I had left the headmistress’ tower behind with a purpose. Since I was going to visit her again in the morning to receive another infusion of Divine Spark, I decided to spend all I had been storing for a while.
I could have gone back to my room, but after staying inside for the whole day for so fun, and so not so fun, activities, so fresh air would do good. Not to ntion, I was going to absorb several tis more Divine Spark than my earlier experints. Staying away in case of an unexpected reaction was for the best.
No need to inform the headmistress about my little naughty secret.
Once again I sneaked out of Silver Spires and got away using an air elental, but I didn’t go to one of my hideouts, not willing to hide underground in such a nice evening. Instead, I had reached a nice adow, and after killing the beasts that used it as a resting area — a trivial effort with my power — I established a few wards that would hold for a couple of days, and sat down.
The Divine Spark was still locked in the storage I had created in my body, trying to burst out ineffectually. After my most recent studies, I could see several ways of improving the storage, not that it was necessary. Compared to what the headmistress was trying to hold, what I was holding was nothing more than a sliver, making it much easier to handle even with inefficient storage.
Of course, I would have no hope to a similar amount with the headmistress. The only reason she was able to do so was that she had achieved so kind of partial rger, aligning it with her pure mana.
With a calm expression, I crouched, letting my mana rotate, to let it dip into the storage during a part of its journey before rotating all along my body, slowly strengthening. However, I didn’t start that at first, and instead just rotated mana in the sa patterns I had seen Janelor had been using whenever she had excess mana, and did my best to replicate the pattern.
[-18 Mana]
[-290 HP]
“Fuck, that hurts,” I groaned as I tasted the failure on a level I wasn’t expecting from such a little amount of mana. Luckily, I didn’t try it with sothing more.
I healed myself before repeating the trick, only to end up with nothing but pain again.
[-13 Mana]
[-345 HP]
And again.
[-16 Mana]
[-490 HP]
And again.
[-8 Mana]
[-550 HP]
“Okay, I surrender,” I murmured as I breathed hard, trying to ignore the unfamiliar sensation. Clearly, whatever I was doing wasn’t going to work, especially with the pattern. The more successfully I replicated her trick, the more damage it created.
Maybe I was doing sothing inherently wrong, or maybe it was a vain act in the first place. Maybe it was sothing that could only be applied by a dragon.
Pity that I couldn’t even use that as an attack, as after penetrating that deep into soone’s body, there were easier options to kill them, and that assud I could replicate such a complicated pattern inside them with their mana trying to fight against .
Regardless, I took a pause to heal myself and refill my mana pool once again before starting to rotate my mana, this ti letting it dip into the reservoir of Divine Spark rather than relying on just my mana, and letting the small sliver I had stolen to be absorbed into my body, losing its unique properties in the process. Since it was a process I had replicated earlier, I expected it to happen easily.
Yet, there was a difference in the process. My body absorbed it at the sa speed with one very important exception. One of my fingers, was the sa finger I had used as the target for my experintation. That part absorbed the divine spark much faster, yet other than that, showed no radical change.
Interesting, I thought as I let my mind wander about the implications of it. Pity that the improvent I had received didn’t justify the amount of mana I had to spend — or the excruciating pain I felt — during the process. And that was without considering the potential danger of replicating the sa trick in a more vital location like my heart.
I focused on depleting the remaining Divine Spark, feeling it empowering my body. It took barely an hour, and only because I wasn’t in a particular hurry. The rewards weren’t particularly impressive. It was hard to quantify since it didn’t react with the System, but I doubted the overall impact was more than a few points split among various stats. From a perspective of powering up, it was a total waste.
Yet, I wouldn’t change it for anything. The more I learned about the System, the more I realized how unreliable the power it gives. Soone could block it the way I could block the others, leaving powerless.
And I had no intention of finding myself powerless. Living two decades as the mule was more than enough.
After finishing the process, I was about to have a walk around the school, a mixture of relaxing trips and hunting beasts — as my reagent reserve was almost completely empty — when I felt a sudden ntal flare. It wasn’t mine, but coming from an external source.
It wasn’t the first ti I had felt that particular flare, a mixture of panic and loss of strength, but that hardly made feel calr, because the last ti I had felt that, it ca from Helga and Cornelia, and I had barely able to save them despite using Teleportation.
Yet, this ti, it wasn’t even an option, because before I could even consider that, the feeling started to weaken, making it impossible to use as a guide.
It was ti to take a risk, I thought even as I reached my other perk, Empowernt, even though my first experience with it hadn’t been any more successful than Teleportation.
Yet, it was better than the alternative, so, I threw it to the distance.
[Empowernt (0/1)]
Even as the counter of my skill dropped, I sensed the power of the Companion Node flare at a distance, turning into a fla from cinders.
Then, before I could do anything else, the sensation disappeared completely!
“No,” I gasped in anger as a sudden feeling of loss filled . I conjured another air elental, dumping as much mana as I could manage, and started flying at the full speed, making no attempt to stay concealed, uncaring the possibility of it being a trap.
It was reckless, of course, but recklessness was better than the sudden feeling of loss that filled my being.
I moved toward the direction of the flare. It wasn’t an accurate one, but it was the best I had, and certainly better than trying to teleport without a beacon.
While I moved, I focused inward, trying to understand the source of the feeling. I could still feel five Companion nodes, split across many directions. The two brightest ones — Helga and Cornelia, the carriers of completed nodes — were still together, with no sign of sothing wrong.
In a different direction, I could feel two together, though not as strong. Titania and Marianne, I recognized easily. And since the other one I could feel at the direction of the school, it suggested that Oeyne was safe as well.
It only left Aviada, the one that was most likely to overestimate herself to take a dangerous task. “Fuck, please be well,” I murmured even as I tried to focus on the absence of a feeling, only to co up predictably empty. I continued flying, hoping to find sothing that would give a better target as I flew even higher on the sky, cutting whatever beast stupid enough to think that I made a good target, not even slowing down to pick any material from them.
A few minutes later, I finally found what I was looking for. A huge forest fire burning with all the colors of the rainbow, creating an extraordinary view.
I didn’t bother to slow down as I dived down, my perception allowing to catch everything, in particular, a familiar redhead with a bow, trying to defend herself against the beasts, frenzied as they tried to escape the fire. I dispelled the elental and dived down, already casting arcana bolts to kill everything that surrounded her without any risk of area damage.
She was my only source of information.
“You,” she gasped as she noticed . “Help her, she’s in the middle of the fire!”
“What happened?” I asked even as I cast a modified healing spell, allowing to detect any kind of life inside the fire, only to co up negative. There was no one inside.
Unacceptable, I thought even as I gathered my mana…
[Level: 32 Experience: 499110 / 528000
Strength: 46 Charisma: 63
Precision: 40 Perception: 42
Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45
Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49
Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51
HP: 6241 / 6528 Mana: 1890 / 8000 ]
SKILLS
Master lee [100/100]
Master Tantric [100/100]
Master Biomancy [100/100]
Master Elental [100/100]
Master Arcana [100/100]
Master Subterfuge [100/100]
Master Craft [77/100]
Expert Speech [75/75]
PERKS
Mana Regeneration
Skill Share
Empowernt (0/1)
Teleportation
COMPANIONS
[Cornelia - Level 22/26]
[Helga - Level 22/26]
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