Aurum - Year 2 {3 Months later }
How long is our's lifespan? It's been 2 years since I arrived in this world, and yet I didn't feel old for an insect at all.
My kids looked good as new too, they were always healthy and full of energy, and this somehow's feels wrong to me. I don't know if it's a bug in the system due to me being some kind of half monster/human/insect? Or if it's all caused by my [Life] affinity.
The affinities seemed to be unable to be inherited, but they still seemed to influence my descendants in a way or another. My children don't have an affinity whit anything, but they still had this incredible vitality, very healthy bodies, and were always in their "perfect shape". There were no fat or out of shape people in the hive, even Carl, who is a glutton is just a little more chubby than the rest of the colony, and this seemed to be more due to his [Class] than his excessive consumption of food.
I don't know how to feel about this "Longevity", I may last many years, or I may not even die of old age at all, my life mana could keep my body alive forever... Theoretically.
We still had one big weakness, which was our fragility. The soldiers were powerful in they own way, they know how to cause a lot of damage if necessary, and were experts in killing their target if needed. But they are very fragile, taking a blow from the enemy already hurt them, and all they could about it is retreat and wait until they received some healing from the colony.
I don't think it's a problem, the dynamics of the soldiers and other groups seem very similar to a group of adventurers. Each one has their own specialty, and they collaborate with each other to make the best of the situation.
The healers stay behind equiped with heavy armors and some potions, being protected by the members who weren't fighting, while the tankers and ranged damage dealers would start attacking first. Then they would receive help from poisonous bees, warriors, swordsmen, spearmen and everything they can.
We had a bit of everything and even more nowadays. We had groups of specialized soldiers now, like Jon, the leader of the squires who was a [Guadiam], he is a very calm guy, and seemed like a "Noble" to me, like a more peaceful and big version of Hans, you could see him having tea with his group of super pumped up bees from time to time while eating some snack's.
We had Aldy, a bee [Poison Prodigy], he could basically create poisons with the glands on his body, and coat himself with it. He and his group of toxic bees could be seen from time to time creating new poisons and throwing them at the distracted Wappos.
Another group leader was Zack, a rare [Shooter], a bee that was able to create thorns and shoot them with his bow-shaped arm. He was basically the colony archer, and had a small group of bees that launch stingers and thorns training daily at the training ground.
Ral, was a super rare [Battle Mage], we didn't know that classes that where from the... "Academic" area could "diverge" só much at a point of becoming a battle class, but Ral's existence demonstrated that classes could specialize in different things. Ral was capable of casting up to 3 spells by himself, he had less mana than a common wizard, but he was faster, stronger and had a skill that allowed him to think much faster, allowing him to cast spells quickly and accurately.
Ral had a small group of 20 [Spell Casters] who also wanted to get into combat, and he had a calm and reclusive personality. He looked like one of those fantasy wizards who you know is involved in something wrong, but in reality Ral just liked solitude, something really rare in the colony, but you could still see him carrying parchments around the royal garden and drawing in a well-hidden place of his choice.
With that we had 7 "elite" members in the fight club, they were called "The Lifeguardians", referring to them as the "Final Barrier" of the base. They were all very powerful in their own way, and had groups of dedicated bees, but it was difficult for them to evolve, they were all in the 2nd evolution, and gaining more Xp was a difficult task.
For this we relied on the sacrifices tha the kobolds gived to us, hunt, and the farm.
We also had the essence of life, which was mixed directly into the food, peacefully providing Xp to the entire hive, but it was just a drop in the ocean. We needed to evolve faster, and to do that we had to take more risks.
I can't fight, even if I wanted to grab a weapon and fight, I would be more of a burden than a help. So my only way to help was with support, I granted blessings with [Queen's Blessing], and healed large groups of injured people with my healing skills.
And i supplied them with weapons.
"Fuck! This can't be that hard! What am I missing!?!"
I was now developing more weapons, I realized that I was not good at creating diseases, not that diseases were a bad weapon, but I'm too weak to make them really powerful. I could create a zombie Wappo, but it would end up dying early, or attracting me unwanted attention.
So I was focusing on weapons. I created spells like [Hardening], [Wild Growth], [Poisoning], [Rot] and [Paralysis].
In practice, I can't cast spells from a far distance, but I had [Life Echoes] which were bubbles capable of storing weaker versions of my spells. So I could kind of get around this stupid limitation of needing to touch my target to cast a spell, and just use weaker ranged versions.
It was very useful to be able to cast spells like [Wild Growth] and [Strengthening] from afar, I could make a plant that is very far away from me grow very quickly, or send buffs from a distance.
