《Reincarnated as a Level-14 Wizard》
Chapter 1
--- Prologue ---
Two weeks ago, Will had started a new campaign in the old Alwayssummer Afternoons role-playing game.
First, he grinded through some of the lousier DLC''s for a few hours - all in preparation to have the necessary levels under his belt to tackle the Epic Campaign.
Now, he was almost ready to begin. Except...
His perfect plans ground to a halt when he received an unwanted call.
"Will, we need you back at the rig. Adam got sick."
"Oh, please, boss! I only got home two days ago!"
"I know. I''m sorry, but it''s an emergency. I can promise you fifteen percent extra pay!"
Will''s greedy heart lurched a little. Oil rig jobs were harsh, but the pay was pretty damn good. With the mention of plus fifteen percent, his mouth watered a little.
Still, he had only just started to relax properly, and he really wanted to play the good old game.
"Boss, I really don''t know..."
"Twenty-five percent! Final offer before I call John."
Will fell silent for a full five seconds while his greed accumulated.
"Fine. I''ll take it!"
Will packed up and left again.
Two weeks of hard work went by. In the end, there was just a final underwater welding he had to do.
That''s where things went wrong.
"Will, don''t panic! I promise we''ll get you out of there!" the boss spoke in his earpiece.
Will barely registered his voice, seeing a massive shadow looming ahead in the deep water.
He tugged at his foot, but it was firmly stuck in a crack in the main pumping shaft. The negative pressure was no joke.
In front of Will, a massive shadow started to slowly resolve itself in the clear, northern waters.
It was a whale. Will didn''t recognize the exact genus, but that was a pretty academic lament when there was a truck-sized animal on a collision course with him.
Boom! Creak!
Tortured sounds of metal echoed throughout the cold, blue waters as the drilling shaft bent under the onslaught.
The massive animal was startled and hurt. It turned around and swam away to nurse its wounds, never noticing the mangled mess of human flesh and broken bones it had left behind on the metal shaft.
You have died.
Activating...
Applying system patch...
--- Chapter 1 ---
Will woke up with a gasping start in a dimly lit room.
"Jesus! Help!"
It took a few disoriented seconds for him to register his surroundings.
I''m not drowning? They managed to get me up after all. Thank god!
Will patted at his body, ignoring the soft, black robe he was dressed in.
How come I seem to be completely fine?
He had blacked out before feeling any pain, but there had been a brief, unpleasantly crunchy and full-bodied sensation before it all went dark.
I should at least have cracked a few ribs, right?
Strangely, there wasn''t a single sore spot on his body.
Will got up and took a look around. He was in a simple, undecorated room that was lined with rough, wooden walls. There was a bit too earthy smell in the air, as if the walls were moldy.
The bed he had lain on was truly meager; even the mattress was lumpy. Under the bed, right at his feet, there was something that looked like a lidded clay pot.
Will raised his eyes to take in the whole room once again. There was a small window on the wall; covered with a pane of wooden boards that didn''t precisely fit the hole, and a few rays of daylight got in through the cracks.
Hearing what sounded like a neigh from the outside, Will peered through the widest crack.
Huh?
Three horses stood a dozen feet away from the window. They were tied to a bar of wood that was fixed above what looked like a narrow and long wooden pail, from which one of the animals was currently drinking.
Where the hell is this?
What felt like two minutes ago, Will had been far out in the northern Atlantic ocean. It had been October to boot. Yet, outside, it looked like a bright, warm midsummer day.
He tried to race out of the room for a better look. The wooden clasp on the door stalled him for twenty seconds as he figured out how to undo it.
The door finally opened into a corridor that was considerably brighter, with how the shutters on each of the small windows lining it had been fully opened. As he walked toward the one open end, he couldn''t help but note that none of the windows had a glass pane.
The corridor finally led to a hall that fit the theme perfectly. There was even a person dressed in meager, medieval clothes standing behind a counter, wiping at clay bowls with a filthy-looking rag.
The middle-aged woman noticed Will and stared while blinking a little. Finally, she gave him an unsure nod and turned her eyes back to her work.
Happy to see someone he could ask about what the hell was going on, Will walked right toward her.
"Excuse me. What is this place, exactly?"
That elicited a little more confused staring and two more blinks before she replied.
"Sir," she spoke with a weird accent Will couldn''t place. "This is the Sleeping Hedgehog."
She then frowned a little and opened her mouth as if to say something more, but then she closed it again with an audible click of her teeth.
Will stared, and the woman averted her eyes back to her work.
"I mean, like, is this in the Amish or something?" Will tried again, wearing an awkward smile.
That earned another stare back.
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"I have no idea what Big Sir means."
"I mean, what''s with the horses? And, uh..." Will pointed at the woman. "Your clothes as well. Everything looks so old-fashioned here!"
"I don''t-- Sir, you''ll have to find a merchant if you want to talk about fashion."
"Huh?"
He received no clarification¡ªonly another stare and a frown.
"Alright. I''ll just...take a look outside."
Will quickly walked out of the open front door. He walked past the horses and the stall they''d been left at, coming to a wide cobblestone road.
He looked around, seeing nothing but piles of horse crap and a few passers-by in medieval clothes. A wooden carriage approached from one direction, pulled by two horses, and Will had to step aside to give it way.
The shaking carriage rumbled past, and Will stared after it at a loss.
Something blinked in the corner of his eye and will turned his head.
Something blinked again, and Will kept turning to follow it until he was facing the stall again. He soon realized it was something in his eye and not in the sky.
The moment he thought he''d figured it out, the blinking icon moved from the corner right to the middle of his field of vision.
"What the fuck?!" he yelled out loud and kept looking around. The icon remained in place, obstructing his sight. It looked like an old, yellowing scroll.
When he focused on it after trying to shake it out, the scroll unfolded itself in front of his eyes.
Patch "1.0 FINAL" has been successfully applied.
An incompatible feat has been removed from your character.
Please choose a new feat!
As it did so, Will realized he had seen the icon and the animation before. Just two weeks ago, in fact, and numerous times before that. It looked precisely like a default notification in ASA.
Once he''d finished reading the scroll, it popped out of existence in a little shower of glowing sparkles.
The fuck was that? Will reiterated silently. Was it a hallucination or something real? Now, he really wanted to see it again.
As if in response to that fleeting wish, the same scroll suddenly made its appearance again, unfurling right in front of him again.
It''s as if I''m inside a video game.
Will laughed nervously to himself as he moved his head around, marveling at how the thing followed his gaze.
Why isn''t it closing this time.
He felt a bigger pang of nervousness at the idea. What if he had to look at the thing forever now? What if it always stood in the way of his vision?
He really needed it to go away.
Thankfully, the scroll did just that and winked out, and Will''s line of sight went instantly back to normal.
Will repeated the process just to be sure he was in control.
... Is there, like, a character window as well? he wondered, and the interface obeyed his whim at the speed of thought.
Half-elf
Wizard 14
STR 12
DEX 16
CON 12
INT 17
WIS 12
CHA 10
The screen that had appeared this time was not scroll-shaped, but a simple, black rectangle surrounded by a smooth, silvery frame.
A half-elf, huh? Am I really in... Will interrupted the train of thought with a scoff.
Yet, after only a moment''s hesitation, he raised a hand to touch one of his ears, immediately noticing its slightly pointy shape.
Will''s heart raced a little faster.
Calm down. It doesn''t feel all that pointy. Maybe it was always a little bit pointy? I just never paid it much attention! he rationalized.
Will then stared at his hands. Namely, his fingernails.
He had always had fingernails that looked kind of silly. The fact that he bit them and how the cuticles sometimes got inflammated never helped the look.
Now, however, the nails were immaculate. Their shape was ideal, just like in some textbook for painters that described how a fingernail should look like.
These... These aren''t my hands!
He turned his attention at his clothes again. A black robe, black shoes. A dark grey undertunic. This color scheme...
His attire looked just like how he had customized his new character for yet another hundred-hour playthrough that he had planned for his vacation.
Half-elf; these clothes... I fucking am inside ASA!
Will felt a mixture of dread and exhilaration.
I died to the whale, didn''t I? he suddenly realized. Is this some kind of afterlife?
He looked around. Rather than afterlife, everything looked simply like normal life. Except for the medieval setting.
Will jogged back to the house he''d stepped out of. The inn or tavern or whatever the difference was anyway.
"Do you have a mirror anywhere?" he asked the woman behind the counter.
"Of course not! We are just a simple inn."
"Where do you think I could find one?"
"Hmm. Maybe the fancy seamstress at Redhill."
"Uh. Is this Redhill far from here?"
"Just half a day''s ride." Will just stared at her, trying to think what to make of that. "Half a day''s ride on a carriage, that is," the woman helpfully elaborated under his confused stare.
"I see. Thanks."
Will quickly walked out again. His mind was racing again, and he didn''t want to through any kind of existential crisis in front of a stranger inside a video game world.
If he travelled, wouldn''t there be random encounters just like in-game? Could he die again? To bandits or the monsters of Faeria? Would there be another afterlife if he did?
He paced back and forth behind the horses until he forced himself to stop and draw a breath.
What was that about a feat? Can I review my feats somewhere? he thought decisively.
The interface obeyed smoothly, and a silver-framed list of feats appeared.
Dodge
Melee Mage
Prodigious Spellcaster
Wizard''s Weapon Proficiency
Half-elf racial traits
It was precisely what he had chosen for his character when he speed-ran through some DLC in preparation for some proper, high-level campaigns, except for the trait "Heroic Luck" which was missing from the list.
It did say one was deleted, didn''t it? So, how do I replace it?
The list shifted in response to his thoughts.
Unassigned feats remaining: 1
Available feats:
Adventurous Heart
Aggression Pact
Alteration Specialization
Anti-mage Specialization
...
The list went on for a long while, and it scrolled down on its own when Will was about to reach the bottom.
It looks like all the DLC''s are included, Will thought idly.
Alwayssummer Afternoons was a popular franchise, and the company behind it had milked the players for quite a bit with various DLC''s. The studio wasn''t as brazen as the likes of Oxymoron Entertainment, but it was getting there.
Will himself had been one of the big spenders, having blown some 800 dollars on the content, buying every single DLC apart from art packs and sound track collections that didn''t contain any additional gameplay elements.
The DLC''s brought with them a lot of additional character feats (many of them gimmicky and useless) that he now recognized in the long list.
As expected. Heroic Luck is nowhere to be seen... Just like all the other feats that primarily gave you saving throws!
Will realized his character window had been pretty minimal.
For example, there were no hit points. Neither could he find any mention of saving throws, despite the fact they were an essential part of a character''s power.
Possessing high saving throws was the numerical reason a hero character could keep escaping death unscathed while scrubs and extras died like flies.
Now, it seemed like this afterlife operated under a somewhat different ruleset.
I suppose game rules are game rules, Will surmised. A life-like reality had to be based on natural laws or something equivalent. Hit points and saving throws just didn''t fit.
How about spells? Do I have spells? Will thought excitably.
Another long list appeared.
Looks like my full spellbook carried over. I''m glad I got that six-dollar DLC...
He''d chosen to inherit an archmage''s spellbook in a tutorial dungeon provided by the DLC, making the gameplay much less of a money grind for a wizard. The DLC also buffed other mages, including the hostile ones, so it wasn''t really cheating.
Will focused mentally on Magic Arrow, which was probably the most common arcane spell in the whole setting.
You know the spell Magic Arrow (I).
The text on the black screen wasn''t very helpful.
Can''t I get more info on it? In response to his thought, the screen simply winked out.
Will frowned. Somehow, he felt like he truly knew the spell. Not just the 1d4 + 1 damage value which was an original memory of his, but he also seemed to recall the incantation and the hand gestures.
Now, every hardcore player of ASA would pick up the incantations thanks to sheer repetition. You''d hear your spellcasters chanting them constantly.
Gestures, however, were another matter. The top-down perspective and the minimally modeled characters didn''t really allow for fine visual details.
Will tried to imitate what was engraved in his memory. He pronounced the one-syllable incantation and performed the little hand gesture accompanying it.
Nothing happened.
Dammit! Will immediately recognized his problem. That was the release trigger!
Wizards needed to be prepare their spells. That took a much longer time than actually casting them.
Now that he was focusing on the spell, Will instinctively recalled another, longer sequence of gestures and words used in the preparation phase.
He started to go through them immediately. As he did so, he realized that he was doing it in a newbie-friendly manner that contained a lot of redundancies to ensure the spellcaster didn''t make a mistake. As for how he knew this? He couldn''t tell.
It took almost two minutes to prepare the spell. The passers-by who were throwing him cautious glanced escaped Will''s notice completely as he was engrossed in his new ability.
Action log:
Magic Arrow (I) stored in a spell slot.
Action log updates are being displayed automatically (default).
Hang on? This isn''t canon, Will realized when he was done.
Across the whole Caverns & Monsters franchise, wizards were supposed to just quietly study their spellbook to prepare. That wasn''t what he had done.
He didn''t even possess a proper spellbook, only a list of spells. A wizard wasn''t supposed to function without a spellbook.
Too eager to ponder the discrepancy further, Will moved on to try the trigger again.
He shouted out loud and pointed his palm at the sky.
Magic Arrow (I) triggered.
An elongated, brilliantly glowing projectile materialized and raced forth at the speed of an arrow, disappearing into the blue sky.
Will felt a rush of elation and grinned madly at the sky. You''re a wizard, Will!
He didn''t notice the intense stare from an alarmed coachman who slowly passed him by on an ox-drawn cart.
Chapter 2
With the arrow gone with the wind, Will felt a peculiar kind of emptiness. Is this what it feels like to run out of spells?
He started to prepare again. This time, he forwent some of the obviously redundant parts of the preparation phase, cutting down nearly a minute of casting time.
He repeated the process, getting more proficient and a little faster at it each time.
Magic Arrow (I) stored in a spell slot.
Magic Arrow (I) stored in a spell slot.
Magic Arrow (I) stored in a spell slot.
Finally, he felt full in a magical sense.
As expected. Four spells per spell level is the maximum for a wizard.
Will brought up the interface again and quickly scrolled down to level two spells, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the spell called Invisibility. It could be essential to his survival if this world was as scary as the world of the video game.
You know the spell Invisibility (II).
And he realized he did. Sort of.
Hmm. This is... much more difficult!
He started the preparation sequence, but it ended up demanding ten minutes of hard concentration. In the end, he had the Invisibility spell prepared, but it left him with a headache.
Invisibility (II) stored in a spell slot.
For a while, Will let his mind remain empty and still as he watched the handful of small clouds floating in the almost clear sky.
I''d better not test that one now. He knew he could need the spell for an emergency exit at any time, and preparing another one would be a literal pain in the head.
The redundancies in Invisibility didn''t seem as obvious as they were in Magic Arrow. Will felt like it would take some thinking to get the preparation phase down to a more reasonable length.
I''d better get back to the missing feat. He decided to scroll through the list of feats again. Near the end, one of the crazier ones caught his eye. Upon further inspection, he realized that the description was different from the game.
Available feats:
Planar Creation (Epic):
Allows for easier usage of mana in spatial applications.
requires level 26
requirements not met
It used to be something about preparing for godhood and making a spatial pocket for storing things, Will recalled.
Under the rules of this more realistic world, the description seemed to have morphed into something generalized and open-ended.
Will could imagine that spatial magic could be used to make a hidden storage pocket, but here it didn''t seem to simply become available upon selecting the feat, like it did in the game.
The description also implied the feat wasn''t necessary for spatial magic but that it only made it easier.
Interesting... Will wasn''t sure what to make of that, so he returned to the task at hand.
The list was long, and Will spent minutes drooling after several feats. Since the interface didn''t seem to force him to make the choice now, he ultimately decided to save it for later. After all, you could put off the choice in the game as well.
Will''s stomach made a noise, and he realized something.
Crap. Am I perhaps broke and homeless? Inventory!
An inventory opened up, but it was empty indeed. Furthermore, it only had six slots, unlike the several dozen you were supposed to get even without any predatorily priced DLC''s.
Will felt for his pockets, finding several in his robe, pants, and tunic and one pouch tied to his belt. However, each of them was just as empty as the inventory.
Will returned to the inn.
"Hey! Did my bed by any chance come with a breakfast? I''m a bit peckish."
"It is afternoon, esteemed customer. We''ll serve the evening meal at seven."
"Oh, crap. Is there any place nearby where I can get something to eat?"
The woman pointed him toward a marketplace, so Will started walking. As he did so, he reviewed his options by invoking the spell list again.
Could you remove those spells. Hm? And also those. They won''t help me now. Perfect!
Mend Item, Minor (cantrip)
Crude Homunculus (1st)
Featherweight (1st)
Identify (1st)
Perpetual Light (2nd)
Mend Item, Major (2nd)
Craftsgolem (3rd)
Fabricate (5th)
Telekinesis (5th)
Ground Shaping (6th)
Command Weather (7th)
Prosthetic Limb (8th)
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The interface obeyed his thoughts again, organizing into a much shorter list consisting of spells he could immediately see some monetary value in. Sadly, only the easy ones were within his immediate reach. He instinctively knew the homunculus spell required a suitable puppet he didn''t possess, so that one was out, too.
In the end, he settled for the repairing cantrip.
Will picked up a rotten piece of wood he spotted on the way to the marketplace. Upon arriving, he saw a couple of stalls selling vegetables, a farmer standing in front of a cart half-full of potatoes, and even some bread being sold in front of a stone house with a smoking chimney.
He saw signs displaying prices of the goods, and his eyes were drawn to the writing.
Man! That isn''t English! They''re not even using the alphabets that I know!
Yet he knew the script. Sort of. He went easily through the lines, picking up the meaning along the way. When he mouthed the words to himself, he realized he wasn''t speaking English, yet the language felt completely natural to him.
Will shook his head at the strangeness and put it out of his mind. He found a dry spot in the shade where he sat down.
Now, let''s see...
A relevant cantrip came to his mind immediately upon thinking of a way to make fire. It turned out to be a truly trivial spell for him¡ªmuch easier than even the simple mending cantrip.
After a few seconds of preparation, Will''s finger was producing a small flame, which he directed at the sign.
He wrote the strange script almost as easily as he could read it, and soon he had a sign saying "I can repair your items with magic!"
A customer appeared soon¡ªa slightly graying, middle-aged woman who was carrying a broken basket.
"Do you do cheap repairs? Or just fancy stuff?"
Will was sitting on the cobblestone floor. It was dirty, lumpy, and uncomfortable. Apparently, that wasn''t enough to convey his desperation.
"Anything goes for now," he answered.
He took the basket, examining the severed rattan pieces at one side. Luckily, no material was missing, so the job should be easy.
Will prepared the cantrip for half a minute before it was ready to trigger. Immediately, he could feel the potent mana gathering at his fingertips, ready to move according to his intent.
He pushed the broken side of the basket flat again and drew his finger along the points where the rattan vines had broken apart.
Rotten bits flaked away. Healthy wood unnaturally shifted along the thin vine toward the broken areas, where it settled down. Fibers reconnected across the broken points, making the vine seemingly whole again.
The result didn''t exactly look like the original weave, and Will had doubts about the strength of the mended material, so he made the fixed spots a tad thicker than the rest of the vines.
"There you go. I suppose it wasn''t much, but I hope you can pay me something."
Will knew he could easily be suckered when he put it like that, but the job had taken just five minutes, and he had no idea what he should charge anyway.
"Well," the woman began, stalling a bit as she considered. "A new basket could cost me a copper or two, so I guess I can give you an iron bit."
"Alright," Will said and offered his palm while the woman digged for something in her small purse.
Soon, he received something that was clearly not any kind of coin, but literally just a lump of iron.
"How many of these make up a copper around here?" he asked uncertainly.
The woman looked at him strangely. "Ten, of course. Is it not ten everywhere?"
"Hm? I guess it could be..."
After the first couple of jobs, he bought half a loaf of fresh blackbread for two iron bits in order to finally sate his hunger. The taste was pretty strong, but it was good enough to eat even without any toppings.
Two hours passed while he went through several customers with easy jobs. After a while, Will began to suggest suitable prices per job himself.
It turned out the first woman might have been a bit stingy, given how others agreed to pay him three to five bits for a few minutes'' job.
A short line had gathered in front of him. People had been looking at him working his magics and some got curious enough to try it out for themselves.
Finally, a tall man with a piece of armor stood in front of him.
"Mister Magician, can you fix metals?" He asked politely, although Will felt the title sounded a bit funny.
"Sure. I already did a couple of copper kettles without a problem."
"Well, this is proper steel," the customer informed him and lifted the piece higher.
From its shape, Will figured it was probably a greave. Or perhaps a long bracer for a really big guy. It wasn''t a beautiful product by any stretch, but it looked functional. Or would have, without the long and wide, rusted hole right through the shin part.
"Steel shouldn''t be a problem either."
"Shouldn''t, huh?"
"Yeah... Look, I''ll start easy at first. Even if I mess up, it won''t do much damage."
"Hmmh." The man frowned. "Fine, I guess."
"And should it work out just fine, let''s see... Will you be able to pay four coppers for the job?" Will tried, hoping it was a reasonably cheap offer for fixing a potentially valuable piece of armor.
The man frowned. "Why so cheap? You aren''t a scammer, are you?"
Will grimaced. At least I guessed it would be cheap.
"No sir. I think I can afford to call myself an accomplished wizard. It''s just that I haven''t been working with steel in a while, so this will be a rehearsal of sorts for me," he fibbed quickly.
The frown lightened a bit. "Well, I suppose you can''t really ruin it much further without truly fucking something up."
"I couldn''t have said it better! Worst case, I''ll just end up removing too much rusty material."
The man finally let go of the piece, and Will put it on his lap.
He dug out several lumps of iron from his pocket and got to work.
Since some material was missing, and he didn''t want to just stretch the remaining stuff and make the plate thinner, he had to add some more metal.
The rusty edges around the hole flaked off like they should, and the new material stuck to the steel just as tightly as if it had been welded to it. The work took twenty minutes¡ªmostly because Will was being extra careful¡ªbut it looked like steel was basically just as easy to handle as rattan or copper.
"There you go," he finally said. "The patch is just simple iron, so I made it a little thicker than the surrounding plate."
"Ohh," the man hummed happily as he knocked at the repaired area, finding it solid.
He pulled out a sheathed knife from his belt and used its metal-tipped blunt end to strike at the armor. It remained mostly undented as far as Will could see.
"Yeah. It should be good. Here," the man handed five coins to Will. "One extra for a job done well. You could have easily demanded at least eight copper!"
"Oh. Thanks."
"I doubt our smith would have even looked at it unless I offered twenty."
"I see." Will wondered if the man realized he had just put a mage''s fair wage below that of a smith. I''m just using a cantrip, so maybe it''s reasonable?
Once his customer left, Will threw the payment into his empty inventory with just a thought.
Action log:
Copper coins (5) stored.
All of the coins stacked into one slot. Nice!
Chapter 3
By the time the sun started to set, Will had earned 25 coppers. As people took note of his service, he was able to ramp the price up, and they still paid him without complaints.
Ten of the coppers went to the innkeeper that same night, when Will rented a single room for himself.
The night did not end up passing peacefully.
Will woke up to the sound of bells when it was still dark. At first, he wondered if it was anything to worry about, but when people in the neighboring rooms started to make a lot of noise, he decided to dress up and get out.
Outside of the inn, he saw people with weapons at the ready¡ªmostly bows and spears. Two men also carried wooden shields.
The full moon was shining brightly. Will realized he could see almost as well as during the day, although colors were more difficult to discern.
"Goblins!" someone running toward the inn shouted. It was a greying man whose stride didn''t look particularly stable.
When the runner reached the people gathered in front of the stall, he doubled over to catch his breath.
"Raiding party...sighted...on the northern road!" he finally got out between wheezing breaths.
That elicited some murmurs, but nobody seemed to be busy to rush anywhere.
"Anyone think this is gonna affect us?" A man with short and pointy bed-hair asked with a frown.
"Maybe?" Another man answered. "It''s a small place. If they hit the north side, they''ll be right next to us."
That got some murmurs of agreement from the small crowd, but Will could sense the reluctance of the people around him. The customers seemed to be mostly travelers, and they weren''t eager to risk their lives for the village they had stopped at for the night.
A few minutes later, three large figures emerged from the inn. They were clad in some armor and carried swords on their waists and helmets under their arms.
"What seems to be the problem?" one of them demanded, and the greying man eagerly reiterated the news from the north.
The previous speaker frowned.
"We must go support the north side, people!"
"I mean no disrespect, sir," a well-dressed man carrying a long sword on his waist spoke up. "But we don''t know how many goblins there are. Retreat could be a wise option."
The armored man glared at the new speaker silently for a few seconds before responding.
"Perhaps, but if there''s a handful of wolf riders going after your fancy carriage, you''re going to have to fight anyway. And it won''t be on your terms."
"Ahem... A--a fair point, sir," the stylish man conceded, stuttering slightly.
"Everyone, you should come with us and see if there''s anything you can help us with. If we fall, you''ll soon find yourself smoked out of the inn into waiting spears," the armored man persuaded the crowd.
People remained reluctant, but many seemed to agree to follow him tentatively anyway.
"Tall sir, you don''t seem to be armed?" he finally spoke to Will after pleading with a few others.
"I... I am--ugh." Will almost bit his tongue due to his nervousness. "Sir, I can cast Magic Arrow a few times."
"Oh, I see. I don''t know that one, but I''m sure any spells you can spare would be greatly appreciated."
I can''t believe I''m about to agree, Will thought nervously to himself. The rough-looking warrior¡ªor paladin, or whatever¡ªwas a smooth talker. He''s gotta have a high Charisma score...
"Al--alright, sir. I''ll come with you and take a look."
The discussion had taken a few minutes, but the ragtag band of men and one tall woman started for the north.
Five minutes later, Will could hear shouts, cries and the occasional ring of metal.
Shit, shit, shit! I really need to take a piss! Will thought to himself while he spun his head around wildly, trying to detect threats.
A goblin sauntered to the street from the far side of the bakery and took one look at Will''s group. It promptly turned to flee while shouting something.
An arrow from the tall woman felled the creature before it had taken more than a few running steps. Two more arrows struck the ground near its fallen, writhing form.
Will briefly glanced to his side, taking note of the two wide-eyed peasants who stood frozen with their bows raised, and only begun to relax when the goblin''s death throes slowed down.
"Let''s move on," the armored, goody-good warrior spoke, and the group marched on toward the sounds of battle.
Soon, they reached the far side of the village. The majority of the fight was taking place along a waist-high fence.
"Good! Let''s get them!" The leader roared, gaining the attention of everyone ahead. He then continued in a slightly lower voice. "There don''t seem to be too many of them, but remember: if we fall, you''ll be soon to follow us!"
With that announcement, he and the two other men in proper armor ran ahead.
The rest of the group hesitated for a moment, until the tall woman started shooting while steadily moving forward between her shots. The peasants followed after her, letting their own arrows loose with considerably less accuracy. The remaining four spearmen followed along hesitantly, opting to cower in the backline with the archers.
Will spied a short man or a teenager accosted by a single goblin who had managed to get over the flimsy fence. The boy jumped back each time the goblin made a move. Clearly, he had very little skill or confidence at fighting.
Magic Arrow (I) triggered.
Will took aim at the hostile creature and shouted the short trigger of his spell. A silvery orb raced forth and struck the goblin just as unerringly as it would in the game.
Cast by a wizard at level fourteen, it should have been enough to one-shot the goblin, but that wasn''t what happened here. The goblin got up and turned to run back toward his allies.
"So fast!" One of the spearmen commented, his eyes fixed upon Will.
"Fuck yeah! Hey, mage guy! You''re the fastest caster I''ve ever seen!" a bowman cheered him on.
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"Umm. Thanks," Will replied weakly, trying to ignore the small amount of wetness in his pants. He had relaxed a little too much when he''d shouted the verbal trigger.
Instead of letting loose another slotted Magic Arrow, Will started to prepare the spell again, while keeping an eye on the fighting.
He took forty seconds to get the spell ready, and immediately let it loose at another goblin.
The magical projectile seemed to glow a little more brightly than previously. Perhaps Will had shaped the magic better this time around?
The goblin had seen the spell coming, and it managed to remain upright even when the glowing arrow struck its right shoulder. Will saw it move its weapon to its left hand and promptly retreat from the peasant it had been facing.
Broke its arm, maybe? he encouraged himself. Even his pants remained at the previous level of dampness. I might be decent at this!
"Why were you so slow this time?" The spearman next to him asked.
Why are you just watching? Will almost wanted to reply. "I can''t rapid fire them," he said instead.
"A shame. I thought you some kind of prodigy."
"Hmh," Will snorted in reply, filing the peasant''s opinions away. The less they expected of him, the better.
Perhaps the man hadn''t seen any mages before. Or perhaps Will was truly acting too flashy in some way?
An arrow came flying from somewhere and hit the annoying commentator in the chest. The man promptly fell down on his knees and clutched the protruding shaft.
"Fuck!" Will immediately dropped down into a low crouch. The wounded man finally fell on his face and didn''t get up.
Will wanted to move a few dozen meters back, but nobody else in his group had chosen to run, yet.
What do I have... He was briefly stunted by the relatively wide selection he had. Arcane Shield... that one should work!
Will begun casting the new level-one spell. He tried to skip at least a few of the redundant parts, but it still took almost two minutes to finish. It couldn''t be helped, since it was his first attempt at the spell.
All the while, his eyes remained on the goblins further back, many of which wielded bows and arrows. The night was bright enough that he could perhaps notice an incoming arrow, abandon his spell, and dive to the side.
The spell finished. He triggered it immediately with a short incantation, and an invisible shield sprung up in front of him. It wasn''t impenetrable, but it should sap most of the punch out of a normal arrow.
Besides, the arrows weren''t coming fast at any rate. Two more had struck the ground further ahead during his casting, but both of them had probably been meant for someone at the front.
Magic Arrow (I) triggered.
Will released another stored Magic Arrow when he saw someone faced with three goblins. The projectile struck the target in the head, and the goblin didn''t get up again.
The human fighter immediately gained ground against the two remaining goblins, and he proceeded to stomp the fallen goblin on its face.
Will watched someone get impaled by a goblin spear while he prepared yet another Magic Arrow. He could have abandoned the spell and triggered a stored one instead when he noticed the unfortunate man''s predicament, but he opted not to. It was safer for him to hold on to the two slotted Magic Arrows.
Since nothing obviously critical was going on when the spell was finally ready, Will simply slotted it before beginning to cast the preparatory portion once again.
The next spell was the best one so far, seeing as it mangled the leg of the goblin it struck. The second one after it wasn''t as impressive, but the third one made a goblin''s face explode in gore.
I''m definitely getting better at this, Will realized. The whole fight seemed to be shifting heavily in the favor of the defenders. Will''s need to take a leak didn''t feel as pressing anymore.
Finally, what looked like a full squad of goblins broke into a panicked run. Soon, the whole goblin front followed them in retreat. Relief and triumph flooded into the hearts of the defenders, who cheered maniacally at the sight. Even Will and the other customers from the inn joined in full-heartedly.
By now, Will once more had four full slots of Magic Arrows, and he felt a pang of regret. He had watched at least two people die while he could have done something about it, if only he''d de-prioritized his own safety a little.
Some of the defenders ran after the short figures shouting battle cries, but the goblins were pretty quick on their short legs, and only a few limping ones plus one heavily armored creature got caught and skewered.
I should try out "Mend Flesh!" Will soon realized, as he watched some wounded peasants starting to shamble back from the fence.
The 1st level necromancy spell from some silly DLC was famous for how bad it was. Wizards weren''t supposed to be healers, after all.
It turned out the spell sucked in this world even more than it did in the game. Will quickly gave up and made way for a woman with some good old thread and a needle.
---
The following morning, Will bought the breakfast for one copper at the inn. After receiving some bread and watery soup, he decided it was overpriced compared to the food at the marketplace, where the bread was even fresher. But, he could definitely afford it, so it didn''t matter too much.
