Chapter 21

[||||=LEVEL 21= ||||]

Rose eclipse - Scythe/shortsword/sniper

Rarity: Mythical (low)

Material composition: Novis, Steel alloy (High quality), Various minor metals

Special traits: Barrel/gun, high bullet speed (mach 9(Scythe)/mach 5(Sniper)), runic matrix (+bullet speed; toggleable), runic matrix (recoil negation), runic matrix (self sustaining), innate affinity (purity - 144)

Bio: A newly made sniper/scythe/shortsword made for Ruby Rose by her brother (Faintly genetic due to ocular genetic modifications) Abyss Mavros. The designs were changed for years as Ruby Rose, who designed the weapon, learned the trade of weapon designing. In a moment of discovery numerous designs of hers coalesced into a work of art more than a weapon.

Abyss Mavros, a wizard, rune-master, and expert metalworker, immediately made the weapon perfectly despite the complexity of it. However, he took it one step further. In inspiration of the magical properties of red bloom wood Abyss used the power of precursor silver eyes to increase his affinity for the pure and infuse an element of purity into the weapon in the hopes that it would take root and better protect his sister against the forces of grimm. It worked. For sparring purposes the gun's runes were made toggleable to revert to a mach 4 bullet speed.

I woke up to see Ruby cuddling her new weapon, which I spent all of christmas day making with her after we stopped finalizing the drafts for my… weapon and armor.

During the forging of Ruby's weapon I had an odd thought. What if I were push purity mana and aura into Ruby's weapon while I was making it? And so I flared my eyes and I did. And I'm so glad I did. With the purity element in it I can only guess at how it will affect her but a few guesses are that it will cut through grimm like butter (as if it wouldn't before) and interact with her silver eyes… somehow. Certainly in a good way.

But I had a rather difficult decision to make. In truth, the expeditions had driven some caution into me. These were elementals that we were going to see in the icy forest. They were strong and powerful. I was bringing Ruby there of course though she would have Swift and Hawk with her while she snipes at a long range and Raven would be fine if we watched each other's back. But I want an insurance. The answer is obvious. Power and luck. I want the best possible outcome. So there go a few of my points.

*Ding!* By reaching 100 LUK a new skill has been acquired! - Selective karma

"Luck and I have a hate/hate relationship. She plays favorites. I'm not one of them but I hope some lucky sonofabitch is. He owes me a drink."

-Qrow Branwen, on his luck based semblance

-Actions towards an ally with benevolent intent increase both of your LUK be 50% towards the outcome of that situation.

-Actions directed towards you with malevolent intent will have a 50% decreased LUK stat in play.

*Ding!* By reaching 200 STR a new skill has been acquired! - Size doesn't matter

"I may be tiny but I'm stronger than all you %^$ &s! Come at me you %$^ sucking ^&!$&$*s !"

-Irwin the angry

-Muscles size does not indicate strength and instead is optimized for fighting. Penalties to growth are negated when applied to strength.

*Ding!* By reaching 350 INT a new skill has been acquired! - Prediction

"If all the numbers say that this is going to happen then it'll probably happen."

-Jallashuma, statistician

-See .25 seconds into the future to the most likely scenario (takes your luck into account)

*Ding!* By reaching 350 WIS a new skill has been acquired! - Compounding affinities

"The ice affinity, the most common compound affinity, is just water, heat, and order, yeah? So how could you have a massive affinity for water and just a little for ice? Your affinities are supposed to support each other. Depend on each other."

-Tolfdir, wizard

-Compound affinities have the sum of their base (not increased by elementals or skills) core affinities added into them.

-Compound affinities can be gained through two baser affinities. The baser affinities are not lost in the creation of the new affinity. Meditation is required to make a new affinity.

