I finished writing the remainder of Book 7 (4 chapters after this one), but I haven't proofread them yet. Maybe in a few hours?
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Zedd was furiously at work on the anti-magic barrier that Garnet had asked him to make. "Any progress?" Garnet asked.
"I'll need to borrow one of your elemental spirits," said Zedd.
"Recall!" Garnet recalled Nuria.
"What am I doing here?" Nuria asked.
"A test," said Garnet.
"Stand right here," said Zedd as he pointed to a magic circle that had no markings on the inside. "Now, stand still and don't move."
"Fire Bolt!" Zedd fired a shot at Nuria, but Nuria absorbed it.
"What happened?" Garnet asked.
"The magic circle redirects elemental based magic to one of the spirits located in the magic circle," Zedd explained. "With enough spirits, you can neutralize all elements. There's room for a maximum a hundred and eight spirits if we deployed a full magic circle like this around the city."
Garnet took a quick account of the spirit elements that she had. Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, Wood, and Ice. Six elements in all, but also the four most common. If she included herself and it worked, lightning would be another. "It will take the spirits out of combat would it not?" Garnet asked.
"Yes," said Zedd. "That is the problem."
"Can you deploy this over the city and show the spirits where they will have to be?" Garnet asked. "It's better than nothing."
"Sure thing," said Zedd. "Could you come help as well?"
"Sure," said Garnet.
Garnet's spirits would not be able to do much in this battle, but it meant that most of the enemies would have to force their way inside the city before they could attack it with magic and this was a huge advantage for Garnet's own forces.
"Focus your mana and let me guide it," said Zedd.
Garnet began to channel mana as Zedd placed his hand over hers. The mana began to flow outward, engraving a magic circle using the city walls to form the outside of it. The inside of it was etched in place with Garnet's own mana. Within minutes it was done. In the corner of her eye, Garnet noticed that Zedd had hit level 100 himself. By completing Garnet's requests, Zedd was essentially completing his own quests and getting experience from them. The more difficult the request, the greater the experience.
Meanwhile, the number of undead that marched toward the city continued to increase. There were more magic circles out there that continuously spawned them. Garnet was unable to discover the source of all of them. For now, it was great experience for the automata, but they could not keep this up forever. At some point, they would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers alone.
New Quest: Zedd's Ascension
Help Zedd achieve a new class
Reward: Experience
New Feature Unlocked: Promotion
Allows you to upgrade the class of a loyal ally
Garnet took a look at the Menu and saw that there was an exclamation mark next to Party. As she pressed it, there was an exclamation mark next to Zedd's name. When she pushed it, she saw five options with Promote and Squire greyed out.
Change to Party Leader
Class Change
Expel
Promote
Squire
Garnet pressed Class Change and saw Zedd's stats
Name: Zedd
Level: 100
Class: Grand Wizard
Sub-Class: Summoner
Stats:
Strength: 291
Dexterity: 507
Intelligence: 2816
Vitality: 960
Agility: 809
Charisma: 72
Options:
1) Conjurer Mage
"Your stats are incredible," said Garnet.
"Can you tell me what it says," said Zedd.
"Yes," said Garnet. "You have more than eight times the intelligence that I have and all of your other stats except strength are significantly higher than me. I can even upgrade your class."
"You mean I can skip the trials?" said Zedd.
"I think so," said Garnet.
"What are my choices?" Zedd asked.
"Just one, Conjurer Mage," said Garnet.
"Select it for me," said Zedd without hesitation.
"Are you sure?" Garnet asked.
"Yes," said Zedd. "To be able to skip the difficult trials is huge."
Garnet pressed Magic Creator and saw Zedd's stats change.
Name: Zedd
Level: 1
Class: Magic Creator
Sub-Class: Summoner
Stats:
Strength: 391
Dexterity: 607
Intelligence: 2916
Vitality: 1060
Agility: 909
Charisma: 112
All of Zedd's stats except Charisma went up by a hundred points. This was most likely the power of Ascension that Assad had talked about. His health and mana ratios also improved significantly. "I'll have to test my limits later," said Zedd.
