[You have learned the skill basic imbue fire Lv 1
Infuse is now level 3.
You have gleaned several talents through practice.]
'(312/5000). I will know for sure on the next level up. Damn am I hungry though.' Sighing, Aki collapsed to the ground on his ass.
Bob, his weirdly named handler who probably just didn't want to say her entire name so late into yesterday's night, gave him a weird look, as for the third time this day he bottomed his mana pool on experimenting.
That was also, likely due to the XP being divided between skills as he kept using them without actually knowing the proper way, the number of new skills he had unlocked. It could have probably gone by faster if he had leveled up and distributed points already, but he was holding off to see if his stats could be raised on pure work.
Plus, he was beginning to think that the people around here didn't actually have a white screen telling them about their statistics considering the fact that no one had questioned him about it or tried to talk to him about his own stats, so he was reluctant to quickly increase his mana pool, which he had no way to hide from the actual mages walking all around.
Both Enhancement and Power strike were now level two however, and figuring out his first elemental imbuement skill would likely make unlocking the rest simpler, so he was surely doing something right.
“It’s lunch time anyway, let's go raid the pantry.” Called the divine emissary of food as she rested her hands on her waist and gave him a matronly look. He couldn’t actually tell her age due to several reasons inherit from fantasy land, but she clearly had experience dealing with childish idiots even if she had yet to become a mother.
Seriously though, he was very hungry. It was like he had eaten a whole day ago instead of the three hours and something he’d spent away from the mess hall.
Because that is what it was apparently. This was a military fort in the middle of some remote valley between mountains as far as he had been able to see with his limited movement. The surroundings could just be an illusion, but considering how he wasn’t the only summon being temporarily detained in here, the chance of that was rather low.
While he hadn’t seen any other humanoids, there were plenty of elementals and weird animals with anatomies that were rather unbalanced from his point of view (Like a wolf with no eyes and five sets of teeth that kept laughing at him with the voice of a young man this morning). Their level of sapience seemed to vary, but that was rather hard to tell considering the fact that even if they were smart, their psyche would be built in a way different than his, and pretending to be dumb was easy even without that kind of advantage, so he wasn’t going to judge any books because of their covers around here.
Another thing he noted was that despite the rampant summoning, there were no demons around. Sure, there was some disturbing shit walking around the medieval stone structure (probably one of the reasons it was so well illuminated), but nothing screamed 'seven deadly sins' or the like. While it was entirely possible for the opposite scenario to come forth… yeah, he wasn’t going to think about that, especially with the head knight Fiora coming around to his table with a frown.
He was rather quick in spiting the bread in his mouth into the napkin he had picked up exactly for this kind of situation and stood up, saluting her.
Which for whatever reason gave everyone pause.
“Lieutenant Captain Bob, did you try to teach him our military salute?” She questioned with a raised brown.
“No ma’am, this is entirely on him. Which is surprising considering he spent the whole morning either eating or training." Answered his handler as she reported on his situation while giving him a heated glare. Did he fuck up the salute that badly? His elbows were certainly straight and he wasn't looking anybody in the eyes.
Making so as to relax his posture but keeping his right hand over his heart and left hand on his side was a bit hard, but he was interacting with veterans who likely also had to deal with political bullshit, so the answer to his 'question' came quickly.
"You don't need to salute while acting as a military sub contractor, just show proper respect when interacting with higher ups." He nodded at her words and relaxed a bit more. "That being said, your schooling will begin today. Combat, languages, orthodox wizardry and what you can expect from your new enemies."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
That was… a lot more than he expected. To be honest he expected to just be beaten into the ground with different elemental variations until he got some resistance to it while he focused on other basic exercises to get to a certain level of physical aptitude.
Transformation and starving state aside, he still had a gut and was about as fit as his stats suggested. This level of care going into a troop of questionable loyalty meant he was special in some way.
