After introducing Mariina to Lady Janina, and carefully sidestepping the part where Lady Janina is basically a demigod dragon, we got on with our lesson on soul magic stuff. Again, not sure if it counts as magic or a magical technique, because with dragons, those two are kind of interchangeable. For example flight. For dragons, it is a technique. For me, it falls under Draconic Magic, not Draconic Body. Actually, the same goes for breathing fire. Or any other attribute breath really. For dragons, it is a natural technique they just learn to do, kind of like walking. I was going to say breathing, but it isn’t quite that easy for them, at least based on what Agunan told me.
So yeah. Me complaining about having to learn Draconic magic techniques aside, I think looking at ‘Soul Magic’ more like a magical skill is more accurate than looking at it as magic. Similar to how Telekinesis or Alice’s Mana Flight are both magical techniques, but definitely not magic.
And to be honest, having Mariina take part in these Soul lessons was a blessing in disguise. She knew a lot of the right questions to ask, so that Lady Janina would explain things in ways we would actually be able to replicate. The two of them really showed their smarts when it came to magic, instead of it just being ‘Do this’ and we try to do that, without having any real idea on how that is done. But now with Mariina’s help, it felt like we improved five lessons worth in just one.
And don’t think Lady Janina didn’t notice. She did, and she was quite impressed by ‘the human lady with the spirit’. And because Mariina impressed Lady Janina, and helped in our lesson, I felt like showing her a bit of something.
With my race changed to Spiritual Human and us outside where we had some nice plants to use as a focus point, I activated my new skill.
“Summon Nature Spirit.”
With my skill activated and one of the flowers, not a mana producing one, as a focal point, a nature spirit began to take shape. Unlike the large human-sized alraune looking greater spirit, the one that came to me this time was a smaller one. About one meter tall girl made of flowers. Well, to be more accurate, her body was made of… that green material that flower stems are, her hair was leaves, with a few flowers here and there. Her hands were flowers and her feet looked a bit like roots. A little flower girl, I suppose.
“... when did this happen?” Mariina asked. “I knew about the water spirits, but this?”
“Two days ago when we were in the Green dungeon.” I answered. “But that isn’t the only part I wanted to show you. Can you… Oh? He came out on his own.” I said, as I noticed that Mariina’s spirit friend came out of her staff and formed a little earth body for himself.
As I looked at the two intermediate spirits … talking? Or are they playing? Well, either way. Let’s try if this works, but it should.
“Earth spirit, Earth Hole.” I commanded Mariina’s spirit with Spirit Magic.
The spirit quickly heard me and did as I ordered. A small hole appeared exactly where I wanted it to.
Oh, I guess now is not the correct time, but still a time to talk about something regarding One of Every Race. Well, mainly the sub-skills under that skill. I can use them when I am of any race of my choosing, but the skills are powered up quite a bit when I am currently of the race that skill belongs to. So if I were to use … Advanced Summoning Magic, but I wasn’t a Summoner, the skill would actually be weaker. The same goes for using Spirit Magic while I’m not a Spiritual Human, and using the Draconic skills while I’m not Dragon Hearted.
But enough about my Unique-Racial skill, what is important now is my Spirit Magic skill.
“... so, you asked my contracted spirit for that, and he agreed? Why?” Mariina asked.
“It is called Spirit Magic.” I told her honestly, because of … well, you’ll hear in just a second. “It is a racial skill accessible to those that evolve into a race that is close with spirits. I’m showing it to you, as I believe you have a high chance of evolving into such a race, considering that you already have a contract with a spirit.”
“I have already evolved into a Sorceress, so I wouldn’t be so sure.” Mariina told me.
“And who said you can’t evolve twice?”
“... no one, but it isn’t that common with humans. I know a lot of the animal-kin races evolve multiple times, but humans usually only evolve once.”
“Perhaps. But just something to keep in mind.”
“I shall. … But I might need to start grinding for levels again. There is no way I will evolve a second time if I don’t.”
“Well, there is one way, but I won’t tell you unless you work for me. Or at least swear yourself to secrecy. Actually, I could use Mind Crush.”
“... I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t activate unless you share my secrets.”
“... is this… something I must do?”
