On the outside of the envelope that contained the letter of recommendation for the Druid that Donovan knew was the Druid’s address. Instead of a street name and a house number, however, it was a map of Jotunnheim. Donovan had used magic to reproduce a map of Jotunnheim on the envelope. On the map was a small circle, surrounding a forest, marked as The Shifting Forest.

Judging by the distance between Anderalex and the Forest, David guessed that the trip would take three to four days of walking. However, it would take him across the migration path of the buffalo. The buffalo were migrating north again, for the summer. The groups of buffalo were sometimes so large that it could take a day to wait for all of them to pass by.

Of course, the buffalo posed no threat to him – they were nonaggressive. However, they were followed by packs of highly aggressive prairie wolves and by several nomadic tribes that were renowned for their intertribal feuds and their hostility to outsiders. A book in the history division had mentioned the nomads almost dying off because a massive intertribal war had reduced their numbers by half, and a plague took half of the remaining. The book had gone on to say that the nomadic tribes survived and continued their feud.

David decided to use all of his money, all 12 gold, to buy supplies for his trip. As it was, he felt completely unprepared, not least because he had no actual armor – he was still wearing his newbie clothes. He looked around for a tailor. He found several, but they didn’t carry anything with level requirements less than level 200. He didn’t even ask a tailor to make something custom – that would have cost far more than he had.

He couldn’t gain weapon skills, so he didn’t need to spend money on one. He thought about getting a magical focus like a pendant or a diadem, but he knew that they were far out of his price range.

Eventually he ended up buying food supplies for the journey – around 100 loaves of barley bread for 3 silver. He didn’t want to spend all of his money on seasonings and such, so he figured that he could get by on the most basic of foods. What he did need was better clothes. While he couldn’t buy any pre-made clothes, he could make his own. There was a Tailoring shop in the city, and he already had the skill. He figured, with a little practice, he would be able to make something better than the newbie clothes he was still wearing.

He entered the shop and went up to the clerk.

“Hello, I’m just a beginner in tailoring, and I would like to purchase some materials for practice.”

“We have a number of high-quality materials that will turn out well regardless of whether or not you have much skill. Over here are Mountain Wolf leathers, for 20 gold each, Cave Troll Leathers, for 100 gold each, and over…”

David cut him off, saying “I only have 12 gold, so is there something more in my price range?”

The clerk frowned apologetically, “I’m sorry, you’ve kind of hit us at a bad time – we occasionally import some lower quality leathers because we have so few dedicated hunters in these parts, but it’s been months since the last shipment and the next delivery is a month away. All we have that’s less expensive than the Mountain Wolf leathers are some cotton textiles at 10 silver per square foot, but they’ll provide very little protection.”

“That’s okay, I’ll take 60 square feet and however much thread I’ll need for that, and some scissors.”

The clerk went in the back for a few minutes and returned with his things, “That’ll be 6 gold, 73 silver.”

David gave him the money and left the shop. Outside, he sat down and started making clothes. As he had never sewn before, he relied heavily on the system tips he got for the first level of Tailoring. He spent a few hours working, and by the end, he had gained level 3 in the Tailoring skill and had created one decent set of clothes, that were just a little better than his newbie clothes. He had also created several sets of terrible shirts and pants.

-Maybe I should go buy more… Nah, I’m probably not going to make any better clothes even if I keep trying.

He equipped the clothes and then he remembered that Donovan had told him to come back when he was ready to learn higher tier magic and he had advanced his Mana Understanding to level 3, and he could learn up to Tier 7 magics now.

He dropped by the Mages’ Guild and asked to see Donovan. The secretary, whom Donovan had told that David could always see him, told him to go on up.

He knocked on Donovan’s door, but there was no response. He knocked again, then opened the door, which had been left unlocked. No one was there.

-Hmm, that’s odd. The secretary definitely indicated that he was up here. Where could he have gone without her knowing? The only other place in this tower is… oh, Jolin’s study.

