Apotropaic Skill

Mallory had become an official member of the Seshat Familia and she had found out the details of her current skill.

Excelia was what was used to help boost stats, level up and purchase an ability after levelling up so Mallory had determined that her rewards for doing deeds that were recognised by her skill would help her to gain Excelia.

While Excelia can be earned through killing monsters, achieving a feat which could attract the attention of many people or through being rewarded by the gods, Excelia was just a part of the reward that came from an individuals legend or story being completed.

Surviving a hit or several from a monster would increase the bodies endurance stat, running would increase the speed, fighting and evading attacks would increase the strength and dexterity while using magic would increase the magic stat so each action has some kind of reward so long as a person is a member of a familia.

Mallory's own stats were a result of her own training before she joined a familia but the magic had yet to be discovered so she believed that its growth from zero was a result of her using the ability to sense the auras of others.

It did make her tired after using it for so long so she was glad to quickly find out how to turn it on and off.

Those that had went on an adventure and levelled up from it were those which had completed chapter one in their own story.

The more interesting the story, the more attention it catches from the masses but also the gods would determine the overall Excelia reward.

Many would be stuck grinding in the low levels or find themselves at a wall which they could not pass for various reasons.

The rate for level one was that she could use one Excelia to boost one stat of the five stats within her status.

Depending on how much Excelia was earned from her own actions, she would be able to gain Excelia when she does something related to her own skill whether it be killing monsters or helping others.

Depending on the monsters difficulty to kill and the floor it is on, the Excelia would be given to suit the situation while it was the same for helping others.

Helping others would reward her Excelia based on that persons wealth, power and fame so even a normal person could provide more than a level one and possibly a level two if they are someone special that can use their own experience, tactics and strength that they gained through training to overcome a level two.

Other examples would be someone who was a city lord, a king or a wealthy businessman who may qualify for Mallory to receive a higher amount of Excelia.

Due to her skill, Mallory was able to ignore any bottlenecks she may face in the future as long as she kept earning Excelia and she had a slightly increased affinity towards learning things related to her skill as a warder.

Since she was surrounded by books, she wished to test it out as soon as possible to see what the potential and limitations were for her skill.

While Mallory was looking at her status, Seshat no longer looked as she had before because her eyes had turned feverish. "Heh. Heh. Heh."

Her eyes were locked onto the moving ears of Mallory as Mallory was lost in thought, Goddess Seshat reached out to grab onto the spotted cat ears as she wanted to feel them.

Mallory who was caught unprepared suddenly froze and let out a cry. "Nnnyyyaaaa! What are you doing?!"

Seshat coughed as she returned to normal. "You can go now. If you need to learn anything then use the books. Lessons will be held for the new members and those at a young age like yourself. I will show you to your room, meals are free until you can support yourself and you will soon receive your monthly pocket money tomorrow. Just remember that you owe the familia fifty thousand Valis so do not forget to pay it back when you start earning Valis."

Mallory nodded and followed Seshat. "While I can speak the common language, I still do not know how to write it. I do know how to write in my tribes language though."

While Mallory was often shunned and kept away from others, she was still able to participate in the training and lessons that everyone was a part of, she was very hardworking so she was able to learn her tribes language and writing but while she was able to learn the common language, the lessons for writing the human language was left out of the teachings.

While Mallory was a little regretful over her lack of ability to read and write the common language of the world, she had experience from her previous life as she learned all kinds of languages so she did not see it as a big issue to learn it.

Seshat smiled. "I have some books that may have your tribes language in it so I can give you a translated version so you can learn as you see how they are translated."

As Mallory was shown to a small room, she was given the books and sat up to study for a while before falling asleep.

Before she fell asleep, she would practice using her eye technique that was related to her skill until she was becoming tired. 'Hopefully my magic will grow even a little with this practice but I doubt it would be by a lot. It is very tiring too and would require many potions to train my magic. No thanks!'

The next couple of days were spent learning the common language and learning the differences between her own tribes language and the common language.

She also spent some time going over her experiences in her previous life since they were connected to her own skill.

Mallory was sat in front of her desk with a piece of paper, a quill and a small pot of ink. "Now.. I have to test to see if there are any results from the next batch."

By her side were several failure which looked like paper talismans but they all looked very ordinary while the handwriting and symbols drawn on it were all done very neatly. "I have tried writing a word or several words in both the common and my own language. I have tried writing while trying to relay my intent into it but that did not work either."

Mallory looked a little annoyed. "There must be some way to make them work.. what is it that I know already? Although Apotropaic magic is nothing but superstition in my previous world, it must be real here. Gestures, charms and amulets should be possible to provide protection against evil and harm. It must also have some connection to my current race so although I have tried my own tribes language, it is still missing something. For charms… any kind of object can be used and even coins or buttons can qualify. Everyday items and materials can be used but in a magic world there must be some kind of special ingredient needed like magic or a dungeon drop."

Mallory put her hands on her chin and frowned. "Leopards are believed to be able to ward off evil and harm which is why I have mostly tried to test the use of my own language when making the talismans. Then how about mixing my own blood into the ink? What about making a brush out of some of my hair? Will that help? It needs to be tested!"

She spent some time assembling the brush she needed and then stabbed her thumb with a thin sterilised needle as the tiny bits of blood dripped into the ink. "I can always buy some more. For now I just need to confirm my guess. Please work."

Through arranging her writing on the rectangular piece paper, her tribal language was written with the new brush and ink which had been mixed with her blood.

On the paper talisman, it could be read as 'Detect' and as Mallory completed it, her felt like her energy had suddenly been drained and she barely had any left. "Ugh.. indeed this is taxing on my magic power. This must be a sign that it was successful so I am on the right track. From paper talismans then there is wood and metal which are grades above, for other amulets or props there will always be a difference depending on the quality of the materials."

Mallory looked down at the talisman and smiled. "Would it be possible for others to create something like this within my tribe or is it because of my skill? Never mind.. what should I do with this talisman?"

After thinking about it for a while, she placed it in her bag and went to find out some details about the surrounding city.