Abyss Mavros

Titles: Wizard; The Storm

Level – 208

HP – 10,622 (+26.56/min)

AP – 63,000 (+3,150/min)

MP - 200,900 (+10,045/min)

STR - 200 (+495%)= 1190

VIT - 184 (+480%)= 1062.2

DEX - 272 (+525%)= 1700

INT - 350 (+250%)= 1225

WIS - 350 (+350%) = 1,575

LUK - 100 (+0%)= 100

POINTS - 690

Affinities:

Air: 311 (+100) = 6247.2

Electricity: 185 = 2,812

Purity: 144 = 1,613

Light: 135 = 756

Space: 125 = 700

Heat: 112 = 627

Ice: 109 (+49)(+45)= 1,137

Water: 99 = 752.4

Nature: 79 (+37)(+62)(+20)(+8)= 1,154

Life: 78 = 442

Motion: 77 = 431

*Ding! Modification made:

-Ice: Ice you make is very durable to heat and harder than typical stone.

Wow… Just wow… I'm up to a fifteenth of what Ozpin has now! But my air affinity is getting insane. I'm starting to think that the only way I'll ever be able to beat Ozpin is through having a cadre of elementals and insane affinities that absolutely dwarf his.

My growth in my ice affinity recently shows how far I've come from what I've had before. Typically my parallels focused on a variety of elements. I just didn't want to neglect any of them. But now I'm thinking that it might be better to capitalize on my air affinity. With dominant nature it grows three times as fast.

The augmentation from ice isn't really great but it's good. If I ever need a sword in the middle of battle I could make an ice sword far superior to any projected mana one.

Come to think of it, the passives I learn from the benchmarks I reach every fifty stats… can I teach Raven how to use them? Not the physical ones but she might be able to learn how to use the WIS ones.

Spirit is just meditating to stimulate the growth of your affinities. Yeah, she can totally learn that. Body of worlds… she might be able to do that already. I don't often use it because of how conspicuous it is but she might appreciate it. Dominant nature was a technique of a sort too. It was like putting your greatest affinities on a pedestal of your other affinities. They're sort of supported by the others in a strange way. Compounding affinities is also totally a skill.

I can teach all of those. I just do them passively so I never thought of it.

I excitedly got up to go tell Raven about this and get her and myself a electrical elemental. It was about nine o'clock, which was later than usual but we were up late last night as well as the night before. We're going to the icy forest hopefully around noon but we can do the elementals and me telling Raven about the techniques and finish off with a late breakfast. I'll do belgian waffles. With home-made whip cream with extra vanilla… mmm.

I knocked on Raven's door and heard a groan and a shifting of sheets. Some cloth was shuffled around as she got dressed and footsteps trudged to the door.

Raven opened the door with that 'just woke up' look. Clouded eyes, mussed up hair… well her hair was always kind of chaotic and curly as it fell down her back but it was more… everywhere. It had strands poking off of it.

I ignored all of this. "I can summon electrical elementals and I think I found a way to increase affinities." Raven was instantly at attention.

"We're getting elementals now?" I nodded. She shut the door and I hears some more cloth shuffling around and a little clinking of metal. Raven opened the door in under a minute with her sword case, probably filled with new blades, and dressed in her combat uniform. Well, it's also her typical attire but she had the armor on, making it her combat uniform.

I opened up a portal to the land around patch and walked through and immediately set my parallels to saturating the air with electrical mana. It wasn't directed into a spell like with the wind mana I used to summon the wind elementals before. It was free and undirected.

Slowly in a few minutes there was a charge in the air. Walking around there were audible static shocks crackling when I walked. My skin was on edge. I swear I could hear a buzzing sound. None of this hurt or even tickled me. I had my affinity for electricity making me immune to pretty much all of this. It was interesting to see what happened when you just dumped a large amount of attuned mana into the air though.

I yelled in surprise and slammed my hands onto my ears right before a massive boom suddenly crashed down on my ears. Raven's earth sword was drawn with her standing attentive for any threats with a harsh grimace on her face. She sheathed the sword and rubbed her ears irritatedly.

Was that… my new prediction skill just activated. I knew that lightning was about to strike and I could react accordingly. What a useful skill. I didn't know that lightning was going to strike from the sky. I thought lightning was a compound element of electricity, plasma, and chaos? Ugh. Whatever.

The skill activated again and I whirled around to see a sort of wavy buzzing in the air. Electricity attuned mana from me coalesced together and a form faded into existence. A sort of creature looking like a dragonfly with short mantis claws began whizzing around through the air.

