Glenn stretched, sitting patiently on an uncomfortably rigid wooden peg. After making sure he understood the importance of keeping his Corruption to himself, Brother Nolan left him to find his dimensional pouch, which, thank the Gods, had survived the violent decontamination of the Head Priestess. Hopefully, he won't have to meet the violent grandma again.
Getting his head bashed in was low on his priority list.
The young man leaned back, grimacing as he readjusted his position. This wooden peg seemed to have been made to be uncomfortable. That was one thing he never understood in churches: why the hell would they make these seats so...horrible to sit on?
Couldn't he get a comfortable sofa or something?
"I think penitence and modesty are the two main reasons why the seats are poor quality," Nelg theorized, before snickering, "...Are the seats too hard for your soft butt, Glenn?"
Glenn smacked his lips, 'Yes they are.'
Nelg was momentarily speechless in front of his honesty. The sword was about to speak again but Brother Nolan came back at this time, bringing with him Glenn's dimensional pouch and a small book. Glenn cocked his head as he didn't recognize the book; it wasn't the bible-kind-of-book Brother Nolan was reading previously, but it still had an ancient look.
"Here's your pouch, Sir Glenn. I'd advise you to try and keep your precious items in a Gold Church Bank, or the Cleaner's Workshop storage. Dimensional storage spaces are always unstable, and more often than not lives are ruined because of their thefts."
Glenn thanked him and grabbed the pouch, taking the warning very seriously. Losing his pouch could have been disastrous, had he not possessed the Cleaner's Workshop identification dagger. This had been a good wake-up call. Perhaps he should look into their fabrication? It would probably be extremely useful to know how to make dimensional storages and an assured way to make some cash. After all, those things were insanely expensive, costing up to hundreds of gold, and more for the more spacious ones. Glenn had never tried to reach the limit of his dimensional pouch, but he knew it was a relatively common-sized one; not too small, but not that large either. Was it ten cubic meters?
...He could certainly use a large space, though. Another thing to study. Perhaps dimensional magic would work well with his Astral Sorcery?
"Oh, also you gave quite a fright to Head Priestess Trianix. I think I've never laughed as much as when she told us of her encounter with you," Brother Nolan chuckled softly. Glenn laughed as well, actually a little proud of his shameless acts of the previous day. It was fun to mock the stern lady, and he did get some enjoyment out of it. The priest took a step back and looked at the book he was holding hesitantly as if struggling to come up with a decision. Glenn patiently waited, wondering what made Brother Nolan so hesitant about giving him that book. Was there some hidden knowledge in there? A secret evil power?
Oh, he wanted to get that book now. Finally, Brother Nolan shook his head and exhaled stressfully.
"I brought this to you, thinking it might be of some use. There are multiple records of you meeting various Corruption sources after all, so this book will probably serve you better than it did us, among the thousand similar ones we have," said the priest with a weak smile. He held the book out toward Glenn, the cover visible to see. "Research and Study of Corruption," by Vandorian Di Forte. The book wasn't thick, but it wasn't thin either. Probably around three, or four hundred pages. Glenn took it, before frowning.
"Wait, isn't "Di Forte" Astrid's family name?" He asked the priest, curious. Brother Nolan looked to the side and pressed his lips together.
"A — A coincidence, I'm sure. Haha..." A large bead of sweat dripped down from the priest's forehead as he avoided Glenn's eyes. The young man looked at him confusedly for a few seconds, before shrugging and putting the book in his dimensional pouch.
"Thanks, I'll read it once I have a minute or two," Glenn smacked his lips and rubbed both of his hands together, "...Then, if that's all, I'll be taking my leave, Brother Nolan. It was a pleasure to meet you," He smiled as he held his hand toward the priest. Brother Nolan smiled back and shook his hand.
"Likewise, Sir Glenn. May you be blessed by Harmony," He bowed his head slightly.
A few minutes later, Glenn was already far from the Church, following the Magi Brotherhood's tablet's guidance. There were a few things that he wanted to test out.
First and foremost, he had to understand what exactly was Pebble. Because he still had no idea, in the end. Was it a pebble? A magic pebble? A sentient one? An indestructible one?
So many questions he had no answer for, even though he always had the pebble on him—
Wait, was it burned alongside his Soulbound suit? Glenn almost panicked as he patted his pockets, sighing in relief when he found the stone at its usual spot, in his breast pocket. That also was an anomaly; how the hell was this pebble managing to get back in his pocket every time?