He climbed back down the stairs and then checked behind them. Sure enough, the wall was open. He went down and knocked at the door to Jolin’s study. Still, no response. Confused, David opened the door and entered. Donovan wasn’t here either.

-Maybe…

He went and opened the door to the other room.

Donovan was working with incredible amounts of mana, such that all David could see was a whirlpool of colors flashing, mostly white, tinged red and dark blue.

Mana Sight has increased by 1

Mana Sight is now level 3

You can see more fine distinctions in mana

“Donovan,” he called.

The mana stopped swirling and began to settle down.

“David? I didn’t expect you for a while. What’s up?”

“What was that? The amount of mana you were working with was incredible.”

“I was working on developing some new magic.”

“A water-fire fusion spell?”

“Yes, I’m trying to get a liquid form of fire. Maybe the ratio of water to fire is too high. I can only seem to get hot water. Maybe you could give it a try, you can see all of the mana, and you can convert more of it, right? Maybe it’ll work for you.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a try.” David wasn’t very confident, but Donovan seemed to expect him to get it to work.

He began by bringing out and converting some of his inner mana to water mana in his hand, then he tried adding fire mana. The two sort of swirled around each other, not really wanting to join together. He tried adding more fire mana, but that didn’t really work either.

-Hmm, maybe we need another element, to act as a go between. But what, wind? Earth? Lightning? Let’s try them all, one by one.

David added wind mana, and some of it meshed with the fire and some with the water, but afterwards, the two still didn’t want to come together. So he pulled the wind mana out, converted it to earth mana, but the same thing happened. He tried with lightning mana, but it also didn’t work.

-Maybe life mana or dark mana?

Both were ineffective.

-Metal mana?

Metal mana didn’t work either.

-Knowledge mana, maybe?

The last mana that David knew also didn’t work.

-Maybe I’m going about this wrong. They don’t need another mana with its own peculiarities, they need an element devoted to bonding, joining together. Is it even possible for me to create manas like that, without seeing them first or joining together other elements? Here goes.

With that, David tried pushing the idea of linking into his mana. The mana turned pink.

*Ding*

Mana Understanding has increased by 1

Mana Understanding is now level 4

You can learn spells up to Tier 8 on sight

-Nice!

David returned his mind to the task at hand and, once again pushed out water and fire mana, then added the joining mana he had just created. At once, the red, blue and pink swirled together to form a deep violet, darker than lightning’s lavender color.

In his hand, the violet mana became a ball of flame.

Mana Mastery has increased by 1

Mana Mastery is now level 3

Mana use is now more efficient, - 4% mana consumption for all spells

Because of an incredible feat of magic fusion, Fusion Spells has increased by 9, to level 10, and become Intermediate.

You can now fuse three spells

Fusion Spells have 3 additional effects

Fusion Spells are 20% more powerful

New Skill: You have learned Spell Creation

This allows you to create your own spells

Due to its low level, spells created will be weaker than they ought to be

-50% damage to created spells

+30% casting time

You have created a spell. What would you like to name it?

“Liquid Flame.”

The spell’s name is Liquid Flame?

“Yes.”

“Is that it?” Donovan asked, excited.

“I think so. Do you have a way to test it?”

“Yeah, follow me.” David released the spell and followed as Donovan lead the way out of the tower, past the secretary, and opened a door to the back lot of the guild – a grassy, unkempt lawn overshadowed by the towers. He used earth mana to scoop out a hole, then used water mana to fill it with water.

“If that’s liquid fire, then it should remain on fire, on the surface of the water. Let’s test it out.”

David called out “Liquid Flame!” then threw the spell ball at the water. It hit the water, dimmed briefly, and then spread along the surface.

“It works!” Donovan called. “That was amazing, I was struggling with that one for so long. Opposing elements just don’t seem to want to join together for me. How did you get it to work?”

“I added a third element of mana to the mix.”