"Mine." Raven claimed. She sent the signal for aura and the reasons why and the mantis dashed towards her. She opened her soul space and he flew right in.

"His name is Sickle." She said. Then she grimaced and groaned as that uncomfortable feeling set in for her. "Ugh… and it's gone. Oh, the other feeling is different. Sort of… electric, ironically enough. More energetic."

I nodded and my prediction skill buzzed again and I turned. Another elemental. I sent the pulses of aura saying to be my familiar. He didn't mind and I opened my inventory. My new elemental, let's call him Krebs, buzzed on in and I closed my inventory and felt him poke around a little before finding the pocket of my electrical affinity, which was way smaller than my air affinity but still my second largest affinity.

He dug in and I grunted at the sensation. When he settled I felt a little buzzing feeling like when you have a shiver go up your spine but… pleasant.

*Ding!* You have contracted a petty electrical elemental! +100 to electrical affinity!

*Ding!* As your electrical affinity is over two thousand total your contracted electrical elemental has become a minor electrical elemental! He may downgrade to a electrical elemental should your electrical. affinity decrease.

Now that we got Krebs I've got one more elemental to summon. I wouldn't actually be able to do this without my eyes. Thanks Summer.

"Can you open a portal now? I'd like to get some breakfast and run things over with Ruby. We need to decide how we want to divide things up as well." Raven looked at me expectantly. I grinned.

"Actually, I've never told you about what my eyes can do have I?" Raven shook her head.

"Only that they make killing grimm about a hundred times easier. Then you get a knowing smirk and refuse to talk about it." I rolled my eyes. She's right though. I absolutely do smirk knowingly.

"I'll give you a rundown. They increase my mana to be over double what it was, my aura to over triple." Raven's eye twitched.

"Hack."

"Did I say I'm done? These aren't silver eyes. These are precursor silver eyes. Just by looking at a grimm whether or not I channel mana I harm grimm unless I will my eyes not to. Actively channeling mana or aura towards my eyes regardless of affinity will give the energy a purity attunement and further harm the grimm versus what just looking at them does."

"Quit bragging." Raven hissed jealousy.

"And finally this." I poked that reflex in my eye mentally and they did that maiden thing but silver. Raven recoiled a little and her mouth turned to a small frown. "I call it flaring them. It increases my purity affinity by a factor of a hundred, and actually think about that number. It's huge. But… while I'm flaring the eyes I can't use any of my other affinities. Including my elementals or normal mana." Raven nodded but kept that small frown.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"… It makes you look like you're wearing silver eyeliner." Raven said. She held her hand up to her mouth to hide her expression. "It's really girly."

I opened my mouth to reply but thought better of it. "Could you make a mirror from ice?" Raven waved her hand and a pane of ice sprung upwards. I looked closely… It looks like I'm wearing a really good cat-eye. I look great but yeah. It's not helping me look manly.

"Goddamnit." I muttered. Raven snorted and collected herself.

"So you're going to, what? Baptise me? Sprinkle some projected mana with a purity affinity onto me and yell 'begone'? Or bless the land maybe?"

"I'm going to summon purity elementals. But these won't be basic petty elementals. These elementals are going to be insanely strong with all the purity affinity in the air… and they'll be mine to command." I grinned and shut off my eyes.

"But first let's go to a place with more grimm. I want to see my posse in action." Raven sighed as I opened a portal to the middle of Vacuo, where there are bound to be some grimm. Hopefully some strong ones around.

I deactivated my net system and flared my aura as hard as I could. I put the system back on and flared my eyes then. I began dumping loads of purity attuned mana and aura into the air. I made sure that my aura was telling any elementals that would appear that Raven was a friend.

Immediately several petty elementals appeared. They looked like shimmery and silvery wolves. Minor ones appeared as well. They were bigger and even shinier. After a few seconds there were the next tier, lesser. A moment more tnd there were what were called average elementals. Then there were strong elementals. Then greater elementals. By now they were like stars with how bright they shone. But it wasn't blinding. This wasn't light that they emitted. It was aura with a purity element so great that it expressed itself brightly.