"...Another turn..." He muttered, before arriving at the Magi Brotherhood's station. A quick use of his tablet and a nauseating teleportation later, he arrived in the Magi Brotherhood. He used the tablet once more and landed in the Savant Room, the perfect place to try out dangerous spells and fill in the gaps of a Spell Repertoire. The space was as distorted and weird as ever, giving the sentiment of living through some kind of gigantic, drug-induced illusion. Glenn didn't waste another second wondering how this room could even exist and took Pebble out of his pocket.
The stone was jade-colored, and was quite dense, as its ratio weight-size hinted at. Glenn played with the stone for a minute or so, before throwing it as far as he could. The stone disappeared in the meanders of the Savant Room, far from his view and hidden behind colorful distortions. The young man waited for a few seconds while attentively looking at his pockets, but the pebble didn't manifest itself. He waited for a few more minutes before giving up and concentrating on his other project; defensive spells. And one more efficient than Gravitational Shield, for the latter was too weak for his taste.
'Glenn, you should check on your breast pocket,' Diamanes suddenly said with a slightly mocking voice. Glenn froze in his steps and did exactly as asked, almost sighing in amazement. Pebble was back, once again, like always. This was almost maddening.
"...The second I leave the pocket out of sight, the stone comes back, refusing to hint at any possible ways it's doing this...Diamanes, did you even see anything?"
The entity laughed before replying.
'Nope! No idea! I just noticed the difference when it nested comfortably in your breast pocket.'
"And you, Nelg?" Glenn asked with little hope. The sword sighed, similarly at a loss.
"I was curious about this pebble too, and watched the ground the best I could, but I doubt it's just rolling to your pocket. Perhaps it's able to move through space? A teleporting stone?"
Glenn shivered. The idea of creating a sentient rock already felt morally questionable, but then, for that same rock to be able to teleport? Even he couldn't do that!
Yet. Teleportation was yet another subject he should explore. How would he even do that? Perhaps it'd be simpler to use the already-made formulas for that one? That would certainly be simpler, but probably much less efficient than coming up with his own, personal teleportation spell, tailor-made to be used with Astral Sorcery.
...Studying and using the already-made spell would probably help him have at least a direction to go for, at the very least.
Anyway! Glenn smacked his cheeks and forced himself to stop this tangent. He pulled Pebble out of its pocket and dropped it in front of him. Glenn grinned almost sadistically as Mana began to twirl around both of his hands, one creating a powerful Blackhole, and the other charging up Nitrogen.
"Let's see how tough you are, then..." Without further ado, he shot a Nitrogen Lance straight at the Pebble, using a good amount of Mana for the spell. He cut off the Mana supply after a full second of unloading the spell, gazing upon the experience's result. A large portion of the Savant Room had filled with chill air, but it took barely a moment for all of it to disappear, absorbed by the mystical power of the room. There was no physical damage either, and, frozen in a large irregular shard of ice, the pebble stood unscratched.
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Glenn smacked his lips and cast Sun's Touch, preparing to melt the ice.
"Wait!" Nelg suddenly exclaimed, stopping him.
"Leave Pebble be for a moment to chill on the ice, maybe we'll be able to see something interesting!" He suggested excitedly. Glenn dismissed Sun's Touch as he smiled with similar curiosity. Indeed, if the Pebble was physically restrained, would it be able to go back to his pocket? This would reinforce his teleporting stone theory. With that thought in mind, Glenn turned around and went back to designing a new defensive spell. He suddenly looked back, as if to try and surprise the pebble frozen in ice, but it was still there, slowly waiting for its prison to melt. Glenn chuckled before concentrating. He used his Gravitational Shield, looking at the visible ripple surrounding him.
After a moment's thought, he used his Magi tablet to summon a small pedestal from the ground and pressed a few options on it. A stone bow came out of the floor, aimed at him. There was a large stone arrow, the size of an arm loaded in it. Glenn faced the bow and took a deep breath.
'Why does it feel like a bad idea? Oh, because it probably is...' Diamanes jeered sarcastically. Glenn ignored him and waited. Three seconds later, the stone rope snapped and the heavy arrow flew, headed straight for Glenn's head. The young man stood unflinching, his right hand tightly crisped on his sword's hilt. The arrow met his Gravitational Shield and slowed slightly, but wasn't stopped entirely. Instead, it scratched Glenn's cheek and flew past him with decreasing speed. It fell to the ground weakly after passing through the Shield, its power considerably lessened.
