DanMachi 9

When Hestia woke up from her shock, she kept her promise and ran to the Loki Familia estate, straight away. She was stopped at the gate, but after pestering the guards they managed to get an audience with Loki. Their talks went on for a while and Loki agreed to let me and Olivia come over to her estate tomorrow morning. How did I know all of this? Well, it was the first thing Hestia explained when she got home. Apart from spitting whenever she mentioned the flat-chested goddess, she mentioned small talk with Riveria and her prodigy Lefiya, both of which seem to be interested in my findings. Remembering the cute and shy elf girl, who has some romantic interests in the female main lead, I knew I could gain a lot of new runes from her magic. The Elf Ring, her signature spell, should contain one or more of the runes I'm missing from the spell I'm planning on creating.

With that said our day went by with me and Olive practicing in the yard. I mainly focused on editing [Umbra Gradus] to allow travel with multiple people, and if possible to shorten its chant to a single word. Thankfully, the edit was an easy one, I only needed to add an additional Recipient rune, the Ally one, to the Runic Sequence and only trigger that part of the spell when I'm touching someone and willing them to move with me. That's when it came to me, why not add the Recipient Rune for All and build in some kind of temporal freeze inside of the Shadow Realm for anyone but the caster and allow me to reposition enemies during a fight? It went without a hitch but the mana cost of the new spell was way off the charts, so I went back to the drawing board and started from scratch. I dropped the whole shadow realm, and emerging from the shadows part of the spell, while it looked awesome and allowed me to see through obstacles, it had a problem with travel time and didn't really work in brightly lit places. Instead if focused on making the spell instantaneous, and to places I can see. That's how Void Step was born.

With the simplification of the spell, the mana cost dropped heavily and with a bit of coaxing I successfully removed the chant. It did however require me to build up the spell circles manually now, and I will have to practice doing it as fast as possible. The spell was, now, created from the Space element, a mixture of Earth, Light, and Darkness and I could move anyone I'm touching with me, to a location I could perceive. Now the only drawback of the new spell variant was that you needed to take a single step to, basically, teleport where you want and there might be instances in the future, where that action might not be possible. On the bright side, the spell could keep all your momentum and allow you to do quick maneuvering while in a fight by changing the exit vector of the spell, you could even force the spell to erase your momentum if needed. That way falling off a cliff side and taking a vertical step on it could allow you to reach the bottom and not suffer from fall damage. The old variant still showed up in my grimoire but was removed from my Falna Status.

Grimoire:

...

[Umbra Gradus lvl 43]

- The user becomes one with the shadows, granting him the ability to move between them.

- While in the shadows user can only be damaged by light base attacks.

{Affinity: Darkness}

{Chant: The one hidden by the darkness of the night, heed my call and embrace me, Umbra Gradus.}

[Void Step lvl 1]

- The user can take a step, and appear at any perceived location.

- The caster can take any target he is touching with him.

- Allows the manipulation of momentum and the rotation of the caster.

{Affinity: Space}

{Chant: None.}

With the upgrade done, I move on to testing. I focus on the nearest rooftop and force my mana to form the small, but intricate, spell circle right under my feet, then I take a step and appear where I wanted. Only to end up losing my footing and almost falling from the roof. I catch myself just before sliding off the side of the roof and pull myself up. I laugh at my own stupidity and use the spell again. I face our yard and focus on setting the exit vector to face the building I'm currently on. I form the magic circle a lot easier this time and after taking a step I vanish and reappear facing the house I was just standing on. I could still see the motes of black mana dispersing into the air from the location I was, just a second ago. I repeat the process multiple times, focusing on improving the speed at which I create the magic circle. By the time of lunch, I had gotten down the spell circle creation speed to a few milliseconds. Still not instant but without better mana control, I can't get any lower. Grumbling at the speed of [Mana Manipulation] levels up, I move into the diner and have a nice lunch with Olive.

The day continues with us sparing, and me implementing Void Step into the sparing session. After seeing it for the first time, Olive begged me to teach it to her. With my [Teaching] levels so high, she learned the spell pretty fast, but her ability to form the spell circle, caused by her low level of [Mana Manipulation], was, let's just say, sub-optimal. I left her to practice the spell and focused on improving my overall fighting capabilities. The good news about [Void Step] was, that, if I didn't get out of [Mistilteinn] range, I didn't lose control of the spell.

If someone were to observe our backyard, he would see two people disappearing and reappearing while one of them had spinning swords around him and the other was swinging her sword mid her vanishing act. From the outside perspective, it must have looked crazy.

The day quickly came to the end with both of us gaining a lot of proficiency with the new spell, and evolving our fighting styles to incorporate said spell.

A new day, a new adventure, actually, probably just an in-depth talk with a grumpy High-Elf, awaited me. After getting lunch, I pocketed the newly written versions of the Runic Index and a copy of my notes and while holding hands with Olive walked towards the Loki Familia estate. There was no agreed-upon time for our arrival, but our gods agreed we would come over in the early morning. So it was a surprise when the guards didn't let us in.

