Drawing a deep breath, Sylvia steeled her mind while the orc climbed out of its pit. Unlike the last time, where she had severely underestimated her foe, she began charging up both her spear and the ground with mana in advance this time. As the orc made its way up from the hole, a large great axe grew out between its hands.
Rather than wait around and let it take the initiative, Sylvia chose to close the distance herself. With each step she took, she sent spike after spike through the ground and towards the orc, spending as little focus on each as she could. While this did lead to them being neither particularly accurate nor sturdy, they were still able to serve their primary purpose of slowing down and distracting the hulking figure before her.
Like before, the orc had a relatively easy time cutting down the attacks, and the few that did hit, didn’t seem to do any meaningful damage. Once she got within reach, she lit her spear aflame and began the stabbing game, never seizing with the stone spikes. With each thrust of her spear, a ball of fire followed and charred the orc’s skin. The only exception was the one she aimed at its head, which did next to no apparent damage.
All it took was that one fireball before she was considered a larger nuisance than the rather inconsequential spikes. As the axe came down towards her, she raised the ground on either side of the axe handle and stepped to the side, simultaneously turning the ground where she had stood into Quicksand.
As a byproduct of its great downwards momentum and limited horizontal movement options, the axe simply bounced off the wall and struck the ground when the orc tried to change direction. To little surprise, the axe barely sunk into the ground despite her Quicksand, though it seemed to be due to both the orc’s strength and its Mana Disruption.
This whole ordeal barely bought her a couple of seconds, but she did not let them go to waste. Stepping out on its right flank, which was left completely open, she stabbed the spear at roughly her own head height, enhancing it to her best ability, and sunk the tip into its flank.
For a second, the orc just roared in pain from being actively roasted from the inside, twisting its body and thereby her spear out of her grip. As the roar continued, something began to both sound and seem off to the surprised Sylvia and she reacted by pulling both arms up to protect her head; subconsciously pulling up the ground between her and the object approaching form her peripheral as well.
And it was barely in time to slow down the wild swing of its right arm enough to just have it collide with her raised arms, throwing her back and to the ground thanks to her lack of proper footwork to help her stand her ground.
Slightly dazed, Sylvia heard a loud thump as the orc fell on its face and a new pop-up appeared in her vision.
Killed Orc lv. 124. Gained exp. Leveled up.
Leveled up.
Leveled up.
Leveled up.
Leveled up. Gained: 8 Strength, 8 Vitality, 7 Endurance, 10 Mana, 10 Wisdom, and 7 Perception.
As her mind calmed down, she found herself heaving for each and every breath of air. “You good?” The sound of Mikhail’s familiar voice brought her mind back into the moment and she grabbed his outstretched arm.
She couldn’t help but grunt as pain soared in her arm as he helped her up. “My arms hurt like hell, but it’s nothing serious, so I’d say I’m good. Just give me a couple minutes and I should be fine.” Even as she spoke, she could feel the throbbing pain in both arms dull slightly; the combination of her regeneration and high vitality was really doing wonders.
Those last words seemed to have caught the interest of Mikhail and a couple of the other party members, though Sylvia didn’t notice that since Amias, the human knight, stepped towards her with a mixture of slight frustration and confusion showing. “Is there a reason that you treat your medium affinity like a minor one?”
Just as Mikhail, who knew the most about her situation, was about to speak out, Amias shot him down in a somewhat harsh tone: “I asked Sylvia, not you, Mikhail. I want to hear her answer.”
Despite Mikhail giving her a defeated smile, Sylvia really didn’t really mind him staying out. Without letting herself be provoked by the other party’s frustration, she answered: “I’m afraid that a lack of knowledge and experience is all. I’ve never really had much use of it before a few weeks ago, and I haven’t had many opportunities to ask people who knows combat for assistance with it.”
Following that answer, Amias looked like a deflating balloon as he realized the source of her misuse and seemed almost embarrassed about his little outburst. In what felt like an attempt to cover up, he began speaking. “In that case, I’ll explain in more detail on the way back, but for now, just keep this bit in mind. One of the biggest differences between a minor and a medium affinity is the extent to which they can affect the environment at vastly different mana costs.
