Rainer glanced at Aurora, currently recovering from Art’s poison. Others stood by with him, making sure nothing unexpected happened.
Her eyes fluttered for a brief moment before she vanished into the Void.
All of them traded confused glances and then turned towards Rainer.
“It felt a bit similar to the first time Talvara took me,” Rainer said mostly to himself, feeling that Aurora had done most of the legwork. He wondered why she could take him but not simply take the Void Lords who betrayed her? Had unlocking the next skill after [Void Call] given her an opening of some sort?
“I suppose the grey-skinned Dwarves are ours then?” Art said with a bit of excitement. “Of course, our friends,” he corrected, ignoring the disbelieving looks he got from everyone. A mere slip of the tongue. How was he the only one so fascinated with their ability to turn Mana into a permanent physical material?
What if the process could be reversed?
Looking at the way his grandson was staring at those dwarves standing awkwardly in the room, perhaps he wasn’t the only one with such thoughts.
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Later that night in [Sleep Learning], Rainer stood over Sarah while she worked, thinking over the day.
Talvara had yet to contact him again, though he had a feeling that whatever happened to Aurora was a positive thing.
The Ashen Dwarves had somewhat made themselves at home. Though when told they weren’t slaves they had a long ‘argument’. He managed to get them down to ‘workers’. Once he explained they would still be fed and protected from Devils - two large concerns in the Abyssal Planes - no matter what, they slightly gave up on being their slaves, but didn’t seem to fully believe him. For now, he just gave them one of the many dorms being built outside of the Enchanter’s Guild to stay in.
Sarah worked hard as ever on getting that last level on [Enchantment Manipulation]. As of now, she was convinced that if she could make enchantments stronger and more complicated, just as she could simplify them with ease, then she’d cross that last gap.
Rainer’s own theory for any manipulation was that level 10 lay in another direction. Especially considering any old Magus he knew was at level 9 as well. But until he actually succeeded, he didn’t want to mess with her attempts.
Rainer himself knew that having all level 10 class skills may not matter. After all, despite having that, his Grandfather, Sophia, Elizabeth, and Art all only had a 200% Bonus as he did. Nor were the attributes they gained better than his, even if you ignored his bonus to all attributes. And Rainer did not have all his class skills maxed prior to the Trial. Of course, as they lacked their own personal [Sleep Learning] space, they forgot whatever their tier 2 classes required.
It was possible [Archon] was the strongest evolution of [Arcanist]. And that he merely missed out on more specialized classes, like the [Archon] version where [Arcane Weaving] was leveled to 10.
But he wasn’t going to risk Sarah’s future growth on that theory. Even if now with the passive spells and her upcoming Draconic-strengthened Mana-increasing enchanted gear that she’d get soon, Rainer felt she was ready for her Trial.
Looking at her continuing and increasing stress, Rainer felt the festival for the Trial of the Fae Monarch would be a welcome break for her and the rest of them. It was only three days from now, and then just two weeks prior to the Dungeon Meet.
Rainer went off elsewhere, wishing her a silent good luck.
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Temporarily putting aside his goal to kill his grandfather in a duel, Rainer focused instead on improving his role in the Dungeon Party. Given his limited regeneration of Void Will, he had two primary uses: to finish off any bosses of any sort with [Blade of the Void], though in many cases [Arcane Blade] would do, and otherwise to use [Absolute Frost] to finish off a large group.
With another Arcane Power-filled Mage on their side taking up the role of using his near unlimited Arcane Power to deal constant damage, Rainer was free as a last-hitter and would also work with Aurora, assuming she still joined, in simply moving people to safety through the Void.
His final role was as a last resort healer with [Absolute Rebirth]. Something he’d be spending the last few days to fine-tune with Art’s help. The Biology-focused Mage could turn off pain in his body.
In other words, he was the ‘oh shit’ button when things went sideways.
It had been a long time since he tinkered with [Absolute Frost]. Cast time was based on power use, so there wasn’t much room for maneuvering there. He supposed just improving efficiency, and thereby its strength, was all he had.
Thinking over a similar Ice Spell, [Frozen Sun], Rainer would like the ability to concentrate [Absolute Frost] on a single opponent. It might have destroyed the Divine Avatar outright, instead of just mostly destroying the surroundings and stunning him.
And what better spell for focusing to base this off of, than the powerful descending beam of light produced by [Deliverance]?
Taking out a copy of the old, tattered notebook that held a great Mage’s last work, he set off in reading. Despite his level of [Faraan Runic Language] and his recent advancements in making spells, the complicated mess that was [Deliverance] would still prove a challenge.
But unlike his grandfather - or anyone else who saw the spell - he was sure in his heart and mind that it truly worked.
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Yet even if he was sure it worked, Rainer decided the best way to learn it would be to pretend it was flawed and didn’t work. That certain parts needed to be replaced with either words of magic or pure manipulation. Enchanting had long since taught him the usefulness of having crutches to learn with in this endless white world.
With a use of his powerful Soul, the white void was no more. Across an open grassland a sun hung in the sky. The day looked no different than a true one.
He would need real light to practice a spell like this.
The magic formula ran through Rainer’s mind as he pointed a hand to the sky, sending out a concentrated mana packet. A gravity locus formed, growing increasingly stronger. Light magic flowed as it altered the gravity itself to focus all its power on a single part of the world.
