The market place was unusually crowded due to a massive auction taking place. There were both NPCs and players present. A woman clad in black walked into the middle. Space around her emitted a blue glow preventing others from prying into her. The glow diminished as she approached a young traveller towards the front of the auction hall.
Peter turned around to find a peculiar NPC starting at her. The mana leaked out from her shrouding and isolating her from the rest around her. As their eyes met, she proceeded with a smile nudging her head for him to follow. Interested Peter followed as they entered into a back alley. The manna shroud completely vanished as they became alone.
Peter kept silent waiting for the other to speak. Although the aura behind her felt superior, here wasn't any feeling of threat to it. Seeing peters silence, The woman broke the silence. "I'm Aster."
*****
The conversation with Aster left peter perplexed. The offer was genuine but what stunned him was the information about his mana still leaking out. Becoming an elemental mage was good. The proposition to train him was great considering both their relation with Alder.
The sword mage class was great but due to the locked abilities, peter felt a need to find a new magical class until he could unlock the legendary class. The timing was great. His worries were more focused on what it might cost. Something like this was too good to be free.
But the opportunity out weighted the cost by a large margin since he was already in service of her sister, Alder. Considering his option Peter went back to the town office building looking for Alder.
"What is it?" Alder wasn't unsettled by the sudden interruption to her nap. She was still hungover. Her eyes were tired and everything around her became an eyesore. "I met someone called Aster today. She said you two were friends." Alder's interest was peaked, "What did she want?" "She asked if I would like to learn under her as an elemental mage."
Alder let out a sigh and replied, "I was going to ask her. Looks like she decided to take matters into her own hands. Mana control is very essential to alchemy. I'm restricted when it comes to teaching my skills as a mage. It would be better to learn directly from Aster. It shouldn't be too hard for you given the amount of mana you have. I can still feel it from so far away. The two discussed how Peter was progressing in his alchemy. Alder was impressed with how fast he progressed.
*****
Peter walked across the road to Aster's mansion. The area was deserted as only nobles could reach this far into the town. Thanking Alder for his noble title in his head, Peter reached the massive gate to Aster's mansion.
He was quickly escorted into the visiters hall where Aster was already waiting for him.
"How was it? Did you tell Alder about it?" Aster asked. "Lady said she was planning to request your assistance in teaching me mana control later." "Ahh yes. Her value as a talented alchemist far outstripped her value as a magic caster. Did you know what her magic affinity is?" Aster asked Peter. "No, she never mentioned anything." "She is the best healer in the country. So she kind of has a superior position even amongst the rest of the nobles."
A vivid memory of Alder fighting under the river came to Peters mind.
"Learning the elemental skills isn't easy. It's not something that can be taught. You will have to develop it your self. What I can do is however give you the basic tomes so that it will be easy for you to complete skill trees. You will understand the rest as you play around with mana."
Aster took Peter along with her to the library. There were many books about mana manipulation, complex spell structures and a few related to martial arts.
"These are all multi-use tomes. It can teach you the basic spells. It depends on your skills to enhance it further." Aster went ahead and gave four basic tier tomes to Peter. "Don't forget. All magic is personal. Don't try to imitate others. Always try to find your rhythm. If not, you will get stuck later."
*****
After walking into a deserted area outside the town, Peter started checking out his magic skill. With a short yell, he screamed 'flame' pointing at the ground further ahead.
A few sparks and nothing more came from his fingertips. 'Nothing? ' Peter was confused. It should have been easy considering his mana to create the spells but now even the simplest spell is taking a toll on him.
Basic elemental skills were supposedly the easiest to master. As long as one had the mana and made enough practice, one could master it. The only part they left out was, those who practice it all started mana manipulation from a very young age. To a traveller like Peter, forget mastering even creating sparks turned out to be vexing.
The difficulty in learning magic spells all relied on mana control and Peter had no way to figure out how to achieve the skill. After a few minutes of tinkering with the processes involved in invoking 'flame', Peter lit a flame the size of a small raindrop. It wasn't stable and exhausted almost instantly.
Achieved successful invocation of the base fire spell 'flame'. Fire element spellbook unlocked.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Mana mastery skill tree is unlocked.
Fire element skill tree is unlocked. 'Flame' added to the spellbook.
A few new tabs were added to the interface along with the notifications. Peter slowly went through the rest of the skill tree trying to figure out how much further he had to progress.
Fire Element Skill Tree.
Flame creation mastery. (0/1)
Successfully keep the flame up for three minutes.
Unlocks +1% fire affinity.
Flame control mastery. (0/1)
Control the flame with manipulation. Unlocks fireball spell.
Burned. (0/100)
Kill 100 enemies with flame.
Your flames causes burned status infliction.
To be unlocked
Mana Mastery Skill Tree
(Mana manipulation 0.1%
The total damage dealt with magic spells is increased by 0.1%.)
To be unlocked
To be unlocked
Fire element spellbook
(Current fire affinity: 1%
Total damage from fire spells: 1.1%INT)
Flame
Helpful to start a fire. Can cause friendly damage.
