With so many tomes now within their possession, alongside the new rules and laws booklet, both Logan and Marcus had the pick of the litter for what to read for the rest of the day. At his current speed, Logan could finish a 100-page book in around 3 to 5 hours, this included mimicking the movements needed for spells or enunciating the new words to understand how they were spoken. Thankfully, with either his Intelligence or System, he didn’t need repeat reading sessions to complete a book with full diction.

While learning the laws of the land would prove useful if they were to be spending several days or weeks here, Logan’s most pressing concern was that of playing the part of a spellcaster. With close to 10 hours until they would go to sleep, it would be possible to complete “Magi's Magick Vol 2” in preparation for the quest tomorrow if Logan stayed up a bit later than normal. On the other hand, Marcus’s reading speed was a bit slower than that of Logan’s, so the Devout would find it difficult to finish “Healer's Compendium Vol 1” tonight.

Hoping they would have some time in the morning, or via travel, they both resided to reading their respective spellcasting tomes. Getting food and beverages sent to the room every so often.

Even though a few spells within Logan’s tome could not be learned by the Spellthief class, Logan still had to get through the book’s entirety to gain the knowledge within. All of the first-level spells were out of his grasp, though Logan could learn all of the second-level and third-level spells alongside the new alteration of Skystrike. Loading up his spell list he couldn’t help but feel accomplished, if a bit tired, at the new options at his fingertips.

“1st: Aqua**, Flame****, Frost**, Gaia**, Infuse**, Lightning***, Necromantic***, Wind.

2nd: Dimensional Jaunt, Earthen Eruption, Flame Cloak, Haste, Lightning Cascade, Skin of Ice, Sleep, Summon _ Elemental, Zombify.

3rd: Air Blast, Aqua II, Flame II, Frost II, Gaia II, Lightning II, Necromantic II, Wind II.

Alterations: Grasp, Shot, Skystrike, Wall.”

Just like before, Logan was able to learn spells above the spell level he could actually cast, allowing him to pre-prepare for forthcoming increases in power. Seeing his initial spells gaining higher variants at third-level instilled within him a faint excitement at unlocking access to the next set of spells, though he was curious as to if he would get that far before finding an exit from Avanar.

The tome allowed him to learn the other alteration that Darius had used against him so long ago, and combining it with Echo Radar would allow him to fire from behind Gaia Walls with much more ease. Along with learning the alteration of that day, Logan also had access to Lightning Cascade of the bastarn coven and Haste that would be his Dash replacement for now.

He would need to do some experimentation down the line to see how useful each spell would be, though Haste and Skin of Ice seemed to have almost universal application in combat as he delved deeper into their windows.

“No wonder Haste didn’t last too long with Darius, though it isn’t a surprise why he was able to overpower me so easily with it. If he had a higher Agility he would have easily won. It seems more geared towards a single encounter, however, and not for clearing dungeons. Skin of Ice will be useful to reduce my incoming damage too, stacks easily with the Damage Reduction of my armour”, he planned in his head.

With finishing this new book, Logan’s Reading skill had also progressed to tier 2, which meant that books now took 10% less time to finish.

Looking over to his ally, as he had thought, Marcus fell asleep before finishing his tome. The book was opened up over his face as he laid comfortably in his bed. Taking the book off his ally’s sleeping face, Logan put it on the bedside table to finish tomorrow. Following his friend’s lead, Logan got in his own bed to sleep the night away.

Waking to a new day, the pair did their normal morning routines, though this time it included hot baths for each of them. The Clean mick was quick but lacked any form of sensation, and nothing could beat hot water and scrubbing of tired muscles. Treated to a massive platter of meat and vegetables in the morning, Yetveka promised more on the way if the pair were going to be bringing more criminals to justice.

Finishing their morning meals, making sure all their gear was in check, Logan and Marcus started the daunting walk to the G-Hall. Still a bit ticked off that this was going to essentially be free work, it reminded Logan of the months spent as an unpaid intern. He doubted it would lead to paid work, as he didn’t really like the idea of working with Kreya any more than he had to.

