Chapter 117.

Amber stared down at the ground inside the training room, there was a pool of blood at her feet. She stared at the tip of her fingers, at first it had been practically impossible to carve runes into her body given the fact that they would just heal nearly instantly. But she had finally figured out a way, with Cursed Creation; with it she could make the runes out of solid curse constructs.

However, that hadn’t been her breakthrough, nor had it been the fact that she was able to dig the runes into her flesh with that. But rather, that had been just the start of the breakthrough.

She rubbed her fingers together, a weird dissonance in her flesh present, and slightly painful because of the runes she had embedded within. The runes in her fingers were: “precision” and “flaring”. And, just moments earlier they didn’t even exist.

She turned to the surroundings, where charred parts were everywhere. Finally, she turned to the end of the room that was intact. The training rooms were meant to withstand even level 300 spells, so it wasn’t an issue for her to blow it up as she saw fit. So for her to try things as many times as she wanted wasn’t an issue.

Besides, I have to make sure I wasn’t wrong…

“First… what I was doing…”

Amber raised her fingers, crackling with electricity, and then she flared her Essence as she scribbled with it on the air for a moment before she flicker her fingers.

“Thunder.”

In a single moment, two bolts of lightning exploded in the distance, but immediately dissipated and her fingers felt like they were burning. That was what had happened. She had progressed a bit with Lightning Storm and using electricity in general. However, she had also continuously experimented with runes as a whole.

“And now… what I discovered.”

Amber took a deep breath unsure if it had been a fluke or not. Fire ignited at the tip of her fingers, and she slowly made out a bow of flames, then an arrow, one that was made out of Essence from her right hand ⁠— the same Essence ⁠— that had the runes.

It was something she had done out of morbid curiosity earlier.

Now comes the interesting part…

Amber pushed Essence with the rune of precision into the arrow as it began to glow brighter, specifically concentrating it into the center for stability, and then she switched to the rune of flaring⁠, pushing it through it and into the arrow.

She frowned as pain came from her fingers, and the arrow began to flare up with fire, then as she pushed more to finish the arrow her fingers⁠—

Exploded.

Blood splattered as the arrow fizzled out without Essence to maintain it, falling to the ground and without it reaching its final form unable to explode. She stared at her missing fingers as they slowly remade themselves from her passive regeneration, and she grinned.

It really is a breakthrough.

“Runes really can interact with the skills…”

It was quite literally something that would superpower her Essence, however there was a problem. A big one. She frowned, placing her newly regenerated fingers on her chin.

“The rules of enchantment demand that the material has enough capacity to maintain the mana flowing through the runes, otherwise it’ll explode…”

It basically meant her fingers couldn’t hold enough Essence ⁠— nor could her hand for that matter. She rubbed them together. She was no stranger to the weakness of her flesh, ever since a young age it had been there, but she didn’t expect it to come in such a way while in Vir.

“Still, maybe my bones are more durable…”

Also, she was already thinking of the potential of engraving her entire body with runes and using God’s Physique to a new peak. That was what she wanted.

However, given the sheer amount of runes needed she wanted to make it permanent since redoing so many runes would be a pain. Tattoos were perhaps an option since magic just required the conduit of the rune to be a different material than the base it was set on. In fact, the conduit’s material didn’t matter at all so long as it accepted mana in the first place given the fact that the base was the limiting factor.

And that thought⁠— annoyed her again.

“My body is actually too weak for this…”

She was quite sure that if she got all her body tattoo’d up ⁠— assuming they didn’t automatically heal ⁠— her limbs would probably explode from the strain she’d put them through. She struggled to believe it considering she had survived so many battles, but it was a fact.

“Time to try my bones I guess.”

Amber immediately raised her right hand and with her left hand she flicked her finger with a flare of Essence and⁠— Blood splattered as she chopped off her finger, completely overdoing how much strength she wanted to use.

“Oops.”

It hurt⁠— a lot in fact⁠— she was just used to that kind of pain at this point given how many times her bones were broken in battle. She raised her finger to look at it regenerating and the door opened. She turned only to see Maxwell staring at her, his eyes wide in shock.

“Are you okay?!” he asked, immediately teleporting over to her.

Amber blinked as her hands were held with a worried look.

“W-What happened?”

“The scientific method I guess?” Amber second-guessed.

