot stream.
Decreasing the area of output around my hands was a bad idea and made me burn myself. I had to increase the area but control how my mana formed into fire and then keep it stable as it emits from my hands.
It was a tough ordeal but I was getting better at it. I retired back to my room and picked out the most appetizing dire rat I could find. I cooked it to a crisp because I would rather taste and smell the burnt meat than the meat itself. I didn't eat much of it, just enough to satiate my hunger.
Like usual, I opened the River Door to allow the breeze in. It was still raining but I didn't mind. The breeze was strong, cool and blew out the oil torch. My room was fairly dark without the torch and so I couldn't read. I decided to sit and focus on creating a stable tiny sphere of fire in between my hands.
I was sure to use as little mana as possible in order to let it regenerate while I meditated. This was quite relaxing and Recall Memory was not screwing with me and granted me complete focus and imagery. The hardest part of mana control for all mages was keeping a constant image in the mind. Recall Memory made it too simple.
After about thirty minutes, I had a large ball of fire completely stable between my hands. I then lost focus due to my excitement and felt the ball of fire become unstable. I added mana into it and aimed it out the river door. My aim was horrible and it collided through one of the River Door hinges before exploding off the door across the river.
The explosion was massive but the door across the river was still in one piece. I squinted at it and could see mana energy protecting the door before vanishing. I didn't want to think about it,
PAIN
Whatever. I'll deal with that later.
I shrugged off the thought as my stomach growled and I growled back at it,
PAIN
You always need food.
The other rats were turning brown, white, and black. I could see the first maggots swimming through the guts. Where the hell did they come from? Annoyed, I set them on fire. Even if I wanted to eat the rats, they were ashes now. I went out into the Chamber and eyed the dead toasted Arachnids. Some bugs could be eaten right?
I took one to my room and after several minutes of contemplating, then cooking it a bit then more contemplation, I finally bit into a limb. It shouldn't have any toxins in its limbs I reckoned. The texture was like that of baked potato chips. But the taste was far off. It was incredibly sour and salty and after two more bites, I felt a sharp burning throughout my mouth, throat and stomach.
I dropped the limb and doubled over in pain. My vision blurred and my head spun. I tried to gag and puke but nothing came up. My mouth dried and thirst came like a sudden drought. My body numbed and I passed out.
Its limbs had poison in it and I was fucking poisoned. Again. Dammit. I felt myself come and go several times during the ordeal. It felt like I was out for three hours but I knew I was out for days. I entered a state of being both awake and asleep simultaneously.
Profession Added:
Cook
Soon after receiving my new profession,
Active:
Summon: Skeleton Kinan Warrior Ritual
Summon: Skeleton Kinan
Passive:
Lesser Campfire Cook Lv 1
When I awoke, I was incredibly limp and could barely move. I felt my mana was completely drained meaning Skelly had already desummoned. Every breath caused sharp pains throughout my mouth, throat, and lungs.
My body was rid of fluid and Petty Regeneration was doing its best to replenish it. I crawled my way toward the River Door. The sun was out and its rays felt good on my skin as I cupped some water into my mouth. The water was so good and fresh.
I felt my energy return as I lay there and stared at my rough reflection in the ravaging stream. I blinked suddenly. Something was moving through the water. Another one zipped past my gaze and then another one. Fish! This river had fish! Why didn't I check before? No, Recall Memory kicked again and there was no fish in the river when I first fell in. Either my passive was failing me or something was happening up stream.
I drank more water until I couldn't anymore and began trying to catch a fish. I nearly fell in due to sheer excitement. They were slippery things but I caught one. I pulled it out and with the little mana I regenerated, I ended its life with a burst of flames. I was incredibly ecstatic and continued to catch fish with my bare hands. I ended up having 16 Trout before I was able to walk back into my room.
I placed the trouts upon the neatest of the two Black Robes and just stared at them. I then took one and began to roast one in my hands and then tore at its flesh with my teeth. Once in a while I spat out the scales. I did my best to pick out the bones and dropped them in a small clay pot from the pile of cooking utensils. I would later pound them into bone meal.
After chowing down on three of them, I went back out into the Chamber. I remembered I had new spells, Summon Skeleton Kinan and Summon Skeleton Kinan Warrior Ritual.
What I understood was as followed; Summon Skeleton Kinan Warrior Ritual was created from having Skelly (made of kinan bones), carry a sword and shield and kill critters. Summon Skeleton Ritual had evolved into Summon Skeleton Kinan Warrior Ritual. Summon Skeleton Kinan was created because Summon Skeleton Ritual evolved. I still had Summon Skeleton Ritual which could be used with different bones.
Summoning wasn't like casting. Casting evolved through mana control, mana manipulation and increasing mana pool. Casting didn't grant new spells like fireball or fire spear. Those either had to be learned on my own or through a spell tech book. It was more of a technique of the base spell rather than a whole new spell.