“No, no. Of course not. This far you haven’t seen that many… overly crazy things. I mean, HomeBase and Lady Janina aside, as those are things many people will soon learn about, I do have other little secrets. And while a few of your sisters already know about them, I’m not so sure I want the Sage’s tower knowing about them.”
“... I don’t follow. Why keep it from the Sage’s tower?”
“Because I don’t trust powerful organizations. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I don’t want them kidnapping me and forcing me to do what they want me to do.”
“Do you think we have the strength to do so?”
“I’m not sure. If you have some sort of skill negating thing, maybe?”
“So you think we would kidnap you and risk facing the wrath of not just that fire dragon, but also this Lady Janina as well? Even if we could keep you from using your cards, what about those two? Even just Alice could do a lot of damage if she felt like she had been wronged. And when the public learns that all of it is because we decided to kidnap someone, whose side do you think they would be?”
“Good question. The common people are easy to fool. They believe what they hear first. And out of the two of us, you are the ones with more credibility at this moment. You could say you had to take me in because I’m dangerous. And let’s be honest here, because of both the rumors and what happened with drunk moron James, I don’t have the best reputation in the first place.”
“... I suppose that would be so. But what about that … Mind Crush? What was that about? How would that..?”
“It is a card I have. It lets me delete someone’s memories about something I choose.”
Spoiler [collapse]“Delete memories? As in … making someone forget something?”
“Basically yes. Remember the Blanken Trading Company? When we were interrogating a lot of their people, I used Mind Crush to remove any knowledge they had about how the illegal slave mark works, but not the fact that they had used it.”
“... yes, I do think you said something like that. I just assumed one of your summonable magicians would be doing it. But what is different with this Mind Crush card?”
“Well nothing much, except that it is a Trap card. I can set Trap cards on people and they will automatically activate when the condition for them is met. If you remember the recording I showed of my encounter with James, a few of the Trap cards I had set on myself activated in that altercation.”
“Yes, that does sound like what I remember. So then..?”
“I was going to set Mind Crush on you. And if you talk about my secrets to anyone outside of HomeBase, the card will activate and you will forget all of it.”
“... and in return, you will help me evolve again?”
“I can’t promise that you will evolve, but you will level up.”
“... will I forget… everything?”
“You shouldn’t. As long as it is worded correctly, you will only forget about the existence of HomeBase, as well as the secrets I’m about to share. You won’t forget me, Alice, the rest of my cards, etc. Just what I deem too secretive to share with the Sage’s tower.”
“... I … I really don’t want to forget what I know, but… I want to try. If you really can do that, then I agree.” Mariina accepted my suggestion. “And if I can’t keep my mouth shut, I deserve to lose my memories.”
Just a bit of time later, we were in my office and Mariina was staring at the Citadel Core quite a lot. At first she was just taking glances, but now she is just staring.
“Let me guess, you want to know about it?” I asked her.
“... Is it another secret?” Mariina asked.
“In a way. That is the Citadel Core. It is what powers everything here, like the magic circles, all of the magic lights, the heating, the water production, etc.”
“... is this place… a dungeon?”
“Kind of. It really isn’t, but it also is. I guess you could call it an artificial dungeon.” I just straight up lied about that. This place absolutely is a dungeon, a Chaos God Dungeon. But that is a secret, so I’ll call it an artificial dungeon instead.
“... you know how to make an artificial dungeon?”
“Kind of. I mean, all you really need is a dungeon pedestal, the area you want to turn into a dungeon and a monster core. Well, ideally a magic stone, but a monster core would work.” That was actually the truth. Though I’m not sure if anything but a Chaos God Dungeon can make a dungeon pedestal.
“Isn’t that… something that should be shared with the world?” Mariina asked.
“Perhaps, but answer this. Can you make a dungeon pedestal?”
“Well no.”
“Exactly. I know of a way to make them, but I promised the Goddess I wouldn’t share it.”
“... you’ve… you’ve spoken with the Goddess?”
“Yeah. A few times.”
“... how? Where?”
“In my dreams. Well, kind of. It is a bit complicated, but it is the truth. If you don’t trust me, you can ask Alice or Lua. They have also gotten the honor.”
“Oh? Something to do with the System Support, right?”
“Not just that. Also the dimensional fissures. Oh right. The purple miasma blobs that appeared both near Alewatch and Oroco city.”
