New Spells.
##The Pantheon - 3rd Person PoV.##
It's been two days since the level 1 adventurer had slain the Minotaur that invaded the upper levels, people were amazed and everyone was looking out for this talented adventurer. Yet no one could find any hide or hair of him between the dungeon and the guild hall.
The adventurer in question, had taken a few days off to consolidate his growth and improve his skills, so naturally no one could find him anywhere near the Babel.
"Hello Eina!" A cheerful looking woman with short light red hair tied up in a short ponytail comes skipping into the guild hall accompanied by a well known girl with flowing golden hair and eyes that match it. The red headed girl is wearing extremely short black jean shorts, a short purple tube top showing a lot of her stomach, and a peculiar hooded long sleeve shoulder top colored in black and purple. On her legs she is wearing a pair of black knee socks and a pair of purple boots to match the rest of the outfit.
She is Loki herself, the patron goddess of the Loki Familia.
Accompanying her is the ever so blank Ais herself. Eina smiles and greets them politely with a bow.
"Hello Lady Loki, and you too Ais." Eina greets and then asks, "How may I help the two of you today?"
"Well, you see, we were wanting to ask about that new adventurer Ais meet in the upper levels." Loki says.
"Ah!" Eina nods understandingly. "Normally asking for personal information on fellow adventurers without permission is against the rules, but this one in particular didn't really care whether people wanted to know about him or not." Eina says before sighing, "Kinda irresponsible if you ask me, but that is his choice so I can't argue."
"That is very open-minded of him!" Loki says with a grin.
"... Who is he and where did he come from?" Ais asks.
Eina thinks silently for a moment, her finger resting on her chin, before replying, "His full name is registered as Nyx Reyes Noire. He registered with our guild a little over a week ago. Age 16, no known hometown or village listed. Judging by his clothing, possibly of nobility. Other than that, I know he possesses magic and a few unique abilities."
"Any guild affiliation?" Loki asks in interest.
Eina shakes her head and smiles wryly, "No."
"Oho! Still ripe for the taking!" Loki cheers.
"Yeah..." Eina pauses before continuing, "He has already said he had no interest in joining a Familia. Sorry to disappoint you Lady Loki."
"What!?" Loki shouts out and sulks, "I was hoping to get a monster to join my familia before some one like Freya, or even that monster collector Minerva...."
Eina shrugs her shoulder and smiles faintly, "There is no helping you there Lady Loki. It was his choice and we have to respect that."
"Respect my foot..." Loki grumbles, "If everyone respected their adventurer's opinions then Freya would always be using her charm and sex appeal to draw in talent..."
".... I have a feeling Freya's charms won't work on him" Ais cuts in getting their attention.
"What makes you say that?" Loki asks.
"Hm...." Ais thinks for a moment and replies, "His eyes.... When most men see me or Riviera, there is always this one look in their eyes." She says pointing towards her eyes. Both Eina and Loki nod in understanding. "But when he looked at us in the dungeon, his eyes didn't have that same look."
"Ah!" Loki nods, "So he isn't a pervert!" Loki swoops around Ais and embraces her from behind. "To think that there is a boy who wasn't smitten with my precious Ais at first sight. Good riddance! Only I can enjoy this.... ACK!!!" Loki attempts to sneakily grope Ais' chest, but the girl slams her feet down on the poor goddess' feet causing her to bounce around, nursing her smashed toes fondly with comical tears in her eyes.
"How about his residence?" Ais asks ignoring her goddess.
Eina shakes her head, "He didn't register any at the moment, but he did say something about saving up to buy himself a home within the next month."
Loki scoffs at that, "Save up enough valis to buy a house in a month? Good luck with that!"
Eina giggles covering her mouth with her hand and says, "I wouldn't judge him that quickly Lady Loki. He wouldn't tell me how, nor did I want him to tell me, but he goes in during the morning and only returns in the evenings." Eina says and points to a nearby private booth. "He never has to come back in the middle of his raids to clear out his inventory, so he has more time to hunt and gain. This week alone, he had a net profit of 3,000,000v."
"WHAT!!!" Loki shout out in shock. 3,000,000v in a week, and by a rook no less. That would be unbelievable if you go by normal standards. "How is that possible!? Why can't my little rookies bring in the big bucks?"
Eina smiles and shakes her head. "To quote Mr's Noire before you ask." Eina says and repeats Nyx's words, "Trade secret!"
Loki just stamps the ground and huffs getting a smile out of the receptionist.
"Thanks for the info Aina." Loki thanks her for the information while Ais just bows politely.
"Anytime Lady Loki." Eina waves as they leave.
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##Orario City Wall - Back to Nyx's 1st Person PoV.##
It's been two days since my encounter with both Bell and Ais, I left right after our short introduction because I wanted to return and get used to the changes to my body. My physical strength, speed, resilience, flexibility, stamina. All of it good a good boost! I'm twice as strong as I was before the level up. now that I take the time to think about it, my growth reminds me of those eastern martial arts novels. I had a sort of breakthrough!
