Chapter 8 - Training

The following day, Senna follows Anahid’s directions to a park for magic training. Anahid had prior obligations with the clan leader leaving Senna to train by herself. She takes out the basic magic book on that she borrowed yesterday and quickly reviews the contents. As she stores the book to begin training, she notices Davor heading her way. She heads over meeting him partway. “Hello. You’re up quite early.”

“Y-yes. A-Anahid told me you were here. I h-have something for you.” Davor nervously talks, his face a bright tomato red.

“Something? What?” Senna tilts her head. {This might be more of a problem than I thought.}

“Here.” Davor takes out a bag and hands it to Senna.

“You really shouldn’t have gotten me anything.” Senna reluctantly accepts the bag and opens it. When she sees the hilt, her grip loosens almost dropping the gift, bag and all. She barely recovers grabbing the hilt at the last second, but the bag drops to the ground. Her eyes widen as she stares blankly at the katana, . She snaps out of her stupor when she remembers Davor standing there. “I-I-I can’t accept this. This is too valuable.” She tries to hand the katana back to him.

“No, I want you to have it.” Davor shakes his head pushing it back to her.

“A-At least let me pay for it! It wouldn’t be right to take this!” Senna reaches for her money in a fluster.

“No. It's my gift to you.” Davor firmly rejects her offer.

Senna inadvertently groans. {I didn’t want to tell him like this!} She takes several deep breaths to compose herself. “Davor, please listen to me. I don’t have any romantic feelings for you. I don’t think it is possible for me to have a romantic relationship with any man in the future. I still have so many nightmares about my last ‘relationship’. It will be a major feat if I can ever get back to normal.”

“I don’t mind waiting.” Davor resolutely replies.

“It might be a fruitless attempt.” Senna objects.

“I don’t care.” Davor stands firm.

“I plan to leave town after I learned the basics and start adventuring. We might never meet again.” Senna continues to list off reasons why it isn’t possible.

“Even so.” (Davor)

Senna sighs at his persistence. “You can confirm this with Anahid. My body is heavily scarred under my clothes. It’s not on the level of one or two, but more like I was mauled by a beast. It would take a long time for me to heal them to the point that you don’t notice them.”

“I find that hard to believe. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” (Davor)

Senna groans and reluctantly lifts up her shirt showing her stomach. Davor pales slightly seeing the scars and wounds. He inadvertently takes a step back from the sight. “That’s just a part of it. It’s very disturbing to see.” Davor opens his mouth, but fails to any comforting words. “I don’t need comforting. It’s something I need to work out on my own. But everything I said is true. I hope you understand why I can’t accept this.”

“No… Even if you don’t return my feelings. I bought that for you and want you to accept it.” (Davor)

Senna continues to hold the katana in her outstretched hands staring into Davor’s eyes. She reluctantly relents pulling it closer to her body. “I’ll return this favor someday.”

“I won’t accept it if you do.” Davor replies. He turns and walks away leaving the conflicted Senna by herself.

{I didn’t think he would be so adamant. What do I do now?} Senna sighs staring at his departing figure. {I need to figure out a way to repay him. Haaa… Well… no point dwelling on it now.} She stores the katana away and focuses on her training. Remembering the sensation of using magic from yesterday, she gathers magical energy in her core. Senna experiments with the energy moving it around to different parts of the body. By accident, she ends up coating her entire body in her magical energy making her body glow in a pale blue light. She disrupts the flow of magic when she opens her eyes and notices the spectacle.

“Weird. Why did that happen?” Senna murmurs the question to herself. “How would I be able to tell though? Ah! Um…Review recent status changes!”

[Magic Manipulation] increased to level 3. You have better than average control of your own magic.

You have learned [Magic Body] Level 1. You can infuse your body with magic to improve the abilities of your basic bodily functions.

You have learned [Magic Attunement] Level 1. Your body has learned to equilibrate with your magic core. You lose less magical power when moving it around your body and require less to cast spells.

Senna wryly smiles seeing the new skills. {I wonder if it’s possible to overload my body with all these skills. Well more skills will help me survive, so I can’t complain I guess. Back to training then.} She starts to chant the first spell in the book. "" Gathering the spell into her outstretched hand, she feels a change in her hand as the magic leaves her body. Her hand involuntarily shakes as feels the 'blank' magical energy turn into the element.

