---Maddy---
“Who are you?” Jess yelled jumping away and pointing toward the man in their midst.
Troy held up his bow training his eyes on the surprise-person who stood smiling around at everyone.
Maddy…didn’t react. She was certainly surprised he had arrived – even more so that she hadn’t noticed him arrive despite her foundation which should have let her pay better attention to the surroundings…but everything about him spoke to her of someone who didn’t mean them harm.
The ‘man’ wore an outfit of reddish leather and carried a brown short-cloak around his neck. The most immediately important – or perhaps just distinguishable feature was his fake beard.
Attached to his face was a modestly sized grey beard – and two nearly invisible strings wrapped around the side of his head keeping it in place.
“Hey there, didn’t mean to frighten you – my names 'Renald'. I’m a wizard. Mostly a wizard. I’ll be a full wizard once I catch that slime and make my capstone at least – I’m done with my apprenticeship.” Renald explained himself slightly haltingly but with a friendly tone.
Maddy stared. The beard…that made him look less mysterious and wizard-like – didn’t he know that? It also managed to lower her suspicion. A part of her circled around and pointed out he could be wearing it to make people think he was less competent than he was…but his posture and eyes and voice did plenty to make him feel reliable.
“Hey! Obviously suspicious man with the fake beard. I don’t care if you think you are a wizard or not – why are you going about sneaking up on us in the middle of a monster nest! Back off! Stand over there buddy.” Jess spoke defensively shifting forward to place herself between him and her two companions.
She glared and moved her finger back and forth pointing a few times till he got the message and stepped over – looking slightly amused all the while.
It was a nice thought – but Maddy knew he wasn’t out to attack them – if he was, he would have done so before they noticed him.
He was either out of touch with social norms or this was something to do with his culture.
…which brought Maddy’s attention to something.
“You’re not a…traveler, are you? How are you speaking English?”
Smirking the man lifted his cowl to show a ruby-red pendant. “Shifting a rudimentary system-based translator to a vocal one is well within the capabilities of a wizard such as I.”
…so this is not his real voice. It’s a…translation. That makes sense. I've already seen some translators.
When Maddy noticed that, she could see how his lips and voice didn’t match up. The beard had hidden that for a moment.
Enough small changes had built up now that she was starting to doubt her initial assessment. She might be…reading him wrong. She didn’t have some supernatural gift to understand people after all just some practice.
…but still, even with the cascading suspicious points she still felt like he was trustworthy.
She trusted her gut.
“What’s your capstone?” Maddy asked – not wanting to let the conversation slip into an awkward stalemate.
“Its…a capstone is the final project an apprentice takes on to prove everything they have learned. I don’t want to share what mine is but the core from that slime is the last thing I need to finish it.” Renald spoke firmly.
Jess was looking between the two of them. She seemed slightly less on edge after seeing Maddy talk normally, but her hands were held tightly around her whip all the same.
Suddenly the Wizard flung his hand to the side and what looked like a sparrow of fire shot out. The construct flew a hundred feet to the side and began attacking the bull that had been making its way toward them.
With a shriek the sparrow dug into the bull which was immediately immolated – it began running towards them burning wildly before falling a few seconds later. A perfect circle was burnt into the wooden grass around it – the fire mysteriously disappearing as soon as it reached the edge.
Ripping out of the top of the bull the sparrow flew back towards them. Maddy could see drops of blood burning off – the feathers of fire curling up into smoke that vanished.
She could see an incredible amount of details on the bird – instead of simply shaping fire into a bird shape – or turning a bird red – this construct was a perfect blend of the two. The bird circled the man twice, then disappeared into his hand once more.
Maddy hadn’t seen the bull yet – once again she should have been paying attention to her surroundings better. She needed more mental stats.
“Woah there, sorry for attacking without saying anything – nests are great places to have conversations.” The wizard laughed.
Maddy stood staring at the remnants of the spell picturing the bird in her mind. Trying to keep those flaming feathers still in her memories.
She wanted that.
Maddy wanted to be able to chuck magic instead of running up and attacking stuff with her scythe directly. it wasn't that she liked 'ranged' attacks – if that were the case she would have chosen a weapon like a slingshot or a blowdart back in the tutorial.
It was hard to explain herself in her mind. She wanted magic. She wanted that freedom, the ability to shape the world with her mind.
Maddy didn’t even care about attacking things when she thought about it – she just wanted magic, a taste of what that man had shown.
“Can I become your apprentice?” Maddy spoke almost without thinking.
She wanted this.
