My mouth watered at the sounds of sizzling meat. Vel was in the process of grilling the hog meat and a selection of vegetables on a hot pan.
On my side, I peeled and sliced another small fruit. I flicked the pit out of our shelter and put the pieces in the bowl on my lap on top of the growing mountain. I may not be great at cooking but I was a good alchemist. I crushed the fruits gently with a mortar until I had a juicy paste of uniform consistency. I then transferred part of the paste to two wooden cups and added some conjured water. I stirred with a metal rod until the two parts were mixed together.
I dropped a few conjured ice cubes in with a flourish and handed one of the cups to Vel. She took a sip and licked her lips.
"Tasty," she said with a smile. "So you can cook after all."
"It's closer to chemistry than anything else," I shrugged.
"Stop with that," she kissed me.
I wisely chose to stay silent.
The rest of the meal was delicious, as usual. Then, before Vel went to sleep, we spent some time cuddling together before I took the first watch. I gently caressed her hair while she rested her head on my chest. It probably wasn't the most comfortable with our armor on but her presence was comforting nonetheless. It helped me center my thoughts.
"Good night love," I kissed her.
"Good night," she yawned.
I watched Vel fall asleep on her bed of soft moss.
Watch was boring most of the time but it was also a good time to study and practice. I had new specializations and ideas of how to use them. My Nature and Arcane magic skills were at the third rank as well, which meant I had unlocked new options with both.
I chose to check them first.
Nature Magic - Rank 3, Level 20
Passive
Allows the conversion of internal mana into nature mana. Grants the ability to memorize and cast nature spells. Grants an intuitive understanding of nature spell patterns. Skill level increases available knowledge and elements.
Available Elements:
Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Light, Void,
Lava, Ice, Lightning, Mist, Plant, Shadow,
Metal, Blood, Poison, Sun, Moon, Star
Minor Spell Level: 5, Major Spell Level: 10
Arcane Magic - Rank 3, Level 20
Passive
Allows the conversion of internal mana into arcane mana. Grants the ability to memorize and cast arcane spells. Grants an intuitive understanding of arcane spell patterns. Skill level increases available knowledge and forms.
Available Forms: Pure, Light, Force, Shock, Frost, Scorch, Acid, Poison, Ichor
Available Concepts: Conjuration, Alteration, Abjuration
Minor Spell Level: 5, Major Spell Level: 10
More options yet again.
I finally had access to the celestial elements with nature magic. I had read about them in the Druid guide and they were considered the first major stepping stone in terms of upgrades. Sun was a powerful offensive element, the combination of Fire, Lava, Lightning, and Light, while Moon was more of a defensive option, aligned with Ice, Mist, Water, and Light. Finally, the Star element was descended from Shadow, Void and Light and considered a flexible element like its components.
Arcane was different. The new tier of forms I had unlocked was … grim compared to the rest. The new concept was interesting however. The previous two were somewhat straightforward, creation and modification of the forms. Abjuration was negation or destruction, similar to the Void element in some ways. This had some interesting applications for my barrier spell.
As for the new magical disciplines …
Runic Magic - Rank 1, Level 1
Passive
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Grants knowledge of runes and runic formations to be used in spells. Skill level increases available knowledge and formations, and informs which level of spells runes and runic skills can be used with.
Spell Level: 2
Crystal Magic - Rank 1, Level 1
Passive
Grants knowledge of mana crystals types and crystal formations to be used with spells. Skill level increases available knowledge and formations, and informs which level of spells mana crystals can be created with related skills.
Spell Level: 2
Spirit Magic - Rank 1, Level 1
Passive
Grants knowledge of spirit magic spells to the master. Allows summons and familiars to memorize and use spirit spells. Skill level increases available spells and knowledge.
Spell Level: 2
The small amount of knowledge I had from the first level runic magic skill already made me love it. With my selection of versatile elemental spells, I could use runes to focus the effects of a cast into a specific shape by drawing the appropriate runic formation as a metamagic enhancement. Instead of having to memorize separate fire spells, I could combine Flame Dance and runes to build the spell on the fly. It came with some additional delay due to the two step process but it was a world of possibilities.
Crystal magic, I tried on the spot. I created a uniform sphere of black stone the size of cantaloupe with Melody of Earth. As it hovered in front of me, I called on the Crystal Growth skill and watched as a small clear blue mana stone slowly grew embedded on the surface. I touched it and could feel the ambient mana trickle into the crystal. I knew that unlike my conjured stone, the created crystal would shatter when the mana I had invested in its creation ran out.