"Good morning, Mister Mage!" The well-dressed man he''d seen last night interrupted Will''s solitary moment.
Will put down his spoon and glanced at the man who fidgeted nervously under his attention. He looked like a classic, pampered noble or something, but he still had his longsword tied to his belt.
"Morning, sir." Will decided to add the honorific at the last moment in case the man really was some kind of lord. "Can I help you with anything?"
"Heh, you can, indeed. See, I noticed your spellcasting last night..." The man left the sentence hanging.
"Yes? Did I do something wrong?"
"No, no," he waved his hands. "That''s not my meaning. It''s the opposite. I''d like to employ you temporarily."
"Hm? For what exactly?"
Will was interested. Scraping together some more coppers at the marketplace was a way to put bread in his stomach, but ideally he should be making some gold.
Assuming gold here had the same, fairly low value it had had in ASA, he would need loads of it to buy life-saving potions et cetera.
"See, those goblins last night. You wouldn''t think they''re around anymore, would you?"
"Probably not. Why?"
"It never hurts to be sure! I think it would be safer for both of us to travel together. You wouldn''t be heading east, would you?"
I see. He wants additional protection, Will realized.
Will, too, wanted to get out of the village at some point, but he didn''t really know anything about anywhere else.
"I, uh-- I have a few options, but traveling east is one of them." He decided to give a vague answer.
"Great, great! I plan to leave in an hour, so if you''d be able to make the decision soon, we could have a deal."
"Where exactly are you traveling?"
"All the way to the border, but I would only need you to accompany me until Spiretown."
"I see." Yep, I have no clue. "What can you pay me?"
"My budget is a bit tight, but I can offer you twenty silver."
Will frowned. Silver? But I need gold! Still, it should beat extracting coppers from poor peasants, assuming he didn''t get killed by goblins.
"Don''t you think twenty is a tad low for a mage?"
"Ah, excuse me. I took you for an apprentice from the strength of your display yesterday. I understand if you must reject an apprentice''s job."
"I am a little bit better than that. I just... didn''t have all of my spells prepared last night."
"Prepared?" The man asked with a tilt of his head. "Does your style depend on preparing your magics? If you don''t mind me asking, of course."
Isn''t spell preparation common knowledge? Will wondered. As a noble, surely the man shouldn''t be as ignorant as peasants?
"It does, to an extent. If you give me some time, I can have two Invisibility spells ready for us."
"Invisibility? How? For what?"
"Uhh. For me and you, for example. In case we need to hide, you know."
"Invisibility sounds like something rather powerful," the man argued with a disbelieving expression on his face.
Dude, it''s a level two spell! It''s good, but not that special, Will thought to himself.
"It''s a useful spell, sir," he said instead.
"I''m sorry, but I would need to see a demonstration before I can employ someone of such illustrious merits."
"Fair," Will conceded. "I can show you, but perhaps we should do it somewhere else."
Will finished his wood and followed the noble guy behind the stalls, where there didn''t seem to be any onlookers present.
"Alright. Just give me a second," Will said and begun the trigger sequence, managing to keep it pretty short even though it was his first attempt.
Invisibility (II) triggered.
When the spell took effect, the nobleman raised his eyebrows.
"Hmm," he spoke. "I see. This could be fairly useful. By the way, I think you should call this a ''chameleon technique''. At least that''s what I was once taught by my tutors."
Will looked down at his own body which had become partially transparent. His presence still remained very obvious to anyone who looked at him directly.
"Umm," Will stalled. He should have seen something like this coming, really. "This is just the bare minimum. I can cast it better if I can get more time to prepare."
"How much time? How much better?"
"Considerably better. Give me just a couple of hours," Will guesstimated, until he remembered the headache. "Err. Give me a day, maybe," he amended.
"A day I don''t have, Mister Mage. But you have convinced me to an extent. I''d be willing to raise my offer up to fifty silver if you can demonstrate this spell once more by casting it on me."
In the end, Will only managed to haggle it up to sixty before accepting the deal.
Chapter 4
After eight hours of riding on top of a nobleman''s fancy carriage and practicing magic, Will got the preparation time for Invisibility down to two minutes, and he didn''t get a headache from the effort anymore. The trigger went down to five seconds, which was still clearly longer than canon.
Sadly, the effect of the spell had only grown marginally stronger.
First, it had actually become worse with the rapidly shortening casting time, and only when Will started to pay attention to quality instead of speed did it slowly improve past the initial level.
At the moment, the spell was something that could be somewhat effective for hiding even during daytime, and Will saw no way to improve the quality any further, so he decided to concentrate on shaving two more seconds from the trigger instead.
At least there''s the fourth-level spell "Major Invisibility" to look forward to...
The journey took four days. It was long enough for Will to start familiarizing himself with a few other low-level spells as well.
He also thought about finally selecting the feat he was entitled to, but decided to keep putting the choice off. The obviously powerful options tempted him, but the goblins had scared him into thinking more cautiously. Besides, he didn''t have a single healing potion yet.
When they arrived, Will was dismissed with a recommendation letter penned on some spotty, low-quality paper. For all he knew, it could be the best kind of paper around here.
Will wasn''t deluded enough to think of the nobleman as his friend now, so the letter definitely wasn''t a favor to him but rather for the recipient, someone called Viscount Jacob. Presumably, the viscount could use a mage of Will''s apparent caliber for something.
It turned out he didn''t.
"I''m sorry," the viscount''s butler said, stepping out of his employer''s study. "I guess you took the trouble of coming here for no reason. Would you at least like a cup of tea before you go?"
"Um, no thanks, but could I have the letter back? Perhaps I can convince someone else with, uh, Good Nobleman Heinrich''s recommendation."
"I see. I shall ask my lord what he thinks." After a moment, the butler came back with the letter. "Lord Viscount said you can use it."
"That''s good. Thank you."
Ah. I should visit a seamstress or something, Will remembered.
A few dozen minutes later, he finally stood in front of a tall mirror.
The face that stared back was himself from the past... except not quite. He had slightly more angular features, and he simply looked better than ever before. More symmetric or something. Probably.
No beard, though. Not even any stubble. It was sad in a sense, but grooming-wise it was a blessing, and the look of it wasn''t a problem with his new, singular chin.
Will wasn''t sure how half-elves aged in canon, let alone in this world, but he looked like he was around 25 in human years. Still young, but without the childish, rosy cheeks he remembered from the photos taken when he was twenty.
The nature of this world was yet another thing that had become very suspect. He most likely wasn''t in the world of ASA, even if his abilities originated from that game.
He''d chatted this and that with the noble and his driver during the trip, and neither seemed to have heard of the drow race. They swore that dark elves actually had remarkably pale skin.
They knew of no Elmunchkin the archmage, of no continent named Fa¨ºria, and not even of any priests who could cast divine magic.
Will sighed in contemplation, still staring at the mirror. His looks were a bit strange, but they would be easy to get used to compared to everything else. Finally, he handed a few coppers to the shopkeep for the favor and left.
Next, Will tried to visit a merchant guild, but they didn''t handle recruiting and told him to talk to individual merchants instead. Locating just two traveling ones ended up taking the whole day, and both of them promptly refused his services.
It clearly wasn''t the way to find a job. Will knew he should go to the Mages'' Guild at the Spire, but he wanted to avoid their scrutiny for now.
Finally, on his third day in town, he ran into something useful in a noisy tavern. It was well after the sunset, and the patrons were starting to get tipsy.
"If they make trouble, we beat them up!" a dwarf sitting at a nearby table suddenly shouted.
"Bloody hell, Adil! Don''t be so loud," the human male next to him spoke in a low but exasperated tone.
"Why not? It''s not some kind of secret, is it?"
"No! But this is a nice, classy place! You shouldn''t shout."
Will, who was listening in, felt his eyebrows climb. If this particular watering hole was supposed to be a classy establishment, he never wanted to visit a seedy one.
"Whatever," the dwarf continued in a lower tone. "You shouldn''t worry. We''ve done similar jobs all over the place."
"This isn''t your typical bouncer gig, Adil. There will be some bigwig Spire associates in attendance."
"Hrmph! I have my hammer. There''s no reason to be scared."
"That''s the issue, Adil. We''re supposed to avoid resorting to force."
"Fine!" The dwarf slammed his wooden pint onto the table with a bang. "You''ll handle the talking. I''ll just be a nonverbal reminder of the fact that we can fuck them up."
"I guess that works," the human said with a sigh.
Will decided to make his entrance there.
"Hey, it sounds like you two know how to find a job in this city. Mind if I buy you a round?"
Both men stared at him. The dwarf with a frown, and the human with a surprised expression.
"I ain''t saying no to free ale!" the dwarf finally responded in a cheery voice, although he still kept frowning and glaring.
"I guess I could give you a hint or two," the other man also relented.
Will waved the serving girl over and gave her three coppers for some drinks and a fourth one as a tip. She arrived in just a minute with three big pints.
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"Ooh. You went for the better stuff," the dwarf murmured appreciatively.
"Sure. I don''t want to get sick from some suspicious swill."
"Hmph. You frail elves and your sicknesses..."
"Just a half-elf. And I''m not particularly frail," Will argued, feeling some indignation. He had put 12 points into Constitution, which surely was plenty for a wizard.
"Anyway," Will continued. "I overheard you mention working in security. Think I could find a similar job somewhere?"
"Again, half-elf, you''re pretty frail. I''m not sure you want to become a bouncer."
"I may not be as strong as you, but I have some magic. Chameleon spell, for example, and several others."
"A mage, eh?" The dwarf asked with a hint of contempt in his expression, but after a sip from his red ale, it turned into something thoughtful. "I don''t think we have any mages with us. Maybe there''s a chance..."
"No offense, mister half-elf, but I think our resident idiot fell for you because you gave him free alcohol," the human commented with a sneer.
"Shaddup, loser. I''m thinking," the dwarf retorted in a calm voice. "Yes. I think he could join us. We could even get some coin for the recommendation if we play this right."
"Boy," the dwarf turned to look at Will again. "Meet you here tomorrow at three o''clock. I''ll do some talking on our end first, and then I''ll present you as the perfect addition to the team."
Will was happy with that. Watching over some auction sounded easy enough.
Thanks to the Magic Academy DLC, he had a variety of nice, low-level spells to use on weak, normal people or even some small-time thugs.
The auction took place the day after the next.
Will woke up in his semi-nice room in one of the best inns of the city. After the breakfast, he made sure that his first and second-level spell slots were full. (As they should be in preparation for any foreseeable situation.)
The four second-level slots were filled with life-saving measures in case a massive war broke out while he was in the privy or something.
The four first-level spells he''d prepared could be used to both defend himself with and to perform the day''s job, while the four cantrips were fully dedicated to handling unruly civilians. Perhaps there would be a drunken idiot in the auction Will would be tasked with taking care of nonlethally.
He had prepared one third-level spell two days ago¡ªa painful chore he wasn''t about to repeat soon. The headache had hit him even worse than the first time he''d cast Invisibility.
While it was a pathetic state for a supposedly level-14 wizard, Will decided to stick to honing his level-two spells for a little longer. At the very least, he seemed to be advancing at a steady pace.
Confident in his chances to handle the job and impress prospective future employers, he set out for the inner city.
The venue was one of the large buildings close to the Spire. It stood in a walled portion of the city where the rabble wasn''t able to enter easily, unless they owned a set of fine clothes and knew how to look like they belonged.
Thanks to The Rise-up of the Slave Mage DLC, his black robe still looked immaculate. The spell selection he''d reincarnated with contained even household spells, albeit only two, since they were only meant to be silly props for the slavery setting.
Will cast a cleaning cantrip on his attire every morning, and it had remained mostly fresh, although Will was beginning to suspect that the spell didn''t remove every possible contaminant from the fabric.
There was a faint, stale smell to the armpit area of his undertunic that seemed to be growing more obvious each day, but he extrapolated that it should still be good for a week. (Perhaps even three.)
The armed and armored guard blocking the employees'' entrance wasn''t a talkative fellow.
"Badge," he demanded.
Will obediently flashed the carved and stamped piece of white wood he''d been handed previously, and the guard moved aside to let him in.
Three people were already present, including Will''s contacts.
"Morning, boy!" Adil the dwarf greeted him. He was wearing a chain shirt, and there was a somewhat heavy-looking warhammer tied to his belt.
"Hey there. What''s wrong with Steve?" Will asked, noting the man next to the dwarf who was slumping on a stool.
"Him? He has these fits of weakness every morning after a happy night out. You can ignore him."
Steve raised his head to send a brief glare at the dwarf.
"I''m just a little tired is all!"
Two more people came in shortly, wearing some light armor like everyone else except Will and the big boss of the place. The latter was a man of perfect posture, but with his wrinkled face, he looked older than anyone else in the room and wore fancier clothes than even Will did.
"Everyone seems to have arrived," the graying man spoke after a while. "I''ll now show you a few key spots. The job is simple, but I expect you to keep your eyes open," he said while shooting a glance at Steve.
"New guys, you follow me!"
Steve, Adil, and Will followed as commanded. The three other temporary hires stayed behind, likely already knowing the drill.
"Those are the customer entrances; here''s the VIP seating. Over there in the back is the vault, but you don''t need to worry about it."
"And over here," the man continued. "We have the showcase items. Just two, this time."
On the raised stage, there was an upright case placed on both sides with a speaker''s podium in the middle. Both of the cases housed a weapon that could be observed through a wavy glass pane. A simple, wooden staff and a spiked, metallic mace. Both the weapons and the glass panes began to feel strange to Will''s senses as he kept looking at them.
Enchanted, perhaps? he wondered. At least the weapons certainly were. The glass just felt faintly like it had something more to it than what met the eye.
"Even before the auction starts, your job is to keep the attendees in the audience area. Try to remain polite even if they are idiots. Push them back if you must, but apologize for having to do so. I hope you get my gist."
Will and Steve nodded in response, while Adil hummed noncommittally.
"Any questions?"
"Just the obvious one," Adil drawled. "What''s the real job? You''re paying us in silver. It can''t be that easy."
"Smart," the man said with a nod. "While politeness is something I wish to instill in our employees, the more difficult part of the job is the fact that the audience today will include some wealthy but unruly members."
"Told you," Steve commented from the side.
"What kind of unruly?" Adil demanded.
"Besides the showpieces, we''re auctioning a lot of arms and armor. We should expect to host mercenaries and adventurers of questionable repute."
Adil sighed. "And I can''t just hammer people senseless?"
"Well... hammering should be the very final resort. After all, we can''t legally take their money if we have beaten them silly."
Adil briefly raised his eyebrows. "A fair point."
"As for the really powerful people, they will be VIP''s. You can forget about them. In fact, don''t even look at them, in case they take offense. I shall take care of them."
"And mage boy... what''s your name?"
"Will," Will answered obediently. It felt wrong to be called ''boy'' when he had lived almost forty years, but he didn''t mind. It made him feel youthful.
"Will, I assume you possess some nonlethal spells?"
"I can daze people momentarily without harming them at all. I can also stun them with weak lightning magic, but those faint of heart might be at risk of death if I do so."
In canon, his lightning cantrip was just a 1d2 damage spell¡ªbarely a tickle¡ªwith a decent chance to stun weaklings. But who knew how this reality operated? Tasers could be pretty risky back home.
"I doubt our customers would die to a little lightning. In fact, it should be perfect if you can generate enough of it."
"Oh? Well, that''s a relief."
The doors to the hall were opened to the public, and prospective buyers began flooding the hall.
They were an unruly bunch as expected, but most of them seemed to respect the rules when they were made clear to them.
However, not each and every one of them was so orderly.
"Boy! Watch it! Don''t concern yourself with this. I''m just gonna take a look."
"Esteemed customer, this area is off-limits. Please return to your seat," Will spoke, wearing a neutral expression as he blocked the customer''s way to the stage.
The problematic fellow was pretty muscular, but for now he was just poking Will in the chest with a finger. As long as the customer didn''t pull out a weapon, Will didn''t think he needed to worry much.
"Just... get out of my way already!" the man finally snapped and shoved Will backward.
I guess that''s enough to justify a reaction? Will reasoned.
He pointed a finger at the offender and activated one of the weaker Electric Jolt cantrips he had prepared. He''d purposefully cast the preparation phase sloppily in case some weakling was at risk of dying from it.
Electric Jolt (cantrip) triggered.
The man stumbled briefly. He glared at Will with visible rage.
"You little..."
Electric Jolt (cantrip) triggered.
In a non-canon fashion, Will immediately released a full-strength Electric Jolt. The brief and thin arc of electricity struck the man in the chest.
He faltered again, clearly affected by the electricity, but stubbornly kept approaching.
Electric Jolt (cantrip) triggered.
Will simply repeated the spell once more. Finally, the man fell down on the floor, face first.
In ASA, there would have been a cooldown period between spells, where a character could still run around but could not cast another spell before a certain time had passed. In this world, Will felt no need to take a break in between.
Will checked for the customer''s pulse alongside his neck. Still beating.
"Adil! I could use a hand here," Will called out. He didn''t want to carry the man out just by himself.
Chapter 5
The auction soon started.
Gruff and rough men¡ªand a few women¡ªshouted out their offers for masterfully crafted new weapons and armor, or those taken as spoils of war during a raiding excursion or another minor clash at the border. Deals were made, and many people departed when they got what they wanted.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for a brief intermission before we move on to the more exquisite items," the graying man announced. "We will continue in one hour."
Most attendees got up to leave the auction hall, but a few stayed seated and took out canteens to drink from or closed their eyes to take a nap.
Half of the security staff immediately left for their break, while another half remained standing in their posts, waiting for their own turn.
Will and a handful of the other new hires remained in the hall with two of the regular guards as well as the graying host.
Suddenly, the eyes of some of the "sleeping" participants snapped open. They, along with a few of those who had been drinking, stood up and started to throw around suspicious objects before rushing toward the exit.
With a loud, hissing sound, the thrown items went off and started to disperse thick, white smoke.
"Guards!" The old host roared. "Catch them!"
The remaining guards stiffened before they acted. Two of them¡ªthe heavily armored regulars¡ªwere the first ones to move.
"Ivan! Gianni! With me!" the old man shouted. The regulars halted and turned around. "The rest of you, keep going!"
The hirelings followed the order. Will got out and saw several people running in different directions. He chose one that nobody else was chasing and sprinted as fast as he could.
A thought occurred to Will, and he slowed down to a walk, speaking a short incantation.
Invisibility (II) triggered.
One of his slotted spells was used up, and Will''s figure became partially transparent. He was about to dash forward once more but thought better of it.
Wait a second! These runners are an obvious distraction. Even if I catch one, he''s not going to know anything, he realized.
Will slowed down to a walk and moved next to a wall so as not to stand out. Alas, the thought had come too late. Several onlookers were already staring at his strange form.
He ignored the stares and stood still, taking in the small square in front of the building. Smoke was billowing out of the auction house, smelling faintly of some unknown chemical, but it didn''t seem like an irritant.
Seconds passed. More smoke started to billow out from the alleys beside the building. Will was surprised.
Why is it coming from the back, too? Will wondered. Is it the vault?
He jogged into the alleyway and slowed down when visibility plummeted thanks to the smoke.
The path turned at the end of the building, and the white smoke got even thicker. There were several hot little items on the alley floor that glowed faintly and hissed rather loudly as they spewed out more smoke.
Will ignored them and slowly walked around the narrow area.
Suddenly, he heard a thump right next to him. Will froze.
Keeping his movements slow, he glanced toward the noise and saw a form of almost his own height reaching up and pulling at something. There was a faint clicking sound when that something came loose and was caught by the suspected thief.
The thief turned around and jogged across the alleyway. Will sneaked after him with soundless steps until he heard a door open and close straight ahead. He froze for a moment before hurrying ahead.
Will located the door and raised his hand on the handle, but then he hesitated.
If he''s waiting right behind this door, I could be in danger, he thought to himself.
He let go of the handle and murmured a short, quiet incantation while waving his hands.
Arcane Armor (I) triggered.
A slotted first-level spell was expended, and Will felt some uncomfortable tingles when an invisible armor of force sprung up around his skin. His half-invisible form remained just as half-invisible.
The next spell, slotted at level two, was cast almost as quickly.
Mistform (II) triggered.
Will''s already blurry form became fainter and even less discernible.
He pulled the handle, and the door opened. The dark corridor it opened into seemed empty. It meant the thief now had several seconds'' headstart. Will closed the door behind him before proceeding quietly.
The hallway was almost totally dark, although Will''s half-elven eyes were already adjusting to the low amount of light available. Yet he almost stumbled when his foot struck the first step of a staircase.
Will quickly climbed up and grimaced when a couple of the steps creaked under his feet. He emerged in a messy, empty room and immediately saw an open window leading to the other side of the building.
He peeked out and looked down. A man climbing down a rope stared right back at him. He had a bag over his shoulder and a long wooden staff tied to his back.
Will pulled his misty head back inside. Crap!
After just a second, he heard another thump from below, so he peeked out again. The figure had left the rope hanging behind and started to run away.
Fuck!
There was no time to think. Will extended his hand and spoke another trigger while staring after the man who was about to turn the corner for the next street.
A magical, willpower-based attack struck the thief the moment Will uttered the final syllable.
Mental Shackles, Minor (III) triggered.
It was a third-level spell¡ªone that was decent against strong targets and tyrannical against weaklings. He didn''t know if his target was weak or if he''d been simply taken by too much surprise to resist it. In any case, the spell had a very limited effective period.
Will got on the rope and jumped off it as soon as he dared. He landed smoothly and flexibly on the cobblestone pavement, feeling briefly surprised at how easy the maneuver had been. 16 Dexterity rocks!
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The thief was still staring straight ahead, unable to take a single step forward. Unable to move a finger, really. His whole body was shaking from exertion, but he just couldn''t will it to move.
Will grabbed the staff and whisked it into his magical inventory. It took exactly one slot. He grabbed the satchel on the man''s shoulder as well and tried to use his inventory again, but it just wouldn''t accept the container.
He turned around and ran the other way as fast as he could. There weren''t other people on the little street he had emerged on, but the next one had more traffic.
Will slowed down and canceled his concealment spells, put the satchel inside his robes, and hugged it against his stomach. He started walking like any other pedestrian while trying to keep his breathing relatively level.
He hadn''t heard any running steps behind him yet, but it had been dozens of seconds already, and his spell had surely ended a while ago.
He soon turned into another narrow alley to take out the satchel again. It seemed to be stuffed with some cloth, but when he pulled on it, Will heard glass objects clinking against each other.
Wrapped in the cloth, there were five small bottles in total, all of them containing an orange liquid.
He took the potions and willed them into his inventory. They stacked neatly, leaving two empty slots. He took the piece of cloth out of the satchel and crumbled both items up. This time, both of them disappeared obediently and took one slot each.
This is some game logic...
With his suspicious deeds done, Will quickly walked back to the auction house, seeing a few others returning from their chase.
"Any luck?" he asked Adil, trying to look nonplussed.
"None," the dwarf replied gruffly.
"I lost mine, too. I don''t think they would have told us anything useful anyway."
"Yea. Mine was a skinny boy. I bet his clothes were stolen from richer people."
"Well, we did what we could."
While they waited for the smoke to clear, someone returned with a prisoner in tow. It was really just a teenager who kept wailing dramatically at the rough handling.
"What''s gonna happen to them?" Will asked curiously.
"Forced labor," Steve who had arrived at some point answered. "Mining, perhaps. Or, if they''re lucky, just cleaning the streets in chains."
"Oh. Those. I thought they were slaves."
"No. We don''t have slaves here."
Ten minutes later, they went back in. The graying host looked furious.
Will saw that the enchanted glass had been broken on the display case holding the mace. The mace, however, was still present.
On the other side of the stage, the case where the staff had been standing had merely been opened without breaking the glass.
"What happened here?" Adil asked.
The host merely glanced at him with a frown but didn''t give an answer. The dwarf didn''t ask again.
The two regular guards were the last ones to come back, both of them out of breath. Will had thought they''d stayed inside with the host, but apparently something or someone had lured them out as well.
"We lost the staff and a batch of potions," the host finally explained. "There''s no hiding this, so we''ll be putting up a bounty."
"What kind of potions?" Will asked.
The man glared at him, but Will didn''t care. He knew he was acting suspiciously, but he needed the information.
"Healing potions. Orange grade." He got his answer after a beat.
Will nodded in thanks, wearing an impassive face. Just a second later, he had to suppress a grimace when a second thought occurred to him.
That was unnecessary! I could have tried Identifying them on my own. It was yet another spell in his book he hadn''t gotten around to trying out yet.
The rest of the auction was uneventful. The temporary security guards received a full pay of three silver despite the mishap. It wasn''t much, but it would last him a few days even if he stayed in the nice room. Will thought it worth the few hours invested, even if he discounted his unexpected windfall.
Still, while helpful, three silver were ultimately peanuts.
"Do you happen to have any other jobs in store?" Will asked his two acquaintances when they got out.
"Nah," Steve answered. "But something is bound to turn up again."
"Boy," Adil spoke after a moment. "That lightning of yours. Can you hit any harder with it?"
"Sure," Will answered, thinking of an electricity-based second-level spell. "I can kill people with it if I have to. Or monsters."
"Now hear me out. On the frontier, there''s this friend of mine. He''s also a mage..."
---
Will returned to the inn he was staying at and to the privacy of his rented room.
He took out the stolen staff and chanted for a few minutes. Identify!
A tooltip-sized window popped up, containing a minimal description of the item.
Quarterstaff +0.6
Durability 24/31
"Hmm? Plus oh point six?"
In Caverns & Monsters, the strength of a magic weapon or armor would always be expressed by a whole number.
The fractional figure made sense when he thought about it. This was a real world, and the truly game-like features were limited to his interface. There was no reason items crafted by a real person would stick to a neat and discrete order. Even +0.6 was probably a rounded figure.
In any case, a +0.6 staff was decent enough to keep for now. To match his supposed level of 14, Will would have liked to have magic equipment in the +2 or +3 range, but there was no way to know if items like that were even available here.
He left the inn the next day, bought a few necessities, a cheap horse, and a two-hour lesson on how to handle it. He then rode further east, toward the border.
The trip was supposed to be short when riding horseback in comparison to having the horse pull a cart. However, his horse wasn''t as fast as the other riders who sometimes passed him by.
Will got down to feed and water the animal more often than the other travelers around him did, but it didn''t make it move any faster.
The next morning, the horse felt even slower, and in the afternoon it stopped, lay down, and promptly breathed its last.
"Fuck! There goes my twenty silver!" Will raged. "Did I fail my Animal Lore check? A half-elf should have two levels in it by default, right? System! Skill list!"
No such list appeared despite his vehement requests.
It turned out he had no idea about horse health. When he''d asked for a riding lesson, he''d revealed his ignorance. It only made sense he would be sold a sick animal.
A wagon he had just overtaken approached him again. "Get out of the way!" its driver shouted at him.
"Do you have eyes, idiot?! It''s dead! It can''t fucking move!"
The wagoneer grumbled while he slowly and carefully steered around the corpse while also trying to avoid getting his wheel stuck in the soft earth on the shoulder of the road.
Will spent ten minutes trying his hand at his levitation spell. Very slowly, he floated the horse corpse out of the way and into the forest that the road passed through.
Well, at least it took me pretty close before dying, he consoled himself.
He took out all of the horse feed he had stacked in his inventory and dumped it on the ground. He used the freed-up slot to store his thick bedroll instead.
Next, Will walked. He still ended up having to spend one more night outside before reaching his destination.
Will expected his legs to be killing him by the end of the trip. He was happily surprised when they were only sore.
Perhaps my decent physical stats and even my total level are good for something, he realized.
It wasn''t defined in canon how high-level characters got more hit points and higher saving throws even if their ability scores didn''t change. Perhaps their bodies just grew supernaturally strong?
After all, warrior types could basically brawl their way into demigodhood in C&M.
Will walked through the small border town, sometimes stopping to ask for directions due to the randomly winding streets, despite seeing his destination looming ahead.
Finally, he crossed a drawbridge and entered the grounds of a somewhat impressively sized castle. It was surrounded by higher stone walls than the rest of the town, which still got a shoulder-height one that was further extended by a wooden palisade.
A guard escorted him inside a small stone building near the gate, where Will had to wait given that he didn''t possess a proper clearance to enter the castle. A runner boy was sent to fetch Adil''s friend to deal with his matter.
A particularly short dwarf of perhaps four and a half feet followed the boy back.
Unlike anyone else Will saw around, the dwarf wore a robe. It didn''t look as luxurious as his own, but it clearly signified a different status. As a typical dwarf with a big beard, his age was difficult to estimate, but Will thought he had to be older than Adil.
"You''re a friend of Adil?" the dwarf asked.
"Hello, Singer Limul. I only briefly worked with Adil, but I managed to convince him of my talents."
"That may be so, but Adil doesn''t really understand magic."
"Perhaps. But he certainly seems to appreciate strength and straight talk," Will argued with a shrug. "I knocked people out with my spells, and I didn''t waste his time with bullshit."
"Which spells?"
"I showed him some lightning, but I have others, too. Pure magic projectiles, fire spells, and chameleon-type concealment. Also some lesser tricks against weak targets."
Limul raised his brows. "Sounds like a fairly wide repertoire for someone so young."
"I''m not all that young." Will pulled his hair back to reveal a pointy ear. "Half-elf. Almost forty years old."
"I could see that a minute ago. Your features are relatively obvious. Young elves tend to obsess over a single type of magic until they master it. Have you already done that?"
Will shrugged. "I doubt I can call myself a master of anything yet. I like variety. Perhaps my human side dominates?"
"Hmm. In any case, since Adil sent you, I''ll give you a chance. But I''m warning you, it won''t be an easy job."
"He mentioned there''s a war, but he said it''s just weakling raiders, and that mages will be pretty safe in the backline."
"He''s got it mostly right, but you shouldn''t assume war is predictable, even if it''s been going on for twenty years."
Will blinked. "Twenty?"
"Indeed. There has never been real peace since the Sunny Hills War. It has only cooled down to a border scuffle."
"I see. Well, I''m good as long as I''m not forced to take stupid risks."
"Fair. Come! I''ll take you to the lieutenant general."
Chapter 6
Four days passed in relative idleness. Will was content to spend his time honing his third-level spells. The modest quarters he had been given were also nice compared to sleeping on the road.
He stayed at the castle and waited for orders, but he hadn''t been paid a single copper yet. He had demonstrated Magic Arrow and the 2nd-level spell Minor Lightning, but the lieutenant general only promised to pay him after his first battle.
The man called his casting slow. That was something inavoidable because Will didn''t want to reveal his ability to slot spells. He had to go through both the preparatory phase and the trigger every time he demonstrated a spell.
Curiously, what they called his magical endurance did merit a passing positive note. It seemed like there was some kind of mana limit beginners usually suffered from.
All in all, he was deemed better than an apprentice, and they said Will would be entitled to a compensation of thirty silver per battle, provided that the lieutenant was satisfied with his performance in a real combat situation.
It was a bit shifty, but Will accepted it for now.
Finally, Will received a deployment order. A company was to ride out to catch a raiding party that had been sighted.
Will got ready by placing a potion bottle inside his belt pocket, one in the pocket of his new tunic, and three wrapped in some cloth and stuffed in a box within his backpack.
That left his inventory slots free for bigger items, such as the quarterstaff he didn''t want to reveal needlessly, a stack of extra food and a stack of jars filled with water, and perhaps most importantly, a thick mattress.
Will had been lent a horse by the garrison, and he hoped this one would live. The whole group of forty men was on horseback, and soon they were making good progress along a meager road leading to some smaller border town not too far away.
"Didn''t you say the enemy would be around a hundred men?" Will asked out when the progression slowed down for an uphill stretch, and the cacophony of the hooves banging against the dry ground became a little quieter.
"I did," Limul answered beside him, riding on his own, slightly smaller horse.
"Well, I just realized that there''s only forty of us. Aren''t we at a disadvantage?"
"On the contrary. The enemy will stand no chance."
