Days passed peacefully. Fixing the staff only took a few days. And then it was time to finally succeed on a bounty that had been being delayed far too long.
Relax for 7 days straight: 100 CP. 12 CP.
Its value had gone down a fair bit, but it was still 12 CP he could get easily, and more than anything he was tired. He’d not had a real vacation in 3 years. He wanted to relax.
But his mind was overflowing with ideas. Each time he’d bought some power to make learning magic easier it had gotten worse. When he’d bought his magic skill up to four his mind had just started thinking better about magic. When he’d brought it to five he had started having these moments of sudden enlightenment as things had just clicked. Not So Lost Magic had filled his head with how to create. And now Fairy Founder had scribbled 11 on and cranked up the amplifier till the knob had broken.
He didn’t know if this was how genius was supposed to feel, or just a side effect of the way he had cheated his way to it. But there was something about having the inspiration of useful things he could try and do, that made being motivated to do something useful easier. It was hard to be listless and filled with ennui when he had a head brimming with ideas that wanted an outlet.
It might have been easier if he had the nature needed to dedicate himself and work himself to actual exhaustion on a task, but instead he took a break when tired until not tired, and that didn’t require a whole week most of the time. Instead he tended to give in to indulging his whims and desires; resting when he wanted to rest, getting side tracked when an interesting possibility presented itself, and being productive when a spark of inspiration hit. It might be the only reason he’d actually managed to master his takeover magic. Instead of having the sheer force of will and determination to hold back dragonification, he’d had to figure out how to get the magic to manipulate the dragon seed and soul inside of himself.
Still it meant he was going to need help if he wasn’t going to try and push his spirit dragon slayer magic a step further through integration with his darkness magic, and qualities of his Chaos Soul, weaving together the spiritual appetite with a dragon slayer’s lungs and developing the possibility to consume a person’s…
Suzaku looked at Arthur. The guild master had demonstrated himself to be less feckless than Suzaku had once believed. He still wasn’t certain how he had ever managed to master the sword after the disastrousness of his early attempts - he simply had lacked the discipline and motivation - or how he had managed to master the dragon seed after failing dismally at his attempts to learn discipline during his first months as guild master. Even the cat, Tabby, had managed to stay under the waterfall for longer and stick to the training regime better. Still he had been there for meetings that had required the guild master - Suzaku had been a little surprised by that - and had managed to provide the end result he promised.
Letting research take priority over other duties as guild master was not something Suzaku could fault him for after that. And if he could be a floating cloud and still get the necessary results, then perhaps it was Suzaku, not the guild master, who was lacking some essential piece of refinement.
But now, Arthur was asking him for literature advice. The answer was evident fairly quickly. He excused himself and returned with a worn-eared and well leafed through book: I Was Summoned as a Hero but Something Went Wrong and Now I Am a Bug.
Arthur tried to read the book that Suzaku had given him. He really did. But the prose was insipid and uninspired, the language had an over-reliance on formal language in a manner which felt like one was reading a bad Thor run trying to sound like ye olde medieval Shakespearian language without Stan Lee’s, admittedly questionable, ‘charm’. And given the protagonist had cheat powers that would make even Arthur blush, the constant reassurance that they were actually rather bad powers came off as dishonest at best.
Misaki’s literary suggestion did not prove more conductive to giving him some relaxing means of occupying his mind. He couldn’t comment on the writing quality, but an ordinary, extremely beautiful teenage girl, convinced she was actually extremely plain and unpopular despite everyone around fawning over her beauty, being courted by a pair of space aliens from opposing warring space empires was just not quite for him.
Kiria’s suggestion was a blank faced stare. Skullion’s felt like it was about an english professor having an affair. He finally settled on one of Tabby’s suggestions. He’d read a few before; chivalric romances just with cat people and more hard magic, though not with less soft magic in the form of ‘sacred arts’ for all that. The best could be placed up with Christien de Troyes’ Arthurian romances, maybe.
Still he could only read so much dry medieval fiction before getting bored. And it was when he got bored that there was something to worry about. Because when he got bored there was that little voice going ‘you could practice this bit of magic’. Misaki’s teen supernatural romance story helped a little as well, but it was a quick read. Suzaku’s was finished soon as well, and after 3 days of reading he was getting antsy, itching to do something different.
It wasn’t the first time he had missed the internet or just tv and movies. Even Edolas didn’t have a film industry. And Arthur just found himself wishing he could sit down, marathon some classic Star Trek, and vegetate. Even TNG would do.