“... is this something I should know about?”
“Probably not, but it isn’t something I’ve promised to keep quiet about, so it should be fine. … thought do keep in to yourself please. Well, you can share with the Sages, as I probably would. It is something that does affect the world on a worldy scale, not country scale.”
“This is definitely not something I should know about.”
“Too late. But enough about everything else, let’s get to why you are here.”
“... I feel like my brain is going to melt at this rate.”
“Well, don’t worry, as the rest of this will just be my usual card BS. Aka. nothing that crazy. But I do need just a bit of info on your skills.”
“... what kind of information? Do you need me to open my status?” Mariina asked.
“Nah. While it does help, if you don’t want to, you won’t have to. Just answer a few questions.”
“... alright.”
“First, what is your level?”
“73.”
“And what level is your Earth Magic?”
“9.”
“Good. That is enough for now. Now I can… wait. First I’ll set the Mind Crush.”
After the Mind Crush was set on Mariina, with conditions and what it would do all set out so that she would only lose memories of stuff that happened on HomeBase, and only if she shared anything she learned on HomeBase, I got out two copies of Level Up.
“I’ll increase Mariina’s overall level, Level Up. I’ll also increase the level of her Earth Magic, Level Up.” I activated the two Level Ups.
“... what just happened?” Mariina asked.
“Take a look at your status and find out.” I told her.
After a second of looking at her status, Mariina realized what I did.
“... you can do that?”
“As you see, yes.”
“Explains how you are level 88.”
“Old news. That was like… some time ago.”
“Yes. I suppose it was. How often do you..?”
“I used to do it every day. But now, I do it once or twice a week. For you, I’ll do it every time you come up here for Soul Magic practice.”
“I see… thank you. Is there anything I should… look out for?”
“Well, you should have a skill picked that you want leveled up. Other than that, be warned that if you don’t train your skills after they level up, they can get out of hand. Your body will basically be too powerful for you to handle, and it can be a bit of a pain.”
“Speaking from experience, I assume?”
“Yeah. I went a bit too far leveling my Mana Control. At least Laura was able to help me with it, so I wasn’t screwed, but you should be careful.”
“Thank you. I will.”
After I let Mariina off of HomeBase, I invited Einar and Eline to my office. It was about time the two of them got their first level ups. These were their status before I leveled them up. It was interesting that Cat-folk have Night Vision as a racial skill.
Spoiler
|
|
I, of course, used the level ups on their most important skills, Taming for Einar and Summoning Magic for Eline. So after the level ups, their statuses looked like this.
Spoiler
|
|
The two of them have quite the lack of skill though. Like the number of skills they have. Maybe I should have them practice so they can learn new skills? Or just give them both an install or two?
After the cat-folk, it was Wilma’s turn to get her level ups. She was of course already used to this rodeo, so we got it over with quite quickly.
Spoiler| Name: Wilhelmina |
| Race: Dwarf |
| Level: 55 [+16] |
| HP: 1478 [+312] |
| Mana: 1542 [+298] |
| Strength: 1054 [+286] |
| Defense: 900 [+210] |
| Magic: 526 [+94] |
| Skills: |
| Item Box LV.3 (extra) |
| Appraisal (extra) |
| Blacksmithing LV.7 [+3] |
| Crafting LV.7 [+4] |
| Hammer Technique LV.2 |
| Shield Technique LV.4 |
| Strength Boost LV.2 |
| Mana Control LV.3 |
| Enchanting LV.5 [+1] |
| Earth Magic LV.2 |
| Fire Resistance LV.2 |
This was Wilma’s eight level up. Thus far, I’ve been focusing on leveling up Blacksmithing and Crafting, so they are both at level 7. Well, today she got a level in Enchanting. But I probably should tell her to level up things like Mana Control and maybe even have her take lessons on magic. I don’t think just the crafting skills will allow her to make the greatest sword ever.
She is also level 55 now, and since she didn’t evolve when she reached 50, there is a high chance she will evolve at 60, or maybe at 70. But I guess we will see.
nro_8 At the request of Marcov, I added [+1] things to people's statuses. This shows how much skills/statuses have increased since last time they were shown. I probably won't retroactively add them to all the past chapters, but I will have them in the future.
