John began the process of enlarging his phantom energy bank. But trouble soon found him before he could make any progress. Leo ran to him injured and crying.
"The village has been attacked! Please... let me fight them!"
John shook his head.
"You are just an apprentice. You think one spell is enough? Tell me, how many are there? What is their strengths, their weaknesses?"
Clarity returned and the panic left Leo's eyes.
"There were around a hundred of them. They have killed the village head already and are holding my family hostage. I barely managed to sneak out the village. I can't abandon them."
John started to laugh.
"It's been centuries since I've seen any action. Perhaps its time I've shook these old bones."
John casted 'Creature Illusion' adopting the form of a human.
"You mean you'll fight them?!"
Leo became quite excited.
John was obviously a god of death... he was the one that taught him magic in the first place. Who knew how deep his power ran. Perhaps with a mere snap of his fingers all of those damn bandits would die in an instant.
But underneath John's confident smile was doubt.
He figured perhaps this wasn't the first time a village nearby had been raided. He would of remained completely unaware had Leo never became his servant.
Right now, John hadn't had enough time to reach the legendary realm of tier seven. He was only tier three. So he only had four spell slots.
He also only had a capacity of 32 energy. So he needed to defeat a hundred man with only four spells.
As he ran to the village following Leo.
He had one of his descendants inscribe runes for the spells he would use.
He also only had 24 available mana at the moment because he had just used creature illusion. It would take a few minutes to fill up his mental energy again.
He chose two tier 1 spells, and two tier 0 spells.
The tier 1 spells were 'Fireball', and 'Drown'.
The tier 0 spells were 'Flash', and 'Bang'.
Fireball conjured a fireball that served as a projectile. Drown put a bubble of water around the head of the target drowning them. Flash was just a burst of bright light that could blind people. Bang was an extremely loud noise that could cause damage to hearing.
This was all he had to fight a hundred man.
"Are there any knights among them?"
"Knights?"
John and Leo made it to the village, the gate was broken and smoke could be seen in the distance. Leo's face darkened, John casually moved the broken gate and walked in. The back of his head was hit by an arrow.
It bounced off of his bones.
His bones were fairy grade after all.
They weren't ordinary, not to mention the weird contamination on them.
He looked at the arrow on the ground, it seemed to be coated in some sort of venom. John picked it up off the ground. Having a weapon was better then not having one.
John immediately threw Leo to the ground, allowing him to narrowly avoid the same attack.
"Pay attention. You can't afford to get hit."
"But that is quite annoying. How about you die?"
He looked at the direction the arrow came from.
"Fireball."
A ball of fire formed in his hand as he launched it at the archer. They immediately burst into flames and went into a panic rolling around the ground. They died quite a horrible death.
Now John only had three spells left.
Him and Leo continued to walk further into the village. They saw cages filled with the women and children. The men had already been killed...
"Father!"
They were soon spotted by the bandits.
John and Leo were surrounded. They both had their backs to one another. John liked how Leo was ready to face death.
"I hope you prepared 'light healing'."
"I used flash..."
John laughed... Leo was probably going to die in this battle. John remembered his combat experience traveling his second world for years. He had experienced hunting animals in the wilderness. He didn't have some magical aura that would scare any of these bandits, nor did he have a killing intent that could paralyze them.
One of the bandits wielding a spear rushed at John.
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"Bang."
A loud noise exploded sounding like a gun shot through everyone's ears.
The surrounding children and women's ears were ringing as blood flowed out of their orifices.
The same thing happened to the bandits.
The person charging at John ignored the pain and the ringing in his ears.
"Leo, NOW!"
Leo casted flash.
A bright light covered the entire area.
By the time everyone regained sight and could see clearly... they saw that the bandit that hard charged through was on the ground grasping their neck. They were bleeding profusely. That wasn't all... the spear had broke and was impaled in another bandits chest.
They tried to pull it out as they collapsed to the ground.
Another had an arrow in their eye.
During that instant where everyone was blind.
John didn't even have eyes anymore, how would he be affected?
He had managed to kill ten of them in the confusion.
The other bandits became scared and retreated.
At this point John was running pretty low on energy. Yet, still he casted flash causing the others to become blind; some of them even tripped on each other as they ran away.
John slowly walked up to them and stabbed those who had fallen to the ground with a sword that had been left behind.
He murdered another ten man as if he was killing chickens.
Leo was fine besides the blood flowing out of his ears.
"Your village is safe now."
"WHAT!?"
Everyone in the village that was nearby had become deaf... this included Leo.
John didn't have some magical means to fix their disability now.
He could if he was at a higher stage.
But he was only a stage three wizard right now.
The tier three spell 'Intense Healing' could resolve this.
But it costed 32 mana... and it would take almost two hours to charge up to that amount.
It would take forever to resolve this problem for everyone.
Well, that was an exaggeration. There was only about 60 people alive in the village.
That's just 120 hours of effort to fix everyone.
He also wouldn't forget about Leo, having his servant be deaf could be inconvenient.
John spent a few days healing the remaining villagers.
Leo told him they would be migrating to a town nearby to live as the area was no longer considered safe. Leo asked John to go with him... news had spread quite quickly that there was a miracle healer in the village. This is the only reason they were allowing the villagers into the town.