“What was it? Air? Earth? Lightning?”

“No, I tried those, but they still didn’t want to mix. So I created a different mana, a mana of fusion.”

“Hmm,” Donovan was obviously saddened by this revelation. “If you had to make another kind of mana to make it, then I probably can’t learn the spell.”

“I don’t know about that. One of my friends was using a non-elemental mana without knowing it. He just called it a non-elemental spell. He didn’t think it was anything special. Maybe you are also using other kinds of mana without thinking about it. If you can use other manas, maybe I can teach you how to use fusion mana. Can you put out some mana in your hand, without making a spell?”

“Sure.” Donovan put out some of his mana, still completely white. David reached out and tried to convert it into fusion mana. It turned pink.

“Now try using some of that together with water and fire mana.”

Donovan brought out some more mana, tinged with red and blue, and joined it with the pink mana already in his hand. The mana mixed together, forming a deep violet, which became a ball of flame.

Donovan’s face broke into a huge smile, “Amazing!” Donovan also threw his ball at the small pond. The flames, which had been slowly dying, roared to life again.

“Anyway,” he said. “What did you need?”

“Oh, yeah. I came to learn more spells. I can learn spells up to Tier 8 on sight now.”

“Sure. Come in here.” Donovan led the way back into the guild hall and went down a hallway that David had never seen before. He opened a door about halfway down into a room that was oddly similar to Sage Jolin’s concentration room. Inside, mana danced and swirled in a greater concentration than it did normally, although it was noticeably less intense than it was in Jolin’s concentration room.

“This is the Training Room. I decided to put it together, recently. You and I are among the first to be in here. It’s supposed to be like the concentration room downstairs, but I couldn’t get the same intensity of mana. Anyway, I think training here will become easier for normal mages. I kind of wanted us to test it out. I also made some fairly resilient dummies to practice spells on. They’re over there.”

David looked where Donovan was pointing and saw three pillars, each about the height and width of a man.

Donovan continued, “Anyway, you wanted to learn spells from where we left off to tier 8, right? Let’s get started.” Donovan began demonstrating spells for David. He shot out one after another. Fire Burst (Tier 6: a spell that created an intense burst of flame in a small area), Blaze (Tier 7: a single person attack that caused one enemy to catch on fire), Inferno (Tier 8: a large scale AoE spell which created intense flames on a large scale), Storm (Tier 6: an AoE spell which created a rain of lightning bolts), Purple Laser (Tier 8: a spell which compressed lightning into a pulse which ignored armor and destroyed the nerve endings of the enemy, causing crippling pain and immense damage), Wind Blades (Tier 7: a spell which compressed wind into a cutting edge and propelled it at an enemy), Wind Tunnel (Tier 8: a spell which caused a powerful wind which could blow away light enemies and make heavy enemies unable to move), Crevice (Tier 6: a spell which opens a crack in the ground for enemies to fall into, then shuts in order to crush them), Stalactite (Tier 7: a conical stone falls from the sky to deal massive damage to an enemy), Dancing Earth (Tier 8: a spell which causes the earth to shake, disrupting enemy footing), and Intense Cold (Tier 8: an ice spell which lowers the temperature to the extent that metal weapons and armor break easily and opponents take constant damage).

Mana Sight has increased by 1

Mana Sight is now level 4

You can see more fine distinctions in mana

When Donovan had finished, he said, “Most spells above tier 8 are fusion spells – it’s just not easy to pack more power in with just one element. Actually, a lot of the interesting spells are above Tier 8 too. Like weather manipulation – that’s all fusion spells, which tend to be Tier 8 or above.”

“How about flight magic? What tier is that?”

“Flight magic is Tier 13. It’s actually one of the few single-element spells above Tier 8 –all wind magic, no other elements involved. Anyways, you can create your own spells now, so you should be able to get by without demonstrations from me anymore. Still, you’re more than welcome to drop by and ask me to demonstrate any time. On another note, if I may ask, what are you planning on doing now?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“I’m planning on going to learn nature magic from the druid you recommended.”