Finally I saw two of what I knew would be the strongest elementals I could summon. Grand elementals. But there was something different about them. They looked different for one thing. They appeared as female human-sized warriors armed with a bow… huntresses? They're dressed in wolf cloaks…

"What the?" Raven muttered. She looked towards me but I said nothing. Instead I sent a message through my aura. To kill the grimm.

Immediately the huntresses and the wolves blurred and were gone. I absently wondered how high their DEX stat was. It must be insane. And I control them… such an odd feeling. But they can't harm humans or anything else without a corruption element. They can only kill grimm and nothing else. Because that's what purity does. It counters corruption. That's it.

It irritated me that the greatest power I had and all it did was make me strong against one person in Remnant. Salem. With these eyes I was her biggest threat by a huge margin. Especially if I could get to even stronger elementals through my purity affinity reaching yet greater heights…

Damnit. I wonder if Summer had any idea that giving me her eyes would inevitable draw me towards destroying Salem… of course she did. Summer was smart. Smart and dedicated to destroying Salem. She likely believed her eyes would protect me and through me Ruby… and with me going to beacon Ozpin could recruit us as he recruited her so long ago. Two silver eyed warriors, one of which being a wizard… it would be a real shot at killing Salem… but I don't think Summer understood that I don't care about killing Salem. But I don't think she expected this either.

I gazed at the horizon as my elementals decimated any grimm for miles around. The huntresses fired arrows that appeared as streaks of light they flew so fast. When they struck the grimm they instantly looked as if to roar but their blackness faded to a grey and then a white and they disappeared into a white mist instantly. They were being purified.

The elementals of a lesser grade than the huntresses barked and from their maws shor beams of purity mana and my aura towards the grimm, purifying them more. The lower the grade of elemental the slower the purity took to work.

Out of some curiosity I observed a grimm as it was dying of the purity from a huntress' arrow.

Sand Wyrm (Lv. 64) - A large centipede-like grimm on par with a deathstalker alpha. Venomous, fast, armored, and extremely dangerous as well as rather rare. This type of centipede has adapted to 'swim' through sand, giving it it's name. It is currently suffering of a conflict of it's innate corruption and the purity of a purity elemental's arrows.

Affinities:

Corruption (Innate): 21,110 (IN CONFLICT)

Purity (Invasive): 48,936 (IN CONFLICT)

As expected. The grimm are basically corruption elementals. But why are they… OH! They're not in an area with high corruption so their affinity is innately infused into them. But that apparently makes them weaker as well as allowing them to travel out of areas with a lower concentration of ambient corruption affinity.

It's pretty clear that the grades of elementals are in exponents of two so it goes two thousand, four thousand, eight thousand, sixteen thousand, and so on between the tiers of elementals. So I would guess that the sand wyrm was a strong elemental. And these guys, while rare, aren't in short supply.

This means that the grimm are really… REALLY strong in any area that has a high ambient corruption affinity but acting offensively is very difficult since they're so much weaker outside those areas.

Actually they might just be permanently weaker, being locked in a physical form. I wonder…

How much stronger would they be if they could use all of that corruption affinity through the conduit that is the soul?

I can only pray that doesn't happen… but I can grow stronger. I look towards one petty elemental of purity.

"Come here… I'll name you Gem. For your shine."

[|||| == ||||]

"I can't believe you talked me into this…"

"You said yes."

"You actually played dirty in a spar… Shameful."

"It wasn't that shameful!"

"Tossing my wife's panties in my face certainly is shameful, Pyrrha!"

"I did it for victory! I really needed to win the bet!"

"Fine. You playing dirty… Is the moon coming back together?"

"It's not that unlikely…"

"Remember a year ago when you kicked your cousin and thought that it was unfair because you were in high heels and he was in sneakers because of that?"

"High heels hurt!"

"He challenged you while you were in high heels, Pyrrha. If I had it my way you'd have kicked him a bit lower than the stomach."

"*sigh*. Look, are you going to teach me dustcasting or not?"

"Yeah yeah. I'm sure you'll impress your hopeful boyfriend very much with your tiny shred of dust casting ability."

"I'm doing it because I have nothing to do and it's better than practicing forms again! Or do you want me to destroy some more training dummies?"