"Oh come on man Riveria is expecting us. You'll get in trouble if you don't call her here." I say to the taller of the two.

"No, means no." Said the guy while crossing his arms.

"I don't know George, what if he's telling the truth and the vice-captain really has an appointment with these people? We'll get in trouble for not letting them through." Said the other one.

"Alright, send Jeremy to notify the vice-captain." He says after thinking it through then turns towards us and continues. "But if you're lying you'll remember this for the rest of your life!" He says angrily. To that, I just roll my eyes and stand to the side.

After successfully convincing one of them, they sent someone to notify Riveria. Our wait 'only' lasted for another twenty minutes. When said High-Elf rushed towards the gate.

"Good morning." She said. "Sorry for the wait, the guards should have been notified by Loki to let you in, but it seems she forgot about it." Keeping in mind the mischievous goddess's personality I highly doubt she forgot, and more like she just wanted to play a prank and make us wait.

"Hello, I'm Andrew Thompson, the captain of the Hestia familia, may I know your name, Miss?" I introduce myself to the pretty elf lady.

"Riveria Ljos Alf, the vice-captain of the Loki familia. Nice to meet you Andrew, and I presume this lady over here is Olivia." She says.

"Hello. Olivia Lane. Nice to meet you." Timidly says Olivia and waves to the green-haired elf girl and receives a nod and a chaste smile.

"I've kept you waiting for long. Let's get you two into my study." She turns around and starts walking towards the estate. "Follow me."

With the introductions done, we are let through by the guards and followed Riveria to her office. There, already waiting for us, sat a timid and petite blonde elf girl.

"Umm... Nice to meet you, I'm Lefiya Viridis." Says the quickly standing up and bowing elf girl after she noticed us entering the room. Riveria gestures for us to sit down, while I greet the petite elf.

"Hi Lefiya, I'm Andrew and this is Olivia." I say with a smile while introducing myself and Olivia to the girl. Keeping my urges to pet her head at bay, I follow Riveria's and sit down on the armchair in front of her desk, with Olive joining me on my right. Lefiya was left without a place to sit, so she just awkwardly stood next to her mentor's side.

"In my short talk with Hestia, she mentioned you having some troubles with magic." She starts off.

"Umm... Actually, I don't have trouble with magic. I'm probably more proficient with it than you are." That sentence provoked a grimace from both of the elves in the room. Rolling my eyes, I continue. "I came here to offer you something and in exchange get access to your library and to observe you two casting your spells."

"What could you, a level two adventurer, from a newly formed familia, offer me, a high-elf and the vice-captain of the second strongest familia in the city, that I can't get myself." Snaps back at me Riveria while rising her voice. Mana starts to run wild in the room, she's not controlling it, it's only reacting to her emotional state. I ignore her outburst, as I'm sure I could handle her if were competing in only magic.

"The truth about magic? The meaning of runes?" I say and both notebooks appear in my hand, without the usage of magic, pulling the attention of both elves'. The mana in the room starts to calm down. "But if you're not interested." I shrug and the notebooks vanish from my hand, as I stand up. "Olive, let's go." I usher my girlfriend to stand up but were both stopped by a blonde bullet.

"What was that!? How did you do that?! Where did those books come from, and where did they go!?!" She fires off a few rapid-fire questions. Which I answer after a shrug.

"One of the spells I created. It stores stuff in an extradimensional space."

"Created? How?! You didn't chant the spell!" she exclaims with an awestruck face.

"It's quite easy when you understand the principles of magic." I say with a smile, poking fun at the still fuming elf sitting at the table, wondering how I just did what I did.

With a cough, the High Elf pulls our attention. "I'm sorry for my earlier outburst." She sincerely apologizes [Mind Arts] confirming she's ashamed and greedy for the knowledge. "Would you be so kind to sit back down so we could continue our earlier discussion?" Her quick change in her demeanor almost makes me laugh. The prideful high elf, was now, nowhere to be seen, only a shy fidgeting elf could be found in her place. My smile widens knowing I'll not only get what I came here for but a lot more.

"Sure, no problem." The notebooks appear in my hands again. "Now, for a good sum, let's say 500 mill Valis, access to your library and a showcase of spells, both yours and Lefiya's. I'll grant you all my current research and with it the knowledge on how to use it." I say with a smile.

"500 Million is a lot, I cannot agree to anything without looking at the research."

"Eehhhh.... 5-5-500 Million!" Could only be heard from the blonde elf.

"Ehh... That won't do." I say while shaking my head. "The Loki familia should make more than that a single dive, so that kind of money is nothing to you. Plus, you're a competent mage, and I just met you so I can't trust you. If I give you the notebooks you could just throw me out of the building and take it away from me. So instead, I'll show you what you can achieve with it this." I say flapping the notebooks.

"Okay, I can agree to that. Let's go to the practice grounds." She answers after a moment of thinking and then attempts to stand up but I stop her.

"No need. I'll just work here" she tilts her head to the side but notices the mana in the air changing.

"Fascinating, you're manipulating mind without chanting a spell." Riveria focuses on the air around us.