Glenn gasped in relief as he pressed against his cheek, a little bit of blood coming out of the scratch. He shook his head and looked back at the stone arrow, watching as it sunk into the floor. A new arrow appeared on the stone bow to replace the used one, waiting to be released. For now, Glenn paused the device and began thinking.
"This was way too close for my liking," Nelg commented unhelpfully. Diamanes laughed mockingly, unable to restrain himself from adding his grain of salt.
'We were this short from Glenn committing suicide! Imagine the title of the newspaper: "An Idiot Kills Himself Trying to Learn New Magic". That would sell a lot!'
Nelg laughed as well, and Glenn was forced to shut both of the voices, concentrated. He felt like he was onto something, and their disturbances weren't helpful to his spell creation.
The Gravitational Shield worked as intended. Only, the pull wasn't strong enough. Glenn felt he could probably solve this issue if he used enough Mana, but simply brute-forcing the problem didn't seem like an actual solution. Additionally, increasing the gravitational pull could become dangerous; he didn't want to get ripped to shreds because he made his spells incorrectly.
The main issue there was that he lacked knowledge of how gravitational strength worked. He knew the basics and thanked Newton for his teachings, but he was no specialist. And he doubted he would be able to find one in this damned world. Perhaps Exan would be one? After all, the fellow Earthling seemed to be quite old, he probably had the time to study the question.
Or maybe he hadn't. Glenn could only hope, for knowledge was power, and knowledge he had none.
Or too little.
Anyway, this Gravitational Shield can certainly be improved. But how...?
"Why don't you try layering it?" Nelg suggested hesitantly, his voice tinged with uncertainty as Glenn looked at him, the sword hanging lazily at his waist. He cast a Gravitational Shield around himself, then added a second one with half the power of the first shield. He activated the stone bow, ready to draw his sword or avoid the projectile. The heavy stone arrow pierced easily through the weaker layer but struggled against the strongest one. Glenn watched intently as the arrow was deflected to the ground. The weak layer had been destroyed, but the main one was still holding on, swirling around with a few stone bits.
"...Huh." Nelg's suggestion was a good one, it seemed. The Mana cost was slightly increased, going from 100% for the first layer to 100% + 50% for the first and second layers. It still lacked efficiency, but perhaps Glenn could instead use a lot of different layers, much weaker, but with much lesser costs as well.
It didn't cost him much to try anyway, so Glenn did just that. He summoned five layers, each costing progressively less Mana, for a total of 200% of the original cost. He couldn't do less degressive than that, and using less Mana would make it so that the layer would simply fail on him. Nonetheless, he was still a little unsure, hence why he drew his longsword and prepared to deflect the incoming attack. Air was swirling around him as the five layers of gravitational pull surrounded him.
Glenn activated the stone bow once again, gritting his teeth. The stone arrow flew once more, aiming to pierce through his chest. It reached the first layer, but there weren't visible effects from that encounter. The second layer noticeably slowed down the projectile, as did the third one. The fourth tore it to pieces and the fifth one swallowed it, creating a small asteroid belt around him. Glenn rubbed his chin pensively. On one hand, the effects had been pretty good, for the projectile had been destroyed, but on the other hand, it expended twice as much Mana as the original Gravitational Shield, which wasn't what he was aiming for.
What else could he try? Could he try and accelerate the projectiles to better deflect them? Instead of pushing against them, push behind them? That was a weird idea. But if it worked, it would mean that any projectiles Glenn could deflect would be sent back to their caster with twice as much power. Maybe not exactly twice the strength, but there'd be a certain boost.
And since attack was the best defense, managing to counter spells or projectiles this way seemed like an excellent idea. It wouldn't do much against melee attacks though, for a sword would simply just fly faster toward his neck.
Maybe he should create two spells? A close-combat shield, and an anti-projectile shield?
That was also an interesting idea.
The main idea was to absorb attacks and send them back while using minimum Mana. Perhaps he could also apply this to a close-combat shield? Something like a bouncy shield? The harder you struck it, the stronger it would strike back the attacker.
"Huhuhu..." Glenn couldn't help but cackle at these thoughts. He was imagining how someone would feel if they just shot their best spells at him, or struck their sword masterfully, only for them to receive their attacks back in their faces. It would be both cool and fun. A perfect combo.
