"Do you have the rune ready?" Audrey asked, to which Evelyn nodded. "Alright, then. Now relax, let it flow naturally through the tattoo, and concentrate on grabbing the fire with your own mana." They'd been at it for hours. After they'd managed to create steam and snow, which hadn't been too hard. It just required slightly more concentration to shape two runes simultaneously instead of just one, and focusing on finding the right ratio of mana that went to the runes. But trying to use a rune, and manipulate the result with her own mana at the same time, was much more difficult.
Evelyn did as Audrey said. He'd managed to do it properly for the first time only a few minutes ago, so unlike Michelle who could simultaneously manipulate multiple separate chunks of her mana seemingly as easily as she could breathe, Audrey might be able to give tips Evelyn could understand better.
A fist sized ball of fire appeared above Evelyn's palm. Over the course of a second, under the intense glare of concentration she was giving the flame, Evelyn managed to pull the flame higher, elongating it above her head. She focused too much on the flame, and stopped feeding her mana to the tattoo, causing the flame to die out. "It's like trying to draw with both hands at once!" Evelyn grumbled out of frustration.
"Pretty much, but it is doable. You managed for a whole second this time, and soon enough it'll snap into place."
"Don't get me wrong, you helped, and I'm happy with my progress, but it doesn't make the learning any less annoying," Evelyn said, calming herself before giving it another attempt. Audrey had been right. A few attempts later, Evelyn found herself able to hold the fire rune while shaping the flames for a whole three seconds. Soon after that, ten seconds, and then a whole minute. It didn't take long for Evelyn to feel confident she could direct a good stream of fire through the snake's mouth, or maybe even nostrils.
The next step in the training was to combine the simultaneous use of two runes with their own mana manipulation. If they could do that, then the combat applications would be exponential. Shaping fire was great, but being able to do the same with freezing water or hot stones would allow for a larger variety of applications. Late in the warm evening that day, one could see three laughing figures fighting each other with spontaneously created flying snow.
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The next couple days were similar to the first day of training. They practiced fighting against each other by using snow and water as a relatively harmless option for their attacks and defense, they just had to be careful not to hit anyone too hard. When they weren't having practice bouts, they were practicing to use the more dangerous runes, like fire and lightning. Evelyn even accidentally found out that the lightning would always follow a path made from fire, if one existed. It quickly became second nature to attack and defend with the help of their tattoos.
On the fourth day, Michelle noticed they had an audience to their training. Her students, along with a few of their parents and other adults of the village had come to observe the feats that just a short time ago had been impossible. A couple of the observers had asked how they did what they did, and Evelyn had told them about the tower and the runes, both the benefits and drawbacks.
Michelle's students had already been learning them of course, but they hadn't truly understood what one could achieve as a cleric to the tower. They could only watch wide eyed as Evelyn conjured a mass of snow and blasted it towards Audrey, only for Audrey to blast it back with a burst of wind, causing it to smash in Evelyn's face. Eventually, a few of the onlookers had even started talking about trying to get tattoos of their own.
It had taken six days, but Evelyn, Michelle and Audrey all felt ready to face the third floor of the tower again. They had honed their reaction time, filled their mana supplies, prepared food and drink for a days journey, and practiced for hours on end. They definitely would be getting past the third floor.
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My tower was finally starting to get the attention it deserved. Over the past days I'd gotten more and more new visitors who explored all over the first three floors of my tower. None of them had died so far, though it had been very close a few times, but there had been plenty of injuries with lots of lost blood and a whole bunch of mana given to me. In fact, I'd nearly doubled the amount of mana I had in just the past few days. For now, I decided not to grow my domain much larger, instead only digging deeper into the ground and increasing my mana density.
According to Oliver, who had made a few short trips outside of the tower, there were a bunch of people building houses and making camp just outside of the entrance. And thanks to me, they seemed fairly well off. Almost half of them had my tattoos, and those who didn't used some of the magic items instead. They'd even started gathering fruits and plants along with meat from the animals on the third floor, and with the ability to just use the water rune whenever they wanted, they definitely weren't suffering from a lack of nutrition. Hunger and thirst would never be a problem for them.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Perhaps most interestingly, they'd started to develop their own magic items by gluing some of the powder on various objects. For now they were only copying the existing rune combinations of the items I'd made, but I was sure they would reverse engineer the function of each rune soon enough. Speaking of runes, they still hadn't figured out how to use the new healing rune, maybe I should ask Oliver to teach them to use it. That, or make a healing rune bandage.