Will had noticed that the fighting men around them were all tall and heavily built. Everyone wore chainmail shirts with some additional plate covering their chests and stomachs. Most of them wore some plate protecting the legs and forearms as well.
He and the dwarven mage were almost as heavily armored themselves. Will had noticed armor didn''t affect his spellcasting unless it truly restricted his movements, so it seemed like a good idea to wear some.
Still, his original build had relied on his 16 Dexterity and the Dodge feat for survivability. Based on that, Will knew that he had to keep an eye on how well he could truly move around wearing armor.
"I guess we have the better troops, then?"
"Overwhelmingly so," the dwarf confirmed. "This is a reactive force; not some normal unit."
A scout that had raced ahead earlier approached from the front. Unlike the others, he didn''t wear any armor and only carried a bow.
"Enemy sighted!" he shouted multiple times when he got within hearing distance.
"Halt!" the lieutenant commanded, and Will hurried to rein in his horse as did the others around him.
"I got their rear scout. I think he was the only one they had," the scout explained when he got closer.
"The main force is less than a mile away. When we crest the hill, they''ll see us."
"Very good. Take a rest, soldier."
The lieutenant then raised his voice to address everyone. "Men! Get off your horses and water them! Get their coats damp as well! In five minutes, we ride at full speed!"
Soon, they rode for battle.
Will felt the familiar nervousness rising again.
The warriors rode ahead while Will and Limul stayed at the back. When they got close enough, the warriors dismounted, and the unarmored, riderless horses turned around and calmly ran further back, passing the mages by again. Will guessed they had been trained for the simple maneuver.
The armored warriors kept marching on foot.
Will saw the enemy, who had arranged a defensive formation across the road and some ways into the adjacent shrublands. A couple dozen crossbowmen were lined up at the front, who raised their weapons when their leader gave a command.
They fired a volley of bolts at the incoming men.
Will watched his allies'' reaction intently.
The three men in the front had raised their tower shields and slowed down their advance while bracing for impact. The rest of the men walking in a line behind them got to take advantage of the cover provided by the vanguard.
Bolts slammed into the shields and didn''t seem to accomplish too much.
Just one of the three men turned around and started limping back toward the mages and the lieutenant general. There was a bolt lodged in his armored shin.
The enemy crossbowmen dropped their ranged weapons to brandish melee weapons and shields instead.
The soldiers on Will''s side begun spreading out to engage the whole enemy front, not letting any hostiles get to their two mages too easily.
"Shouldn''t we be doing something?" Will asked.
"Wait for the command," Limul advised him.
"Mages! Fire!" the lieutenant finally shouted from the back of his horse, and Will was happy to begin casting.
He wasn''t accomplishing all that much, given how his orders were to simply pelt the enemy with his level-one Magic Arrows, while his level-two Minor Lightning had been rejected by the lieutenant due to its long preparation time, even if it was pretty strong.
Which was fine. Will was a lot better at using the lower-level spell, anyway. It was supposed to scale pretty well with his caster level, so it made sense to invest more training hours on it.
The enemy was larger in individual size and better equipped than the goblins had been. Will''s spell had got somewhat stronger, but it couldn''t penetrate steel plate.
Still, there was a nice, loud ringing sound when his glowing arrow hit a well-made helmet, and such a hit would invariably daze the victim for a while, if not immediately knock them unconscious.
Sometimes he only managed to strike at the torso, where the spell didn''t do much unless it struck an unarmored spot. Even then, he never missed. An ineffective hit still disturbed the frontliners and created openings for his allies to abuse.
Limul in turn was casting his spell of choice three times for each glowing arrow from Will. He was propelling rocks from the roadside at the enemy with just enough accuracy to avoid friendly fire.
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After some two minutes of intense casting, the dwarf wiped sweat from his brow and picked up his waterskin to take a quick swig.
"I wonder why they haven''t routed yet," he spoke before continuing his bombardment at a slower rate.
Suddenly, a shrill whistle was heard from ahead, and a glowing streak flew past the enemy line, striking one of the fighters on Will''s side.
The man who had been directly hit exploded in pieces, while the others near the impact point were sent flying. The enemy fighters had reacted to the whistle and jumped back, avoiding casualties.
"Goblinshagger!" Limul cursed. "They have a big mage!" he shouted.
A few pieces of the victim''s armor rained down with clatter. Most of the other men around the impact point were getting up, but a few seemed to have trouble doing so.
"They sure got us," the dwarf continued in a lower voice. "I''m already running out of mana."
Will had already forgotten his nervousness, but the emotion now raised its ugly head again in a way that couldn''t be ignored.
"Should we... try something else?"
"If you can see their mage, do what you want. Otherwise, it''s better to stick to our orders." The dwarf took out his waterskin once more. He seemed to have given up casting his spell for now.
A streak of light was seen again, and another explosion rang out. This time, there was no warning whistle.
It struck the ground near someone again, and they were sent flying, but not with as much momentum as previously. The explosion clearly wasn''t as powerful as the previous one.
"He''s got to be right behind their fighters," Will thought aloud. He then hesitated briefly before continuing. "I have one big spell, but I can only use it once."
"Think you can get him?"
"With luck, I might. But I would certainly get a lot of the others."
"You can try. Avoid hurting our own men."
"I will."
Will wanted to respond to the explosions with a Fireball spell, of which he had one slotted for emergencies.
I should mask it somehow. He felt nervous and wanted to win the battle right now, but rationality still prevailed.
Instead of a Fireball, Will began casting the level-two spell Absorb Elements. He hadn''t really had any practice with it yet, so it would take some time.
After a little over two minutes, a few sparkles could be seen around Will, and he felt a comfortable, invisible blanket hugging him. Now, if an explosion struck near him, he at least shouldn''t take any burns.
Without a break, he continued to cast his next spell.
Firaball (III) triggered.
A glowing, fist-sized ember flew from his palms at a low angle. It was fast, and perhaps due to its speed it felt a little sluggish to maneuver, but otherwise it obeyed his will perfectly as he guided it over the front line.
The ember struck the ground close to where he thought the enemy mage might be.
There were also several enemy fighters around the spot, enjoying the short breather they had previously earned.
The larger force didn''t consist of scrubs, but they were still just normal soldiers, who had to continuously rotate their frontline in order to contend with the skilled fast-response company.
Rather than a forceful explosion like the enemy mage''s spell, an expanding, semispherical firestorm engulfed everyone within twenty feet from its epicenter.
A cacophony of screaming erupted from the fire, which kept going on even when the fire dissipated within just a second, leaving behind only small fires here and there where flammable materials had ignited.
More than a few people rolled on the ground, screaming. Some people further from the center remained upright, but they had become sooty-faced and probably lost their eyebrows. All of them were hastily patting at their smoldering clothes.
Two of the men near the center managed to get up in after a while, while two stayed down. Even the two that still moved only took a few unsteady steps before dropping to the ground again.
Will''s allies who saw the display began roaring triumphantly and redoubled their efforts. Those who were too far to glimpse the details of the commotion soon joined in on the battle cries, knowing that whatever happened was something good for their side.
"Oh my," Limul commented. He stared at the fallout of the spell for a moment, then turned his gaze at Will. "How are you still standing?"
"What do you mean?"
"Aren''t you mana-drained after such an expenditure?"
"Oh."
Will felt perfectly normal. Should I be fainting or something?
"A little, perhaps," he chose to say aloud.
"Now, I want to show one of my finishers, too. It could be stupid, but then again it might just work," the dwarf pondered aloud.
"Alright, here goes."
He cast his spell for some fiteen seconds, and the earth suddenly sank under the feet of two enemy combatants, making them lose their balance and become briefly stuck in the ground. They first shouted in fright and then screamed in terror when they got promptly hacked to death by their opponents.
"Nice," Will complimented politely. His Fireball had obviously been much stronger. "Feel like fainting yet?"
"Well, if I had to cast two more of those right now, I might," the dwarf answered.
Their allies started to advance pretty quick after the double shock-and-awe display. The enemy routed soon after, leaving behind three carts of supplies and/or stolen loot. Will didn''t care to inspect them.
"So, do you think I''ve earned a proper wage?"
---
A couple of weeks later, Will the Wizard was a happy owner of two gold coins.
He watched them glint under the moonlight and dreamed. "One day, I''m going to have so many of you I can take a swim in my treasury."
He put the coins back in the inventory when there was a knock on his door.
"Are you awake?"
"Yeah!"
"A special job for you! Pack your stuff!"
"At this time?!"
Will and only Will was sent to fulfill some special request. The scout who had escorted him turned around, taking Will''s now riderless horse with him.
Will sighed and walked through the open gate of the unimpressive palisade in front of him. Inside, there were a handful of wooden buildings. A large stone tower rose in the middle of the slightly cramped space.
"Magister Albrecht will see you immediately," the watchman who''d opened the gate for him spoke.
Will yawned as he slowly climbed up the stairs. It was an hour or two after midnight. The slow and careful night ride from the castle town had only taken some five hours, so the distance was probably under 50 miles.
He was met with a tall, thin, and bespectacled man near the top of the tower. The watchman kept climbing¡ªprobably all the way onto the rooftop.
"Good!" the scholarly man spoke. "You''re in time! I have a little project underway, here. Sadly, I had miscalculated its volatility and ran out of stabilizers."
"Sir? What kind of project?" Will didn''t exactly like the sound of the word ''volatile'' in this context.
"Never mind the details! Your task is easy. You just need to prepare the reagents and prime some solutions."
Well, this is a problem. Will didn''t have any idea about any reagents. He only had his spells. Outside of that, he was Will the welder from Earth.
"Sir, I''m afraid you have got the wrong person for that. I don''t know any alchemy at all."
"What? I specifically asked for an academy graduate!"
"Look, I''m terribly sorry about that, but I had to lie a little to get a job. All I was ever taught is spellcasting!"
"If that is so, we''re screwed. My setup is about to blow up if it isn''t stabilized soon. The whole tower will no doubt collapse and... I''m going to have to put the blame on you."
"Wait, wait, wait! Let me think for a moment."
The bespectacled man raised his eyebrows.
"Oh? Did you suddenly remember your alchemy lessons after all? That would be very good for us both."
"No, but I think I have something else."
Will scrolled through his spells until he came across a 4th level spell listed as "Temporal Stasis, Minor." It was another one of those crappy DLC spells that only had a few forced applications within the DLC campaign, and none outside of it.
In this world, however, spells like it had more potential.
"How much time do we have?"
"Six hours, maybe."
"Good. I need half an hour. Where''s this thing that''s about to go boom?"
The man took him inside a room where a massive magic circle glowed on the floor, and some kind of large and delicate glass construct was suspended in the air right in the middle of it. A clear pink liquid and a deep green, murky liquid were slowly flowing through the twists and turns of the construct.
"This needs to be refilled soon, and I need to be tending to it almost constantly. However, I''m running out of the solutions, and the spellstone hasn''t stabilized yet."
"Alright. Let''s do this." Will took a deep breath and mentally accepted the headache a 4th level spell would inevitably cause.
The man watched curiously as Will begunt o chant and weaved his magic, but left after a minute to fetch some more liquids to pour into his floating device of madness and proceeded to pull on glass valves and rotate some little screws to adjust the flow.
His spell was finally ready after some twenty-five minutes, and Will tried to force the rhythmical beat of his headache out of his mind.
Will didn''t feel like he could afford to speak, so pulled the older mage away from his device with one hand while the other held the trigger-ready spell.
The fact that he could deviate that much without feeling like the spell was about to slip away was perhaps thanks to his Melee Mage feat, which gave some flexibility to his tolerance margins.
He then put his hand right next to his target and released the spell with a few short syllables.
The flow of the liquids inside the floating device froze, and their vivid colors turned into a dull gray.
Will knocked his fingernail on the delicate glass. It feld solid but didn''t ring like glass should.
"It should be pretty much impervious to anything, now, but I wouldn''t try a hammer."
"Remarkable..." the man next to him whispered.
"How come you know temporal magic at such a young age? I''m hundred and ten and I never... quite found the time for it, if you pardon me."
He had round ears, yet he didn''t really look much older than sixty. Given that he was clearly some kind of alchemist wizard, longevity didn''t necessarily go against typical C&M canon.
"I-- My late master taught me a little," Will lied.
"Your spell doesn''t seem like it''s simple," he gazed into Will''s eyes with an intense stare. He felt uneasy to be scrutinized like that.
"Trust me, I can only cast the spell. The theory behind it is beyond my comprehension."
"Now, my head hurts and I''m sleepy," Will changed the topic. "I think I may need to renew the spell in an hour or two. Can you handle the rest for now?"
"Of course, of course." The old man agreed, still looking a little flummoxed.
Chapter 7
"You''re not sending me back?"
"Definitely not! Not yet. I couldn''t sleep at all when I thought of some uses for your temporal trick."
Will grimaced. It was a fourth-level spell, and casting it was a hassle.
"I really should be practicing my combat magic, though," he tried.
"I seem to recall there was someone who was lying about their academy background..."
Will narrowed his eyes.
"I don''t seem to recall hearing about an explosive hazard before you were forced to confess it to me."
"What hazard? I''m an accomplished mage, and I wouldn''t commit such a blunder."
Will stared back quietly, realizing that the man had a point. There was no proof. The tower was still in one piece.
"You did help me," the older man continued. "So it wouldn''t be right if you had to suffer for it. I can pay you one gold per day."
Will tried to resist the urge to raise his eyebrows high.
"Well, it''s not like I need to hurry back right now..."
---
A watchman spied a group of people in the east. He took a quick head count using a rare and expensive pair of binoculars belonging to the tower''s master. A few dozen seconds after the sighting, he had already descended to Magister Albrecht''s floor to report on it.
"Will, get ready. We''re going out," the magister ordered.
"Huh. Why?"
"A small raiding force was spotted; too incompetent to steer clear from us. We''re going out to punish them for their mistake."
"Uhh. What kind of hostiles are we looking at, exactly?"
"It''s just eight men. We have ten at the ready plus us two mages. Just do it like you would with the main garrison."
Will sighed. "Alright."
The group of ten fighters plus ten mages departed the small palisade, leaving behind just a few servants and two watchmen.
The trek through the forest was somewhat arduous. They moved at a quick pace on foot, following narrow paths that only the scout was familiar with.
Finally, the scout leading them raised a hand to signal a halt. Everyone stopped to breathe easily for a while and make sure their armor was secure. Will wore just the chain shirt he had come with, so there was little to do in that regard.
But since he had perhaps a couple of minutes to spare...
Arrow Ward (II) triggered.
He felt the spell settle upon him and immediately began quietly chanting the preparation sequence.
Arrow Ward (II) stored in a spell slot.
In just over a minute, the spell was slotted once more. The preparation time had gone drastically down from the original ten minutes. He didn''t feel like a real 14th-level wizard yet, but he was getting there.
Will had practiced a lot with the spell, and he knew that the protection would last for ten hours with how proficient he was at it, so there was no reason not to buff himself immediately.
Next, he considered Cat''s Agility (II), which would only buff him for some five to six minutes due to how little he had trained it, but he abandoned the thought when Albrecht raised a finger to signal for one minute.
Will didn''t have the spell slotted, and he would likely need three minutes to cast it from scratch.
Well, it''s just a small squad. This should be easy, he thought.
He was still a bit nervous, but with five missions in the fast-response unit, four of which had gone without a hitch, Will was becoming used to fighting, killing, and watching people die gruesomely.
When Albrecht gave the signal, the scout in the lead waved his arm ahead. Their little progression moved forward slowly and quietly, until one of the hostiles spotted them.
The man dressed in a shoddy brown cloak shouted a warning to his own companions, six of whom turned as one to face Albrecht''s men, forming a semicircle around two others in similar brown cloaks.
Three of the six drew out two-handed swords, while the others used a shorter weapon with a shield in the off-hand. This struck Will odd. The hostiles he had encountered used spears and wooden shields. The shields he was looking at were metal-plated.
Albrecht''s men roared battle cries and rushed the enemy as per the simple plan discussed earlier. They wanted to avoid letting too many of the raiders scatter and escape.
Meanwhile, Will took the ten seconds required to cast a Magic Arrow, scoring a guaranteed hit at one of the shieldless fighters.
The man spun around and crouched before the glowing arrow struck, managing to intercept it with his shoulder. When the victim of his spell straightened up again, his expression was stern but contained no hint of fear or pain. Will began to feel really uneasy.
"These raiders could be good," he pointed out to Albrecht, who stood next to him.
The older man didn''t answer as he was in the middle of an incantation of his own.
A long spear of ice flew out, striking one of their enemies down while the five others met with the incoming ten fighters from Will''s side.
"That''s fine. We will take them out one by one," Albrecht finally answered.
The man downed with the icy spear climbed up and dusted ice shrapnel off his chest.
A piece of his damaged cloak came off with the movement and revealed what looked like scale mail. It was a lot fancier than the cheap and simple chest plates Will was used to seeing.
One of the fighters on Will''s side was struck down at the same moment. He screamed as he fell, and he kept screaming also while he writhed on the ground.
Albrecht''s face fell.
"Retreat!" he shouted.
His men obeyed the command and slowly backtracked, but their assailants kept advancing in turn.
"Stop!" One of the two enemies at the back shouted.
The enemy fighters ceased their advance, while the speaker took off his shoddy, hooded cloak, dropping it on the ground.
He turned out to be an old man wearing a fine red tunic under a shiny piece of thin chainmail. His trousers were a slightly darker red, and they also looked new and perfectly well-made.
"Magister Albrecht! Fancy seeing you here!" he spoke in a cheerful voice.
The master of the tower frowned.
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"Mihatake. What are you doing here?"
"Meeting with you, of course! You have made a nuisance of yourself, and our esteemed Duke approved of a removal operation."
Well, shit! Thought Will with a sinking feeling. He started to look around at the terrain while thinking of his escape options.
"Hmph. I don''t think you''re strong enough to kill me, Mihatake."
"Oh, I think I am. Just in case, I also brought a friend to assist me. You''ll be helping us both earn our promotions, hehe!"
The other man at the back had also removed his cloak, revealing a similar, red attire.
"Enough talk. It''s time you two learned your place," Albrecht said and pulled a hand out of his cloak. It was holding on to what looked like a light-blue piece of crystal.
Will recognized the substance from his very first task at the power, although this particular piece was smaller than what the mage had been concocting back then.
Spellstone!
Albrecht crushed the stone. A golden, somewhat translucent bracer appeared around his arm.
"Kill them!" the man named Mihatake screamed, and the enemy fighters advanced again.
Albrecht pointed his arm, and the bracer pulsed with light.
A golden beam struck one of the nearby hostiles in the face. The man''s eyes glazed over and he slumped down.
The bracer, in turn, burst in motes of golden light and disappeared.
The five remaining armored men were promptly accosted by nine defiantly roaring soldiers on Albrecht''s side.
Will decided to cast a Magic Arrow at the well-dressed man who had remained quiet during the trash talk. He hoped he would be the softer target out of the two.
The man was currently waving a short, silvery wand in his right hand, while his left arm was casually extended in front of him, palm up, making it look like he was asking for money.
Just as Will''s spell was about to hit him, a red, glowing sphere detached from the upturned palm in a flash. It intercepted the Magic Arrow, which dissipated in a faint puff of white smoke.
The man glanced briefly in Will''s direction before ignoring him again.
What the hell was that? Will wondered even as he began weaving another spell. A level-two one, for a change.
The unnamed mage finished his own spell. It was some kind of fire spell, and it was shortly sent flying toward Albrecht. A similar spell was flung by Mihatake.
Albrecht crushed another spellstone and was surrounded by a shimmering, blue light shortly before the enemy mages finished their spells. When they hit him, flames licked the magister''s form, but the man remained unharmed under his shielding magics.
The burst of flames looked relatively unpleasant, but it was nothing compared to Will''s 3rd-level Fireball.
The shimmering shield around Albrecht''s form was still clearly active when the last sparks of the fires died out.
The magister was already casting a spell of his own. Shortly, a two-foot-long spear of ice shot forth from his palm, racing toward the same mage Will had chosen to target.
The defensive palm activated again, and the icy spear was intercepted by another red flash.
The old mage wasn''t discouraged, and another spear soon followed, only to be struck down in a similar fashion.
Twenty feet ahead of them, the melee fight went on. Spears and short swords on Will''s side tried to find openings to pry through, but they didn''t seem to accomplish much. Sometimes they scored glancing blows against scale mail, but usually they just banged against a shield or a parrying sword.
Despite facing almost two for each one of their own, the enemy fighters fought defensively with calm efficiency. Sometimes, they managed to sneak a quick hit in, eliciting occasional grunts of pain.
Will finished his spell, and a small bolt of lightning raced forth from his hand. He had practiced the level-two spell a lot since signing his contract with the army, and the casting time had gone down to thirty seconds.
Lightning-fast, it struck the previous mage in the chest, thankfully before his automatic defense could react. The man yelped in pain before grinning ferociously at Will.
"Nice punch!" He shouted, then addressed his partner in a slightly less loud yell over the din of the melee battle. "We can''t ignore the boy!"
Will grimaced. Minor Lightning was by no means a very strong spell, but it was still supposed to be a respectable damage-dealer against targets who were weak to lightning. That didn''t seem to include this mage in red. Or perhaps Will hadn''t mastered the spell sufficiently yet.
The mage started weaving something, and Will was certain it would be meant for him this time. He''d been ignored until now, while Albrecht had been able to shield himself against the bombardment of fire spells by crushing another spellstone.
Fuck it! Will thought. There was no way he would face-tank a fire spell.
Absorb Elements (II) triggered.
Once again, accompanied by a few sparkles, Will felt a protective layer form above himself.
As expected, a small sphere of fire sprung forth from the wand the enemy mage carried. From how they''d been pelting the older mage and ended with just small splashes of fire, Will doubted they were super strong, but they seemed hot and nasty enough to take seriously.
The spell raced quickly toward Will. He tried to sidestep, but the little fireball gently curved to hit him anyway.
It struck him in the side of his chest with so little inertia that Will couldn''t even feel it. He saw a flash of light through his tightly closed eyelids. When he opened his eyes again... he still felt perfectly fine.
Will could sense that the protective spell had weakened a little, but there were at least three quarters of it left before it would fail.
"Hey! The boy has a shield, too!" the caster of the spell shouted out loud, looking surprised. "He''s not an apprentice!"
"Good!" Mihatake responded. "His death will secure our promotions!"
Mihatake''s response was high-spirited, but Will had seen the brief flash of honest hesitation on the man''s face. It was obvious enough that they respected his elemental shield.
"Should we kill him first?"
"No. We''re committed. Albrecht is almost done!"
Will glanced at the old magister, who was sweating visibly. He couldn''t really help him directly, so he turned his attention back to the enemy.
Another fighter had been struck down on his side, and the eight that remained were beginning to have trouble against the enemy. They were slowing down visibly, while their opponents had been conserving their energy right from the start.
Daze (cantrip) triggered.
Will targeted one of the fighters, hoping to distract him fatally. The man''s posture faltered slightly when he was struck, but he recovered instantly and went right back to fighting.
Dammit! They''re probably too high-level. The target clearly hadn''t become dazed for several seconds like he was ideally supposed to.
How about this, then?, Will thought and started to cast again. The level-one spell took twenty seconds to launch due to the fact he hadn''t trained a lot in it yet.
A brief flash of deep shadow heralded the activation of the necromancy spell called Frighten. It engulfed the target for just a fraction of a second.
The hostile fighter stepped back from the line. His companions were taken aback by his behavior and shouted demands at him. The man hesitated a few seconds before joining the fight again.
One of his allies got speared in the face due to the disturbance. However, he didn''t go down but simply kept fighting on while blood flowed out of the gruesome wound.
Will was already casting another spell even as he observed the effect of Frighten. It had been something, but not quite what he had hoped for. His lack of training with the spell was the likely problem.
Eventually, another lightning bolt raced forth past the warrior-types, striking Mihatake, who yelled in surprise and pain. The enemy mage had been moving his hands and mouthing something again, and Will hoped he had managed to ruin whatever spell he''d been shaping.
"Fuck!" Mihatake cursed loudly after recovering from the brief shock. "Boy! You''d better start running already!"
"Me? Run?" Will talked back. "Why would I do that?" he asked, the puzzlement in his voice mostly genuine. He was beginning to feel like the two mages weren''t too big of a threat after all.
Now, what else do I have? Will wondered. He remained reluctant to reveal his flashy emergency spells.
His spell slots were still nearly full up to the fourth level. None of those held the stasis spell he had already revealed. It would be useless anyway, given how the spell only affected lifeless objects and had to be cast right next to them.
Maybe that silly dagger spell? he decided and concentrated on casting again for some twenty plus seconds.
A small floating dagger appeared as far from Will as he was able to summon it, which was right behind the backs of the enemy warriors. It was a level-one spell called Horokainen''s Dirk. It''s notable feature was how shitty most players thought it was, as it never seemed to strike true.
The dagger headed for the unnamed enemy mage.
"What is that?" the man spoke, and his eyes were glued to the apparition.
The short, little knife stopped a few feet from him, floating at eye level. It performed a little feint toward the left before diving toward the mage''s extended wrist. It wasn''t particularly fast, and the man avoided the slash easily by taking a step back.
He then hit the dagger with his wand, which sent it flying into the ground a dozen feet away.
"What a pathetic display!"
The one good thing going for the dagger was the fact that it was autonomous. Will could do what he wanted while the dagger acted on its own until it got unsummoned, which should be pretty soon.
When the dagger flew back up from the shrubs and bushes, it threatened to strike the man again. Simultaneously, the Magic Arrow Will had just finished casting flashed forth, and the mage was forced to react.
He deflected the arrow with the usual red shielding trick. Meanwhile, the clumsily floating dagger accelerated forth, sinking into the man''s side before withdrawing again.
Just a couple of inches of the blade had turned red with blood.
This time, his defensive magic responded to it, and a red flash from his upturned palm blasted the floating weapon into smithereens before it could make another clumsy attempt at him.
The stabbing victim hissed in pain and fumbled for his belt, pulling out a potion bottle.
He removed the stopper out with his teeth and took a little sip of the red liquid using the side of his mouth that wasn''t occupied by a stopper.
When Will released his next Magic Arrow two seconds later, the defense responded once again in time, and the arrow accomplished seemingly nothing.
Will hoped that the defensive spell drained some finite resource from its user. Otherwise, Albrecht wouldn''t be stubbornly flinging those ice spears of his even when they kept getting similarly intercepted.
At this point, a gruff shout rang out from Will''s side.
"You''ve forced my hand!"
Chapter 8
Albrecht pulled out another spellstone and promptly crushed it. This one was noticeably bigger than the last two had been. It was probably the one he had produced with Will''s assistance.
"Spellstone! Big one!" The unnamed enemy mage shouted. Mihatake abandoned his current spell and put both hands out, palms up, just like the other mage did.
Albrecht''s eyes started to glow in blue, and his robes started to flap in a rapidly descending air current that was centered on him.
"That''s..." Mihatake began. "Stop him!" he barked a command as his own hands started to move again.
The other mage obeyed within a slight delay, while both of them weaved some spell.
Will chose to cast another Magic Arrow, seeing as the opponent''s guard was down. The glowing projectile soon raced forth, and while Mihatake saw it, he could only twist his body and step aside in an attempt to avoid it.
It wasn''t enough. Accuracy was the best thing about Magic Arrow. Fully dodging it seemed to be nigh impossible given how the spell simply corrected its course like a guided missile.
The arrow struck his upper arm. The wounded man''s face twisted, but his spellcasting didn''t pause even when one arm now did its task much more slowly and clumsily.
In the end, Will didn''t manage to stop the spell that was building up.
Mihatake flung out his spell, and a large fire engulfed Albrecht. The next second, the other mage whisked forth another large sphere of fire, adding more flame to the pyre that the man next to Will had become.
The flames died out in just a few seconds, revealing a man with some serious burns. Albrecht''s originally yellow robes had blackened and turned into smoldering, hole-ridden patchwork.
The shimmer of his previous shield had disappeared, although it must have born the brunt of the flames, or the man doubtlessly couldn''t remain standing upright.
Suddenly, a strong draft of wind hit Will''s back, forcing him to put one foot forward to keep his balance. The soldiers in front of him were affected even more. Two of the enemy fighters were pushed down, while a few on Will''s side fell on top of them.
The unnamed mage had thrown himself on the ground and grabbed at a root in order not to be blown away.
The most unfortunate one was Mihatake, who was immediately lifted off by the violent wind and thrown high up in the air. He flew into the nearby forest on a high trajectory that must have reached some four hundred feet.
Albrecht clumsily pulled out a red potion from his robes and downed it at once.
"He might not die," he spoke after gulping the liquid down. "We need to push our advantage," he explained weakly.
Will nodded and stepped in front of the older man. His own energy shield was still good to go. He was soon rewarded for his bravery by a little fireball to his face, but it was still fine.
He was barely halfway through casting the next Minor Lightning, when the old man stepped forth again, with a new shimmering shield around him.
Another icy spear shot forth momentarily. It looked somewhat smaller than the previous ones, but it was still clearly a threat. It got intercepted by the defensive spell as usual.
Will got hit by one more fire spell before he finished his own. A line of brilliant lightning flashed briefly, and he was rewarded by a pained expression immediately appearing on his target''s face.
The foreigner''s defensive spell was helpless against Will''s lightning magic, but the damage it dealt just wasn''t what it should have been, given how the man remained functional.
With a grimace, the fire mage, who now faced two opponents, pulled out a small spellstone of his own, crushing it immediately. A shimmering shield sprung up around his body as well.
He had pocketed his wand and switched to two-handed casting. Will felt his own protective spell draining even further when his opponent decided to target him again. Perhaps the newly activated shield on Albrecht dissuaded him from focusing on the older mage.
Will wasn''t too worried. His opponent had no idea how decent Absorb Elements was, as there was still some forty percent remaining in it. It would go down pretty soon, but Will should easily have the time to recast it.
A minute and three of those shitty local fireballs later, Will''s shield was finally on its last legs. He simply dismissed what remained of it with a thought even as he finished the new trigger sequence.
A few sparkles here and there around Will heralded the refreshed absorption spell, which was otherwise invisible.
He began to smirk at the enemy but felt his expression twist into something less confident when two more fighters on their side were struck down almost at the same time. Even with their superior numbers, they had only managed to take out two opponents on their own.
It was now five fighters on their side versus three on the enemy side.
Will ignored the mage for now. He absolutely couldn''t afford to have those scary fighters overwhelm his own bodyguards.
He cast for a minute again before a blood-red ray was released from his finger that pointed at one of the enemy fighters. The man was visibly taken aback with what he was seeing and feeling.
It was a level-one necromancy spell by the name of Sap Strength. What it did was simply lower the victim''s physical strength for a short while.
"Press him! He''s weakened!" Will shouted out, and the two men closest to the target obeyed and started to dish out punishment.
However, the other three soldiers on Will''s side were thoroughly shafted. Even though they only had two opponents, they were too exhausted to make anything happen.
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By the time the two men overwhelmed and stabbed their weakened opponent to death, another man on their side got a sword through his neck.
The melee had become four against two.
Will was occupied with another compulsory casting of Absorb Elements in order to keep dealing with the constant fire spells.
An ice spear from Albrecht finally cracked the blue shield around the hostile mage, who immediately switched back to casting his little fireballs with just one hand.
A pyrrhic victory was tentatively in sight.
But then the missing mage came back.
Mihatake rushed out of the nearby thicket and immediately started casting spells, even as he was still making his way back to his original position.
His clothes were muddied and broken in places, but he was surrounded by a shimmering blue shield of his own. He didn''t look wounded at all.
Given how the hit Will had previously scored on his arm didn''t seem to affect his casting at all, he must have drunk a healing potion.
Mihatake whisked a fireball at Albrecht, whose new shield didn''t waver.
"You certainly put up a fight, but it''s time to end it."
"He''s got a new shield!" the other mage warned. "We should take the boy out first!"
Mihatake glanced at his two remaining fighters and shook his head.