“Ha! The sign of a true wizard is to take a disciple of my own…I didn’t even have to head out and find one! Are you willing to spend the next nine years of your life learning from me? Apprenticeships are not to be accepted lightly.
“Of course she’s not” Jess yelped “That’s ages!”
… “Counter offer, you teach me a bit of what you know and I’ll help you catch a slime?” Maddy asked – partly as a joke. Jess didn’t need to refuse the apprenticeship for her. She wouldn’t have…she wouldn’t have accepted nine years. Probably.
“And why would I need your help catching the slime?” The wizard laughed eyes flashing a golden yellow of flames at his words.
“…I have a life affinity and you need life mana to kill it?”
Tilting his head the wizard pulled out a vial of green liquid and stared at it for a moment. “I was going to hold it down and pour a healing potion on it – getting your help might be more efficient. Sure."
His demeanour completely changed for a moment his eyes staring directly into Maddy’s soul his outstretched hand firmly dangling in space between them.
“For one day’s lessons in the art of shaping your mana as you wish it to be shaped, you promise to aid my murder of the manifestation of death slipping about these wooden woods.” The man intoned a slight smirk upon his lips.
“To clarify…you mean the death slime right? Not some other creature? And you’ll answer my questions?” Maddy asked even as she reached for his hand.
“Yeah, master always said to enter into minor pacts with appropriate formality – there you go!” As soon as Maddy brought her hand away, a whisp of yellow light came and wrapped around her finger. It felt warm – that was actually the only sign the ring of light existed – she couldn’t feel it other than the slight warmth and when rubbing her other hand over it her fingers simply passed through it.
“Hey hey hey! What are you doing to her?” Jess once again seemed more suspicious of anything he did.
“Just a promise ring – it should stay there until we both do what we promised to do… it's just a reminder – if you run away it should stay there for years unless dispelled reminding you of the promise you are ignoring…do you not know of promise rings on this ‘Earth’ you spoke of?” The wizard spoke seeming embarrassed somehow – his demeanour returned to the laid-back state he was in before.
“It's fine Jess” Maddy waved at her friend. She knew she was entering into things blindly – she knew she was dropping everything for this but…it was magic? How could she not?
“What happened to making sure not to keep the caravan for too long?” Jess asked seeming to have given up slightly.
“A caravan! What fun!” The wizard closed his eyes for a moment then opened them once more.
“I’ve never ridden one – let's catch the slime quickly and then I can give you your lessons upon your travels.” Renald laughed.
Jumping into action the wizard unfurled his arms which began to glow softly. With a burst of yellows and reds and oranges, hundreds of ethereal feathers flew out and drifted off in different directions.
“What are you doing?” Maddy asked her eyes locked onto each feather as it flew over and began floating about her head.
“Trying to find the slime – these should lock onto it…or you now that I think about things. You have a life affinity don’t you? Properly claimed I’m sure based on those runes – which means you have a death affinity too.” The wizard looked embarrassed as if he had made a mistake.
“…yes.” Maddy confirmed watching the feathers float about.
“Never mind – I found the prize, your death wasn’t strong enough to hide it from the following feathers! Let’s go for a walk!” the wizard's face lit up as he pointed off in a random direction.
As one, the group began to walk towards the slime, the wizard's words taking over the conversation.
“Man, I’m lucky you’re here to help me catch it – slimes are tricky bastards. This one will start to run away as soon as it scans me. My plan is to circle around it soon and flush it toward you. Then you just have to blast it with whatever healing attack you can manage and badda bing badda boom the core is mine.” The wizard rambled a small skip in his step.
“Think you can manage your part?” He turned almost in afterthought to ask Maddy – as if suddenly worried that was too much for her.
“Of course!” Maddy spoke. His knowledge was hers.
Giving her a thumbs up the man seemed to be filled with light and suddenly he rushed away – a slight streak to his movement as he ran away from them in an arc.
The glow of his steps faded and then suddenly with a wobble the death slime was there. It ran panicked towards the group momentarily freezing as soon as it spotted Maddy and her friends.
Far behind it, she spotted the wizard sprinting straight towards them in a comical manner – he looked like he was running incredibly fast but his movement was that of a light jog – like he was running on a treadmill the world around him holding him back.
I wish I broke [words of death earlier] and made some runework for the skill – I could have used healing everything within range right about now…unless the slime doesn’t have ears and it wouldn’t have worked?
Dashing forward her legs scrambling slightly to deal with the grass, Maddy pushed life mana through her [reaper's slash]. All along the edge of her scythe, a faint green line glowed – and her scythe knowledge guided her hand into a low slash.