The problem was that I could no longer guide these spells, normally I can "Shape" a spell, manipulating it into something new, like what I do with [Wild Growth], in its purest form, the spell just makes plants grow quickly and haphazardly. But when I give it a shape, and purpose, I can transform all this chaos into something focused and stable, creating plants with unique shapes, or even choosing whether I want roots, leaves, branches, or stems.
Now when I just used the echoes, they used magic in its most primal form, so I couldn't use an echo to create an impaling thorn in the shadows, I could only create a bunch of leaves and roses that grew haphazardly.
I really don't know how I feel about spells, they're so incredible, and capable of doing things that were previously impossible, but I always had the idea that spells would be "easier" to control. Just cast a spell in my head and the rest was history, but if I didn't follow the spell at every stage, charging, casting and execution. The spell would begin to lose its power, becoming something disordered and chaotic.
Now i was kind of enchanting items, but I don't know if it can really be considered "enchanting". In my conception of item enchantment, you create an item that can cast a spell, or that has unique magical properties.
But I was only making the blades poisonous, or capable of causing rotting wounds, and paralysis in the body. These "enchantments" were permanent, and they changed the nature of the item, turning pure white blades into purple, black, or yellow blades.
Maybe it's because these blades are a bio-product. I obtained the blades from Hans and other members capable of producing blades with their bodies, then I used other materials and items to create unique weapons.
I managed to create axes made of bones, wrapped in roots and with super resistant blades. Shields full of thorns capable of poisoning someone, pointed spears with varied effects, and heavy hammers with heads made of stone.
I used all the materials I had at my disposal.
The [Wild Growth] spell allowed me to manipulate the shape in which a plant would grow, at first it was difficult to control, and I ended up creating strangely shaped plants, but now I can create hollow root structures, which were filled in with bones of dead animals, and attached to dangerous blades. I could use glue, vines and spells to hold everything together, and that way I set up the entire base.
I had royal guards defending my door with huge axes, soldiers patrolling with swords and spears, and members of the "Lifeguardians" armed to the teeth.
I also created some bags for the Healers to carry artisanal medicines, and tools for the workers, some sewing and knitting items for the weavers, kitchen items for the cooks, backpacks for the explorers, and abacuses, rulers and notebooks for the group of Steve.
And now I was trying to create something for myself, I wanted a super badass magic staff, or at least a magic wand that would transform me into a magical girl.
But it was disappointing, I couldn't just stick a living mana crystal to a branch and call it a staff. I needed to deal with mana decay, as well conduction, usage efficiency, and utility.
If I had a staff that only wastes energy, doesn't help with casting spells, and is still ugly, so what's the point in going to the trouble of having a staff?
I needed to create something that could help me, something to amplify my natural mana, make spell casting better, or something that could store a spell.
But as always, wanting is not enough, I needed to know how to create these items, I couldn't just throw together a bunch of random, pretty materials and expect something real to come out of it.
"This isn't a game world?! It should be easier to create legendary items! Why the fuck is it so fucking hard to make anything! I'm not trying to create the elder wand, I just want a personal weapon!"
For me this wasn't working, the system seemed to make things simple, making [Effects] visible, giving us free skills, and cool [Traits], but he was a complete asshole when it came to creating items and magic. The system didn't provide any help, I needed to create everything from scratch, if it weren't for my "cheat" with the spells I would need to memorize each one individually. For a normal person this would be impossible, there is no way to remember the exact process for creating different spells. So it was just easier to discard weak and worthless spells and learn powerful spells.
But I didn't have that disadvantage, I literally had a mental spellbook, I could pull any spell at any time, I had a "cooldown" between them, which was the time to change spells, but I was still incredible in the magical area.
That's why I decided to focus on this, I'm not a fighter, I'm not a researcher, and much less a skilled artisan.
I was a librarian.
I know the right way to categorize books, and search for information requested of me. Doing research on general or specific subjects. This gave me a lot of general knowledge, but in recent years people stopped going to the library, and relied more on information they got from Tik Tok, so I ended up just becoming a "book sitter".
But being a librarian in othe world didn't help me much in this situation, if I had been a librarian with eidetic memory I could have created a super civilization of bees. But I barely remembered what I ate for lunch without the help of the hive, what about books I read years ago.
If I had been a doctor or something, I could have made greater use of that damn [Life] affinity. But I was too stupid for that, and I didn't like dealing with people.
If I were a professional gamer, I might know how to use our resources better, create strategies and use our people better, but the most exciting thing I've ever played was animal crossing.