"Be sure to teach me anything interesting you learn," said Garnet.
"Maybe you should take some time to read those books you got already," said Zedd.
"Ugh," Garnet groaned. "Those things are so boring. I'd rather have someone teach it to me."
Garnet knew that she had better things to do. For now, the endless stream of undead that approached slowly provided Garnet with a unique opportunity to train her skills. The enemies were weak, but appeared in large numbers. They were slow and gave her an opportunity to have her mistakes unpunished. "I'm going to train on those undead instead," said Garnet.
The Staff of Transformations was something that Garnet had not used yet either. With the Staff of Transformations in hand, Garnet headed to the Western Walls and began to use the techniques that she learned, smashing her staff against some of the undead.
Staff of Transformations: Sword Unlocked
The sword was the first thing that was unlocked. It made sense considering that it was the most common weapon and what many people preferred. As Garnet pictured the image of a sword, the staff she held transformed into it. It was the familiar form of the Excalibur Replica that she had been using so far. "Horizontal Slash!"
Sword based skills worked with the Staff of Transformations as well. As long as the Staff of Transformations can transform into that weapon, Garnet would be able to use the skills. Sunny had a ridiculous number of transformations on his Staff of Transformations. To achieve mastery with so many different weapon types was no easy feat.
Name: Skeleton
Level: 8
Class: Undead
Sub-Class: None
Stats: ???
The undead were higher level than the time when Garnet fought against Marianne. "Wait a minute," Garnet thought to herself. If they did continue to level up, then it was going to be a real problem. The only reason why they were manageable right now was because of their low levels despite their numbers. If the undead did level up and become stronger, they could eventually be strong enough to push through the walls of Constantinople. For now, it was best to be safe than sorry.
"Recall!" Garnet called Nian to her.
Nian quickly took a look around itself to get a hold of where it is. "I'm outside the city?"
"I need you to find magic circles for me," said Garnet.
"Any idea what they look like?" Nian asked.
Garnet shook her head. "No," she said. "But they should be coming from where these undead are coming."
Nian split into multiple copies of itself. "I'll leave one with you so I can inform you when I find one," said Nian.
"Alright," said Garnet as she pushed her way through the undead.
Staff of Transformations: Fan Unlocked
"Fan?" Garnet thought. As she focused the sword in her hand turned into a black and red metal fan connected by a deep purple cloth. The metal parts almost looked like knives.
Name: Staff of Transformations
Level: 1
Quality: Mythical
Effect: 2/2 transformations
For now the Staff of Transformations was capped out on the number of transformations. For sure, Garnet thought that she was going to get some hand type of weapon considering how much she used her palm strikes compared to other things.
As Garnet cut her way through the undead, she spotted a location from which the undead were rising from the ground. As the skeleton rose from the ground, the ground quickly repaired itself, hiding the fact that it had even been there. "It looks like that's where it's coming from," said Garnet.
"It's strange," said Nian. "The ground here is being covered by some kind of magical power that hides its presence."
"I'm guessing the enemy wants to wear us down before the big fight," said Garnet.
"That would make sense," said Nian. "But it fortunately also allowed those machines to get stronger."
"Teleportation Summoning Circle!" Garnet laid her own magic circle over theirs like Zedd had done. The undead stopped appearing from it. "It worked!"
"Did you think it would not?" Nian asked.
"I only saw Zedd do it once," Garnet replied. "This was my first time trying it myself."
Nian sighed. "You humans are satisfied by the smallest things," it said.
"By the way, are you a boy or a girl?" Garnet asked.
"What do you mean?" Nian asked.
"I've always thought of you as an it because I've been unsure, but are you a male or a female?" Garnet asked.
"Our species has no concept of gender, so you can call yourself me you want," said Nian.
Garnet had a bunch of questions about how that would work, but she decided it was best not to pry too deep. "I'm going to continue referring to you as an it then," said Garnet. "I'm just used to it now."
"One of my bodies is fighting against someone," said Nian.
