Azura hated insects. He and Jackson had been traveling through the valley for a few days, and he was quickly discovering why people complained about them so much. It didn’t help that the valley was thick with them, and all of them were very eager to annoy him. He swatted another away as he lamented not preparing for this. Granted he had bigger concerns at the time, but surely he could have found the time to make some kind of insect repelling spell. He almost just made a superheated shell around himself so they’d burn if they got close, but he didn’t know enough about this ecosystem, and killing a ton of them could have major consequences. So he simply endured their buzzing and their failed attempts to pierce his skin.
Jackson looked to have it even worse than he did. The bugs were visibly swarming around the man. Creating a cloud around him as they tried to bite him. “You are truly popular with the bugs aren’t you?” He meant for it to be joking, but it came out a bit pitying instead. Not that pity wasn’t a fair reaction given the sheer mass of the tiny terrors around the man.
“It’s an unfortunate side effect of my magic. Let’s just say I have a lot of vitality, and these bugs can feel it.” Hmm perhaps that was how his regeneration worked, His mana was used as life energy which helped his body repair faster. Having it as a passive ability was pretty powerful, even a sneak attack probably wouldn’t kill him, but it seemed that the downside to that was that it attracted bugs like crazy. Luckily most monsters hunted for powerful magic energy, which neither of them emitted much of.
“I see, As incredibly useful as that magic seems to be, I can't say I envy you.” And he really didn’t. Regeneration was an incredibly useful spell, but in his opinion if he was putting it into effect then he had already failed. Small injuries were inconsequential, and he would rather spend time making sure he didn’t receive any major injuries than making it so he could heal them. Was that shortsighted? Possibly, but even if he wanted to it wasn’t like it would be a simple skill to pick up. He had gotten as good as he had by prioritizing very carefully what kinds of magic to spend his time on.
“Yeah that’s a fairly popular opinion on my magic actually. Not even because of the bugs, it’s mostly because I still feel pain, so most people would rather decrease the likelihood of getting hurt in the first place. But since I have that little curse my pain becomes my opponent's pain, so healing was the natural spell to spend my time on.” It made sense, but it certainly wasn’t a fighting style he would want to adopt.
“Well no one can say you’re not dedicated. I certainly don’t have the will to use a strategy like that. At least not all the time.” He was no stranger to plans that involved him getting hurt, but for that to always be the plan? Well he wasn’t the kind of guy who would willingly sign up for all that suffering just because it was what his powers leaned too. Then again arguably he actually was, because he had memories from the countless deaths his copies suffered, yet continued to have them do dangerous things. He didn’t really feel the pain himself though. He remembered it, but he never actually felt it himself.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds really. Once you get used to the pain you get pretty desensitized to it. I still feel it of course, but it doesn’t really bother me much anymore.” He wondered if Jackson realized how horrifying that sounded. The man basically just said that feeling so much pain you become desensitized to it was a good thing. He held in a shudder at the sheer agony that must have meant. It was impressive that Jackson had kept his sanity through that. He doubted he’d be able to do the same should the situations be reversed.
“If you say so. I suppose in some sense I understand. Pain is a temporary thing, and the memory of it hardly compares to the moment you actually experience it. So it’s not like you would be in pain all the time, but still, It’s a power I’d rather not need.” Thankfully he was fairly good at not receiving more than scrapes and bruises. His copies really took 1 for the team there.
“Well hopefully you won’t need it, because let me tell you the regeneration isn’t painless either. I can heal you if I need to, but it’s going to hurt… a lot.” That made sense. Most healing magic was painful unless the caster focuses on numbing the pain as they heal, and healing that happened so fast as to be called regeneration would certainly be excruciating.
“Well the trip so far hasn’t been so bad. Only one group of enemies were out of my league, and we got away from them mostly unhar…” He was cut off by a loud rumbling sound as the earth beneath him shook. He immediately regretted opening his mouth. He looked towards the source of the noise. The valley was barren except for some rocks littered around. Turns out one of the larger pile of rocks was a golem dragon. The pile of rocks had easily been over 50 ft tall, and now it began to uncoil, until a blocky dragon stood in its place. Thankfully golem dragons weren’t actually dragons, they couldn’t fly, and lacked intelligence along with other characteristics of true dragons. It was arguable whether they were even dragon kin or not, but there was 1 thing about them that nobody argued.
