Moving Target Practice
We left the cliff under the palace behind us and walked quickly through the open area toward the village. The village was quite far off, so I don't think we will get there today.
As we moved across the land, Lila kept looking around and almost tripped. I snickered and reminded her there would be plenty of time to look later, but for now, we should make sure we aren't delayed due to an accident. She agreed, and I could tell she was doing her best not to focus on the surroundings.
When darkness fell, we still hadn't made it to the village, so I made a bed of blankets for her to sleep on while I continued to cultivate. Normally, I would sit while cultivating; however, the sky was full of stars, so I lay on my back admiring the stars for a bit, then started cultivating. Lila again pulled the blankets over to my side before laying down and using my chest as a pillow.
I think I can break through to the 4th layer of qi refining within the next few months, so I decided to focus on cultivation for a while rather than increasing my mana circles until then. Already being a 4th circle mage was pretty decent and would be generally respected.
Although the maximum circles for a mage are 10, even a 9th circle mage is so rare there may not even be any in the world at this time. Mages of the 8th circle are considered to be top powerhouses in the world, and even kings give them respect.
Although there is a huge distance between 4th and 8th circle mages, in the eyes of common people, 4th circle mages will be able to live a stable life with a stable income, whether it be by healing people, adventuring, or whatever they decide to do. Almost all problems faced by common people can be solved or at least eased by a 4th circle mage.
I spent the night cultivating and stopped when I could feel the sun coming up and Lila starting to awake. She rolled over and wrapped her arms around my chest, her tail swishing in the air as she opened her eyes looking at me with a smile.
"Good morning, I slept really well last night. I'm going to sleep like this every night now."
I tried to sit up, but she held me in place, moving her leg over my waist further holding me down. I felt movement from my little brother, and thought about how she's being a little too brave right now, and I needed to get up. Part of me wanted to stay here but I couldn't completely shake the ages for thing to be appropriate ingrained on me from my past on earth.
Her smile turned flirtatious, and her eyes held a hint of naughtiness. "You have to stay right here till you agree."
I was going to get embarrassed if this kept going on. "Ok I agree now move." I quickly urged as I pushed her off and stood up, staying slightly bent over. I devoured the blankets and started walking away.
"We need to go now."
She moved faster than me until she was in front then matched my pace, giving me a nice view. I'm sure she did this on purpose also, but I couldn't bring myself move faster till I was side by side.
After a few hours, we'd arrived at the village entrance.
"We should see if we can get a map to the next destination." I suggested.
"We don't have money unless you can make it."
This world uses copper, silver, and gold for money. 100 copper for 1 silver and 10 silver for 1 gold. A family of 3 usually needed about 60 gold to live each year.1
"I can but I'd rather not if we don't need to; it's a waste of energy." Although it probably wouldn't be too expensive for a map, I don't want to expend energy uselessly that I can't recover.
The village was a collection of small wood houses with thatched roofs. Some wagons loaded with varying amounts of supplies were parked in the street, and there were a few beastmen moving around doing their work. It seemed to be a farming village with grain fields sprawling out on all sides of the village.
Though the main purpose of the village seems to be farming, I could hear the sound of a blacksmith and see a few other professions.
When one of the people who was carrying sacks of wheat finished putting them in a wagon, I decided to ask where to purchase a map to Ironspire, which Lila said was the name of our destination kingdom.
"Hello, do you know where we can get a map to the kingdom of Ironspire?"
He nodded. "Go three houses down, and there's a shop that has miscellaneous items, he usually has a map or two. though I don't think it will cover the entire area to Ironspire, it should get you to the next major town along the way."
"Thank you. Also, we are mages do you know if there is anything in the village we could help with in exchange for money to purchase a map?"
He only had to think for a moment before giving a hopeful smile. "Do you know healing magic?"
I nodded; healing magic was something we'd practiced a lot.
He smiled even bigger. "Follow me I think I know of something."
He started walking and explaining "Mr. Johnson got injured while plowing a field a week ago and even with the recovery rate of us beastmen, he still won't be able to work for another month. it's too expensive to go to the city for a healer but you're here now."
