"A great piece of art with fluidity and a touching lyrics. 10."
"A masterful demonstration of the beauty of magic. 10."
"I can't criticize something like this on a low level competition. 10."
Respectively, those were the Art judge, a hobbit with a full beard and tasteful clothes that showed he was wealthy but not gaudy, the magic judge, an old human man with bags of sleepless nights under his eyes and disheveled robes, and the drow Queen.
'And that means I win a seeded position on next year's tournament, a month's subscription to the art parlor and an opportunity to do the test for the royal magic school with a scholarship at the begining of the trimester.' His internal chunni was screaming like a condenmed soul for doing something so embarassing, but the opportunity was just too good to pass.
He also didn't much like school arcs, but the place was crawling with young minds to influence, oportunities for bussines partnerships, a book colection even bigger than most the schools aboveground, targets for him to rob and kill, the oportunity to obtain other dungeon cores, souls to capture, so manny exciting and totally not study related things that he could do!
Besides, there's around two months time before having to teleport there, and he could improve so much in the mean time, that the city here will already practically be in his hands by the time he goes away. Okay, maybe not, but it will be on the way.
Allow me to skip Aki being one hell of a nousy celebrity, which he didn't even deserve that much since he also used both pheromones and brain waves to increase the production of endorphins and favorabily towards his play on the species he knew how to and the public in general respectively.
"And all i needed was one deca and three octa for the play, praise me praise me!" Said bastard to his wife.
On the side of the mage who actually has a problem on his face and is unable to express his emotions.
'GENIUS! Complete genius! Maintainning more than twenty circles while below level 100 is practilly unheard of!' (A deca-spell looks like one big spell, with the man not even thinking to look for more, he didn't see all 34 spell modules. Now that i stop to think about it, i skipped that part of Aki explaining magic, didn't I?)
Anyway, Aki went to comemorate, there's no enemy attack, there isn't any really important happening somewhere else... Fuck. I'ma gonna have to explain the magic system, won't I?
Well, ya all should know your dear narrator enough by now to know that I've only just skimmed over the thing. While certainly not exactly comparable to the human equivalent of skimming, I certainly don't know everything, so bear with me, umkay~?
Well, where to begin...
Elements? Guess it's as good as any part of that mumble jumbo.
Everyone has at least a bit of each element in them (Exeptions of extremes asside), but actually ussing magic isn't the simplest thing and ussing all those known and unknown elements is something relatively hard for most species to do thanks to their affinity with magic and conection to soul related subjects.
That roughly translates to: Anyone can use any element, but it's plenty useless and hard to use one you don't have an excepional affinity with. Frost giants would need the same amount of time a human needs to learn to cast a fire ball to learn how to light a fire. With dry wood. On the other hand, humans are relatively neutral and most civilians with enough spare time can learn by themselves how to reach a level of "Life stile magic" on most elements.
While there's no such thing as an easy cleaning spell, that's actually considered a medium level light spell, simple things like making water to wash the dishes, drying the clothes with a gust of wind and such are possible, and if you have some more wealth than normal, you can even buy a magic tool that will do harder tasks when mana is fueled into then, like a stove that can cook a meal by following specific patterns. While a pain to configurate, it is mighty useful for most restaurants.
Dungeons are a sort of natural fenomena that... do stuff with the mana around them, and because of it they're used by the system to better the circulation of the world mana flow. They are best at primal magic, which is basically brute forcing your way with magic, will and intent to cause fenomena in the world around you, but they are also able to easily draw out the elements on the surrounding mana and can, in theory, use any kind of magic.
Problem is, the system is the only entity with a big enough brain to make such thing happen to those stupid rocks, and it has nothing to gain with such a thing, and even though dungeons have instincts on how to naturally use many of their functions, they are mostly completely clueless as to what they actually do, and aren't developed enough to circunvent their natural clumbsiness with ussing elements without high time of study and help from their own instincts. The maximun the computer brain did was help the dungeons more easily integrate to their surroundings, and ironically enough, that counts as ussing elemental magic. This part will actually make more sense when Aki reaches level 10, so no need to force yourself to speculate what I mean.
The magical system that was simplified from primal magic, as the name actually suggest if you stop to think about it, and is widely ussed by most sentient beings, is all about ussing cauculations and forms to better mold the world arround you by following it's natural pathways and rules. Minus power and mana cost, but more control and feasibility for most to use it.
Thanks to it your magical prowess isn't equal to your actual level either, because a level 100 can actually use around twenty circles (One circle means one level in a spell's power or complexity, and the more you can cram into one spell the higher level it is, but not like tha's actually easy to use on various things at the same time.) at the same time, and a mage's butter and bread is preparation, which these characteristics greatly . Otherwise everyone would simply be categorized as strong because they have more mana or more will than their opponents, since a complete beginner in primal magic can actually make the same thing as someone ten times their level if enough circunstances of "Face punchbility" are stacked.
While i would like to say that there was a complex and interesting history about the growing of civilization as it is on this world, that would mostly be a lie. The gods just copy pasted races that could survive and thrive on the world before giving them some simple knowlege and lettting them do their thing with an intervention here and there.
I can't exactly explain why they'd create a world artificially when dealing with one is already a pain in the ass, i will say that not all gods are completely assholish, but that doesn't mean they are selfless people either. Except the dark maiden and god of selflesness, but one of them had one hell of a childhood gone wrong and the other is literally being influenced by his divine title, besides being a little bitch before going through apotheosis.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Back to magic.
