Sensing a commotion outside of the temporary campsite, a member of a scout team named Jakub stood up from his seat swiftly ending the idle chat that many of the members of his team were engaged with to pass the time until their turn to be sent foraging again. The young earth mage sensed through his bare feet something that he could recognise from his brief training, a feeling of people sparing but he could not put in words the feeling he felt, maybe because of his low level with his class but something was off about the feeling. His teammates saw it odd that Jakub would randomly stand up and walk off in a seemingly random direction until the sudden silence allowed the company ranger to hear the distant sound of weapons clashing.
Jakub and his team quickly sprung into action, they sprinted toward the source of the sound. When they crested the small hill horde of undead appeared in their vision. The horde appeared to be following something and when they looked in the direction the undead were headed they saw two people. A man in Theocracy armour and a woman with long dark hair seemingly without any means to defend herself. Jakub seeing such a scene dashed thoughtlessly toward the two. He willed the top layer of soil to form hardened plates of makeshift armour and quickly casted another spell to make the plates of earth orbit around him, simultaneously pulling out his short sword. The undead that he was aiming for turned around only to be slashed in the neck region leaving a small flap of skin to hold onto the head of the undead humanoid that was long past a time where the being could be identified. He slowed down and engaged another undead casting [Inspect] at the creature.
[Mist Revenant Level 27]
{A being risen from the dead by the long exposure to enough negative mana.}
The name did not rang any bells inside Jakub's mind. He lunged at the Revenant never the less with his weapon aiming towards the monster's abdomen. The creature still tried to claw at him while his sword embedded itself in the Revenant's torso, after trying to pull the sword back out Jakub found that the sword was stuck inside of the rotten carcass. He extended his arm causing the earthen armour plates to accelerate towards the Revenant, knocking it off the sword while also caving its skull in the process. Already struggling with the mental exhaustion caused by his haphazard use of magic Jakub glanced around himself to finding other members of the expedition cleaving through the undead horde that appeared so suddenly.
Jakub turned to face forward when a cloud of white mist in front of him transforms into a monster of hairless pale skin with long emaciated arms that were longer than its legs, fingers tipped with long razor-sharp nails, and its eyes were the likes of a lizard with pitch-black vertical pupils that focused on its next prey with greed. Its mouth flashed a grin that revealed the dagger-like teeth populating the region with great density. The mist-being, raised its arm and flared its sharp nails showing that they were only scarcely shorter than Jakub's sword. The inexperienced earth mage raised his off-hand to hopefully lessen the impact of the creature's claws. He squeezed his eyes out of instinct anticipating a painful laceration coming at any moment, but the expected moment never came, rather he heard only a soft *Thump* and quickly followed by quite hissing. When he open his closed eyes and saw that the undead being lacked its arm and that a portion of its torso was ripped out. Behind the creature was a black-haired, pale skined woman who appeared to be holding a piece of meat that was slowly shrinking in her stained hands with a quiet hiss. Not able to comprehend the situation Jakub stared flabbergasted at the woman that was able to vanquish such a foe but he quickly regained his senses when the woman promptly collapsed. He tried to catch her but was unable to make it in time, his fingers narrowly missing her wrist. He noticed that her ears were a bit pointier then usual but he could not care or ponder on the questions plaguing his mind because of the ever-increasing sound coming from the creature's body.
He glanced around to ensure that no undead was able to sneak on him, most of the undead were occupied with the other humans, mainly occupied by the tanks who used their ability as their training thought them. His vision came back to the carcass that shrunk more and more with an audible hiss, he cast [Inspect] with his last remaining mana while dispelling his other spells.
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[Mist Walker Level 43~49]
{A creature that is neither alive nor dead. They are hunters that will hunt anything for the never-ending hunger for flesh and blood.}
"By aspects." Jakub was only level 19, now almost level 20 and with only one class, if not for that elf he would most likely be joining the few of the poor souls that were able to be overpowered by the Revenants or other undead that were amongst the horde.
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POV change
Iris woke up with terrible pain, an omnipresent burning sensation that overpowered all other senses. In some temporary moments of lucidity, she noticed that she was in a room with a wooden roof, sometimes a woman would be standing over her casting some kind of spell and that no matter how loud she tried to scream she heard an eerie silence. In the time she took to recover she would had lost any sense of time if not for the nurse that appeared like ghost.
The elf got up and sat at the edge of the bed. She was wearing a linen shirt that was drenched in sweat. She tried to stand up on to her legs but her vision blurred before going black and she was forced to return to her bed. She then took the liberty to look around, trying to find where she might be located but her room consisted only of a bed and a single wooden door the rest were blank planks of the same wood. Finding her attempt futile she tried to remember why she was here in the first place but her memory was patchy at best only remembering a soldier screaming at her and the undead horde's unexpected arrival. She tried to make logic of what happened after but she only came up with one solution and she would rather it not to be true.
Iris saw a page left at the bottom corner of her bed she grab it and read it.
"When you awaken and get better wait until someone comes for you. Do not panic.
-Nurse Valentine"
Iris resisted making her eyes roll from the vague latter but she did complained with the letter's contents, she could have read something worse. After bells had passed of nobody comming to get her the elf began to check her System and pondering about her talents specifically her [Masterful Translator] which she found interesting because it made her understand some information on an instinctual level making her able to "read" or "write" in any language so she wondered why her system named the skill in such a way, she pondered also on her unawaken talent [Pure Mana Manipulation] but was interrupted by a knock on a door and sudden entry of a nurse.
"Hello there. I see you are better now." Said a nurse of about 30 years of age barging into the room. She was wearing a dark crimson robe with chestnut hair flowing on her shoulders, her light green eyes scanned the sitting elf before she placed what look like spare clothes in front of her. Iris open her mouth to reply but to her horror, no sound came out.
"Oh, I forgot to remove the [Silence] off you, Silly me." She pointed a finger at Iris and a small circle of the same colour as her eyes appeared slightly in front of her finger while having a smile of a small child just pulling the best prank in her life.
Iris touched her neck as if to ensure something before furrowing her eyebrows at the nurse. " Wh..."But before she could answer the veteran nurse interrupted her.
"Where are my manners I am Valentine and I was asked to take care of you until you get better so take that shirt off and wear this after that I will perform some check on you and we will see what next after that, understand." The nurse said with a bit of an edge to her voice but compare to her usual treatment it was like whole new world.
"I understand."
"Great to hear, now chop, chop we don't have the whole day." Valentine hurried her patient and not even asking for permission or warning the elf, started to undress Iris like a child. After the experience that Iris thought she would never have to do again, she was made to sit on the bed while Valentine casted her spells, right after it she was hurried to what she assumed was the centre of the building. After she opened the wooden door with a quite unpleasant squeak she was standing in front of Alicia who was doing something with a weird metal stick and her nails.
"Aa... I see our key to success is alright I see." Alicia said to the nurse.
"Yes, she is now in an adequate form to resume her duties." Said Valentine with a small bow.
"Go with her to the hall and give her to Utrecht then resume your duties, we have quite the adventuring to do. Don't we." on the second part of her sentence she squeezed hard on Iris's cheek but let go of her to be sent on her way.
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"[Inspect] is one of the most useful spells out there but it has its shortcomings. The spell target statistics such as intelligence or strength are not visible to even the highest level mages in addition the spell is influenced by the casters' wisdom and intelligence to be able to see any precise information and more comprehensive description. [Inspect] will not reveal any information if the targets overall level is 50 levels higher."
-Extract from "On Magic"