Two Year Mark
'I must thank Freya tomorrow when I meet her.' Nox thought as he walked Loki back home after the afterparty of the conference was over.
They both had conspiratorial grins over their success but Loki had some internal worries.
'Freya has got her eye on Nox . . .' Loki pondered.
'Not in a good way either. She has the bad habit of drawing children from other familias to her but she has yet to have the courage to do it to me . . . Or perhaps the temptation has not yet been enough. If so, Nox is definitely that tempting if I do say so myself.' She gave Nox a hungry glance.
'Still . . . Noxy ain't the type to leave us just because of an erotic goddess and there were three goddesses of beauty in there and he was absolutely fine so there's that . . .'
'There's also the matter that, whatever her intentions may be, Freya did help us out by making such a grand first offer to set the bar for the others.' The red haired goddess continued to ponder on the night's events.
The conference was a great success and Nox's tears of denial got a lot of interest from three important parties but the real prize, obviously came out of the Panaceas.
The Tears were taken one by Freya who gifted it to Ottar, one by Altena's representative which, as a country of magic wanted to research the object and the last one was taken by a representative of the Empire.
As for the payments, Freya gave a free quest request for the Freya familia as a reward which, considering her familia was currently one of, if not the most powerful in the world, such a request was quite extraordinary.
Altena gave Nox a free pass to the massive national library of Altena, which was the most extensive of the world and possessed untold knowledge of magic.
"As for the Empire, they gave Nox and honorary title that, while carrying very little authority, held a huge amount of benefits within the Empire which ensured a visit under the best of terms possible.
As for the Panacea, it was exchanged for "wishes" for major powers, one Panacea per wish, for those median powers two wishes and for the weaker ones, three wishes. These Wishes held no real limitation unless they posed significant harm to the recipient of the request.
The wishes were granted under magical contract and as representatives with power and rulers, the entire faction could not push the responsibility to those individuals and had to fulfill their responsibilities at all costs.
This was started by Freya which, by easily setting such a high and dangerous price, she immediately set the bar for what one had to offer to partake in such benefits.
The real kicker was the each Panacea was a single one use drop and since they wanted more and would thirst for more in the future, Nox would have a huge amount of power over the world by calling in these favours.
As for the man himself, he was back to leveling.
Time passed and there had been two years since Nox had set foot in the world of Danmachi. Leveling up was getting harder and harder but Nox had a lot of free time on his hands to do so. He had leveled up to Level 4 and was making good progress but it was getting very hard.
Still, the current him could take out Level 6 adventurers in a one on one, specially if he used all of his Skills without hiding and after the Level up and the expected fusion occurred, the indeed got incredibly more powerful. Well, the Archon skill did.
But many more events had occurred which needed to be told. Nox's participation in Monsterphilia which had become something the crowds looker forward to despite only happening twice so far.
The arrival of the Takemikazuchi familia in Orario which Nox had visited many times with Haruhime and even helped out on occasion.
And, perhaps most importantly, the great leaps in progress Nox had made with his research into magic, item making and various other things.
All of these events merited explanation and so we begin with the very last to be mentioned, Nox's progress in his research, moving onto the changes in his status, his participation in Monsterphilia, the arrival of and meeting of the Takemikazuchi familia.
And finally, one things which was quite important but yet to be mentioned, how Nox's various relationships progressed, especially once people caught wind of his "sessions" with Tsubaki which became a habit for the both of them.
Starting then with Nox's research, there was his perfecting of spacetime magic, the creation of a few new grand spells and finally, the successful development of a Philosopher's Stone, just one nad it was so costly that he had to pull some of the Panacea earned favours to make it.
Going about it in order. Nox had finally been able to stabilize the spaces created and had managed to create various functioning gates to important location that had no change of failure, as well as storage items for personal use.
He had also begun to develop other spacetime spells but those were still in early development but going much faster and more smoothly than the previous research because Nox had already comprehended many of the fundamental principles governing spacetime.
Moving on to his newly created grand spells, there were quite a few, some more impressive than others though. He had even created new Grand Blood Arts to be used through his blood pool. Beginning with the actual spells though, there were three. Grand Fortress, Twilight Collapse and Soulsucker.
The first created a fortress with powerful glome guards. it took actual materials to use and a long time to activate so it was not a spell for Nox to just use out of the blue.
He created this spell to make a fortified town on each of the safe floors he visited but for now, he had only gathered materials to make one to his standards which was going to be on the 50th floor.
Twilight Collapse was precisely what Nox called the phenomenon that occured when his Luminous Judgement and Dark Channel spells collided. He had created a spell specifically dedicated to reproducing such an even on various different scales.
It was this destructive ability which approximated a total spatial collapse that allowed Nox to further his comprehension of spacetime enough for his breakthrough in that field.
Finally, there was what Nox considered his current greatest achievement in the magical field, Soulsucker. It was a spell deeply related to his research of the Philosopher's Stone and intrinsically tied to it so it was better explained alongside said item.
Moving on to the Blood Arts Nox had created, there were ones which were quire powerful and simple like Blood Escape but only two that could be considered "Grand". They were Bloody Dusk and Blood Fort.
The first was a pure destructive ability, it made a blood red sky above the battlefield and rained down bloody destruction with piercing blood rain, bloody windstorms, etc. It was powerful but simple, even then, Nox though its power merited the "grand" appellation.
Blood Fort however, was were the "real" value laid. While it was quite destructive for lifeforms with blood running through them killing was just a result of the process and not its goal as it were.
The objective was mass feeding, converting every living being within the affected area into Blood Essence ready to be absorbed. Those powerful enough to resist would be restrained and continuously drained unless they can defeat the user who is boosted inside said area.
It was quite nifty and Nox had built up quite the supply of blood essence and, figuring out there was no "Beast" twisting his mind did wonders, allowing him to make use of this powerful skill to strengthen his main physical body byond what the Falna could do.
However, Nox's power and even his potential had taken another major leap recently, very near the actual two year mark. It was his creation of the Philosopher's Stone.
A it was Nox's pride and not just a "mere" magic item but a road towards his future. Even with the Arcana Craft, Nox could not reproduce it, it was truly unique in the world and he was sure that the Philosopher's Stone created by Fells had to be different from his.
Still, there was a reason it was considered a mythical item, one which Nox would never make public and close guard the secret of its existence, only revealing it to those closest to his heart and even then on a need to know basis.
As for its properties . . .
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