"No. We must end this now," Mihatake said and pulled out a big spellstone¡ªalmost as big as the one Albrecht had used on him.
"Congratulations for pushing me so far, Albrecht," he said. "Our promotions are racking up quite the cost."
With that, he crushed the stone, and Albrecht was instantly encased in an obsidian-like, black crystal that materialized from thin air.
Will watched the newest development with his mouth open.
A head went flying when a two-handed sword punished a soldier who had become distracted.
The three remaining fighters broke. They turned their backs to their foes. It turned out to be a foolish decision, given how they were too exhausted to run. Two were struck down immediately by a sword and a warhammer, while the third was boiled in his armor by a small fireball.
"Fuck this shit," Will spoke to himself as he watched the situation go fubar.
Minor Spell Immunity (IV) triggered.
Minor Physical Immunity (IV) triggered.
He felt a little lightheaded after casting two level-four spells in a row.
Fireball (III) triggered.
When he threw the glowing ember in between the enemy mages, Will almost stumbled when his vision briefly swam.
"So this is what Limul was talking about," he murmured. Three relatively high-level spells within three seconds was apparently pushing it.
The ember landed, and a proper Fireball bloomed to its full size. The conflagaration almost reached Will himself. It engulfed both of the mages and also hit the two warriors, but the latter were clearly off the epicenter, so they wouldn''t be fried too deeply.
Will summoned his stolen quarterstaff from the inventory even as his head was quickly returning to feeling normal.
Primitive Power (II) triggered.
Good.
He had taken a brief break as he watched his Fireball go boom. Triggering the 2nd-level spell was as easy as lifting a finger.
His body immediately grew stronger due to the spell''s effect.
The fire had receded, revealing two fearful mages and two screaming fighters. While nobody had instantly died, the shimmering shields on the mages were gone, and the fighters clearly hadn''t escaped unscathed, either.
Will walked toward the closest fighter who was running in his direction. The large man was certainly a respectable opponent, given how he was visibly in pain but knew to prioritize taking out Will.
Normally, Will would have no doubt felt timid at seeing him approach with a raised, two-handed sword, but he had tested Minor Physical Immunity previously, and he knew it was pretty damn strong despite the moniker ''Minor'' in its name.
The big sword came down, but the man wielding it was too close to his last legs. His movements were sluggish. Will dodged the slash easily with his buffed dexterity and brought one end of his quarterstaff up. It connected with the other man''s unarmored chin with a crunch, benefiting from Will''s buffed strength.
Will sidestepped the falling man and continued forward with swift stides, knowing that his protections would only last for a short while.
Two spellstones were crushed by the foreign mages, and relatively powerful fire spells pelted Will''s form.
Minor Spell Immunity reigned absolute against their puny fires. Will slowed down his pace only because his eyes were briefly filled with billowing flames. When he could see again, he ran ahead.
He did a quick juke around the remaining warrior, who was a bit too slow to keep up. Will felt his careless approach punished with a strike from the man''s warhammer, but the hit felt like nothing more than a vibration on his skin. All of its force had been drained away by his spell.
He reached Mihatake, who was standing still in shock. Will took a quick swing.
The mage managed to step back to dodge the staff but fell down on his butt. Will moved past him to accost the other mage, who was still up on his feet and whom Will deemed the weaker spellcaster.
Wisely, the mage turned around to run.
Acid Arrow (II) triggered.
Sadly for him, it was far too late to run.
Will saw the green arrow connect with the man''s back and heard him scream. Assuming that he was a goner, Will turned around to face Mihatake again. Will had already seen what the acid did to wooden planks. Human flesh should melt even faster.
Another meaningless splash of fire greeted him, and Will raised his staff even before his vision cleared again. When it did, he brought it down on the mage again and again.
While putting Mihatake down, Will felt vibrations on his back. He ignored them until he couldn''t. The last fighter shoulder-checked him using the mass of his whole body, and the protective spell just couldn''t help against that.
Will realized he wouldn''t be able to regain his balance, so he chose to fall into a graceful roll. When he felt the ground again under his soles, he jumped right back up on his feet and turned around.
He saw two soldiers running away in different directions.
Will cursed silently. He had loaded his spell slots while thinking almost exclusively about escape and survival, so even these tired foes were giving him a serious run for his money.
Swift Retreat (I) triggered.
Well, he''d just have to catch them, didn''t he? Despite the biased name of the spell, it simply allowed him to run faster. He could pursue just as well as retreat.
Will ran after his previous assailant, who seemed to be a little faster than the one he''d hit in the chin.
Flaming Hands (I) triggered.
The man died screaming, and Will turned around. Sadly, he felt that his protections only had several seconds'' worth of juice left, while the other warrior had run pretty far already.
Fuck it! I''m not gonna risk my hide in the slightest!
Minor Teleport (IV) triggered.
Will appeared right in front of the other running soldier and surprised him with another blow in the face.
It was a complete overkill to spend the precious fourth-level spell like that, but he could still fly away while invisible if he must, so it wasn''t necessary to preserve the redundant escape measure.
Will kicked the downed man''s helmet off, then raised his staff high into the air to drive a crushing blow into the man''s skull.
While the retreat spell was up, he hurried to both of the downed mages to repeat the blunt treatment just to be sure they weren''t getting up again.
That left the master of the tower within his crystal prison. Will didn''t know whether it was a survivable spell or not.
As he watched the chaotic scene, he took a moment to think.
Finally, he pulled two of the friendly fighters'' corpses next to the mages and proceeded to give them some burns with a fire cantrip.
He picked up a sword to give the mages a few gruesome slashes here and there before sitting down next to the obsidian block.
Would his efforts pass closer inspection? Not at all. But there was no way anyone could guess how things actually panned out, even if they went full CSI on him.
They would have to settle on some less outlandish explanation.
The crystal cocoon spell ended after a ten-minute wait, and it turned out that the old man still lived.
"Wha-- What''s going on?!"
"It''s pretty bad, as you can see," Will replied tersely.
"We won? How?!"
"You had some good men. I had to spend my sole life-saving spellstone to help them. And then... it was a messy fight, but I was able to avenge them."
Chapter 9
Will murmured something quietly while holding on to a looted piece of chainmail.
Identify (I) triggered.
A tooltip window appeared.
Chainmail Vest +0.7
Grants lightning damage reduction 4
Grants fire damage reduction 4
Grants cold damage reduction 3
Durability 63/66
Interesting... The flat damage reduction explained why Will''s 2nd-level lightning spell hadn''t accomplished much. It would cut a lot of the spell''s power, which wasn''t particularly high to begin with due to his lack of familiarity with the spell.
Identify (I) triggered.
Another murmur made another tooltip visible.
Chainmail Vest +0.4
Grants lightning damage reduction 2
Grants fire damage reduction 3
Grants cold damage reduction 0
Durability 42/48
The latter item had a big hole in its back, melted off by Will''s acid arrow. The items were of an identical make, and Will assumed they had had the same stats to begin with.
Several corroded links remained in place, but they crumbled under a light knock with a dagger handle. Removing them did nothing to the numeric values given by his interface.
Mihatake''s vest, on the other hand, remained fully intact, with just a few bent links in a couple of spots, presumably from some prior encounter.
"I want the better vest," Will spoke out loud.
He was back at the top of the magister''s tower, where all of the loot from the mages had been brought. Will had checked the obvious pockets on the corpses but found only a few silver coins previously. The remaining four red potions on them, plus a few little purses filled with gold coins, had been hidden more cleverly.
"Good. Take it. I have to thank you for my life, after all."
"I merely fought to survive. Had the soldiers not made the ultimate sacrifice, I wouldn''t be here." The lie flowed easily from his lips.
"It''s a bit too shiny. You should wear it under a jacket or something... And remember, you never acquired it here!"
"Got it," Will promised. "Well, then. I think I''ll be departing now."
"Of course! I''ll come down with you to get the horse."
For some reason, the old mage no longer insisted on having him around to assist him. Perhaps it was because Albrecht suspected Will of something, or perhaps it was for a legal or reputational reason. Both explanations were fine by Will.
He was certain that the potions would not appear on any final report. For him, however, the magic item was sufficient payout.
"Ride it for one hour, then let it run back on its own! If the officer stops you, tell him you were dismissed this morning," Albrecht spoke to him for the final time.
Some remote communications had been conducted by a bird, a spell, or both. Apparently, an army officer was on his way to receive a full report on the loss of ten men.
"Got it." Will would claim he never even saw the fight.
A few armored men rode past him an hour later, but they barely even acknowledged Will, who gawked at them with wide eyes while hiding his fine clothes under a cheap traveler''s cloak.
When they disappeared down the road, Will took the time to cast Elemental Steed. It was a fourth-level spell, but the headache it induced wasn''t too bad.
Will supposed his constant practice with the stasis spell for the last several days hadn''t been a complete waste of time.
A mule-sized, four-legged creature climbed up from the roadside mud. It was clearly some kind of earth elemental. Will didn''t care much about getting his clothes dirty, so he hopped gladly on it and willed it to start moving.
The heavy-set, mud-dripping monstrosity accelerated to a surprisingly fast trot.
---
Will was back at the castle town, within the castle barracks, and out in the training yard.
He wielded a short wooden sword and a dagger. The blade of the latter had been blunted with some leather strips that were wrapped tightly around it.
"Get him, Flemont! Teach the mage some pain!"
"Boy! I have faith in you! Try to persist for a minute!"
Soldiers were cheering for either side based on the bets they had placed.
It was just a standard Saturday evening contest the garrison always held. Men who weren''t on duty on Sunday would soon go out drinking, and this was the final, non-worklike hour of work for them.
Will hadn''t selected a new feat yet, but he had gone through his previous ones again and thought about one description in particular.
Wizard''s Weapon Proficiency (Class)
The wizard is more alert when fighting with a club, dagger, or quarterstaff.
The feat wasn''t like it used to be. He hadn''t suddenly become trained in daggers the way he had suddenly become a wizard. Instead, it was simply a more suitable weapon for him compared to most others.
Furthermore, the alertness persisted even when he moved the dagger to his left hand and used another weapon with his right.
Everyone knew that dual-wielding was often broken in old games. When there was no competitive multiplayer scene where things needed to be in balance, developers simply didn''t care about fixing those issues.
Will didn''t know if his new reality counted as an old game in that sense, but with the wording of his feat, it was worth finding out.
"Fight!" The sergeant next to the ring bellowed, and Will felt a rush of fear and excitement when he moved into the ring.
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The fighter he faced was wider and stronger than him, but Will was considerably more nimble.
He dodged the first attempt to hit him and parried the next with his wooden sword. By now, he had learned to tilt it so that his opponent''s sword was deflected gently instead of meeting its full force in a hard block.
The fighter was now overextended slightly, and Will tried to capitalize on the opening with a quick but clumsy stab with his left hand. The more experienced man had a read on his intentions and dodged the weapon easily.
Will, on the other hand, did not know to expect the leg sweep accompanying the effortless dodge. Luckily, he noticed it in time and jumped back. With that, the fleeting moment where he''d held the advantage was over, and the other combatant started to press him relentlessly.
The pain followed soon after. A wooden sword hit his forearm. A wooden shield bashed his side. A ringing hit on his cheap helmet. A hit catching the hilt of his dagger and his fingers around it. His hand was numbed by the hit, and his fingers went limp. The dagger hit the sand a moment later.
The last bit was finally too much. The moment he lost the weapon, he felt a little less focused.
"I yield!"
He had to be holding the weapon for the Proficiency Feat to work. The alertness he gained from it was very real and beneficial. Training without it was a waste of his time.
"Come on! Ten more seconds!" someone yelled in disappointment.
Will uncorked a potion bottle and took a little sip.
It was a waste in a monetary sense, but psychologically it was great. When you knew you could be instantly fixed up later, your outlook on pain changed a lot.
Besides, Will had always believed in making money to spend it.
He waited for a moment until feeling returned to his fingers, then picked out a silver coin from his pocket.
"Who''s got the time to spar with me? Saturday night bonus!"
Five volunteers emerged immediately, and Will picked the one he liked the most for his calm and dispassionate attitude toward training. Some of the others cussed out loudly for missing out on the generous pay yet again.
"Are you going to use two weapons again?" the young man asked.
"Nah. I''m going back to the staff. Dual-wielding is just a project for the future."
The staff could actually save his life any of these days, so he had the good sense to prioritize it.
They started the next practice session, and Will felt some of the alertness returning. It wasn''t as intense as it had been during the contest, but at least it was tangible.
The feat effect was at its worst when he practiced alone. He had to really spin his imagination to see an enemy with his mind''s eye to get a little response from the feat.
With a partner, however, he felt so awake that the hard practice was almost fun.
After an hour more, he was drenched in sweat and called it a day.
Will lay in the sand until he got the chills, thanks to his wet clothes and the rapidly cooling night. At that point, he got up and cast his cleaning cantrip on himself. The sand still sticking to his training clothes was immediately blown off along with a mist of sweat.
He proceeded back to his own room, in the privacy of which he repeatedly performed a minor illusion cantrip.
A glowing, illusory spellstone appeared in his hand. When Will closed his fist, it flashed brightly before crumbling down into fading fragments.
The point of the trick was obvious: to give an acceptable excuse for his spell-slot-based, fast casting.
It had been simple enough to hone the cantrip preparation time down to three seconds, but Will needed it to be much faster. If he was in dire straits, fractions of a second mattered, and he could easily be forced to give up any pretenses.
Thus, he kept practicing, cutting the somatic and verbal components down as much as he could, until he got a small headache from the major challenge that the puny cantrip had turned into.
He knew he had to continue later, but it was time to take a break.
As he exited his stony little chamber within the castle to go for a brief walk outside, Will ran into Limul.
"Hey, did you hear about the mission yet?"
"A mission? Now?!" It was getting late, and Will was pretty tired already.
"No, in two weeks."
"Oh." Will was relieved. "Wait, that doesn''t sound like a fast response job."
"It''s not. It''s a raid. Elite soldiers only. And several mages."
---
Two weeks passed, and Will was taking part in a special mission.
He, fifteen fighters, and six other mages had crossed the border yesterday. Today, the large party had reached the edge of some grand mage''s territory.
"What''s that thing in the air?" Will asked, peering ahead.
They had been riding along a minor forest road¡ªlittle more than a narrow path with a hard groove on each side, where the wheels of passing carts had been digging into the soil over the years, compacting it.
Ahead of them, the air fluctuated like it sometimes did above a hot road on a sunny day, except this fluctuation reached far higher.
"That''s In-gwi''s wall. It''s just an intimidation tactic. We''ll be walking right through it, and you''ll see that it doesn''t do anything," their somewhat elderly leader assured Will.
"People say that Grand Mage In-gwi knows everything that happens within his wall," another mage commented.
The leader, High Mage Holmstr?m, nodded at the words. "A well-known rumor, but I wouldn''t give it much credit."
"I don''t like it," Will declared.
He hadn''t concentrated on PvP in ASA, but he''d played a couple of short four versus four matches and watched recordings of some fifty more.
One thing that was clear about the game mode was the importance of divination spells. You either had a reasonably good idea of where your enemy was, or you lost the match.
"Sir, could we take a break here?" he suggested. "I want to prepare before I cross that."
"Hmph. I doubt there''s anything you can do."
"No. I have a certain spell..."
"Very well. We''ll take the fifteen-minute break earlier than planned."
The other people let their horses sample the grass on the roadside and took out something to eat for themselves, while Will immediately began casting Resist Scrying.
It was his first attempt at the third-level spell, and he was happy to finish it in just nine minutes. The spell successfully took shape, and Will chose to cast it on himself.
Since there was some more time left, Will cast it once more¡ªthis time on the High Mage. The man in question glared at Will, who was still mouthing arcane syllables when the he was already motioning for everyone to get moving again.
"Calm your nerves yet, boy?" He asked when Will was finally done. It seemed like the High Mage didn''t notice the spell being cast upon him at all. Will had felt nothing either.
"Yes, boss. I''m a little less worried now."
They crossed the barrier, and as Holmstr?m had promised, he felt nothing.
After an hour, the party skirted around a large village and got on a larger road, where they set up their trap: the trunks of two trees were hacked almost fully through with axes. They remained upright only with the support of some ropes that were tied to them.
"The shipment should arrive in just a couple hours," Holmstr?m told them after they''d had another quick meal.
After a long wait, a caravan of several carts appeared on the road.
"Get ready..."
When the progression reached the point of ambush, ropes were cut, and a tree fell across the road right in front of the first cart. Another tree fell a moment later, a few dozen yards behind the last cart, cutting the retreat path.
A fight began immediately.
Will cast his trusty Magic Arrow repeatedly. He hadn''t practiced on the first-level spell lately, but he noted that his casting time from preparation until the trigger sequence had gone down from ten seconds to perhaps nine and a half. He was simply getting better at magic in general.
The power level of the spell remained pretty low, and Will knew it still had more potential to realize if his displayed class level of 14 was any indicator.
The enemies soon gave up and escaped into the forest where they could. Will''s people looted the valuables and torched the rest.
It seemed like a successful mission, and the raiding party started to head back home.
---
In a tall, tall tower at the center of a nearby town, an ancient man perked up.
"Grand Mage," a voice spoke in his ear. "An emergency signal from a caravan on the Wolf Road. Three apprentice mages and ten spellstones are unaccounted for."
Thick, white eyebrows scrunched up into a frown. The loss wasn''t big, but the fact that it had happened was a problem.
"Within my borders?"
The old man got up from his chair in one, surprisingly spry movement and walked one flight of stairs down into a wide chamber that occupied the whole segment of the tower.
In the middle, there was a nebulous mist that looked like some kind of slowly shifting star chart.
"Hmm. Those five could be new spell signatures," he murmured after observing the floating dots for a while. "Middling ones at best."
Wrinkled fingers spun something invisible in the air for half a minute, until the Grand Mage spoke again.
"Chinita, gather a suitable force. There are five hostile mages near Wolfmoor, presumably on their way back to the West."
"So many! Any other forces?"
"Obviously!"
"Ah. Yes, sir. I''ll just assume the worst. I need Oki''s men. And the village guard, even if they aren''t much."
"You shall have them. Also, take an emerald spellstone, just in case."
"I hope I won''t be needing it."
"So do I, girl. But the raiders must die. This is my domain!"
Chapter 10
The night was beginning to fall when Will''s party once again approached the village on their way back.
Just like previously, they took off the road and traversed some narrow paths in order to avoid the locals until they got on the minor road that led to the border.
However, when they reached the clearing where they had taken a brief break previously, the road was blocked.
Ten footmen and twenty riders stood in formation. Behind them, seven people clad in fine clothes sat on tall horses.
Protection from Arrows (II) triggered.
Absorb Elements (II) triggered.
The reception didn''t look friendly, and Will decided not to take any chances.
"It''s brave of you to venture so deep into our territory!" A woman''s mocking voice rang out.
"Torches out!" Holmstr?m roared, and the soldiers obeyed.
With the lights out, it became possible to see further ahead in the darkness than just the area around the torches. Or, at least for Will it did. The others likely couldn''t adjust so well unless they also happened to be half-elves. Or dwarves.
"Who are you?" Holmstr?m demanded.
"My name is of no concern to the likes of you, but you may call me Firebird."
Will was nervous, but he also felt like giggling. He could see that the woman was fairly pretty and had her nose high up in the air. She wore what looked like a red dress in the faint moonlight.
"The name suits her," he commented to Limul, who had stopped his horse right next to him. The dwarf glanced at him but didn''t reply.
"Whoever you are, you can move aside or die," Holmstr?m shouted back.
"How generous! Personally, I can only offer you death. Men, advance!"
The footmen on the opposing side readied their spears and looked around uncertainly. Someone inched forward a bit, but stopped and backtracked when nobody else had moved.
"Move it!!!" A rough male voice roared within the enemy lines.
A rider on the other side moved up to the front and proceeded to slap a footman on the back with his long lance.
The man yelped but took a few steps forward. The others followed gingerly.
"Don''t let their riders circle around us!" Holmst?rm shouted.
"As you command!" the captain assigned under him answered before barking orders to his men.
Several men got off their horses and quickly started to form a line. Some stayed on horseback and close to the friendly mages.
Will promptly started to cast the Cat''s Eye spell.
While he could see pretty well in the relatively dark night, and Limul could do so even better, the numerous humans around them would be half-blind.
When the spell was complete, Will had positioned his horse so that the spell effect caught Limul and two of the other mages. A couple of riders who hadn''t dismounted fell within the range as well.
"Whoa!" Limul interjected. "Was that you?" he asked, looking at Will.
"Yeah."
"It''s nearly as bright as the day..."
The effect probably wasn''t as exaggerated for the others, but they needed it even more.
Will moved to the High Mage and the remaining two mages and took another minute to repeat his level-one utility spell.
By now, the battle was in full swing, with men from both sides meeting in the middle on foot.
A rider on the other side was observing the melee from a short distance back, so Will decided to take aim at his horse.
After a few seconds, a glowing arrow sped forth, striking the horse in the chest. It whinnied and ran off, taking the rider along.
Will spied another similar target on the other side of the road and repeated his trick. This time, the Magic Arrow struck it on the flank, and the horse threw its rider on the ground before running off.
The small fire spells from the other side had been going for their fighters, but a few moments after Will''s trickery, three larger ones bloomed at once and headed for him.
He abandoned his next Magic Arrow and kicked his horse to move. The animal didn''t react quickly enough.
One of the fireballs missed Will, but he wasn''t able to avoid two of them fully. One of them hit him in the chest while the other one exploded right above him.
The resulting flames weren''t too large. They were readily absorbed by Will''s protective spell, but his horse took absolute umbrage when it felt searing heat right above its back.
Will was thrown off, and the horse ran back into the forest.
Shit! I should have cast a protection for the horse, too, he thought while spinning around nimbly to land on his two feet.
"Boy! You''re still alive?" Holmstr?m yelled.
"I''m fine. My shield absorbed the attacks."
"You can shield?! No, that''s beside the point. To think that they could hit you all the way here... These guys are good!"
Will didn''t respond but started to refill a second-level slot with another Absorb Elements spell in case his current one got taken down.
That accomplished, he ran to Limul and took nearly another minute to cast the same spell on him as well.
"What did you do this time?" Limul asked when Will touched his shoulder. Sparks danced around the dwarf briefly.
"A shield against elemental energy," Will explained briefly. Limul simply stared back at him. "You should consider getting off your horse. I think their mages can reach here easily," Will added.
The dwarf remained on horseback. Will realized he was likely too short to see what was going on if he didn''t stay up.
Will ran a little closer to the front. He had a spell he had been training specifically with the mages of this country in mind.
He wasn''t good at it, so it took twenty seconds to prepare, but finally the Minor Acid Splash was ready. Will slowly walked closer, careful not to let the spell fizzle out.
He chose a mage he felt was within range. When a crossbow bolt hit Will''s arrow shield (it felt like a finger jab on his chest), he decided it was high time to finally cast the spell.
His chosen target had his left palm up, just like the previous mages Will had faced. A red flash sprung forth to intercept the approaching green orb, but it was only partially annihilated.
A sizable splash of acid reached the man, hitting him in the chest and neck. A few drops even reached his face.
The victim screamed and went fumbling for a potion bottle.
Will ran back in a zigzag line before the six other mages retaliated or more crossbowmen chipped away at his arrow protection, which had limited durability.
"What did you do?" Holmstr?m demanded when Will had got back near the other mages'' position again.
"I threw some acid at one of them."
"Remarkable," the High Mage complimented. "What else can you do?"
"I have a wide-area fire spell that could probably get all of them, but I need three minutes to cast it."
"Three minutes?! What the hell? No... If it takes so long, it must be powerful, right?"
"Damn right."
"Do it! I''ll get you a promotion if you kill a single one of their mages."
Will was sold.
"I''ll get to it right away!"
Will backed off behind the other mages and started going through the long motions of the preparation phase for Fireball.
The other mages pelted the enemy fighters with very small spells, while the enemy mages pelted Holmstr?m''s fighters with slightly bigger spells. Occasionally, a hostile mage cast a bigger spell at a mage on Will''s side, forcing some potions to be used, while Holmstr?m face-tanked the fires without a care.
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Finally, Will''s spell was ready. The glowing ember seed shot forth from his hand, landing in the middle of the enemy mages.
With a loud whoomp, the fireball expanded.
People screamed. Horses screamed.
The fires started to fade, and Will realized he had misjudged this 3D world.
The fireball had exploded at ground level, while all of the other mages had stayed on horseback. Their mounts had ended up absorbing most of the fire from the spell.
The horses had died or thrown off their burdens and run off with their coats ablaze. Two mages were still standing when the flames disappeared. Four people were sitting or kneeling on the ground. All six of them were surrounded by glowing, blue shields.
"Damn," Holmstr?m murmured.
"Is that enough for a promotion?" Will asked. "I''m not sure anyone died."
"Sure, but we are in trouble." Holmstr?m answered. "They''ve all got spell shields."
"Do we not?"
"You and me only. The rest don''t have much. I doubt they can even afford spellstones."
"Oh. Well, I''d best start casting my shield on the others, then," Will surmised.
"You... How?! Never mind. Just do it! Please!"
Will got to work, but chaos ensued in just half a minute when the enemy mages began to recover from the shock and pain of Will''s Fireball with the help of their potions.
Will had just cast an Absorb Elements on one of the mages when another became the victim of a barrage.
Five somewhat decently sized fireballs came blazing at a mage who stood next to Holmstr?m. The man had the sense to react to it, but the spells were too fast. By the time he got off his horse, he was already a screaming human torch.
The magical flames burned quickly, and the screams died just as soon. The mage didn''t get up from where he had fallen.
"I''m going all out!" Holmstr?m shouted and took out a spellstone.
His eyes started to glow just like Albrecht''s had, but what followed was different.
A lightning extended from his hand at one of the enemies. It overwhelmed the shield, and the man fell to the ground, screaming. From how the screams continued intermittently even when another mage began tending to him, it didn''t seem like Holmstr?m''s target had died.
That didn''t stump the High Mage. Another crushed spellstone later, a massive water bullet struck another target.
This time, the target stayed down. If the mage wasn''t dead, he was at least knocked out.
"It''s got to be him!" A woman screamed. It was the one who had called herself Firebird. "Get him!"
Ten seconds later, three of those semi-decent fireballs blazed across the field toward Holmstr?m.
The mage swatted one of them aside, while two collided with his leg and a shoulder. His horse chose to throw the man off at that point. Will could see something blue glowing around his form when he sailed across the air and landed on his back.
The old man got quickly back up on his two feet. Clearly, he remained mostly untouched by the kerfuffle.
Will started shielding yet another mage, although he was beginning to wonder if it was the best use of his time.
Still, watching your allies die was demoralizing. Not just for him, but others, too. Besides, the lesser mages could harass the enemy longer if Will helped them stay alive.
"Hey, this is pretty bad, don''t you think?" the woman commented fearfully. Will couldn''t answer when he was busy mouthing his spell.
Thankfully, she kept casting her small ice spears instead of running or panicking uselessly.
"Done. It only shields you from elemental damage, and it doesn''t cover your horse," Will told the woman.
He started to jog off but stopped to say a final thing. "Don''t worry too much. I have a big spellstone on me. The show is only starting!"
After casting a final Absorb Elements, Will repeated the same words to the last mage on their side before walking back to Holmstr?m''s side.
He took ten seconds to cast the much easier level-one Arcane Shield on himself and moved right next to the man who was still being pelted with mid-sized spells.
The next incoming spell hit Will''s Shield some two feet away from them. Some of the fire splattered harmlessly past the two men, while the majority still went through the shield that was only semi-tangible.
"I got an additional shield that can cover us for a while," he explained. "I came here to discuss reimbursement."
"What?! What are you talking about?"
"See, I have a big spellstone on me. There''s a dispelling spell on it."
"Hmm. What can it dispel?"
"I was thinking I could try it on those shields of theirs."
"Really?" The old man''s expression brightened.
"Now, if it doesn''t work, fine. My loss. But if it does dispel them... What can I get for my contribution?"
"Just do it! I''ll handle the cost!"
"Good!" The simple promise was plenty enough for Will, given how he wasn''t really spending anything but a slotted level-three spell.
Will put his hand inside his pocket and withdrew it with a massive spellstone seemingly sitting in it.
"What''s with that size?!"
Did I botch it? Will wondered for a split second. Albrecht''s stone had been smaller, perhaps, but Will''s spell would be better.
He began mouthing the trigger syllables and made the accompanying gestures with his free hand before closing his fist and seemingly crushing the stone.
Dispel (III) triggered.
A white orb flew out from his palm, landing in the middle of the enemy mages.
They had spread out more since the fireball, but the area of effect for Dispel was large, and Will still got four of them, including the Firebird woman.
All four were startled at the development, and while the woman pulled out another spellstone to quickly produce a new shield, the three others remained unshielded.
"There!" Will rejoiced. "Three of them are naked now! I think I''ll go with acid."
Before he could take a step, the obviously female woman on the other side started to rage loudly.
"You have made a mistake coming here! Behold!" She roared while pulling out another big spellstone. "The power of Grand Mage In-gwi!"
"That one looks green," Will noted out loud.
"Do you mean it''s an emerald spellstone?!" Holmstr?m reacted to his words in an agitated tone.
"It''s hard to see colors at night, but yeah, it should be green." The stone flashed briefly in green when the woman crushed it. "Yeah, very much green."
There was a sudden breeze. A dust devil rapidly formed next to Firebird, who took several steps back and shielded her eyes from the wind.
The spell didn''t send anyone flying but condensed down to a seven-foot-tall twister.
"An air elemental!" Holmstr?m lamented.
"Oh!" Will shouted, finally recognizing the creature for what it was. "And two of our guys use lightning," he realized, remembering air elementals'' high resistance to lightning.
Two of the lesser mages on his side kept zapping the fighters at the front with cantrip-sized effects, creating openings for their own men but accomplishing little else.
"Shit, it''s fast!" Will felt slightly alarmed when the creature had finished forming and started to race across the field.
What damage type do Air Elementals deal? he wondered.
The creature jumped easily over the fighters and landed softly on the other side. It kept coming for the mages.
"Fuck!"
Primitive Power (II) triggered.
For this slotted spell, Will skipped the spellstone trick. Its effect was invisible anyway.
He stepped back from Holmstr?m and clumsily pulled forth the staff that was tied to his back and glanced around. Seeing no eyes on him, Will promptly threw the ordinary staff aside, summoning the better one from his inventory to replace it.
Meanwhile, Holmstr?m threw an ice spear at the elemental.
The strange creature was fast and almost dodged it, but the spell was even faster. It managed to connect, if barely.
Despite the hit, the spell didn''t seem to do much to the elemental. The ice shattered on impact, and the pieces went flying all around from the insides of the cyclone-like creature.
It''s like stabbing air, Will thought to himself.
Will held on to the staff for safety but chose not to engage the elemental when it went for one of the mages. At least it wasn''t Limul.
Will began casting Magic Arrow.
The creature reached the unfortunate mage and moved right on top of him.
The victim managed to throw out a little lightning bolt, which did basically nothing to the creature.
At the same time, three mid-sized fireballs landed on another mage. It was the woman. Predictably, her horse immediately threw her off when the fires licked its back hide, and she didn''t seem to land as painlessly as the old man had.
Her elemental shield wasn''t visible to the eye, but Will knew it must have gone out with that much fire. At least it seemed to have deflected the full round of attacks before failing.
Will''s magic arrow flew out at that point. It sank into the elemental with a sizzle, creating a brief, visible hole through it. The creature hissed, but the wound disappeared soon.
The elemental seemed to be slowly shredding its victim by simply staying on top of him. It had also formed two fist-like appendages it used to pummel the poor man.
All in all, it looked bad, but not super bad. The creature was just a bundle of semi-solid air, and it carried no weapons. Will was sure that wooden practice weapons were much more deadly than its fists.
Will glanced back. Holmstr?m was shooting his spells at the shieldless mages. It was perhaps the correct thing to do since the elemental had targeted someone else.
"Fuck it!" I could be a little bit heroic!