(Distorted)

An orb of light used to brighten darkened areas allowing the user to see. The orb has an irregular shape due to Senna’s interruption in focus when casting the spell.

As it floats into the air, she sees two semi spheres attached unevenly in the center to form a random shape instead of a complete sphere. "Oops. Let's try that again." Senna recasts the spell forming a proper orb. "Success~ Let’s experiment a bit before learning the next spell." Senna casts the spell while imagining a flat rectangular board. The Light properly forms a flat shape, but forms an odd arc shape as it squeezes out from the palm of her hand. {It formed properly, but it looks really awkward like that. I should try and make it outside of my body.} Senna continues to experiment with the spell adjusting the size, shape, brightness, and forming it outside of her body.

By the end of her training, she has learned the first of the basic spells, , while also having a good understanding of how to manipulate the spells before and after casting them. The basic spell cost 3 MP without any changes. Directly forming the spell away from her core cost her 6 MP, or twice the normal cost, at the expense of skipping the delay of exiting the body. She could release the spell from other parts of her body, such as the shoulder or head, but could not change the delay it took to exit the body.

She directed the spell towards a tree, which popped and dispersed on contact. The spell’s focus being to only provide some illumination to the area, its ability for physical damage was non-existent. By making adjustments to the shape, she changed how light was emitted from the spell. The adjustments also increased the cost of the spell, normally costing 4 MP, but also reaching 5 MP if the shape was excessively complex. The spell’s focus was on support and not for combat, so the increased casting time to alter the shape was not a serious concern. Yet, it did bring up some worries when she thought about the issue with an attack spell. Senna’s desire to learn flared up when she thought about everything she needed to learn.

During her training, Senna reads up on the book that Remilia gave her. She finds out some ‘hidden’ features that Remilia neglected to inform her about. Living in a modern world with clocks, telling time in Remia was difficult to say the least since the start and end day bells were the only thing available to mark the days. Discovering a [Menu] screen, she finds a simple clock display and an alarm feature to help her manage her time. The addition of a feature to take notes left Senna with a beaming smile. The methods of adjusting the status messages are available to her, but she decides to leave it for another day since most of them are deactivated for now.

After training, Senna stops by the Library and spends some time reading the children’s books there. The level of her [Reading] skill and the simplicity of the books allowed her to read all of the children’s books by lunch time. Borrowing some history books, she leaves the Library and heads to the Adventurer’s Guild. Senna picks an F ranked job helping clean up the Armor shop. She spends the day happily cleaning the store and polishing the armor. When she finishes helping, she receives her reward and spends the rest of the day in her room reading.

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Training, work, read, and sleep. She spends each day in a cycle without slowing down. Alternating between her apprenticeship at the Apothecary and odd jobs around town, she quickly becomes well known in the town. Numerous men approach her, but she rejects every single one with a smile. She inadvertently raises her [Martial Arts] skill defending herself against the most persistent of her admirers.

Anahid and Davor come and go whenever the leaves on an expedition for the guild. Most of the time, Senna practices on her own, but occasionally Anahid drops by to give advice. After practicing for several weeks, Senna fully practices and masters every spell in the basic level for each element.

Element – A basic manifestation of an element, primarily used for support.

, , , , , , , ,

Shot spell – A simple orb of magic mainly used to attack an enemy. A variation for each element.

, , , , , ,

Enchant – Condensing magic onto a designated target to improve their abilities or grant an elemental boost. A spell variation for each element.

, , ,,,,,

Healing spells

- Water type spell to heal the health of a target

- Water healing spell to cure poison, and cure other status defects to a lesser degree

- Light type spell to heal the health of a target

- Light healing spell to cure curses, and also cure other status defects to a lesser degree

The basic Element spells quickly find uses in Senna’s daily life as forms of convenience rather than progressing as a magician. The shot spells quickly improve as she learns to quickly alter their shot without significantly increasing her casting time. However, the difficulty increases when she tries to control 4 orbs of at once while modifying their shape. The controls of simultaneous spells remain on a basic level by only moving at a commanded direction until it reaches a target or obstacle.