"In all honesty an hour of you training that way is more expensive than a crate of dust for you to practice with."

"I know. Thank you for getting good training dummies. Now teach."

"Fine. I'll bet the Schnees don't have to deal with students trying to learn more than they should. They're probably drowning in business lessons."

[|||| == ||||]

"Winter don't leave! I need to learn time dilation exactly right!"

"Please Weiss it's good enough already!"

"No! Stay and teach me!"

[|||| == ||||]

"Sienna please! No more sparring!"

"Stop crawling away Blake! And it's time for climbing practice!"

"PLEASE! ANYONE! HEEEEEELLLLPP!"

[|||| == ||||]

"We need to decide how to divide what we find-"

"I call some crafting stuff!" Ruby shouted out.

"Magic tomes are mine. Back off my knowledge Raven." Raven growled.

"Fine. I'm getting to read them after you're done and any loot we find. Since you're more of the wizard than I I'll forfeit rights for first pickings to you."

"So long as you give my books back to me after." I said sternly.

"I'll make a copy by hand if you want one." She said seriously. I waved the idea off.

"I make a copy of every magical tome I find. I keep the originals locked away deep in my soul space."

"Fine. You get them first and you make copies." I nod.

"If we find any magical tomes." She adds.

"Don't say something so horrible!" I say with mock horror. Rave rolls her eyes and a few people around us at the other non-VIP tables chuckle.

"Mmm. these waffles are really good by the way. Thank you Abyss." Ruby says with a mouth full of whip cream, syrup, and waffle.

"Of course." I accept with a nod.

"Formations now." Raven said. "Ruby. You'll stay back with Hawk, Swift, Krebs, Sickle, and Gem. Krebs and Sickle are our electrical elementals we got this morning. Gem is a purity elemental. Snipe the ice elementals."

"They likely won't be very fast but very durable." I added. "My ice affinity is really lazy. Ice won't do a single thing unless you actively use mana in it."

"Earth is the same. The lazy affinities kind of piss me off sometimes." Raven agreed. "Anyways, you'll stay back with the elementals surrounding you. Krebs and Swift are the strongest so they'll be able to defend you better than any of the others. Trust in them."

"Got it." Ruby said.

"Abyss will be dealing with the threats as they come. I'll be sticking a little closer to you and hurling fireballs or whatever works best against the elementals. We'll see on-site."

"The petty elementals aren't even a threat to you at close range." I said. "You're strong enough even without actively using your aura to enhance yourself. If you're using your aura to enhance your body actively, though… how much stronger and faster are you?"

"About three times faster than normal." Raven said.

I nodded. "Four times stronger and faster is the maximum you can do with aura to enhance your body. Aura has limits and it can only increase you so much. You outclass minor and petty elementals to just not even be a threat to you. I can't really say with lesser elementals. You'll probably be faster than them if our prediction about ice is correct but they can take a beating.

"But more than that you're more skilled than them, which isn't hard considering that they're barely sentient. Less than a fortieth of the brainpower of yourself." Raven looked smug. Like being way smarter than a bit of ice affinity and mana strewn together was something to be proud of. "And don't be smug. I've got three times what you have. Not in life experience but in thought speed I outclass you hard. Besides, they're literally just some ice affinity and mana. Even Hawk and the others don't actually have emotions other than the primitive 'yay mana' and 'no! Intruder!' ideas." Raven sighed.

"Anyways, Ruby…"

Ruby Rose

Title: Rose blooming

Level – 172

HP – 6,068

AP – 19,200

STR - 113 (+310%)= 463.3

VIT - 68 (+310%)= 278.8

DEX - 219 (+310%)= 897.9

INT - 173 (+50%)= 259.5

WIS - 192 (+150%)= 480

LUK - 95 (+0%)=

Semblance: Petal flurry - Dash and become immaterial as you travel from one place to another so rapidly it's nearly teleportation, leaving red and black roses in your wake. Adding dust adds an elemental effect to the roses, which 'pop' once they hit the ground releasing a sort of carpet bomb effect. Low aura cost to use.