He took off in a jog toward the air elemental. The mage underneath it was still alive and struggling, although his clothes were being shredded and his skin was bloody.
Will took a swing, and to his surprise, the weapon connected with some solidity. Eventually, it did pass through the creature when the resistance suddenly disappeared.
Still, the initial hit had felt good enough.
Will swung at it again, and the creature hissed, turning to him.
Fuck me.
Panicking slightly, Will swung as hard as he could. It turned out to be a stupid idea. The creature dodged his staff nimbly, and Will ended up losing his balance.
He turned the stumble into a roll past the creature, throwing his staff up and forward. As he rolled on the uneven ground, he felt a punch or kick in his side.
Definitely physical!
Will sprung up. The staff had landed right next to him, upright like he had meant it to. It was about to fall over when Will grabbed it. He managed to continue the motion into a clumsy swing at the summoned creature that was about to run him over.
This time, the strike connected, and the naturally floating elemental was briefly shoved aside by the force behind the blow. Then, it somehow found purchase in the air again and corrected its course.
Will reacted by driving the staff like a spear where the creature''s chest should be, trying to keep it at bay.
It worked for a second, until the elemental once more turned intangible at the contact point and began to creep closer.
That was his final cue. Too risky!
Minor Physical Immunity (IV) triggered.
It wasn''t ideal to use the spell now, but Will''s weapon was stuck, so there was little choice. At least the spell didn''t have any flashy effects.
The creature pummeled him, but it didn''t even amount to vibrations on Will''s skin. Its attacks were truly too weak. Will only had to keep dodging enough that it couldn''t push him to the ground and pin him down.
Will pulled at the staff that was still halfway stuck in the elemental. He managed to free it by holding on to it and repeatedly kicking the elemental back. He then went right back to taking free swings at the creature that was too stupid to switch targets, even though its efforts were clearly wasted on Will.
Will felt that his physical protection spell was about to run out soon, but it didn''t seem to be too important anymore. The elemental was getting literally out of shape, and Will kept severing its appendages as they appeared. Soon enough, the thing was unable to get a single punch in.
With every hit, the magical creature took a little longer to fix its wounds, until a final strike scattered the whole apparition back to the winds.
After catching his breath, Will quickly pulled out an orange potion and took a tiny sip. He fed the rest of it to the bloodied mage, who still lay on the ground, breathing heavily.
The man''s wounds started to close, but it would probably be a while until he recovered enough to fight again, assuming he wasn''t psychologically done for.
Will peeked at their enemies. Two mages seemed to be down, while the rest were occupied with Holmstr?m.
Limul and the other two mages back on their side were harassing the fighters with their spells, and it seemed to be working wonders now that the other side wasn''t engaging in the same mischief anymore.
It wasn''t long before the remaining hostile mages started to run for the uninjured horses behind them. The woman screamed orders of retreat just before riding off herself.
Chapter 11
"So, about that reimbursement..." Will began.
He was at the High Mage''s office in another frontier town, back on the friendlier side of the border.
"Could I maybe get some of those red healing potions to cover the stone''s worth?"
"Hrmm," Holmstr?m hummed in thought. "I could pull some strings to get you four of them."
"Four, huh?" Will kept his voice carefully neutral.
"Yeah. My authority doesn''t really stretch further than that. Healing potions are in high demand now."
"I see. What about gold, then?"
"Gold would be a lot easier."
"How about this," Will suggested. "I''ll take two red potions, and you make up the difference in gold?"
"Aye, that''s doable. In fact, I can authorize that much right now."
The man waved a hand, and a drawer on the other side of the room opened. Two sturdy bottles flew out of the drawer into Holmstr?m''s hands.
Will felt a pang of jealousy at the display. Such casual magic wasn''t quite considered a spell, but it looked very cool. I have to learn that! One of these days anyway...
The bottles were made out of some dull, transparent crystal; perhaps quartz. Half an ounce of red liquid could be seen within the small hollow inside the crystals, and the cork stoppers were tied in place with some yarn, which in turn had been stamped with a wax seal.
Will examined the bottles while the mage pulled out a key and opened a small, metal-reinforced coffer on his shelf.
After a symphony of lovely clinking sounds, he handed a bulging cloth purse to Will.
"There you go; hundred and fifty gold. In the capital, it might buy you three potions."
So much gold! Will rejoiced but kept his face straight. "Thanks. This seems acceptable."
"You did us a great service back there. I''ll speak to the generals about your promotion soon."
"Thanks!" Will allowed more enthusiasm in his voice. Higher rank, higher pay! Here I come!
"Now, if you''ll excuse me, I have another meeting coming up..."
"Sure," Will promptly got up to comply with the polite dismissal. "See you around, High Mage!"
Will made brief eye contact with a tall, dark-haired man who was pacing behind the High Mage''s door when he exited the room. He gave the man a respectful little nod before turning into an empty corridor. Will kept his composure for three more seconds before his mouth split into a wide grin.
The dark-haired man threw an idle glance at the scrawny half-elf before walking in to finally meet the High Mage.
"Holmstr?m, way to keep me waiting!"
"Kroft," the mage greeted back. "Did so with a good reason, too. That was the boy I mentioned."
"Oh?" Kroft thought back to the face he''d just seen. It had been smooth like a maiden''s, with just the jaw that was somewhat prominent marking it as a man''s face.
"You said he beat an air elemental?"
"Indeed. His staff must be heavily enchanted, but that can''t be all it takes."
Holmstr?m uncorked a bottle of whisky. A refined, smoky smell reached Kroft''s nose. The mage poured himself a drink, then offered some to the guest. The military man looked hesitant.
"Just a little bit," Kroft relented. He wanted to sample the fine product, even if he still had some elite training to oversee later.
"I asked around," Holmstr?m continued. "And the soldiers at Castle Heathmoor say that the boy is a quick learner. A month ago, he fought like he had never held a staff."
"Hmm."
"He is very fast and nimble, even more so than an elite soldier. He only hits as hard as a veteran, though."
"Whose words are those?"
"A captain from the elite company at Heathmoor."
"Oh! That''s reasonably high praise, then."
"Furthermore, while he casts his spells slowly, the power more than makes up for the lack of speed. I saw a fire spell the likes of which I would only dare to expect from a Grand Mage."
"With the spellstone?"
"No. That''s the thing. I saw his eyes. It was his own, unboosted power. The spellstone came later."
Kroft drained the rest of his whisky. Its taste was overwhelmingly strong, but he rather liked it. "Pour me just a little more? Yeah, that''s enough."
"Who is he, exactly?" Kroft finally asked.
"I have no idea. Could be a scion of some influential family in Nemea. Or perhaps in Altholous? I''ve heard they train their mages in close combat."
"What do you think we should do with him?"
"It looks like he wants to climb the military ladder for some reason. Don''t make him a high mage right away. Perhaps he is willing to work for the title."
Kroft seemed to consider the idea just like he had considered the taste of the whisky, with the same facial expression and all.
"Sounds like a plan. I''ll relay it to the other generals."
---
The autumn progressed. Mornings turned chilly enough that the landscape got briefly white before the sun melted the hoarfrost.
A couple of weeks later, it snowed a little bit every night. The hills in the east started to receive heavy snowfalls and turned almost impassable.
Will''s workload went down as the snow accumulated. Finally, he heard that the higher-ups were heading north for the winter and that Will should come with them.
Apparently, north was the way to go if you wanted milder winters.
The city of Anth was like Spiretown, but bigger. Anth also had a spire in the middle of the city, and it was even bigger than the previous one. The building would seem small if placed next to the Empire State Building, but Will thought it reached higher than the Statue of Liberty. It looked more massive, too.
The Royal Palace at its root was modest in comparison, but it appeared more elegant than the gray spire. Within the palace, there was an opulent hall of ceremonies that was currently in use.
The king of Anth-Komi wasn''t present, but another high noble was handling the semi-important ceremony in his place.
"Arcane Asset Gaylord Will, step forward!"
Will bit his cheeks until they bled when he heard the fake name. He''d already forgotten about making it up several weeks ago, when some stiff official wouldn''t accept just his first name once he''d made the mistake of implying that it wasn''t his only name.
"You are hereby promoted to the rank of Magister. Do serve His Majesty well!"
"Thank you, Lord Duke. I shall not disappoint," Will promised¡ªprimarily because everyone else had uttered the same words.
"Is there anything you would require of the Crown, Magister?"
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The duke dude had asked the same question from the previous mage and gifted him a farm somewhere. Will didn''t need a farm, but there was something else that intrigued him.
"I''d like to check out the Academy, if it''s not too much to ask."
"Very well. An escort shall be arranged for you tomorrow morning."
The promotion ceremony ended, the bigwigs went out to drink together, and Will and the other new Magisters were shown out of the palace.
In the morning, Will returned to be introduced to a beautiful, young blonde.
"Good morning, Magister," his designated escort spoke and bowed slightly at him. "My name is Bessina. I''ve been assigned to arrange your Royal Boon."
She looked to be around twenty and well-developed. Will''s eyes moved around lightning-fast, assessing the girl''s assets while her eyes remained downturned.
"Nice to meet you, Miss Bessina," Will replied in a nonchalant tone. "You can call me Will."
The girl nodded. "Well then, Mister Will. Shall we go?"
She led him right out of the palace and into the spire.
The tall building was decorated at the ground level, but when Will turned his eyes up, he saw nothing but endless rows of square, gray granite blocks.
The girl looked at him and smiled.
"It looks even taller up close, does it not?"
"Indeed," Will agreed politely. "Very, uh, imposing and austere."
"I was told you wanted to attend beginner classes; is that right?"
"Yes! I''d very much like to take a look."
"Very well. Follow my lead."
They entered an airy auditorium on the third floor, and Will was met with at least fifty pairs of curious eyes.
"Professor Dorotte, Magister Will here is an honored guest of the Academy."
"Hmm? Did you need something from me, Magister?" a middle-aged man standing in front of the class inquired.
"I''d just like to attend the class for now, if you don''t mind..."
"Oh. Please do, then."
"I''ll be available for advice in the faculty room," the girl informed. "Good day," she said and left after a final, shallow bow.
The room wasn''t built like the classes Will remembered from high school, but it did have a back row that looked just as inviting.
Will climbed up a few stairs and sat in the same row with some young students who kept glancing at him with dubious expressions. Will ignored them.
"As I was saying, you should be able to produce a flame by now," the professor went back to teaching his class. "Albin, please give us a demonstration."
A boy of eighteen or so hurried to the front of the class and started murmuring something and weaving mana with his hands. He took four or five seconds to produce a healthy flame above his palm.
"Excellent. That is sufficient for graduation when it comes to fire magic. You only need to understand your enemy, but you can specialize in whatever you want."
"Magister, do you happen to be familiar with fire spells?" the professor asked.
"Hmm? I''ve used a few."
"Excellent, excellent! Would you mind demonstrating the ''dancing fire?''"
Shit! I should''ve said no. "Umm, nope. Sorry. I don''t know that one."
"Uh, Magister... But... It''s only the second tier!"
The students were giggling and whispering quietly. Will felt his cheeks heating up.
I could melt the classroom to make it stop, he consoled himself.
"P-perhaps a simple demonstration of the first tier, then?" the professor suggested. "I''m sure the students would be delighted."
Will grimaced. There was no way he could fold twice in a row.
But he had a problem. His fire-making household cantrip was even more pathetic than what the previous kid had shown. "Flaming Hands," on the other hand, produced a blaze of fifteen fucking feet.
Will started to mutter the syllables for a direct-damage fire cantrip. It was a total shit-tier spell, and it took him nine long seconds to finish. He simply hadn''t had any practice with it.
An apple-sized fireball formed on his hand, ready to be flung forward. Will forced the spell to fizzle out before he burned his own hand. At least his fire was bigger than the boy''s.
"Something like that, right?"
The professor gave him a forced smile.
"Exactly."
---
"Did you hear about the weirdo?"
"The so-called Magister?"
"Yeah. They say he''s bad at spells."
"I heard he beat an elemental to death."
"I heard that, too! If he''s just a warrior, why call him magister?"
"Shh! That''s him!"
Will ignored the whispers and attended a healing magic class for the third time during his stay. Unlike the rest of the curriculum, this one topic was fully relevant for him, even if he wasn''t going to learn it any time soon.
He followed along happily until the break, when some sort of famous foreigner made his appearance.
"Where''s the magister guy?"
Half of the people turned to look at Will, revealing his location.
"Lord Duke! P-please! You shouldn''t cause trouble!"
The "Lord Duke" in question was a twenty-something boy from some big country in the north. Will had previously seen him causing a scene in a restaurant where the food wasn''t to his lordly liking.
"I want a duel with you!" the boy shouted at Will. "At the arena, in two hours! I''ll see you there unless you''re a coward!"
With that declaration, the boy left. Will was slightly flabbergasted.
"Anyone know what that was about?" he asked, glancing around at the faces staring back at him.
Most of them turned away, but someone¡ªa short and ratty-looking boy¡ªchose to answer, with a grin lighting up his face.
"That was Duke Sealpeak. They say he''s slain an ogre."
"So what?"
"Well, people here have been matching the boast with a certain air elemental slayer."
"Me, huh? Why does it matter? I''m older than that kid!"
"Don''t ask me." The boy shrugged. "Perhaps it''s because you still attend classes, which makes your alleged feat unbelievable...to some people."
"Hmm. I see."
Will put the childish matter out of his mind and went back to enjoying the class, which had resumed. It was a welcome break from training his own 5th-level spells.
A few days went by, and Will forgot about the matter.
---
At a nearby outdoor theater, an event was being held.
All of the academy was in attendance, as were all the mages of the Royal Court. The king himself observed the proceedings from a high seat.
"And that concludes the annual ceremony of duty and service!" the announcer proclaimed after two hours of proceedings.
Finally, thought Will, to whom the novel experience had turned into an exercise in boredom after the first ten minutes.
"Ahem! If I might have a word," a familiar figure sauntered onto the stage. It was a foreigner of striking, dark looks.
That duke fellow! Will recognized the face from afar.
"As many of you may have heard by now, the finest academy of Anth-Komi harbors a coward!"
Oh, crap...
"That''s right! The so-called ''slayer of elementals'' or ''Magister,'' as he apparently has styled himself, has disgraced his country by refusing a formal duel!"
People turned to look at Will, who crossed his arms and frowned. Even the king turned to see who everyone else was staring at.
"Mister Magister!" Bessina got up from her seat and ran to Will. "His Majesty is present!"
"So what?"
"As the ruler of Anth-Komi, he cannot let such challenging words simply slide."
"Are you saying I have to fight that boy?" Will''s face was twisted in a grimace of reluctance.
"Yes!!!" the girl hissed in frustration.
Will sighed. "Can I kill him?"
Bessina gaped.
"Of course not! It would be scandalous! No... Almost an act of war! Anth-Komi cannot afford to offend the Nine Peaks."
"That''s a problem..." Will muttered but stood up anyway.
Absorb Elements (II) triggered.
He walked down on the stage, facing the grinning, young duke.
"Did I really anger you so much by refusing your duel?" Will complained to the boy in a low voice.
"Prepare yourself!" the noble shouted and started to weave some magic Will didn''t recognize. All he could tell was that it didn''t seem like a low-level fire or ice spell.
Minor Spell Immunity (IV) triggered.
A ghostly wolf appeared next to Will. He only had the time to raise his arm to shield himself when the animal lunged and bit him.
Thankfully, the immunity spell seemed to work. Had the wolf been like the air elemental, it might have bitten right through his spell immunity.
Not a summoned creature, then... Will realized.
The wolf clawed at him for a second before winking out of existence.
The dukeling frowned lightly.
"Hmh. So you can shield a little?"
Will raised his own hands, about to cast a Magic Arrow at the snotty little kid. Then he hesitated.
What if it kills him?
Once again, Will faced the same problem. His preferred spell was fairly powerful. It was a genuine first-level spell after all.
Will gave up on the simple, effective attack and went for the shit-tier fire cantrip instead.
Another wolf appeared, but Will just let it gnaw at his left hand futilely.
This time, he got the casting time down to six seconds, and a small ball of fire formed above his right hand. Will flung the orange sphere at the boy, striking him cleanly.
The young duke yelped and patted at his sleeve that had caught fire. Other than that, he didn''t seem to be affected too much by the attack.
Will could only grimace. This spell is utter crap!
According to canon, the direct-damage cantrip dealt 1d3 points of fire damage for each two caster levels, capping at 5d3 at level 10 if Will recalled correctly. With his currently lacking skill, the spell was just a little stronger than a warm tickle.
However, the spell didn''t feel any less powerful than the lightning cantrip. In that sense, the boy was dealing with his spells pretty well unlike the thugh at the auction.
A shield? Or perhaps fire resistance gear? Will wondered, but he chose not to switch to another type of magic.
A warm tickle would suffice. Not causing a surprise heart attack was a strong point in its favor over the lightning.
Another wolf, another little fireball. Repeat. In half a minute, the boy was starting to look disheveled, with his face blackened from soot and one sleeve of his fancy coat fully burned off on the arm he used to parry Will''s spells.
"Coward! Fight me properly!" the duke shouted.
"If I did that, you''d be dead," Will retorted in a much lower voice.
"Ahh!!!" the boy screamed when something finally gave out, and the fire managed to char his flesh a little. "You''re going to regret this!"
The duke reached inside his robes to pull out a small, bluish object.
"Really?" Will felt a little dismayed at the useless waste of precious consumables.
The spellstone was crushed, and the boy''s eyes began glowing blue. He waved his hands furiously for a short while, until a massive, somewhat transparent head appeared next to Will. It looked like it should belong to a hippo or maybe a giant lizard.
A giant maw chomped down on the arm Will extended to it.
Nothing happened.
After a second, its jaws loosened, and the big head winked out of existence.
Will threw another little fireball with his free hand, and the dark-haired youth screamed some more.
"I think it''s time for the match to be called, right?" Will asked loudly while looking around.
Thankfully, the announcer who still stood nearby had his wits about him. He reacted after just a moment''s hesitation.
"Ah... Yes. A laudable effort by the young challenger! But the victory goes to, uh, the defender!"
Will quickly hopped off the stage and returned to his seat when he felt his spell immunity beginning to fizzle out. He didn''t want to use his own unprotected flesh to find out how hard exactly those strange apparitions could bite.
"Those tiny fire spells... It was bold of you to humiliate him so thoroughly," Bessina commented. "I saw His Majesty make a face at your duel, but I suppose a victory is a victory."
"Wait. I did what now?"
Will had only tried to make sure the kid didn''t die.
Chapter 12
The wintry weather up in the North wasn''t too bad. Will walked along the streets of Anth with just a thin overcoat and a pair of pants in the local middle-class fashion.
He''d noticed that his black robe, while well made, wasn''t impervious to wear and tear. He''d had it fixed by an expensive tailor and packed it away for formal occasions.
The part of the town he currently walked was pretty poor. It wasn''t quite a slum, but the townsfolk who lived here clearly didn''t care about making their house fronts presentable.
It was rather lively, though. Children were running around in small groups. Workers of all kinds walked the narrow streets, often moving loads of various goods or other materials on hand-drawn carts. Sometimes, the pedestrians had to step aside to give way to a bigger cart drawn by a donkey.
A little ahead, the housing began to thin out, and Will caught sight of the river that flowed through the city. Finally, while the road went on, the city ended. There was just one last building that stood out from its surroundings.
The front door was open, and Will took a look in. He was greeted by nothing but a broken horse cart sitting in the middle of a dirt floor. It was clad in cobwebs that were just about visible in the daylight seeping in through the cracks.
"Whatcha lookin for?" Someone spoke behind him.
Will turned around to see an old man who was dressed in slightly dirty clothes. He held a crude, smoking pipe in one hand.
"Oh, sorry. I was just curious. All the other buildings around here are so small..."
"Well, it''s a warehouse. It needs to be big."
"I see. Looks like it''s abandoned, though."
"It''s perfectly good. I just don''t have any use for it anymore." The man took a puff from his pipe. "Wanna buy it?"
The question was sudden and clearly not posed too seriously, but Will happened to have some plans in his mind.
He glanced at the river that ran just a couple dozen feet farther from the back of the building, flowing toward the center of the city and its dock district.
"If it''s truly yours to sell, I could be interested."
---
A day later, Will returned with a horse-drawn cart loaded with some large wooden puppets and a pair of hired helpers sitting uncomfortably among them.
The two men moved the crude dolls into the warehouse before taking off with the empty cart, leaving behind Will to inspect his order.
The wooden constructs were crude facsimiles of people. The heads were nothing but featureless wooden cylinders that looked too small in proportion. The limbs ended in crude, spherical joints that matched some similarly sized, hemispherical hollows in the torso.
For now, four limbs had been tied to each torso with some crude cord.
Will picked one bundle apart and started to chant the level-three spell Craftsgolem. The spell wasn''t particularly difficult, but it was long.
After ten minutes, the joints started to glow. When Will picked up an arm and stuck the joint into its corresponding indentation in the torso. The glow kept the arm in place, and another glow lighted up further down at where the elbow would be. That was where Will connected the forearm. Finally came the wrist and five simplified fingers.
"Move your arm around," Will commanded.
The arm spun around. It just about works, Will thought, feeling satisfied.
Instructing the carpenters to make the joints as round as possible hadn''t been easy, since the men didn''t see the point. Thankfully, they had obeyed the order closely enough, and the surfaces were even enough that the wooden parts were kept separate by the cushioning provided by the spell.
Finally, Will had ten fully assembled wooden craftsgolems walking in a circle around the warehouse floor as a test run.
Three days later, he paid four apprentice masons for their completed work and had a crude but functional chimney through the roof that connected to a simple forge.
He also had four crude anvils brought in. They were little more than a flat cast iron slab fixed to a tree stump that had had most of its roots shortened so it could be transported easily. Will had the golems dig some holes in the dirt floor to fix the stumps in place.
Finally, Will had a very crude steel mill running.
One golem fed pieces of iron ore into the forge and kept the fire going. Another golem used tongs to carry a glowing piece of hot ore to an anvil. It stood aside, holding on to the piece while another golem hammered at it.
All four anvils were occupied, and the golems produced crude, flat pieces of steel at a slow pace.
In contrast to the golems'' slightly clumsy movements, they exhibited a level of consciousness about what they were doing, given how they kept adjusting the workpiece with a sense of purpose so it didn''t simply fall off the anvil under the relatively heavy blows.
Will simulated nightfall by activating an hourglass-based mechanism early. The golems registered its chime readily, and the hammering stopped. The one operating the forge started to put the fires out by splashing some water on them.
Sadly, it managed to catch fire in the process.
Will hurried to the mindless creature and splashed it with some water. It wasn''t the first time something like it had happened.
"You," he spoke to a golem that stood in reserve. "Splash water on any golem that catches fire!"
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Will reset the hourglass mechanism, and the golems began working again, but there were more incidents. For some reason, the constructs just couldn''t perceive or understand fire well enough.
They''ll burn this place down sooner or later, Will realized.
---
A girl of perhaps twelve stood in an alleyway, facing four bigger boys.
They were within a slum block on the outskirts of the city, and the girl knew there would be no guards to respond to her cries, no locals willing to take on the gang of teenagers. Thus, she didn''t bother crying out and revealing her weakness.
Behind her, there was a bloodied form slumped next to a wall. It was someone who was barely conscious and seemed to have trouble even breathing.
"Jenna, take a hike already," the boy in the front spoke. "This is between us and Vlad."
"You''ve hurt him enough. You take a hike," the girl replied calmly, even if she didn''t really feel calm inwardly.
Jenna raised the weapon in her hands a little higher. It was just a broken piece of wood with a rusty nail driven through one end.
"Haha! Jonah, why haven''t you kicked her out of the way yet? Don''t tell me you''re scared?" Someone further back taunted the boy in front.
"Shut up! You handle her if you think you''re so tough."
"Well, since you''re so scared, don''t mind if I do!"
A grinning boy stepped forth, holding a shoddy-looking crossbow in his hands. It was already loaded with a bolt, and the boy''s finger rested casually on the trigger.
"Move aside, Jenna!" the new boy reiterated the command in a chipper tone. "Do you want to die for him?"
Arrow Ward (II) triggered.
Arrest Fall (I) triggered.
A tall but slim form jumped down from the rooftop and landed softly between the quarreling kids.
The boy in the front was startled and set his loaded weapon off prematurely. With a sharp twang accompanied by a rattle that revealed the weapon''s dire need for some maintenance, the bolt flew forth and simply shattered against the newcomer''s clothes.
"Is that a way to greet adults?" Will inquired with raised eyebrows?
The gang of boys retreated swiftly.
"Who are you?!" one of them shouted.
"He''s wearing plate!" another one warned everyone else.
Will didn''t have any of the useless direct-damage cantrips slotted, so he took several seconds to cast an Electric Jolt.
"Ahh!" The boy he''d hit screamed in terror and turned to run. The others backtracked while wearing expressions that told Will they didn''t even understand what had happened.
Will pointed his hands at the ground in front of the boys and fired a shitty little cantrip fireball.
"It''s a mage!"
Finally, the remaining ones got it right and turned to flee as one.
Will watched them go with a smile before facing the girl who was eyeing him suspiciously, with her shoddy club still poised ready to strike.
"Hey there! Is that your boyfriend?" Will pointed at the slumped form in the back.
"No. He''s... just my friend."
Will suppressed a grimace. Sorry, buddy, I didn''t mean to make her say it out loud like that.
"Gotta be an important friend for you to protect him like that?"
"He''s always been a friend."
"Very good. I like your loyalty. I could use you, I think."
"Fuck off! I ain''t no ho!"
"Don''t worry! I have a legitimate job for you and a healing potion for your friend."
---
Things simply fell in place on their own. It was just yesterday that Will lamented the fact that he would have to hire someone whom he could trust with his investment.
The problem was he didn''t know anyone like that. Then, just the next moment, he suddenly had someone in his hands who seemingly had morals, who owed him a favor, and who''d probably respect him enough not to try anything.
"Oh, stop cowering there already," Will spoke to Jenna.
The girl was still hugging the door she had only stepped halfway through to observe the arcane horrors within Will''s meager workshop.
"What are they?!"
"They''re just some golems! Stupid things only suited for simple tasks. They''re no threat at all.
"Well, I suppose they could hurt you accidentally," Will added after watching one of the craftsgolems drop the glowing piece of slag and metal they were carrying around.
"Your job is to keep them from burning this place down. Or burning themselves down," Will started to list a few risks he had foreseen.
"They''ll listen to simple commands from you, so just tell them to stop moving if you need to interfere.
"Ah, and that reminds me!"
Loyal Guardhound (V) triggered.
"Now, don''t be too startled..." Will''s warning came too late, and the girl had already bolted back outside.
He took a minute to catch her again before getting back to the introductions.
"Look, it''s just a doggy! It won''t hurt you."
In front of him stood a Lesser Hellhound with some beautifully white, sharp teeth, rust-colored fur, and glowing red eyes. It stood barely taller than his knees, and its relatively large paws were armed with dull claws.
It was a particularly weak summon that didn''t even have the ability to breathe fire like proper hellhounds did. People didn''t really use it in fights due to its low HP and weak attacks. A basic level-three summoning spell would definitely be stronger for combat purposes.
No, it was basically a glorified scouting spell, the only advantage of which was the fact that the summoned creature remained with the party until it was either explicitly dismissed or slain. No matter how much you rested, it wouldn''t get unsummoned.
Loyal Guardhound was the perfect spell for cheesy gamers because you could just slot it once, cast it, refill the slot, and take another rest. Voila! Your scouty dog was still with you, and your 5th-level spell slots would once again be filled with more critical stuff.
Of course, in this real world, it would likely not be such a good scout, given how you couldn''t share vision with your summons like you could in the game.
"It''s growling!" the hysterical girl he was holding on to shrieked.
"Doggy, this is Jenna. You will obey Jenna."
Instantly, the low growls stopped. The hound sat down and turned its eyes toward the door.
"Doggy, just to be clear, stay inside and don''t attack anyone unless we''re being attacked. Do feel free to look intimidating to any trespassers, though!"
The hound swung its black tail back and forth once, but its eyes remained firmly on the open door, through which it probably could hear the sparse traffic on the road outside.
"Now, he''s a smart doggy. He''ll understand and obey your commands as long as you don''t ask him to tie your shoes. I think he only really understands fighting and guarding. He hasn''t been very good at fetching..."
---
Jenna watched the golems with a bucket of water sitting on the floor next to her.
Life had become pretty strange since two days ago. Easy, too.
She now had a daily income of six coppers. It had gone up by approximately a thousand percent compared to begging and stealing. Not that Jenna knew what a percent was, but she did know she was financially secure all of a sudden.
"Trust is valuable" was the only explanation she''d been given for her high wage.
There was a bunk she would have the golems carry next to the forge for the night, and the heat still radiating from it kept her pretty warm until early morning when it was time to light it up again.
The neighbors and passers-by had complained about the noise a couple of times, but since it only went on during the daytime, they didn''t have a legal leg to stand on. Or so Will had said.
Jenna had repeated his words, and when Doggy growled, people took one glance at its red eyes and left.
All in all, it was an easy job. Just make sure the golems didn''t burn down themselves or the whole warehouse.
The door opened. Doggy perked up for a moment before lying down again.
"Morning!"
It was Will, of course.
"Hello, Owner."
The man carried in a flimsy bookcase he placed at the back of the warehouse. Next, he carried in some books that barely filled up one shelf. Jenna didn''t care much for the books, but she knew they were expensive things.
Finally, the tall man covered the bookcase with a dirty sheet. "Just something I bought in case I''ll need it later," he gave as a brief explanation. Not that Jenna cared.
"You can read them if you grow bored," Will added.
"I can''t read."
That earned her a stare.
"Oh. Dammit! You should at least be able to sign receipts for me... Know what? Take these," Will said and handed her three silver coins.
Jenna was stunned. She rarely even saw silver, and she''d never touched it. People usually hid their silver well, if they had any. I wonder if he has gold, too?
"Use those and ask a nearby merchant to teach you. Tell them the money is from me. Have the dog watch the place while you are out studying."
Chapter 13
"Hey, Mister Magister!" A young male student approached Will the day after his fight with the foreign idiot.
"Hm?"
"Got a moment? See, I saw your fight from the first row. The wolf seemed to both bite your arm and claw your stomach at the same time."
"I guess so? What about it?"
"I knew it! You can casually shield two body parts at the same time!"
Will''s immunity spell had been shielding his whole body from spells, but the boy wasn''t necessarily wrong, depending on how one evaluated the word ''casual.'' Will had expended a precious fourth-level spell slot, after all.
"Yes?"
"Excellent! I''ll be recommending you to my father," the boy announced brightly and turned around on his heels, leaving behind a confused Will.
Things became clearer when a servant approached him with a job offer and a written invitation. Will chose to see what it was about, finding a large town estate at the address enclosed in the invitation.
"Everyone, thank you for taking the time to attend this selection," the nobleman began.
"All of you are reasonably new magisters, which is why we''ll be starting off with an examination."
"Duke Richford, if I may..."
"Ah, excuse me, honored Magister Sixtus. You are, of course, excluded from these mundane matters. Jerome! Please escort Magister Sixtus to my study."
A servant appeared to lead the previous speaker away. It was a middle-aged man who dressed in blood-red robes embroidered with a lot of silvery details.
"As for the rest of you, please follow me to the training yard."
Seven well-dressed people followed the duke. Most of them looked to be around thirty, maybe slightly older.
At the gravel-coated clearing they were led to, an old man stood next to some kind of magical apparatus.
The complexity of the device reminded Will of Albrecht''s floating alchemical setup, but this one was made out of golden wires and crystals of various colors rather than glass pipes. It also sat firmly on a table, like any normal, heavy object would.
"I assume all of you can shield yourselves to some extent. I''d like to have my court mage put that ability of yours to a little test."
The mage pulled a lever, and a white beam of light shone from the largest crystal at one end of the contraption, striking a wooden post that had been planted several feet away. A small trail of smoke started to rise from the targeted spot.