Now, being a mage is a different story. I didn't have the profession of "mage" in my world, so it wasn't something anyone could learn. Was I learning everything from scratch? Of course, but at least I didn't feel so stupid when something went wrong, unlike other fields that I'm sure I could have done better if I had dedicated myself more in my human life, magic wasn't something I could learn in my home world even if I trained alone on a mountain for 1000 years.
It was a totally new field, a shapeless block of clay, I can discover many new things with it, and unlike the people of this world I can apply my broken knowledge to all of this.
Leaving the branch with a crystal hanging from the end, I go to my mural, the mural was a large wax plate, where I attached small tissue paper reminders, attached with thorns. And tied some stitches with the weavers' silk.
The mural had several small poorly made drawings that were connected by a red line with phrases, other drawings and notes.
I looked like a movie detective trying to find out the whereabouts of some criminal. But all of this was just to explore new concepts and ideas for new spells. I had a physical book, made with tissue paper, and a cover made of leaves, inside the book I kept the name of each spell I had ever discovered, there were dozens of smaller spells in the book, like [Shine], [itch], [mana bubble] and things that I classified as being of little value.
"So let's see... A new spell, huh.... Something related to plants maybe? Life affinity will help me a lot in controlling plants, what if I tried to create an improved version of [Wild Growth]?"
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The wild growth spell was cool, really good for creating beautifully shaped bushes, or weapons from roots. But I still couldn't make plant tentacles emerge from the ground and impale my target.
Taking a random seed, I start to focus on the idea of creating a grenade. It seems stupid to compare a seed with a grenade, but that was more or less how the magic of life works, I could change the "nature" of something, as long I respected the "laws of nature". So no seeds that explode into flocks of birds, or plants growing human arms made of flesh and blood, I needed to respect the limits, a plant must remain a plant. So if I created a grenade it would have to be an explosion that respect the rules of this world.
'Are there flowers that explode? I don't think so... There was a flower that would slap any bug trying to get its nectar in the face, but none that REALLY exploded, so what do I do?.... What if I created a wild-growing grenade? As soon I threw the seed, would it start to grow thorny roots and trap the target? It might work... Now how do I translate this into mana language?'
After a few minutes I can't do anything but run out of mana, so I go to the mana pool, and start trying again, keep trying and pumping intentions into the seeds, until eventually they stop rotting and dying, and they began to take on a dark green hue with brown tips like living wood.
"Success?"
Before I could celebrate, the seed started to vibrate, only then I remember its initial purpose and threw it out of the tree where it was, and a few seconds later the seed exploded into a ball of twisted and hooked wooden thorns.
"Damn! That was close! I almost got screwed on that one!"
[Notice]
You have learned the spell, [Burst seed], Do you want to add this spell to the [Spells] list?
Outside the tree, soon a large number of soldiers, and guards began to appear. Everyone started to investigate the situation, and after seeing that I was okay, the workers arrived and started cleaning up the mess.
"Okay... This is dangerous, but still useful as hell! If I can trap my enemies in balls of roots full of thorns I can immobilize them without any effort!"
----------------------------------------
[Notice]
Your [Life Echo] skill has reached level 10
[Notice]
The skill [Life Echo] evolved into [Living Echo]
[Skill]
{Living Echo} Lv 1
Create mana spirits that can follow orders, grant healing to allies and damage enemies.
"Fuck! How incredible! I can create spirits?! Are there spirits in this world?!"
I had been using the [Life Echo] skill a lot, it was my only way of casting spells from a distance, because I could put a spell inside them and send them to a place.
This way I could cast spells like [Wild Growth] and [Strengthen] from a distance, and even combine spells. Because of this, the [Life Echo] skill was the skill I leveled the most recently, and now I had leveled it up.
'Being able to give orders to echoes seems incredible! So I could make them curve and even turn them into chase shots, normally I would have to throw the bubbles with spells and hope for the best.'
'How does the system decide what to give me? I got something that I really wanted, and something that seems to be super useful for my area of expertise. Is the evolution of [Life Echo] a linear line, or are there ramifications? If I had used the echo just to cause damage would I have gained a more offensive version of the skill?'
Pushing my intrusive thoughts aside, I try to use the new skill, and soon feel like I've been punched in the face.
I had created a small golden mist, but when I was punched in the face, the aura dissipated and I fell to the ground.
'Fuck! This thing ate all my mana, and didn't even create an echo!'
Soon my attendants were helping me up, and checking on me, but I wasn't even upset, just angry at how the system gave me a skill that I couldn't use.
Focused on using the skill, I go to the mana pool, and try to use the mana from the pool to cast the echo, but to my disappointment the skill needs more mana than I can pump into it.