Maxwell blinked and then looked down, his eyes growing wide. “A-Are those finger parts…” he turned. “W-Wait is that a hand?”

Trouble. Amber grabbed him by the shoulders and made him face her. The man paused and she spoke.

“Those are just the effects of the curses I’m experimenting with, please do not worry. I’m sure that as a researcher you’ve done a dangerous thing or two.”

He paused. “Right… I have.”

His eyes darted towards her hand but saw it completely intact aside from the blood, which made him relax as he sighed.

“I’m just glad you weren’t hurt.”

“Why did you come?” Amber asked, curiously, letting him go.

“Oh, Grand Mage Labaum wants to see you,” he said.

Amber blinked, not expecting that.

This was the first time the lightning mage requested to see her since their meeting a few days ago, so she had absolutely no idea what he’d need.

“By the way, are you really okay?” Maxwell asked, concern evident in his face. “You’ve been studying this non-stop…”

“I’m fine, besides I made an interesting discovery.”

“Is that so?” Maxwell asked, unsure if those were good news or not.

Amber pondered, “Has anyone tried to engrave spells into their flesh?”

Maxwell’s eyes widened before he took a step back, sighing.

“There has.”

“And what happened?” She raised her head in curiosity.

Maxwell closed his eyes, but there was no pain, simply disappointment.

“It’s a subject that multiple mages have tried to explore for thousands of years, and every single time it ends in the same result.”

“Death?” Amber raised her brow.

He chuckled. “Technically yes, but the result is always the body being unable to endure the strain caused from the runes. No one has managed to achieve good results for anything above the 1st tier of magic.”

So level 100…

“I see. Has anyone tried their bones instead?” she asked, masking her disappointment.

Maxwell paused. “Not that I know of. Who on Vir would do something so insane?”

Amber shook her head and walked past him, “I see, I’m going to go see Grand Mage now.”

Maxwell looked back, then at the blood all around but said nothing. And it wasn’t only till Amber reached the door that he spoke.

“You are thinking of using your bones aren’t you?”

Amber chuckled. “Of course not.”

And with those words, she left her somewhat lost elven teacher into the room and made her way to see the mage that had graciously provided her with a way to grow stronger. At this point she had gotten used to the academy, so it didn’t take long for her to reach his building, hear a few snide and annoying comments, before finally reaching his office.

Strangely enough after she had gotten the Lightning Storm spell the discrimination from the other mages had gotten worse. She had begun to be called a ‘pest’ a ‘plague’, she was basically very unwelcome though the comments went in one ear and out the other. Amber knocked on the door before opening without actually waiting to hear the reply.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I’m here.”

The familiar elven mage stood from his desk. “Marvelous, that was much faster than I thought. Though I see you’re still a warrior.”

“I have the perfect class for myself, so yes,” Amber answered curtly, suddenly irritated.

The man laughed. “Perhaps, but I’m sure your thirst for knowledge wants to be able to go wild, and your class won’t let you do it.”

She frowned. “What did you call me for?”

“Oh, I was wondering if you’d be interested in an opportunity.” He pulled back, walking towards the window. “If you could reach the heights of magic immediately would you reach for that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Answer me honestly, I feel like you hide a lot of yourself to me,” he said simply.

“I’m not hiding anything more so than keeping the peace, but in short: no I wouldn’t reach for that if it’s unearned,” she answered simply.

He looked back. “Unearned?”

Amber shook her head. “If a god came up to me and turned me into a god I’d honestly be kind of pissed, so hopefully that answers your question.”

The mage seemed surprised before he turned back to the window. “I see. I can’t say I feel the same way, I wish to see the apex of all magic after all, I want to experience it.”

Amber said nothing and just stared at him, and a moment later he glanced back smiling.

“You know, a lot of other people share that goal, and it actually seems that the Upper Council — you know, the advisors of the Patriarch ⁠— is hiding something.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, I also wanted to tell you that you should be careful. People are… fed up with your presence,” he said, second-guessing. “Not because you’re a human but because⁠—”

“Because I'm a warrior, I know.” A sigh left her.

It was surprising to her that the discrimination she was facing was due to her class rather than something else all things considered.

“Was that everything you needed?”

He thought. “There is one more thing⁠—”

And the door swung open as four elves walked in.