The light seemed to bend…
And then go right through the locus instead of gathering power.
Rainer stared at his hand, as if the way he pointed was to blame for this pretty light show. The light seemed like it was being shone through a fancy prism. Beautiful, and perhaps something he could add to the usual shows the Fae had at their festival, but utterly useless.
He repeated it over and over again for the next few hours, the result unchanging even as he used thousands of Mana at once to strengthen the gravity locus. Even trying to manually use [Light Manipulation] to gather the light there did little more than create a ball of light little stronger than his tier 1 spell [Light Orb]. It just happened to have a weird gravity field around it.
Had his grandfather been right?
Rainer shook his head, refusing to believe that. How many times had this formula helped him with other spells? It had even saved his life when he was alone in a dark cavern surrounded by ten thousand Devils by becoming the base of the spell [Absolute Frost].
Even if it was fundamentally broken, he would cast it.
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Using the end of his [Sleep Learning] time, Rainer decided to make the final push towards the next part of affecting his body with Arcane and Void.
He could feel he was just a bit of a distance away and wondered if the Strength and Constitution bonuses would come again. For him, this could be considered one of the most important parts, as that was a true change that belonged to only him and not the system. Even if something was capable of interrupting his access to the system, like the World Tree, that was power that couldn’t be stripped. Nor could Void Will for that matter.
No wonder they fought successfully against Divinites for so many years…
He forced himself to sit as he grit his teeth. He may as well make use of his impotent rage and focus it somewhere useful.
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The next morning, Rainer sat alone in the bottom of the Enchanter’s Guild tower and focused on the next step for himself in reality. Arcane and Void flowed through his body, constantly changing it.
Moments later, he felt both his Arcane and Void Affinity about to rise to another level, but suddenly whatever power was affecting the Arcane part of his Soul seemed to improve his Void half instead.
[Strength + 1]
[Constitution + 1]
[Talent Gained: Medium Void Affinity]
His Arcane side remained at what felt like the peak of [Excellent Arcane Affinity].
He wrinkled his brow, knowing that Furtak, for example, only gained two talent levels before he finished. Though that process took decades. But Rainer felt he wasn’t even close. With that knowledge, he happily accepted this gain, convinced he might level both up to the True Affinity in the future.
The 18 points of Strength and Constitution he gained while going from Low to Medium hinted that, perhaps, he’d gain even more with each step. That was a total of 27 to each since he recombined with Francis. With [Arcane Awakening], his Strength reached 130.
Perhaps at the very end of this, only truly powerful Tier 2 Warriors could compare to him in raw Strength when he used [Arcane Awakening]. Though without matching dexterity, he wasn’t stupid enough to fight them head-on without [Arcane Blade].
He was interrupted from further thoughts by an oddly cheery voice coming from behind him.
“A fine day isn’t it, Rainer.”
Rainer blinked owlishly. Why was Aurora so chipper? He immediately noticed her originally grey eyes were now two pools of swirling Void.
She started laughing for seemingly no reason, nearly falling to the ground as she clutched her stomach.
“J-just picturing that fool’s face, I can’t help it. Do you physical beings always find things so funny?”
“Talvara?” Rainer said, suddenly giving her a weird stare.
“Don’t look at me like that. After my modifications, I can only now possess her, with her permission, for a few minutes. As if I would steal the body of the only person to not betray me.”
“And what do you mean ‘that fool’?”
“Who else but Divinity Augost? A godling, he successfully created a fucking godling! Or perhaps ‘found’. Who knows, but If anyone found out about it, he’d be killed in an instant. How many Ancient Aspects would he naturally have killed if he ever fully inhabited that body as his own? A Divinity free to act in the physical world… A Divinity with access to Classes…
“And not only did he create a godling,” Talvara said once more losing control and laughing, “H-he let you steal it and give it to me!”
Talvara had a hand on his shoulder at this point.
“And then he ‘helped’ Aurora gain a title to hide from Divinites. As if he wanted me to have a way to affect the world without Divine Interference. Rainer, should you one day slay all the gods, please spare him if merely for my amusement.”
Rainer felt her last request was merely a joke, but agreed.
“Shall we have some fun with Aurora’s body?”
“That sounds incredibly iffy, so no.”
“Where does your mind go? Honestly, Rainer. I merely meant drawing something funny on her face? She needs to lighten up.” Talvara wasn’t sure if that was true, but it was something Rainer had said about Aurora when he was Francis. And when Francis was running out of bet ideas he had taken to drawing obscene pictures on Talvara’s face. She found the idea far more funny when it wasn’t on her.
“That… alright, let’s do that.”
Rainer reached out with a pen, one of the random things Francis had stolen with the drugs from the pharmacy, but before it could touch her forehead he froze.
The swirling Void was gone leaving just grey eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“I… I... am merely admiring your hair. It grew in lovely,” Rainer said awkwardly, cursing Talvara inwardly even if he felt this was his own bad Karma.
And why did he have to mess with Talvara so much when he was Francis? And everyone knew you couldn’t take revenge for losing a bet. He’d get her back for this.
“I see,” Aurora said, simply turning and [Void-Traveling] away.
The complete lack of reaction only made Rainer all the more nervous.