A mana bolt shattered Shin’s mystic shield and cracked his sternum through the veil of buffer, as had become tradition in the early hours of the day. A cycle of healing and shields continued until Shin obtained the notification he sought.
[Greater Mystic Wall has reached lvl. 10. 50 Attribute Points rewarded.]
A hefty reward as usual but one Shin could not make full use of. 23 points went into Control, the rest stored away as Shin had reached the limit of this rank, his base stat total already on the brink of the next rank at 1,499. His Control would have to do until he freed up two skill slots so he could advance but 195 felt enough, at least for Journeyman. He had finished the remaining half of the talisman quota last night, planning on devoting the evening to the rest of the art Grenda could show him.
“Yen.”
“I’m busy.” Mana swirled and broke around the particularly focused mage today, her body erratically rising and shifting through the air just off the ground ever so slightly.
Shin looked at Kamala, thinking for a moment. “Do you still have Holy Screen?”
“Yes.”
“Can you try to learn Mana Screen naturally?”
“I already have that.”
“Maxed?”
“Holy Screen is. Mana Screen is 6.”
Shin’s body language seemed slightly more enthused. “You can fuse them together. Mystic Wall is better against pure magic attacks. Force?”
“200.” Yen’s attention drifted over for a moment before returning to focus on her skill.
“Stay if you have less than 150 Force and uncommon mana bolt or worse.” Shin told the mages. A portion of them walked off but most stayed. Kamala walked over to the open ground by Shin.
“I can move you to dodge the spells when the shield breaks.”
“No need.” A narrow dense barricade of vines grew out from the ground in front of her, and a thin blue screen appeared.
The mages hesitated for a moment at the silent unapproachable priest before one stepped up and cast a small mana bolt. It broke through the screen and dented the vine wall but nothing more. A second screen appeared and the process repeated. It only took scant few moments before Kamala ceased recasting her shield and focused within.
“Make it swirly. Holy tries to fight back so beat it into the flow with mana.” Shin offered advise from the side.
Kamala did not look at him but the flow of energy around her changed with deepening focus and grace. Blue and golden light swirled against and along each other until it shone brilliantly and a purple convex shield appeared in front of the vines. She paused for a moment looking at the air in front of her.
Shin tilted his head. “First time fusing?”
“Yes.”
“You can fuse summons too. Intermediate Lord is 1500, don’t go over it yet.”
“Thank you.” She said with the grace and distance of a courtly associate, looking up and staring at the crowd of mages until they resumed their duties.
Donny stood at the side glancing between mages until something brought his attention in front of him. He smiled and walked out to the open space, shifting his feet between stances slowly as a warmup at first then rapidly increasing his speed and complexity until a small surge of aura burst around his feet. He stopped and stood motionless, intense focus took hold as he gripped an axe, and suddenly struck out with a light swiftness, aura surging around his arm briefly too. He glanced in front with a smile allotting more gained points.
“Easy work now.”
“Congratulations on no longer playing like a dumbass.”
Donny held off on the banter and looked over at Shin. “Should’ve told me there’s points for upgrading skills.”
“Pretty obvious if you just think about it…” Yen jabbed again.
“Skill options for lesser lord are tied to class tier.” Kamala spoke up softly and dispassionately.
“What?!”
“From what I know.”
“Hey, tell us stuff like that sooner!” Yen chastised both rare classholders before focusing back on training with a new goal in mind.
A mana bolt broke through a purple shield into the vines and without a word, Kamala strolled over to stand by the wall again. Yen glanced at her in hesitation before tossing over the ring of meditation. Kamala equipped it and the two remained in silence. Shin tossed a few bags to the mages and hopped over to Donny whose shield appeared on his arm in response.
“Ogres after this?” Donny asked as Shin cast buffer around him, blitzing to land a barrage until the protection broke and Donny slid back, his speed a shade too slow to defend. Another veil of buffer shone around him.
“Yeah.” A mace followed his words.
---
Blood and roars filled the highlands as the herb collecting duo turned trio worked in peace. They moved together from herb to valuable herb, staying casually vigilant even with Shin’s watchful eyes. On occasion, Kamala came across a common tier herb which shriveled under a skill she cast, its essence condensing to form a single seed.