But there weren’t that many options. For sheer lack of stimulation he was considering being productive. But relaxing would give him points. Arthur finally decided it was time to turn off the light - a minor magical tool - and sleep, but he was far from actually falling to sleep when there was a heavy pounding on the door.
Arthur shot up like a bolt, practically stumbling from bed before simply cutting out the middleman and teleporting three steps and pulling it open. The quaking hammering had his mind in a panic. What had happened to bring about such urgency.
Georg was standing there, giving him a sullen, cranky glare. “You, me, no witnesses,” He said. “Nothing to show. Nothing to flaunt. No one to impress.”
“What?” Arthur asked dumbly. He’d been trying to sleep, and then dashed straight to panic mode, so it was being slow to put together Georg’s meaning.
“I want a re-match. I want to see how I do without the change, and my role as guild master hanging over my head.”
“You’re not fully recovered. It won’t show anything.”
“And how does one recover? I need to push my limits and I think you’re the best option for that, ain’t ya?”
Arthur knew that this wouldn’t count as relaxation. But he also knew that convincing Georg to let it drop wouldn’t either. It was easier to go ahead and fight him. He might at least learn something; plus it’d cost him less social capital.
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He could understand Georg’s desire. It’d been 2 years and his skills, body, and power had all atrophied. Beyond that he’d had a lot of his raw power drained from him. Arthur had been his last fight at the peak. It’d be a way to ascertain how far he’d dropped. And maybe how much Arthur had grown.
Not all changes were in Arthur’s favor, though. Georg didn’t have to taunt him into holding back from using non-Dragon Slayer Magic this time, meaning that he wasn’t exhausted and weakened when Arthur did begin to hold back. He also no longer had to worry about what would happen if he cut loose; instead he was able to actually wilfully draw on the Dragon Force.
3 years ago either of these factors would have been decisive. Georg could draw deeper than he had in the attack that had forced Arthur to risk a fatal blow hoping to knock him out before he could kill Arthur and/or turn into a dragon. But with the way he had weakened even drawing that deeply he wasn’t an equal to what he had been in that moment.
And Arthur had grown.
Georg sank to his knees. He’d been drawing on the Dragon Force more heavily than he had in any battle in his life, and then suddenly it was gone.
Arthur’s right arm had changed. Scales coated it from the shoulder down, the fingers powerful talons. It was a wild mix-and-match of colors, parts of it shining bright, others darker than black. Arthur was drawing upon the absolute maximum draconic power he could. For most purposes it was not particularly useful. Each of the seven dragons he was melding in his arm he could have performed a full takeover with alone. He’d be faster, stronger, and vastly more resilient. His ability with their particular dragon slayer magic would be far greater. But even as just one arm, the Dragon of Revelations - as he chose to call it - gave him a far greater mastery of one thing: the magical energy of dragons.
He had cut Georg off from the dragon force, and had forced his dragon seed back down. The staff did it far more effectively and efficiently. But this was the magic the staff was based on. He might not have had the capability for alchemy, but he had studied the books and research of Silver Demon; he couldn’t replicate the alchemy that had transformed and controlled Honami, but it had given him pieces of what it meant to control the dragon seed.
“That’s cheating,” Georg growled.
“It’s preventing self-harm. If I let you keep that up you’d have pushed yourself to the staff’s limits again,” Arthur said. “You’ll never recover if you keep pushing the dragon force.”
“What are you, my nursemaid?”
“I think in this case I qualify as your doctor,” Arthur shot back. “If you want to practice I’ll practice with you. But no dragon force, you’re in the worst place to start trying to learn to control your seed from. Give it time.”
Georg mumbled and grumbled, but soon enough they were beginning again, without the dragon force this time.
The next week was eaten by Arthur’s attempt to learn. He’d already failed at his week of relaxation. He had hoped it wouldn’t take so long, but what he was trying to do was complicated. The staff had drained Georg’s excess draconic power, and it was capable of implanting it. It was dangerous for himself, but his takeover magic gave him the means to control it, and he wasn’t implanting more than a small piece; he could cultivate the rest.
But to cultivate it quickly, and moreover to learn what he needed to learn, he needed to see it in use. So Arthur found himself helping Georg to practice and train himself back into fighting shape. All the while Arthur was learning as well.