“Grand Mage Lubaum we were wondering if⁠—”

And the man speaking paused seeing her. All of them looked at her with confusion and Amber recognized them⁠— two of them were two friends that constantly gossiped about her, and the other was some man that had audibly scoffed when asking him the whereabouts of a book.

“What is she doing here?” one of them asked accusingly.

Lubaum smiled. “I invited her to ask her to become my personal student.”

Amber raised her brow. “Did you⁠⁠—”

“Please reconsider,” an elf sputtered.

“That’s right sir, she’s a warrior,” another argued.

“She doesn’t even learn from all the books she occupies!”

At that, the Grand Mage frowned. “Her class is of no concern to me, and she does in fact learn. I’ve never seen such a great learner as well. I truly believe that she’ll make great contributions to the field of magic.”

“B-But sir⁠—”

“Wait,” Amber interrupted, getting the attention of everyone. “When did I agree to study under him?”

And there was silence, before Lubaum simply laughed. The elves however were staring at her in disbelief, and then one pointed at her.

“Then I, the Mage Laslin, challenge you to a duel to obtain your opportunity.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t even make sense, if you want it, take it.”

“That’s not how it works, there is honor in magic,” he argued. “I can’t just waltz and take your opportunity; in fact I’m sure everyone here wants to duel you.”

And they all nodded. Amber found the notion ridiculous but she wasn’t all that used to elven culture or rather magic culture. She was quite sure Silvette would find this stupid as well based on what she knew of the girl. And well, someone did find it funny, the Grand Mage laughed.

“Oh please, why would I take any of you as students? Amber at least is trying to revolutionize magic.”

“Am I?”

“Maxwell, has told me about how you’re trying to use runes to increase your strength,” he said. “Which is a noble pursuit. In fact, why don’t you tell me how you overcome the limitation of the base material for enchantment.”

“You mean the weakness of the flesh?” Amber asked, confused.

“Is that what you call your armor?” He raised his brow. “Anyway, I’d love to hear all about your future plans, and maybe if the people present listened to you, maybe they could see why I hold you in such high regard. You are a studious individual after all,” he said simply.

Amber took a step back. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea for me to tell you that.”

A man scoffed. “Of course, it’s because you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m sure if you tell us you’d change the minds of a lot of people today,” he pressed.

“Right…” Amber hesitated, but ultimately was more open to it in spite of knowing the potential reactions. “It’ll be very graphic.”

“That’s fine, right?” Lubaum looked over at the mages. “We aren’t scared of a little blood, are we?”

They nodded resolutely, and Amber sighed.

I may regret this. But then again if she indulged in this and showed how unhinged her plans truly were then they’d leave her alone.

“Well, I guess. You mentioned armor, but I don’t really have a good material to enchant, also I don’t want to become an artifact manufacturer or anything.”

“So you’re just a phony?” an elf stepped forward.

“No, so I decided that I’d use my body instead to hold the runes and enhancements, because I am ultimately a warrior and a berserker, and I don’t wish to betray that,” Amber replied simply, getting the attention of everyone. “Which is why, I’ve been experimenting with this.”

Amber put her hands together and made one of the runes out of curses, catching everyone’s attention.

“What are those…”

“Interesting…”

She showed it to everyone. “Anyway, these are solid curses, since it doesn’t really matter what kind of material I use for the rune and I think tattoos will get healed right off. As for ink, it instantly got combusted when I tried it.”

They all nodded, but Lubaum raised his brow.

“But how do you fuse that curse with your body?”

“Oh, that’s simple. I cut my flesh open and put it inside like an implant.” She said before summoning her smallest and most normal looking sword and cutting into her finger, making people wince, then she stuck it into her hand. “Like so.”

“Right…”

They all looked at her weirdly but seemed mainly surprised if not fascinated by the fact that her wound healed nearly instantly. And also rather impressed. Which Amber took as a cue to continue explaining.

“Anyway, so once that’s done I thought it’d be cool and all, but then I actually tried using one of my skills. I said it’s graphic so…”

She ignited a flame on her finger and everyone stared at it with fascination.

“I thought you were a warrior.”

“Is that even mana?”

“No, those must be curses… she is a Cursebearer, remember?”

Amber ignored everyone and just focused on the fact that everyone was paying close attention to her. Now, it was the plan for her to get left alone for good. She took a deep breath as everyone paid attention, and finally she continued.