Perks:

Silver eyed warrior (Rank 2) - Your affinity for purity has grown immensely yet the emotional block for your eyes remains in place. Some grimm will flee from you even without your eyes on. Multiplies your WIS by 150% and INT by 50%

"There's a power in you. You just haven't quite found it yet."

-Summer Rose to her daughter

"Now for your age… you're really damn powerful. But you have a huge flaw."Ruby looked to me expantly.

"You have puny and pathetic aura reserves." Ruby pouted.

"Luckily this is easily fixed." Ruby perked up.

"You can stay behind."

Ruby's face went from hopeful to devastated. Luckily she could read me like a book and saw that I was messing with her. She kicked me from under the table and halfheartedly glared at me. I snickered a little more and told her the actual plan.

"I'm going to be giving you a glove with a rune on it to be connected to my and Raven's soul space. It'll refill your reserves whenever they're empty from whatever's in my reserves, and don't worry about me running out. I regenerate your entire reserves in two minutes. One if I concentrate."

Ruby huffed. "I don't have small reserves! I'm at the top of the class in aura capacity!"

I grin. "And yet you've only a fraction of what I have."

"I have one and a half times what auntie has!"

"And only a third of what I have at my disposal. For shame. And your auntie makes up for it with stupidly big mana reserves. About half of what I have-oh!" I stiffened and remembered what else I needed to do today.

"Raven, I discovered that my mana and affinities do some things to become more efficient that your affinities don't do. Your mana is like a jumbled mess of things while mine is a neat and efficient machine but less powerful overall. My affinities are like an old rusty sword used to it's best ability and your affinities are a well maintained sword used by a toddler."

Raven sighed. "All my training and it turns out that I'm practically a toddler magically."

"By no fault of your own." I assured her. "I didn't even realize the things my affinities did was applicable to others until I wondered what made our souls so different and realized that there's nothing different at all and that I was being shortsighted."

Raven nodded. "And what are some of these… techniques?"

"That's a good word for them. Well there's a technique I don't use often. Here." I raised my hand and started body of worlds with my light affinity. My hand lit up and I reached down to pick up my spoon. Since my hand was made of hard light it worked fine and I picked it up without issue.

"There's also electing a dominant nature, an affinity that's more powerful because it sort of shepherds your weaker affinities. Then there's spirit, which is stimulating your affinity through meditation to grow stronger but I'm pretty sure I'm missing something there. Finally there's my most recent find, where you link your baser elements to a compound element and the compound element grows stronger because of it. I'm going to work on combining some of my base affinities to be more powerful compound affinities soon."

Raven raised an eyebrow. "Meditation? Interesting." I nodded.

"I use it all the time for looking into my aura and my affinities. You can feel how strong your affinities are and their sort of personality. It was how I felt my ice affinity and knew ice was lazy."

Raven nodded. "That makes sense. Or as much sense as magic can do. But back to our expedition?"

"Oh. Right. Anyways, Ruby, you're cleared to get up close and personal with petty elementals. No issues with that at all. Be careful with minor elementals and stay far away from lesser elementals. At common elementals stay away and blast it with your guns or magic. Ruby, you can pretty easily outrun one with your semblance and actively using your aura and keep up with it too but elementals can use some primitive magic of their element. Don't play around with them.

"Finally, there's a little experiment I want to try with an elemental. Let's capture one before we leave. And Raven, the elementals are bound to the place to be hostile for some reason. Don't even think about trying to make a contract with one. It'll try to kill you as they all will no matter what you do." Raven nodded and Ruby hummed happily.

"Alright. Go grab whatever you want to take with you. Remember that it's an overnight but something terrible might happen like we fall into a cave that's runed to not allow teleportation or something. Not saying that we will but pack for a week and expect to stay two days and a night. That means clothes, Ruby take your fur clothes for sure."

"Yes!" Ruby whispered to not interrupt me. "They're so soft!"

"Raven, bring alcohol. I've already got food and water. We'll be fine as far as survival goes. Also check in on Roman if you haven't already. Make sure he knows we're heading out for a few days."

"I told him yesterday." Raven said calmly.

