Novaris. Quattur. 905. AGC.
Nodel. Waning Crescent 🌘. Day 25.
The next morning, Tesilim met his companions at Lili’s shop and set out toward the willow tree. Tesilim also took another look at the quest's description.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
🔷 Adventure Goal 🔷
Name: Birds Sitting on a Tree.
Type: Extermination ⚔️ & Collection 🧺.
Rank: D.
Danger: Low 🟢.
Suggested Number: 3+.
Threat: Novarian Monster 🧿✔️.
Goal: Acquire 20 Willow Fruit. 0/20.
Reward: 50 Gold & 1 Chaos Point.
Description: An alchemist wants the cone-looking fruit of the tree known as the Birds Willow. Follow the marker location on your vision to the tree. There, you must collect the tree's fruit while fending off the fruit protectors. Once collected, bring the fruit to the proper guild personnel.
🔷
Seeing nothing had changed, he began a chat with Alyx about learning some more spells. Mainly, he wanted to learn some more elemental spells as they seem to be the most common and useful. Tesilim was also itching to throw a fireball. Alyx, however, told him he was going to teach him magic another way. The way Alyx himself learned. This was by first learning a lot of the Language of Creation so he could come up with his own spells and modify them on the go. Of course, Tesilim argued that-that way was too slow, but his gnome companion had a good rebuttal.
“Tesilim, with your chaotic powers seemingly bringing any possibilities to the table. You need to have adaptability to your magic. You need to be able to react to things randomly happening, and the best way to do it via magic is to have deep knowledge allowing you to have spells against any situation.” The gnome spoke like a teacher, and Tesilim couldn’t argue against the logic, so he sighed and agreed.
As they traveled through the forest on yet another sunny day with a nice breeze flowing, Tesilim moved to spark a conversation with Lili.
“So, Lili, any progress on that wolf potion?”
“Yeah, it's coming along. I just gotta get a few other ingredients to make sure you turn back after the transformation.”
“Yeah, I would say that is pretty important,” Tesilim commented. “Hey, so I have been wondering about body enhancement. How do I learn more about it or specify it?” Tesilim continued the conversation with Lili.
“For now, just keep it like it is. Body enhancement takes up concentration, and it is better when done at a higher rank, just like techniques. However, it's good you are already working on it and have figured out how to do the very basic kind. We do need to go for some longer training sessions to teach you the sub-enhancement methods, but I want you to gain some more active combat experience before then.”
“I see,” Tesilim answered as he wondered about these sub-enhancement methods but stopped when he processed the basic technique part and just had to ask.
“Wait, my. I am speed; Technique is basic!?”
“Yeah. Super basic. Techniques can get super complicated, almost like casting high-level spells. You can also make domains and set rules for activation and all sorts of things.” Lili answered happily as she wore yet another white summer dress, enjoying the outdoors. Tesilim had asked why she didn’t wear armor, and she had answered that she only did so when things would actually get serious, and some D Rank missions near the city were nothing.
Either way, Tesilim was excited about learning more techniques but was quickly broken out of his thoughts by Lili’s pleasant voice.
“Tes, go ahead and roll your dice. I am hoping you get some melee weapon.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to start using your purified mana more, and I also want you to get more training with close combat.”
That was something Tesilim had forgotten during the last fight with the wolves. Something he couldn’t forget cause that was how he was going to progress through the ranks. So he rolled.
Sadly, he got the ray gun again, and this time, it was deep blue, which meant it was in ice mode. Also sad was that it didn’t disappear within a minute or hour, so he was stuck with it for a while.
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As they walked through the forest, they kept scaring most things, but a pink featherless bird that was actually floating instead of flying came up on them. The bird looked like a featherless vulture and began blasting blasts of force at them while Tesilim felt a tickle in the back of his mind, which reminded him of an aberration.
Lili and Alyx did nothing and stood back with shields up, motioning it was Tesilim's problem. And apparently, the bird agreed as it only targeted him, probably feeling he was the weakest of the three.
Annoyed, Tesilim began blasting back with his ice gun, but the bird dodged or deflected the blasts, just like Tesilim was doing by weaving in between the trees. The fight went on for a couple of minutes before Tesilim's patience gave out, and he put a plan into motion.
The plan was simple. It was time to modify his magic missile spell once again.
It took a couple of minutes of hiding and covering fire for him to remember the proper magic words and arrange them, but eventually, he became confident. Finding a small clearing for a clear shot at the bird, he stood in place with his shield up, ready to take a hit, and began his chant.
“From my palm, let force take flight;
With unstoppable force, unleash your might;
Force missiles, come to me;
Strike my foes with instability.”
As he chanted, Tesilim opened the floodgates of his inner soul using a small portion of his purified mana while throwing in a decent amount of normal mana. He wanted to make at least 15 missiles.
