It didn’t take long for us to enter the forest. After scouting the area to make sure it was safe, everyone turned to the Hero.
“I know, I know. You don’t have to be so anxious. Here.” He says as he starts to hand out the potions. “Remember, we are all drinking them at the same time.” He sends a look at Melly.
“Remember to properly absorb the potion with your mana. While an exceptional absorption doesn’t really affect the result, a poor one certainly does. Just because we have more potions doesn’t mean we can just waste them.” Rapunzel reminded us.
“Don’t worry, we will take this seriously.” Melly said seriously, never taking her eyes off of the bottle.
“I can see that. If you took this any more seriously, you’d melt the bottle." The Hero teased.
Melly didn’t care. “Let’s hurry up, the longer we take, the more likely something will come and interrupt us.” She advised, to which everyone agreed.
So, after one last scouting and having Hansen’s summons patrolling the area, we were ready to drink our potions.
“CHEERS!" The Hero called.
“CHEERS!” Everyone responded as we chugged the potion.
Wow, I could feel the potion after I drank it. Not just in the normal way, \ I could even feel it well after it had entered my stomach. It quickly started spreading from my stomach to the rest of my body, ‘looking’ similar to dropping ink into a cup of water. I nervously wait for it to finish spreading, as I can only start once the potion has completely settled throughout my entire body. If I act too early, the areas that weren’t fully saturated won’t be properly improved, at least that’s what was explained to me numerous times while we waited for the potions to be made.
Despite the potion only taking a dozen or so seconds to reach full effect, it really felt like several minutes had passed, as I slowly watched the potion’s spread. But soon, the wait was over and I could finally begin.
What I needed to do is first get the remaining potion to stick to my mana, simply done by activating my mana defensively across my entire body (the easiest way to get your mana to saturate your entire body), and ‘grab’ on to the potion. I then aggressively flowed my mana to make sure I ‘grabbed’ everything, while making sure to pick up any remnants I might have missed.
Once I was confident that I got everything, I swapped my mana over to muscle enhancement. I had to repeatedly activate my muscles, in a manner that I can only describe as clenching, to get my muscles to ‘grab’ the potion and get it to specifically stick to them. I then started aggressively flowing my mana to pick up any remnants while searching for any area that wasn’t fully saturated to deposit more potion. I just need to keep repeating that until the potion finally expires. Honestly, the only other thing I can really do is pray as I continuously cycle the potion.
And so, after several minutes, the potion’s buff finally ended.
I end up sighing as I lay on the ground. Now all I need to do is test my newfound strength. But that can wait for after I relax a bit.
I’m not alone in that either. I notice a few others are doing the same.
Only the Hero and Melly were currently testing their power. The Hero was being calm and analytical.
Melly was the complete opposite.
Melly was running around shouting in excitement, only stopping to test out some exercise before returning to her excited run, her excitement almost increasing with every test.
I have to admit, I’m a bit sad that the Hero isn’t very excited, but it made sense. He has probably been rapidly Leveling Up since he arrived in this world, so this probably just feels like another Level Up to him. And, if he was also a hero previously, such increases in strength might even feel normal.
Well, Melly has finished her exercises and is now resting, so I guess I should finally check how much I’ve grown. And, when I started, everyone else also decided to follow.
So, I did some tests, and I was not prepared for this. I grew way stronger than I thought I would. I forgot that even people at their limit would notice an increase in their strength, even if it’s minor. It took me a while to be able to actually control my strength before I was able to properly test it.
I mean, of course it did, I got around four times stronger.
Yeah, four. Additive growth is insane for those with low strength.
And, that’s an improvement to my basic enhanced strength. If I added a buff, my enhanced buff, I would be insanely strong. With a little training, I could even pass as a warrior. I’d physically be fairly close to being as strong as Melly is normally!
That’s just insane! I can, with my linked buff, even nearly match the strength of an equal leveled, normally buffed, strength type warrior. I mean, I would be destroyed in an actual fight, but it’s still impressive!
Haa, I wonder how much stronger everyone else got?
“So, I take it my potions worked." The Hero said with an amused smile.