Summoning evolved by simply summoning and nurturing my summoning. Basically, my Summon Skeleton Kinan Warrior Ritual would eventually become Summon Skeleton Kinan Warrior and Summon Skeleton Kinan Knight Ritual.
I was able to Summon Skeleton Kinan without the use of bones. Using the spell caused my mana to form a large symbol emanating from my hands. Unlike the ritual version of this spell, I was able to pour every ounce of my mana into it. Out of the symbol came a stable skeleton glowing with my mana energy. From a simple look, I knew I could pour mana into it. I also understood that if anything organic touched it, they would get mana burned by my mana.
This was how I understood mana; casting magic such as Fire caused my mind to tell my mana to change its propriety into fire. My mind knew how to do this after it understood the mana patterns of fire. Spell books contained mana patterns for magic and depending on the complexity of the patterns, my mind would either understand it or
not. Sometimes, chance or constant exposure would play a role in whether I'd understand it or not.
The reason why my own fire could burn me was because once the magic was cast, my mana would shamble its pattern to become destructive because Fire at its base was destructive magic. It prevented my enemy from understanding my mana pattern and also allowed my mana to become as destructive as fire. Only intermediate mages and wizards could prevent their mana from shambling. The reason a mage would not shamble their mana was to prevent mana burning living organic tissue; watering plants for instance.
The other reason why it would burn me was because of my mana zone. I could cast fire from my hands. That was my mana zone. I never understood how mages and wizards could cast spells from the air itself. For me, it was like trying to grow a tail... which is possible with magic but I am still baffled by the idea.
If my own magic was to come back at me and I caught it within my mana zone, I wouldn't burn myself. My mana zone would reorder my mana back together. From my current knowledge, Infuser and Enhancers have the highest chances of catching an enemy's spell within their mana zone. If they fail to solve the pattern in that split second, they will become cursed and it would be an awfully unpleasant curse. Furthermore, whatever damage they would have received normally would have been doubled by mana burn.
The mana that surrounded my new skeleton was not destructive but it was certainly shambled. Destructive mana would not curse others on touch nor are they stable enough to exist on anything solid or motionless for too long. Destructive mana could only curse others upon failed absorption.
I also realized that this new skeleton was not draining any of my mana to keep stable rather the amount of mana I used to summon it was the amount keeping it stable. Therefore, if I did not pour my mana into it after some time, it would wither away. It was both a good thing and a bad thing.
It's good that I don't need to have my mana drained constantly and I could summon numerous more each time my mana replenished, but since it wasn't being drained, I was not training my mana endurance.
Though, if I kept pouring mana into it, that would count as mana endurance training. It looked like this skeleton would last a good day before disappearing. To Summon Skeleton Kinan Warrior Ritual, I would need kinan bones and any form of weapon. All that I needed lay in front of me in a pile that was once Skelly.
I summoned Skelly and noticed the mana cost for this spell was higher than Summon Skeleton Ritual. But the drain was a tad lesser due to my mana endurance training. I inspected the baby arachnid remains but even with all of my mana, I didn't have enough mana at all to Summon Undead Ritual. Thinking about that arachnid, I wondered again where they were coming from.
I decided to spend the next few hours searching the ruins and once my mana fully returned, I used Summon Skeleton Kinan again. Now I had two and I would periodically replenish their mana as I searched.
The Library was the darkest area within the ruins and so I decided to spruce it up a bit. I took the old crumbling wax candles, heated them up and stuck a few pieces together making decent sized candlesticks. I supplement a few with brown silk and melded them together with heat.
I placed them around the Library and they gave a little light. I squinted up at the ceiling and saw the silhouette of a candle chandelier. It was about seventeen feet off the ground and I'd rather light it carefully than blow it up. I stood upon one of the stone tables and carefully shot weak puffs of flames at one of the candles. It roared to life after several tries and so I proceeded on to the next until I had at least half of them lit.
With the little light, I was able to make out things better now and noticed a deep crack leading behind a bookshelf. I walked up to it and noticed a gaping tunnel at the foot of the shelf.
I could squeeze down there if I tried... but I was worried about where it led. I squatted down to get a closer look and saw that the tunnel widen with a gentle slope downward. The walls of the tunnel were all stone giving me a sense of security.
I climbed in headfirst just so I could cast at anything that comes at me. It would be hard to get Skelly and his familiars through the first part of the narrow tunnel due to their inflexibility.
The tunnel widened into a full opening and into a large cave lit by a few ruby mana crystals and blightshrooms—lady luck must love me. Mana crystals were valuable ore and chunks of glowing ruby mana crystal lit the area ahead of me. In their light I saw large arachnid egg sacks, old kinan bones, rusted pickaxes, an old broken wagon and tons of webbing along the walls.
The cave ahead turned left and I decided I did not want to go further. I turned and from my peripheral vision, I noticed something large above me. I pretended not to see it and made my way back to the tunnel entrance.