“Well shit.” Yeah, that about summed it up.
***
Azura’s copy had finally gotten the story out of his friends. Needless to say he was livid. The princess had knowingly put all those people in danger, and for what? Was it some sick game for her? Just what was it about the transformation that appealed to her so? Despite the fancy room he was currently in he was having a hard time relaxing. The red and gold of the room was probably part of it. The royal colors were reminding him of the princess who had apparently stepped up her game at being the absolute worst.
His chat with Xander and his friends eased his anger, but only marginally. Even as he layed in the lush bed the castle had prepared for him he couldn’t help but let his rage fester. It didn’t help that there was a very obvious difference between the quarters given to nobles, and commoners. Katy’s room was as plain as could be. No additional furnishings left the white walls barren, and a decent bed was the only furniture in the room. His had a desk in the corner along with several dressers, and an included bathroom and closet.
At least the rest of the spars after his had gone without a hitch. It took only a few minutes for Lux’s arm to heal, and after that he was in fine condition to trounce everyone else. He couldn’t take any pride in being the only one to injure the knight though. Even if he considered his unsealed power his own, it wasn’t the power that let him land the blow, it was the willingness to attack people knowing Lux would have to put himself in a bad position to defend them all. Technically speaking it was a solid plan, and had even worked, but of course he wouldn’t normally attack strangers like that, much less his friends.
Thankfully Lux had managed to live up to his word, but it was a close thing. If he had set even a few more seconds for the transformation more people likely would have gotten hurt. A broken shield arm was a pretty major problem given that Lux had to try and protect everyone else. Thankfully it hadn’t come to that. Then again the trip wasn’t over, and he’d never known the princess to leave him alone if he was still in the capital. Maybe he really should set up an accident for her. Not something fatal obviously, but something to show her that she can’t just mess with him consequence free.
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He smiled. Suddenly feeling some of the anger fade a little. It would be pretty cathartic, and Xander had a point. He had basically free roam of the castle. He hadn’t really had to use his magic for anything subtle in a while. He smiled maliciously at the wall. Perhaps it was time to get Katy, he had some enchanting to do.
***
Azura dove out of the way of the dragon's claw, otherwise known as a giant slab of rock. He had been attempting a similar strategy as he had against the golem he and his team had fought in the first trial. Only since magic could directly affect it this time he was using super hot water to heat it and weaken the rock, and then freezing the golem itself to cool it down. Unfortunately this one was a whole lot faster and stronger than that one had been. He barely managed to create a magic circle to use as a platform to spring backward from his role to avoid the tail made of several giant slabs of rock kept together by magic.
“On a bright side for me I’ve always wondered if I could survive being bisected.” As it turns out the answer was that Jackson could, or at least he could so long as it was a horizontal cut. It had taken less than a minute for his body to reattach itself, and that was the most damage either of them had been able to do to the beast who had lost a major chunk from the side of it’s torso. The piece was probably the size of some houses, and yet it was only a fraction of the giant monster.
“That’s great, but I think I would have rather us having been able to get away!” The wound had come from their attempt at escape. He was just grateful that the beast had correctly decided that Jackson was the bigger threat. If the beast had attacked him while they ran he wouldn’t have been able to stitch himself together.
“That’s kind of a given man, you got to look for the silver lining.” He snorted. Perhaps not the best time to laugh, as he barely got his shield up in time for the tail swipe to send him flying instead of turning him into paste. The phrase was one of his favorites simply because it was so unlike the Silver family as to be funny.
“I’ll look for the silver lining when there isn’t a giant dragon trying to kill me!” Maybe he should reconsider that regeneration spell. Sure it would suck, but it must be nice to be as unconcerned about damage as Jackson appeared to be. It probably helped that after a few attacks the golem seemed to realize that attacking Jackson was hurting itself, and had redirected its attention on him… Yay.
“It’s not really a dragon.” He barely restrained himself from lashing out. Jackson definitely knew he knew that. The guide was just trying to get a rise out of him. He didn’t have the time to let him, this wasn’t a good enemy for them. The only familiar he was confident enough to let join the fight was Reign. He couldn’t guarantee the lives of the others so he kept them in their smaller forms on his person. Making copies would most likely be counterproductive here. He was barely damaging it, and having more needles wouldn’t help him very much. He needed as much mana as he could to keep himself from dying.
