"The distance to my tribe wouldn't be long." Argon says as he stops by a crudely made billboard. "We would reach it before nightfall if we could continue at this pace."
I can't read but it's probably one of those 'Lacertian Tribe, 1 km' or something. As for why I haven't learned to read and write common words, I would rather not learn something those pesky Deities copied from my memory.
"You're thinking poorly of the mighty Gods again, aren't you?" Rector suddenly asks. Why is he so smart all of sudden? And is my mind that easy to read?
"You can read mind too?"
"No, but it appears on your face."
Now that I think about it, I always glare at the sky when I think about them, because the 'stars' in the sky are actually Deities' domains.
"No one noticed my phrasing?" Argon says again, this time stressing on the modal verbs. "I said, we would reach it before nightfall if we could continue at this pace.."
"I know that already." I grumble. "Why did you two suddenly become smarter?"
"What are you talking about?" Rector looks back and forth with confused face. I guess he didn't get that smart.
"Someone is spying on us." Argon says.
"That Lynx is following us." I say at the same time.
"What? How do you..?" Argon shakes his head. "No, it's not possible for it to be her. If she followed us, I'm sure I could detect her Shadow Step long ago."
"Except that she is someone who use Primal Dimension magic." I shift my body to standing on two feet so I could easily turn 180 degrees to face the way we came from. I can't detect her, but she should probably come from that direction.. right?
"As expected. You saw through me." That Lynx's voice comes from in front of us... behind me. How awkward, she probably teleported forward.
"Cough..." Awkwardly turning back, I face the direction her voice come from.
There she stands like she has always been there, on the road a few steps (my step) from us. The muddy ground didn't even have her footprint coming from any direction.
"How?" Argon gets vigilante as he draws his little dagger and gets into battle stance. Bened just stands here, probably not understanding a thing.
"Excuse me." Rector steps forward in front of Argon without any sense of danger. "Do you know who..." As he was raising his hand up toward me like introducing me, I reach my left claws down to stop him.
"Sooo, what price can you pay for me.. no, us, to keep your secret?" I talk to her in a voice totally not belong to the usual me.
The Lynx doesn't answer. In a exaggerated manner, she swings her right hand to the side. From that hand, a pointy thing slides out. It looks like a sword.. but maybe it's because of my perspective, that sword looks pretty short. She would have to close the distance quite a lot for it to hit anything.. or so it should have been. With another swing of her hand, the sword draws an arc in front of her.
While Rector still tries to understand what she did, I infuse Mana into my voice and cry out, activating the Minstrel's shortest spell.
"Ha!"
Short, simple and somewhat effective. It's a crude barrier spell that forms from my voice and stretches out. Its flaw is that it's really weak and only lasts for as long as my cry; but yelling for too long would make my throat sore. Its only purpose was...
A solid metallic sound echoes in the air as an invisible attack collides with an invisible barrier. The obvious thing that happens is my barrier collapses without lasting for even a split second, and the slash continues down without anyone seeing it; but at least we now know its form and target.
That split second is enough for Argon, a speedster, to react. He pushes Rector to the side, using that same force to jump to the other side. Kicking a tree beside the road, leaving a lizardlike footprint mark, he launches himself toward the feline. Rector rolls on the ground before standing up, a few drops of blood show that he received a light scrape from the Lynx's attack.
Wind Walk gets cancelled for obvious reason. Before my color fades, I quickly picks a song from my memory and hums a tune. The rhythmic tune smoothly turns into whistle as the pace gets faster and the pitch gets higher. It's a lyricless heroic tale about an amphibian hero...
The winds pick up just like my intention. My scale color remains cyan, but some spots become blue. A darn, this song is dual elements.
[Knowing this Heroic Tale, your impulse to do Heroic Deed has increased!]
Here come some weird effects...
[No Evil can hinder a Hero!] [Imposing Air (Wind)]
[The Hero will never give up!] [Seamless Flow (Water)]
Wow, so overpowered, speaking in game term. Imposing Air increases DEX and AGI, and in turn, Speed, to ensure hitting the enemies while Seamless Flow increases Atk for each successful physical hit. It's a combo that was both praised and hated in the game. Praised for their matching effects and hated for letting some players cheat in grinding monsters. Even though it's class-specific skill, one just need to have two account, each with the class that has one of those two buffs; and the player can go AFK while their characters hit the monsters like crazy. I still remember the demand from player to nerf them, and in the end both were changed into Self-buff only.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Meanwhile, I just did a song that buff them both. Just who the hell decided which song has which effect?
[That Heroic Tale was interesting, so these effects was fitting.] The anonymous system voice decides to answer. Apparently he, or she, only does this to me.
Ignoring the biased system's voice, I shift my attention back to the fight that could have been solved with my identity. I desperately hid my color-changing scale with this song in order to learn more about Primal Dimension magic.
With my raised DEX, I could somewhat follow the battle.. if not for the annoying color streams swirling all over the place. My raised DEX means my 'Origin Eyes' (shortened from Eyes of the Origin) thingy activated again. The cyan streams permeate the air while the blue streams raise from the muddy ground and dancing like blue seaweed. The faint brown glow on the ground or green in the forest are barely noticeable.
Each of Argon's swings leave a thin cyan-colored arc in the air while the Lynx's invisible attacks are showing clearly in the shape of black folding fans. However, the distance from that fan and the short sword was so long that Argon is having to chase her while evading the slashes. It's probably a sort of Dimensional Slash, not cutting the space itself, but having the attack closing the distance in an instant without having to 'travel'. Imagine the enemy's sword being right next to your neck while they're swinging it from a safe distance. The only flaw is the slash can only go in a straight line.