He stopped before a door and knocked. After a moment a middle-aged woman with bovine ears and tail opened the door. he greeted her calling her Mrs. Johnson and explained that we were mages and knew healing magic and were looking for a job to buy a map.
Mrs. Johnson's face immediately lit up upon hearing this and led us into a room where a man of about the same age was sitting with bandaged hands. The house was old and the floor boards creaked as we walked.
"I'm happy to pay you if you can heal my husband's hands, but, I don't have much I can give, only 2 silvers." She stated.
I shrugged "I don't know how much a map costs but if nothing else, it's a start."
I walked over to the seated man "Sir, may I please start by unwrapping your bandages?"
He nodded looking happy "Please do whatever you need."
I carefully unwrapped the bandages. The hands underneath looked like they had been crushed by something. It looked quite painful.
"What did you do?" I inquired
He looked a little guilty. "I was fixing a plow when the ox took off and they got caught in moving parts. I knew I should unhook it first but I still thought It'd be fine this once."
I gave a slight wince imagining it and held my hands over his, then cast the healing spell. I was a high enough circle and proficient enough for an instant cast time so I didn't have to chant either.
The people watching looked surprised and said something about it having no cast time. Lila explained that spells don't have a cast time if the caster is proficient enough in their usage.
Warmth flowed from my hands, and I could see the bones in his hands moving back into place. The sounds they made grinding against each othe, were not something I wanted to hear, but I didn't have a choice.
After a few minutes, they were all healed, and Mrs. Johnson handed me 2 silver while thanking us profusely.
When we left, we went to the shop that had maps and found one that showed part of the way to our destination. The price was 1 and a half silvers which left us with 50 coppers as change. I gave these 50 coppers to the man who had helped us around town as a thank you.
We left and followed the road toward the city called Flamehaven that was mostly on the way toward Ironspire.
After walking for a while on the road, it met up with the main road that would take us all the way to Flamehaven. It will probably take a week to reach the city unless something happens.
When night fell again, we went a little ways off the road where I spread out a blanket then lay down to start cultivating. I felt Lila throw her arm over my chest and press herself up to me before laying her head on my shoulder and falling asleep.
When the sun rose in the morning, Lila once again wanted to delay me getting up, but when I felt her thigh brush lightly against my hardness through my clothing, I jumped up without any delay and got a move on.
Again, she made it so I was following behind her as we moved further toward the town.
We decided to practice attack spells as we went when we stopped for meals and before sleeping, since we couldn't really do that in the room so we weren't the best with them.
Every morning, night and day were pretty much the same. Once in a while there would be a carriage or wagon that passed us going one way or the other.
On the 3rd day, we saw a carriage stopped on the road. When we got closer, I saw there was a group of 8 bandits blocking the way and were facing off against 3 guards.
"Want to watch or help?" I asked Lila who started running.
"I want to use them as practice!" She shouted as she ran closer and I followed closely behind.
As she ran, she started casting a fire arrow spell. The bandits noticed her running up with a fire arrow forming and one of them deployed a magic shield covering their group. The guards just stood there seeming not sure what was going on with the sudden change, till a flaming arrow flew past. They suddenly jumped in shock, putting their backs together to defend against an attack from all sides.
The arrow flew so fast in the blink of an eye it crossed the distance from Lila to the bandits. The shield they cast was pierced as if it were paper. Unfortunately, the arrow missed all the bandits flying right by one of their heads.
We stopped a little ways off to the side of the guards who seeing that we weren't attacking them faced back towards the bandits.
The bandits seeing that their shield was too low level to stop her attacks, yelled and scattered running away.
Lila had a pouting look on her face "My target practice is running away!"
"Well now it's moving target practice."
She brightened up and raised both her hands, casting another arrow in each before launching them towards the fleeing bandits.
I did the same but instead of using arrows that had to be so precise I cast wind-blades that would have a wider cutting area. They moved slower than arrows but in this case, it didn't matter since the bandits weren't looking back so they were unable to dodge.
I successfully cut down a few and Lila seeing this, followed my example using wind-blades. The whole thing only lasted about 15 seconds before all the bandits were laying on the ground somewhere in the fields dead or dying.