Chapter 12
"Yeah, I'm a new adventurer," I responded to Freya, deciding to just accept things as they are right now.
I knew she would be a problem in the future whether I encountered her here and now or later. I wasn't completely sure what her reaction would be to me, but I was reassured by my new sixth sense indicating that there would be no danger in the immediate future. Sixth sense had easily become one of my favorite sub-skills, even though I have only had it for a few hours. Sixth sense acts in two ways, the first I call "passive sense" and the other "future sense".
If I had to compare future sense to anything then I would compare it to Finn's thumb, except my ability extends further into the future than his. With future sense, I basically have access to a fortune teller that can't decern the exact future, but they can see how dangerous things will be for me. This ability works with either events or people, the general future works too, but is much more unpredictable. Also, the further into the future, I try to sense the less reliable the information. Lastly, I have to consciously activate this ability, unlike the other use of sixth sense.
Passive sense works as a general danger sense ability that warns me of approaching threats. The main benefit is that the ability is passive with no inputs needed from me. As soon as Freya approached me, I scanned her with future sense so I knew that things wouldn't be too dangerous with her for at least a little while.
While I was having my mental introspection, Freya was staring at me with a wide friendly smile, except I could see that it was hollow. It was easy to see that I had shocked her, but I decided to ignore that fact and just grab my food and start eating. Freya paused for a moment as I began to eat my meal, then she spoke once more and I felt the same energy wash over me.
"Wow, you're so handsome that I thought you must be at least a level 3 or 4," she said "playfully", but I knew she was just trying to see if it was just a fluke that her ability hadn't worked on me before.
"Nope, just a brand new level 1," I said smoothly, focusing on my food, which was absolutely delicious.
It took all of my willpower to not devour the meal, then lick the plate clean. Before Freya could ask any more questions a booming voice came from the bar and instructed her to get back to work. With a final wink, she walked away from my table and began to serve the other patrons. I was glad that she didn't ask my name, but I also knew that my name would be easy for her to find out through the guild.
Deciding to not push my luck, I finished my food quickly, paid, then left. As I left my sixth sense alerted me that someone was currently watching me, but I didn't turn back to see who it was. By this point, it was fully dark out, and the streets were lit by lamps lining the walkways. I quickly jogged back home, hoping to catch Miach before he went to bed so that I could update my status. It wasn't seriously important to update my stats today, but I was a bit curious about just how far my near-death experience had pushed me.
Luckily, I reached home just as Naaza and Miach were closing up the shop. I dropped the bag with 45K Valis into Miach's hands, making them open comically wide. Before he could ask any questions, I spoke first.
"Do you mind updating my status quickly?"
"Uhh, sure, no problem. Just sit down here," he said plopping down on the floor, followed closely by me.
I raised my shirt and exposed my back to Miach, allowing him to reach over and start tinkering with my falna. I could see the glow of light illuminating the room, but that was about it. I waited patiently as I heard Miach gasp in surprise as he placed a sheet of paper against my back. I turned and found that he was literally speechless as I reached out and grabbed the piece of paper from his hands. Looking down at the paper, I could see why he was so surprised.
Augustus Zahard
Lv. 1
STR: B-712
END: B-799
DEX: C-679
AGI: C-622
MAG: A-867
Magic:
Magicule Manipulation
Skills:
Tensura
I whistled appreciatively as I looked at my status. I had basically been launched from the bottom to the top of level 1 in a single day. Naaza came and sat down next to us, placing her good arm on my shoulder to help slow her descent, then grabbed my paper and gasped as well. She looked up at me, eyes as wide as Miach's.
"Yo...Y...You can already level up," she said shakily, "Not even the Sword Princess was this fast, and it took me nearly 3 and a half years to level up myself. What happened in the dungeon?"
Miach nodded along as she gave her explanation, then seconded her question about what happened to me in the dungeon today.
I scratched the back of my head, slightly embarrassed as I spoke, "Well, I was in the dungeon when I was jumped by two other adventurers. I was able to fight them off, but It was the most difficult and dangerous thing I have ever done in my life,"
I didn't give them the exact truth, but I did keep the general idea of what happened true. I didn't tell them the full truth for two reasons. One, I didn't exactly want to tell them that I had been willing to kill two people so easily, even if it was in self-defense. Two, I don't want to have to deal with any legal troubles or paperwork that would most certainly come after an experience like the one I had just been through today. Luckily, they seemed to buy the story and tried to convince me to report my attackers, but I just replied that they had deep wounds so I doubted they made it out of the dungeon. I appreciated their support though.
"So what's your plan now? Try to level up now and become the record holder for fastest from level 1 to 2?" Naaza asked curiously.
"Nah, I plan to max out my stats before leveling up. Also, I am gonna stay out of the dungeon to train magic for a few days. That encounter today was too close for comfort," I said jovially as I stood and helped Naaza and Miach up.
I bid them both goodnight as I opened the door to my room and used Flame to light the candles. I looked down at the flame along with the magic circle in my palm, thinking deeply about what to do next. I kicked myself for not grabbing the bodies of the dead adventures as I remembered that I need a sacrifice for summoning magic. That meant that I shifted my attention to Spiritual and Elemental magic. Spiritual magic to summon a helped in the dungeon and Elemental magic because there was something I wanted to test.
I decided to begin with Elemental magic as I envisioned a lance made of flame, willing the circle to appear, as I usually did when gaining new Arts. Now that I was more experienced in Arts as well as having a higher mastery over Fire magics in general, the progress was much faster when compared to before. Fire Lance was basically just an elongated Fireball that doesn't detonate on contact. Even with my experience it still took me all night and much of the next day to master three more Fire magics.
After all the Arts ended up in my status I finally stopped, then steeled myself to begin the process that I knew would take the longest, skill acquisition. Magic is extremely useful, but even without chants it takes a while to use, I wanted to minimize this as much as I could. That led me to where I was now, trying to activate all of my Fire magics at once.
*Fire Magic
- Fire
- Fireball
- Fire Lance
- Fire Wall
- Fire whip
My thought process was that if I could activate enough of the Magics at the same time, or in rapid enough succession then I would be able to gain the Extra Skill, Flame Manipulation due to my sub-skill, Improved Skill Acquisition. Even with the Skill it wouldn't mean that fire magic would be useless to me, in fact, it would make getting more fire-related Arts easier. However, after gaining the skill I am planning to move on to Spiritual magic.
Finally, a full week after my near-death experience in the dungeon I gained the Skill, Fire Manipulation. Once I did so, all five current fire magics on my status sheet disappeared, but the category of Fire magic itself didn't disappear.
- - - (Chapter End) - - -
What kind of being should the MC summon?
1. Demon
2. Elemental
3. Fairy
4. Other?