Despite fighting against this 'cheat', Argon doesn't fall in disadvantage. His high Speed is being boosted so he easily evade the crude swing while closing in. However, despite the Lynx's speed being lower, she still can evade the cursed dagger by lightly stepping backward, seemingly teleport a great distance away. If not for that, his cursed dagger coupled with Seamless Flow would probably deal her as twice as much damage after each attack.
Rector would be eager to join in and resolve this stalemate, either by explaining or fighting, if not for the battle's Speed being levels above his league. Instead, with the help of my Toothpick, he raised an Earthly barrier around the remaining three of us, including Bened who is still trying to heal Rector's light wound. The barrier is useless though, as the Lynx might just have her slash teleport through.
"Do you think it's getting pointless if we continue?" After awhile, the Lynx get impatient and calls out to me.
"You started fighting first." I reminds her with ridicule in my voice.
"Aren't you watching this with great interest? You just want to see my skills, right?" Evading another attack from Argon, she lightly steps forward, passing Argon and standing in front of Rector's earthly barrier. "You're so easy to read~" She wriggles her body as she says; her tone doesn't carry any hostile.. or maybe I'm just bad at reading others' intention.
"So you know about him?" Rector lowers the Toothpick points at me as he asks.
"Yeah~ I know you are not a Wind Dragon..." The Lynx keeps her feminine body bending left then right as she talks.
"It was that obvious?" I raise my non-existence eyebrows. Why do everyone are so smart today? Or did she saw my scale changing from red to cyan from miles away?
"You're the same as me, someone who can use Primal Magic!"
Oh? So she didn't realize my identity, but somehow know that I can use Primal magic. I haven't used Primal magic for awhile, so how does she know?
"I suspected it before, so I decided to play your game to know more." The Lynx starts analyzing. "Your magic lasted for so long despite your level, even including your Ascended mana..." She intentionally pauses as she looks at my expression.
Huh? Ascend... I don't even know if I have Ascended or not, but she already jumped into that conclusion. By the way, 'Ascended mana' mostly come from the higher Stat Limit after Ascension.
"Don't be surprised~ Your size is a dead giveaway." The Lynx continues. "And about your Primal Magic, it should belong to the Law of Energy and Matter..."
"So what? You want to 'trade' our secret?" Without denying her conclusion, I ask her.
Argon looks at me with confusedly.
"You're mistaken..." Rector tries to explain to her.
"Oh? It seems your party-mate doesn't know about your secret. Oops!" In an exaggerated manner, she covers her mouth with her left hand.
"No, I..."
"What do you want?" Interrupting Rector with my claws, I ask the Lynx.
"Information." She answers bluntly. Seeing me raising my non-existence eyebrows again, she continues. "Let's trade Information."
"Don't trust her." Argon who has returned to our side softly warns us.
"Well, my friend here doesn't seem to trust your race." I shrug and try my best business smile a dragon's face could make. "And I've already knew your Primal Magic, while you don't know mine. So, answer my question first. We will decide if it's trustworthy to trade."
"Fair enough." After waving her hand to make the short sword disappear, she smiles back at us, her arms crossing on her chest.
If I was a male human, or any mammal for that matter, my eyes would have been caught by the way she makes her chest look bigger. Even the goddess Vitae, who is much more beautiful by my last incarnation's standard, couldn't charm me.
"So, how could you easily use Primal magic like your slash and step without chanting? If I remember correctly, you have to put a prayer to use Primal magic." I start with a question that I've already guessed the answer.
"I know..." Argon tries to dismiss that question. He probably knows the answer too.
"I enchanted them into my sword and boots. You dragons always hoard treasure but don't know how to use them." The Lynx rushes her answer before Argon could. "Now my question..."
"Ah, so it's the third way to cast magic, Consilium..." I mumble.
Chant, Conjure and Consilium, the three ways to cast magic. Consilium, or some people prefer to call it Enchant, is the fastest way but require some preparation. The most simple form of Enchant is those one-time-use Magic Scrolls.
"You knew it already, didn't you. That's one way to know if I were trustworthy." She lets out a sort giggles before continuing with her question. "How did you find out about my Magic?"
Ah, this one is tricky. She might have done the same thing as me by giving a question she already know the answer.. Or she doesn't know a thing and decided to throw the most important question out first, hoping that I would think of it as a Trust-test and answer it truthfully. Playing mindgame with me, huh?
"Haven't you knew the answer already?" I throw a question instead.
"I just want to hear your confirmation."
"My power let me see people's magic aptitude." Avoiding the part that could reveal my identity, I phrase my answer with the incomplete truth.
"So it's Primal Arcane Magic~ Thanks for your information!" The Lynx winks at me the same way I did earlier at the border.
So she thought she tricked me into telling my 'Primal Magic', huh? It's so funny seeing her piling misunderstandings on more misunderstandings.
"It was nice doing business with you..." She smiles while stepping backward. The distance between her and the forest seemingly disappears as she enters the forest with just one step.
Keeping a fake 'shocked' expression, I see her depart. After a moment, I lightly poke a clawtip on Argon's shoulder who is still vigilantly looking toward her direction.
"Has she gone?"
"Yeah. When she left, her presence was scattered all over the place.." Argon casts a few more Wind spell before nodding. "But now I'm sure no one is spying on us anymore."
After receiving the confirmation, I start laughing heartily at how I tricked a Rogue, or Assassin, without even telling a single lie.
"What was all that for?" Rector asks while knitting a knot with a piece of cloth, strapping the Toothpick onto his back. "We didn't gain any new information!"
"For the fun of it, of course!"
"Are you planning to be a Jester?"
"Receiving subclass? I still have quite a distance to go~ Ahahaha..."