“Yes, they did. They were even high quality as well.” Rapunzel answered.
“I was the one that made them, of course they are high quality." The Hero said smugly, head facing the sky as he pretends to look down on us.
“So, time to be serious." The Hero said, turning serious. “How much did everyone grow?”
“I’ll start.” Melly starts. “My strength has increased by around a third.” That’s what I expected.
“I’ll go next then.” Rapunzel said. “I increased by about the same amount as Melly did.” Yeah, bows rely heavily on strength. The main ‘stat’ difference between them is that Melly has a high defense growth while Rapunzel has more perception growth.
“I guess I’ll go next." The Hero followed. “I grew by around sixty percent.” I’m surprised by the large increase, but I guess he does focus more on speed and agility rather than strength when fighting, so it makes sense.
“My turn.” Hansen continued. “I over doubled my strength.” Huh, Hansen is surprisingly strong, I expected it to be around a triple increase.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“I shall answer next.” Gregory stated. “My strength has increased by over five times. I should no longer struggle with the various physical activities required of me.”
“Gregory…” I say with a hand over my face.
“What seems to be the problem, Miss Elizabeth?” He asks.
“I only became four times stronger, why were you so much weaker than me?”
“I prefer to spend my time either reading in the library or practicing magic.”
“So do I, yet you were, like, a third weaker than me.” I accused.
“Well… I have no excuse.” He gave up.
“It doesn’t matter any more, Elizabeth, at least Gregory has a good amount of strength now." The Hero defended.
“It still feels like a waste to use strength potions on the mages.” Rapunzel commented. I honestly felt the same. Increasing my strength is cool and all, but it’s not like it would help me in a fight. If something was powerful enough to push to me in a fight, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway.
“They are going to need it though." The Hero continued.
“Why would they need more strength?” Rapunzel asked. We nodded in agreement. I couldn’t think of a reason.
“We have another mountain to climb." The Hero explained, Gregory’s face getting paler with every word. “This one we will have to climb much further up and we need to climb it fairly fast and efficiently or we might die.”
Everyone got worried at that. I can’t help but turn to Gregory. We are the ones that would hold everyone back. I don’t know why we need to, but I guess we’ll need to practice climbing.
“You gave them strength potions so we could climb a mountain? That’s such a waste! We could’ve used those strength potions for favors instead.” Melly added.
“Trust me, it will be worth it." The Hero said with confidence. “Even if we need to give Gregory another potion before the climb." The Hero added with a laugh.
“I guess we need to practice climbing.” I sighed.
“Don’t worry, practicing on some trees around camp should be good enough. You only need a little bit of experience for what I need you to do.” He smiles. “Now, we should probably head out now, otherwise we won’t be able to set up camp.” He says before giving everyone an amused smile. “And if we fail to set up camp, I can’t make dinner or breakfast.”
Well, that’s all the motivation we needed as we blindly followed the Hero through the woods. We ended up fighting a few things before we set up camp, but I didn’t end up helping. Neither did Hansen or Gregory, as we are giving our warriors the opportunity to test out their new strength. I hope they finish soon though, I want to continue experimenting with my buff spells.
After we (the Hero) set up camp at the spot the Hero once again mysteriously found, and we ate dinner, we started arguing about who would be on watch.
“I’m fine, everyone! I can keep watch without any issues. It’s not like I would be fighting any enemies anyway, my job is just to wake everyone up.” I argued.
“I know, but I’m still worried.” Melly said. “Besides, you still have trouble falling asleep on your own.”
“Isn’t that why we are sharing a tent? So I don’t have to worry about that.” I press.
“Yeah, but.” She hesitates before sighing. “Haa, are you going to wake one of us up whenever you need to go back to sleep then?”
Ah, she’s right. While Melly felt bad for saying that, she had a point. I would help in one way, just to hamper in another.
“Just have her take the last watch.” Hansen commented.
“That is a good point, her ability to sleep unassisted does not matter should she not have to return to sleep.” Gregory agreed.
“See! I can help. Thank you Hansen.” I say, to which he nods.