Arriving at the G-Hall, the pair were greeted to the sight of a few dozen adventurers setting up parties for quests, early-birds handing in completed quests, alongside others looking to hawk their abilities to others for a price. It was comforting to see so many able-bodied individuals that could handle themselves, as well as the more common monster threat outside the city walls.

Comparing the numbers of adventurers to the quests on the large quest boards put into perspective the amount of work they had to do. With a more balanced set of party members, including casters in the mix, Logan was sure they could do much more in a day than normal. Sadly, from both a standpoint of people’s birth and the opinion of casters that would be a hard end to reach.

Combining the information from the System, and talking with others, it was a good estimate that 1% of the populace were Wizards, 2% Sorcerers, 5% Devouts, 10% Rogues, 15% Knights, and 25% Fighters, with the remaining 42% being classless. These figures were taken every so often through censuses and recorded the classes given through birth or divine intervention.

Being born classless didn’t mean you’d never gain a class, however, as proper training could grant you any of the six classes on offer. Training to gain a class was costly, and took much more time than normal combat schools, requiring around three to five years of dedicated teachings. Due to the cost and time investment, low-born classless families had little chance of obtaining a class, that seemed to line up with the smaller settlement like Tinte was.

Not all classed beings decided to take up the life of the adventurers though, especially Devouts who would join churches to sell their spell services or serve the settlements as a whole. The 1-week death timer was a major concern for would-be daredevils, as it claimed many lives of youngling adventurers.

As time passed, with Logan trying to learn as much as he could about the hall’s rules alongside the state of the world, the previous day’s duelling opponent entered. Sitting at a larger table, Logan saw a few others move over to meet up with Kreya, assuming they would be the other parts of the party. Making his way there he looked over each of them, but held back his Identification as he had yet to read the book of the laws and was scolded the last time he had used it.

Logan would find their levels, HP, and MP if they had any when they formed a party as the party window would display all those statistics. Before then, however, Kreya saw fit to give out some basic introductions.

“Looks like we’re all here. To speed this up I’ll get through the basic party info. I am Kreya, rank 10 Knight and your party leader”, she started.

Stopping to point at a young man who stood around 5’10” tall with short brunette hair, and in leather garb, that was partly covered in a waist-high brown leather jacket. Aside from several hidden throwing knives, he seemed to focus on dual-wielding knives similar to Logan. “This is Tenn, rank 8 Rogue and our scout”.

Motioning to the taller lady at around 6’ with medium-length blond hair, wearing an assortment of metallic plating. Strapped to her side was a fashionable shortsword that had jagged teeth at the tip, with a large red-steel shield placed on her back. “That is Iimi, rank 9 Fighter who will be backing me up on the frontlines.

Ending up at Logan and Marcus, “This is Logan, rank 8 Wizard who will be the magic caster to slow our prey down. Next to him is Marcus, rank 4 Devout set to work as backup ranged attack as well as a healer.”

Pulling out a small map with an attached piece of parchment, Kreya continued speaking, “I explained the quest to you two already, but this pair haven’t got the run down as of yet”, she said as he pointed out Logan and Marcus. “A small farming village to the north has come under attack by a torrent of silversteines, survivors have relayed some guesses at a total of 12 or so monsters harassing the remains of the village. The quest is to quell the monster numbers.”

Raising a hand, Iimi spoke up, “I was able to pick up some information on the silversteines as you asked. Aside from their aversion to lightning magic, they are able to talk amongst their own species so it’ll be best we don’t let any announce our presence. They are immune to wind-based attacks and have a good resistance versus fire.”

“So gang up on singular foes at a time then. Oh, Logan, prepare as many lightning-based spells as you can. Silversteines are able to fly through the air at incredible speeds which makes it hard to bring them down, a single bolt can cause issues with their wind control abilities and force them to the floor”, Kreya responded, remembering she had not explained the monsters to the two newcomers.

“I can prepare both Lightning and Lightning Cascade. Would my fire elemental come in handy at all? He can use Ember Shard”, Logan explained.

“Cascade would be a major boon if we face a group, save that for those occasions. As for an elemental, I’d prefer a lightning-based one but an extra body would be good regardless.”