"Lead the way," said Garnet. "Flight!"
Nian ran quickly. Garnet followed as close as she could from behind, but could not keep up. "Transformation: Queen of the Night! Transformation: Lightning Form!"
With her increased speed from her transformation, Garnet was able to overtake Nian just for a little before slowing down. Nian ran off the main road and onto the plains. It was here that Garnet saw numerous undead rising from the ground all around. It was likely that there were multiple magic circles here that were calling forth the undead. At the center of it all was Marianna in scales of gold, who was clashing with Nian.
"She's a match for you," said Garnet.
"She's a match for a fraction of my power," said Nian. "If I concentrated all my bodies here, it would be easy to defeat her."
"No," said Garnet. "You need to find the other magic circles as well, that's more important. I'll fight her. I need you to do one thing for me though."
"What is it?" Nian asked.
"When we fought last, she was able to hide her presence and escape, I need you to be able to track her," said Garnet. "Do you think you can do it?"
"I can try," said Nian. "Do you have any information that might help me?"
Garnet thought about it. "She summoned something called Seele to heal herself before calling another called Void to hide her presence," she said.
"Are you sure it's not space-time magic?" Nian asked.
"I'm not sure," said Garnet. "That's why I need you who seems to have a knack for this to try to do it."
"Alright," said Nian. "I'll do my best."
"I'm counting on you," said Garnet as she flew towards Marianne.
As Garnet flew towards the fight, the first Nian waited while the second Nian began to use long range attacks. "Fire Bomb!" A ball of fire flew from Nian's mouth towards Marianne.
Marianne slapped the ball aside with her hand as the gold aura released a huge amount of mana. Garnet flew towards Marianne, transforming her staff into a sword. "Horizontal Slash!"
BAM. Garnet's sword crashed against Marianne's gold scales. The scales felt and sounded like scales to Garnet, but the texture of it appeared to be a rough metal that was yellowish in color. "You again!" shouted Marianne.
"So you can talk!" Garnet shouted back. "Here I thought you were some kind of deaf mute."
"I'm here for one purpose and one purpose only!" Marianne shouted as she fired a purple bolt of fire at Garnet from her arm.
"Care to tell me what that is?" Garnet asked as she quickly dodged to the side as the purple bolt flew at her. The bolt singed her hair as it flew by. BOOM. Garnet heard the explosion. Marianne sacrificed the speed she had with her first bow for power.
As Garnet refocused her attention on Marianne, Marianne had already prepared the next bolt. Garnet flew as fast as she could in circles around Marianne, forcing both of them to engage in close range combat.
"Demon Fist!" Marianne's entire arm glowed red as she flew towards Garnet.
"Crescent Slash!" Garnet swung her sword to strike Marianne's arm.
BAM. Garnet's sword crashed against Marianne's arm pushing it aside.
BWOOM. Marianne's arm released a red aura that shot forward like a beam of fire. Had Garnet blocked it, she would have taken the full force of that blast. "You know, I didn't think there were many others that could transform like me," said Garnet.
Marianne did not respond to Garnet's words. "I was surprised when there was an entire group of people out there that had the ability to transform," Garnet continued.
The bow on Marianne's arm began to glow. As she pulled back on it, a large purple bolt with a black outline appeared. PEW. As she released it, a high pitched noise could be heard. The arrow exploded in mid-air with no noise. Instead, it began to draw in wind. The pull from it got stronger as the explosion began to expand, pulling Garnet in with greater force. Luckily for Garnet, her wings allowed her to move despite the pull from the blast. If she could not fly, she was certain to get dragged into the blast.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The arrow changed color. It was now a solid golden color. As Marianne released it, there was no sound this time. It was slower so Garnet was able to move out of the day. THUD. The arrow hit the ground hard, leaving a crater in the ground. It did not explode or have any special effects. It just hit hard. If Garnet had been pulled in by the purple arrow, the golden one would have surely finished her off.
"Lightning Fire Bolt!" Garnet fired several bolts of her own.
