Jun wasn't sure if it was progress or something to be concerned about that she managed to keep from vomiting after the adrenaline wore off.
As the sky started to lighten with the rising sun Jun, Sara, and Cecilia had hurriedly searched the men both alive and dead, throwing every weapon or item of value into Jun's bag as they went. Jun felt guilty about it at first, at least until Cecilia found several bags large enough for a body, and several lengths of rope, while Sara found an illegal powder would knock someone out and erase the past few hours of the victims' memory. That the men had been carrying such things while following them spoke to a dark intent behind their stalking the girls. Weirdly, taking items off their dead or unconscious bodies didn't bother her so much after.
After the dead were stripped of anything valuable, Sara and Cecilia bagged the corpses in the men's own bags and threw them in the river. In the shaded and murky water of the canal, the bagged bodies simply looked like six pieces of discarded trash. Of the five survivors, most of them were only lightly scratched by Shiori's claws, but Jun had been worried that the man Sara disarmed would die from blood loss. However, her concern for the injured prisoner was wasted as his bleeding seemed to stop on its own as the stub rapidly scabbed over, to her surprise. It was just another reminder that stats and magic made things radically different in this world from her previous one.
Once the corpses were dealt with, the three of them dragged the unconscious men deeper into the alleyway where Sara fed the five men some of their drug. Once they were dosed, Jun dropped her spells and helped Sara loot them then tie them up, learning a substantial amount about tying knots in the process. While the two of them rapidly worked to take anything of value from the men, Cecilia used one of the men's shirts as a rag to wipe away as much of the blood on the ground as possible, disguising the scene of the fight. Once they were done looting her friends disguised the pile of bound and unconscious thugs with a scattering of trash and they left, the sky now bright but the sun still hidden behind the mountains.
The rest of their trip back to the Academy was uneventful but Jun kept her head on a swivel, watching for trouble that never materialized. It was only after they passed through the front gate manned by a squad of the school's guards that she felt some tension leave. Despite the bloodstains covering their uniforms, they easily blended in with the other uniformed students rushing to various morning classes and except for a few concerned or disbelieving looks, went unnoticed as they headed back to their dormitory. Jun's focus on spellcasting had let her get away from the fight untouched, and except for a small amount of grime and blood on her hands from looting and moving bodies, the only sign she'd been in a fight was her messy hair.
Once back in their unit, she'd quickly washed her hands before Sara and Cecilia started to clean themselves up, taking turns in the shared bathroom while Jun sagged to the couch with exhaustion. She'd only been up for a few hours, but so much happened. Selling the meat, the weapons, and especially the fight. Without that strange burst of strength, she wasn't sure how things would have gone. Curious about what that burst of strength was, she opened her status and stared with shock at the changes displayed.
Name: Jun Titles: [COLLAPSED] Level: 51 (+25) (87/100%) Race: Human (Balance) Gender: Female Mana: 340/340 Core Status: (HIDDEN) Stable (Tier 1) Stats: MIND - 68 (+26) CON - 71 (+25) STR - 65 (+25) AGI - 75 (+27) DEX - 75 (+25) CHA - 83 (+25) SPR - 86 (+33) Traits: (5/5) [COLLAPSED] Skills: [Body Cleansing] (Novice 15) [Pending Breakthrough] [Mental Resistance] (Novice 6) (+2) [Piercing Missile] (Apprentice 25) [Evolve? Y/N] [Barrier] (Apprentice 25) (+7) [Evolve? Y/N] [Multi Casting] (Apprentice 16) (+1) [Mana Shift] (Novice 12) (+1) [Arcane Snare] (Novice 15) [Evolve? Y/N] [Stealth] (Novice 10) (+2)
The last time she'd checked her status had been only a few days ago and she'd only been level 26, but somehow she'd nearly doubled her level in just 3 days? How?! Jun looked at her Master casually sitting and licking herself clean on the couch, then to the bathroom door where she knew Sara was showering and Cecilia's half open door as she waited for the bathroom to free up. She really wanted to ask Shiori questions, but the words Sara said earlier were stuck in her head. "Jun, I don't think your cat is normal."