But how was he supposed to do that? Mana was easy to manipulate, thanks to the Gods, but it was hard to imagine a concept that worked with this idea.
'...Nelg, I'm scared. Glenn is rattling his brains way too much!' Diamanes whispered mockingly, successfully annoying his host. Glenn ignored Nelg's laugh and instead dismissed every layer of his shield. He had something else he wanted to try. He went back to the stone terminal and changed the properties of the stone bow. After a bit of fiddling around, he managed to get the equivalent of a stone blunderbuss, charged with a hail of pebbles.
The young man used the original Gravitational Shield again, surrounding himself in the mystical protection. A second later, the blunderbuss shot out all of the pebbles at surprising speed. But Glenn wasn't surprised, for he had specifically made it so that the shots would be as fast as they could. The pebbles all encountered his shield, and instead of slowing or crumbling down, they all followed the flow of the gravitational pull and shot back at the stone blunderbuss.
The cannon disappeared in a cloud of dust, destroyed by the attack. Glenn smacked his lips, surprised.
"So it's very efficient against fast but small projectiles but has a hard time against powerful, large projectiles. It feels like something is missing in the spell..." He trailed off as dismissed the spell. Nelg and Diamanes didn't say a word, for the man was close to finding the solution.
He could feel it.
Glenn, almost in a trance, went back to the stone terminal and changed the options to have both the blunderbuss and the powerful stone bow aimed at him at the same time. He drew a deep breath and summoned his shield, creating almost instinctively. Without another thought, he activated the bow and the blunderbuss. Both shot out at the same time, whistling through the air as they aimed for Glenn's life. The young man didn't budge, squinting at the new shield. The stone pebble bullets were the first to touch it, and they immediately were pulled in Glenn's back by the gravitational pull. The arrow touched his shield just after that, trying to pierce through the thick layer. The projectile slowed down considerably, before getting crushed to bits by the remains of the stone bullets.
The stone bits flew around Glenn for a moment until he willed for their release, shooting the whole thing back in the bow and blunderbuss' direction. A pearl of sweat fell from his forehead and plinked on the floor. Glenn sighed in relief and wiped the sweat off.
"Phew, alright, it seems like it worked. I'm not sure how, but it worked. Alright..." The young man grinned, before calming down. He still had a few tests to run to make sure the spell was entirely usable, mostly with melee attacks. Because, if his theory was correct, he could also stop those with this shield.
"Well, I never thought this would work. You do expend more Mana, but it is better, so...I guess it's a win?" Nelg muttered, awed. Diamanes laughed, not impressed in the slightest.
'Great! Now you might be able to survive against rank 3 opponents! Nice! As if you couldn't do that already!'
Glenn hesitated between smiling and smacking his lips, split between the two entities' opinions. He chose to go with the positive one and ignore the useless one.
"Thanks, Nelg. You sure are a good helper and not a parasite whatsoever."
Nelg laughed.
"Oh, but thank you, Glenn. It's always a pleasure to show parasites what a symbiotic relationship is!"
The two laughed as, for once, Diamanes was the one rendered speechless. Glenn laughed a bit more, before turning back to see how Pebble was doing in its ice cluster. He did take a bit of time to prepare his shield, and he hadn't—
The ice had completely melted, and the pebble was nowhere to be seen. Glenn almost sighed as he patted his breast pocket and found the pebble right where it belonged. Maybe it was spatial magic, maybe the thing was rolling up to his shirt in invisible mode.
The mystery surrounding Pebble shall remain unveiled for now.
For now...
Glenn shook his head and returned to his shield. He summoned it again, grimacing as he passed under half the capacity of his Heart of Mana, and changed the parameters on the stone terminal. A human stone doll wielding a classic longsword emerged from the ground, twirling its weapon at random. The young man cracked his neck and braced himself. Suddenly, he jumped in the sword's direction, betting on the shield's resistance. The sword collided with the shield, chipped away by the gravitational pull, before being repulsed away. The doll was knocked back by a few meters and ultimately fell on its back.
"HAHA, IT WORKS!" He finally exclaimed, unable to contain himself further. With this, he finally had a good defensive spell. And he didn't need Diamanes to name it, for he had already thought of the perfect moniker.
The Saturn Rings.
...
...
...
'...Too bad I didn't get to name this one...'