Like a farmer's swing reaping wheat, an entire swath of wood grass was sliced through – flying up in all directions even as the tip of her swing just barely missed the slime.
Its body wobbled as if laughing at her and dashed to the side heading towards Troy who stood trying to box it in.
Letting lose an arrow he shot towards the creature – an arrow of darkness streaking across the short distance and passing through the slime harmlessly.
This was her job, she had to complete it.
Quickly running around the wizard was once again between her and the slime. It spooked and momentarily seemed to forget she was behind it as Maddy ran towards it and swung once again.
“There!” Maddy whooped as the tip of her scythe passed through the globing creature.
The barest swipe that did nothing – but soon after a surge of her life worms burrowed through the creature unnaturally fast and it seemed to melt and burn away.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
🤠 Achievement get: Catch a slime (Death) (Unique)
Description: Kill a slime of the death variety. Get back here you!
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Stat: +3 mental power.
Stat: +3 arm power.
Stat: +3 mental speed.
Stat: +3 running speed.
Walking over, Maddy found the rest of the slime had seemingly solidified into a solid dark grey and translucent sphere.
She picked it up then brought the core towards the wizard. As she reached him she placed it in his hand – the moment Maddy completed her side of the bargain, her ring faded and broke... the warm feeling she had grown used to gone.
“You played your part perfectly. Thank you.” The man spoke staring at his core in satisfaction.
“What is it? What does it do?” Maddy asked staring at the core as well.
“Have you used a status stone before? This is a form of one of them.” The wizard spoke while beginning to place it in his pocket.
“…no I haven’t.” Maddy responded Jess and Troy crowding around behind her.
Renald paused seemingly surprised then finished tucking it away pulling out a second much smaller core – this one pocketed with small marks.
“Your lessons can begin now I guess. A slime is a creature that navigates purely based on scans. 'Analyze' its brand of magic is sometimes called.” Renald began to explain.
“Wait!” Maddy interrupted. “You said a day of lessons, I don’t want to start that day so late if it means I get less time with you.” Nodding beside her Jess seemed to approve of the statement.
“I…I will give you a day’s worth of lessons and spread the rest of the hours out tomorrow. Let me continue” Renald seemed slightly annoyed at the interruption glancing at everyone before continuing.
“Hold this stone and simply push a bit of mana into it – neither of your affinities should be too damaging but to be polite you should push pure mana – that’s where you combine life and death perfectly, so they cancel out – into the center of it.” Renald instructed.
Carefully taking the status ‘stone’ Maddy tried to follow his goal – mixing her mana and pushing a pure version out – it wasn’t perfect, she pushed a bit more life than death out but it seemed to have worked.
Name Maddison Graves. Foundation Distributive mind. Mind Wisdom Intelligence Clarity 24 16 8 Body Strength Agility Endurance 25 14 10 Soul Presence Impact Stability 3 4 6 Stat Total 110 Rank 1 Tier 0
Outlier notes:
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Affinity: 'Life & Death'.
Highest Leaning: 'Power'. Lowest Leaning: 'Defense'.
Highest Area: 'Body', Lowest Area: 'Soul'.
Strength concentrated in arms: 12
Speed concentrated in arms: 9
Endurance Concentrated into 'deafening prevention' in ears: 4
Maddy stared at the status screen wafting up in front of her taking it in – even as Troy took the stone and activated his own.
“This is a status screen or output of an analysis spell – power in the first column, speed in the second, defense in the final…there are many variations on this screen – some that show more or less information. Most are a bit inaccurate – plus or minus a few points to each stat – and some show an ‘effective’ result after calculating synergies…some badly made or collected ones will only show physical stats – a lot have perception separated out from the rest of the bodies strength…anyways I'm getting distracted. Mines high quality even if it's heavily used and works well for what I need.
Typically scanning yourself is called a ‘status’ spell – and scanning others is called a ‘analyse’ spell.
You can nearly always get more information from yourself than you can from others – the easiest scan on someone or something else just gives back that they exist. The easiest useful scan gives back their highest and lowest stats – that’s usually enough to build a plan of attack around. Sometimes a scan can include location information – how far away something is from you for example – but those are even more inaccurate and useless for anyone with eyes.
Typically these spells are structured to give you back if someone is stronger than you or not – the standard is to show a skull for each tier at or above you – up to three or four usually with a special identifier if they are a rank above you.
