8 The Arrogance of Mages

Fel and Siyla lay by the campsite, crowding around a luminescent red crystal that radiated waves of heat. The moon-like crystals, or star-stones as Siyla called them, had long since dimmed. Without them, the temperature in the underground plummeted, Fel wondered how hot they were when they were. He rolled over and faced Siyla, intending to strike up a conversation, they didn't get to talk much during their trek in fear of attracting feral beasts.

"How did you penetrate the panther's barrier with such tiny needles?" This was one of Fel's greatest questions as even shooting a bullet at 2000m/s couldn't penetrate the barrier while simple sub-sonic needles could.

Siyla congealed a needle and held it up to Fel's eyes. When he examined it, he saw a thin, silvery mist spiral down its length. "This is a technique passed down from my mother, it uses spiralling metallic energy to disrupt and penetrate their barrier. When I shot out the needles, the first half weakened the barrier, allowing for the other half to slip through, a simple trick."

That answered Fel's question on why supersonic bullets weren't able to penetrate the monsters barriers, they basically tried to brute force their way through the barrier. So many discoveries, if he could bring all this knowledge back to the United Front, the technology of humanity would advance by leaps and bounds. However, he was stuck in the underground.

"So you attack from a range?"

"Why put yourself in danger if you don't have to? But if I run low on metal, I'm familiar with the spear, and we Steel-wing Angels are a sturdy race! How do you normally fight? You don't seem familiar with any weapon at all."

"I use firearms, well, energy-sabres too, but they don't require too much skill."

"What's a firearm?"

"A kind of weapon that launches projectiles with explosives, they punch hard and shoot fast! All you have to do is line up the sights and press the trigger."

"I've never heard of those but aren't they rather similar to a bow?"

"In concept, yes, but it propels the projectile down a long tube instead of past the bow's limbs."

"Why not use a crossbow then?"

"Ah..."

...

Fel retrieved a heavy crossbow from his ring along with a handful of arrows and handed them over to Siyla. He wasn't familiar with cold weapons, the closest he came to one before falling to the underground was a javelin, and that was only because it was a compulsory course in PE when he was in high school. It was in order for everyone to remember one of the ancient traditions of mankind, the Olympics.

Siyla hefted up the crossbow and pointed to the spiral markings on its riser and limbs, "You see these runes? They're called empowerment runes. They can store potential energy for the system. You can also inject energy into the runes to increase the potential energy and add an attribute to the next shot, I guess that's not applicable to you."

Fel further realised how disadvantageous being attributeless was. Perhaps, even his power armour may not be enough to cover that gap.

Siyla took two different bolts, one oaken and another birch-like. She held up the oaken bolt and continued with her lecture.

"This is an anti-barrier bolt, you can identify it by the disruption rune on the head. The spiral looking one. You can store energy in it and, when you fire it, the energy will ripple out and allow for the bolt to punch through barriers. It's strong at 10-20 metres but its power drops off past that point'

Continuing on, Siyla lifted the birch-like arrow, "This one is nasty, it's a collapsing bolt. The wavy lines on the head direct your energy into the energy stream of the victim. The victim's energy will reject yours and the conflict causes the victim's body to collapse from the inside. Of course, it would take a few of these to take down, say, a large monster or something, but unlike the anti-barrier bolt, it's effective as long as it can penetrate through the skin."

Siyla returned the arrows to the pile, "Though, they don't work too well against barriers. For your enemies I mean."

Sweat trickled down Fel's cheeks. That was one nasty bolt. But, there was more to do.

Fel had been mulling over the close-ranged weapons he would use for the entire day. After all, he couldn't always be at a range, and he couldn't rely on his pure energy. It was garbage for offensive purposes. He had settled for a combination of a shield and one-handed war hammer. With this combination, he could get in close with the shield and hit hard with his hammer. If he used an attribute from the parivartana lines, now called line attributes by Fel, he could deal massive damage to his opponents.

From amongst the large selection in his ring, Fel chose a shiny, solid, full-metal heater shield and a heavy war-hammer that had a steel grey shaft and a silvery, spiked, metal head. Both of the items had mystical runes carved across their surface, Aerl said the ones on the shield created a divine barrier, while the ones on the war hammer were tailor-made to destroy barriers. When he showed them to Siyla, he got a nod in approval. She even offered to teach him the basics, though he would have to puzzle out the rest on his own. However, Fel didn't train that night, it was time for some well-earned rest.

During the night, great shadows strode through the trees while red eyes blinked in the dark. None of them dared to approach the duo as a threatening aura oozed out from them. They smelt the blood of their brethren on their bodies. The bushes to the side of the clearing rustled, the sound of murmuring floated over to the ears of Fel and Siyla.

They both leapt to their feet, Fel hefting up a crossbow and Siyla splaying her wings out wide while congealing a silvery bow in her hands. A small, armed, group stumbled out of the shadows. Two of them wore identical, heavy, metal armour, while another bore with a simple gambeson, holding a long-bow in his hands. Behind them was a black-robed person, wearing a pointed hat and bearing an oaken staff. The skin they exposed was dark, with the archer revealing long, slender ears beneath his kettle helm.

Fel called out to them, "Who goes there?"

The group apparently couldn't sense the aura from the two before them as one of the armoured people in the group stepped forwards, an arrogant, deep voice boomed out from beneath his helm, "We are adventurers and the one behind us is an apprentice Mage, if you want to live I recommend you find another place to sleep!" He thumped his tower shield on the floor and brandished his sword in a show of force.

