> Skill Mental Partition has reached rank 1, level 14 (+5 levels)
> Skill Mental Acceleration has reached, rank 1, level 12 (+4 levels)
> Skill Mental Mastery has reached rank 1, level 12 (+4 levels)
> Skill Mental Library has reached rank 1, level 10 (+4 levels)
> Skill Nature Magic has reached rank 2, level 11 (+2 levels)
> Skill Arcane Magic has reached rank 2, level 18 (+6 levels)
> Skill Metamagic has reached rank 2, level 8 (+2 levels)
> Skill Meditation has reached rank 2, level 6 (+1 level)
I looked at my progress after several hours of watch and magical research. The pace had picked up when I had reached level ten of mind partition and added a third mental instance. I could focus on the watch with my primary partition and let the other two work on spell research in the background. I had also kept mind acceleration only in the background instance to avoid making the night longer than it needed to be.
My main focus had been on arcane magic, the spells I had cobbled together as a test needed some work. The first improvement was to the Sensor spell which I renamed to Arcane Eyes, to keep with the theme. I simplified a lot of the mechanisms, mainly the omni-directional vision, to be able to create multiple eyes. With more partitions, I could dedicate one to use the eyes for reconnaissance.
I dropped Sleep entirely for something else, Gravity Well. By itself the spell wasn't all that powerful but combined with projectiles it would be devastating. The spell increased the mass and speed of anything it was cast on, which would allow me further enhance either my arrows or spell projectiles.
Vel woke on her own when her watch was about to start. She strapped her leather chest plate back on and joined me near the fire. She leaned against me and gave me a sideways hug.
"Nothing interesting?"
"Like a still pond," I said.
"Hope you didn't get too bored."
"Worked on spells," I kissed her, "thank god for mind partitions."
"You mean cheater who cheats," she pouted.
"You'll get there," I reassured her, "and in the meantime, I'll do the research for the both of us."
"How magnanimous of you, to sacrifice yourself for my sake."
I gave her one last kiss and dropped down in the shelter.
"Good night love," I heard, then I was out.
----------------------------------------
I woke up the sounds of chirping birds. The crystals were just starting to shine and I found Vel near the entrance of the cavern. She was watching the smaller critters go about their day.
"Morning," I gave her a hug from behind. "Night was calm?"
"And boring," she said, "thank god for meditation."
I agreed, the skill made passing time a breeze. It kept you focused but long stretches of time still seemed to pass like nothing. I went back into the cave and started to pack our little camp up. The shelter was folded and stuffed back into Vel's pack. I disposed of all the leftovers, including the turtle shell which was too cumbersome to bring with us.
There were still several hours of travel before we reached the fort. I wanted enough day-light to explore the structure without having to camp there for the night.
"Let's go," Vel said as she put her pack on.
I disabled the trap spells at the entrance and we were on our way.
----------------------------------------
The first real obstacle to reach the fort was the river. We had chosen a fairly narrow section to make our crossing, it was at the inlet of a small lake and so current should not be too much of an issue. There were several natural bridges marked on the map but they all involved a detour longer than we wanted.
In the background, I had my two mental partitions working on a spell to make the crossing easier. The Water Walk spell was available in the standard nature spellbook but all my memory slots there were already full. I would need to find the budget for the required perks at some point. It was my first foray into a buff-type spell besides healing. It took me a while to put all the pieces together but I managed in the end, and just in time as well.
Somebody had beaten us to the punch. A group of three lizard-like humanoids were collecting water from the small lake into wooden barrels on a cart. From across the river, it was difficult to tell if they were kobolds or drakonians. I sent my scout eyes forward to get a better look at them. The constructs themselves were nearly transparent so they wouldn't be spotted easily.
I grimaced when I spotted the telltale stubby horns of the drakonians. Unlike kobolds who were generally friendly and welcoming, sometimes to their detriment, their more draconic cousins were generally hated in the jungle. They had a taste for flesh and tendency to … desecrate corpses, not necessarily in that order. They didn’t attack elven villages often thanks to their impressive defenses but the times they did and succeeded are talked about in hushed whispers.
"Drakonians," I said.
"Shit," Vel swore, "do you think they're at the fort too?"
"High probability. This mission has suddenly become a lot more dangerous."