Except instead of sitting down and meditating, or cultivating as they call it in the novels, I just had to kill numerous monsters and absorb some of their life essence, or as I named it earlier, Aura. I discovered that the aura I absorbed is purified by the King's Ring, then distributed to my body, enhancing my flesh, bones, muscles, blood, nerves, marrow. I get a full overhaul in one go.
Additionally my magic gets a boost depending on the type of aura I absorb. Goblins give more boosts to my magic considering a few of them can become goblin mages. For beasts like kibolds and the dungeon lizards, they give the greatest boost to the body.
My personal aura, it turns out to be called the King's Aura. According to what I read in one of the manuals stored within the ring, I will be able to utilize it to increase my own abilities by a certain amount, negatively affect my enemies, and provide a boost to my own allies. But the minimum requirement to access the lowest form of my King's Aura is to be level 5.
"So close, yet so far..." I can only sigh and continue my training.
I spent this time training rigorously, perfecting the Renzokuken Style. I have all of the basic strikes down and can smoothly launch Rough Divide and Fated Circle without any problems. Trust me when I say that these two special attacks will pack quite a punch. Instead of pissing off a Minotaur, I might just leave a scratch on it instead when I use Rough Divide to castrate it.
After finishing up with my swordsmanship training, I sit back against the parapet and search into my ring and pull out a book. The book is the spell manual for the basic Fire spell. I intend to learn an offensive magic and a recovery magic for a change, so this will be the first one I chose.
I open the book and read the contents of the first page. Sitting here silently for a few minutes, I feel my eyes twitching before closing the book and sighing. Rubbing the bridge of my nose I am dejected.
"So it's not like a normal skill book where I just open the book and POOF! I learn the skill." I say with light laugh. "Looks like I have to read the whole manual from cover to cover."
I open the book and continue to read it. Surprisingly there are some deep details. Theories, magic equations, formulas, mana channeling charts to demonstrate the proper ways to build up the spell, as well as the proper quantity to add into the spells. Not what I expected from a spell book, but the content of the book took me a whole hour to read. So that I don't forget anything important, I read through it again a few more times for memorization sake.
"2 hours of reading for a simple beginner spell. Totally worth it!" I sarcastically say.
Standing up I face the wall's parapet and start focusing on the spell. Channeling the mana within me to the specification mention by the book, an azure blue aura of magic surrounds me, holding my hand forward towards the parapet I cast the spell after building up the required mana.
"Fire!"
A small ball of flames is conjured in my palm and launches towards the parapet, exploding on contact leaving a small section of it charred black as a result. I stand there staring at the black spot and nod my head after admiring the results.
"Not much damage, " I admit with a nod, but smile afterwards, "Then again it's only my first time using the spell. There is still much work to be done to improve it. Additionally there is another form of the spell to use as well."
According to the book there are two forms of the Fire spell. Bolt, which I just used, and Grenade. Bolt launches the spell as a projectile towards whatever the caster aims at, Grenade on the other hand tosses it like a ball that still explodes on contact. Bolt spells are great from hitting targets at a distance, while Grenade spells are perfect for getting targets hidden around behind corners and barriers.
According to the manual, a good number of spells come in many different forms. Thanks to the flexibility of magic, I can experiment and possibly create my own style. I continue to spend some time practicing Fire in both styles to improve my proficiency with it to a satisfactory level. Once I am satisfied I pull out another magic manual.
"Now for recovery magic." I say with a smile, "No better starting point than Cure."
The most basic healing magic in Final Fantasy was always Cure. The White Mages always started with Cure as the starting spell until they were able to either learn, or buy the upgraded versions, Cura and Curaga. I personally chose the spell to save my 10 Med-Bag daily rations for emergencies since I'll soon start digging deeper into the dungeon. I can't go running out of supplies when I'm in a pinch.
I follow the same pattern and finish reading the Cure manual a somewhat faster that the Fire manual. Must be improving my reading skills. After going through the manual a few more times I come to understand the problem with this spell.
"I need an injured party to practice on..." I think to myself for a minute before smacking my fist into my palm, "I got it! I can set up a temporary healing station at the entrance of the dungeon and offer to heal the minor injuries of adventurers returning from the dungeon! There will be a fee though, a fair fee."
I start laughing at my new Cure upgrading scheme. Digging into the ring's inventory I pull out a white robe with red trimmings on the sleeves, tip of the robe, and hood. The belt is black and a black bow to tie around the neck.
Donning the robe and pulling up the hood to hide my features, I smile and look towards the Babel.
"I always wanted to create myself an alter ego. So I'll become the White Mage Xyn. Not a creative name, but this society isn't the civilized society I was from in my past life, so no one should be able to tell that Xyn is my name spelled backwards.... I hope."
I dash of towards the Babel to make some small change while healing minor injuries of adventurers leaving the dungeons.