Tier: 1
Rarity: common
Damage: 1*fire damage*mana cost
Range: contact
Mana cost: 1
"Not bad. You should spend more time on it. It took me a week to create a flame. Must be your large mana pool helping." Aster appeared out of nowhere right next to him. "Thanks. But the damage output is too low. Sorry I didn't see you coming." "I used a displacement spell. It lets me teleport a short distance. Let me show you how big your flame can get."
Aster flicked her fingers and a flame ball the size of a basketball appeared at her fingertip. "It's not the best spells but for a utility spell, it's quite powerful when you have a higher affinity. Also, burning the dead bodies is a must so the necroes won't use them."
After showing Peter a few more spells in their full potential, Aster went back into her mansion with a pop.
After a few attempts, Peter was able to make out the water ball, mud and gentle breeze spells. Although Peter could cast a few spells, he couldn't use them in actual combat yet due to his weak they were. 'No wonder these are called utility spells.' Without a higher affinity and mana manipulation rate, he couldn't fry a chicken wing let alone a living monster. The affinity with the earth was slightly higher at 20%, but most of the earth spells involved just the basic protection types.
Remembering the tome he obtained from the dungeon, he chose to learn that as well as adding another spell into the spellbook.
Earth element spellbook
(Current earth affinity: 20%
Total effects from earth spells: 20.1%INT)
Mud
Helpful to create mud. Can cause friendly damage.
Tier: 1
Rarity: common
Damage: 1*earth damage*mana cost
Range: contact
Mana cost: 1
Landslide
Bury the enemy under a pile of earth. Higher damage to targets closer to the epicentre. Frozen status debuff.
Tier: 3
Rarity: Rare
Damage: 3*earth damage*mana cost
Range: AOE, 5-20 meters
Mana cost: 200
Cast time: 3 seconds
'At least I have one spell that I could use now.'
*****
"Peter, we just finished the daily progress assessment. We were able to create 5000 level 30 armour so far. All of them were common tier. If we need a better rarity you will have to chip in." Eric called Peter over as it was almost night time. Most of the people in the guild used public game centres as they couldn't yet afford a private capsule. Peter was not in a position to take them all into the business as there were too many to account for. "Light bringer and Moonshine were able to complete their promotion to tier 3. We have two third-tier blacksmiths now. Also, Alex asked if we have any alchemists with us. He wants potions mass-produced."
"Tell Alex potions are hard to get but I will try. Also, ask him if he needs any strength boost potions. I have a few readily available." The timing was too perfect for this to be a coincidence. 'I get a potion recipe and now he needs potions? Looks like one of the girls is leaking info.' Thinking about it, Peter didn't see any issue revealing the details. "Also let him know that I can make healing potions. They don't heal much."
*****
The grassland outside Hedgesnow was filled with horned rabbits as usual. The area had seen fewer players as most had out levelled it and went looking for better pasture. 'Perfect. Time to level up.' The rabbits had a natural flaw. They were weak against ranged attacks. Peter took out all the rabbits in the area with massive landslide barrages thanks to his insane mana pool. The poor things didn't stand a chance with their measly 50 HP.
You killed 52x horned rabbits. You received 2080 experience, 28x rabbit horns.
You have levelled up.
You have levelled up.
You have levelled up.
You have levelled up.
You have levelled up.
'Level 5.' Peter had to wait a few minutes for the rabbits to respawn.
Soon the rabbits respawned to only meet it instantly to another landslide.
You killed 48x horned rabbits. You received 1920, 32x rabbit horns.
'This is too easy.' The experience gained was too low to make much sense for Peter. The ranged magic caused too much damage instant killing all the lower level monsters. The experience gain was good so Peter stuck to it slowly reaching level 10.
'I'm almost out of mana.' The constant use of mana was draining Peter's stamina.
*****
"Jude, there is something wrong with these charts." An overworked staff who was going through a few colour plots shouted at the top of his voice.
"Who's charts?" A sharp female voice rose followed by a blonde head from one of the last cubicles. "I'll be with you right away." She mumbled to the one sitting in front of a computer screen. She went over and took the charts away from him.
"What's wrong with it?" Jude glossed over the paper and enquired.
"This is that subject's chart. A few days ago it was in the expected ranges but now it's too far beyond the outliners. There are considerable changes in the fluctuations as well. It seems the subject is slowly evolving in perception and understanding of the new laws we added into the world."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Jude was confused by her assistant's description.
"It's too early. We need at least a few million subjects entering into the new law defined worlds to get a decent sample space. There is a very high chance that this one could influence the rest into its understanding of the laws."
"What good is it to us know. Do you think it's possible to delay and block it's access to the new systems?" Jude was getting restless over the seconds. If any of the specimens deviate from the trajectory, it was her head on the line. "At the moment no. There isn't much we can do here unless you want to perform a clean wipe." After contemplating for a few seconds Jude replied, "I will take it upstairs." She took the charts and left while the team continued their monitoring.
*****