CHAPTER 106
THE ADVANCEMENT
"Oh, come on, a month is over and I'm still struggling with this VoidZone," Hans shouted. He was pulling his hair in frustration since he couldn't even take the first step in this so-called ultimate skill of his father. "Well, it's the last spell of the book but really," he paused and got annoyed again, "Deli is growing daily and Im eating air every day. I'm not jealous or anything but it feels really bad." he pouted and started his fruitless struggle again.
However, unlike him, Delimira was progressing with astonishing speed. She had already broken her second circle once again, doubling the amount of Krosh (dead mana) in her body. And it was not the only sore spot of Hans. He just took a break from his weird training and came to rub salt in his wounds by himself by looking at Delimira's training." She grew up again," he grunted. Seeing her growing exponentially was one thing but Sierra’s undivided attention was another that was troubling him.
"Tsk, tsk," he was clicking his tongue non-stop and was glaring at the two. And, his discomfort couldn’t escape from both teacher and disciple’s keen observations. "Don’t get jealous, she is bearing a lot," Sierra said finding sympathy for her pupil but Hans replied grumpily, " I know, I know! But I also know she will succeed one way or another." His words were loud and made their way to the gasping girl, "I didn’t know, you had this much confidence in me." she teased him, the words from him oddly cheered her up, almost erasing the pain she was feeling till now.
However, Hans ranted, "Do hell with confidence, an opportunist like you will not turn this in vain."
"Well, You are right about that…" she said with a smirk but Rudolf broke their conversation, "So what are you up to, Kiddo?" he asked Hans." Nothing much," Hans responded, and glancing at Delimira he continued, "learning to kill a sixth circle mage, I guess." He aimed those words to rain on Delimira’s parade and was expecting her to refute but she remained silent. One thing she had learned from Sierra about Hans was, he might act recklessly but he was dead serious when he learned things. And if Hans said, he was learning to kill a sixth circle then it was gonna happen, sooner or later.
"What? no reaction, a kid just claimed he is learning to kill a sixth circle mage for god sake. Are they in cahoots to piss me off or what?" Hans thought. But unlike his thoughts, everyone was thinking their own things, Deli was thinking her own thing, Rudolf was in his thoughts about what new thing this brat would come up with and Sierra was whispering some words to her dear student that he can’t hear. "Agh," Hans grunted and stomped out, giving the three a giggle but Sierra said to Delimira again, "See I told you, Hans will catch up in no time, it's scary when talented work hard. You need to up your game, dear disciple." Delimira only nodded and turned to tweak her dead mana.
Hans was gain in his not-so-secret garden."I'll show them, just their agape faces will be enough to soothe me when I pull off VoidZone on them but this is really hard, hmpf, hmpf." But call it jealousy or efforts, today his training was bearing fruits. "Yes, that's what I was talking about, more, expand more — " "POOF!" his three metres spherical VoidZone went like a blasted ballon in seconds."Haa," he sighed, but then accepted the reality, VoidZone was a skill that instilled fear in many. It was something that needed time but he had taken his first step so this needed some rewards. He went inside to increase his sugar and after eating to his full, he opened the book again. "I need something that shows instant results to get my mood right," he mumbled as he turned pages.
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> Page 16
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> VeganBind Modification
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> It's time to upgrade our restraining spell, VeganBind needs offensive power. Find some strong alcohols and a five-star fire flower seed. if you soak them in alcohol they'll burn for a long time.I recommend using dwarven alcohol. note that when they come in contact with alcohol, their fundamental structure changes. This will happen quickly so you'll have a little window to observe its mutated structure.
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> Our end goal here is succededing in recreating that very alcohol sokaed fire seed with mana. then merge that mutated seed with VeganBind. Now enough with the words, you know the drill, get them to grow with nothing and try to merge them and optimise their characteristics. With some hit and trial, your vines would able to engulf their prey in the fire, do note it is akin to burning the plant itself, so it won't last verylong and will be weak in strength so don't use it for restrain. I named this modification 'FlameBind'.
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> The second modification will be with sound. Find a tree known as a widow's wail. It's a four star tree, it will be easier for you to get than a fire flower. It has various small and big holes and when air passed through them, you could hear the cries of the trees capable of hallucinating the one hearing it. You just need to combine it with the most flexible vine, for this I recommend you to find snake vines, which is a common plant with a star rating of 1. I named this spell SonusBind. This will be helpful for you when you face a knight who usually have high sensitivity to sounds and heightened senses. This way you can turn ther strength into a fatal weakness.
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> Do what you have always done and keep trying until you succeed.
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"Distorting senses, haan! Brings back some embarrassing memories," Hans recalled his first-hand experience when his sharp senses were exploited and his butt was handed to him by LUX, a guy with zero presence in his first year. "Let's see what more is ahead," he turned the pages and read what he anticipated after Vegan Bind modifications.