“While a minor affinity is generally restricted to attacking, defending, and limited battlefield control, medium affinities can do so much more. When you fight the next orc, consider making the environment work for you.” With those words, he stepped back, leaving another couple words. “If you can do this, then you should win a 1 on 1 without too much of a problem.”
After giving her a couple minutes to take in the advice, Halaetain called out to Sylvia. “Lass, I hope ye got something from Amias’ advice,” -she gestured to the only buried orc- “cause this fella’s stronger than the other two. Now, just tell me when yer ready; the sooner the better.”
As Sylvia got into position, roughly 20 meters from the head, and gave the signal, her mind raced with strategies on how to handle the orc. If it hadn’t been for Amias, then she probably wouldn’t have remembered how insane the terrain control of her Earth magic could really be.
She had gotten so used to her Quicksand either being enough or being completely countered by Mana Disruption that she had unintentionally neglected traps as well. This time around, she anchored the foot of the spear in the ground and sent her mana through that. Targeting a four-meter-wide and six-meter-long rectangle before her, she rapidly moved the earth 2 meters down.
As all of that earth floated up to the surface and spread out over a large area, she felt a physical strain on her body that she had otherwise only experienced during her goblin village raid. This strain was not as bad, but mostly focused on her torso, head, and left arm, signifying that it had a deep relation with how her mana flowed. The few seconds of intense focus were worth it though, as the surrounding ground had risen 10-20 centimeters, and her trap was ready. She had also included a number of spikes in the pit. As for her cover, she was actively using mana to both keep together and make it behave as quicksand.
It took her roughly as long to do that as it took for the orc to get out of its hole and fittingly enough manifest a spear between its hands. Already used to making stone spears and actively using magic, it didn’t take much beyond seeing the orc make a spear and consider doing so herself before one grew by her side. It didn’t take more than a couple of steps before it had transitioned into a full-on sprint towards her like the others before it had.
It switching to a sprint allowed her to relax a little, as her backup plan to ensure her trap worked wouldn’t be necessary. Instead, she readied herself to initiate a full-on assault the moment it fell. As she had predicted, the orc did like everyone else when they stepped on mana-infused ground, it tried to disperse it, which happened easily since she didn’t even try to contest it.
With all of its weight focused on the relatively thin cover, it immediately crashed right through, and by keeping her magic active on the rest of the cover, the orc fell straight through as it tried to bring its hands to either side to catch itself but found nothing to support its weight.
To its credit, it fought through the pain of being impaled by the spikes as it planted the foot of it spear between them and prepared to pull itself up. That plan was sadly foiled, as Sylvia swiped her spear along the ground towards it, moving along with the earth she commanded to flow in and encase it.
As one would expect, the orc began to try and disrupt the mana in the earth enough to pull itself out, this time placing a hand on either side of itself, since everything from above its waist was still free. As it did that, Sylvia retained her mana pressure while diverting part of it into the stone spear.
Feeling out of breath, she steeled herself and prepared to throw the spear towards its chest. Her aim wasn’t the greatest even under normal circumstances, and her current state really didn’t help, so the best she could hope for was to hit the largest target, the stomach. Luckily the distance wasn’t much more than four meters, and the large target along with her increased stats made it relatively easy to cover that with decent aim despite her exhaustion.
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The tip of the of the spear only went in a little, but that was more than enough for her, and the following explosion of the spearhead was all the distraction she needed. In that short moment of the orc being stunned, she covered it all the way up to the neck and focused more of her mana on keeping it there.
While keeping her spear constantly in touch with ground, she moved behind the creature and up the over a meter high mound it was encased in. Upon reaching the top, she opened up the space between its head and left shoulder. After a few seconds to catch her breath, she quickly diverted her mana to go through her feat instead, losing the power boost from channeling it through her Enhanced spear.