Shiori had never insisted on Jun keeping her Master's identity quiet, but her instincts had insisted she do so and she was the only one Shiori seemed to talk to. It made things complicated when she wanted to ask Shiori questions while others were around, but at least for now, there was a simple solution. Standing up, Jun scooped Shiori and walked into her room, gently pushing the door shut with her hip. Shiori for her part hadn't resisted, and simply leapt from Jun's arms to the bed where she resumed cleaning herself.
"Something you want to talk about privately, kitten?"
"Something weird happened during that fight!" she said hurriedly.
"Weird how?"
"There was a strange rush of power in the middle of the fight that helped me empower my spells more, like nothing I've ever felt before!"
"Oh, you leveled because of the relative danger. All of those thugs were between low and high iron, and two of them was even low silver," Shiori said nonchalantly.
"I leveled? But how come I didn't feel anything like that with the goblin mage? We almost died to it!"
Shiori scoffed. "Because those goblins were all in the mid to high bronze, even the mage was only at the peak of bronze, not yet iron like the bounty said. Whoever judged it to be iron rank was lacking. The only reason it was a threat was because your team was ambushed and gave the mage time to cast a ritual spell. They hit you at your weakest while they were at their strongest," Shiori said, pausing in her cleaning to give Jun a pointed look. "They were only a threat because they escaped your team's notice, and that is why if you had checked your status before, you would have only seen a single level of improvement. We'll need to work on your mana sense and aura perception."
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Shiori flicked her tail for a moment and looked at the door before continuing. "Those thugs, weak as they seemed to be, were far more dangerous. All of them were physically focused with skills focused on intimidation, ambush, and capture. They were not prepared to be counter ambushed, nor to deal with magic. The one the kitten Cecilia killed before you leveled up was level 232 and the one Sara disarmed was level 241. The rest were between level 134 and level 199. The large boost you felt was because you helped in the defeat of a dangerous enemy more than 200 levels above yourself, including blocking an attack from him. The rest of your levels mostly came from subduing several low irons."
Jun didn't know how to feel about all of this. She'd thought the mage was dangerous, by far the scariest opponent she'd ever faced even including the hulking kobold that Shiori had saved her from, but she'd been wrong. Thinking back to how Shiori had joined the fight against the thugs, even if it was clear she just played with them, made her realize how wrong she'd been. Shiori only helped when it was an enemy she wouldn't be able to handle, and Shiori hadn't helped at all with the goblins. But if Shiori hadn't been with them for the thugs... Jun's hands started to shake as dark thoughts crossed her mind about what could have happened to her and her friends. Sara and Cecilia were far stronger than her, but they and the rest of their party had needed her help to survive when they first met, and Shiori had stepped in and saved all three of them at key moments.
Jun hadn't been able to snare all of the men at once, and while her barrier had stopped an attack over 200 levels above her, she'd only been able to cast a single barrier that strong. The spells she'd learned from Shiori were good, but they weren't enough. Looking at her status again, she froze as she saw it. All of her spells were maxed out and ready to evolve. She'd been holding off on her [Piercing Missile] evolution for weeks, not feeling any true affinity for it nor any inspiration on what she'd like to see it turn into. However, both her [Barrier] and her [Arcane Snare] were ready to evolve, and she'd had an inkling of an idea.
"My [Barrier] and [Arcane Snare]... I think I'm ready to evolve them."
"Tell me your inspiration, kitten."
Jun started to talk about her spells, about the challenges she'd faced with them, how she struggled to get them to do what she wanted sometimes. What she wanted to do with her magic, what she wanted her magic to be. How she was hesitant to kill but wanted to protect herself and her friends while stopping people who meant them harm. As Jun spoke, Shiori nodded along, asking the occasional probing question or challenging an idea, forcing her to think deeper about what she wanted. Ideas and thoughts were explored, altered, and pruned as the idea of what Jun's spells should look like formed. Many of the things Jun wanted were beyond her reach, especially for her [Arcane Snare] as the jump from Novice to Apprentice was significant but still small. For her [Barrier], the jump from Apprentice to Initiate was larger, allowing for more.