“Making ammo or you starting a farm?” Donny asked as he noticed.
“Training.” An indifferent distant word was all he got in return.
“Missing out on a lot of that because you won’t let someone just carry you…” Yen muttered. Not wholly unwarranted as the journey had taken longer than normal with the priestess’ insistence on running herself. Granted she had apparently invested a little into Vitality allowing her to maintain a pace covering 40 miles an hour but that wasn’t much compared to Donny’s usual jog. Her complaints fell unanswered leaving Yen feeling annoyed.
“Is that your power? Plant manipulation. The rest of your clan too?”
“It varies.”
“What’s murim exactly. Like how magic are you all? And how the fuck is it a secret?”
“You heard yesterday.”
“Yeah, yeah, underground society, magic masquerade, all that shit. I mean, how specifically.”
“Some are born with powers. They pass those down to their children and a clan forms. Heroes dominated battlefields and kingdoms until guns became common. Peasantry and commoners rebel. Clans adapt or die out, become more hidden, embed themselves into the changing world. Technology advances, keeping them there. Clans come to a mutual agreement to maintain a stranglehold on secrecy across all countries and media. Is that enough ‘how’?”
“...are there a lot of clans?”
“Twelve that matter.”
“What’s yours?”
“The Pandavas.” Kamala glanced at Yen from the resulting silence. “Descendants of the five Pandava brothers. And Draupadi.”
It didn’t seem like the extra information helped Yenny much, but Kamala had no interest in explaining further, returning her focus to the herbs.
“What’s Shin’s clan?”
Kamala held silent for a few moments. “Ask him yourself.”
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“Fine. Hey Sh-” Her yell fizzled out as she looked over to the terrifying duel ensuing in the distance.
A reddish yellow ogre, taller and leaner than the others, trembled the ground and ripped the air with a massive spiked club as Shin dodged and weaved around the Ogre Champion’s blows. Thick jagged pieces of armor lined the whole of its club arm and half of the other. Cloth, leather and metal armor hung from its waist and a necklace of human and monster skulls hung beneath a full dreadful helm covering the whole of its head.
Shin loosed two arrows as he dove, but the champion moved its head just slightly enough for the bolts to ricochet harmlessly off the metal helm. He rolled under the club towards it as the end tore into the ground, red daggers replacing his bow and blood splattering from a line carved on the ogre’s hand. The ogre grunted and swung its club back and Shin rolled again, drawing another line through a small gap in its armor.
Shin’s body flickered, appearing in front of the ogre, his daggers drawing blood several times each. The ogre swatted its free hand at Shin and his body flickered again, slicing into the ogre’s side. As Shin pivoted to burst again, the ogre shifting around at lightning speed as though gliding on ice, its club trailing the half spin of its body, dredging out another mass of rock and dirt.
The ogre’s senses turn his focus down to the human who had lunged through, taking a slice out of his other side. Shin flickered around the highland giant, taking his toll of blood as the ogre thrashed and struck, its blows keen and targeted but simply too slow. Wound after wound lined the ogre, blood pouring steadily from all, as the ogre flailed. With a furious grunt it stomped on the ground, sending a shockwave that blast away the topsoil along with Shin as he jumped back with the force, his buffer shattering but taking the full brunt of it in his stead.
The ogre champion let out a mighty roar as aura and muscle swelled, suddenly bursting forward at shocking speed, his club cratering the ground as Shin dodged to the side. With another roar, the champion unleashed a flurry of blows forcing Shin on the backfoot. He darted and dodged, giving a wide berth to the club and its spikes, the power unlike anything he had faced before and the speed now enough to give him problems.
As Shin dodged, he saw the path to victory open before him. But he did not act. A sensation overcame him, one he could not ignore, one he welcomed. He felt the precipice he stood atop, the safety he stagnated behind, the possibilities he was not reaching for. A dark blue sword replaced the red daggers as he sank further into the feeling. The image of what he could achieve laid bare before him.