Tenn was the next to raise a hand, “I have some Lightning rings, I was going to use them but since we have a caster with us it might be best he uses them.”

Kreya was definitely happy at the question, her raised eyebrows showing signs of shock and relief. “If you’re fine lending them out, that’d be great. You know how to use spell rings, right, Logan?”

“Not heard of any before, are they especially hard to utilize?” Logan asked.

“Much easier for casters, I have to think a bit harder on using them but it functions like a wordless cast”, Tenn continued as he rotated two rings off from his right middle and index fingers.

Holding out his hand to receive the rings, as they fell onto his palm their statistics revealed themselves to Logan.

“Damn, these are good. If I could afford them easily myself, I’d buy up all I could in a heartbeat, but at a sell value of 2 gold it’d be 4 gold to just buy the one. I barely have 5 gold remaining. My Lightning spell would deal more damage, but it’s still an amazing item for non-casters to get access to spells”, Logan thought to himself.

“It’s a new day and I haven’t used them yet, so they should both have a charge remaining”, Tenn instructed as he saw Logan slip the rings onto his left pinky and ring fingers.

As soon as Logan equipped the trinkets, they appeared into his prepared spells list with a note that they were coming from the rings. With those now on, Logan went to prepare his spells for the day: 5+2 Lightning, 2 Lightning Cascades.

“Thanks for that, Tenn”, Kreya began speaking again, “the village isn’t too far from here, a few hours by foot but we’ll be using a horse-driven carriage to make better time. With a good two hours till we reach the place we shouldn’t see any trouble on the roads. The place was attacked two days ago, so it is possible there are still more survivors about it. They are the priority.”

“I can use Healer’s Caress, so if they are wounded we can have them hold out at the carriage before we leave”, Marcus inputted.

“Good idea, the survivors will need all the speed they can get and wounded legs would spell their demise to an errant silversteine”, Kreya responded with a nod.

“What sort of tactics will we employ? I doubt I could hit all of them in a single day”, Logan asked.

“The main aim is to lower the numbers over time, hoping for at least three a day, means we’ll get it done in four at the latest. The village is mostly fields, so it is possible we’d fight more than one silversteine at a time. Since they are spirit beasts, we’ll more than likely find them nearby corpses too, so the interior of houses may hold singular targets.”

“Spirit beasts? What does that mean?” Logan thought to himself, but didn’t ask as he was unsure if that would raise suspicion.

“We’ll stop the carriage on the side of the road and approach from the south-east side of the village, here”, Kreya continued as she pointed at the map, “the fields should be near-to-fully-grown at this point so should provide cover to our advance. Where possible, Logan will start our encounters with a Lightning spell, or Cascade if there is a group.”

“It seems like she’s thought this through enough, no wonder she needed a caster immediately. The mention of survivors also puts a timer on this quest, I guess that duel was more out of necessity than spite?” Logan pondered.

“Anything else we need to prepare ahead of time?” Marcus asked.

“Those rings would be a major part of the preparation. With you two added to the team, there shouldn’t be much else we need. Make sure everyone has access to ranged attacks, so bows if necessary”, Kreya responded as she looked over everyone’s gear.

“I have throwing knives, that’ll suffice”, Tenn responded.

“I’ve got a bow back home I can go grab”, Iimi added.

“I can throw out Force micks when needed”, Logan followed.

“Oh, silversteines have a resistance to the Force mick so it’ll do less than normal, probably still effective though”, Tenn continued.

“First time that’s popped up, thanks for the pre-warning.”

“If there’s nothing else, we can head out right now”, Kreya ended as she stood from the table, picking up the map and parchment.

The party quickly got their last-minute gear, bolts and arrows for ranged weapons, and even the bows themselves, alongside some extra rations for a possibly prolonged quest time. With direction given by Kreya, the team met up near the eastern gates where they all found a carriage hitched up with two horses. As they were now a formal party, Logan was able to look into his allies’ statuses a bit more, though the information settings were minimal.

“Kreya Ioi: Knight 10, 184/184 HP, 0/0 MP.