Without giving the orc much room to make use of this opportunity, she stabbed it just beside the neck for full force before pulling out and repeating it another two times, provoking screams of pain each time. Despite feeling the pressure on her mana lessen greatly, she didn’t go the route of killing it that way. No, there was another, more fitting, option to kill her second large creature, especially with how its kin had reminded her of the bear.
After calling forth another stone spear and infusing it with a lot of mana, she stabbed it down in the hole she’d made, reaching all the way to its heart, and with a roar of pure emotion, she activated |Spearhead Explosion| and turned the inside the orc to mush; a 63% boost to spear attack damage and a further 450% boost to damage through explosions of a spearhead should really not be underestimated.
Killed Orc lv. 134. Gained exp. Leveled up.
Leveled up.
…
Leveled up.
Leveled up. Gained: 21 Strength, 19 Vitality, 17 Endurance, 34 Mana, 31 Wisdom, 18 Perception.
You have gained the title [Determined Will].
You have gained the title [Sneaky Orc Hunter].
As she jumped straight past level 100 and all the way to level 102, another series of pop-ups appeared, with the first one being more familiar than the rest, as it had also shown up at level 50.
Along with the growth in essence, [Unusual Mana Growth] has been further strengthened. The mana pool multiplier has increased to 2.3 and the quality has become slightly more refined.
Along with the growth in essence, [Person of Many Faces] has been further strengthened.
- The desired features of each form will become gradually more defined.
- The feature for the alteration of the shown status is strengthened.
- Skill exp will be multiplied by 1.5.
- The quality of each form’s clothing has been raised to Rare.
Along with the growth in essence, part of your inherent nature has been codified and strengthened in the title [Good Hand-Eye Coordination].
Along with the growth in essence, part of your inherent nature has been codified and strengthened by enhancing [Unusual Mana Growth].
Along with the growth in essence, the source of [Unusual Mana Growth] has grown stronger, growing its influence to the entire section of inherent titles. The title [Good Hand-Eye Coordination] has been enhanced into [Unusually Good Hand-Eye Coordination].
Updating [Unusual Mana Growth] to reflect this change.
Noting that she definitely had to ask Enelise or Mikhail about this growth in essence thing, she turned her attention to the arguably most surprising notifications. One which had a familiar blue color and golden border and text that she hadn’t seen since first being sent here, since her own notifications were red with a black border.
Having taken notice of your unreal affinity for mana and magic, a number of gods related to mana and magic have taken a great interest in you.
As a representative of the gods of mana and magic, Heku, the Personification of Magic, blesses you.
Despite how she should be happy about succeeding in the killing of the orc, especially when considering the amount of levels and titles she gained, something about how she won the fight felt wrong. This feeling was only exacerbated when she looked at the description of [Determined Will].
[Determined Will] Rating: Uncommon
The user has fought through a dangerous mental barrier through sheer force of will. However, the user has still not completely overcome that barrier.
- Conquered terrors of the past will have a harder time interfering with the user's mental state.
- It's hard to forcefully break the will of the user.
The most frustrating thing was that she currently could not figure out what exactly it was that felt off. But before she could think more about that, Halaetain’s voice broke through her focus, “Good goin’ lass. Maybe a little heavy on the magic reliance, but ye clearly took the advice to heart.” With a little more jest, she gestured to the orc at Sylvia’s feet. “Now, if ye don’t mind, could ye pull out that orc? I’m not gonna waste my mana with that; especially not when ye’ve a medium affinity.”
Taking the obvious hint, Sylvia sent her mana into the ground to do as asked. However, the moment she began to move her mana, she stumbled forwards and fell to one knee. The moment her mana had moved, a plethora of new sensations had been picked up by her and completely overwhelmed her senses.
If before she had just been able to pick up the location of her own mana and high concentrations of other’s mana when colliding with it, she could now not only perceive her own mana in far greater detail; she could feel the existence of the mana in her environment, and especially that of the ground.
“Sylvia!” Mikhail cried out as he rushed over, arriving in what seemed like the blink of an eye. “What happened? Mana exhaustion?” Everything he said went in one ear and out the other, as a new mana signature suddenly hit her senses, though it was already fading again.