Shin darted inside the ogre’s reach, faking left as he burst right. The ogre shifted instantly and Shin burst forward into a somersault between its legs, his sword slice through the champion’s nether regions. As it roared in pain, Shin’s feet hit the ground and burst backwards slashing through the back of its knee.
Another shift brought a swatting arm sailing under the boy who loosed two arrows into the ogre’s neck beneath its helm, and kicking off its arm as another shockwave stomped out. The champion ripped out the two arrows and Shin burst back as the shockwave died down with its range, an axe chopping halfway into the joint behind its kneecap.
The ogre thrashed away and reached for the axe, lurching back up as an arrow came straight for his eye, and Shin appeared by its leg again, slamming down a mace into the axe like a hammer upon a nail, destroying the weapon and wedging the kneecap off fully. He spun as the ogre roared, chopping a second axe into the bloody flesh deep into its ligament.
The ogre champion burst back and the weight of its body snapped its knee further, bringing it to the ground.
Shin rushed forward and rolled past a desperate backhand swing, springing up to a step on its good knee and lunged towards the ogre’s face, estoc appearing in his hand. A giant reddish hand swatted Shin away, his protection shattering. He spun through the air, another veil of protection forming around him just in time to shatter on the ground as well.
The ogre’s mighty hand held still in the air then fell limb, estoc piercing through the slit in its helm to the hilt, and the ogre champion fell dead. Shin lay on the ground, his broken and bruised body setting itself right as he began healing himself.
[Superior Martial Combat has upgraded to epic tier Grand Martial Combat.]
Shin let his body heal a bit more then rose to his feet, flickering over to the side of the spectating trio. Kamala added her healing skill to his but none of them spoke a word. Shin looked at his three party members, content.
“Let’s head back.”
“Gonna be night before-”
Beautiful long white feathered wings of an angel sprouted from Kamala’s back, cutting off Yen’s complaints. Shin snatched the mage up before she could voice her thoughts and the party of four raced back towards the town, a prismatic eyed boy at the lead.
---
The town came into view in the distance before dusk, their pace faster than normal due to the time limit of Kamala’s angel wings. Yen glanced at the two men with bored exasperation. They had bent over backwards to accommodate their latest member’s whims and rules, damaging the efficiency of their day.
She knew full well the value of a healer main, especially one that could take care of herself in a fight, and that any serious complaints to Shin would result in nothing as he was weirdly obstinate about certain things, but still she would rather someone who could be more of a team player. Thinking of Shin, she glanced up to the boy shorter than her who carried her at high speed with quite frankly eerie comfort.
“Shin, what clan are you from?”
“Igarashi.” A honest, blunt answer as she somewhat expected.
“Then, why…” She stopped herself out of consideration of what his situation might be. “What’s their power?”
“Body Supremacy.”
“Like, total control over your body?”
“Yeah.”
“Explains the deftness…” Yen thought. “That’s how you keep fixing broken bones into place and stuff, right? That mean you can live through any damage?”
“I can keep stuff together, keep my body working but only for a while. I’ll die without enough organs.”
“I see.” His blunt sincerity was a bit comforting if she was being honest, but it also worried her a bit. “Don’t go around telling people that.”
“All of murim knows.”
“Still.”
The party came to a stop at a slight distance outside the gate and walked towards it, Kamala’s wings fading away. Shin threw a bag of four silver to a guard and walked forward.
“Hold on now. Bag’s light.”
“Four.” Shin said back.
“Price has gone up. 2 silver a person now.” The man took notice of Shin looking at him in silence. “Oh, you didn’t get the memo, out there in the fucking wild, this is Ladron territory. You pay or you find somewhere else.”
Shin didn’t react, making the man’s demeanor more on edge, more hostile. “Is, are you…” A brief smile with a scoff returned to hostility. “Do you think you can do something here? We got a hundred fucking guys behind this wall so give me the money.”
“Let’s just pay and go.” Yen suggested, annoyed but not concerned.