"You are to withstand the beam as long as you can. Now, who wants to begin?"
Nobody was interested in being the first, so the duke motioned at someone himself.
"You, step forth!"
The big, portly mage obeyed and stood in front of the machine.
"Speak out when you can''t stand it any longer, and Kuiper will turn the artifact off."
The beam was turned on again, and the man raised both of his palms to receive it.
It shone brighter and brighter, until after fifteen seconds the man shouted aloud.
"Enough! That''s enough!"
The old man pulled the lever, and the portly mage wiped his forehead on a sleeve before walking off.
"Next," the noble motioned at a short woman without offering any comments on the previous subject''s performance.
The woman lasted roughly the same time.
The next guy withstood a full minute before calling it quits.
Nobody broke his record until it was Will''s turn.
"Can I have a minute to prepare?" he asked.
The nobleman frowned. "I''d prefer it if you didn''t."
Will shrugged. "Fine," and walked in front of the device.
Absorb Elements (II) triggered.
The beam began to shine again. It took a few seconds before Will detected a slight drain on his spell.
After a minute, Will spoke up.
"I can keep going, but could you make the beam stronger?"
"This is as strong as it gets, young man," the old court mage spoke.
"Fine, but at this rate it''s going to take several minutes before I need to give up."
"Hmm. You seem to be the guy my son recommended?" the duke remarked.
Will nodded. "That''s what he told me."
"He did say you''d be good at shielding... I guess I''ll take your word so we can move on."
Next, the group was led to an archery range. It was prepared with simple wooden targets painted with the typical concentric circles used for archery.
"Try to hit the target in the middle and strike it with... let''s say two spells. Try to make them strong," their host instructed.
People obeyed, and Will watched. The first salvo of spells consisted of mostly ice spears, but one person was using fire and one used lightning.
The wooden targets seemed to be sturdy, and the spears shattered before they could get fully through. The lightning caused some small cracks in the wood to spread out around the impact point, while the remaining target had been set on fire.
Will cast a magic arrow at his assigned target. It went cleanly through the very middle of the bullseye section. By then, everyone else had finished their second spells. Only Will''s hands were still moving.
He spoke the remaining syllables and made the last gestures. After twelve seconds of casting, a green splash of acid hit the target and began eating through it. It wasn''t an Acid Arrow, though, but just another 1st-level spell.
"Hmm! Remarkable," the court mage commented in his wizened voice.
"I presume those are your strongest spells," the duke addressed Will directly.
"No, sir," Will responded honestly. "I chose them because I can cast them pretty quickly. I''m a slow caster, you see."
"I had thought you to be some kind of warrior mage. I guess the story about beating an elemental to death was a baseless rumor."
Will didn''t bother correcting the man. That particular story had turned out to be annoying, after all.
"Anyway," the Duke went on. "I''ve made my choice. Thank you for showing up, but apart from Magister Will, everyone else is hereby dismissed."
"Excuse me!" the guy who had stood the beam for a minute interjected. "I came all the way from Spiretown on a personal invite!"
The duke frowned for a second, but soon his face smoothed out. "I suppose I would have ended up hiring you nine times out of ten. Very well, I''ll arrange a feast for all of you in the best restaurant in Anth tonight! Let that be a compensation for your time."
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After the scrubs were sufficiently placated, Will was shown into the duke''s gaudy office, where the middle-aged mage from earlier already waited.
"Tea? Pastries? Alright. Let''s talk business. I''m hiring you to act as bodyguards..."
---
Will yawned.
He knew he shouldn''t let his guard down; the area apparently contained shamanic hobgoblin tribes, and even wyverns were often sighted by the local villages; but this particular location just didn''t seem too hazardous.
Three young mages whisked their puny spells at twenty-odd goblins, while five fighters in full plate armor used the shafts of their spears to keep the shorter little monsters from escaping the dead end of a tunnel they''d been cornered in.
"Are you seeing this, Tomas? I''m up to seven already!"
"That''s nothing. I just killed my tenth."
When the last of the unfortunate creatures died, the kids moved eagerly in to collect their ears. A nearby baron paid fifty coppers for each felled goblin, and the kids were planning to kill two hundred, which would amount to one gold.
It was some easy pocket money for them, but the whole of the excursion wasn''t going to be profitable at all.
Considering that Will alone was paid thirty gold for the job, it was clear that the young mages were sent out to the wilderness only to gain some experience.
Magister Sixtus stood next to Will, leaning on a short staff with his eyes closed. Save for the smell of blood and innards, it was pretty peaceful now that the high-pitched screaming was finally over.
"What the heck is that?" one of the boys asked, with genuine puzzlement in his voice.
Will looked up, seeing the boy pointing at a wall ahead.
One of the fighters moved up to inspect it in torchlight. "Could be an old mining tunnel that''s been sealed."
Detect Traps (III) triggered.
Will''s spell didn''t make him aware of anything new, so he just stood back to watch and refill his spell slot.
Of course, his charges wanted to go through the wall.
The fighters succeeded in figuring the thing out after a while. The rectangular impression in the wall turned out to be a stone door that hung from crude hinges made out of carved stone.
When pried open with a spear shaft, it produced a grinding sound that made Will cringe. If there''s a dragon sleeping down there, it''s probably awake now, he thought pessimistically but couldn''t feel any real apprehension.
"Could there be treasures?" one of the boys entertained.
"It seems pretty likely. Why else would they put such a heavy door on it?" another offered an expert opinion.
Their charges wanted to move on, and the guardians reluctantly agreed, judging the risk to be small and mitigable. After all, the place was known as nothing more than an old mine that happened to be infested with a goblin tribe or two.
The door opened into a narrow tunnel, which finally led to a large chamber.
On the floor, there were deep grooves that formed a large, seven-pointed star. At each of the points, there was a pile of bones topped by a humanoid skull. From their size, they weren''t goblin bones.
"Aaand, that does it!" Will spoke loudly. "I''m getting a bad feeling about this place," he declared.
Unlike him, the older mage perked up happily and rushed to inspect the obviously profane ritual setup.
"This... Could this be ancient necromancy? I have never seen anything like it, except in some historical treatises!"
"Really?"
"That''s insane!"
Great. Now the kids are getting excited, too...
Will shifted uneasily on his feet. "Don''t you think we should leave it be and just report it, you know, to some experts?"
Magister Sixtus sent him a brief glare. "We are the experts, Magister Will!"
One of the boys went to examine the bones.
"No! Don''t...!" Will tried to interject.
The boy had already grabbed a skull. It crumbled down to gray-white dust in his fingers.
Simultaneously, the six other skulls crumbled as well.
Everyone froze. Will''s heart jumped to his throat. Luckily, nothing else happened within the next two seconds.
"You... Jesus Christ!" Will spoke in a low tone. "This is precisely why I gave you my expert advice to leave it all be."
"Fascinating!" Sixtus whispered loudly. The man looked like he was fully captivated by the scene.
"Gorgon," the boy next to the star suddenly spoke.
Will looked up in alarm. The word hadn''t been spoken in any language he''d heard ever before, yet he recognized it.
"What did you just say?!" he demanded.
The young mage turned to face Will. His expression was blank, and his eyes looked to be slightly out of focus.
"Gorgon."
By now, everyone was staring at him. Will had an inkling of the word''s meaning, and he didn''t like it one bit.
"Gorgon, gorgon, gorgon, gorgon. Gorgon!"
After the seventh repetition, the boy''s eyes cleared up.
"What¡ª? Did I do something just now?" he asked, glancing around in confusion.
All at once, the rest of the bones crumbled into dust.
"Let''s get the fuck out of here," Will opined.
Before he could take a single step, a brief red flash illuminated the cave, and there was a collective gasp. The armor of the warriors clattered as they drew their weapons.
Will turned to stare at a tall humanoid standing in the middle of the ritual circle. It looked a lot like a human male, except in the place of its hair there were writhing tentacles.
"It seems that I''ve been summoned somewhere," the thing asked in a man''s voice that had a slight hissing quality to it. "What are your demands?"
Will stared dumbly in its eyes for a moment, then quickly averted his gaze. He consciously decided to keep his eyes on the creature''s stomach area instead.
"Uh, nothing?" Will tried. "It was just an experiment. You may go back!"
"You are not my summoner! Hmm? None of you is! Could it be..." the creature weaved mana with its hands and pulled out a longsword from a black rift that had appeared in front of it.
"I see! I''m free to do as I please," it hissed excitedly.
It gazed around at the fearful humans and one half-elf for a few seconds that felt like an eternity. "I think I should begin... by removing the vermin!"
The gorgon''s eyes flashed in the torchlight.
"Don''t look at its face!" Will shouted a warning somewhat late.
Minor Spellshield (V) triggered.
Will didn''t feel like trusting Minor Spell Immunity. The level-five spell he chose instead wasn''t necessarily better, but it was guaranteed to block at least one high-level spell. More importantly, it should work against other magic abilities as well¡ªnot just spells.
"I... I can''t move!" One of the fighters yelled.
At least he didn''t turn into stone! Will consoled himself.
Two of the fighters engaged the new enemy. They had abandoned the wood-shafted spears they''d previously used in favor of some big swords.
One heavy strike from a two-handed sword was blocked easily by the slim longsword while the gorgon was looking away. Its eyes were on the other fighter, who froze mid-step and began sputtering something unintelligible within his closed helmet.
Will''s Magic Arrow struck the unarmored creature in the chest.
While the spell had penetrated wood previously, the gorgon didn''t seem to be affected much. Its clothes were punctured, and a few drops of golden blood flew out, but it wasn''t slowed down in the slightest.
The gorgon stared at Will, who felt his protective spell suddenly become significantly diminished.
I didn''t even look it in the eye!
Apart from its eye attack, the gorgon seemed to be a physical fighter. It wielded the longsword with grace and delivered powerful blows despite its slim arms.
Three fighters were now on it, while the two others stood still like statues.
The three young mages were casting their puny spells until the gorgon glanced in their direction, and one of them froze.
The longsword went halfway through a warrior''s stomach, and the victim retreated a few steps before falling down on his rear end. He didn''t rejoin the fight and started to panickedly fumble with his chest armor instead.
In turn, the gorgon also received some wounds from the swords, but they didn''t seem too deep. Only a slow trickle of golden blood flowed from a few cuts on its skin.
Right then, the tip of a big sword struck the gorgon in the head, which dipped down under the force of the blow.
However, apart from a couple of tentacles being sliced apart, the creature seemed unaffected. It stood up straight again and turned around to release a flurry of blows at the offending fighter, who retreated under the onslaught.
Two-foot-long ice spears from the older mage struck the creature at frequent intervals, but they didn''t seem to cause any greater wounds than the swords did.
The old man switched to lightning, which seemed to be slightly more useful, given how it made the creature freeze up briefly after each hit.
This isn''t enough, Will judged the efforts of his allies.
Nobody had their eyes on Will, but just in case, a spellstone seemed to appear in his hand, and an artificial, blue glow lit up in his eyes.
Inferno Arrows (III) triggered.
Three big and fiery arrows flew forth from Will''s extended hands.
The arrows couldn''t be avoided, and they struck true, just like in C&M canon, although that fact might not be as absolute in this life as it was in a rulebook.
The creature screeched in pain. Finally, Will could see some serious wounds.
The arrow shafts had sunken almost halfway inside the creature''s hard flesh. The next moment they burst apart in a hot blaze, frying the gorgon''s insides.
The gorgon fell down on the floor, writhing, while the warriors pelted at it freely.
Minor Physical Immunity (IV) triggered.
There was no way Will would get close to a monster that exhibited such physical prowess without taking some protective measures. It was only for the sake of his next spell that he chose to approach at all.
Vampiric Drain (V) triggered.
As he gazed into the eyes of the monster, Will felt his Spellshield suddenly break down some more, but he wasn''t truly afraid anymore. Some of the shield still remained, which was enough. Will also had another, reasonably strong option ready if it became necessary.
It didn''t look like it would, however. The single-target spell was pretty damn strong, and Will hoped that it would be complete overkill after what the creature had suffered so far.
The gorgon''s skin shriveled up under Will''s touch, and even its face started to grow emaciated. Stolen life force rushed into Will, who felt like it was bolstering him in some way (as it should, according to the original HP-stealing effect of the spell).
Finally, the gorgon''s eyes grew dull and glassy, and it lay limply on the ground.
"What was that?!" Sixtus asked while staring at Will.
"I had to use a spellstone," Will answered. "Thankfully, this thing was already on its last legs."
"No, I mean the creature," the older mage clarified. "How did you speak its tongue?"
"Oh. It was a gorgon. I happen to know a little bit of their language," Will explained dishonestly. He had no idea what language he''d spoken to the creature.
The wounded soldiers drank some orange potions until nobody was bleeding much. Also, a few minutes later, the previously frozen people began slowly moving again, which was a big relief to everyone else and a medium-sized relief to Will.
He was simply happy that he didn''t need to use a certain gimmicky, shit-tier spell to fix them, which would surely have resulted in a huge headache due to its high level.
Chapter 14
Bessina walked toward the outskirts of the town. As the neighborhood started to look more and more meager, a frown deepened on her face.
Is this really the right place? she wondered.
Finally, she reached the address she had been given, and knocked unsurely on the door of a large house. There was an awful din of metal banging against metal that mostly drowned her attempts, but after a few proper kicks on the wood, the clamor stopped.
A dirty-faced little girl answered the door. She stared at Bessina, who stared back for a second before speaking.
"Ahem. I must have the wrong address."
"Alright," the girl closed the door.
Bessina asked around at the nearby businesses before coming back to the very same door.
"Ahem. It looks like I had the correct address after all," she explained, slightly red-faced.
"If ya say so," the girl replied.
Bessina stared. A pair of bright green eyes stared right back.
"I don''t suppose Magister Will is at home?"
"The Owner? I don''t know where his home is."
Bessina felt some relief.
"Of course. Can you give a message to him?"
"When he comes back, sure."
Will checked in at the shop several hours later.
"They produced fifty sheets of steel today," Jenna reported to him. "Also, a highborn woman was looking for you."
"Hmm? Who?"
"Dunno. She only told me to give this to you." The girl handed over a little piece of paper.
Will read it, and the smile on his face fell.
"The King''s court? Fuck me..."
Will couldn''t refuse the summons and keep what he had accumulated for himself in this country, so he chose to obey.
The court was basically empty when he arrived.
"Everyone, out!!!" The king bellowed, and the grand hall became even emptier.
Only an armored guard and an old robed man remained by the king''s side while Will and two other mages remained standing at the foot of the regent''s throne and its tall pedestal.
"Sixtus, you said the new Magister is strong," the King began when the doors to the hall closed behind the last of the courtiers.
"Aye, Your Majesty. His spells hit the monster at least twice as hard as mine."
"Excellent, excellent. Sixtus, you may leave as well."
The older magister left after offering a deep bow.
"Now," the king spoke to the two remaining guests. "What I''m about to tell you must not be spoken of with anyone else."
The mages murmured their assent before the king continued.
"You''re about to meet someone who doesn''t officially exist. Allen!"
A modest door opened at the side of the court, and a nondescript man walked in. He wore some dark grey clothes that looked simple and practical, but they were immaculately clean and the fabrics looked brand new. All in all, he looked like a peasant dressed up for a new job.
"This is my spymaster. You will only be referring to him as ''Allen''."
"G''day, sirs," the newcomer spoke and gave the guests a curt nod.
"Allen, your new assets. Here, a new, promising magister named Will," the king made a casual gesture toward Will. "As for High Mage Septimus, you may have heard of him. He owes us some special services."
"Can they stomach the job?"
"Septimus surely can. As for the newbie? Who knows?"
"Uh, if I may?" Will began. "What kind of a job?"
"That, young man, is something you only need to hear if we deem you useful," the king answered him readily.
"I understand, Your Majesty."
"Now, what you''ll hear from Allen is something you''ll not only keep to yourself, but you need to understand that you''ll be hunted down as traitors if you speak of it to anyone."
Will raised his eyebrows.
"If that upsets you, I suggest you take your leave now."
"No, sir. I can keep my mouth shut."
"Good. While Allen''s existence is more of an open secret, your mission will be extremely sensitive. Say, how do you stomach killing people?"
"Uh. I have killed in war, Your Majesty," Will answered, feeling a little uncertain about where the discussion was going.
"Yes. Can you kill innocents?"
Will frowned as he thought.
"Like children or peasants minding their own simple business? No thanks. As for clueless peasants who have had the misfortune of being drafted? Yeah, I have no doubt that I''ve killed a few."
"A timid answer," the king judged him with a knowing nod. "Still, it''s good enough for today."
"Allen," the king turned to his spymaster, who perked up. "You''ll use them as you need. And remember, don''t let me hear a single name or detail related to what they''ll be doing!"
The average-looking man nodded.
"I know, Your Majesty."
Will raised an eyebrow as he looked at the two men who previously spoke, but he chose not to comment.
''Allen'' gestured at the two guests to follow and led them through the unassuming door into a long corridor and finally through a locked wooden door.
They walked a staircase two floors down, and after another locked door, ended up in what looked like a merchant''s living room.
There were cushioned seats and small tables in front of them, as well as some simple, decorative paintings on the walls.
Allen sat on one of the chairs, as did the high mage. Will followed their example.
"So, who needs to die this time?" Septimus asked.
Allen stared at the middle-aged mage for a couple of seconds before answering.
"Duke Torell''s heir."
"Hmh. Makes sense. Wouldn''t want that wastrel inheriting a duchy, now would we?"
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"Mister Allen, I hope you realize that I have absolutely zero experience with assassinations," Will asked.
"Really? I was led to believe I would get two stealth experts."
"I have a way to act stealthily, yes, but that''s about it," Will lied. He had several ways to be stealthy, but there was no reason to reveal his life-saving methods with useless boasts.
"Well, you come with high recommendations, so I''m certain you''ll do fine."
Will opened his mouth to grumble some more about the unreasonableness of the request but changed his mind when he thought of something else.
"What''s the pay?"
"For you, I''m prepared to put out a hundred gold provided the mission succeeds."
"Oh? Oh... I guess I can only do my best."
"Mmm. You are to assist High Mage Septimus. Despite his infamy, Tor Torell is loved by his father and has been assigned a retired grand knight as an attendant."
"I''m not all that familiar with these titles. How strong is a grand knight?"
The spymaster blinked at the question.
"A grand knight is equal to a high mage in rank. As for strength? I guess a high mage is much stronger in a way, but that''s only if he can dictate the fight."
The explanation made some sense. A mage could be butchered by a peasant with a pitchfork if he wasn''t sitting safely in the back line.
"Why send mages as assassins anyway? Surely, there are proper assassins available?"
"Hmph," Septimus chose to interject with a disdainful harrumph. "A suitably trained mage is obviously the best kind of assassin."
"Umm... if you say so?"
"I can hide with my magic; I can strike with a massive spell from the shadows. Those are the essential requirements," the older man explained.
"Surely you should be able to deduce this much?" Septimus went on. "You should know chameleon magic. I was also told you have a spell with tier five striking power. Those two facts make you a prospective assassin. Obviously!"
"I see, I guess," Will conceded. "How do you know I have a strong spell?"
"Do you regularly take others for fools? The reports of your fight against an unknown monster the other day mention you using two remarkably strong spells, while you only reported using one spellstone."
"Oh... That''s right. My bad." I guess I was seen through by that old man after all.
Will had hoped that the fifth-level Vampiric Drain had gone unnoticed given how the gorgon had already been half-dead and how relatively unimpressive the spell was visually.
In ASA, Septimus would probably represent some kind of prestige class. Assassin mages weren''t particularly common, but they weren''t a totally foreign concept either.
"In any case, Magister Will is to provide backup or distraction, depending on how the situation develops," Allen explained. "I expect High Mage Septimus to perform the critical deed."
The older man nodded.
"Naturally. The boy can sit back and watch for all I care."
"Now, now. Let''s not dismiss the talented Magister''s ability to contribute. I have a preliminary plan outlined..."
A few days passed.
Will and Septimus traveled further north, and the winter grew even milder. Only the fallen, rotting leaves and the dormant, brown grass served as evidence that the landscape hadn''t enjoyed the proper warmth of summer for several months.
"So, are you ready to come clean?" Septimus demanded. "Is the desiccation spell truly your own? Or was it the fire spell?"
Will sighed. He had used Inferno Arrows in order to soften the gorgon up. That one had really been pretty spectacular, even if it was just a 3rd-level spell.
"The desiccation spell was mine," he divulged.
Septimus nodded, making Will feel even more like the man had already known.
Ah well, there''s also a 3rd-level version of the same spell in my book. I''ll just use that one if they need me to.
As long as he only displayed third-level firepower from now on (or whatever tier the locals called it), he wouldn''t be leaking any critical secrets.
"Good. It seems to only work at a very short range?"
"Correct," Will confirmed. "I need to touch the target for it to have any effect at all."
"That''s acceptable given how quickly you can cast it."
That was another unfortunate discrepancy to his infamy as a slow caster.
"I can only do it once," Will warned. "Twice, if you let me prepare well beforehand, but it''s going to take a lot out of me."
Will didn''t feel like that was even a lie. Spending two 3rd-level slots for some random job was really pretty generous of him.
Septimus nodded in thought.
"Once should be plenty enough. I''m thinking you take out the heir."
"What? I thought that was explicitly defined as your job?"
Septimus shook his head.
"My first and foremost job is to make sure we succeed. I should go after the grand knight bodyguard. Once he is out of the picture, we can take our time finishing the job."
"I see. Fine."
"If I fail for some unforeseen reason, perhaps you''ll have killed the heir anyway, and we can retreat with the mission successfully completed."
Will nodded.
"That seems likely."
He really didn''t doubt his ability to put down some squishy noble. He wouldn''t even have any qualms about it after hearing that the man had strangled a prostitute to death over some perceived insult.
(Even if it was just some rumor used to smear him, Will reckoned that the guy was probably an asshole anyway to be hated all the way in the South.)
The chill of the northern night still had some bite to it. Will redid the black scarf around his face to not only cover his features but also block the cold wind assailing his neck.
"That''s them. Let''s go!" Septimus whispered next to him after several dozen minutes'' wait near a local whorehouse.
Septimus turned semi-transparent after ten seconds of casting. Will glanced at him jealously as he spent three times longer to cast his own 2nd-level spell.
The two blurry forms snuck through a back door into the whorehouse. Septimus blew out any nearby candles as he went forward, stopping occasionally to listen and make sure they weren''t running into any occupants of the house.
Will ignored the annoying fake moans and screams of pleasure he could hear passing by a few poorly soundproofed doors. He kept his eyes open for any movement.
Septimus saw or heard something and pressed himself flush into a recess in the wall. Will quickly backtracked a little and crouched behind a big chair placed next to a relatively large glass-paned window.
A middle-aged woman walked past them. She frowned and stopped to pick up a burning candle to relight one that Septimus had just put out. Other than that, she didn''t seem to notice anything amiss.
The two men waited quietly until they were able to proceed once more.
Soon, Septimus stopped behind a door and did a series of gestures before moving on to the next one, where he repeated the same gestures.
Divination magic? Will wondered idly.
It couldn''t be a particularly good spell given how many times the man had to cast it to locate his target. Then again, the fact that he even could cast it so many times was a point in the favor of the local diviners.
Finally, the man found what he was looking for and gestured at Will with some large hand motions he was able to decipher despite the older man''s translucent form.
I guess it''s go-time! Will made an exaggeratedly eager gesture to signal that he was ready.
Both men started to prepare some more magic, just like they had agreed previously.
As expected, the more experienced assassin mage was ready first, and he turned his expectant gaze at Will, who was still casting his Arcane Armor and Swift Retreat spells from scratch in order to preserve his limited spell slots.
Finally, he stilled and waited for his leader to start the gig.
Septimus quietly pushed the handle and opened the door by a crack. From the intel they''d received, Will knew he would be peeking at something like a living room beyond the door, where Tor Torell would eat and indulge in some drinks before it was time to call the prostitutes in.
Septimus cringed back slightly and pushed the door until it was almost closed. He turned to Will and gestured five times. Then he gave another "get ready to proceed" sign.
Five people?!
The ducal heir was known to sometimes invite another debaucher to drink with him, but to have three guests in addition to his bodyguard was pretty exceptional.
Shouldn''t we just try again later?! Will wanted to ask, but they hadn''t decided on any signs for questions like that.
The assassin mage was clearly getting ready to go again. Will sighed quietly, deciding to follow along.
Whether it''s one or four squishy nobles, it shouldn''t make a big difference, he told himself.
Septimus opened the door just a little and slipped in quietly. Will took his previous position to peek in, seeing the five people in the room.
The three men and a woman were sitting down around a table, while the bodyguard was sitting in a chair placed in a dark corner. His attention seemed to be occupied by a short sword that he was cleaning with a piece of cloth.
Nobody had their eyes on the door, so Will followed behind the other mage. He pulled at the door behind him but didn''t close it fully, thus avoiding any unnecessary noise.
Within the somewhat dimly lit room, he could rather easily make out a crouching, translucent man making slow progress alongside a wall, creeping closer to the bodyguard. Being able to see so much was enough to make him sweat, but then again, he already knew where to look, so it was probably fine. Maybe.
Will put his doubts aside and started to slowly walk alongside a wall in the other direction, pausing after each step to make sure nobody was looking even remotely in his direction.
While he still went on, he noticed Septimus wasn''t moving anymore. He stood still more than a dozen feet from his target, but Will knew his heavy-hitting spell should be already effective at that distance.
The same couldn''t be said about the spell Will was supposed to use. He kept slowly creeping closer.
He was supposed to be the support who would handle simple things like distractions, but that task had rotated right back to the older mage due to how Will just couldn''t get close enough without being detected.
He knew his limits and stopped in a dark spot some eight feet away from his sandy-haired target, who had his back toward Will. Another man could see him if he just momentarily lifted his eyes from the game of dice he was occupied with. Hopefully that wouldn''t happen soon.
Will glanced at Septimus, who was also pretty well hidden in his spot. He could only make out his orientation properly when the man took a stone from his pocket and whisked it at a glass window.
The pane it hit shattered. One of the men sitting at the table jumped up while everyone else remained seated but turned around to stare at the commotion.
Will didn''t waste a moment and took a few quick steps to reach his target, uttering a couple of quiet words.
Minor Vampiric Drain (III) triggered.
The local duke''s heir gasped before he started to dry up rapidly. He died within a second while Will felt a slightly uncomfortable rush of energy enter him through his extended hand.
A second later, a brilliant red flash could be seen on the other side of the room, and the head of the man in the corner rolled off his shoulders, striking the floor with a thump.
At this point, the one man who had stood up previously turned to face Septimus, and Will realized their error for the first time.
The man had a furious scowl on his face. A face that perfectly matched the description of Tom Torell''s bodyguard.
The dead man who had been sitting in the corner had a similar, large build, but it was now clear that he had been someone else.
Chapter 15
Despite their attacks, both assassins still remained camouflaged. Will''s spell had turned into something new, and the in-game limitation of not being able to take hostile actions without breaking invisibility wasn''t present in this reality.
Still, they weren''t exactly hidden anymore. Several pairs of eyes were now wide open, staring at the intruders.
"Monsters!" The sole woman at the table shouted while scrambling toward a far wall to put distance between her and the two mages.
Instead of talking, the retired grand knight moved.
He was by no means an old man. Only in his mid-thirties, perhaps. He drew a short sword with one motion as he jumped over the back of the sofa he''d been sitting on.
"Retreat!" Septimus shouted, but the grand knight was already upon Will.
Almost instinctively, Will summoned the enchanted quarterstaff from his inventory and raised it to block the incoming slash.
Sword stuck wood, and the strength behind the blow was such that Will should have feared for his bones. However, the life energy gained from murdering the hapless noble still flowed within Will''s body and bolstered his bone and muscle, allowing him to stop the sword successfully.
While the wooden staff was the biggest loser in the exchange, it was still somewhat enchanted, and the sharp steel only managed to penetrate a few millimeters, even though the strength of the blow had been like an axeman''s serious chop.
That said, a few millimeters was enough for the sharp weapon to become stuck. Will used both his hands to rotate and successfully yank the sword free from the warrior''s one-handed grip. However, that didn''t give more than a millisecond''s pause to the experienced fighter, who simply proceeded to body-slam Will.
Will tried to avoid the maneuver but he was taken by too much surprise to react in time. The staff flew out of his hands, and a moment later his body hit the stone-tiled floor. It didn''t feel like it hurt as much as it should have, although it was hard to tell through all the adrenaline.
C&M''s rules regarding the Vampiric spell dictated that the spell drained its victim''s HP and temporarily transferred them to the caster. There were no hit points to drain in this real world, but he had clearly drained something he could use.
Will scrambled back up in a relatively nimble manner while dodging a kick from the warrior.
Minor Physical Immunity (IV) triggered.
The spell''s trigger sequence was one he had trained pretty heavily on, given how it was an essential life-saving measure. It took just a few syllables and gestures until the spell was in effect.
Either his "Melee Mage" feat or his high dexterity helped him enough to perform the gestures even as he got up from the floor and kept avoiding the grand knight''s fists.
When a heavy fist finally connected with his face a moment later, it felt like nothing more than a soft push.
Now that the spell was in effect for the next minute or so, Will felt much more confident. His only remaining worry was letting people witness him being struck and remain completely unharmed.
That said, only the woman remained in the room while everyone else had already run away. Even she was currently spending her panicked efforts in an attempt to get out through the broken window.
As long as Will silenced the grand knight, his secrets should be safe. Or, no more exposed than how his previous blunders had left them.
Wind Blast (II) triggered.
Will performed a risky roll to place himself between the door and the warrior. When his spell triggered, a strong gust of wind originating from Will''s position launched the warrior toward the window.
It also gave the hesitating woman the push she clearly needed. She went out of the window, screaming. It was only some six feet above the street level, so she would live. One less innocent person''s life weighing on Will''s conscience¡ªassuming she was innocent at all.
The Grand Knight, too, seemed morally upright, judging by his actions. His charge was already dead, yet he hadn''t simply deserted the venue. Perhaps he was a highly loyal person?
In any case, he had chosen the wrong person to be loyal to. There was a price to pay for such mistake.
Minor Pillar of Flame (II) triggered.
The spell he chose to kill the big fighter with was only 2nd-level, but it dealt respectable single-target damage. It required successful aiming and timing, but with the man knocked down with the wind spell, that wasn''t an issue.
After a small delay, a foot-wide scorching ray of fire blasted upwards from the Grand Knight''s feet. He had alredy got up from the floor but now he fell down again, screaming.
The spell ended almost as soon as it begun, having deposited its hellishly intense energy in an impressively short period of time. The man''s clothes were in tatters, yet you couldn''t see any bare skin, only blackened, charred flesh.
Even blacker, charred pieces of the ceiling rained down on the victim of the spell. The wooden planks had burned even more thoroughly than the man''s flesh.
He lived through that? Will watched on with a grimace. If there were Hit Points, the Grand Knight would sport a pretty high maximum value at that. His sturdiness was definitely somewhat supernatural.
The man stood up on shaky legs, proving the fires hadn''t even burned all that deep, given how his muscles still operated. Even if he was critically injured, the warrior was clearly still a threat.
Mental Shackles, Major (V) triggered.
Using a fifth-level spell was likely overkill, but due to the two Minor Vampiric Drains Will had prepared just in case, he currently hadn''t got the 3rd-level version of the holding spell slotted.
The Grand Knight froze completely, not even being able to shake from futile exertion of his muscles.
Will walked to the combined weaponry lying on the floor, taking a few seconds to separate staff from sword.
Staff went back to the inventory while the remaining weapon went through the helpless knight''s chest. The tip of the sword was very sharp, and the ex-knight wore no armor, but even then, Will had to lean his full weight into the thrust that finally put the man out of his misery.
Will redid his chameleon effect that had already expired and made his way to the next meeting point they''d planned.
"You actually lived!" a wide-eyed Septimus greeted him. "You don''t even seem hurt..."
"Sure, but I had to use a spellstone."