After introducing Mariina to Lady Janina, and carefully sidestepping the part where Lady Janina is basically a demigod dragon, we got on with our lesson on soul magic stuff. Again, not sure if it counts as magic or a magical technique, because with dragons, those two are kind of interchangeable. For example flight. For dragons, it is a technique. For me, it falls under Draconic Magic, not Draconic Body. Actually, the same goes for breathing fire. Or any other attribute breath really. For dragons, it is a natural technique they just learn to do, kind of like walking. I was going to say breathing, but it isn’t quite that easy for them, at least based on what Agunan told me.
So yeah. Me complaining about having to learn Draconic magic techniques aside, I think looking at ‘Soul Magic’ more like a magical skill is more accurate than looking at it as magic. Similar to how Telekinesis or Alice’s Mana Flight are both magical techniques, but definitely not magic.
And to be honest, having Mariina take part in these Soul lessons was a blessing in disguise. She knew a lot of the right questions to ask, so that Lady Janina would explain things in ways we would actually be able to replicate. The two of them really showed their smarts when it came to magic, instead of it just being ‘Do this’ and we try to do that, without having any real idea on how that is done. But now with Mariina’s help, it felt like we improved five lessons worth in just one.
And don’t think Lady Janina didn’t notice. She did, and she was quite impressed by ‘the human lady with the spirit’. And because Mariina impressed Lady Janina, and helped in our lesson, I felt like showing her a bit of something.
With my race changed to Spiritual Human and us outside where we had some nice plants to use as a focus point, I activated my new skill.
“Summon Nature Spirit.”
With my skill activated and one of the flowers, not a mana producing one, as a focal point, a nature spirit began to take shape. Unlike the large human-sized alraune looking greater spirit, the one that came to me this time was a smaller one. About one meter tall girl made of flowers. Well, to be more accurate, her body was made of… that green material that flower stems are, her hair was leaves, with a few flowers here and there. Her hands were flowers and her feet looked a bit like roots. A little flower girl, I suppose.
“... when did this happen?” Mariina asked. “I knew about the water spirits, but this?”
“Two days ago when we were in the Green dungeon.” I answered. “But that isn’t the only part I wanted to show you. Can you… Oh? He came out on his own.” I said, as I noticed that Mariina’s spirit friend came out of her staff and formed a little earth body for himself.
As I looked at the two intermediate spirits … talking? Or are they playing? Well, either way. Let’s try if this works, but it should.
“Earth spirit, Earth Hole.” I commanded Mariina’s spirit with Spirit Magic.
The spirit quickly heard me and did as I ordered. A small hole appeared exactly where I wanted it to.
Oh, I guess now is not the correct time, but still a time to talk about something regarding One of Every Race. Well, mainly the sub-skills under that skill. I can use them when I am of any race of my choosing, but the skills are powered up quite a bit when I am currently of the race that skill belongs to. So if I were to use … Advanced Summoning Magic, but I wasn’t a Summoner, the skill would actually be weaker. The same goes for using Spirit Magic while I’m not a Spiritual Human, and using the Draconic skills while I’m not Dragon Hearted.
But enough about my Unique-Racial skill, what is important now is my Spirit Magic skill.
“... so, you asked my contracted spirit for that, and he agreed? Why?” Mariina asked.
“It is called Spirit Magic.” I told her honestly, because of … well, you’ll hear in just a second. “It is a racial skill accessible to those that evolve into a race that is close with spirits. I’m showing it to you, as I believe you have a high chance of evolving into such a race, considering that you already have a contract with a spirit.”
“I have already evolved into a Sorceress, so I wouldn’t be so sure.” Mariina told me.
“And who said you can’t evolve twice?”
“... no one, but it isn’t that common with humans. I know a lot of the animal-kin races evolve multiple times, but humans usually only evolve once.”
“Perhaps. But just something to keep in mind.”
“I shall. … But I might need to start grinding for levels again. There is no way I will evolve a second time if I don’t.”
“Well, there is one way, but I won’t tell you unless you work for me. Or at least swear yourself to secrecy. Actually, I could use Mind Crush.”
“... I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t activate unless you share my secrets.”
“... is this… something I must do?”
