The Queen's Tear

Asher sat atop the shop, sipping on coffee. He was reviewing his enchantment grimoire. There was a spell he wanted to learn before he went to collect his magic items. Cynthia told him the first spell he should know was the 'Vision' spell before he was going to do anything. 'Vision' was a basic enchantment spell that allowed the user to view the spiritual body.

Enchantments were drawn on the spiritual body of weapons. From the description, the spiritual body was similar to a soul-like entity formed out of mana. When the network was drawn, it controlled and organized the mana flow within the physical body.

It reminded him of how the core formation affected his mana. Even just waking up this morning was like waking up after the best sleep of his life. There was no exhaustion or soreness, and it was terrific.

Asher wanted to learn this spell to camouflage his system. He needed an excuse to check the items' abilities without El getting wise to his abnormality. The spell was not difficult to formulate and understand.

[Congradulations! You have learned the enchantment element spell, 'Vision.']

[Vision (LV. 1)]

Type: Enchantment

Quality: E

Mastery: 0%

[This spell allows the vision of the spiritual body and circuits of mana flow.]

[Cost: -2 MP every 5 seconds]

Asher activated the spell. A light blue circle formed over Asher's left eye like a monocle. His vision was now strange. It was like he had double vision. Everything had a light blue outline. Asher looked at his own body, and his eyes grew wide. His body was covered in a network of lines.

They covered his body and followed through it like veins of pure mana. Asher glanced at his stomach. There was a glowing sphere, and it must have been his core. Asher could not help but smile at the light coming from it. The light did shine, but it was very dim. Asher looked around the enchantment room.

The room was filled with magically enchanted items. With his new power, he could see the circuitry from within. The colors varied from item to item, and the colors were reveling the nature of their mana. Azure for lightning, sickly green for poison, crimson for fire, etc. Some were simple in their creation, only having one circuit, while others were amazingly complex, having ten or twenty.

Asher could not help but be amazed at the talent that Cynthia had. The circuit appeared random but followed a specific pattern. Asher got an idea in his head. He pulled out his license, and his jaw dropped. The small device had hundreds...no thousands of crisscrossing circuits. Hundreds of magic circles included light, psychic, sound, and illusion.

Even more surprising was that it did not have just one mana crystal but four. Asher realized that each elemental circuit was a network of its own, and they were layered on each other but never touched. Some of the circles were connected to two or more circuits, but they were more detailed than the ones that were only connected to a single circuit.

Cynthia had told him that if you try to add two or more elements too much to a single magic item, then you run the risk of it blowing up. However, this device had several. He understood that she must have meant using a single mana crystal for multiple elements would cause it, but a straightforward workaround was to add more mana crystals. No wonder replacing this thing was so damn expensive.

When Asher had his fill of checking out the magic items, he deactivated his spell, and his sight returned to normal. Asher had to blink a few times to regain his sight, and it was a little dizzying going from his vision to regular sight again. Asher pulled up his system for the first time in a while.

[Player Status]

Name: Asher Richt

Age:10

Species: Human

LV: 1 (83/100)

HP: 18/18 (+20%)

PWR: 100/100

STR: 13

VIT: 36 (+25)

AGI: 14

PER: 20

Asher had pretty much ignored his system for a while now. He found it more annoying than useful. He had down a bunch of missions around the city, but not one increased his exp or stats. Asher had to figure out how to increase his ability if he was going to survive. Asher thought back to before his awakening.

His system would give him tasks to complete. They would, in turn, go to increasing his stats. Asher was worried about his low stats because if he was going to join a dungeon crawl, he had to be on his A-game. The only option he could think of was killing so small smiles to reach 100 exp finally. It should increase his level and stats a little.

He still had the tasks Cynthia left for him. He had to master an incantation and brew his first potion. Asher when through the books of recipes. At first, he wondered if he should learn the health potion, but ultimately found it a waste of time. Health potions were relatively cheap, and they did not do much. Learning how to make one would not provide many benefits in the long run.

Another potion caught Asher's eye, though. It was called 'liquid heat.' The tonic was used in the freezing northern continent as a countermeasure against frostbite, but there might be a second use that Asher found. The potion used large amounts of fire element ingredients to counter the cold, and there was a warning that the potion was highly volatile.

A volatile fire potion meant it was prone to explode with levels of firepower that could rival some mages. Thus it was often referred to as 'scorching tonic.' According to the book, it was impossible to transport because one bump in the road would be enough to cause it to explode.

Asher smiled wickedly. One of the things he lacked was a decisive amount of power, and if his guess was correct, the large the quality, the bigger the resulting explosion would be. There were plenty of monsters that were resistant or immune to physical attacks. The knight slime was a prime example. His halberd did nothing but annoy it. Asher checked around the shop for the ingredients.

He found most of what he was looking for. Most potions use the same basic ingredients. He could not find only one thing: a burning passion fruit. Asher had learned a lot about different herbs and plants that could go into potions, but he cannot recall ever hearing of burning passion fruit. "What a weird name for a fruit."

Asher put away the potion's ingredient and head to the merchant guild, where he would claim his reward. He figured he could ask around the guild to see where he could get his hand on some after he collected his new magic items.