"Just one spellstone when he was already right next to you? You''re very lucky! Err, surely you cannot afford emerald ones yet?"
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"No, it was just a blue one."
Was he really that big of a deal? Will wondered briefly until he was forced to admit it. I guess he was...
The warriors he''d fought with so far had mostly been minor pieces on the chessboard. Compared to them, the ex-knight clearly needed a separate category. The moniker ''Grand'' was clearly deserved.
"It stalled him for long enough for me to burn him and put a sword through his heart," Will explained with a shrug.
"You must introduce me to that spell!"
"Sorry. That''s not on the table. Trade secrets."
"I could pay you well! Just give me a few key details!" the man tried to negotiate, but Will didn''t budge.
Days later, they were back in Anth, about to meet the king once more.
"Don''t let any details of what you''ve done slip to the king. He must now know."
"Why''s that?" Will asked with mild curiosity. "Countermeasure against truth-detection spells?"
"There is that. But it''s mostly because of mundane means of reading body language and other minor tells."
"Oh. People can really do that?"
"Some people can. Too many to take chances. It''s important that he doesn''t need to lie directly."
The king''s great hall had been emptied once again.
"I hear you''ve served the crown well," the king began.
"Yes, Your Majesty," Septimus answered.
The older mage''s voice was enthusiastic, and Will had no idea why, but it was pretty amusing.
"It went well enough," Will reported with a shrug and a little smile.
"No, it didn''t!" Septimus protested, his voice gaining a defiant quality. "There was serious trouble, but this young man was up to the task," he gestured at Will.
"Oh. I guess you can look at it that way. Thank you." Will accepted the compliment with raised eyebrows.
"Nonsense. I''m only reporting what honor demands of me."
Was the old man really concerned with honor of all things? There were stranger things in the new world, so Will could only shrug again.
"Oh? It''s interesting that a powerful high mage gives a newly promoted magister such praise," the King commented in a shrewd cadence.
"When the newbie in question is very powerful, it''s not that strange," Septimus defended his generous attitude.
"Hmm," the king only hummed and nodded in response. "In any case, Allen tells me you''ve been very successful, and I will take it into account."
Whatever that meant, it was something Septimus liked to hear, given his widening smile.
"Thank you, Your Majesty! Now, until I am needed again..." the old man dismissed himself in a slightly impudent manner and turned around to leave.
The king didn''t seem to mind the liberties the other mage had taken. Instead, he turned his attention back to Will.
"I was planning to have Septimus attend the First Prince on his trip to the Principality, but..."
Uh, oh.
"Does Your Majesty mean to imply that I could be interested in the task?"
"Indeed, indeed. What say you? Can you take care of a twenty-year-old kid? I know you''ve done it before."
Will pondered for a moment, scratching his chin and finding it completely hairless once again.
"I suppose I can do it. Is there a reward to be expected?"
"For an important task, there will naturally be a sizable pay. Or did you desire something else?"
"Ah, sorry. I didn''t mean to imply anything complicated. Just some gold will do," Will hastily clarified.
"Excellent! This way, High Mage Alfonso can perform his studies on the way while a capable junior takes care of the running matters."
The king said the word ''studies'' with a slightly wrinkled nose as if he didn''t like it, but Will''s attention was on another detail.
"I hope the running matters don''t involve anything diplomatic or political, Your Majesty. I''m afraid I''m a bit of a blunt instrument."
"Hah! Don''t worry. I expect little more of you but your magical prowess. By running matters, I only mean you should keep your eyes open while the high mage plays with his devices."
"I see. That seems to be within my capabilities."
"Now, you may leave to prepare for the trip. I''ll have someone give you some gold right away. Expect more after a job well done."
The next strange thing in Will''s life was the fact that he got to board a flying ship.
The vessel was pretty small, and it was made even more cramped by the fact that most of it was occupied by High Mage Alonso''s study, while the sole big bedroom was occupied by the First Prince.
That meant Will had to sleep in crew quarters. His bedroom was basically a horizontal cupboard, and that was considered a luxury by the simple crew members.
Will munched on a bar of dried meat mixed with some red berries as he watched the blue skies. It wasn''t a bad type of food to have on the road, but it was the smallest and most lightweight kind, so it was all they had on board in addition to dry bread.
Will sighed in relief when he finished laboriously chewing through his meal. Next, he went back to his magical practice even as he kept an eye on the horizon while the other watchman slept.
God''s Eyes (VI) stored in a spell slot.
The preparation of the new high-level spell took a lot out of him, so Will took a breather before actually using it.
God''s Eyes (VI) triggered.
It was somewhat similar to the minor version of the spell at the 2nd level, which was used to detect invisibility. In the game, slotting one of those tended to be more than enough in normal situations, and the sixth-level version was generally seen as overkill.
In this world, however, the true God''s Eyes spell was really impressive.
Like with the 2nd-level version, Will felt his eyesight clear up immediately. Then it kept clearing up more and more, until the amount of detail he could discern was a little overwhelming. He had to practice simply to get used to ignoring most of it.
With the lesser spell, he would already spot chameleon spell users trivially, but with the better version, he could perceive mana visually in addition to his normal mana sense.
The skies weren''t just blue anymore, but also permeated by a different color Will had no name for.
The ground was spotty with other new colors, and living things stood out as bright spots, such as a wyvern on the horizon.
"Wyvern at north-northwest!" Will shouted out loud from the cage on top of the short mast, onto which a small sail could be raised. It remained empty for now. Usually, a sail would just slow the craft down when it used its magical propulsion.
"Alert! Man the crossbows!" someone else roared in response after a second, speaking into a brass tube that led downstairs. It was the guy currently in charge of steering the craft.
In just a few more seconds, three men rushed from the warmth and comfort of the lower deck, putting on thick jackets and leather caps insulated with a lot of wool, the type of which Will and the guy at the helm already wore.
"It''s still ten miles and three hundred yards away," Will informed the men who had gathered. "You should be able to spot it soon...ish."
The wyvern was pretty fast given how it flew using just its wing muscles. Those muscles brimmed with mana in Will''s enhanced sight, so he knew that the creature wasn''t truly flying by completely mundane means.
Then again, living things in this world all seemed to contain at least some mana. Even the ordinary crew clearly possessed a little. Not really enough to enhance their muscular power, however.
One of the men at the crossbows was an exception. He obviously wasn''t a mage, but like the ships captain, he had a lot of mana in his body. He bore only a corporal''s insignia on his uniform, even though his body looked similar to the captain in Will''s mana sight.
Both leaked a sizable amount of excess mana. Either they were of a similar strength, or perhaps the younger man was simply wasting more while the captain was better at holding on to the good stuff.
Some big and very mana-rich insects splattered occasionally against the hull of the flying ship like rotten tomatoes, so Will knew his sight wasn''t exactly a reliable indicator of strength.
The wyvern slowed down as it gradually came closer. Finally, the three heavy crossbows fixed to the rim of the deck released a sparse salvo at it. One of the bolts struck true, and the creature screeched. With that nasty experience, it promptly turned around to flee.
Everyone watched as the animal that was as big as a black bear soared away on wings that were twice as large as its body.
Had it chosen to land on the deck and exchange its life for some kills, it would have been a truly fearsome enemy, potentially making its species an absolute obstacle to traveling through the skies with normal crews. Fortunately, wyverns were just simple predators who gave up once they realized they were not facing easy prey.
Spotting the annoyance early had been nice, but Will had had enough of the sixth-level spell for now. He moved on to practicing other divination spells that could be relevant during his trip.
"Ah, I thought I heard something," a deep voice spoke when a head appeared through a trapdoor on the deck.
Will''s mood soured instantly.
"High Mage! Good day!" the helmsman saluted the newcomer on the deck.
The tall, grey-haired man ignored the ordinary crew member and stared at Will.
"Once again, you have such a beautiful way to practice magic! I could measure the undulations on my devices..."
"High Mage," Will greeted the man with a curt nod, hoping he''d go away. Alas, he had no such luck.
"Your mana capacity must be naturally high. Such envious circumstances of birth!" the man offered seemingly lamenting words but wore a wide smile.
"Your parents must be truly powerful to produce such offspring. Oh, how they must treasure such a potent heir! I know I would be proud."
Will resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the old man''s incorrect deductions and tiresome platitudes.
"Thanks," he simply replied.
"East, right? You must hail from quite far east?"
"Who knows? Ahem." Will proceeded to soften his tone, which had gained a slightly shrill quality. "You know I don''t like to discuss my origins," he explained for the third time already.
"Hehe. Such a mystery. No matter, I''ll crack you open sooner or later!" The spry old man gave him a happy grin before retreating back into his study.
Will finally let a grimace float on his face as he forced his attention back to his spells. His superior on this occasion was truly an annoyance.
Chapter 16
After just a few days'' travel, the ship landed in the large neighboring country, right next to the docks of their capital, which was situated right by a large inland sea.
Beautiful girls approached the craft as soon as it touched down. There was also a small crowd of onlookers who seemed to be checking out the flying ship with some curiosity.
The First Prince was the first one to step on foreign ground along with his two grand knight bodyguards. The smiling girls hurried in to strip the heavy jacket from the youth''s shoulders, replacing it with a thinner and much gaudier red coat, on which the emblems of Anth-Komi had been embroidered in gold.
"Welcome to the Principality!" one of the girls chirped at Will when he passed them by.
Will nodded back at her politely while sneaking a brief glance at her plump and milky-white thighs. A rare sight, given how most women in this world wore long skirts, while these few were clad in short ones. It was clearly their job to look sexy.
After that curt courtesy, the girls ignored him completely. It didn''t seem like there was any kind of welcoming present prepared for him or even the High Mage, but such was life.
Further ahead, the First Prince had stopped to shake hands with some local official and exchange boring words.
Will utilized the lull by casting a 3rd-level spell from scratch.
Action log:
Detect Hostility (III) has been cast.
The spell was ready after a few minutes, and as expected, his vision lit up in various shades of red. Apparently, nobody was one hundred percent chill, but from the mostly light hues and their blank faces, Will surmised that the locals didn''t have strong feelings for their southern neighbors.
There were a couple of bright red auras among their official reception. A woman who looked totally pissed as well as a man who was all smiles at the First Prince.
They were definitely not dressed for moving around freely. Will assumed their hostility was purely political and decided to ignore them for now. He couldn''t even tell who was the target of their ire.
The spell wasn''t all that good. It was reliable when pointing out agitated beasts, but humans were often more complicated. Sure, if someone was planning to assault someone right the next moment, they would probably register clearly, but that was about it.
"A beautiful day, isn''t it?" The old mage stepped next to Will and made a vacuous comment.
Will glanced his way but didn''t feel like opening his mouth to respond.
"Don''t be like that! This is a land of possibilities. There are such special ingredients available; you wouldn''t even believe me..."
Will knew basically zilch about alchemy or magical research, so he didn''t really find the topic interesting. Much less so with this particular old fucker.
"I should secure the perimeter," he fibbed and walked away.
He walked ahead of the progression of a few slow-moving carriages that had just set off for a nearby palace, transporting the prince and the rest of the important guests.
It wasn''t the biggest palace in the city, but it was already of a similar size to the royal castle in Anth. Will joined with the progression to get through the guarded gates.
"This place should be safe. Even if the locals allow an assassin near me, it won''t be here. You should rest," their charge instructed his security retinue in a cheerful tone when they were presented with some nice quarters.
Will took his advice and retreated to his own bedroom and promptly threw himself on the proper bed for the first time in a few days.
He woke up to a small creaking sound in the middle of the night. The old-fashioned buildings of this backward world were always kind of noisy. Will simply closed his eyes again.
There was another creak, and his eyes opened once more.
He got up to take a look at the door and saw a tall, looming figure.
Will immediately tried to secure his physical well-being and started to briefly gesture with his hands and utter a very short string of necessary syllables.
Minor Physical Immunity (IV) has failed to trigger! Your spellcasting has been interrupted, and the spell is lost!
It wouldn''t have taken long, but the intruder was too quick to act, and the spell wouldn''t have helped Will against this particular attacker, anyway. There was a flash of light, and he felt terrible pain in his left hand.
While he was reeling from the pain, he heard a short chant and soon felt himself being pushed against his bed by a nearly crushing force. It was almost impossible to even breathe.
"Stupid boy! Look at what you made me do," a familiar voice spoke.
A small flame appeared on top of an open palm, illuminating Will''s bedroom.
Will briefly noted the annoying, familiar face, but then his eyes went where his greatest pain was, and he saw a bleeding stump terminating at his left wrist. His hand simply wasn''t there.
"No... This is..." he whispered quietly.
Will had promptly gone into some kind of mental shock trying to process and accept what he was seeing.
The pain was bad but not that bad. How could he possibly have lost his hand so simply? Was he under an illusion attack?
"See? Your body is damaged now. What a waste!"
At that moment, whatever spell Will was under ended abruptly, and he could breathe easily again. Yet, it took him a second longer to register the change.
Somehow, despite his shock and denial, his mind went into overdrive on its own as he recognized the opportunity to flee.
The remaining right hand went through two very short gestures in record time, and his mouth spat out three short syllables for one of the fastest triggers he had.
Wind Blast (II) triggered.
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A big shockwave of air blasted 360 degrees around him. It immediately sent the sheets and pillow flying, and a tenth of a second later it also lifted off an old man, throwing him against a wall.
"Oof," the old man huffed as air escaped his lungs due to the impact, but a small, glittering object had appeared in his hand, and he managed to hold on to it.
Will used the time he had bought to cast another spell.
Major Spell Immunity (VI) triggered.
His protective spell choice was most likely overkill, but he didn''t feel like taking chances.
The spellstone crumbled, and a grey chain appeared in High Mage Alfonso''s hands. It shot forth like a charmed snake, seeking to encircle Will.
When it was about to come in contact with his body, the chain simply evaporated in a shower of sparks.
"What?!" The old man roared in disbelief.
Now that Will finally felt pretty secure, it was time to exact punishment.
Mental Shackles, Minor (III) triggered.
The old man froze, but not completely. His eyes were still darting around, and the hands that had been going through casting motions were still moving slowly, albeit erratically.
Fearing that Alfonso might be able to fight the spell off quickly, Will didn''t waste a second. He summoned his quarterstaff and drove a crushing blow into the other man''s temple.
Alfonso''s eyes rolled in different directions when his skull was deformed under the blow. He slumped onto the floor, either already dead or in the process of rapidly reaching that final state.
Will turned his disbelieving eyes back to his stump. He tried to open and close the fingers of the missing hand he still seemed to be feeling to some extent, but nothing happened.
"Shit... Shit!"
He pulled a red healing potion from his inventory and uncorked it clumsily. After pouring it in his mouth, the bleeding of his wrist stopped and the wound scabbed all over, but the hand didn''t grow back.
Will went down on the floor, feeling around until his healthy hand grabbed something bony.
The severed hand was a mangled mess. Whatever spell had removed it hadn''t delivered a single, clean cut.
With a shaking hand, Will poured another potion on the severed appendage.
Nothing happened.
"FUCK!" he roared.
After that, someone finally rushed into his room, as if none of the previous struggle had been heard by anyone. Then again, maybe that was precisely the case.
"What''s going on here?"
It was one of the grand knights serving the First Prince.
Will raised the severed hand in the knight''s direction and gave him a desperate look.
"Help me! It was the high mage!"
Naturally, Will didn''t sleep for a second longer that night.
Hours later, he stood on the rooftop of a tower, watching the sunrise. One hand was rubbing at the stump while he went over his options.
Will had calmed down while he''d been interrogated. Nobody was nice to him even though he was the victim, but since they weren''t making any violent moves and only threatened him with a legal punishment, Will simply wasn''t afraid.
He still had his powers. They were impressive. More impressive than any high mages.
One hand was enough to cast spells, even if the loss of one slowed him down a little bit.
Will had his spells ready. Should anything untoward happen again, he''d simply be gone in a whiff. Nobody would be able to hurt him or lock him anywhere.
Deep, calm breaths.
A beautiful sunrise.
A ghost limb that ached terribly.
There was the spell Prosthetic Limb at the 8th level. Perhaps it was a good spell, but there was no way to find out. As a level-14 wizard, Will could only cast up to the 7th spell level.
He''d have to reach level 15 first. That would not be easy. He would most likely have to take big risks to find and kill truly strong creatures. While missing one hand.
Even then, there was no telling if leveling up was even possible in this world.
"Fuck it! I don''t want to live like this! Feat list!" he shouted.
A list appeared in front of him, and Will scrolled down until he looked at one particular entry.
Obtain Restricted Spell (Minor Restoration (IV))
Restore some of what has been lost.
Gain access to the divine spell "Minor Restoration" (V).
It would be a risk. That much was obvious.
In the game, you would sometimes receive permanent injuries you could only remove with a Restoration spell. Thus, what he was looking at was probably the closest thing to what he needed.
However, the description his system gave him for the feat was definitely not the original spell description. First, the spell level in the feat description was higher compared to the name of the feat. That shouldn''t be too bad.
More importantly, the description had become more open-ended and generalized. It could be a good thing, or it could mean that permanent injuries were no longer within the spell''s purview. After all, the word ''some'' clearly conveyed that there were limitations.
But risks were part of life.
Proceeding to select a feat... Confirmation required: Are you sure?
"Yes!"
New feat gained: Obtain Restricted Spell (Minor Restoration (IV))
New spell gained: Arcane Restoration, Minor (V)
Information rushed into his brain. The name of the spell had changed, but he paid it no heed. Without wasting any time, he began casting according to the new knowledge he had gained.
Arcane Restoration, Minor (V) stored in a spell slot.
The spell wasn''t too complex, but it was very different from anything else he had used so far. He worked slowly by necessity, and even then he needed an extra attempt to get it right. Finally, Will had a budding headache as a price for his impatience.
Deep breaths.
The headache wasn''t painful enough to be relevant. He just needed to be alert and ready to control whatever happened next.
Arcane Restoration, Minor (V) triggered.
Vitality that reminded Will of what he had stolen with Vampiric Drain rushed into the fingertips of his casting hand. The tingles it caused felt considerably nicer, though.
He touched the stump with his remaining fingers and willed the energy to transmit.
First, there was some pain, but it felt a little distant and dull.
Next, the violently terminated bones in the middle of his stump grew a little longer, penetrating the scabs that had formed around them. The wound started to bleed again.
The bones grew until they protruded an inch from the stub. Blood vessels started to push up from the flesh and creep up alongside the newly grown bone. When the energy of the spell started to run out, the vessels closed up instead of spilling more than a few drops of blood on the floor.
"YES!" Will roared in triumph and relief.
"FUCK! YES!"
The stump terminating at his wrist was still a stump, but what had been previously lost had clearly been restored by a little.
---
The trial that followed when Will got back home hadn''t been too difficult.
Although Will was a newcomer and thus much less influential than the late High Mage Alfonso, the fact that Alfonso had died in Will''s bedroom in the middle of the night was a pretty strong point in Will''s favor.
"What do you plan to do now?" the King asked when the courtroom was mostly empty again, ten minutes after declaring Will not guilty.
"Nothing much," Will shrugged. "I''ll go back to observe some classes at the Academy."
"Fine. I hope you''ll grow up to be a sufficient replacement for Alfonso. The man was strange, but he was also competent."
Also, a murderous psycho, Will added quietly in his mind.
His wounded hand still didn''t have any fingers, but his palm had started to grow back already. He kept it wrapped in bandages, so nobody was the wiser.
He''d asked around, and apparently magical limb restoration was a thing. However, it was not available in Anth-Komi, and nobody knew how expensive it would be.
Still, the fact that it was possible stung a little. Perhaps he could have chosen a better feat and lived with one hand for a while?
But what was done was done.
Before the spring arrived, Will disappeared for a few weeks to study independently and attend his golem workshop.
When he made a new appearance at the border, he was whole again. In reality, his hand had grown fully back in three weeks, but he''d still kept it wrapped in bandages for several more.
"Huh? Didn''t you lose your hand?" High Mage Holmstr?m came to interrogate him the moment he laid his eyes on Will.
"I did, but I had it grown back," Will said with a shrug.
"What? How... Where..." the man stalled for a while. "Just who are you? That couldn''t have been cheap!"
"It wasn''t. I had to give up a unique opportunity in exchange."
"So, who paid for it? Who did the healing?"
"Sensitive secrets, I''m afraid."
"Hmph! People have been tortured for less useful information! If I ever lose a limb, I will expect you to give me more details."
"If that happens, I might be able to help you," Will promised easily. Too easily, he realized.
"But only if it''s you," he added quickly. "I won''t be referring multiple people to my hand-growing clinic!"
Holmstr?m snorted coldly. "You can be sure that there will be a line of crippled veterans behind your door within a fortnight."
"Uhh... That would be a problem."
"Your problem."
The conversation was over, and Will proceeded to nail a parchment to his door explaining that anyone who couldn''t afford several spellstones should simply forget about restoring missing limbs.
He then proceeded to rent a new bedroom under a fake name to avoid unwanted guests.
Chapter 17
Jenna inspected a sheet of steel and gave herself a satisfied nod.
Switching the golems'' tools mid-work resulted in a more uniform output. A cheap, big hammer for pounding out the slag; a better quality one for flattening the piece.
For a week, she had performed the switch herself, but then the golems had started to do it on their own.
It was pretty miraculous.
Or, perhaps their stupidity was the only thing that was truly miraculous, and the fact that she was impressed at the development was a little sad.
Later that day, she watched a few haulers who were loading a bunch of her product into a boat. The men would take the sheets along the river to the docks, where most of the steel would then be carried back to land to be sold to local blacksmiths.
She tossed her payment of one gold coin plus a few silvers up and down for a while before returning to the workshop. The buyer had paid her one extra silver compared to the last haul, thanks to the higher quality of her product.
Some passers-by had glanced at the coins, but Jenna wasn''t worried. She had Doggy, and Doggy was already famous for having bitten through some common ruffian''s ankle, crushing bone and everything.
Nobody privy to the local rumor mill tried to steal from her anymore. Or, steal from the Owner, really. She wasn''t taking what belonged to him either.
Jenna deposited the coins into a lockbox in the back of the workshop. She decided to go to bed early, even though the sun had only just set.
Life was good. Only an idiot would want anything more. She wouldn''t risk her good master''s ire by petty schemes. Trust is valuable.
---
"Orders from the Crown!" General Kroft announced the reason he had gathered the mages.
Will corrected his posture slightly. He was supposed to stand in proper attention when receiving orders from the king, but he couldn''t be arsed to act so impeccably. Another magister next to him made a more commendable effort, even going as far as to click his heels together.
On his other side, High Mage Holmstr?m didn''t even get up from the chair he was sitting in.
"Oh?" He simply interjected. "I''m all ears, then."
"Mhm," the general glanced at the sorry display but didn''t comment on it. "We are not to retreat permanently. His Majesty will be sending reinforcements to meet the offensive."
"Such restless times we live in," the High Mage commented, and proceeded to take a sip of tea from his porcelain cup. "Any specifics you can share?"
"I told them we need four more high mages. We''ll be getting three, plus a bunch of recruits from the Academy."
"Not ideal."
"It isn''t. His Majesty¡ªor perhaps it''s his advisors... They''re tempting fate."
"Does it truly look so bad for us?" the other magister asked curiously.
"I expect you stronger mages to avoid gruesome fates easily enough. It''s the young ones we''re going to lose."
"Leading to a bleaker future for us all," Holmstr?m added.
"Indeed. But don''t fret it too much. The Empire acts just as stupidly. They have mobilized some high mages, but besides that, it''s mostly young nobodies on their side, too."
"Compared to us, they have many more to waste," Holmstr?m pointed out again.
Kroft only grunted in response.
The spring grew a little warmer before the reinforcements arrived. Then, it was time to ride back to the hilly territories Anth-Komi had temporarily ceded to the unusually numerous enemy forces.
Ten thousand soldiers marched ahead, and the mages followed them on horseback a day or two later.
"Can any of you cast a shield?" Will asked his four charges.
Four hands were raised.
"Ahem. Let me amend that. Can any of you cast a shield during the five to ten seconds you''re going to have in combat before it rains fire?"
This time, no hands went up.
Will sighed.
"Alright. If you suspect a combat situation is imminent, come to me. I may be able to cast shields on you."
He had tried to refuse the new recruits, but he didn''t have a valid reason for doing so. The general insisted he use them as distractions, meat shields, or whatever was necessary to keep his own, more valuable ass alive.
Will didn''t need them for anything like that. Their deaths would serve nothing but to tarnish his own record.
An unarmored rider arrived right next to Will and talked to the captain of the company who was riding alongside him.
"Sir! Holmstr?m''s forces are standing by two miles ahead."
"Alright," the captain responded. "Men! Secure your gear; we''re almost there!"
"Will!" Holmstr?m greeted when their forces combined on a wide hilltop. "Good to have you here!"
"Likewise, sir. Do you know if the enemy is near?"
"Ah, the general was addressing that matter while I dined, but I believe we''re going to have a fight within the hour."
Will nodded. "Hear that?" he barked to his ducklings. "Don''t stray far from me!"
Thirty minutes later, they were at the far end of the hill, looking down at the road. Three hundred yards away, a large contingent of men under a different flag was spreading out into the mossy terrain around the road as they advanced.
"We seem to have the high ground," Will observed sagely.
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"Good for the normal troops, but not all that relevant for us," Holmstr?m replied.
The hills weren''t high, and the incline of the ridge wasn''t steep. Still, it would slow the opposing side slightly, which would give the friendly bowmen time to shoot a volley or two before the hostile bowmen got in range.
"Alright, come to me!" Will ordered his four underlings. "I''ll have you shielded."
"Hm? Shielding others again?"
"Yeah. We seem to have a few minutes. I can give you a shield, too," Will offered.
"No need," Holmstr?m turned down the favor.
"Captain?" Will asked the other officer.
"Uh... yes, please. If it isn''t too much trouble."
At least the mundane warrior was happy to receive magical protection, while the ducklings seemed a little sour about all the babying.
Some five minutes and six Absorb Elements castings later (one for himself), Will once again spoke in a normal human language.
"Alright, it''s going to dissipate on its own after two hours, but a few good hits from hostile spells will exhaust it well before the time runs out."
"Two hours?!" Holmstr?m interjected in a shocked voice.
"Give or take a little. Probably take, since I''m still lacking practice on that one."
"That''s exceptional. And to think that you''re casually casting it on other people! It doesn''t even matter that you do it so slowly!"
"I know, right?" Will agreed with a smile.
He knew the spell was handy enough that it didn''t matter that there was a little caveat after the older mage''s compliment. The locals simply disdained long casting times too much. Then again, they didn''t have spell slots to mitigate the issue.
The enemy had stopped just beyond the range of their bowmen, and Will started to get bored.
"Did they give you any recruits?" He inquired of Holmstr?m. "I''ve still got a lot of juice in the battery¡ err, bottle."
Fifteen minutes later, the enemy finally advanced again.
Arrows rained on them, being mostly deflected by shields. Occasionally, one slipped through, eliciting cries of pain and forcing a wounded man to retreat.
Few were unlucky enough to be killed immediately, although perhaps those who took gut wounds were the truly unfortunate ones, assuming they didn''t receive magical healing in the back lines. Will didn''t suppose average warriors did.
Finally, the fronts clashed in melee, and the mages had also reached effective range.
The recruits mostly concentrated on assisting the front, while Will and Holmstr?m had their sights set on the enemy backline.
It was truly a big battle, with perhaps two thousand men on the enemy side and a thousand on Will''s side. It was hard to tell who had the advantage, given how much the capabilities of the combatants could vary.
The Anthians liked to think that they had the quality while the Empire had the numbers, but the last fight behind the enemy lines had made Will question that popular narrative. Back then, the enemy had fielded a respectable number of magister-level mages against Holmstr?m''s unranked underlings.
He''d seen some maps, too. The Tupan Empire was huge. Easily ten times the size of Anth-Komi. Even though that was all Will knew about the country, there was no way they didn''t produce a considerable number of talents in addition to cheap cannon fodder.
Will had dismounted his horse early and proceeded to harass the enemy mages with Magic Arrows.
The spell had grown in power. Or rather, Will had perfected the way he cast it. He still couldn''t rapid fire them, but few mages were able to fully intercept the projectiles anymore, and the spell often caused its recipients some actual pain.
A few short minutes into the battle, Will walked back to Holmstr?m''s side.
"Those two people in the back are just watching, even though the man is definitely a mage," he commented.
"I noticed. And the armor on that woman is the finest I''ve seen."
"Yeah... It''s so shiny she probably doesn''t want to scratch it."
The men didn''t chat for any longer but went back to casting their spells.
It was then that the strange pair finally moved.
The mage-like man pointed his top-heavy staff forward, and a great flash of light sped forth from it.
Will was startled by the effect and about to take a step aside, but the ray of light was too fast. Luckily, it wasn''t aimed at him but at Holmstr?m.
The High Mage roared in anger and pain when his shield failed, and when the ray attack ended, Will saw that his robes were blackened and smoldering.
The old man fumbled clumsily with his blackened fingers to uncork a red potion. He took a sip before his fingers began to move more nimbly as he remade his protections.
"That one is strong!" He declared when he was ready and started to prepare a big ice spear.
It was ready in around six seconds, only taking a little longer than his usual shot. When he whisked it at the strange enemy, the man finally moved again by pointing at the incoming spear aside with his staff, which briefly glowed in red.
The spear impacted a sturdy barrier that had appeared, and icy fragments were sent flying everywhere.
The red barrier disappeared just as quickly as it had come to be and revealed the foreign mage standing upright with his silky red robes as pristine as previously.
Holmstr?m stared at his target, wearing a shocked expression. The man in question simply turned his back on him and walked back to the armored woman.
"Did he give up?" Will wondered aloud.
"I hope so, but I wouldn''t count on it," Holmstr?m finally responded. He didn''t begin casting his spells again until half a minute later.
Ten minutes into the fight, it started to look like the friendlies indeed had the advantage.
The enemy had nineteen mages to their fifteen, but eight had already retreated far back due to wounds they''d accumulated after running out of potions.
Will noticed that the strange, idle mage on the opposing side was watching him intently. He put it out of his mind, sticking to his steady and simple work with Magic Arrows.
That was only until he couldn''t ignore the strange mage anymore.
The man walked a few dozen yards forward again and leveled his staff toward Will.
The flash of light was once again a very quick attack, and Will had barely registered it in the corner of his eye when the ray of heat struck him. He felt half of his absorptive elemental shield succumbing under the relatively decent damage output.
Maybe I should have practiced more? he thought without feeling particularly nervous about the unwanted attention.
Still, Absorb Elements was just a 2nd-level spell. If he planned to tank a lot of heavy attacks, perhaps he should concentrate his efforts on the 5th-level Elemental Authority or even suffer headaches by beginning to train at the 7th-level Elemental Immunity.
While thinking, he simply frowned at the hostile mage. It might be for the best to ignore that dude for now...
Perhaps it would be boring when the opponent played defensively.
Alas, the foreign mage''s mentality didn''t conform to that line of thinking.
Will had only shot a couple of Magic Arrows more at the lesser mages, when he was subjected to another beam of burning heat.
This time, it was somewhat stronger than the previous one.
For half a second, Will''s absorption spell held. But the onslaught of heat was too much. His defensive spell simply failed, while the heat ray attack still continued for half a second more. Even with his fire-resistant armor supposedly helping him handle the heat, some of it got through.
"Ow, ow, ow!" Will complained aloud when his exposed skin overheated instantly. The spell had caused some real and sharp pain, but not enough to stun or demoralize him like losing a limb. Rather, it was an alarming sort of pain, like when you splashed your hand with boiling water, making you withdraw your hand back quickly.
First things first, Will still took a second to move his hurting fingers in order to activate a slotted spell he''d kept in reserve.
Absorb Elements (II) triggered.
Next, he quickly pulled out a red potion and took a tiny sip. The pain started to rapidly dwindle, although his skin now begun to itch annoyingly as it healed.
Well, I''m not going to be a sitting duck for target practice!