In the Adventurer’s guild, Senna reached E rank from all the odd jobs she’s taken, but her rank remains stagnant because of her reluctance to subjugate monsters. Her abilities are more than enough for many jobs, but she fears her weakness locking her in her current position. Maria tries to convince her to join a party to help with Senna’s fear, but Senna firmly rejects the idea because of her desire to train more.

The only time she leaves town is to gather herbs for Arnost. She occasionally runs into a stray goblin or two, but she quickly shoots them down when she catches sight of them. Her Level 3 [Detection] allows her to determine any presences in a 10 meter radius from her. Non-hostile organisms like birds and bugs are frequently seen with a gray aura, while hostile monsters have a red aura emanating from their bodies. The density of their auras gives Senna a general gauge of how strong the monster is. Whenever she notices a monster stronger than a goblin, she swiftly retreats without looking back and investigating what it is.

During her time in , she has learned various pieces of information about the world. is on the edge of the continent of . The city is a part of the and is a major port city dealing with the continent across the . Several other kingdoms reside on the continent of that interact with the without much aggression. To the north of the continent across the rests the . Rumored to contain the harshest of creatures and home to several Demon Lords, people instinctively fear every aspect of the .

http%3a%2f%2fi.imgur.com%2fJZiJffd.png [http://i.imgur.com/JZiJffd.png]

(Temporary map to help with the infodump. I'm planning to remake it to be bigger when I have time.)

After a month and a half of living in , Senna heads off to go gather herbs at Arnost’s request. “I’ll be back later, Master~.”

“Ah.” Arnost waves her off. When he’s sure Senna is no longer around, he sighs resting his head on his hand. “That girl’s already surpassed me. She can already make potions for every recipe I know. There’s no point in keeping her cooped up here any longer.”

Two hours later, a newbie adventurer bursts into the store. “Arnost!!”

“Oh. What is it? Messed up and got cut by a goblin?” Arnost pulls out a basic potion and places it on the counter.

“Not that! The guild has announced that a giant Goblin Village has been found in the ! They’re gathering every able adventurer to subjugate the goblins before the damages reach the town!” (Newbie)

“What?!!! Is that true?!!” (Arnost)

“Yes!! Please hurry and make your preparations and report to the guild! We need you to support us with your potions.” (Newbie)

“Fuck!! At this kind of time!! Go back and tell the guild that Senna went to the to gather herbs!” Arnost yells out.

“What?! The White Angel is at the forest!” The newbie cries out hearing the news.

Arnost falters hearing the nickname, but decides to push it to the back of his mind. “Gather people that will be in the vanguard. We need a group to head there immediately.”

“Yes sir!” The newbie runs back to the guild.

Arnost closes up shop and rushes to talk to Russell. “Please be safe!”

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Author's Note

I got a chapter out, but honestly not satisfied with it. I made it a bit too busy trying to complete it in time. Though it was more to the craziness at work more than anything. I was in this condition most of the week.

http%3a%2f%2fstatic02.mediaite.com%2fthemarysue%2f...6035-1.gif [http://static02.mediaite.com/themarysue/uploads/2015/09/anigif_enhanced-buzz-24363-1352936035-1.gif]

While mentally, I felt like this.

http%3a%2f%2fdata.whicdn.com%2fimages%2f141453336%2foriginal.gif [http://data.whicdn.com/images/141453336/original.gif]

I'm hoping to make the next chapter fall in lines with what I want without hating it.

The chapter is pretty awkward in various points so I apologize for that. I have no romantic experience, so the opening is like that. I did a general amount of world building, but it came to be more of an info (name) dump. Honestly, it's not too significant yet and not much of a major concern. I plan to reiterate whatever is important when the time comes.  I cut the end of the chapter a bit awkwardly too. I wasn't sure where would be a good spot before refocusing back on Senna. But I figure I'll make it work somehow.

Rant over. Take care~

Edit: Map was created using a generator. The functionality of the design has limits, but better than my own attempts at drawing. I haven't plotted out more than a few points, so the map is subject to heavy changes. (Honestly, I was just playing with the map to see how it would come out. That's why there's lots of random landmarks I haven't even thought up yet.)

*Many thanks to my friend Shanks for providing me with the gifs.