“No, no. Of course not. This far you haven’t seen that many… overly crazy things. I mean, HomeBase and Lady Janina aside, as those are things many people will soon learn about, I do have other little secrets. And while a few of your sisters already know about them, I’m not so sure I want the Sage’s tower knowing about them.”
“... I don’t follow. Why keep it from the Sage’s tower?”
“Because I don’t trust powerful organizations. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I don’t want them kidnapping me and forcing me to do what they want me to do.”
“Do you think we have the strength to do so?”
“I’m not sure. If you have some sort of skill negating thing, maybe?”
“So you think we would kidnap you and risk facing the wrath of not just that fire dragon, but also this Lady Janina as well? Even if we could keep you from using your cards, what about those two? Even just Alice could do a lot of damage if she felt like she had been wronged. And when the public learns that all of it is because we decided to kidnap someone, whose side do you think they would be?”
“Good question. The common people are easy to fool. They believe what they hear first. And out of the two of us, you are the ones with more credibility at this moment. You could say you had to take me in because I’m dangerous. And let’s be honest here, because of both the rumors and what happened with drunk moron James, I don’t have the best reputation in the first place.”
“... I suppose that would be so. But what about that … Mind Crush? What was that about? How would that..?”
“It is a card I have. It lets me delete someone’s memories about something I choose.”
Spoiler [collapse]“Delete memories? As in … making someone forget something?”
“Basically yes. Remember the Blanken Trading Company? When we were interrogating a lot of their people, I used Mind Crush to remove any knowledge they had about how the illegal slave mark works, but not the fact that they had used it.”
“... yes, I do think you said something like that. I just assumed one of your summonable magicians would be doing it. But what is different with this Mind Crush card?”
“Well nothing much, except that it is a Trap card. I can set Trap cards on people and they will automatically activate when the condition for them is met. If you remember the recording I showed of my encounter with James, a few of the Trap cards I had set on myself activated in that altercation.”
“Yes, that does sound like what I remember. So then..?”
“I was going to set Mind Crush on you. And if you talk about my secrets to anyone outside of HomeBase, the card will activate and you will forget all of it.”
“... and in return, you will help me evolve again?”
“I can’t promise that you will evolve, but you will level up.”
“... will I forget… everything?”
“You shouldn’t. As long as it is worded correctly, you will only forget about the existence of HomeBase, as well as the secrets I’m about to share. You won’t forget me, Alice, the rest of my cards, etc. Just what I deem too secretive to share with the Sage’s tower.”
“... I … I really don’t want to forget what I know, but… I want to try. If you really can do that, then I agree.” Mariina accepted my suggestion. “And if I can’t keep my mouth shut, I deserve to lose my memories.”
Just a bit of time later, we were in my office and Mariina was staring at the Citadel Core quite a lot. At first she was just taking glances, but now she is just staring.
“Let me guess, you want to know about it?” I asked her.
“... Is it another secret?” Mariina asked.
“In a way. That is the Citadel Core. It is what powers everything here, like the magic circles, all of the magic lights, the heating, the water production, etc.”
“... is this place… a dungeon?”
“Kind of. It really isn’t, but it also is. I guess you could call it an artificial dungeon.” I just straight up lied about that. This place absolutely is a dungeon, a Chaos God Dungeon. But that is a secret, so I’ll call it an artificial dungeon instead.
“... you know how to make an artificial dungeon?”
“Kind of. I mean, all you really need is a dungeon pedestal, the area you want to turn into a dungeon and a monster core. Well, ideally a magic stone, but a monster core would work.” That was actually the truth. Though I’m not sure if anything but a Chaos God Dungeon can make a dungeon pedestal.
“Isn’t that… something that should be shared with the world?” Mariina asked.
“Perhaps, but answer this. Can you make a dungeon pedestal?”
“Well no.”
“Exactly. I know of a way to make them, but I promised the Goddess I wouldn’t share it.”
“... you’ve… you’ve spoken with the Goddess?”
“Yeah. A few times.”
“... how? Where?”
“In my dreams. Well, kind of. It is a bit complicated, but it is the truth. If you don’t trust me, you can ask Alice or Lua. They have also gotten the honor.”
“Oh? Something to do with the System Support, right?”
“Not just that. Also the dimensional fissures. Oh right. The purple miasma blobs that appeared both near Alewatch and Oroco city.”