The guild was massive compared to some of the other buildings in the city. If he weren't in a fantasy world, it would have reminded him of a mall from his old one. It was six stories tall, and each of the first four floors was full of large stores that sold almost everything from potions to weapons to cosmetics and clothes. Asher spoke to the lady at the front desk, and she led him up to the fifth floor, which was used for offices and private business.

Asher waited about the room. One of the workers was nice enough to bring him some tea while he waited, but the worker was not nice enough to give him good tea. He probably thought Asher was a country bumkin nobody and wouldn't notice. Asher waited for the worker to leave before dumping his cup in a plant.

It was about an hour wait before El showed up. He was followed by three worker with entire carts full of magic items. "Hello, Veras." El sounded exhausted, and his eyes were blood shot like he had been up all night. "You can select two items from this selection now and two items afterwards." El slouched on the couch across from Varas.

Asher set down the tea cup he was tending to drink. "You look awful." Asher looked over some of item with his new vision and scan ability. "Did you not sleep since I last saw you?"

"Yeah." El looked truly exhausted in every way. Asher could not help but feel twinge of guilt of taking advantage. He didn't think it would way on him like this.

"That's not very healthy. What could possibly cause you to lose so much sleep?" Asher inquired. He did not want this on his mind later. So he probed for some more answers.

"I just got word that the king has called for a summoner," El spoke as if that was some grand revelation, but Asher was clueless.

"Is that really bad?" Asher knew that summoners were somewhat of a variety, but he could not imagine it would cause something bad. The summoning element was known as one of the five divine elements, but from what Asher was able to gather, it was not that special.

"I am not sure, and that is why I am worried." El looked like he was about to lose his mind. Meanwhile, Asher was getting sick of his cryptic statement.

"No matter what is summoned, it cannot be that bad, right?" The subtle approach was not getting him answers. So Asher decided to go with a blunt tactic.

"You do not much about the summoning element, do you?" Asher shook his head in reply. El sighed like it was too much effort to explain. "The summoning element on the surface is simple. It allows its user to call a creature to their side. But these creatures are not from this world. All beings born in this world follow a set of unwritten rules. We call this the natural law. The creatures a summoner calls defy and break this law completely because they are not of this world."

"What kind of laws are you talking about?" Asher was beginning to get the picture, but he wanted to be certain.

"You have heard of summoned heroes, right? They are people from another world called here by a summoner. Often they have unnatural and powerful abilities. For example, some have been able to use Emperor tier magic without training or have a limitless supply of mana or some broken ability." El explained carefully. His voice was hushed and soft that Asher could barely hear it.

"And that is a problem because?" Asher was trying to follow El's line of thinking. The king would probably summon heroes to deal with the campaign to the west, but Asher was uninterested because he did not see how it would affect him.

"Think about it. Do you trust anyone with limitless and unrivaled power?" Asher shook his head. The thought made him shutter. Someone without parallel. Asher could not think of anyone he would trust in that position. "Heroes tend to not do well with power and often cause more problems than they create. Not only that, they are protected as 'divine sent beings.' So even if they do wrong, they won't be arrested."

Asher could understand why El was so worried. As a guild master, he would have to deal with the problems they would cause personally. Asher did not envy El's delicate situation. "So, do you know when they will summon them?"

"No, I know that the king called for a summoner. It will probably be a while before they manage to find one." El shook his head and changed the subject. "Forget it for now. Your payment. I have arranged a selection of magic items. You can have any two that suit your fancy."

Asher turned his attention to the selection. He activated his 'vision' and scanned the items. Most were advanced magic items, but some intermediate items were in the mix. Asher had thought hard and wanted an item to increase his mobility. His eyes fell on a pair of boots that turned out to be called Wind-Strider boots. When he scanned it, they were just what he wanted.

Asher could pick another item, but he found a necklace and tried to scan it, but something strange happened. The necklace was silver with a teardrop gem 2 cm wide hanging from it. It had a tree motif that wrapped around a blue teardrop. The tree's branches twisted and wrapped around each other as they wrapped around it. In the center of the gem was a butterfly frozen with its wings spread. Asher tried to scan it again.

[Scan incomplete]

Name: Queen's Tear (incomplete)

Type: Accessory (necklace)

Quality:???

Grade:???

Element:???

[Long ago, a queen was given the gift of creating gemstones. She used her power to make her country prosperous. As time passed, a great tragedy befell her. She wept in her garden. Her last tear fell over a butterfly preserving it forever. This gem carries the sorrow and regret of the queen]

Skill: Resonate

This gem reacts to the queen.

Asher was confused. The item did nothing but was at least an advanced magic item. Asher looked it over to see if anything stood out, but he found nothing. This necklace was too strange. Usually, his system described the item, but this gave an old myth Asher had never heard of before. What's more, Asher could not figure out what the skill meant.

Asher figured something this odd had to be attached to something valuable. Asher points to the two items signaling for the worker to bring him them. "I will take these."

El looks at him weirdly. He knew about the necklace and thought it was strange Asher would want it. Its only ability was that the gem would glow and simmer. "Okay then, the meeting place will be at the teleport station. One week from today." Asher nodded and left without another word.

"That boy is too strange. He was able to pick the best and worst items out of the lot." El smokes a cigarette. The more he met Asher, the stranger he seemed. He was good at negotiations but chose a useless trinket. It did not make sense to him.