“And this is what happens when I focus it on the rune itself.”

She pushed her Essence as it began to flare much to everyone’s curiosity, her finger also slowly started turning white as everyone peered close until⁠— it exploded. Small chunks of flaming flesh went flying as a silence descended into the room. It was as if a pin had dropped, and Amber took enjoyment in seeing everyone’s eyes widen looking at the blood that had splattered all over.

Then, finally, one of them shrieked and the others looked up only to see her finger regenerate before their eyes and Amber smiled.

“Wanna see it again?”

And at that point they all stepped out in fear of her, their eyes widening as if they were looking at an unknown creature.

“M-Monster…”

“T-That’s impossible…”

“A level 150 warrior shouldn’t be able to…”

Amber tilted her head, pretending to be dense.

“I’ve even regenerated a full limb before.”

And at that moment they all paled, before excusing themselves soon after, with that they would hopefully leave her alone for good. She smiled satisfied with herself only to see a very curious Grand Mage.

“I’m very interested, can you continue on how you want to solve that?” Lubaum asked her.

Amber hesitated. “Well, I plan on using my bones but…”

“Your regeneration ability makes that hard?” he asked curiously.

“Pretty much,” Amber agreed.

And to her surprise, the Grand Mage actually began to seriously think about things.

“Well, I think if you want to make it possible you’d need at least two knives to make a wound and keep it open by prying it,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “Then you’d probably need a third person to help you place the runes inside your bone.”

Amber nodded, deciding to engage in the discussion. “I think so too. But perhaps if I cut my limb off I can begin the engraving process while it regenerates.”

“Well, do you think you could control the way it regenerates? I think it comes down to that, though there may be some artifacts to help you as well.”

“How so?” Amber raised her brow.

“You see…”

And in the end, she ended up engaging in a very graphic discussion about how to cut up her flesh and engrave her bones. Lubaum seemed to have an odd fascination with how this could help magic, and Amber found it oddly enlightening.

As for what happened with the other elves? Well, rumors about her being a maniac spread and suddenly no one dared to disrespect her and avoided her like the plague. In the occasional encounter that she asked something from someone they would treat her essentially like royalty.

So in short, she ended up pretty happy with the results.

Without further distractions, she immersed herself in her studies, steadily progressing her core at night, and progressing on Lightning Storm as well as figuring out how to get her hands on a few of the rare artifacts the Grand Mage had mentioned would essentially greatly slow down her healing.

That said, she didn’t let the lack of those stop her in her dreams, and so she engaged in self mutilation occasionally, most of the time it was fine, but there was one time Maxwell walked in.

“W-What… what are you doing!?” the elf immediately rushed to her in a panic.

That hadn’t been easy to explain and much less convince him that it was completely safe. But eventually she got it done.

And soon enough she lost track of time.

* * *

And right outside the Sacred Forest, a party of four people arrived. The first one was a woman in white robes whose fists were tightly bound by bandages. And next to her was a lithe man with a staff. Behind them, were two mages.

“So, they’re in here, huh?” Archbishop Samara asked, her voice gruff.

“There is no better place for them to hide than the Sacred Forest, unfortunately for them their luck has run out,” Archbishop Amos declared.

Samara frowned. “We have reasons to suspect that Dark Reaper Frei was the one to kill them, and if that is the case we should avoid direct confrontation.”

“There is no need, even if she is no longer weakened by her magic she still cannot use it like that inside the forest,” Amos said, before stepping forward raising his staff. “Let us avenge our fallen brothers and sisters.”

The two people behind him nodded fervently, and a moment later they teleported into the forest.

* * *

Amber was sweating as she gathered Essence into her core, it was about halfway there at this point. Certainly a slow process, but…

She flipped through the page of the book, slowly reading through it.

Learning while doing it made it all that much more bearable, though she had yet to learn the Essence spell that she wanted to yet⁠—

And a paper appeared out of her Obsidian Rose ring, making Amber blink as she read it.

“Meet me at Maxwell’s laboratory in the Magic Association at midnight, the operation is starting then.

⁠— Remmel”

The two weeks finally came to an end, but rather than feel disappointed, Amber felt excited. After all, who wouldn’t be happy from getting a change of pace. She certainly was.