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"This has sure changed a lot," Evelyn said quietly as the base of the tower came into view. The helpers guild had apparently decided to set a permanent residence around its base. There were a bunch of horse drawn carts filled with supplies, over two dozen large tents, and a bunch of helpers cutting down the forest around them to build small houses. It might be a good thing, since now there would be a easy way to get a helping hand to the village, though for some reason Evelyn had a piece of doubt residing in her mind. In the short time it took the group to walk over to the spire's entance, a couple of people had exited and entered the tower.
"I apologize, but I cannot allow you three to step foot in this tower. As property of the helpers guild and a highly dangerous domain of a spirit, any non-guild members are prohibited from entering. Entering without permission is punishable by law, as the prohibition is an agreement made between the Helpers guild, and the nearest large settlement, Valessa." A young woman said as she blocked the trio from walking in the tower with the flat of her floating blade.
"...Are you joking?" Michelle asked after a moment.
"I assure you, what I said was not a joke in any way."
"We are not citizens of Valessa, and your guild only came here a few days ago. You have no jurisdiction here, so please let us go past. Besides, we're already clerics of this tower's god" Michelle said, lifting her hand to show the tattoo on her palm. "We have every right to enter the domain of our god." The helper grudgingly stepped aside, letting them enter the tower. Evelyn could have sworn she heard the woman quietly grumble "For now."
Unlike the exterior, the interior of the tower was the same as ever. With their new abilities they climbed up faster than ever before. Only stopping to wonder at the simple yet elegant sword with a hilt covered in a few runes, that they'd found.
After a long couple of hours, they finally made it up to the third floor, and for the second time, marvelled at its eery beauty. The glow of the moss behind the silhouettes of various trees and plants growing in the soil covered ground were the same as before, the only difference being the distinct lack of a snake suddenly attacking them.
Together the trio went into a simple formation, agreeing to be the lookouts for different directions before they started walking towards what they thought was the center of the floor. It didn't take long at all for them to come across their first monster. It was a frog, large enough to swallow Evelyn whole, and it was looking at them as if they were a delicious slab of well seasoned beef.
With a thunderous crash the frog landed only a short distance from Audrey, before it opened its mouth, and snapped its elongating tongue towards him. Moments before the tongue struck him, Audrey smashed it to the side with a stream of water. "Burn it with fire!" He yelled to the others, before forming a mass of fire that together with the other two masses of fire, burned the frog alive.
The whole fight had lasted only a couple of seconds, having gone by much faster than anyone had expected. Either the snake they'd faced had been one of the tougher creatures on the floor, or they'd become that much more skilled in using their tattoos. Probably a mix of both, Evelyn thought. If they hadn't practiced, then the frog would have Audrey in its mouth, and Evelyn knew she definitely wouldn't know what to do in that situation, since she couldn't attack the frog without risking harming Audrey.
The rest of the third floor went about as easily as facing the frog had, at least with the creatures. Even some of the runes they'd found had immediately become wildly useful, as one rune sped up the already existing movement of objects near it. Using it and fast thin streams of water turned the water from being able to push objects around, to smoothly cutting through the objects.
At one point Evelyn suffered a few small cuts and scrapes, when she jumped out of the way of an attacking salamander. It had scales similar to the steel clad snakes, but it wasn't too hard to defeat with a well aimed high pressure blast of water ripping through its mouth and into its organs.
The biggest obstacle they'd come across became apparent when they reached the center of the floor. There had been a door on a pillar that reached through the roof of the third floor, which likely was the entrance to the fourth floor. Figuring out how to open the doors wasn't a problem, since as they'd wandered around the floor, the group had found three unlit torches that they had set aflame, and three out of twelve runes on the door were glowing. That didn't leave many different options on how to solve the puzzle.
Instead, the problem became apparent when Michelle saw a group of helpers guarding the door, ready to fight. From their talking, it became apparent that they were searching for the person who was lighting the torches needed to get to the fourth floor. Apparently, nobody was allowed to enter there yet, and the helpers, who had been tasked with gathering food and rune items from the third floor, had made it their job to stop whoever was trying.