“... is this something I should know about?”
“Probably not, but it isn’t something I’ve promised to keep quiet about, so it should be fine. … thought do keep in to yourself please. Well, you can share with the Sages, as I probably would. It is something that does affect the world on a worldy scale, not country scale.”
“This is definitely not something I should know about.”
“Too late. But enough about everything else, let’s get to why you are here.”
“... I feel like my brain is going to melt at this rate.”
“Well, don’t worry, as the rest of this will just be my usual card BS. Aka. nothing that crazy. But I do need just a bit of info on your skills.”
“... what kind of information? Do you need me to open my status?” Mariina asked.
“Nah. While it does help, if you don’t want to, you won’t have to. Just answer a few questions.”
“... alright.”
“First, what is your level?”
“73.”
“And what level is your Earth Magic?”
“9.”
“Good. That is enough for now. Now I can… wait. First I’ll set the Mind Crush.”
After the Mind Crush was set on Mariina, with conditions and what it would do all set out so that she would only lose memories of stuff that happened on HomeBase, and only if she shared anything she learned on HomeBase, I got out two copies of Level Up.
“I’ll increase Mariina’s overall level, Level Up. I’ll also increase the level of her Earth Magic, Level Up.” I activated the two Level Ups.
“... what just happened?” Mariina asked.
“Take a look at your status and find out.” I told her.
After a second of looking at her status, Mariina realized what I did.
“... you can do that?”
“As you see, yes.”
“Explains how you are level 88.”
“Old news. That was like… some time ago.”
“Yes. I suppose it was. How often do you..?”
“I used to do it every day. But now, I do it once or twice a week. For you, I’ll do it every time you come up here for Soul Magic practice.”
“I see… thank you. Is there anything I should… look out for?”
“Well, you should have a skill picked that you want leveled up. Other than that, be warned that if you don’t train your skills after they level up, they can get out of hand. Your body will basically be too powerful for you to handle, and it can be a bit of a pain.”
“Speaking from experience, I assume?”
“Yeah. I went a bit too far leveling my Mana Control. At least Laura was able to help me with it, so I wasn’t screwed, but you should be careful.”
“Thank you. I will.”
After I let Mariina off of HomeBase, I invited Einar and Eline to my office. It was about time the two of them got their first level ups. These were their status before I leveled them up. It was interesting that Cat-folk have Night Vision as a racial skill.
Spoiler
|
|
I, of course, used the level ups on their most important skills, Taming for Einar and Summoning Magic for Eline. So after the level ups, their statuses looked like this.
Spoiler
|
|
The two of them have quite the lack of skill though. Like the number of skills they have. Maybe I should have them practice so they can learn new skills? Or just give them both an install or two?
After the cat-folk, it was Wilma’s turn to get her level ups. She was of course already used to this rodeo, so we got it over with quite quickly.
Spoiler| Name: Wilhelmina |
| Race: Dwarf |
| Level: 55 [+16] |
| HP: 1478 [+312] |
| Mana: 1542 [+298] |
| Strength: 1054 [+286] |
| Defense: 900 [+210] |
| Magic: 526 [+94] |
| Skills: |
| Item Box LV.3 (extra) |
| Appraisal (extra) |
| Blacksmithing LV.7 [+3] |
| Crafting LV.7 [+4] |
| Hammer Technique LV.2 |
| Shield Technique LV.4 |
| Strength Boost LV.2 |
| Mana Control LV.3 |
| Enchanting LV.5 [+1] |
| Earth Magic LV.2 |
| Fire Resistance LV.2 |
This was Wilma’s eight level up. Thus far, I’ve been focusing on leveling up Blacksmithing and Crafting, so they are both at level 7. Well, today she got a level in Enchanting. But I probably should tell her to level up things like Mana Control and maybe even have her take lessons on magic. I don’t think just the crafting skills will allow her to make the greatest sword ever.
She is also level 55 now, and since she didn’t evolve when she reached 50, there is a high chance she will evolve at 60, or maybe at 70. But I guess we will see.
nro_8 At the request of Marcov, I added [+1] things to people's statuses. This shows how much skills/statuses have increased since last time they were shown. I probably won't retroactively add them to all the past chapters, but I will have them in the future.