“Listen to your girl, man, before we hurt y-”
Shin beheaded the guard before anyone could react. The second guard drew a sword but Donny had an axe on him before he could move. “How about you open the door for us, and only one of you has to die today, yeah?” The man hesitated so Donny looked at him a little. “My mate here’s not a patient boy.”
The guard banged on the door with zeal, his decision made. The tall wooden gate doors opened and the party walked in briskly, Donny subtly urging them on after passing through.
“Should we even come back here now?”
“Not much choice, right Shin?”
“Yeah.”
“Thought so. Come on. We need to get to the tavern.”
They followed Donny as he led the way, the veneer of subtlety dropped as he checked around town overtly, though nothing of substance happened on their short trip. Donny pushed open the door to the pub and made his way to the corner table in the back, occupied by a party already.
“Fuck off.” His casual suggestion bore little reaction so he stepped to the side, letting them see Shin. “Fuck off now.”
This time the party got up quickly and without complaint. Donny didn’t waste a moment. Shin already took his spot at the very back facing the door so he turned to the others. “You two sit next to him.”
Kamala moved without much hurry but Yen grew a bit on edge as they both did as told. Donny himself took a seat besides Kamala, closest to the door, putting the chair to face towards it on a better angle as he sat sideways to the table and raised a hand for the barmaid.
“Four meals and some drinks, yeah. Best of whatever you have.”
“What are we doing?” Yen asked as the barmaid walked off.
“Waiting.”
Yen was about to ask what they were waiting on but the answer came to them first. Three men with serious expressions barged into the tavern and looked around before finding the party. They stood near the door, one nodded out to someone and another man walked in. Dark blond hair, shoulder length parted to the side, a golden tooth visible through a smile and a flat nose. Good quality gear, most striking a thick coat worn loose revealing part of his toned chest and a golden jeweled amulet. Each one of his ten fingers had a ring, some flashier than others.
[Human Buccaneer (rare) - Lesser Lord]
“The infamous… goblin boy…” Chato greeted with flair, his inflection and tempo changing sporadically but rhythmically as he made his way to their table under the protection of a dozen followers, all greater peasant. Two of them, beautiful women, walked directly behind him. “Living up to your reputation. I wish we could have met under different… circumstances, but it’s life, ah?”
Shin looked at him in casual silence.
“Conversation, nino. We need a back and forth, huh.”
“He don’t say much.”
“Was I talking to you, cabron?” Chato’s tone and expression became harsher. A tense silence took hold as they stared off against each other, Donny remaining calm and firm.
“Ah.” Chato waved his hands as a smile returned to his face and his body language relaxed. “This things always get heated, eh.”
He turned the situation back to Shin with a pause. “But here’s the situation. You killed one of my guys… yeah? So now, you owe me a debt.”
Shin kept looking at him in silence so he continued. “There’s a mine, three or four hundred miles down the mountain that way. I sent some people down there to make use of it, you know, but there’s these dog… monkeys…” He looked back.
“Shugs.” One of his men said.
“Shugs. Fucking shugs, whole pack of them, just sitting on it interfering with my operations. Now if you were to get rid of them, I would consider us even.”
“Can’t do it yourself?” Yen asked, her expression confident and unfazed.
“You got a mouth on you, chica. Fiery, I like it. But no. I have a town to run. And now,” He gestured to the four of them. “I have you.”
“Okay.” Shin spoke up for the first time in the conversation, casual as ever.
Chato stared at him for a few seconds with a smile then slapped the top of the chair with a pleased demeanor. “Okay.” He walked back a few steps carefree. “By tonight.” Chato turned and left, his entourage staring the party down as they followed him out.
“What?” She pressed, at the look Donny gave her.
He turned in to the table. “Two hours of daylight left, at most. Not too keen about fighting in the dark.”
“Shugs are rares, we shouldn’t be fighting them at all yet.”
“How much mana do you have?” Shin asked Kamala.
“Hey.”
“330. 340. Wings will cost 50.”
“Malakhs?”
“150.”
“Hey!”
“We can do it.” Shin put some silver on the table. “My mana will be full.”
An atmosphere not particularly enthusiastic washed over the table. Donny took a drink from his mug as he stood. “Might as well go now, then.”