It's as if the skill was a jar with a hole that I have to fill, I was a clogged and thin pipe, and the mana pool was a large reservoir. I can't provide the skill with enough mana for it to activate, I just create a small golden cloud that soon disappears into the air.
"You son of a bitch! Is this your way of getting revenge for the spells cheat?! By giving me a skill that I can't use! You'll see, no one messes with me, not even an entity or an alexa on a global level!"
Pulling more mana than I should from the pool of living mana, I begin to feel my body vibrating, my arms burning, and something writhing inside me. Soon all the workers and spell casters present looked horrified at the danger I was putting myself in.
Pulling more mana than you can process is idiotic. You will end up with mana poisoning, or damaging your total mana capacity temporarily. Now when you do this with live mana, you had the bonus risk of causing wounds to your body, illnesses, or deformities.
"Mom! Stop immediately!" Shouted the spellcasters.
'Son of a bitch, you shitty system, who do you think you are to try to give me skills that I can't even use?! Are you telling me that I have to measure how much I level a skill?! Otherwise I'll end up with a bunch of powerful skills that I can't use?!!'
Angry and not paying attention to my surroundings, I start to draw all the mana that was in the mana pool, which would be equivalent to about 15 mana points, the reserves were low at the moment, but it should still be enough to activate this skill.
Soon the golden aura that formed between my hands went from a golden smoke to a more visible and less transparent form. Taking the form of a small mana ghost glowing in rainbow colors.
The creature looked like a blob of golden mana, but it had an extremely thin cloth veil over it, making it look like a small cartoon ghost. It had a golden glow throughout its body, and small dots of all the colors of the rainbow at its core.
"Suck- T-That System!"
I ended up getting very tired from the process, and I could feel the poisoning symptoms hitting me like a mule. Soon I was on the ground and being surrounded by workers and guards.
'Damn... I overdid it, mana, it's no joke...'
The last thing I remember is closing my eyes as more and more bees circled me and talked to each other.
...
...
...
When I woke up the next day, I was back in my quarters, and surrounded by nurses and healers, who were being led by Ken.
"Look! Mommy's awake!" Shouted a nurse.
"Ohhh!!"
"H-Hello everyone! How are you?"
"How are you? How are you?!! You're crazy! You can't take risks like that, mother! If you die, the hive won't be able to maintain itself!" Shouted Ken, furious that I had done something dangerous.
"I-I know, but it wasn't anything really dangerous, just a little bit of mana poisoning, who cares about that kind of thing, mages keep getting it everyday and they're fine!"
"Stop comparing yourself to them! Mages are experts in magic, and have bodies capable of containing mana better, you're not an expert in that kind of thing!" insisted Ken.
"But I can be! I don't want to be a botanical expert, or an administrator, I want to and i will learn magic! I may have been a little careless this time, but nothing serious happened!"
"Hmff... It feels like I'm talking to a door, but if that's what you want, I won't complain. You heard mom! She's fine, everyone pack up your equipment and let's go back to the infirmary." Ken pronounced.
"HEY! Don't call me a door and leave like nothing happened! You shameless little shit!"
Soon Ken and his group were outside my room, Ken didn't pay much attention to me trying to reprimand him, and soon I was "alone", in my room.
"Wait a minute! What happened to the echo? Has it dissipated? Or is it fine?"
The guards looked at each other, and soon one of my mages came through the door carrying a silk cushion, where a small golden orb that looked like a jellyfish made of light and rainbows was floating peacefully.
"This thing?" asked one of the royal guards.
"That's right! Let me see him closer!"
Before the wizard could move, the little jellyfish began to fly across the room as if it were swimming on the bottom of the sea, and was soon standing in front of me.
"Wow! You obey orders!? Seriously! Are you a living being or spirit? Or just a conglomerate of conscious magic? How is that possible?! If your body is entirely made of mana how does it not dissipate into the air?! Are you conscious? Intelligent?! Are you capable of raising levels, or rather evolving?!"
While being bombarded with questions, the mana jellyfish just continued floating in the air as if it didn't understand me, apparently it wasn't conscious, or intelligent. But it was still a type of living being, but its body seemed to be made solely of living mana, and it was translucent like glass.
'Analyze'
[Status]
[Information]
Life: 1.2
Wis: 0
Vit: 2.2
Int: 0.1
Spr: 3.1
Str: 0
Mana: 2.6
Affinity: Life
[Description]
A smaller echo of mana, it can be commanded and used to carry spells, soon as its mana reserve is exhausted it will disappear
"Wow! You have a status?... A different one from mine, you don't have some statistics, and you seem to be weak and fragile... No skills, traits, or anything like that, just a description... And your mana It's also ending."