"Crystal Bolt!" Marianne returned her own shots, completely white in color.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. The sound of explosions rang out as their bolts met in mid-air. Every single one of Garnet's bolts were countered by one from Marianne. CLANG. The Crystal Bolts shattered as they came into contact with the Lightning Fire Bolts and they scattered in Garnet's direction. The fact that Garnet's own Lightning Fire magic could be neutralized by Marianne meant that they were of at least the same tier if not higher.
"Water Wall!" Garnet raised a wall of water, trapping the crystal shards in the water.
Marianne readied her bow again, but shrunk its size down. As she pulled back on it, the bow expanded greatly. Wings of different elements appeared on Marianne's back: fire, ice, wind, water, earth, poison, wood, a purple light, a white light, and a solid gold. Ten in total. Each of them began to grow in size as Marianne slowly pulled back. The light then began to gather into a single arrow in front of her.
"Transform! Transform: Temptress of the Night!" Garnet had to undo her own Lightning Form in order to use her strongest attack because of maximum mana reduction.
"Crimson Lotus: Blade of Lightning!" Garnet prepared her own strongest attack as well. Marianne seemed to want to settle it with one strike. She was going to do the same. She focused as much mana as she could into it.
Meanwhile, Garnet could see that Marianne's arrow was imbued with the power of all of Marianne's wings, causing the arrow to glow with a rainbow light. Garnet raised the sword she had high into the air.
Marianne's eyes focused on Garnet, waiting for Garnet to swing her sword. "Here I go!" Garnet shouted as she swung her sword.
"Ether Bolt!" Marianne released the arrow towards Garnets.
BOOM. In an instant, the two collided, sending Garnet flying backwards. BANG. The explosive force caused Garnet to crash into the ground.
Level Up: Mana Armor (Level 3)
"Are you okay?" a small silhouette asked.
It took a moment for Garnet to regain her bearings. She recognized the silhouette as Nian, who had come running over to her. "Are you okay?" Nian asked again.
"Yeah," Garnet groaned as she put her hand to her head. "Cough," Garnet spat some blood out of her mouth. She was hurt just a little, but she was fine.
Nian used his mouth to help pull Garnet up into a sitting position. "Where is she?" Garnet asked.
"There," said Nian as he looked towards a crater on the other end.
As Garnet looked, the entire field was scorched black. It was possible to tell where their spells had met as it was the epicenter of a giant black mark on the ground. At the opposite end of it was a crater, much like the one Garnet was in.
Garnet slowly walked over. She could feel some aching all over her body from the impact. As she looked in the corner of her eye, her HP was still nearly full. Her mana was full too. It was likely that the impact had crushed her mana enough to damage her HP, but she had recovered mana by the time she awoke. She looked at herself and saw that she was still transformed. Since maximum mana was the cost, the transformation was maintained, even if mana reached zero.
Garnet looked around. The other Nian was still smashing all the undead that were rising from the ground. As Garnet walked over to the other crater, she saw Marianne lying there still. "Looks, like, you, won, this, round," she groaned with her eyes partially open. "But, I, won, the, war, heh."
Marianne was not protected by the effects of something like Mana Shield or Mana Armor or it was weak enough to the point that it was not enough to mitigate the damage. She took the full force of the blast. Garnet watched as Marianne continued to try to pick herself up, but could not do much other than move her shoulders just a little. Garnet began to realize how powerful something like Mana Shield or Mana Armor was. It was enough to make the difference between life and death on more than one occasion. If Marianne had not expended mana prior to using the spell, it might have killed Garnet.
"Embodiment of Lust!" Garnet grabbed onto Marianne hoping to get some answers. She also needed Marianne's abilities, meaning that using a Revenant to do it was not a real option.
"Ugh," Marianne groaned.
"Who do you work with?" Garnet asked.
"Dark Mages," Marianne said weakly.
"Are you a Council member?" Garnet asked.
"Yes," said Marianne.
"What are the Dark Mages planning?" Garnet asked.
"Overrun the city with undead and take over," said Marianne.