"That's not really a big deal, I taught Olive how to do it in about fifteen minutes and I'll teach you when you accept the deal." I say and Olive nods, while I form multiple spell circles around us. Nothing specific, just basic projectile spells, fireballs, ice bolts, and lightning spears. The room gets filled with multiple attack and defense spells, none have a name and none appear on my status, because they are all incomplete. The main part of the spells, the movement vectors are missing from them, so the best they could do is explode. Lefiya and Riveria both cast their own defensive spells getting ready for a battle, but then I just disperse, not only my spells but theirs as well.

"That's a nifty trick I learned while killing Imps, if I'm fast enough, inserting my mind into their spells I could modify them, or I could even disperse them, by adding an additional rune that would create a, let's call it, short circuit, in the magical circle." I say and smile at the two awestruck elves' while they try to figure out why their spells just sizzled out of existence.

I spread my hands with my palms facing up, and say. "So was that little exhibition enough to spike your interest in my research?" The two elves' slowly turn towards me and nod. My display, to their knowledge, was not possible with the laws of magic they knew about. Let's not talk about the fact, that I chantlessly formed more than 10 different spells around me. Without a spell similar to Lefiya's, the Falna system limits the number of spells an individual can have to three.

"Good, now, I'd like both of you to show me your spells. I might interrupt or take over them mid-way, as I'm searching for a magical rune inside of spell circles. After that, you're going to prepare all of your books and knowledge on spells, that have depictions of spells in them or at least their chants. I'll give you the notebooks after those two things are done and if you're satisfied with them, I'll teach you how to manipulate, as you called it, mind, without any chanting. At that point, I'll be expecting the 500 Million to be delivered to me. Preferably, I'll come over and pick it up." Both of them agree to my terms and we head over to the practice grounds.

Now you might be wondering why requested them to show off their spells and not just pulled the knowledge out of their mind using [Mind Arts]. The reason is, mages here don't focus on the runes their spells are built with. They only focus on the chants, and true, by knowing their chants I could recreate their spells, but that would take time and I'm impatient. Getting them to show me the spells would allow me to interact with them directly and look through the runes they contain.

The Loki familia had multiple training grounds around their estate. With the power they invested in her, as a vice-captain, Riveria cleared out one of them and proceeded to cast her first spell, just before it was fully cast I cut off her connection to the spell and paused the cast. Rotating the spell circle towards me I memorized the contents of the circle and notice a new Descriptor rune in it, not the one I'm looking for but a new one at least. Taking out my own notes, not the copied ones, I move the circle closer to me and start to copy over the rune to my Runic index. Then I remove the rune from the circle and let it finish casting while supplying my mana to it. Her frost spell just implodes, showering us with fresh snow. Experimenting with the same spell a few more times I figure out the rune is an inverse function. Allowing all the connected runes to be inverted. Strangely enough, the rune can invert even the Class and Affinity Runes Making Fire into Water, Ice into Steam, and a circle into a square. Now what would happen if you used the inverse rune on the Field rune, I'll have to play with it later on. Next up, I asked her to cast another spell and we repeated the process till all her spells were analyzed and she was out of mana.

While all of this was happening Olivia chatted happily with the blonde elf girl. They seemed to click and were talking about random stuff. 'She really needs to get a few friends.' I thought to myself.

After I was done with Riveria, the same research process happened with Lefiya and that's where I found not one but multiple unknown runes. Her Elf Ring spell was actually a data storage spell, constructed from Arrays, Searches, and data manipulation runes. When she cast a spell, it called a search function rune to pull out the rest of the rune script, from what I could only name as a variable rune. Variable runes were fascinating, they could hold multiple rows of different types of information, in this case, runes, without any troubles.

This rune and the search runes were the ones I'd been searching for. Allowing me to create an AOE Field observation/mapping spell, with filtering and information storage. Say goodbye to wandering around the dungeon searching for monsters or stairs for hours upon hours, and say hello to a spell that locates everything in a specific area, filters it down, and presents all of its findings to you. The best part? I will construct the spell in such a way, that it will allow me to travel to the observed locations by [Void Step]. Fuck limitations, they are there to be surpassed.

Being happy with my findings I end the showcase. "I found the rune I'm looking for." I say with a smile then throw the two notebooks at Riveria who franticly tries to grab them out of the air in an effort not to let them drop on the dirty ground. After catching them she gives me a glare. "Take the notebooks. I'd still like to look through your books on magic, but they are not a huge priority right now. I'll come over tomorrow, and if you're satisfied with the contents of these notebooks, we can talk about the other things. Olivia," I turn towards her. "you've been having fun with Lefiya, do you wanna stay and come home later?" I ask with a smile. "I'll be working on my new spell, so I'll be a bit preoccupied." I say to Olive.

"Okay, not like I had anything else planned for today." She says with a shrug.

"Take care of yourself and don't stay out too late." I said before planting a kiss on the head.

"Let me see you off." Tells me Lefiya, but I just shake my head.

"No need. See you, girls, later." And with those final words, I take a step and vanish, two steps later, I'm in my garden.