The little thing didn't seem to care about my words, and just floated calmly in front of me, it was a kind of "mana spirit", but I don't know if it can be called a living being, if it weren't for the statistics I wouldn't even think of it as a creature.
The existence of this creature refuted all my theories about mana until now, its body was made entirely of living mana, and did not decay, it seemed to be "burning" living mana to stay active, but it was not dissolving, the creature also seemed being something between a spirit and a living being, but without a body.
Its existence fascinated me, I tried many times to make the mana become stable and stop decaying, but everything seemed just a useless effort, I tried to make living beings out of just living mana, but without any success, I wanted to give intentions, and sentience the mana, but it seemed that the mana was just pure energy, and there is no way to give consciousness to the energy.
But here it is.
A mana spirit, with its entire body made of mana in a stable form, that is more or less alive, and seemed to be conscious enough to follow orders.
"How the hell do I make a spell that can replicate you?!"
The mana jellyfish was the result of a [Skill] so it was something that I just had to pay a fee in mana to the System and could use quickly and efficiently. Now, if I were to try to replicate this same phenomenon, through a spell.
I would have no idea how to do that.
"Do you like laughing in my face?! Rubbing right in front of me that you can do a better job than me!?! Do you really think I won't find out how you did it!? Shameless system, I'll find out all your secrets."
"Call all the wizards! And some historians, I want to find out everything I can about this guy!"
"Yes mom!" The guards said.
After a few moments the doors to my room opened, and from there came dozens of wizards carrying parchment, ink, brushes and some magical equipment that they had created, such as mana crystals, flowers that reacted to live mana in the environment, and some bubbles. carrying crystals of living mana. Beside them were 3 historians who walked calmly compared to the elforic mages.
"Hello! Mom! We're happy that you asked us to analyze this creature! While you were sleeping, we had already started our research, but so far it's not conclusive at all" Said Max, my [Head Mage].
"Ohh!! Impressive, what did you discover in the meantime that I was sleeping?"
"Well! We discovered that this creature emanates a slight aura made solely of living mana, we can't tell if it is a voluntary act, or the result of living mana escaping from its body. We also discovered that it can pass through objects! But it seems to spend a lot of energy to do this, we don't know if it can carry things with it while passing through walls, much less if there is a limit to this. We also discovered that this thing cannot absorb living mana to recharge its body, we don't know if It's because he lacks the intelligence to do so, or if he's simply incapable of recharging himself." Max explained.
"Interesting... Let's test the recharge first, give me a bubble with a mana crystal."
Soon I was holding one of the mana bubbles that contained a crystal full of living mana, I brought the crystal closer to the jellyfish, but the creature didn't seem to care about the bubble.
"Recharge yourself! Suck the energy from the crystal to maintain your body!"
But the jellyfish remained standing in its place, as if it couldn't understand me, or simply couldn't do the task.
'Why? Should it be able to recharge itself, or does it need a physical body to do that? No... It could be that this creature just isn't made to live for long.'
"So for my next test..."
Leaving the idea of recharging the jelly behind, I begin to use the energy within the mana crystal to create the [Wild Growth] spell. Then I gently touch the jellyfish, and I see my finger passing through its body, and the mossy green aura of the spell mixing with the jellyfish, making it turn from golden like the sun's rays, to a super pleasant lime green.
[Status]
[Information]
Life: 1
Wis: 0
Vit: 2
Int: 0.1
Spr: 2.8
Str: 0
Mana: 1.5
Affinity: Life
[Description]
A smaller echo of mana carrying the [Wild Growth] spell, as long it has mana the echo can continue using the same spell indefinitely until it disappears.
"Damn! It's better than I thought! You can cast spells, little guy! You're amazing!"
The lime green jellyfish didn't seem to mind, but it looked weaker and duller, as well smaller and more translucent than usual.
"Damn! You're disappearing, your mana is running out, we don't have much time! Bring a seed!"
Soon a forest seed was given to me, I looked at the jellyfish that was almost disappearing and made a wish.
"Create a flower!"
I decided to keep it simple, the seed was from a forest flower, so making the seed grow using the [Wild Growth] spell was a beginner's trick, but I didn't want to risk asking the echo to create a cage of thorns or wood spears, that was very young, and was almost out of mana.
Soon as it heard my command, the mana jellyfish floated towards the seed, and disappeared in a cloud of lime mist and glitter, which soon fell onto the seed that began to tremble. After a few moments the seed slowly opened to reveal a small flower bud, the flower began to grow slowly until it began to create a rosebud and stopped there, the flower had not blossomed, and the leaves were still curled, but still was a flower.
"Incredible!"