With her inspiration crystalized, it was time. Skill evolution was both simple and complicated. Without inspiration, it was as straightforward as telling the system yes, and the spell would evolve into a stronger version of itself, only lightly shaped by one's previous actions. But Shiori's method treated evolution like a spell, feeding her intent and desire for growth into the evolution, helping to guide and shape the spell to better fit her. Jun started with [Arcane Snare], feeding her desire to stop others from causing harm and render them less of a threat into the evolution. With an inaudible click, she felt her inspiration fall into place within the spellform as it grew and warped to her desires. In what felt like minutes, but was less than a second, her spellform grew and expanded as a screen popped up in her vision, detailing her new spell.
[Sapping Snare] (Apprentice 1)
Conjures magical ropes to physically restrain a target. Ropes can be reinforced with extra mana. Uses the aspect of Negation to drain a small amount of mana from victims to maintain and strengthen itself.
Mana cost: varies
Jun cast the spell on herself, allowing it to drain her core to maintain itself. The drain was small and slow, barely noticeable against her mana recovery, but she knew greater contact with the spell would improve the drain exponentially, and if someone were exposed long enough to be fully drained, the spell would start to leech away their energy, making it harder for them to fight. The rope's strength hadn't changed at all from the Novice rank either to accommodate the new draining effect, but the drain and Shiori's techniques would allow her to make up for that lack. Satisfied with her evolved spell, Jun dismissed it and turned to her [Barrier].
The spell was one that Shiori had already designed and fed, making it more powerful than normal when combined with her techniques, but it was her Master's spell, not hers. Where the spell was meant to serve as a single unyielding defense, Jun found herself using it in tandem with other things to protect herself and others. She'd pushed away the boys who'd harassed her and Aya in the classroom with a small barrier and knocked the low silver thug off balance with a barrier to the back of the head. She'd used many smaller barriers to intercept spells in her game with Lane and Aya, and had even changed the shapes of them to pick things up from a distance. Instead of a single large barrier that would shatter, she envisioned smaller ones linked together and overlapping like individual hairs or scales did. The spell seemed to accept her inspiration as it started to warp and change, adding a new dimension in her mind as it grew, and a new screen appeared.
[Swarming Barrier] (Initiate 1)
A gift from a Master to her Disciple. The lone reed is weak and frail, but many together are strong and enduring. This spell is composed of the aspects for Unity, Control, Endurance, Adaptation, Redirection, and Negation. Blocks, absorbs, and redirects force. Multiple barriers may share and distribute force.
Cost: varies
Jun cast her new spell without alteration, her eyes widening as the spell coalesced into a barrier the size of her head that had seams separating it into 4 sections. instinctively, she pulled just a single section away, marveling as the first barrier thinned and adjusted to maintain it's shape while one of the seams disappeared and a second plate far thinner than the others. Flexing her will, she sent the thinner plate darting around the room while willing the combined barrier to float around her lazily. It was no trouble for her to control both at once, and she soon split the barrier into four separate plates that she sent darting around to do different things. One she kept spinning lazily around herself, while another spun like a frisbee and flew around the room. A third she spun like a flipping coin, while the fourth she slid beneath a book she'd left lying on the desk and picked it up. Controlling the four barriers independently took as much effort as it had to control a single barrier before, though each of the plates felt weaker than her unevolved spell.
As she willed them to combine one at a time, she noticed that the combined barriers grew in strength greater than the sum of their parts. A single barrier felt like it was only a tenth of the strength of her [Barrier] spell, but two combined felt a third as strong. Adding a third plate felt like it was three quarters the strength, and the fourth made it feel far stronger than her old barrier had. Struck by an idea, Jun started to cast a second copy of the spell as someone knocked on her door. With a start, Jun dismissed her spells and opened it to find Sara and Cecilia freshly cleaned up and changed. It was time to finish what they'd started, selling the loot.