Iimi: Fighter 9, 142/142 HP, 0/0 MP.

Tenn: Rogue 8, 104/104 HP, 0/0 MP.”

“Not a whole lot to gauge from that, quite a bit of HP on them all though, so they should stand tall in a fight. I only have 88 HP so they easily outstrip me. Then there’s Marcus at 46 HP, though he is only level 4. Can easily tell which classes are meant for melee combat though, the difference in HP between a level gap is staggering”, Logan calculated in his head.

“You good there, Logan? Your brow is furrowed”, Kreya asked as she was readying the horses to move.

“Yeah, just preparing myself for the coming mission.”

“It should be fine, if we’re overwhelmed we’ll retreat and prepare accordingly if needed”, she continued, a calming tone to her voice.

Trying to piece together the attitude of his new leader, Logan looked over the carriage. It seemed rather British, hard to say if it were Victorian or not as Logan was never much of a history buff. It resembled a slightly larger clarence style of carriage with an enclosed passenger vehicle at the back and a modest lip in the front for the drivers to sit at. It didn’t seem to be too expensive though, it lacked any glass and instead went for more protective wooden panels for windows.

As agreed beforehand, Logan, Marcus, and Tenn were to ride in the back while Kreya and Iimi would be driver and “ride-along”. Logan was sure that wasn’t the right name, it could have been a mistaken word from a previous oracle but he wasn’t in a stance to argue it. The shifting of the carriage, neighs of the horses, and clopping across stone pavement alerted the passengers to their departure.

As they had two hours till they arrived at the mission site, both Marcus and Logan spent it wisely reading their tomes once more. With the extra time put in by Marcus, the Devout was able to add a slew of new spells to his list.

“1st: Aqua, Gaia, Heal**, Identify Condition, Infuse, Sew.

2nd: Enhance (All), Restore Condition.

Alterations: Grasp, Shot.”

Checking over his ally’s status through their partner system, a separate one from the party system, Logan was able to see that Marcus had gained a tier of mastery with the Heal spell, increasing its effectiveness by 10%.

Aside from that, he gained spells to identify status effects and how to heal them with a second-level spell. Sew was a healing-over-time spell that would recover more HP than Heal would but would do it over several seconds. Sew couldn’t take any alterations, however, so it was hard to say if it’d do much better than a Grasp Heal at tier 2.

Logan’s time was taken up by reading the rules and laws booklet he was gifted by Jirango, as he knew he wouldn’t gain any benefit from the other tomes with the time he had. Skipping around for the more important sections, he found that scanning magics and skills were disallowed within city limits, which Identification would fall under. The testing arena at the G-Hall had an extra allowance around such rules to pinpoint adventurer capabilities.

Aside from what would affect him more immediately, he was able to pick up on some more duel information. It was written really concretely that people wouldn’t turn down a duel and was mostly used to gain back honour or out of desperation. Duels were also used to settle disputes and even used as a form of a court ruling. The type of duel that Logan was issued was one he could, in all rights, decline, though reputation meant a whole lot in this society.

The rule surrounding no summons or undead servants were also noted in the booklet, though did mention that people could apply for permission slips to allow them to be used within the city. Elementals to aid in everyday chores like heating water or moving items about, and undead to work as tireless servants.

What was interesting about the undead servant section, however, was that there were rules around selling your body to be used as an undead servant on death. You’d be paid a varying sum, based on your physical makeup, on signing a contract and when you would die your body would be considered property of whoever bought you. It had a weird resemblance to organ donor systems.

Against all he had read about necromancy in other works of fiction or gaming, it seemed like a very normal occurrence in Avanar. Little hatred was held to the subject, even being thought of as another form of summoning magic. The booklet didn’t go too far into the necromancy side, as it went outside of a normal law jurisdiction, but it did mention that unlawful undead conversions would be punished by death.

Wanting to read further and further into the booklet, Logan was rudely interrupted as the carriage jolted suddenly, almost knocking him from his seated position.

“We’re here!” Kreya’s voice rang out, as a few knocks were given to the side of the carriage.

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