“Sorry, what did you say?” Realizing that he had spoken to her, Sylvia forcefully moved her attention away from her mana sensitivity, which actually helped a lot. “Ah, it’s nothing like that,” -she glanced at her MP- “I have six-seven thousand MP left…” While she had expected there to be quite a bit due to her leveling up, this was still quite a bit higher than expected.
While Mikhail just looked a little surprised, the rest of the party were gobsmacked at the number, as it for most of them exceeded of their max MP. Before any of them could ask any questions, Mikhail threw one her way, having seemingly forgotten his previous concern. “Did you go beyond level 100?” At her nod, he followed up with another. “Did you get any essence messages?”
At that question, she couldn’t help but crease her brows. “Yes. How do you know that?” Immediately after reflexively asking in a defensive tone, she recalled that she had actually wanted to inquire about that, and something clicked into place. “Oh, it’s a common thing when going beyond level 100, right?”
“Yep. I’ll explain it in greater detail later, but I’m actually a little surprised that you don’t seem to know about them.” He then mumbled something that she couldn’t quite hear before cocking his head with an affirmative sound. “Anyhow, I suppose that’s related to your stumble, right?” She nodded in affirmation. “Aight, Halaetain, mind taking care the ground? I don’t think Sylvia is really in a state for that right this moment.”
“Fair ‘nough. I oughta say I’m curious ‘bout what kinda title would drop ye to yer knee like that, but ye can say on the way home if ye feel like it; I won’t force ye if ye don’t.” As she spoke, the ground beneath Sylvia’s feet slowly leveled out and the body of the orc was extracted. “Aywin, Amias, go fetch the wagon. The rest of y’all can start taking care of the bodies. And ye lass, just watch and learn, and make sure ye can walk properly when they get back.”
With those words, two of the party members were gone and the bloodbath began. With seemingly little care for the mess, the group began to dissect most of the bodies. What they grabbed varied from the heart to entire bones, though they always cut off both ears, even if they were damaged. The only three bodies they left alone were those of the orc mages and the large fighter. Granted, saying they left them alone wasn’t exactly correct.
Rather than just leave them, Halaetain and Llewel each spent some time in contact with them, Llewel taking the fighter and Halaetain the other two. While they touched them, Sylvia saw the bodies shrink in real time to about half the size for the mages, and a quarter for the fighter. Seeing this made her recall the explanation of the |Compression| skill that Philip had given her back before they had even made it to the town. ‘I should probably aim for learning that skill myself. He did mention that most adventurers have it, so it’ll be suspicious if I don’t.’
While she waited for the two to return, which took well over half an hour, she looked through the titles she had gained and found the most likely source of her mana sensitivity skyrocketing earlier.
[Blessed by Heku, the Personification of Magic] Rating: Unique
The user has been blessed by Heku, the Personification of Magic.
- Wisdom increases by 1 every level.
- Increase the MP regeneration of the user.
- Increase the user's perception of mana.
Disregarding the increase in perception, which she’d definitely have to explore later, she could clearly both tell and feel the difference in MP regen compared to before. Instead of roughly 1 MP every 3 seconds, it was now 3 MP every 2 seconds.
When the two party members returned with the wagon, which was still pulled by the same Slimus as when she had first met them, she couldn’t help but recall her surprise at how they delt with having to leave the wagon behind to go off the trail. Rather than leave it in the open, Halaetain and Amias had worked together over multiple minutes to make a hole and ramp quite deep into the ground, where the Slimus entered together with the wagon.
Mikhail elaborated that besides their passive nature and high strength, Slimus are also a favorite for adventurers due to them not minding being in dark and cramped spaces, while not requiring much airflow.
It wasn’t long after they returned that the party were ready to head back, now with the wagon pretty loaded. If the trees hadn’t been as incredibly large as they were, giving quite the space between them, even the windy and bumpy path the wagon was taking would have been absolutely impossible to find, and it was even quite clear that magic had been used to make it slightly easier to traverse.