Powering Up

--- Lava

I was too hopeful that when I got home I wouldn't have to fight anything anymore, but I was proven wrong almost immediately.

Just so I can't regret not being prepared in the future, I really have to practice everything I can.

I need to explore the limits of my barriers in this environment as well as try out rune magic.

But to do that I have to escape two problems.

The first problem I have is that Ria doesn't let me go anywhere alone, it's so annoying to be supervised constantly.

And then there's the matter of finding paper.

I'm going to have to ask someone for that.

Who am I kidding, 'someone'? Of course it's going to be Ria, she's not going to say no to her 'little sister'.

Here she comes now, skipping over to come hug me.

"Hey, Lava! Don't you want to give your big sister a ride?!" She shouts at me and presses against my chest.

"Maybe I'll give you one if you can give me some paper." I respond while looking down at her failing to climb me.

"That's expensive! But I can do that if my little sister wants to draw so badly!" She caves in easily.

I don't remember the village ever having money problems, but that was just because I let them keep selling my scales for money.

Ria runs off, presumably to go get paper.

I wait there and watch as she comes back with a small stack of paper sheets.

Well, a deal is a deal. I'm probably going to have to wait for Ria to fall asleep anyway, so the only way I'll be able to get out of the village myself is to give her the best day ever until she gets tired.

Instead of climbing on right away when I get low enough, she starts rubbing the side of my neck first.

"Haha, your noodle neck is so cute. Aren't you the cutest little sister?!" She praises in ways I don't want to hear.

Do I have a noodle neck? Every dragon has a long neck, mine isn't a noodle, it's average!

...

I spent the entire day giving everyone rides. I can't believe I almost forgot how exhausting it is to play with every single one of them that wants a ride.

But I've succeeded in my task of making Ria fall asleep, I just have to wiggle my neck out of her arms silently and I'm free!

I feel bad leaving her there sleeping on the ground, though.

Maybe I am a bad sister, but there's nothing she can do about it other than telling me how bad I'm being.

I didn't need to go too far anyway, just enough to have a clear area around me.

This place looks good enough to me, the first thing I want to try are my barriers. I can probably still use them as weapons if I focus.

I focus on creating a moving barrier with a sharp edge, and even gesture at a tree with a swiping motion to make it stronger.

The blade of magic manifests and flies towards the tree, though it weakens so much by the time it reaches that it barely cuts halfway into it.

Alright then, my alternate magic is good for defense, but the only realistic upside is that it doesn't need words to use.

The next thing I want to try is a normal spell to do the same thing, I figure a simple <Slash > should be close enough in effect.

This time, it cuts an entire tree down.

I expected it to be stronger so I'm not surprised, but the main problem is that it had a purple tint to it.

When I used the demonic magic it was pure red and purple, but when I use normal magic there's still Arcana contaminating the spells. And for that reason my fire breath is still useless.

Well... I guess it's still useful as a non-lethal weapon.

My new status as 'Demon God' gave me this new type of magic, but it didn't really increase my Mana efficiency, and if anything it reduced my Mana capacity by a huge margin.

Since the different forms of magic react with each other violently, I can't keep all of it from mixing inside me.

Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong! Maybe I'm trying too hard to keep them separate, so what if I let more Arcana get into a normal spell?

To test out that new idea, I repeated the spell, but I let more Arcana get out as well.

This time, it looked more purple-colored, but there was almost no haze around it like when I tried pure Arcana.

When used together they seem to have formed bonds with each other, but the Arcana gets rid of the Mana quickly and it quickly turns into a blade of pure Arcana that starts evaporating.

The results speak for themselves though...

Instead of just one tree, this combination of magic went through two-- no, three trees!

I think it can be even better if the Mana and Arcana mix is just right.

I'm not sure what happens when it's a spell that doesn't physically materialize Mana, though...

I don't really care to try it right now, I need to move on to runes.

Everyone's sleeping right now so I can't do anything crazy like explosions, but there are definitely explosive runes in this book.

The first one I really want to try are the runes for 'smoke' and 'area'-- actually there's one standing for fog in here too, it might be a better idea to use that just in case by 'smoke' it means the kind of smoke you suffocate in.

I cut each piece of paper into two long pieces to draw on and got to work.

Just like in the demon world, there were runes for keeping other runes from activating, and for delay. But there was less flexibility when it came to targeting and how many different things you could actually do.

For example, I took one look at the teleportation rune, and that's where the whole system starts revealing that it's prototyped.

There are hardly any ways to specify specific locations other than the suggested method of creating named markers. So you can only teleport to places you've been, or in simple directions.

On top of that, it requires the subject to be specified too, which is also a problem.

Even the 'self' rune just refers to whatever the magic power is coming from, so you're literally just better off casting teleport normally.

Anyway, I just started writing.

...

Finally.

I'm not sure what I should call these, no matter what, I can't think of a good name for them.

I have a couple that explode, a couple that I'm expecting to be like smoke bombs, and the last four consist of two that I think will be kind of like flashbangs, and another two that probably just make a shield around you.

I'm thinking of just giving the shield ones to someone else.

Now that they're finished, I just have to attach some magic 'batteries' to them. Any metal that can hold Mana should do, even coins are probably good enough.

I still have two more from the extra page I set aside to test with.

I want to try a smoke bomb one first, I can only imagine how cool it must be to use, I can already envision how a smoke bomb combined with teleporting away would be amazing.

Once I've finished the runes, I pick up the piece of paper and activate it by tearing off the end that has the rune that keeps it from activating.

The immediate surroundings are instantly enveloped in a thick fog that makes seeing anything very difficult. I went with the fog rune instead of smoke just in case, looks like I might have been right.

This is so awesome that I accidentally dropped it and the fog dispersed as soon as it left my touch.

I just need a way to store these...

I thought and thought, but nothing was coming to me until I remembered how that thief pulled that sword out of thin air.

He didn't even need to use a spell to do it.

The first thing that came to mind was a spell like <Magic Inventory>.

It was perfect, not only could I put the papers inside, but I could have multiple of them at different locations around me and they persisted even while I wasn't actively focusing on them.

I basically had a magic utility belt now, and since it only needed to hold pieces of paper I didn't have to waste tons of magic on it.

Now I can feel satisfied that I'm stronger, I can hurry up and get back before anyone finds me missing.

Maybe I can put some more holes in Ria's shirt for calling my neck a noodle.

When I get back, Ria is still there sleeping pitifully like I was still there, so Mino was the one to catch me instead.

"What are you doing out there by yourself in the middle of the night? The least you could've done is cover the poor girl with something first. She did basically steal a bunch of paper just to give it to you, that stuff's expensive if you can't tell." He covers his forehead with his hand and scorns with disappointment in his voice.

"Just practicing, that's all. You can start selling my scales again if money is a problem, I don't mind it." I answer.

"No, dragon scales aren't that hard to get anymore, they can just trade with the dragon kingdom now to get them. And for that matter this country has restrictions on internal trade to disincentivize trying to kill dragons for materials." He retorts.

I guess I can't help with money anymore, then.

I suppose that restriction was a good idea to avoid getting into trouble with an overpowered kingdom.

"Now, why don't you go keep your big sister warm before she freezes?" He orders.

'big'? Not you, too?!