…I’ve gotten a bit distracted again. Basically, slimes are constantly scanning their environment – pulses in different directions bringing back basic information on people and objects. They use that to find prey weaker than them, as well as stay away from predators stronger than them – or those they know have an affinity with their weakness. Strong wizards can usually do this status or analyze spell themselves – or incredibly specialized information mages – but most of the rest of us need tools to do the job for us. We then don't use our tools that often – because using a status stone or analysis artifact imperfectly damages it and I don't want to keep buying new ones.
Finally this sort of status check is only really important for fighting unknown creatures of similar strength to you – I haven’t scanned a single creature in this nest for example, because I know I can overwhelm them all.” The Wizard began his lecture while leading them back towards the caravan.
“Wait!” Jess yelled for the group to stop. The edge of the nest they were coming out of meshed weirdly with the surroundings – a rim of clay meeting their eyes just ahead.
Running over to the clay she pulled out a mound – cast her barrier into it and began shaping the clay around her skill.
Up till now she either attached a barrier to herself – part of the pane of yellow magic embedded harmlessly in her body like a shield – or embedded it into the ground – it not affecting the surface after being cast or broken.
This time she built a small lump around the skill – the crumbly and hard clay pressing up against the pane without breaking.
Staring at the result – a mound of dirt you could barely call anything – she deactivated her skill, a hole existing where it had been.
Her eyes flashed slightly as she ‘destroyed’ with her mana of creation and then she jogged back to the group nonchalantly. After Jess reached Troy, she reached out and grabbed the status stone being discussed – bringing up her own information as well surprisingly quickly.
“Ah! Always fun to see a breaking for the first time. Some find it incredibly hard – you seem to have managed well enough I’m surprised that worked!” Renald exclaimed – the conversation derailed slightly as he congratulated the women.
“I’ve been thinking about that all day – don’t take this from me” Jess looked embarrassed as she responded positively to the wizard for the first time.
“Good job!” Maddy lightly punched Jess’s shoulder which caused her friend to light up.
I’m glad she’s not going to fall behind.
The group continued on towards the caravan to continue their lesson.
----------------------------------------
---Richard---
Richard arrived at a building – the woman had drawn a path to it – and stared up at the door in front of him.
This place screamed ‘residential building’ – it didn’t seem at all like a lab or professional place he could go to learn about skill breaking.
The whole ghetto door and wall reminded him of getting weed back in highschool with his friends. ‘Friends’ of course.
It was a sketchy fucking setup that’s all he was going to say.
Knocking on the door and waiting a moment, Richard found his eyes wandering around the houses nearby. Everything looked…off. It looked like a poor neighbourhood in his old city – but instead of nailing up boards over windows, they seemed to like bolting sheets of copper up instead. Copper must be worthless with how much everyone used it here.
Suddenly the door sprung open slightly – jolting to a halt with a thick inner chain. A single baggy eye peered out at Richard for a moment and then the door was opened – what was the point of having a whole multi-stage opening mechanism if you went and opened it to the nearest stranger? Was he just checking to see if Richard was a cop?
Stepping inside Richard found himself face to face with…to be honest he’d describe the young man in front of him as a ‘chem lab masters student’. The guy didn’t look much older than Richard – he wore a heavily stained and ripped lab coat, had messy hair and looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
“Hey there, B told me you would be coming.”
A ‘tinny’ sounding voice – speaking English – came out of a small box on the man’s chest as he spoke and gestured for Richard to step into the room.
“I heard you’re looking to break a nonstandard skill? One not on the books?” The man asked as he lead Richard further into the entranceway.
“Uh…hey man. Can you hear me as well? So far I’ve only seen translators that work one way. And yeah…sure. I want to know about skill breaks that’s why I’m here.” Richard responded – peering into a messy bedroom as he followed the man deeper into his house.
Instead of responding to the translator comment, the man tapped a device on his one ear – presumably the translator? – and continued down the hall. At the end of the hall without looking back the man pushed a weak looking door open slightly kicking a hinged doorstop down – it looked like a bicycle stand but welded to a door – then disappeared inside.
Half expecting to be jumped, Richard stepped into the room where he was met with a mess of tubes. Tubes, wrapped around tubes – one or two a transparent material that let you see the coloured liquid inside. At the end of the room appearing to be either fed by the tubes or producing something into them, a massive machine sat. It barely fit the room – there were even scrapes along the ceiling as if assembling it smashed the weak drywall-like stuff above. The machine itself was covered in hundreds of nobs and lights and switches in various sizes and styles
“Sorry I didn’t catch that. You don’t know what skill breaking is?” the grad student turned to look at Richard surprised. “I’m also sorry I didn’t introduce myself. My name’s Rags – so tell me about your skill. I’ll walk you through the ‘totally safe’ ‘probably going to work’ skill breaking process as you do so – a joke to lighten the mood but it doesn’t seem like it's landed. Sorry, I just want to know how to dial in the doses.” He disappeared behind the machine and started fiddling with some dials.