Soon, his chant ended, but not before his shield was struck with a direct blast; luckily.
Tesilim had been ready and unleashed the spell.
From his hand, light blue semi-ethereal missiles shot out and began their flight toward the bird. The bird decided to stay still as the missiles were not actually directed at it and were more targeted all around it, which was what Tesilim wanted. The missles all exploded in delayed blasts, rocking the bird about a bit. The bird, not expecting that, was caught off guard, and its levitation gave out for a brief few seconds.
Then, all it saw was a bright blue beam of ice that pierced its shield and soon after struck it, freezing it completely.
Holding the frost-covered weapon in his hands, Teslim smiled. He had spent most of the guns mana, but the thing was definitely Mid D Rank, and he needed all the power he could muster.
Walking towards the spot where the bird had fallen, Tesilim found it shattered on the ground, its body broken into iced chunks. Not caring to deal with it, Tesilim and his companions walked off.
“Not bad, Tesilim. See, spell improvisation is the best.” Alyx commented, and Tesilim just nodded while also smiling at the look of respect Lili gave him.
After another hour or so of walking, they finally made it to the willow tree, which was an odd sight in the middle of the forest. The tree's leaves or vines drooped, and pine cone-looking fruit grew from its branches. On the branches were also three large birds that looked like toucans, except their beaks were red, and they were the size of dogs. The birds also had brown feathers like the pine fruit's color and stood out easily against the tree's green leaves.
The party stopped about 200 feet from the tree and could see the toucans tense up as they stared at each other. As they stood there, Lili and Alyx spoke up.
“I don’t think you can take all three of those on your own. They are around the same strength as the vulture.” Lili said first.
“Yeah, I agree. We should probably help you.” Alyx commented, agreeing with Lili.
However, Tesilim shut them down. “Nah, it's alright, I have a plan. Though if I pass out, I hope you guys got me.”
“Of course.” Lili answered without hesitation while Alyx questioned the plan, “What's this plan?”
“Well, I still have some chaos mana left to boost my spells and still got plenty of regular mana,” Tesilim answered with a smile.
“I see. Well, carry on then.” Alyx replied as he and Lili stepped a bit back.
The plan was simple. Tesilim had been wanting to make another magic missile spell except with lightning for speed and power. So, during the walk toward the tree after the fight with the vulture, he had asked Alyx for lightning-related words and had created a new version of the spell. His plan was to boost the spell with chaos mana and, infuse all his purified mana for that extra humph and take out the birds before they could blink.
So, he stepped forward and began his chant with his hand outstretched in front of him.
"From my hand, let lightning fly;
With thunder's roar, pierce the sky;
Lightning missiles heed my plea;
Strike my foes with electricity."
As he spoke, he unleashed all his pure mana, barely diluting, which caused his body to burn. Of course, he also used his chaos mana and got the notification that using it would trigger a chaos event. However, he also ignored that and focused on his spell and the image of lightning bolts flying at impossible speeds, holding incredible power and striking the birds on the tree.
The incantation finished, and he felt the power build before it was unleashed in a thunderous roar. The trees around them rustled, and dust was sent everywhere. The birds, in turn, tried to take to the skies, but before they could be a foot off their branches, Tesilim saw a flash like that of lightning on a stormy night, which was followed by squawks.
When the dust and light cleared, he saw three figures in the shadows of three willow trees, and soon after, he was hit with a woozy feeling before a notification popped up in front of him.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
Warning! Chaos Event Imminent, prepare yourself.
Rolling d20. Overridden.
🔷
As Tesilim stood there waiting for something to happen, the edges of his vision began to grow dark, and he felt like he was getting shorter, but soon enough, everything went black.
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Standing there watching Tesilim decimate three Mid D Ranks in one blow, Lili and Alyx just looked at each other. That was super rare, almost impossible for a normal Low D Ranker like Tesilim, no matter how much purified mana they had. Which just showed the power of Tesilim’s chaos mana boost regardless of the consequences.
Still, they stood ready to see what would happen next and Lili was about to rush forward and catch Tesilim but was stopped by the wild change she was witnessing.
Tesilim shrunk as his gear melded into his skin like if a druid was transforming. His skin began turning purple and yellow as it grew fur. Eventually, Tesilim turned into a purple and yellow goat with a yellow and purple goatee and horns.
The goat just lay on the ground, seemingly deep asleep. Lili and Alyx just watched as their companion had turned into a goat. They stood there for a couple of minutes, too shocked to speak.
Alyx had seen lots of weird soul transformations, but this was just something else.
Lili had lived for 300 years, but she could say with full confidence that she had never seen a yellow and purple goat, much less someone transform into one.