I’m back to the guild’s guest bedroom for now.

It’s night already but Prina gave me a gold coated orb on a small stand, this is what people use for lighting here. Just send a bit of mana energy in there and it gives off a golden white light for a few minutes. The more gold there is, the stronger the light. What I have here glows about as much as a candle. Gold isn’t nearly as valuable here as it was on earth. In the magic world, copper is king. I also received a decent traveling bag with a bedroll and some books, one of them is about learning to read the common language. They put it all on my guild tab apparently, barely here and already in debt uh.

Besides that the meal was nice and I learned a lot, better start writing some things down in the notebook.

‘On crystal shapes :

* Shapeless : Very common in animals, kinda bad at everything

* Cube : very common, best at stationary and sustained spells, weak mobile and burst spells

* Sphere : very common, best at mobile and burst spells, weak at stationary and sustained spells

* Cylinder : very common, no particular strong or weak point

* Hexagonal prism : common, more effective at long range magic

* Octahedron : common, more effective at close range magic’

‘

There are more but they’re too unusual to be worth mentioning to a beginner is what I was told.

‘On crystal grouping types:

* Single Crystal : about 9 out 10 people, no special features.

* Multiple Shapes grouping : still quite common, gets the perks of having up to three shapes.

* Spiked grouping (basically a sea urchin) : still quite common, good at spells affecting a wide area

* Fractal grouping : very rare, very good at casting the same spell numerous times

* Cluster grouping : very rare, very good at multicasting different spells

‘

Same thing with this, more to discover.

‘On currency :

Silver coins are the basic currency, one coin can buy a loaf of bread, most menial jobs pay at least three to five coins a day.

Mana crystals are valued at 1 coin per gram.

Copper coins weighing 10 grams are valued at 100 grams of crystal or 100 silver coins. So copper in general is worth 10 silver coins a gram.

Marble sized shapeless crystals like the ones I have weigh about 10 grams.’

Tonight’s meal was 84 silver coins so I’m left with 19 small crystals and 6 silver coins.

Holy shit these women eat a lot. Eviniel especially so. It’s not that crazy with her size but the Valtar cook was having a hard time keeping up with her orders.

Alright that’s done, now fuck all this, let’s cast spells!

According to the local archmage guild master, basic growth magic should be accelerating and slowing things, like creating thin films of dilated time zones to slow people and projectiles passing through.

Dilating the time of an object should be the easiest spell, making it go faster relative to me. Static objects are easier to affect so they gave me a potted plant to train. I need to make it grow faster. Here goes nothing.

It takes me a good twenty minutes but I finally manage to direct the mana how I want, suddenly the plant grows a few centimeters over 3 seconds, and I get a bad headache. I used most of my available manalite today, what I just spent is what I recovered these last few hours, better get to sleep I guess…

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But I’m doing MAGIC BABY let’s goooooooooo! It ain’t much, but it’s honest magic!

I silently celebrate by myself in a now darkening room, the golden orb is running out of energy.

It takes me a good minute to calm down.

The city is rather dark at night, there isn’t a lot of light coming through the window. No, wait, there is some strong light in the sky. What’s that? A plane? The orb just went out so my eyes are still trying to adapt to the low luminosity.

A powerful roar resonates from outside, followed by many others ,it’s so loud the window is shaking. That’s no aircraft alright, damn is this where I die again? It’s not even my fault this time!

Fuck.

Let’s pack everything in the bag. I need to go to a safer place. Going out in the corridor the whole place instantly goes from dark to bright as day along with the deafening sound of… something? Fire? Huge rays of fire, not good. As it briefly stops, it’s clear to see, the whole other side of the street is now a flaming, fuming trench. I progress through the corridors, my eyes really don’t help, whenever a ray of flames nears the building I’m blind for a few seconds.

A large fully armored person is running up some stairs to the roof, electricity crackling all around them. The guild master protecting the city then, I doubt she can do much about the literal swarm of flying monsters outside. Prina is following a few meters behind, carrying dozens of thin long and pointy metal rods. Just before getting out of sight she turns around and our eyes meet.

“Arren, hide in the stone room, it’s open and the safest place in here, go quick!” She sounds truly concerned. You don’t need to tell me twice.

I fly down the stairs and reach the first floor, the electricity coming from the roof is getting as loud as the fire attacks.

BOOM

Something just broke the sound barrier, my ears hurt, the whole building is shaken by the shockwave. Behind the windows a small lightning bolt tears through the sky, it clearly came from the roof, a few hundred meters further, it crashes into one of the flying things. It’s no longer flying.

BOOM

I finally reach the identity stone’s room, it’s open. I won’t close the door unless I have no choice, I wouldn't want to lock them out. Even with the door half open the sounds coming from outside are muffled, the walls must be really thick.

Inside the room a hidden compartment in the wall is also open, it contains two more armor sets like the one Eviniel is wearing and a bunch of weapons, some odd trinkets are also littered on the floor. I’m not trained to use any of these, and even if I was, I’m not going out to play hero with a sharp iron stick in hand. But there’s a large rectangular shield in there, like a Roman one but fully metal. It’s not even that big but it’s still really heavy, almost as much as the training ball. I’m taking this for cover. I’d put on some armor if I could but they’re really too big for me.

Hiding in a corner of a secret compartment, in a safe room, behind a shield. I don’t feel that safe. That’s not my proudest moment either. I hope they’re alright outside.

The sounds that reach me are a lot more varied now, there should be more people fighting, I wonder if the old time mage is out there too. When can I fight like them? All I can do for now is play magic fertilizer. Ahahah, so much for the great explorer of outer space, if I still had my ship maybe… No, no way, heat shields, stuffed whipple shields, EMI shields, reactive shields… Nothing in there against car sized magical destructo-rays.

I hate how powerless I feel right now. How long can I survive in this room… Maybe a week. If I’m not a cold pile of ash by then. Can my magic help? Doubt it. If I could rewind like Veneron then perhaps, but getting to that level in such a short time? Fat chance. Can my affinity even do something like that?

I still periodically hear the sonic booms so these two on the roof should be ok… The city though. What in the world is that swarm? Why would they attack now? Are they Dragons? No with how they were talking about it during dinner if these were dragons we’d already be dead. Some kind of wyverns then, if D&D taught m-

ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR

I felt this one in my bones, even in the safe room. Maybe there IS a Dragon.

A male voice comes from outside this time, loud and clear, the speaker’s pain and loss is felt in each word.

THE CITY IS LOST

INITIATING EMERGENCY TRANSFER

PLEASE HOLD ON TO OTHER PEOPLE NEAR YOU

Does this mean what I think it means? Barely five seconds later I feel my body be stretched and pulled, like space itself is trying to tear me apart. My vision becomes increasingly weird and distorted. It hurts, everything hurts, this reminds me of my first death.

All around me, mana is quaking.

Abruptly, everything stops. Everything is black. The floor is rough and damp under me. Sounds of dripping water echo around. Where am I?

I feel blood running down my face from my eyes and nose, that’s a first. I didn’t miss the familiar salty and metallic taste in my mouth. More bad memories.

As the pain slowly leaves me, I feel my consciousness fade away.

Can’t I get a single normal night of sleep in this world?