Novels2Search
Liz, a journey beyond this world
Chapter 29: If there are no problems.

Chapter 29: If there are no problems.

Only after Liz finished her second ration of stew did she bother answering her.

“Mana manipulation…”

“But you have no mana.” She replied. “Even a corpse leakes more mana than you”

‘Rude.' Liz though. Even if she was constantly masking her mana, and was somewhat proud of how good she was at it, comparing a little girl like her to a corpse was just wrong.

“Cursed, mana is… dead?” she finally said, telling the lie she had been tailoring for weeks.

Fara's voice became one of confusion and understanding, she knew that many curses could interfere with one's internal mana. Alan was a perfect example of it, but to think that a little girl could face such a terrible predicament…

“But, if your mana is dead, how do you use it?” The man asked. Fara could easily think of the answer, even if she knew how unusual it was.

“I force it… to move…”

The man stared at her in disbelief, to force once mana to move, was unthinkable. Even level 100 archmages heavily relied on their mana's own proclivity to help them to cast their spells.

‘What kind of life did this little girl have to live to develop this kind of skill?’

Fara knew many things about magic, and more than the comofolk about the system, mages were known as knowledge hoarders after all. And this knowledge helped her understand one thing.

‘If the girl learned how to use “dead” mana, the system must have rewarded her with a substantial amount of levels… But she was only level 15, so she must've been cursed at level 5 at most.’

That only made it even harder to believe, why would a magic cripled level 5 strive to be a mage, when becoming a warrior or a rogue was much easier. But Fara knew the answer to that question, mages were the most versatile class after all.

A warrior couldn't fight an enemy stronger than him, a rogue couldn't kill an opponent with high defences. But mages could outsmart a strong opponent, immobilise a sturdy one.

A mage's power grew with their mana, but was only limited by their wits.

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The next hours were extremely uneventful for Liz, she easily directed the conversation and mixed lies with the little truths she gave about her situation.

Fara, mage that specialised in fire and rock magic, had created her own version of whatever hardship she had to endure. ‘Whatever, it’s easier if they lie to themselves after all’.

Eventually, the conversation shifted to other more interesting topics, at least in Liz’s opinion.

Apparently, their caravan belonged to a merchant used to transporting goods across the desert, and their journey should last for at least two months, but it could take them some more weeks if the “local wildlife” was particularly annoying.

Fortunately, most monsters weren’t as sturdy as the santepides, which meant that her usual tactic would probably work.

Eventually, the rest of the members of the caravan started waking up, which meant that their guard was over and they could finally sleep.

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Liz stared at the sky lying down in her wagon, she was supposed to be sleeping for half an hour, and even though she didn’t really need to sleep…

Food: 20%

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She couldn’t afford the extra food cost right now, even if she had double that amount in her reserves, she would still be reluctant. Because she didn’t have a good food supply right now.

Back in the forest, she could easily hunt down a monster and devour it, replenishing a good chunk of her reserves. But here, surrounded by humans, she couldn't even eat much more than what a girl her age should.

‘I’m starting to regret taking that girl's hand…’

But Liz knew that taking Dere’s hand was probably the best she could have done, even if she was now struggling to feed herself, even if the forest was a great place for levelling. This was a perfect way to gain knowledge, and knowledge was infinitely more important than levels, specially in her situation.

“Uhhhh” With a long sigh, Liz finally closed her eyes and tried to relax herself, it was not like the nightmares could do anything to her…

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When Liz woke up, the sky was already blinding.

This was the third day of their journey, and the fourth night in which she suffered another nightmare.

She couldn’t remember most of them, all she could remember was the feeling of absolute terror that was slowly choking her soul.

“Morning.” She said, as she reached for their bottle of water, channelling her mana inside of it and drank the refreshing cold water.

Now that her magic sense had evolved, she could see how the mana changed inside the water crystal, still far beyond her capacity to understand it, but at least she could perceive the process.

“Morning… Did you have another nightmare?” Iso asked once she finished drinking.

“Yes…”

Dere and Iso stared at her, they wanted to help her, but they simply had no clue of what was causing them.

Liz ignored them as she grabbed a piece of dried bread from a bag and began chewing it.

“How much time… next village?” Liz asked.

“Two days, if everything goes well.” Answered Iso.

“If not?”

“Dont worry about it, everything will be fine.” Interrupted Dere in her usual carelessness.

‘I hope she’s right…’

Liz clapped her hands and summoned her usual mana cover to protect them from the scorching light from the sky. Once she was covered by shadows, she felt a bit cooler.

‘If I was feeling uncomfortable because of the heat, how were these two keeping it together, how would the rest of the caravan do it?’ She could ask that to Fara later, in the past few days the fire mage and her had become rather close.

It wasn’t really friendship, more like some mutual acknowledgment for each other's magical abilities, even if Liz considered Fara to be lacking in many fields.

‘I can't really blame her for that, this world seems to be rather underdeveloped in that regard.’ She had thought about that for some time now, why were so many people with non-magic classes?

The answer was simple, magic was difficult, its learning curve was almost flat at the start, and worst of all, it was extremely underdeveloped. All of this was almost a blessing for her, it meant that the moment she gained some real power, she would have a real advantage compared to the locals.

‘But getting that power will have to wait…’ She closed her eyes and turned her perception back inside her body, just like she did for the last three days.

She commanded her mana to slowly leave the left part of her body, to saturate her right arm. Before, this was almost impossible, she only had a general idea of where her mana was. Now on the other hand, she could easily spot her internal mana circuit, slowly losing its glow as it was emptied.

She felt an itch in her right arm, like a thousand ants crawling over it and she stopped. She left her mana her right arm for some minutes, before ordering it to fill her other arm.

She repeated this with every part of her body, slowly increasing both the speed and the amount of mana.

‘This could be completely useless…’ She thought, it wasn’t like she had a manual or something. ‘But doing the usual training is relaxing.’

She remembered how she had to spend the first years of every “cycle” training her body and her core, to allow them to support the full might of her magic.

‘This isn’t different from a normal cycle… just that the setting is a bit different.’ She chuckled.

After some more hours, she opened her eyes and jumped from the now stopped wagon. “I do nightwatch.”

Iso and Dere hadn't stopped her, she was the only one in their group with something comparable to night vision after all.

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Liz was practising magic with Fara, who had summoned a fireball and was struggling to mimic Liz’s control. Some metres away from them, a man sat down with his legs crossed, ignoring them as he stared at the horizon.

In this peaceful night, Liz felt something entering her magic sense range.

She suddenly stopped moving and turned her attention to the direction of the monster she had just detected, only to feel two more right behind it, and then another three…

She turned to face a confused Fara, only to see her frown as the monsters reached her perception range.

‘Right… problems…’