"How many magic circles are there?" Garnet asked.
Marianne coughed up a huge amount of blood. She could no longer speak and was blinking her eyes. She was almost like she was trying to force herself to answer Garnet's questions by messaging with her eyes, but Garnet could not understand it anymore. Garnet took her sword once more and stabbed Marianne in the glowing spot in her chest with it. "Essence Absorption!"
Stat Increase: Strength+10
Stat Increase: Dexterity+30
Stat Increase: Intelligence+20
Stat Increase: Vitality+5
New Skill:
Note: Requires Earth Element
New Skill: Spirit Union
Allows you to temporarily fuse with one of your spirits, borrowing their powers and physiology. Cannot be used with transformations acquired through Essence Absorption of your own spells
MP Cost: 1000
New Skill: Spirit Link (Passive)
Allows you to send and receive telepathic messages from spirits
New Skill: Final Strike
A miracle class spell that puts all of your mana into a single powerful multi-elemental spell. It is recommended that you are grounded and have wings to brace for the recoil to be used.
MP Cost: 100% of current mana, damage dealt is increased based on amount of mana spent
It was the skill that Marianne was using. It was definitely potent considering the damage that was caused by the collision between their spells. However, Garnet would need more spirits to get the full effect of it.
Marianne's body disappeared, leaving behind the book that she had on her.
Name: Book of the Dead
Quality: Mythical
Effect: Allows for summoning of low level undead without the need for vessels. MP cost of undead summoning is reduced by 80%. Summoning times reduced by 90%.
Note: Part of the Necronomicon Set [1/12]
Garnet bent over and picked it up. She put it away in her Inventory. She needed to test it out and see how it worked later. There were others like it out there as well. The one Xiaomei and Crossen had was different as well.
Garnet had one more thing she had to do, neutralize the magic circles here. She made her way over to each of them, creating a Teleportation Summoning Circle over them in order to neutralize the threat. "Are you okay?" Nian asked.
"Yeah," said Garnet. Her body was still aching a little from the crash against the ground, but it mostly disappeared. When she got hurt, she was able to recover quickly. It was one of the benefits of the Hero System.
"I think you should rest a little," said Nian worryingly. "I'll ask Zedd to take care of the other magic circles that I've found."
"No, I'll finish it," said Garnet. Zedd was busy working to try to create a barrier that could protect the city. It was best not to pull him away until it was absolutely necessary. Even with the benefits of the Hero System, it was clear that fatigue still affected her even though it was not a visible stat of any kind. While her summons and contracted creatures seemed to be largely immune to this, Garnet herself was not immune.
Spoiler :
Name: Garnet
Level: 44
Class: Chaos Mage / Queen / Hero
Sub-class: Queen of the Night
Stats:
HP: 3400/3400
MP: 12060/12060
Fame: 220
Strength: 132 (+5)
Dexterity: 112 (+7)
Intelligence: 356 (+22)
Vitality: 105 (+5)
Agility: 134 (+7)
Charisma: 42 (+20)
PROFICIENCY:Weapon:
- One Handed Sword – 7
- Hand to Hand – 4
- Staff - 1
Magic:
- Fire – 10
- Lightning – 15
- Wind – 7
- Water - 2
- Summoning – 12
- Blood – 6
- Shadow - 0