"Good. We'll meet in my room in twenty minutes. And Ruby, here." I got the runed glove to the inventory space from my inventory and tossed it to her. Ruby caught it deftly and slipped it on. Raven slipped away to raid the kitchen of beer and whatever else she wanted to bring.

"Touch something and channel a pulse of your aura to put it in the inventory. Think of an object and send a pulse of your aura to make it appear in your hand. I already got you two hundred bullets with burn, wind, shock, and freeze dust. We'll probably not need the freeze dust but they had a sale."

"Thanks!" Ruby said. She touched her now cleared plate with the gloved hand and sent a pulse of aura. It disappeared. She didn't close her eyes but another pulse and the plate was in her hand. "Whoa. That's really easy."

"I made it to be that way. Now go get out of your pajamas and into your moccasin. I runed it to be battle-ready, right?"

"Yup! Recoil resistance for blunt weapons, resistance to cutting attacks, piercing attacks, and I'm pretty much immune to the cold in it."

"Good. Remember that runes aren't absolute. You'll still be hurt by attacks."

"Of course!"

"Good. Now scram."

Ruby disappeared in a flurry of rose petals to her room and I got up, stretched, and walked to my own room. I had my own things to store.

I had my magic journals in my mobile home in my physical soul space augmentation so I didn't need to worry about those. I also had all the things I want to use for experimenting in that soul space in the sort of lab. The red bloom leaves, sap, and various labelled parts of the woods, being the highlight of the lab and the only real thing I had to study more. I had a potted plant growing and a collection of seeds as well to eventually see if I can make my own magical plant of purity. With Ruby's scythe as an example of permanent infusion it was looking good.

I checked and found that I didn't actually have an empty journal in my room or the soul space. I sent a parallel to go get more from Tukson's book trade, which was a nice place. Tukson was a nice guy too. He had plenty of empty journals that he was willing to sell along with some books for me. Not many were skill books and I didn't use them yet but if I ever needed to know how to tile a roof I have a book to learn how.

Anyways, I continued checking for things I was missing and refilled my dust system from my somewhat dwindling reserves of dust. I have enough to last a few months at my typical rate of use but I just don't like that amount. I like at least four months of spare dust available to me in case something comes up or dust starts getting scarce.

A parallel came back with ten empty leather journals (I like the leather and I have the money to have the nice ones. I love my journals) and ninety lien poorer and I got out a marker and wrote on one 'Icy forest expedition 1'. I doubt I'll need two journals for this but you never know. We might fall into a different dimension somehow. Or my prediction on that anti-teleport pit might prove true.

I got all my things nice and orderly in my inventory and my room just how I like it and I glanced at the clock. Two minutes to twenty minutes. I'll check if Ruby needs any help.

I walked down the hall a little to Ruby's little apartment and found her struggling to choose between a hood up or down in front of a mirror.

"Down." I commented. Ruby's eyes flicked to me and she had a conflicted expression.

"But up makes me look all mysterious! Like a barbarian girl with some deep dark secret."

I rolled my eyes. "Raven and I will be the only ones to see you. Well, unless there's a cult of some sort in the forest. I doubt there are and people inside the forest though. If there were any they're almost certainly long gone. Even with magic immortality isn't very easy to achieve. You can extend it by a few hundred years at most according to the primer on magic but for… there's only going to be me and Raven."

"... huh? You lost me around 'certainly long gone.'" Ruby blinked honestly at me. As if.

I shook my head. "You got everything?" Ruby grinned and nodded with a happy hum. "Great. Now we need to see Raven and get to the forest." I turned around out of the room and Ruby followed after me. I saw Raven in the hall about to enter my room. She wore a fur outfit like Ruby.

Where, Ruby looked all cute and cuddly though Raven looked fierce. She actually had leather under the armor with fur covering her to be warm. Mostly wolf skin and what looks like bear skin over her arms. Damn it. Now I feel left out since I'm not wearing furs.

I was interrupted from my feeling of sticking out looking like a normal person by a pile of furs being thrown in my face. "There." Raven said in a satisfied tone. "I asked Maya to make you a set of your own. The fur clothes aren't hard to make and comfortable in winter. They're just not the longest lasting and you can't layer them well like most modern clothes."