Siyla couldn't restrain a giggle, "A mere apprentice Mage and a small band of adventurers dare offend two Level 1 Mages?" Although she hadn't been out of the village, her parents had kneaded the arrogance of Mages into her from a young age.

"You can do better than that, for what would two Level 1 Mages be doing here? A true Mage would be further in the forest. Also, why would Mages be holding weapons and wearing armour? A real Mage could destroy us with a wave of their hand!"

The armoured man was right, a small town lay deep in the forest, made exclusively for true Mages. Furthermore, they could teleport to and fro from the town to a myriad of other locations. There was no need for them to walk through the forest like an ordinary man.

"Do you think all mages follow the arcane ways? Turn back before we turn you into pin-cushions!"

The apprentice Mage spoke with a lofty, melodic voice, "What a joke, kill them"

With a nod of their heads, the archer knocked an arrow while the armoured man charged forth. The other armoured person stayed by the apprentice's side. Yet, before the archer could even draw his arrow, a dozen silvery needles riddled him with holes. He crumpled to the ground, eyes still disbelieving of what had happened.

The armoured man didn't even notice what had happened. The needles had travelled too fast and helmet restricted his view. A silvery arrow flew at his face. Though the man tried to block it with his shield, the arrow punched through it and blasted apart his head, killing him in an instant. His armour could do nothing to defend against Siyla's offence.

Fel charged a disruption bolt with energy and aimed it at the apprentice, pulling the trigger. The other armoured person flung out their body to intercept the arrow, paying no mind to their life while the apprentice Mage tried her best to cast a spell. Yet all was for nought.

The bolt pierced through the armoured person's body and drilled through the apprentice's half-formed barrier, but before it dove into her body, a faint, golden light formed a shield before her chest. It deflected the bolt, smashing apart in the process. Although the apprentice tried to flee, Siyla shot her down with a handful of needles. In a matter of seconds, they had dispatched the entire group.

Fel lined up their bodies on the ground and stripped them down for loot, revealing the corpses of dark elves underneath, while Siyla walked around, erasing the evidence with her steel-wind. They didn't have much of value, with the main highlights being a backpack with an 'expanded' space inside, the apprentice's oaken staff and a broken pendant she wore around her neck. Fel supposed that it was the perpetrator of the golden light that deflected his bolt.

Perhaps it had research value. He also found a coin satchel containing twenty crystal coins along with a hundred gold coins on the apprentice's belt. There was also a strange insignia in the satchel, made of pure sapphire, twisted into the form of a soaring bird. The other people also had similar satchels, however, they only contained around three golden coins with most of the space being used up by silver and copper coins.

Finally, was a map on the apprentice's person. It mapped the entire forest, from places to avoid, locations with valuable items and clearings, such as the one they were in, that people could rest in. Fel compared it to the map the dryads gave them.

Their map lacked such detail, with only a few major landmarks recorded on it, it was little better than just having the general shape of the forest. Fel noticed that on the apprentice's map, there was a town drawn on the border of the forest. It was called Seiral, the town of adventurers.

Above them, the star-stones lit up, announcing the arrival of dawn. The duo packed up camp and foraged onwards, towards the town of Seiral. According to the map, they were close to the town, only around ten kilometres away.

As they approached the town, they encountered an increasing amount of armed people. A quick chat with one such group revealed that they called themselves adventurers and sought wealth in the Monochrome Forest.

The party moved on and Fel turned to Siyla to strike up a discussion, "What did you mean by the 'Arcane Arts' when you were talking to the apprentice?"

"If what my parents said was true, most mages now rely on pure energy spells, unlike us who rely on our physical bodies and innate abilities. It's powerful for sure, but takes awhile to cast and can backfire on the caster."

"Also, what's with that nasty apprentice?" Fel conveniently forgot Siyla's equally arrogant actions.

"Ah, my parents always taught me that Mages were above the common-folk and that if you don't act arrogant, the people won't believe you're a real Mage."

"That sounds... dumb."

"Really? It sounds pretty normal to me."

Before Fel could reply, they crossed the tree-line, revealing a tall, stone wall. The wall was rather new, perhaps only a few decades old. A large gate revealed a bustling town behind it with hundreds of people rushing about. Most of them had dark skin and long ears, the telltale features of dark elves.

However, there were also beast-like humanoids and even horned people with pale skin and narrow, blue tattoos. Every now and then, Fel saw a few creatures that abandoned two legs, looking similar to scaled centaurs or even a mass of tentacles. Fel and Siyla walked up to the gate and were almost blasted away by the noise of the crowd.

A burly dark-elf by a small gate to the side called out, trying to yell over the crowd, "Express queue! Only open to apprentice and true Mages!"

The duo took the express queue. They didn't want to take the normal one as it extended for around fifty metres out, security appeared to be tight in the town of adventurers. Hundreds of sets of eyes gazed at the two as they walked down the empty lane. Awe, envy, fear and even hate simmered on their faces, some even bore expressions of disbelief. They looked more like warriors than mages after all.

As they reached the end of the queue, the burly dark-elf reached out a hand to stop them, "This isn't a line for the ordinary folk, go back to the other queue."

Fel examined the elf by powering the runes in his eyes, after discovering that he was a low levelled apprentice Mage, he took a page out of Siyla's book, "A mere apprentice dares to block my way? Get out." Fel channelled lightning energy around his body, zapping the hand on his armour.

The shocked elf clutched his burnt hand and scuttled to the side. He glanced at Siyla, but when he noticed the withering look in her eyes, he abandoned his ideas, even giving a deep bow as they walked past.

"You're good at this," whispered Siyla as they walking through the gate

"To be honest, it feels awful, I'll never get used to this."

Oh how wrong he was.