“Oh yes, Llyr, I think you’ll learn a lot from him. He’s very in tune with nature. And you should see his trees, he grows them bigger and faster than any other druid I know.”

“Alright, I’m off. I’ll come see you when I get back.”

“You do that. I’ll be right here.”

With that, David set off for the Shifting Forest.

It was late afternoon, with golden light bathing the tall grasses of the plain, when he first saw the buffalo. Big beasts with brown fur, long faces and horns were slowly moving across the plain in front of him, in large groups. The groups of buffalo were often within sight distance of each other, and seemed to go on for miles. As he approached, some of the buffalo briefly turned their heads to look at him, but they didn’t do anything, they just kept moving. So did he.

David was moving horizontally across the migration path, and every time David passed one group, another one seemed to appear in front of him. David kept moving, doing his best to avoid coming too close to a group of buffalo. Despite their reputation for peacefulness, he couldn’t help but notice their size and the fact that, if they decided to stampede, he would be dead before he could do anything to avoid it.

This was why, when night came, David kept moving, even though the buffalo had long since laid down to sleep. It was a full moon that night, and there was no shortage of light. He was still on the plains, so there shouldn’t have been any monsters except for the prairie wolves, which knew better than to wade into the middle of the buffalo – they would also be killed by a stampede.

When David had been walking for a few minutes without seeing another group of sleeping buffalo, he knew that he had passed out of the migration path, and into very real danger. Now that he was out, the prairie wolves could attack at any time, and it was still nighttime, so they were 50% stronger.

That’s when he heard it. The scream. Whoever was screaming was so terrified, David couldn’t tell the gender, and it was getting closer. David took out his Grimoire, and looked in the direction from which the sound was coming. He started to hear the pounding of feet and then a wolf bayed.

Then she came into sight. It was a woman, running while looking behind her, pursued closely by a pack of wolves. She was going to pass right by David, and he definitely didn’t want to be set on by a pack of wolves.

“Red Laser!” He aimed at the leading wolf. Just as it was about to pounce on the woman, the laser hit it, knocking it off its feet. It got back to its feet and stared at him. The other wolves and the woman had stopped too. He’d drawn the wolves’ attention, but the lead wolf looked angry. David noticed that it was only a few meters from him.

It snarled and started running at him.

-Yup, definitely angry.

“Chain Lightning!” The bolt shot out of his fingertips and hit the lead wolf, who stopped, and then it arced to the next wolf, and the next, till it had lit up the whole pack. All 13 of them.

-Oh, no.

“Lightning Ball!” He tossed the lightning grenade, and it exploded, just as the pack began to move again. They paused again, but they seemed unhurt, and even angrier.

“Quicksand!” The wolves began to sink into the ground, but they also began to move again, pulling up their paws, trying to get free. He took advantage of the fact that they were halted to start one of his longer spells.

“Inferno” The mana from inside him flowed out and over to the wolves, there it began collecting, very, very slowly. David’s heart beat faster as he saw the wolves starting to get closer and closer to the edge of the quicksand.

-Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up! Please, please, please work.

Just as the closest wolf got back onto solid ground, the mana erupted into flame. The heat from the huge blaze reached David’s face. The light thrown off lit up the plains for miles. None of the wolves escaped the blaze. Their burning bodies were briefly visible as shadows in the light, before they turned to ash.

David leveled up 32 times. He put 3/5 of his level up points into Intelligence and 2/5 in Vitality. It had been really scary when the wolf hadn’t died even after he had shot it with multiple spells, and he wanted his magical damage to go way up. He also wanted to not die after one hit.