“Do you have any offensive spells other than your curse?!” They weren’t going to be able to beat this thing at this rate, and worse it seemed to have some form of healing ability of its own since any cracks he had made from the temperature spikes seemed to be gone. At least the chunk that got blown away when it attacked Jackson was still missing.
“Yes, but nothing that will put a dent in something like this. It may even breach rank-8” That seemed about right. The creature was even faster than him, and it was abundantly clear it wasn’t designed for speed. The only reason he was still alive is because it wasn’t intelligent, if it was smart enough to force him to dodge in the direction of one of the sides of the valley until he was pressed against it then he’d be long dead.
“How about the curse itself?! How much damage can you take, and how much will it dish out?” He wasn’t out of options that he could use, but last resorts were called last resorts for a reason. His especially would only come out if it was clear they were going to die, which unfortunately seemed like it would be upon them real soon if they didn’t come up with something.
“If you mean at once then I don’t know obviously I’ve never hit my limit or i’d be dead! If you mean how often can I regenerate myself, then the answer is as long as I have magic!” The bastard was shouting like the beast was attacking him, but he was just standing near the beast as it totally ignored him. “As for how much damage it does, the cure should deal back equivalent damage, so against something like this it should do quite a bit, but it’s not attacking me anymore!”
That was fine, if it was just fooling the monster into attacking Jackson, then there wouldn’t be a problem. The issue is the specifics of the curse. Does it only work if the attacker intends to do harm? If someone hit him by accident with a spell would the damage still be returned? It would be very not good if he got that thing to attack his guide only to find out that since it hadn’t meant to hurt Jackson the curse wouldn’t activate it. He really wished Cynthia was here. He didn’t have the time to have a full blown conversation, a mental link would be incredibly useful right now. He shot his blade out in its chain form and caught onto the monster's tail pulling himself closer to the beast and landing on top of the long prehensile limb.
“Well it’s about to attack you, so brace yourself!” He didn’t have time to say more than that as he ran up the dragon's body at full speed, magic runes coming into being across his body. The beast tried to shake him off, but a liberal use of magic kept his feet connected to the beast as he continued his run. He didn’t go all the way to the head, but instead jumped off the dragon around it’s shoulder hoping to bait it into attacking him with its claws. It took the bait making an arcing swipe at him. A magic circle appeared in front of him, and he just made it through before the dragon's claws came crashing upon the space he had jumped towards.
Jackson screamed as the claws tore several deep gouges into his body. “Maybe give me a bit more warning next time you psycho!” The attack had caused several large gouges to appear in the dragon's torso as well. Thankfully the beast seemed to decide that enough was enough and it burrowed into the ground vanishing without a trace. Or at least he hoped it was gone. He couldn’t sense it while it was merged with the ground like that, and he really didn’t want to deal with a surprise attack from that thing.
“Maybe learn how to be more helpful without getting hurt.” It probably wasn’t a good idea to antagonize his guide, especially given as far as he could tell the man was functionally immortal. Or at least until he ran out of magic, and making him run out of mana would be difficult when every attack would hurt him as well. That being said he was too relieved to have gotten the golem to retreat to worry about it too much.
“You know what! That’s pretty fair actually. Especially if I’m going to be taking escort missions like this.” Jackson’s wound had already healed, and he was thankfully unharmed. Well aside from the bruise that was no doubt forming on his back from when he had got forcefully knocked into the cliff face. At least his arm hadn’t broken. Even with all his enchantments it was probably a near thing.
“Hmmm, I wasn’t expecting a responsible answer if I’m being honest. You don’t really strike me as the type.” Jackson definitely seemed like the adventurer stereotype his father always talked about. Reckless and brash, with little in the way of tact. He wouldn’t say the man was a brainless brute, but well he wouldn’t say he was the sharpest either. Regardless though, if nothing else his guide definitely knew his stuff when it came to adventuring and monsters, of that no one could argue.
“Yeah, yeah. You and every other fancy mage school attendee ever. Do they have some kind of lesson saying that people who don’t attend magic schools are a certain way? I just can’t believe every one of them I’ve ever met has that same damn opinion of me.” He didn’t have the heart to tell the man that it was probably because of the way he acted.
“It’s because you act like a drunk vagrant.” Oh wait, yes he did.