While technically simple formulas can be made into simple spells, there's a shit ton of difference between a program that makes a robot move it's legs and one that makes it walk slightly fast, nevermind a whole computer or worse, and the same comsept goes towards these formulas.
Luckily for any would-be-magician (there's formal titles with ranks.), using magic actually makes your body naturally improve, from thel1 high energy circulation and can sometimes even raise your status (Cultivation has the same concept, yes.), which also help in turning the brain into the perfect machine.
If the brain is a genius but very slow and the computer an idiot that is very fast, than raising the brain's thought ability will certainly make others into geniuses, nevermind the people who actually made functioning and learning A.I.
Is me hopping from topic to topic and talking about nonsensial stuff too much of a problem? would you say it is pouring or delving? I you understood that joke, go kill yourself, because i certainly can't and deleting it is already out of question because of another asshole with strange humor. If you didn't get it, look 'Delve' on Royal Road, it's quite the good novel.
Consider that enough about magic talk for now and let me look for something else, k? Great.
Look, Aki is explaining his avatar.
"... so I didn't design a complete digestive system, just organs for holding whatever I put into my mouth. With the body being reliant only in the mana I offer, I simply deconstruct whatever till if becomes so small I can directly absorb the energy and nullify whatever property the small parts still had. That means some things would be harder depending of their complexity and my knowledge about them."
"And that is no reason why you should just drink poison like that!" Exclaimed his wife.
"I know there are no simple resistance skills in this world, but it just can't actually damage me even if this body became unusable and the cocktail is delicious even to me, so I'm going to drink it!" Said Aki before gulping down his shot of poisoned grape juice.
Apparently someone had tried to poison him, which would be ineffective against any vampire with good enough regeneration to begin with, but their poison was very sweet, so Aki just kept drinking more while ignoring the assassin's card he found in his sugar container. He also coughed one out after drinking the whole bottle and swallowing it by accident too, which is how he ended up being scolded for starting his second bottle.
His stomach has a dimensional enchantment on it, so it works just like a bag of holding, so directly drinking bottles bigger than his head in succession isn't strange at all.
Anyways, nagging and sweet talk that led to flirting and cuddling aside, Aki decided to ask Silver to post a note on the various shady places around town and the main hub of the red light district.
The note read mostly like this:
"To the Red smile
I'm most definitely not dead or angry, so I'd like to offer you a job as a cook or alchemist under me, because that poison you used was ingenious, and went deliciously with my wine. The base salary would be around 20 gold per week, but if you come and negotiate, than I might rise it.
From your last target. I think. You left four cards that I found if that helps.
P.s I loved drinking the three whole bottles, but the sugar got so potent I needed my cook bake something out of it, which ended with him getting drowsy after being healed for a long time, but the cake was delicious in the end."
As a result, the underworld of the town was in shock. Either this person was totally crazy and inconsequential but somehow survived the assassination of one of the most famous killers of the province, or someone wanted to income during their own deaths.
Rumors started to fly around like flies in the dung even before the night cycle began. Before the day's end, the assassin had already decided to personally deal with it's last contract. It wasn't overconfidence that made him choose this, but the knowing of the consequences of leaving the case as it is.
"Wow, you're way hotter than I thought, and also a human! Who would've guessed? Anyway, want some tea, coffee, fruit juice?" Asked Aki to the tightly sealed assassin in his office who was trying to break his hexaelemental shield formation, or so he wanted to call it, but it was just a barrier that would make more smaller barriers inside of his office if someone without permission tried to enter.
"I don't drink while working." Drily said the old man who seemed to have stopped trying to break the barrier around him. "You caught me. What now?"
"I was serious about offering you a job you know? Well, since you're level one thirty, than i guess i would also need to pay you more. Does twenty five gold per week and a release from your debt with the god of assasins sound good?" Aki asked while sitting himself and pouring a cup of coffee for himself, but Aster had already started starring at him with wide eyes and actually stopped trying to scape.
"Who are you?" He asked with cold sweat on his back. It'd been one long ass time since his instincts screamed so much at him to...
[Congratulations! You have reached level 5 in danger sense!]
"Ouch, that one hurt, but it's quite acurate. I'm Aki, someone, that like your skill says, is quite dangerous. You know, you can't even appraisal me correctly right now, so there's little use in reading even the third page of fake status, you will get to know me with time if you survive." Aki put his cup down and started to form a dark spear filled with pulsing violet veins before strinking a pose and throwing it like he was a olimpic athlete. "Plus Ultra" He said icily at the last moment.
The spear traveled through his house and left a perfect circle in all the walls it passed through, before suddenly hitting something invisible 300 meters away from the mansion.
*****
In a far away realm:
"GAAAAHHH!" A pale skinned ginger screamed as one of his eyes sudenly popped at the pressure of a newly oppened fissure to the arcanum, which he quicly closed before it could cause more damage.
Breathing deeply, the god of murder calmed himself and cooled his rage with his killing intent, making many of his servants and comcubines drop unconcious all over his palace. Touching the golden blood falling through his cheek, he fully took in the situation as his eye quicly regenerated.
"To think someone would use one of my subordinates to call a divine clone of mine just so they can hit me... I don't know exactly what they did, but it was very powerful." He said before his cold face cramped. "My priest also died due to being used as a link for the attack, I see. This person, i will grant then their death wish. After i erase their whole family and associates to historical records" Coldly said the angered god before getting up to start his preparations. "Gael." He called and a man completely clothed in black from head to toe appeared out of nowhere. "Prepare the contract chamber. I want all my sanctuaries to receive it. Write down the name 'Elizabeth Akita Victoria' on it.