Either his magic and cooperative nature made him liked, which was unlikely, or the summoning rituals were a few times more expensive than he had first thought and something about him made them want to keep him as a more strategic resource.
"Finish eating and report to the training ground. I will see what your earlier training did and will show you through the paces." Declared the commander before leaving.
"Fuck." He honestly couldn't tell whether he or Bob said that louder, but they got it in pretty good sinc.
……………
"Again."
His respect for Spiderman was steadily rising every time she said that. He had used the chance during his second beatdown to level up and put a point into his anemic endurance, which unfortunately only gave him a single point of stamina.
With only enough XP to level up once more, he wished his abilities would give more general XP than the current 1:1… but if his experimentation at night were consistent then he was already getting too much.
Rather, he needed more skill, more experience fighting with them and, if they existed, some quests. As it stood, it was just too unlikely for him to be able to properly farm monsters even if they were not actually worth much XP.
'The solution to that would be…' Looking at his two points of remaining mana he decided to try something new. Nothing to lose after all.
With a shout, he charged his opponent with total disregard, tackling her waist and successfully taking one of her sheared daggers as he threw himself to the side, avoiding a rather telegraphed elbow meant to send him sprawling.
[You have learned the skill basic confuse Lv 1
Basic arcane affinity is now Lv 2
You have gleaned several talents through practice.]
“Holy shit, that worked!” His surprise was as great as that of everyone else looking, which was possibly part of the reason the new spell had been so fucking effective. Infusing his shout with the idea that he was doing a desperate strike had been his idea to begin with, but telling whether he just had little confidence in himself or if the spell had also affected him at this point was simply too difficult.
Rather, his dilidalying had just cost him the advantage of surprise and soon enough he was punched in the gut, collapsing backwards and releasing the blade in his hand.
As an armored boot rested on his chest, there was a moment of silence and he honestly thought he might be executed for using magic considered heretic or whatever, but the commander took her foot off him in the end.
"Don't ever use that against anyone in this base or I will immediately execute you. Understood?" He groaned and nodded immediately. No mind altering effects against people he wasn't going to immediately kill off or around mages.
……………
He had not, unfortunately, been allowed to faint in exhaustion after that. Instead, he was given some fifteen minutes to catch his breath and sent to an office room, where a bookish, bespectacled man awaited him for lessons on fataram.
The translation enchantment that they had put into his ear didn't actually help much with this, as it only allowed him to understand western imperial common and fataram was the local equivalent of latin, a dead language used by scholars, high military officers, nobility and some churches for a myriad of official and purposefully complicated reasons.
Since that was the case, there was no reason to further teach him any variation of common when he was done here, but he had managed to convince the senior scribe teaching him to be allowed a chance to learn on his own free time later by borrowing some books.
Sure, he had been sneered at when he suggested he could do it, but certainly he could convince someone in the base to help him with translating. Preferably several people so he did not bog any one person's time.
The scribe's attitude even changed when he proved himself an avid pupil. With the help of his improved intelligence score and the effect of his trait (which was likely just a psychological thing rather than anything actually magical), he was pretty good at picking up the beginnings of the language.
While he was unlikely to memorize another ten or twelve words and properly use half of that amount again the next day, his progress was even better than when he began picking up english and the pieces of Spanish he knew.
His only observation was that for whatever reason, both western common and fataram used the word 'sofa' to refer to plush seating arrangements. He wasn't going to question the homology (was that the right word?) with Earth's tongues, but it was there.
Oh, and he was also absolutely exhausted, to the point he had had difficulty working up the jaw strength to finish his post-lunch meal. Which was also a ridiculous notion considering the amount of food he had ingested in a day was now equal to a bit more than his body volume, and yet his, admittedly effective metabolism, somehow allowed him to keep the same body shape.
And still it was only four in the afternoon. Meals of bread, jerky and bean soup were probably not going to let him keep going on under such a routine, but right now he had magic classes.