SKILLS:Weapon (One Handed Sword):
- Horizontal Slash (Level 3)
- Double Slash (Level 3)
- Crescent Slash (Level 1)
- Triple Slash (Level 1)
- Delta Attack (Level 1)
- Spiral (Level 1)
Weapon (Hand to Hand):
- Palm Strike (Level 1)
- Wind Palm (Level 2)
- Explosive Palm (Level 3)
- Lightning Palm (Level 1)
- Sweeping Kick (Level 1)
- Horizontal Kick (Level 1)
- Uppercut (Level 1)
- Ki Burst (Level 1)
- Demsey Roll (Level 1)
Weapon (Staff):
- Thrust (Level 2)
- Swinging Smash (Level 1)
- Double Strike (Level 1)
- Triple Strike (Level 1)
- Quadruple Strike (Level 1)
- Vertical Smash (Level 1)
Class (Dark Mage):
- Fire Bolt (Level 5)
- Fire Ball (Level 2)
- Incinerate (Level 1)
- Fire Breath (Level 1)
- Lightning Bolt (Level 8)
- Chain Lightning (Level 4)
- Lightning Ray (Level 3)
- Lightning Blast (Level 1)
- Lightning Breath (Level 1)
- Light (Level 1)
- Air Bullet (Level 4)
- Wind Blade (Level 1)
- Wind Breath (Level 1)
- Aqua Strike (Level 2)
- Jet Stream (Level 2)
- Aqua Breath (Level 1)
- Shadow Bind (Level 1)
- Shadow Grip (Level 1)
- Shadow Crush (Level 1)
- Shadow Wall (Level 1)
- Heat Wave (Level 1)
- Lightning Fire Bolt (Level 3)
- Crimson Lotus: Blade of Lightning (Level 2)
- Tri-Element Breath (Level 1)
- Mugen (Level 1)
- Mana Armor (Level 2)
- Call: Cerberus (Level 1)
- Call: Revenant (Level 1)
- Call: Death Knight (Level 1)
- Call: Romulus, Knight of Blood (Level 1)
- Call: Sylvia, Priestess of Blood (Level 1)
- Call: Lilith (Level 1)
- Call: Nuria (Level 1)
- Call: Mazu (Level 1)
- Call: Sino (Level 1)
- Call: Meliae (Level 1)
- Call: Serena (Level 1)
- Call: Nian (Level 1)
- Call: Sunny (Level 1)
- Recall
- Dismiss
- Quintessence Force (Level 1)
- Lightning Fire (Passive)
- Essence Absorption (Level 1)
- Blood Bind (Level 1)
- Blood Scythe (Level 2)
- Blood Sacrifice (Level 1)
- Blood Bullet (Level 1)
- Transformation: Lightning Form (Level 1)
- Teleportation (Level 1)
- Teleportation Summoning Circle (Level 1)
- Instance Dungeon Creation (Level 1)
- Spirit Union
- Spirit Link (Passive)
- Final Strike (Level 1)
Sub-class (Queen of the Night):
- Supernatural Body (Level 1)
- Captivation (Level 3)
- Cosmic Awareness (Level 1, Passive)
- Embodiment of Lust (Level 1)
- Shadow Warp (Level 1)
- Sonic Scream (Level 1)
- Doppelganger (Level 1)
- Flight (Level 1)
- Aura of Nightmares (Level 1, Passive)
- Plate Armor (Level 1, Passive)
- Transformation (Level 1)
- Partial Transformation (Level 1)
- Transformation: Queen of the Night (Level 1)
Tradeskills:
- Hunting (Level 5) - Hunter
- Cooking (Level 9) - Cook
- Inspection (Level 5)
- Sewing (Level 4) – Tailor
- Advanced Magicraft (Level 1) – Alchemist
- Magic Seal (Level 1)
- Advanced Enhancement (Level 1) - Alchemist
- Disassemble (Level 1)
- Inventory Expansion (Level 4)
Passives:
- Hand to Hand (Level 1)
- One Handed Sword (Level 1)
- Staff (Level 1)
- Reflex (Level 5)
- Haste (Level 2)
- Scale Armor (Level 1)
- Aura of Leadership (Level 1)
- Aura of the Hero (Level 1)
- Summoning Commander (Level 1)
- Queen's Presence (Level 1)
- Fire Mastery (Level 1)
Unique:
- Hero System (Level 3, Passive)
- Minion Development (Level 2, Passive)
- Otherworldly Knowledge (Passive)
- Golden Tongue (Passive)
- Mana Compatibility (Passive)
- Quick Learner (Passive)
- Channeling (Passive)
- Charging (Passive)
- Night Vision (Passive)
- Guardian Contract (Level 1)
- Thaumaturgy (Passive)
- Magic Negation (Passive)