Character NameDavidAlignmentNeutralLevel43ProfessionSageTitlesLibrarian of the Anderalex LibraryFame0Health730Mana6800Strength8Agility10Vitality73Wisdom698Intelligence802Luck0Leadership0Attack0Defense0Magic Resistances:None- +100 to Wisdom and Intelligence

- All magic skills can be learned to Grandmaster level

- Spell restrictions lifted, able to learn and use any spell

- Mana regeneration speed increases by 300%

- Mana consumption for all spells decreases by 75%

- All skills, except weaponry skills, can be learned to Master level

- You cannot learn any weaponry skills

- You cannot wear armor

- You cannot earn fame, nor can you earn infamy or gain a murderer’s mark

- Reputation with all mages is high

- Using a magical focus will decrease spell casting time by half

- Certain class-specific skills will become available to you based on your level in Mana Mastery and Mana Sight

The fire kept burning, although after the initial blaze it faded a little. Once the fire had consumed everything in the small area it had been conjured in, it started to die off.

While the flames died, David turned to the woman. She wore a long cloth robe, with numerous pendants resting over the top. She had long auburn hair, glinting red-brown in the light of the dying fire. She wasn’t beautiful, but she wasn’t ugly either.

Seeing him looking at her, she approached, “Thank you so much! Those wolves were way too strong for me, but you just took them out, like whoosh, bang!”

“It wasn’t a problem.”

“Wow! You must be a high-level mage if a pack of prairie wolves didn’t pose a threat to you. I’m Hannah, what’s your name?”

“David.” Her enthusiasm was a little too much for him. “Hannah, why were the wolves chasing you?”

She became serious. “Well, you see, I’m on a quest to become a medicine woman. It’s this really cool class I found about. Anyway, the medicine man of the Wa’ahma people says that he can give me the class if I cure him. You see, he was cursed by the medicine man of the Lomah people, that’s the clan that the Wa’ahma people are fighting with all the time, and this time, the medicine man was unlucky enough to get cursed and now he can’t use magic. So he told me that if I go find a special herb, the curse can be removed, and he’ll give me the class. Anyway, it turns out that the special herb only grows in a few places, and the closest place happens to be in the den of these prairie wolves you just killed. So, I’m going to go and collect the herb now, do you want to come with me?”

Overwhelmed by the torrent of words, David could only nod.

The fire had died by the time they finished talking and David went and collected the loot – mostly wolf fangs. He had little else in his bag but for barley bread – he was still dirt poor and needed all the drops he could get.

As they walked back towards the den of the prairie wolves, they talked a little. Hannah told him how she had gotten to this point. She had entered the game several months ago, in Orison Kingdom, and had chosen the elemental shaman class. She had gained a quest from one of the members of the elemental shaman guild to go check out a rumor about a shaman-like class exclusive to the nomads of the Jotunnheim plains. Somehow, she had managed to get by all the more powerful monsters, mostly by running until she exited their territories. She had invested a lot in her stamina, so she was able to outlast all the monsters that could have killed her. When she had ran into one of the tribes, she had had to beg for a whole day just for the chance to meet their medicine man. The only reason she was able to meet him at all was because they were too preoccupied with guarding against the other tribes to care all that much about outsiders.

The medicine man was unable to help his people until his curse had been lifted, so he sent her on a mission to gather a special herb within a week. This was only the second day of the week, so they were set for time.

By the time she finished her tale, they had gotten to the wolves’ den.

“Careful, the medicine man told me that there was a wolf who was much stronger than the others around here.”

The den was a small valley, with a steep grassy slope leading down into it on all sides.

David looked down into it.

-This looks like a field boss territory. I’m not feeling this, not at all.

“It looks like as soon as we get to the bottom, the boss will emerge. We’ll probably have to defeat it in order to get your herb. What can you do as far as combat goes?”

“I can summon weak wind and water spirits, and do buffs for warriors. Oh, and I wield daggers.” With that, she took out two foot-long daggers, which gleamed in the moonlight.

“Okay, I’ll try to stun the boss, then can you aggro the boss, while I prep one of my biggest spells?”