"Think we can do it?"
"If we don't alert the entire tribe, yes." I left the other part unsaid.
"You hit the scout with a shock arrow," Vel said. "I have a way to root the other two in place while you finish him."
I nodded. Humanoids were comparably easier to disable than quadrupeds, or hexapods for that matter. I took aim and charged my shot, I waited for the drakonian to turn around and berate one of the bucket carriers. My arrow struck true and pierced the drakonian right between the shoulder blades, he fell to the ground convulsing from the lighting shock and sudden loss of spine.
An arrow hit the first bucket carrier and vines started to quickly creep from the point of impact. He cried in distress and tried to remove the vines but it only made the situation worse as vines grabbed his hands. The last had frozen in surprise and was struck with a vine arrow as well.
"Nice," I said to Vel, "I have a way to cross the river without swimming."
"New spell?"
"Yup, Water Stride, lets us walk on water."
I ran towards the water and held my hand to Vel, she took it and I cast the spell. When I stepped on the water, my boot only sank a centimeter or so. It felt like walking on gelatin and was somewhat unsteady but much better than trying to swim in full gear. It took us nearly thirty seconds, an eternity in a real fight, to cross the fifteen meters of river.
One of the bucket drakonians had found his brain and had started to cut the vines holding him in place. The scout was attempting to drag his half-paralyzed body across the ground with one hand.
As soon as I set foot on the shore, I let go of the water stride spell and fired several icicles at the scout. Empowered with Gravity Well, the projectiles flew true and impaled him to the ground. Meanwhile, Vel had taken control of the vines and was choking the two other drakonians to death.
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> Your group has defeated [Drakonian (Level 57, Rank 3; Scout)]
> Your group has defeated [Drakonian (Level 48, Rank 3; Worker)]
> Your group has defeated [Drakonian (Level 46, Rank 3; Worker)]
> Experience gain reduced by 20% for fighting with a group
> Experience gain increased by 20% for fighting a group
> Experience gain increased by 50% for defeating an enemy above your rank
> Essence Absorption collected 9 ES
>
> Skill Magic Combat has reached rank 2, level 4 (+1 levels)
> Skill Magic Strike has reached rank 2, level 4 (+1 levels)
> Skill Mystic Enhancement has reached rank 2, level 5 (+1 levels)
> Skill Metamagic has reached rank 2, level 9 (+1 level)
> Skill Multicast has reached rank 2, level 5 (+1 level)
> Skill Mystic Arrow has reached rank 1, level 2 (+1 level)
>
> Reached Level 35 (Rank 2, +5 levels)
> Gained: 21 ES
----------------------------------------
The three drakonian corpses had been thrown down the lake to hide them. We didn’t want a party of scouts finding them and raising the alarm. If they went missing with no bodies it would create some confusion as to what had happened.
My human half was a bit bothered by how easy it had been to snuff out another life. Not an animal but another bipedal sentient. Of course, this was tempered by the knowledge that drakonians weren't friendly in the least.
It took us almost an hour to reach the fort while evading the occasional patrol. The fort itself was a large structure of dark stone three stories high. The flourishes on the design was vaguely reminiscent of what I saw every day on the larger buildings in Niu. I wondered if it was made by dark elves. The ruined state of the structure indicated that it had been abandoned for a very long time, a large tree root had gone through the outer wall and was poking out the other side, and parts of the wall had also collapsed.
[https://i.imgur.com/gB4Mp8P.jpg]
I spotted several drakonians keeping watch on the upper tiers of the fort and some of the windows had faint lights coming through them. It looked like a group had made their base there. Which made our life quite difficult since we needed to explore the fort.
"That's a problem," I said.
"And we don't even know where our objective is," Vel said.
"Probably not where it was anyway," I tapped my chin, "it's a relic so if the drakonians found it, they probably have it."
We had been sent to retrieve a minor relic that the scouts had placed in the structure. We had only been given a vague description of the item, a golden bracelet with a red jewel. It was a bit artificial but there weren't that many unexplored structures within a few days of travel from the village, and nobody was insane enough to send newbies there.
"Is it part of the mission?" Vel asked. "I've never heard of something like that for a trial."
"The scout shadowing us would have intervened if it wasn't planned," I said. At least I hope so.