“…It’s a skill. The system called it a chaos affinity. Makes random things I can’t control happen. Trips things.” Richard felt incredibly awkward as he stood there. He wasn’t used to feeling like this – he usually just fucking went for it… but the man fiddling with dials and pulling out syringes was creeping him out.
“System? That the name of some machine? Haven’t heard of it. Anyways…Random telekinetic impulses you said? Step over here and put your hand on this status reader – I want to see your stat spread.” The grad student spoke while waving at a small machine. Richard walked over to stand in front of something like a radio with a LED screen…
Richard pushed a confidence he didn’t feel into his motion as he reached out – don’t want him to think I’m just going do anything he says. I’m doing this because I want to.
Placing his hand on the panel indicated, Richard waited for a moment, then blinked as a low rez image popped out on the ‘screen’.
[https://i.imgur.com/0eAJBYk.png]
"Oh... that's interesting...are they really this high or did the machine break again? Let's get the detailed statistics for defence. Sorry. Please wait a bit," The grad student continued on seemingly confused by the numbers.
Blunt Force 38 {3.35} Piercing Force 58 {5.87} Thermal - Cold 14 {1.47} Thermal - Heat 26 {2.22} Radiation. 0 {1.00} Electrical 9 {1.27} Chemical - Base value 71 {7.99}
"... that's quite a bit higher than I've seen before – even assuming it's accurate to plus or minus a point or two. How do you even have that much chemical defence without armour? All the dungeons nearby have kinetic shock and heat damage? Sorry, one more check for sanity.
Body Speed 6 Body Power 24 Body Defense 215 Brain Speed 1 Brain Power 12 Brain Defense 9 Total 267 Rank 2 {0}
Shaking his head the grad student seemed done with his status tests.
"Sorry for the wait! I've just never heard of anyone getting this far without breaking a skill. Give me a few minutes to set things up and then we can get started."
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---James---
James stood in front of the most nonchalant 'dude' he had ever met. They were holding an emerald ball and grinning wildly'
"Come on mate, stick yer hand on it. Let me show you something." the man urged.
James was, to put it mildly, 'shit at people'. The guy was friendly but...what’s the chance this was a trap? It would be pretty stupid of James if he just decided to put his hand on some strange ball which magically poisoned him or…or something.
The man was definitely going to attack him – should James attack first? What if they weren’t going to attack him. That might provoke him into retaliating! James was still one-armed – and look at some of these monsters the guy killed…that one looks like a baby troll or at least some smaller species. How the hell did he kill it with a single hole?
"You brave enough to be out here in the wilds but not brave enough to touch a core? Look I'm holding it bare handed – catch," Tossing the ball towards him, James reached out and fumbled it. He probably could have caught it two handed but reaching out with a phantom hand wasn’t doing him any favors – activating haste as the ball slipped James managed to save it before it fell holding it against his chest.
The man clapped.
“Right on. Knew yeh could do it, Try and activate it with your energy – Promise it will be fun.”
…he was making fun of James wasn’t he.
“Here, take this back I don’t know what you are talking about.” James held the ball carefully.
“…have you not broken your skill yet? Wild. What are you waiting on?” Walking forward as if to take it back and then suddenly blurring his hand the man shot towards James. He grabbed James's palm for a second then 'something' seemed to shoot heat through James’s hand – a tingle that was more shocking than painful.
James threw the ball up and jumped back even as a blue box appeared in his vision.
Stat(us) Rank 2 Defense 112 Blood 32± Skin{fire} 21± Stomach 20± Skin{Piercing} 10± Bones 10± Brain 9± Other 9± Power 98 Core{muscles} 19± left arm 29± Eyes 15± Right arm 13± Brain 7± Other 6± Speed 68 Legs 45± Nerves 8± Brain 7± Other 7±
James stared at the 'status' floating in front of him until it disappeared. It felt relatively accurate – even with all the 'plus or minus's' everywhere...he turned to notice the man – once more holding the emerald ball.
Holding the ball and smiling at James.
Creepy.
"That seems to have gotten your attention. Neat rock huh? And based on your reaction you don't know much do you? Let me tell you a bit about the world you are now in. Call it me being a good Samaritan. My names is Ralph. I'm from Earth too."