With the Runic Inscription skill, I created a simple formation around the small mana stone. When the two connected, the formation was powered and the level one light spell I had inscribed came to life. A small ball of light hovered over the assembled contraption.
I grinned, a new world of possibilities had just opened to me.
The first step was to get all the skills to an acceptable level. I wouldn't get far with only level two spells after all. Essence wasn't as much of a problem as I had anticipated with the second rank of Essence Absorption and the abundance of taratects in the area to farm.
> Raised Skill Runic Magic to rank 3, level 1 for 15 ES (+60 levels)
> Raised Skill Runic Casting to rank 3, level 1 for 15 ES (+60 levels)
> Raised Skill Runic Inscription to rank 3, level 1 for 15 ES (+60 levels)
> Raised Skill Crystal Magic to rank 3, level 1 for 15 ES (+60 levels)
> Raised Skill Crystal Growth to rank 3, level 1 for 15 ES (+60 levels)
> Raised Skill Spirit Magic to rank 3, level 1 for 15 ES (+60 levels)
> Raised Skill Spirit Summon to rank 3, level 1 for 15 ES (+60 levels)
> Raised Skill Spirit Contract to rank 3, level 1 for 15 ES (+60 levels)
The only downside of raising skills with essence was that they would not give experience, unlike when they were trained the hard way. It was a potential bottleneck down the line but I would handle it when it happened, if it did.
I settled in for a long night of research but as soon as I started to pull on the various skills, I felt a headache start to build. It hadn't happened before, however I had an inkling of why. My current mental enhancement skills couldn't keep up. So far, I had mostly pulled from one or two skills at once but with the new options at my disposal and high skill levels, the flow was too big to handle.
Since essence was the solution to all my problems at the moment, I raised those skills as well. Most of them were at the upper end of rank one, I would raise them to three like the rest.
> Raised Skill Mental Mastery to rank 3, level 3 for 12 ES (+48 levels)
> Raised Skill Mental Library to rank 3, level 3 for 13 ES (+52 levels)
> Raised Skill Mental Acceleration to rank 3, level 2 for 11 ES (+44 levels)
> Raised Skill Mental Partition to rank 3, level 2 for 10 ES (+40 levels)
My mind expanded into four more partitions and I discovered that each could be split into two threads each. With the increase in speed, my processing power had increased significantly. I would need to make sure to keep at least one partition at real time to avoid losing myself too much. My thoughts felt so much clearer as well, it was like I had been working with foggy glasses for a long time.
I stretched and went to work.
The first thing I did was to move some of my spells to the Ravri Gauntlet. The integrated mana battery made it a good repository for less used spells that I wanted in an emergency. I moved Rejuvenation, Cleanse, and Void Scalpel there so I could heal even if my mana dropped to zero. The second major slot received the Bulwark arcane spell, an emergency shield that eschewed all versatility in favor of as much defense per mana point as possible. The final minor slot received a lesser copy of Shadow Evocation for the utility.
Next, I upgraded some of my arcane spells. Beehive Barrier was modified to partially absorb magical and physical attacks and feed the energy back into itself, the conversion was around 20% but it was effectively a one fifth cost reduction. I also had enough capacity to add selective permeability to allow me to shoot arrows or spells through the barrier.
Arcane Strike received the new acid and poison options as did Arcane Trap, the latter was also upgraded to Arcane Mine, no longer requiring a surface to attach to. The rest of the spells only received small touch ups to make better use of their new levels.
On the nature magic side, I had space for some brand new spells to match with my new elements. Shadow Evocation was upgraded to Celestial Evocation with the use of Star magic, the strength of the spells stayed the same but their effects would be much more tangible and difficult to resist.
I wasn’t very keen to dip my toes into blood magic quite yet so I left that one aside in favor of the others. Flame Dance was replaced by a Sun element spell, Solar Symphony. I replaced Frozen Melody and Water Dance with the Moon element spell, Liscura's Dark Moon. The name was a break from the musical theme but I couldn't resist.
For the metal element, I added the Brass Crescendo spell. It could shape and control lesser metals like iron or copper but was incapable of creating or even multiplying the material, I had a feeling those options would only be available at higher spell levels.
Since I wanted to focus on the use of earth spells, I opted to split the Melody of Earth spell into two different spells to get more out of each. The first, Obsidian Requiem, was focused on the creation, shaping, and control of stone and harder materials. It would be the spell I would use in combination with crystal and runic magic. The second one, Earthen Orchestra, was focused on the shaping of the terrain. It could extrude more material from the ground and shape it into new forms but everything had to remain connected to the ground.
With all the pieces in place, I turned my mind towards the next experiment. It was time to see how far I could push the stone, crystal, runes combo.