“Sure.”

They half walked, half slid down the slope. When they were at the bottom, Hannah took out her weapons and David took out his Grimoire. They waited for the boss to appear, but nothing happened.

“Well, that was anticlimactic.”

They relaxed from their prepared stances. Then, it struck. The boss mob, the White Wolf.

It howled as it hurled itself at Hannah. She just managed to hurl herself out of the way, but David noticed that its claws had ripped into her side as she was dodging. Hannah was still on the ground when the White Wolf landed and turned to go in for the kill.

Without thinking, David reacted, “Red Laser!”

The beam of red light seemed not to do much damage, but it did force the wolf to turn back to David. While it was distracted, Hannah got to her feet.

As the wolf prepared to leap, David needed more time, to prepare a bigger spell

“Downdraft!”

The wolf was flattened by the sudden downward force of the wind, but not for long.

David had to act fast, to keep the wolf off its feet and away from his pitiful amount of health

“Wall!” A stone slab rose up in front of David, to the height of his chest.

“Air Bullets!” Air mana swirled in front of him, compressing the air. The bullet fired, knocking the wolf back. Hannah called out,

“Wolf Spirit!” Then she jumped at the wolf, stabbed it a few times, and retreated. The wolf turned to face her.

“Can you hold it for a few seconds?” David called out.

“I’ll try!” She yelled back, fighting defensively, dodging when the wolf leaped at her, backing up when it advanced.

“Stalactite and Downdraft” he called. Brown and yellow mana amassed above the wolf, swirling and mixing.

“Disengage, Hannah! It’s gonna be a big one!”

She turned from the wolf and leapt away, just as a huge, stone spike appeared above the wolf. The wolf saw the spike, and tried to get away, but it was held in place by an invisible force. Then the spike fell, impaling the wolf.

Amazingly, the White Wolf was still alive. It was trapped under the spike, but it tried to claw its way out.

-I guess it isn’t a boss monster for nothing.

“Liquid Flame!” David hurled the ball at the spike, which caught on fire. The flame dripped down onto the wolf, who was still trapped. It began to howl in agony.

The flame burned for a few minutes before dying off. The wolf lasted for almost the entire duration, falling silent only at the end. It was definitely dead.

David leveled up 5 times. This time, he distributed the points evenly between Intelligence and Wisdom.

Mana Mastery has increased by 1

Mana Mastery is now level 4

Mana use is now more efficient, - 6% mana consumption for all spells

Grimoire has increased by 1

Grimoire is now level 2

Spell storage space increases to 30

Hannah approached David.

“Wow! That was crazy! Like, wow! I haven’t seen anyone do something like that. I barely did any damage, even with a strength and agility buff, and you took out the White Wolf with only, like, three spells. That was fantastic!”

“It really wasn’t a big deal.” David said, uncomfortable around excessive compliments. “Let’s check the drops.” To deflect any further compliments

The White Wolf was a field boss, so it dropped some decent stuff – a few gold rings and a pair of daggers. Hannah’s eyes lit up at the daggers.

“I so totally need those. I haven’t gotten better daggers since I was like, level 40. You can have the rings.”

David identified the rings. They were all useless – they didn’t have any enchantments or anything, though they would sell for a decent price.

Hannah picked up the daggers and turned to him, “I need to get the herbs now, do you want to come with. I’m sure the medicine man will reward you, too.”

“Nah, I have something I have to do in the Shifting Forest. But, I’ll come see you when I’m done. Do you want to be friends?”

“Sure.” Hannah smiled. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing. The next time you see me, I’ll be a powerful Medicine Woman, I might even be stronger than you.”

David smiled back, “Maybe, but I’m on something of a training mission myself. We’ll see whenever we meet again.”

Hannah laughed. “Okay then, hotshot. I’m so going to be better than you, next time.”

“See you.”

“Bye-bye.”

With the sun on the horizon, David started walking towards the Shifting Forest.

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