I looked at the clothes with surprise. I had bearskin pants turned inside out to feel the soft fur on my legs. The… chestpiece, I suppose it's called, was made of two layers of deerskin and was fitted so that I could put a chestplate on it. The arms were similarly made of deerskin and flawlessly sewed onto the body. As for headgear I had a thick hood with two little holes cut for my ears at the top. Just touching the clothing made me feel warm.

"And here. For your feet." Raven showed me a pair of brown work boots. I normally just wore average shoes that anybody could have. The work boots, though, were… well still normal wear but clearly expensive normal wear. Quality treated leather, in fact.

"I… thank you." I said honestly. Raven sighed.

"Quit expecting to do things yourself. Even I have a tribe behind me." With that said Raven grabbed my arm and pulled me behind her to my room.

I came out a minute later looking good but there was still something missing. I felt like I needed some kind of facemask. I had that hood and every part of my body was covered since I had some thick and snug gloves tucked into my pocket. So I made one.

I teleported to the kitchen and grabbed some black food coloring, emptied half the bottle into some water, grabbed the white bottle and did the same to a different bit of water, and froze the two dyed waters with the ice augmentation.

I brought the two blocks of ice together and with a little affinity and my mana merged the two pieces of colored ice together to make an intricate mask that looked like crystal.

The white made a pattern that looked identical to the runes on my face normally, which reminisced of the Branwen clan's new look.

I added runes on the inside to make the ice absorb no heat since I prefer my face not frozen thank you. It was like thick high quality steel with all the space for hardening runes I had on the back and the ice itself was already tough as solid stone in the first place.

Finishing it all off was a pretty simple thing. I had nothing to attach it to my face. So I made some sticking runes on the hem of the hood that activated based off a reserve of mana. Since I'll be refilling it myself I didn't make any collection system.

All this only took about five minutes. With it all done I teleported back into my room and made sure everything was in place. It was so I walked out of the room.

"But the springs-EEK!" Ruby interrupted her talk, presumably about her new weapon, and jumped with a squeak after seeing me. Raven glanced towards me and her gaze turned questioning.

"It felt like it was missing something." I explained. "I made a mask out of ice and sketched hardening runes on it and one to make it not emit heat. It sticks based on some more runes I put on the hood." Raven nodded and Ruby finished inspecting my outfit.

"Actually though it was kind of surprising it looks really good." She admitted. "Kind of draws a color to the outfit that it lacked before." I nodded. I was thinking the same thing.

"I won't wear it often. Just when I want protection for my face."

With a wave of my hand the portal opened back to the desert I had wandered so long ago. "Well… you two ready to go?"

[|||| == ||||]

"Sword UP!"

"I… I… I'm trying."

"I know! Try harder! Nobody will be going easy on you just because you're tired. Keep your sword up at all times because otherwise means you won't have the opportunity to be tired ever again!"

"Not every enemy will be able to… to spar for three hours!"

"Obviously. But the ones that can are so much more deadly than the ones that can't. I got the reputation as the steel storm not just because of my semblance but my discipline, speed, strength, and the NEVER. ENDING. STAMINA WE AS ARCS ARE KNOWN FOR!"

"Why… not beat an enemy… quickly?"

"You WILL! You'll be defeating enemies with a flash of your sword as you easily move to the next one. You have a burden but you were given the tools to do it, loathe as we are to enjoy them. You have to fight through every enemy in your way and move on to the next one! AND THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A NEXT ONE! There will always be a next one and you have to fight them with only your family and your future friends at your back! NOW MARK UP!"

"Finally!"

"NOW FIGHT LIKE YOU'RE TRYING!'

*CLANG* *CSHHH* *HSSS* *SMACK*

"Better! But you can't just rely on your enhanced physique to win a clash! Technique! Not every enemy will be using blades! Dust! Magic! The absolute BULLSHIT that the gifted have! Remember what we've taught you since the marking!"

"Fine!"

"NOW FIGHT LIKE YOU DESERVE THAT STRENGTH THE VILLAIN'S MARK GIVES YOU!"

[|||| =NEXT LEVEL= ||||]

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If like it please drop some POWER STONES