There was a bounty to master Flesh, Bone, Blood, or Soul Dragon Slayer Magic. The Spirit Dragon Slayer Magic of Wraith apparently did not count for the last; maybe it was because his mastery relied on takeover to use at all, or maybe it was because it was because the soul wasn’t one monolithic thing if you went back to early beliefs - the upper and lower souls of Chinese animism, the five to seven pieces of Egyptian paganism, the … Arthur didn’t know how many parts the Norse ‘soul’ or its closest equivalent got put into. Either way he was vaguely aware that while rei could be translated as spirit or soul, it was usually used when talking about what lingered after death and not the soul that gave identity. Though the specification in the bounty that it separated people from animals was weird given that animals specifically had souls in this world.
Either way Georg’s vermillion phoenix ate the life force itself, the very animating essence. It was the other major portion of the soul. Between it and the knowledge of soul manipulation that was required to use Takeover Demon Soul - and to create Dragon Soul - the experience of metabolizing shades when Minerva had been possessed, and the ways that Darkness Magic already touched upon souls Arthur had the feeling that he had a good chance of mastering Soul Dragon Slayer Magic.
He just needed to train with Georg and Wraith to get the foundation needed. Which meant no waiting till he had gotten the week long vacation.
He’d hoped with all the ways his brain was exploding with arcane insight into magic it would take a day or two. The week ended up long and strenuous, but there was a sense of excitement about it. He was learning to manipulate one of the fundamental aspects of human existence; to weaponize something that hopefully most people would have little defense against. From the perspective of his own survival, it was potentially massively useful. If, like Wraith, he could control his tangibility it might provide him with a defense superior to his territory armor, and if he could learn to manipulate life force he might be able to protect his own from assaults. And by the end of the week even if it was only through the medium of Takeover he was able to do both. Once things were properly internalized and mastered he’d be that much more secure.
Still he only had one more week before he had said he’d be leaving to talk to Selene and start his trip. If he wanted to relax for a week straight he had to really start today.
On the first day he took his lizardhawk and simply rode it for most of the day. He went nowhere in particular, simply flying over the countryside. He knew there was the danger that he might fly into an adventure, but it gave him a chance to hike about a bit, and enjoy the views from the sky.
On the second day he read. There were books. And while Suzaku’s isekai were sort of trash, but given Arthur didn’t have any classic sci fi or fantasy pulp trash available he would accept them.
On the third day he decided to go out on the town. He had money; he hadn’t spent the 3 years in some pure hermitage. He had done plenty of ‘1 year’ and even ‘10 year’ quests during the period. He was far from rolling in jewels, but he had enough to spend a day traveling Guiltina watching plays, musicals, eating well, and enjoying the good life.
On the fourth day he was reading again, but after Suzaku tried to argue with him to get him to train with him, Arthur ducked out via territory, teleporting miles away to read in the woods.
On the fifth day, he went camping in a rather quiet alternate world he had found. It was a place where there was magic, but to his knowledge no sapient races. It was a gentle, peaceful, Arcadian place. He took to the skies himself, flying in the shape of a dragon and enjoying the air around him. He couldn’t stay in the form too long; but, at lower levels of power use, he could use it for a fair deal longer than in combat. It was difficult to get his mind off of ways to try and fix that, but the problem ultimately would remain - he couldn’t be sure where the line was or how far he could push and he wasn’t willing to do so short of something like his life depending upon it. Which ultimately allowed him to just enjoy his walk.
On the sixth day he went for another walk. He’d always liked walking, always found hiking relaxing. He was lucky enough not to find someone in immediate danger. Not so lucky to avoid being attacked by werelions himself. He walked with them for a mile before they gave up on trying to bite through his armor. It was actually sort of fun. Though he did make a mental note to deal with them once he was off his vacation.
On the seventh day he convinced some of his guild mates to play board games with him. This world’s board games made Settlers of Catan look great, but they were still more fun than Monopoly. Made him sort of want to try and make a board game of his own. Maybe a deck builder like Dominion? It seemed like an economic niche which had been under exploited in this world. Well in Earthland. Arthur was getting excited about the idea until he remembered the board games in Edolas. They in general seemed pretty good to be honest.
Still, as he woke up on the final day, before he just felt he couldn’t delay any longer, he had completed the bounty and he had relaxed for one week straight. He wasn’t leaving the guild today. Well he wasn’t planning to. He was going to talk to Selene, and determine how and when he should go to Alvarez. But everyone knew he was going soon.