Before Melly could continue arguing, Rapunzel interrupted her. “She’ll be fine, Melly. Besides, Hansen’s summons are good enough on their own, they even lead the occasional nuisance away from us.”
“Haa, fine. But don’t be afraid to tell me If you have any problems.” Melly relented.
“I’m on first watch, so I’ll join you later, good night.” Rapunzel said as Melly and I went to our tent to sleep. I do still struggle to fall asleep, and will likely continue to do so for a while longer. At least I can sleep easily as long as I’m not alone. And I’m no longer waking up tired either, I noticed.
I was woken up by Melly for my watch. Despite her worry, she was able to easily fall asleep. My watch was uneventful as usual, but that’s to be expected, as we aren’t in an area with powerful nocturnal threats.
Eventually morning came, and with it, everyone woke up. After breakfast, we continued on our journey, towards wherever the Hero was leading us.
As we traveled, everyone finally got used to their newfound strength.
Finally! I can now start experimenting with my buffs again! I don’t care that Melly is pulverizing her enemies with her blows, or that Rapunzel’s arrows are piercing completely through her targets. I still haven’t improved enough spells yet. I won’t be satisfied until Gregory is incinerating his enemies to ash! Well, I’d be satisfied for a few minutes at least. Besides, this is useful for everyone to get used to my linked buffs.
I’ve still only successfully linked my physical enhancement buffs, though, as even just enhancing my magic enhancement buffs eludes me. I’m going to need to spend some time experimenting on myself to figure out more about how spells are cast and mana flows in order to have any chance at enhancing those buffs. Haa, if only patient analysis could see mana, this would be a lot easier.
I also wish that the magic enhancement buffs I use on myself could increase the power of my buffs. Sadly, the only things that really affect the buffs are the power of the individual being enhanced, the ‘fullness’ of my cast, which becoming a saintess has maxed, and now how efficiently I’ve focused the spell. Further training can only slightly reduce the cost of the spell, not increase its power. I can’t even increase the duration of the spell other than by weakening the spell’s effects, effectively just slowing the rate that the spell is consumed.
Buffs are weird. They currently work in almost the opposite way of other spells. When I cast one, I don’t start by preparing all of the mana for the spell, I start by casting the initial spell before the amount of mana needed to fuel my buff gets drawn as the spell completes. That’s why buffs look like a stream of mana being sent from me towards my target. The spell hits the target first, then pulls the needed mana afterwards. That’s part of the reason it’s so easy to modify the spell after it’s been cast. It’s mostly just a blob of my mana that’s slowly being consumed to fuel the spell. I can technically even connect it to my own mana to keep it supplied, though that limits my ability to cast other magic drastically, even when used upon myself.
Sadly, that means that I can’t really affect the power of the spell, it always activates at an optimal level that my capabilities allow. Milo, the man that created this process, was truly a genius. He created a spell that, through a process that is basically mechanical in nature, was able to automatically use the correct level of magic to properly support someone.
Before, spells would have to be individually tailored to the targeted individual or they would become very uncomfortable or even dangerous. They also often missed various areas, which put a lot of imbalanced strain on the target’s body. Milo instead created a process that appears to use something like pressure to both buff someone the proper amount, as well as buff them evenly. As an added benefit, the spells didn’t need almost any time for someone to get adjusted to them (unless the spells were just that powerful or worked slightly differently, wink and wink). Though, that did drastically increase the upfront cost of the spells, while reducing the skill required to effectively, and efficiently, use them, which is mostly a good thing, as supports can better focus on healing now instead.
A person can only withstand so much ‘pressure’ at once, but oddly, multiple sources of ‘pressure’ didn’t add to that limit. The limit only determined the max power of each individual buff.
And, oddly enough, it appears to be the total power of the spell itself that decides that, not how it’s used, hence why my more focused buffs worked.
I guess if I want to improve my buffs further, or even create new ones, I’ll need to research some older buffs. I never really bothered to learn many because of their various problems and how uncomfortable they felt. That will also mostly limit my possible test subjects to just myself, as it would take forever to modify every spell to be used on others.
Haa, this is going to be annoying, but for the sake of progress, I will persist!