The injury hadn''t been much, but the pain from being hit with fire spells really wasn''t pleasant.
Will stared at the foreign mage while he cast a 2nd-level spell, starting from its long preparation phase.
It took nearly 50 seconds to finish, and by the time he did, three quarters of his re-applied protection had been burned away by another white ray. The foreigner stood pretty far away, but Will''s half-elven eyes were relatively sharp, and they told him that the man seemed to be frowning.
Soon, the Minor Pillar of Flame was ready to be set loose.
Since the target was acting overconfidently by standing still, there was zero chance of missing.
The rising fiery pillar wasn''t as fast as the ray attack, but it was still pretty fast. The man immediately jumped out of its point of origin, but the fire shooting from the ground veered in his direction, managing to exact a little more punishment before its victim escaped its reach.
The foreign mage now looked just as sooty and blackened as Holmstr?m had been. He proceeded to roll on the ground to extinguish his burning robes. It was fairly effective, given how the moorland was still pretty wet. The winter snows had melted only a week or two ago.
Still, he was quick to quaff half a potion down his throat while still lying down, proving that Will had done some damage despite the foreigner''s probable resistance against fire.
The man scrambled up as quickly as he could.
"You..." he bellowed. "You have chosen death!"
Chapter 18
"You..." the foreign High Mage bellowed. "You have chosen death!"
"How original!" Will retorted easily. "Besides, aren''t we at war anyway?"
The man seethed quietly at his words. Soon, the fingers of his free hand started to move rapidly while he used his staff to weave a slower pattern.
Minor Spell Immunity (IV) triggered.
Will got his immunity in place well in time to receive another heat ray. Like everything Will had encountered so far, the spell wasn''t able to overcome the immunity, proving that it was still a third-level or lesser spell in C&M terms.
Probably still only 1st-level, Will thought while he observed the ray attack comfortably through squinted eyes.
His spell immunity was basically wasted on it.
Will was beginning to regret engaging in trash talk. He didn''t have another element absorption spell slotted because he''d considered much more diverse risks while preparing for the day. While prudent, it had been too impractical in hindsight.
Lacking low-level protective measures meant that he had to expend even better spells to escape unscathed now that he had provoked his opponent further.
Minor Spell Immunity would only last for a little over a minute. It was pretty suboptimal to be under such a timer while trying to downplay his hand publicly.
Plan B, then. Play the rich kid! Will decisively told himself and made a fake spellstone appear in his hand.
"No... It is YOU who has chosen death!" he suddenly roared in a fake rage.
The fake spellstone crumbled, and Will''s eyes glowed blue, imitating the empowered spellcasting mode the local mages often used instead of casting a stored spell.
Kelf''s Little Meteors (III) triggered.
Eight small, fiery spheres materialized and began circling above Will.
The spell was one of his favorites in ASA. It simply packed so much total damage potential in just one 3rd-level slot. The slight downside was the fact that you had to accurately strike your target.
Will pointed a finger, and one of the spheres obediently went flying forth.
The prospective victim sneered at the small size of the incoming projectile, but when it hit him, his eyes went wide.
The blackened, formerly fancy robe caught fire again, and the foreigner abandoned his spell to once again put the fire out.
This time, he didn''t pull out a potion. Clearly, his resistances had mitigated the damage to an extent.
"You...!"
Before he could voice his rage any more, another meteor was already on the way, forcing him to dodge.
The incoming projectile corrected its course slightly, hitting his shoulder. The man screamed out loud when it burned through his clothes. Perhaps the rapid onslaught was overwhelming his protective measures?
He dodged the next meteor much more enthusiastically, jumping out of its way into a roll, but that only meant the next one caught him easily while he was lying prone.
More pained screams.
When the meteors finally ran out, the man was still able to get up, but he looked truly miserable. He''d lost one of his eyes, and he was limping due to the muscles on one calf having suffered deep burns.
Will let the glow in his eyes subside while his opponent drained the remaining half of his first potion and promptly proceeded to open a whole new bottle.
The missing eye didn''t grow back, but the remaining one glared at Will with absolute hatred. The foreign mage didn''t waste his breath on words this time.
A spear of ice struck him to add insult to his injuries. It shattered against a blackened piece of armor he wore under his broken robe. While the spell made the young man hit the ground again, it didn''t seem to cause too much damage.
Holmstr?m sweated heavily after launching his spell. It looked like he was still a little drained by the previous, violent exchange.
The foreigner shot another murderous glance toward Holmstr?m but proceeded to ignore the old mage in order to retrieve his staff from where it had flown from his hands previously.
"Where are you going?" Will shouted again, putting some gleeful scorn in his voice. "You still have a part to play in this farce!"
Another fake spellstone appeared in his hands. This time, it was a green one.
"Don''t be so hasty! He''s almost..."
Now it was Holmstr?m who shouted at Will, obviously dismayed at the spellstone expenditure.
Will ignored the old man and crushed the illusion in his hands.
This time, he simulated a stored spell instead of pretending to be buffed up.
Summon Creature (IV) triggered.
A lesser fire elemental appeared next to him. The element he''d chosen would normally be a stupid pick against a fire mage, but Will chose to stick to the fire theme for now, given how everyone knew him as a talented fire mage.
Then again, the Firebird woman had also been a fire mage, but she''d summoned an air elemental with her emerald spellstone.
Meh... too late for regrets.
Will gave a mental command, and the mindless elemental obeyed him without question. It wasn''t as fast as the air elemental had been, but it was still a floating creature and able to accelerate into a relatively fast glide.
It ignored the front line, giving a couple of soldiers light burns by its mere presence as it passed between them.
However, before the elemental could reach the wounded mage, the female knight in shining armor reacted.
Her longsword remained in its sheath. Instead, she pulled out a dagger from her belt, the blade of which had a blue sheen. Moisture from the air immediately started to deposit upon the weapon, but when the woman waved the blade, the water was sent flying in the form of flakes of ice, once again revealing the sharp cutting edge.
She moved faster than one should be able to while clad in steel plate. Soon, she stood in front of the mage.
The elemental reached the pair of foreigners and tried to circle around the woman. She blocked its path and drove her dagger-wielding arm into the flames of its torso.
The summoned creature screeched, clearly suffering damage from the attack. It swiped the woman with an arm that turned out to be even less tangible than an air elemental''s appendages.
She simply blocked with a raised arm, which was enough to hold the creature at bay. Her armor seemed to protect her from the flames well enough.
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In the meanwhile, Will''s spell immunity was beginning to run out of time. Seeing as nobody was targeting him for now, he started to slow-cast another Absorb Elements.
The fight only took a couple dozen seconds. In the end, the elemental exploded in a semi-intense blaze as it died.
Despite being an intimidating sight, the elemental hadn''t managed to hurt the woman much, even if her face was now sooty, and her armor had finally lost its sheen and was now blackened on the front.
When she was certain that the creature wasn''t about to reform, she put away the dagger and took a sip from a potion bottle.
The one-eyed mage apparently hadn''t been demoralized yet. As the woman was taking a break, he stepped forth with his defenses up and running again and started to brandish his staff in preparation for another round of spells.
Will produced another green spellstone and held it high for everyone to see.
"Do you really wish to die today?" he demanded loudly, the unwillingness to waste more resources obvious in his voice.
This time, the emotion wasn''t faked. He really didn''t want to reveal more of his cards just for some cocky high mage from the Tupan Empire.
"Do it!" the hostile mage roared defiantly.
"Jepoy!" The young woman interjected in a shrill voice.
She then said something Will couldn''t hear, but he could see the other man deflate in response to her words.
"You and your spellstones win this round!" The woman soon raised her voice again.
The man named Jepoy locked his eyes with Will. He frowned heavily and made a gesture Will guessed wasn''t polite.
Based on the young man''s attitude and bodyguard, Will was pretty certain he had an impressive background. He might go to his daddy and cry until he promised to send out a task force to exterminate his bully.
Yet, killing him might amount to inviting such a visit even more certainly.
Will made the motions of putting the fake stone in his pocket before letting it unravel.
"Good choice!" He shouted happily.
---
"In recognition of his heroic deeds, we appoint Magister Gaylord Will as the new Lord Fifth!" the King announced after a brief ceremony.
It was still spring, but Will had been summoned back to the capital to be conferred a new title.
His contributions during the hostilities had impressed the leadership, and while they hadn''t truly promoted him in rank (he would remain just a Magister), they had recommended him for a job that paid better, so Will had no complaints.
The so-called Lord Fifth''s job was simply to be the member of a team of powerful mages who had some special privileges and responsibilities. Will was the fifth and youngest member, which was apparently a great achievement and honor. The pay would be nice, too.
"Good! What a talented young man!" The First told Will when he walked to his side from the foot of the throne, where he''d been decorated with a big silver insignia. One that was so impractical it could only be worn during ceremonies.
"Thanks," Will replied politely while suppressing a shiver at the creepy flattery.
The First was a particularly strong High Mage. Or "Highest Mage," if you wanted to kiss his ass.
The man was apparently over 150 years old, but he looked like he was around fifty. Will wondered if what he looked at was a stolen body or perhaps the result of sacrificing people with highly potential physiques to produce exquisite elixirs.
It was possible his increased lifespan stemmed from something innocuous, but who knew? Magic apparently offered various options, with the moral ones tending to be pretty expensive.
"I can''t help but notice how well your arm has healed," the First made some small talk.
Not many had talked about his unfortunate incident with Alfonso, but now that his hand was back, it had become a major rumor among the aristocrats.
Will lifted his left hand briefly, glancing at it. It was just as it had been before the forceful amputation.
"Yeah. I guess so? Is the result usually not as good?"
"Any working treatment at all is considered good. For yours to look like a human hand is exceptional. The fact that I cannot notice any scarring is... completely unheard of."
"Oh."
"Others have no doubt approached you already, but know that I could pay well for a referral to whoever accomplished it."
Not this again! Will''s face froze when he suppressed a grimace.
"Sorry. I was told the operation was one of a kind. I doubt there will be any more available."
"I can pay you ten gold simply for a name. Fifty if my poor grandniece can get an appointment. You can tell the healer I have prepared ten platinum for him."
"Ten platinum?!" Will raised his voice. "Ah, please excuse me!"
He quickly bowed toward the Master of Ceremonies, who was glaring at him, even though the King had left, and the court wasn''t in session anymore.
One platinum coin was worth a hundred golden ones. Will hadn''t even seen one yet, given how impractical they normally were.
"Yes. I''m afraid I''m rather destitute. I can only implore the healer''s sense of duty and offer a symbolic compensation."
The middle-aged centenarian''s expression looked truly pitiful, so Will surmised the self-deprecating modesty of those words wasn''t entirely fake.
"It sounds like a fairly large sum of money to me," Will couldn''t help but point out. "Is limb restoration truly that expensive?"
"Regrowing a missing hand is a miracle. I don''t even know what kind of price you could put on it. Did you not have to pay your healer?"
"I... Uh. No. My dad handled the payment."
"I thought it might be so," the First replied with a nod of his head. "I''ve heard of your spectacular combat feats as well."
If that wasn''t a reference to his fake spellstone usage, Will would eat his right hand.
"It must be hard to watch a grandniece suffer needlessly. I shall see what I can do for her sake."
---
Minor Shapeshifting (II) triggered.
Will''s facial features morphed into something old and plain, and his ears lost their pointed shape. With that accomplished, Will proceeded to knock on the door of a noble estate.
"Yes? How can I help you?"
"Ah, good day, miss. I was told there was a girl in need of healing," Will spoke with a quivering voice.
"Oh! Please forgive my rudeness!" The maid dipped her head into a deep bow. "I shall fetch the master immediately."
Will was shown into a gaudy hall where he waited while sipping on fine tea and sampling some confectionery.
"Thank you for coming so quickly!"
A nobleman dressed up in a velvet tunic decorated with frilly lace appeared to receive him after fifteen minutes.
"This way, please."
He led Will to a bedroom that looked pretty austere to accommodate a girl. He saw its occupant reading a book at the far side of the room, with a servant standing in wait right next to her.
The girl had no arms, only two short stumps at her shoulders, one of which was no longer than a couple of inches.
"Maddy, come here! Greet the esteemed healer!" the nobleman commanded in a neutral tone.
"Yes, father." The girl stood up. Being very slim but fairly tall, she looked like she had to be at least fourteen.
She came over and gave Will a bowing curtsy that looked pretty awkward when she had no hands to lift her long skirts.
"Good day, my lord," she spoke in a small voice.
Man... That''s going to be a problem, Will thought to himself as he eyed the stumps.
She was missing boatloads of tissue compared to Will''s own mishap.
"I must warn you," he said in his fake voice. "Before I assess the problem fully, there are no guarantees that my treatment will be effective on her."
The girl''s face remained expressionless, but it had been like that since he''d entered the room.
The man looked a little dejected at his remark, but he schooled his features quickly. "Of course."
"Now, please remove any fabric covering the... injuries. I shall attempt my method."
Using awkward explanations, he instructed the girl to sit down somewhere where she wouldn''t ruin any expensive carpets or couch cushions by squirting blood on them.
Will took eight minutes preparing the fifth-level spell he''d become familiar with over the course of several weeks when he healed himself. When the magic was ready at his fingertips, Will hesitated for the final time.
If I do this normally, it''s a guaranteed failure... He wasn''t planning to visit the house the thousand times it would take to address the problem normally.
Willing his mana to emphasize speed, Will tried something that could end up being stupid. He was wearing a fake face anyway, so the future of the seemingly healthy state of her stumps was a risk he was willing to take.
Will pushed his finger into the girl''s skin, feeling for the empty shoulder socket an inch deep under her skin, and started to flood it with the strange mana produced by his spell.
Faster, faster, he told it, and the mana obeyed.
The girl yelped when a new growth of bone pushed through her skin, spraying drops of blood over the towels the servants had brought at Will''s request.
Will knew from experience that the pain of the regrowth was dull and strange enough that it shouldn''t be any kind of issue, so he didn''t slow down.
New flesh formed rapidly around the bone, and Will let it grow quickly all the way to where the elbow should form, timing the ending of the spell right before the joint.
"By gods!" the nobleman mumbled in wonder.
Will watched the result. The skin color didn''t match the girl''s original one. The new skin was a pallid gray compared to her milky white shoulders. It was full of stretch marks, and the new pores looked rather big in some places.
All in all, however, it seemed functional.
"How does it feel?" Will asked.
The girl spun the newly elongated stump around carefully.
"It''s...alright," she spoke breathily.
Will nodded and turned to the nobleman again.
"She''s not a hundred percent compatible, but the result looks acceptable to me so far. Do you wish to proceed at this level of quality?"
"By the gods, yes! Yes, please!" the man practically shouted in response.
Eight minutes passed again before Will cast the spell once more. This time, he spent all of the magical juice to form the joint before doing a final third cast to reach the wrist.
"That''s enough for today, I think. I''m planning to spend the next visit making a hand for her."
A hand contained much less tissue than the rest of the arm, but it was also more complicated. Will could probably rush it, but he felt like it would be a mark of good artisanship to make the girl''s hands prettier and nimbler than the bare minimum.
He decided to take a break just in case. He could have kept going, of course, but healing was supposed to be somewhat taxing. Will assumed that re-growing limbs should make a normal mage somewhat exhausted.
Restoration was already seen as borderline miraculous. There was no reason to make bigger waves.
When he left the building, a newly hired maid combed through the chair Will had been sitting on. After looking carefully for a minute, she picked up a strand of black hair that stood out from the creamy white cushions.
Chapter 19
On a battlefield dotted by corpses and limping soldiers, a few people stood idle, recovering from the horrors and exertions of the battle. A man on horseback approached their group.
"Look at that horse!" a soldier spoke to another.
"Yeah... It''s massive."
"And white, too, even though it isn''t an albino. It must have cost hundreds of gold."
"Who is that guy anyway?"
"It''s the golden boy magister, don''t you know?!"
"I''m new here, remember."
"Dude, he''s famous! Even people in the capital know him!"
"Huh? I only care for whores and fine swords. I got no time for gossip..."
The soldiers lowered their tones when Will passed them by.
Another battle was over, and their side was victorious despite Will having downplayed his hand more than usual.
He was making free money, basically, even if it wasn''t as good as a miracle healer''s wages.
He rode happily down the road, hurrying to meet with his colleagues in his special squad. The location had apparently been changed at the last minute, and the meeting would now take place much closer to the border.
"Look! What''s that!" someone shouted, pointing toward the horizon.
There was a minor road leading to the far frontier zones. Where it passed through a low gap between two hills, there was a billowing cloud of dust.
"Riders, I think. Those horses are red! It''s the Empire!"
"But that''s where the golden boy just went?"
"Uhh. True that."
"Don''t worry," a third voice interjected. "That guy is even stronger than we think!"
"I guess he''s gotta be. Yeah. They call him Lord Fifth, right?"
---
"Are you Lord Fifth, also known as Magister Gaylord Will?" the rider in the front questioned.
"Just call me Will, please," Will replied, looking at the riders whom he didn''t recognize. Something seemed off. "Are you with Lord First?"
"No," the man in the front shook his head. "I''m afraid you''re under arrest."
"What?! What am I accused of?"
"Uh, sir, you''re an enemy combatant."
"Wait. You''re from the Empire?!" Will suddenly stood up straight and raised an arm.
"Stop! Sir, there''s no need for violence. We mean you no harm."
"You just said I''m your enemy!" Despite his considerable magical powers, Will felt a little agitated.
He had misjudged the situation in an embarrassing manner.
Still, it wasn''t too bad. There were twenty riders that had already finished surrounding him, but he had a Minor Teleport slotted at fourth level, which he could use to instantly step some 200 yards away alongside his horse. And that wasn''t even his only escape method.
Hell, even if escape wasn''t an option, he could easily fight his way out. Even though only a third of his spell slots currently held offensive spells, it should be possible to kill several of the enemy riders and demoralize those who remained.
Both of those options were something he really didn''t want to reveal.
"I can come with you, but you will not restrain me," he finally spoke in a dangerous tone.
The man he was talking to blinked and seemed to consider his words.
"Fine. We can do that," he finally said.
"Sir," someone else interjected. "Our orders..."
"Quiet, soldier," the first speaker interrupted the other without even raising his voice. "We have the situation under control. There is no reason to act in an uncivilized manner."
"You will be a guest that is obligated to stay with us until we release you from that duty. Is that fine with you?" The presumably highest-ranking soldier asked.
"That is acceptable," Will responded with a nod.
It would probably be a stain on his honor to break such a promise when he disappeared quietly into the night later, but he didn''t care too much about that.
The situation had been sprung on him very quickly, but the optimal solution to it wasn''t difficult to determine.
Will relaxed again.
"Lead the way, then. I''m interested in hearing why you are doing this. Was it that prideful kid...? I think he was called Jepoy."
"Jepoy who? No. I''ve not heard of any Jepoy."
---
Days later, Will''s hands remained free, and as such, his mind also remained empty of needless worries.
Since he was being treated well, he hadn''t felt a pressing need to disappear quite yet. He was neglecting some duties back home, but being kidnapped was likely an acceptable excuse for a little vacation.
He took in the foreign sights with curiosity.
They''d crossed the border and continued in a direction Will hadn''t traveled previously. The highlands turned into forests again, but then those forests grew sparser. Finally, the landscape changed into a dry wasteland.
All around them, there were translucent crystal growths that made the place seem really otherworldly.
"Say, what are those things?" Will pointed at a clump of crystals bigger than his horse.
"Arcane quartz, very low grade," his highest-ranking kidnapper answered.
Apparently, the man was a general of the Empire.
"Where do they come from?"
"Where do mountains come from?" the general shot back after a second''s thought.
Will almost wanted to ask if he knew of tectonic plates but decided not to annoy the warrior type too much.
"Fair enough," was all he said.
They soon reached a garrison town. Even though the town seemed pretty big, there were no major fortifications like in the border towns of Anth-Komi.
Instead of any castle, there was a small but relatively gaudy marble palace. Will was led right into its courtyard with the general and four of his soldiers.
"Nice place," Will commented. "Now what?"
"Now we wait until His Highness makes some time for us."
An hour passed before the master of the place finally deigned to show his face.
"Ahh, what a good day, isn''t it, general? And you! I really wanted to meet you," the plump man dressed in expensive red silk turned to regard Will after sparing the general a few words.
"You wanted to see me?" He could only repeat foolishly.
"You should address his highness properly," the general remarked.
"No, no. As a fellow grandmaster healer, Lord Will can speak freely, of course."
Now, Will felt outright alarmed.
"A fellow grandmaster healer?" Will repeated the words he was hearing once again.
"Oh, yes. I understand you wanted to hide your identity, but His Divine Majesty''s spies happened to uncover it anyway.
"I must say I was surprised to hear that the rumored miracle healer and his famous patient were one and the same!" The man said with a chuckle.
Fuuuuck!
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Will felt both surprised and disappointed. Just how had he blown his cover?
"Although, now that I look at your hand, I can tell that the first case was a publicity stunt," the grandmaster healer continued.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Oh please! Here in the empire, we are well versed in the art of healing. We are aware of the limitations. Your hand was clearly never severed in the first place."
"Uh, huh?"
"However, the same spies verified that the High Mage''s grandniece was truly and well healed. The hands were especially praiseworthy, or so I''ve heard."
"You seem to know a lot about me. However, I do not even know your name."
"Heavens! I forgot my manners. I am called Datu, and I''ve been burdened with the rank of Marquess since two decades ago."
Will raised his eyebrows. A healer that was ranked above a Count? High mages in Anth-Komi only equaled viscounts, while the healers were usually unranked mages who would never hold any major titles.
"It is nice to meet you, Lord Marquess. However, I must say I do not appreciate the manner in which I was...invited."
"That was an unfortunate but necessary arrangement," the plump noble waved his hand dismissively. "All will be made right, eventually. You need not fret.
"You see," Datu went on. "The small kingdom to the west of us is not qualified to possess a healer of your caliber."
"They didn''t exactly possess me," Will protested.
"I know. Your background must be something else indeed. However, we''d much prefer it if you let Anth-Komi mind its little business and dealt with us instead."
"No, I..."
"There is still time to weigh your options. His Divine Majesty''s Holy Son plans to meet with you tomorrow. You can safely assume that he can offer you anything you desire."
The new day dawned, and Will had not chosen to escape quite yet. He hadn''t even been locked in his room, which was a nice gesture.
He was fed and watered well, entertained by a couple of young local talents who played several instruments, sung him songs, and tried to find out about Will''s origins through some small talk.
The so-called Holy Son arrived in the late afternoon. Will was hardly even tipsy yet, which bode well for any negotiations he might have to navigate through.
Most people in the marquess''s palace went absolutely crazy when the man finally made an appearance.
The servants slammed their foreheads to the floor, and even the marquess was bowing deeply.
"You stand in the presence of His Holy Highness!" a lackey of some sort bellowed while sending a short but pointed glance at Will.
Will realized the statement was possibly a hint at him, so he performed a clumsy bow to placate the fanatics.
He then proceeded to study the subject of veneration.
It was clearly just a human male, albeit a well-dressed and handsome one, and not a young man despite the youthful title. He looked to be past forty, assuming he hadn''t been the beneficiary of any longevity rituals.
"Your Highness," Will began. "I hope you''ll excuse me when I do not exactly understand to what I owe all this noble attention."
"It is simple," the man spoke; his voice deep and resonant. "You''re one of the four most capable healers within ten thousand miles. We must secure your existence."
Will sighed.
"Look. That is very flattering and all, uh, Your Highness," Will added the proper form of address after receiving another glare from the nearby fanatic.
"But I haven''t asked for any of this. It''s a bit of an infraction on my personal liberty, I would argue."
The man nodded, his face unreadable.
"Of course. But when you have a country to run, infractions become necessary. Reaping countless lives in a war is one such infraction, as I''m sure you''d agree."
Will raised his eyebrows. What he had heard sounded a bit like a threat.
Finally, the man showed a little bit of humanity and hastily added to his previous thought.
"As for you, we don''t consider you an enemy but an honored guest! Your previous occupation is of little consequence in the wider picture."
"And if I''m not interested?"
"I..." The man glanced down at the floor. "I cannot allow that as an option yet. You must witness what we have to offer before you decide!"
"And after that, I can decide to leave?"
"Of course."
"I could literally fly away right now, you know," Will said, feeling slightly irritated. Oops. Shouldn''t have said that.
The Holy Son chuckled.
"A grandmaster healer also claims to be a master of air magic? For some reason, I don''t even doubt you.
"But no," the big human continued. "You could not fly away. Not unless I allowed it."
Will raised his eyebrows.
"You think you could stop me?"
The man nodded. "Doubtlessly."
There was nothing but steady confidence in his voice.
It wasn''t such a tall claim. Flight was only a third-level spell. There were a couple of counters to it. Dispelling it was an option, too.
Still, Will felt like it was a bluff. The local mages had a ridiculously high DPS if you gave them the time to spam their spells endlessly, but the power of their individual spells was pretty low.
Flight (III) triggered.
"Try me!" Will said and slowly levitated in the air until he stopped to float a foot above the floor.
It was a somewhat stupid decision, but Will had grown too curious about the boasts from this particular big shot. In any case, Flight was close to being the weakest escape option available to him.
The Holy Son blinked once more.
"Impressive..."
He raised a hand, made a few gestures, and Will felt himself being pressed back down.
His spell was still going, but there was a gentle but completely unyielding pressure on his shoulders.
Will frowned.
Minor Spell Immunity (IV) triggered.
The pressure slipped past him, unable to affect Will anymore. He floated promptly back up.
"How about now?"
The Holy Son''s eyebrows shot up.
"How did you...? Ahem." He interrupted himself abruptly. "Never mind that. Now, let''s see..."
A few more gestures and some syllables later, Will felt the pressure return, redoubled¡ªor more like retripled.
He fell back down and all the way to his knees before the pressure relented.
"Oh. Excuse me!" The Holy Son flashed an apologetic expression. "Your previous method was too subtle. I ended up overcompensating for it."
Will''s eyes went very wide. For the other man to overcome his spell immunity, his spell had to be at the fourth level or higher¡ªin proper C&M levels!
"How did you do that?" He demanded, still almost disbelieving what had happened despite his smarting knees.
"I command more power than you do," the man said with a shrug.
"Do you mean it was just a quantitative and not a qualitative difference?"
The other man considered the question briefly.
"No. It is both."
"Damn... Oh. I''m sorry. It''s just that that was a first for me."
"There is no shame in your loss. I am not your average Grand Mage."
"Does His Holy Highness mean to say that Lord Will is also a Grand Mage?" the Marquess asked.
The Holy Son glanced at him.
"Hmm? No. He gets somewhat close, but he isn''t quite there. However, his versatility is truly praiseworthy. I seem to remember that he also has fire magic?"
The Marquess nodded. "That is so."
"Hmm... Fire and wind go very well together," the Holy Son thought aloud.
In ASA, there was no way to combine fire and wind spells. Will chose not to point that out, though. It made him seem more of a threat than he wanted to appear as, but at least it was a misunderstanding he could use.
"So. What do you want me to do?" Will asked, not bothering with the honorifics despite another glance from the annoying servant.
"Not much. Stay for a month. Sell your services, perhaps. Make yourself comfortable. Lord Datu here is tasked with getting you up to a proper Tupan lord''s living standard."
"I will not fail you!" the Marquess promised.
The Holy Son nodded in Will''s direction, offering his final parting words.
"Now, I must proceed to my next destination. I look forward to a wise decision from you, Lord Will."
Staying for a month wasn''t a particularly big ask. It would mean neglecting his obligations to Anth-Komi, but Will didn''t worry about that too much.
He nodded back, then thought better of it and performed a relatively proper bow as well. He couldn''t afford to act like he was the other man''s equal, even though he was sure he could best him with some high-level spells.
Weeks passed.
Will healed people at a makeshift clinic that had been set up for him in a nearby, lavish manor.
Life was easy and luxurious. The Marquess had hired a lot of temporary staff for Will. Additionally, the local lord''s own servants made several appearances every day to make sure everything was handled up to the plump man''s exacting standards.
His latest customer, a recently crippled general, moved his new foot around while singing Will''s praises.
"Oh my. It''s really good work!"
"Thank you. A happy customer makes my day," Will spoke back some pleasantries.
"Thank you, Lord Healer. I was a little nervous given how young you are, but it looks like you may even have Lord Datu beat!"
With that, the man handed him ten platinum coins.
"Oh, not at all," Will spoke with false modesty. "I''m confident in myself, but not that confident."
He''d grown the brown man a gray foot that was as ugly as hell, but it was also functional enough to serve him without major hiccups.
Judging by similar jobs during the past weeks, this was already considered an outstanding performance.
The nearly ecstatic customer left, jogging along happily on his newly grown foot. Suddenly, he sprinted to run at a superhuman speed for a while before slowing back down to walking speed.
Will shook his head and returned to his drawing room to "rest" for the remainder of the day.
In reality, he wasn''t tired in the least and proceeded to practice sixth-level spells with a sense of urgency pressing him on, thanks to his meeting with the powerful Holy Son.
It hadn''t been enough to really make him nervous, but it had proven he had to take the Tupans somewhat more seriously.
When the month was up, Will had fulfilled the Holy Son''s demands. You better not complain now that I''ve fulfilled your demand, he thought to himself as he walked to his white horse.
The horse had spent happy and lazy days in the stable, and it had probably gained too much weight. It was a problem for some expert to handle.
Will pressed his hand on the horse''s side and cast the escape spell he''d been sitting on.
Teleport (V) triggered.
He appeared instantly a couple of hundred miles away, near the familiar border garrison in Anth-Komi.
Teleport (V) triggered.
Another teleport took him a couple hundred miles further to the city of Anth. He could have made the trip with just one spell, but that would have taken some extra concentration and nervous sweating to get precisely right, and Will wasn''t feeling like doing risky and potentially painful practice runs at this time.
It was easier to just use two spells, even if it took a longer time.
Minor Shapeshifting (II) triggered.
He decided to disguise himself for the time being, lest the ever-present spies report back to the Empire that Will had appeared in Anth on the same day he disappeared from the Empire.
He walked the horse to a stall and proceeded to rent a room from a tavern. He made a big fuss about going to bed early, placed an Alarm on his door, and Minor Teleported right back to the streets.
He never slept without a magical alarm on his doors and windows since the incident with the late High Mage Alfonso. In a snake''s den like the capital, he also prepared a fake bedroom each and every night.
Given how he was already disguised, it was probably overkill, but the same disguise had already failed him once. It must have taken skilled diviners to track him down back then, so it wouldn''t likely be a common occurrence, but it was clearly a possibility.
Will walked to his metal workshop, letting the disguise spell unravel as he knocked on the door.
"Hello, Owner!"
A mostly familiar girl answered the door, and Will stepped in. His eyes went a little wide when he took a look at the girl.
"Wait, how old are you now?"
"Dunnoh. Sixteen, maybe?"
"Damn me. I had thought you were thirteen at most."
"Yeah... These have grown a lot. I think I''ve been eating too well," Jenna said, grabbing a handful of her suddenly ample chest with both hands and shaking them.
Will''s eyes went even wider. He quickly averted his eyes to observe the timber walls instead of the pleasant but forbidden sight in front of him.
"Jesus Christ, girl! Don''t do that!"
"Do what, Owner?" she asked with a grin.
"I need to get you classes in manners and noble conduct..." Will muttered. "Well, at least you have the dog keeping people''s hands off you."
"That''s right! Everyone respects Doggy."
"So, how''s the business?"
Jenna ran to the back of the store and proudly presented him with a little box almost filled to the brim with coins.
"Thirty gold and a lot of silver," she proudly announced.
Will quickly estimated the volume of the box and concluded there had to be at least two hundred silver.
"That seems to be slightly more than expected."
Jenna happily explained the optimizations she had made to the production process, and Will nodded in agreement at her surprisingly practical insights.
"Good. All the silver and one of the gold coins are yours. Consider it a bonus for a job done well!"
Jenna''s jaw went slack.
"But that''s so much money!"