John didn't really care where he lived, he had time. Worst case scenario he could run into the wilderness, find a random cave and seal himself up for hundreds of years... by then his enemies would've died from old age.
He traveled with the caravan for a few days as everyone felt safer knowing an 'expert' was traveling with them. Funnily enough, his martial arts in this body didn't carry over very well as he had no blood or organs.
They eventually arrived at the town and went through the security checks.
John didn't carry any weapons with him... he also lacked spare clothes or baggage.
He simply didn't need to worry about rations or clothes.
The cloth covering his body seemed to be also contaminated and had become almost timeless.
He didn't need to find a job because the villagers were so grateful for him saving them that they promised to keep what they saw a secret. They also fundraised money for him to buy a home to live in.
At the banquet they were quite sad that he didn't drink or eat. But he had no digestion system... if he ate the food it would simply fall to the ground, it would be a true waste.
While he was busy working on his phantom energy bank and working towards stage four. He heard a loud knocking on his door. As he had no servants besides Leo, who wasn't there at the time (he had went to build a proper shrine to his father at the moment). John went to the door and was greeted by a warrior covered in blood.
He croaked:
"I have heard of a miracle doctor... I fell down a mountain and got seriously scraped... my insides ache... I feel faint. I came to seek aid!"
John slammed the door and went back to working on his phantom energy bank.
"..."
Why should he waste time helping randoms he had no relation to? He helped the villagers because he had caused the damage himself. If he helped this man who didn't seem to be near death, wouldn't every random person with an injury start lining up at his home.
How would he have alone time to breakthrough to a higher stage?
Breaking through to stage four required the phantom energy bank to reach 256 units.
This was quite a bit higher then the requirements for stage 3.
During his days in this town people constantly bothered him.
Asking him to teach them 'magic'.
You see, he seemed to be the only one in this world that could control supernatural power. Even Leo was constantly pestered to reveal his secrets. He didn't in the end of things.
The people in power were very greedy.
They wanted his power to themselves... they had done some research. This expert seemed to appear out of thin air, when he made a move he casually threw a fireball out of his hands, showed the ability to rupture the ears drums of people around him, heal almost irreversible injuries. Blind people with burst of light.
They didn't know his limitations... this made them not want to provoke him.
But seeing that he had no grand plans... that he wasn't trying to usurp power from them, they became suspicious.
If he was truly so strong... why did he spend so much time alone? What exactly was he doing?
Maybe he was recovering from an injury!
As news spread that this piece of meat was in a period of weakness.
Certain gangs in the town began a witch hunt.
They captured Leo and said they were going to burn him for blasphemy against the laws of the world.
John found out about this from one of the villagers he had saved.
Luckily, John was now at stage four.
He had 256 mana and 16 spell slots.
He stored one 'Tier 2 Extinguish: 16 mana', and three 'Tier 3 Flight: 32', one 'Tier 3 Water Explosion: 32', one 'Tier 3 Magic Barrier: 32', and 'Tier 3 Intense Healing: 32'
This used a total of seven slots.
It also locked a total of 208 mana.
He casted flight and flew into the air from his courtyard.
He looked to the middle of the town... there he saw Leo bloodied and beat up. He was tied to a cross and was guarded by a gang.
They planned to set him on fire. They were threatening to kill him if John didn't show himself.
John landed right at the cross.
He began to untie Leo.
"Hey! Give us your inheritance, or we'll burn you both to a crisp!"
John laughed.
"Weaklings... what inheritance?"
"You know magic!"
"So what? I have lived for centuries, yet I'm still young enough to realize you have no business threatening me."
"YOU!"
They set Leo on fire along with John.
"Extinguish!"
The fire instantly went out.
"Again!"
They set it on fire again.
"Water Explosion!"
Water exploded out from John knocking over the spectators and those in a gang.
John ignored their looks of bewilderment and untied Leo.
"Intense Healing..."
Leo was good as new.
"Thanks master!"
"Don't call me ma- forget it."
They weren't able to set John and Leo on fire now that everything was soaked in water.
"So is that all you had? Was fire your only weapon?"
Somebody threw a spear at John.
He caught it with his fingers and threw it down.
They then realized John's weakness.
"You may be tough, but your servant is weak!"
They tried the same thing with Leo, but John used 'Magic Barrier' saving him.
"Is that all you have?"
John bluffed, his energy was running quite low now.
"We'll be taking our leave now."
He cast fly on himself again as well as casted it on Leo.
Leo looked in amazement as he started to float.
"Follow me."
They soared in the sky and flew deep into the wilderness.
Meanwhile the person in charge of the gang that had captured Leo ordered them to search the woods, he absolutely wanted this power! He wasn't the only one greedy for power. They mayor of the town put up a bounty of 100 gold taels to whoever captured John alive.
This news spread like wildfire among the common man. People told the stories in pubs, sometimes exaggerating what had happened. In the hearts of the people John had become a legend.
"Have you heard the story of John Destinatus?"
Stories of his origin became a hot topic.
Some thought he was a god. Others thought he was a devil.
Many people were interested in learning magic!