It slowly turned to face me as I was preparing a ball of flame that I held at my chest. It saw the light and jumped down. I turned on it and lobbed the ball of flame, but I missed. Its large abdomen took the full force as I fled up the tunnel.
It was a gigantic arachnid queen. It recovered fast and clawed at the tunnel ripping off my foot. I grunted and pushed through the pain. I made it safely back to the Library.
PAIN
Fuck!
I laid on the ground for a moment and once I felt my leg becoming numb. I sat up and seared the wound closed with a bit of fire.
PAIN
I'm going to kill that spider.
I chuckled to myself as I sat there,
PAIN
I'm going to be back.
The thought of revenge motivated me. With such insufficient training, I was able to summon skeletons and hurl balls of flame. Now, after tasting a little power, I wanted more and making a promise like that was only the beginning. I limped my way back to my room, ate, and rested a bit. Recall Memory replayed the feeling of my foot getting ripped off, I didn't feel any pain, I just remembered how it felt. Recall Memory also replayed the many types of pain I felt during the torture back at the Kingdom of Fire, throughout the forest, and my time in these ruins.
I awoke during the middle of the night and began my seven week training. I took a piece of parchment and etched in the days that went by. I would train both my streams of fire and fire balls. During one of my breaks, I cleaned out my room and made it look organized and neat.
I made use of the other Robes as a towel for taking hand cupped showers on the platform. Once again, I felt great being nude out in the open and masturbated to the feeling. Recall Memory helped me remember Abigail's body perfectly. And once again I felt terribly ashamed of myself afterwards and decided to punish myself the next day with an intense physical workout.
During one of my breaks, I decided to make use of all the dried out webs that had lost their adhesiveness. I was able to make a Spider Silk Net and used it to catch fish though almost lost it when I first used it because of the river's force. I was able to catch five trouts in only several minutes. I would have loved to catch a whole bunch because I saw dozens of them bolting downstream but unfortunately, I had no way of preserving them or keeping them fresh.
After a few more days of training, I was able to turn my flames into a fireball that could travel about ten meters in any direction. If I threw it at something within four to five meters, the ball would explode on impact.
I decided to change the way I cast my beam of fire. Rather than trying to emit it from my palms, I was able to cast it from my wrist and straighten my hand out flat like a knife. It was much easier to visualize a stream of fire. It was as if my hands became fiery blades. This would do quite well in close combat. Hiya! Hiya! I had to play around with it for a while and learn to avoid burning myself.
I went berserk upon the debris, using my fire blades (swinging at the air), to some firebombs, and then fire blades again. I jumped back and lobbed several fire balls before I dashed in with a two handed firebomb.
I got carried away! The explosion sent me flying back against the wall. The debris began to fall and I quickly got up and jumped out of the way of a falling
slab. I tumbled down the stairs as the debris fell after me.
That was dangerously close. I could have been buried alive. The debris blocking the stairs was worse and appeared unstable. I left the Tower, hastily so, in case it suddenly collapsed on me, and decided to continue my future training routines within the Chamber.
In my final week of training, I decided to go all physical. I needed to work out my body. I didn't know how bad it would be eating nothing but fish with no vegetables or fruits in my diet.
I certainly didn't feel normal when I worked out. I always felt incredibly tired after a workout compared to how I felt during routines back at the Kingdom of Fire. The only good thing was I recovered faster. Anyway, I did a few dozen laps around the Chamber, some pushups, sit ups, air jabs, jumps, stretches and balance control everyday.
On the last evening of my final week, I retired early to my room and tried to make sense of the map but after a few minutes I gave up. I had no idea where I was on the map or if I was even on the map. I cleaned my room again and organized my books. I remembered that I hadn't read in a while.
All of my training made me tired enough to fall asleep quickly that I didn't need to read myself to sleep. My mana was low and I was about to face that damn arachnid soon. So I decided to read and allow my mana to recover for the upcoming battle.
What book was I reading? Ah, yes, Plight of Souls, the necromancer that was shunned from his kingdom for being attuned to dark magic as if he had control over it. I shouldn't have been surprised to be honest. Similar hate ran amok within my home kingdom. A few towns within the Kingdom of Fire had disliked gays and lesbians toward the point that public lynching and killing was on full display. It was completely illegal to do so but the judges and guards did nothing. Where I lived, the kingdom's capital and castle, was the safest place for gays and lesbians. I didn't mind them at all because I have always fancied both males and females so I always questioned the hate.
The book escalated quickly. The shunned necromancer was hunted by bounty hunters as if he was a wild beast. They soon find out that he had a loved one he cared for and she cared for him. They burned her alive and her death drove him mad. Angered with grief and pain, he begun to call himself, the Soul Eater and decided to murder random victims. He was able to summon the dead and turn the living.
Monarch- the Elementalist Page 4