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> Page 17
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> The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
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> SeedBullet Modification
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> You can’t win every time, a wise man knows when to flee and this might aid you. VolcanicRoots, a little quantity of it burns quickly and creates smoke which is a thousand times its quantity. It can block ManaSense and ManaVision but it has to be burned with natural flame, not conjured through mana. You just need to create a fraction of the roots and encase it in the highly flammable fire flower seed; it will burn as soon as it comes into contact with each other. Dwarfs use this to escape from others and call it smoke screen, another thing taught to them by Imophet. So I named it SmokeSeed
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> The second one is called BlastSeed, and you could probably guess, this is also something used by dwarfs. They use the minerals mined from the ground and use their combination to make explosives. It will be far inferior to Sunstones but it is strong enough to break shells or disorient a fourth-class beast. It is also based on fire flower seed, combined with minerals like ground shit ( sulphur) and baby sugar (saltpetre). It will create an explosion equivalent to a four-circle fire spell.
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> You could always combine them with SeedBullet, giving you a total of three types of bullet: piercing, smoke and explosive. You will be equipped with the full arsenal of Osiris that the dwarves keep to themselves.
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Hans could acquire everything easily on the required items, except the rated five-star fire-flower. The stars in any plant and resource indicated the difficulty of procuring them. Since there was no way of knowing which class of beasts roam the beastzones, it was hard to categorise a beastzones by the classes it has in them. Nonetheless, the unique resources found within them were distinctive enough for the older generation to assign star ratings to the beastzones.
That's why the beast zones were classified into stars, a one-star BeastZone has one-star rarity herbs and resources like mana stones. So something from a five-star beast zone ought to be expensive and beyond his reach. "It looks like, I have to ask old man," he muttered and went to search for the man of the house.
Rudolf was sparing with Delimira, matching her level and pointing out her mistakes. It was another chance to find a weakness in Delimra’s swordsmanship or rather rapier arts since she ditched the traditional sword after learning Krosh arts. But every time Hans found some weaknesses, it was never to be seen again."Just you wait, I'll catch up in no time." he clenched his fists and waited in agitation as the spar continued.
After a while, Rudolf was done with correcting her, he saw the expected face of Hans and understood something ominous coming to him. He approached Hans and said before the boy could ask, "If you seek money, we do not have it. We burned a lot in opening the SpaceDoor twice this year."
Rudolf had shut him before he could even ask so his eyes led him to the wealthiest person in the household. He needed to come up with a scenario so she would willingly give him money. After scheming in his head, he shouted at Rudolf, "Gramps, don’t embarrass me in front of her."
"Hmm," Rudolf glanced at her and then spoke to Hans again, "It's fine as long as you don’t ask for money, squeaky." But Hans responded quickly, "I just need a little ---"
"Oh, I know how many zeroes your ‘little’ has."
"How stingy you can get, old man?"
They started bickering in the middle of the training field and Hans knew if he would stand up to Rudolf about money, Delimira would intervene and she did. "Just what do you wanna buy?" The words made Hans giddy inside, the first step was to make her speak and then it was smooth sailing. He went ahead to the second step which was hurting her pride. "You can’t buy it with your measly allowance Winters, don’t interrupt, I need to make this old man cough up some coins."
His words ‘measly allowance’ irked her as he expected. "I WILL BUY IT." she declared. "Hook line and sinker, I learnt these things from you, winters." he thought but this was not enough to make this success so he provoked her more, "No, you can’t, it's darn expensive." Delimira's face itched at these words and she spoke with firm resolution, "NO, THERE IS NOTHING A ‘WINTERS’ CAN'T BUY IN THIS WORLD."
"You will turn your back once you hear the price, Winters so just stay out of this."
"Fine, I promise, whatever it is, I will buy it for you."
Hans almost smirked and challenged her again, "You won’t go back from your words, right?" Delimira was on the verge of an explosion but she calmed herself and asked looking down at Hans, "Just state the price." Hans knew this was the moment, "A five-star plant, so ready to eat your words, Winters." he said mocking her a little.
Delimira thought whatever it was, it wouldn’t be something this exorbitant. She could still afford it, with some advance allowance. "Order it squeaky I WILL PAY." She thought gritting her teeth and Hans had his own thoughts, "Sweet, I won't mind you call me anything after this Winters." This was the first time he manipulated her so his happiness got doubled and he went out of her hair quickly, fearing she would change her decision.
Vanessa who was observing them with Sierra came to Delimira "You got played." she said to her and Delimira quickly responded, "I knew he was doing this to make me pay but it's really darn expensive." Sierra added while gripping her temples, "You don’t have to pay ---" But Delimira interrupted her master, "No, I have to, I gave him my word. I just need to pitch three months of my allowance for it." She said it like nothing but the listeners were offended, a five-star plant would have easily cost thousands of gold coins but this brat in front of them was so chill about it. Whatever they were thinking of stopping her exorbitance, disappeared somewhere else.