"You’re right," Vel shook her head, "I don't think we're expected to storm the fort anyway."
"I might have an idea," I said, "but I need two perks for it. I'm fairly close essence-wise."
"Wait … hold on a second," Vel said in surprise, "how much essence do you have?"
"Forty-seven right now," I said sheepishly , "I have a perk that gives me essence when I kill things."
"Oh, that's really good. That blessing is really something."
"I'm sorry, I …"
"Don't …" she put her finger on my lips. "Don't blame yourself, I'm just impressed that you're growing so fast. And I'm happy for you too. So, what was the plan?"
"Simple, we kill a few monsters to get the remaining essence I need. Then I can get Major Grimoire, to upgrade my eye spell, and Perception Domain, which gives me all-round vision through walls. We use those to find the item."
"Simple," Vel said with a smirk.
----------------------------------------
We found a small nest of Jagras far enough from the fort that the battle wouldn't attract attention. At this point, Vel and I had perfected the strategy and the three lizards fell without trouble.
> Your group has defeated [Adult Yellow Jagras (Level 41, Rank 3)]
> Your group has defeated [Adult Yellow Jagras (Level 44, Rank 3)]
> Your group has defeated [Adult Yellow Jagras (Level 42, Rank 3)]
> Experience gain reduced by 20% for fighting with a group
> Experience gain increased by 20% for fighting a group
> Experience gain increased by 50% for defeating a monster above your rank
> Essence Absorption collected 9 ES
>
> Skill Magic Combat has reached rank 2, level 5 (+1 levels)
> Skill Magic Strike has reached rank 2, level 5 (+1 levels)
> Skill Mystic Enhancement has reached rank 2, level 6 (+1 levels)
> Skill Metamagic has reached rank 2, level 10 (+1 level)
> Skill Multicast has reached rank 2, level 6 (+1 level)
> Skill Multishot has reached rank 1, level 4 (+3 level)
> Skill Mystic Arrow has reached rank 1, level 4 (+2 level)
>
> Reached Level 38 (Rank 2, +3 levels)
> Gained: 9 ES
In the fight, I also discovered that Multishot worked with thrown weapons which allowed me to set multiple traps at once with my needles.
After the fight, we ensured we were still out of reach of the patrols and retreated inside the canopy of a tree. I pulled up my perk selection screen and went directly for what I wanted.
> Purchased Perception Domain for 24 ES
> Purchased Major Grimoire for 24 ES
The perk activated the instant I confirmed. It was disorienting at first, I could see around me from every angle at once. The radius of the sphere was around twenty meters. I was glad I had gained a third mental partition as well. It took all three working together to handle the large amount of sensory input.
"Lis, are you alright?" Vel asked with worry in her voice.
I could see myself, like a third person camera, my face had gone slack and my eyes were unfocused. I blinked a few times and pushed the perception domain to the background. I was back in my body and normal vision returned.
"Yes," I said as I shook my head, "it's … a lot. I can see all the way down to the ground from here. And all the way up too. There's a nest two trees over that way, the hatchlings are hungry and waiting for food. I can see the flow of mana all around, through the ground, the trees, the leaves, us."
"How many fingers," she asked with her hand behind her.
"Two," I said, "now it's four, three, now you're making a ring with your thumb."
"Does it go through walls?"
"I can see inside the trees so … probably."
"Good, do you want some more time to get used to it?"
"Let's wait half an hour," I said, "I'll probably get another partition by then and it will ease the strain."
"Alright," Vel pulled me closer and I snuggled into her side, "we have plenty of time."
She started to stroke my hair with a smile on her face. On my side, I pushed the domain to my two active partitions and started to look around for interesting things. I found an incredible amount of life teeming all around, small insects going about their business, a colony of ants cutting the leaves of a tree with mechanical precision. The baby birds finally got fed when their mother returned. A small lizard was eyeing the eggs in another nest, patiently waiting for the mother to leave.
Interestingly, I couldn't see the inside Vel or any other creature that had an active mana field like monsters. It looked like internal mana blocked the perception field from going past the skin.
> Skill Mental Partition has reached rank 2, level 2 (+8 levels)
> Skill Mental Acceleration has reached, rank 1, level 18 (+6 levels)
"I got it," I said.
"Let's go then," Vel kissed me on the cheek.