Chapter 28: Travel to Lupaken

Crimson sat in one of the private rooms of the Adventurer’s Guild staring at Nav in shock and confusion. The whole room had been stuffed to bursting with Emma, Nav, him, about seven other male wolfkin of various ages, and a single middle aged female wolfkin.

He and Emma were both squished onto a small stool, and the other sides of the table had wolfkin sitting shoulder to shoulder, with a clear amount of space allowed for the single wolfkin female, but not for Nav.

Both Nav and the female wolfkin had a necklace with a complex symbol as the pendant, but there was a striking difference in the quality. Nav’s was made of iron, and while it had obviously been well cared for, there was little patches of rust in the hard to clean places. On the other hand, the woman’s necklace was made of fine gold, and well polished. Her clothes were also of superior quality to Nav’s and the other wolfkin acted at her beck and call, but ignored Nav.

Nav was the one speaking as representative, which further confused Crimson. From what he knew, wolfkin didn’t appoint those of lesser stations to represent them if they could be there. At a guess - with the information he had on hand - he assumed that the woman was more favored, but Nav was higher in the hierarchy, which led to this convoluted situation.

To add to the contradictions, the request was in Nav’s name, but he’d had little to do with making the actual request. He’d just presented the basic information outline to one of the other clerks at the front desk before leaving the rest of the problem to Ryn - the female wolfkin - and heading to the Temple where Crimson had met him.

There was something very wrong with those series of events, Nav should have been present from the beginning, so he was either neglecting his duties, or he was forced out. At a glance, it could be either.

Interrupting his thoughts, Nav said without a hint of tension on his face, “We are here as representatives of Reah, chief of Lupaken, the wolfkin tribe. Her Heir Apparent: Tsiva is coming of age soon, and we are in need of a calligraphist for the event. Your duties would be painting banners, scribing the speeches, and drawing up the certifications needed for the ceremony. As you come highly recommended by the Guild, we will be offering 1300 Royals as payment.”

At those words, Ryn let out a low growl and glared at Nav, “My associate misspoke, you will be paid 300 Royals.”

Nav turned his attention to Ryn and spoke with a heavy voice, full of casual arrogance, “My my, we can’t charge such a small amount for such a big task, now can we? This exceptional adventurer is being summoned to another country, several days travel away, and is being given a very important task. It’s obvious that the payment must-“

Nav’s words were cut off by another growl from Ryn, and the rest of the wolfkin became more obvious about their glares as they also joined in with low growls.

Ryn spoke with unmasked fury, “We were given this important task from Chief Reah, and you want to waste her money on this worthless weakling?”

Nav coldly said, “I still remain within the budget, if we hire this young man, we don’t need to hire the three scribes we originally assumed we needed.”

Still angry Ryn said, “How is 1300 cheaper than 900 you slime trail?”

Brushing off the highly offensive insult, he shot back, “Isn’t it obvious that a worker with a higher [Skill] level should be paid more? He’s received high recommendations from both the Merchant’s Guild and the Adventurer’s Guild. He’s also known to have a very good relationship with the Temple, so based off that kind of backing, of course he’d be paid more! I could even say that we’re getting him for cheap since the nearest comparable scribes all quoted no less than 2000!”

“It’s still 400 more!”

Nav smirked at her, “Not when you factor in that we’d have to give room and board to three individuals! We’ll likely lose a thousand Royals per individual considering how room prices have shot up as our kin travel to celebrate the Heir Apparent’s coming of Age.”

That shut her up, but only seemed to increase her fury.

Nav turned back to Crimson and spoke with a mildly gloating tone, “So if you would be so willing, would you accept the job for the rate I have suggested?”

Crimson nodded lightly, cautiously watching the wolfkin males who seemed on the edge of tearing out Nav’s throat. He had no idea why his presence was being used as a weapon, but he didn’t want to side against Nav - even if he didn’t know why the man was acting so differently to how he was the day before.

After several more tense moments and a bit more negotiating, Crimson’s final pay would be 1350 Royals, and Ryn looked like she’d tear his head off and use it to beat Nav. Nav then filled him in on the intricate details, specifically: time. How long travel would take, how long he’d be expected to be there, and roughly how many hours in a day he’d be expected to work. They were to leave on Istday - Monday.

—————

Moving as quickly as he could, Crimson spent the entire day preparing for the trip, packing food and other necessities. He also sat down with Verity and together, they came up with a list of spells for her to learn while he was gone. He also borrowed a [Purity Affinity] copy of [Heal] - the next spell in the chain after [Lesser Healing] - for an excellent deal from Rei. He had nothing else to do while traveling, so he figured that he might as well learn it.

His only concern of what he would do after he learned the spell was solved by one of his most depressing purchases: a Lv. 3 claymore called [585th Claymore]. 500 Royals, and he still wasn’t happy with the quality. It was the best thing within his price range, but…it was obvious that there was no heart in it. Even the name screamed “My shift ends in two hours.” However, it couldn’t be helped. He needed a proper sword for a journey like this, and everything else he owned were all purely for training.

The thing at least had a good heft and a solid amount of durability.

—————

585th Claymore

- Archetype: Heavy

- Type: Sword

- Sub-Type: Claymore

- Quality: Mid

- Level: 3

- Attack: 18-23

- Durability: 55/55

- Familiarity: Unknown

Description: A basic claymore.

—————

With everything in place, Crimson spent Highday at the Astral Library reading. He needed some alone time - away from the Temple’s harassment. He’d been getting a lot more requests to do prayers and perform other duties in the TWO DAYS after the coming of age prayer because of Nav’s very public declaration of Rei’s commendation. While he fortunately wouldn’t receive any official requests on Highday - the Guild being closed - that didn’t stop some crazy people from hunting him down to ask personally. Silently, he was grateful for the secret passages.

Breaking his concentration, the door creaked open and Crimson turned to greet Rhinese and Sariya, only to be surprised how ragged they looked. He swiftly looked behind them as his heart rate shot up, worried the excessive exhaustion was a sign they’d been interrogated and followed, but there was no one behind them, so he breathed a sigh of relief.

Standing, he walked over to Rhinese - who seemed do be in poorer condition - to check on her as she stood in a daze in front of the closed door. He passed Sariya as she flopped in a seat, dropped her head on the desk, and immediately started snoring. Reaching the Princess, he gently supported her as he silently led her over to her usual chair.

Unlike her usually controlled self, she dropped into the seat like a rock, and slumped in the chair with a long exhausted sigh.

“Are you okay Your Highness?” He questioned in his most formal voice, hoping to get a small chuckle out of her.

She glared at him lazily, “If you think you’re being funny, know that it isn’t, nor am I in the mood.”

She groaned and stretched slowly, joints popping loudly, then let out a contented sigh as she finally relaxed. “That’s better.”

Confused, Crimson sat down, “What’s with you? I’ve never seen you this worn down.”

“I’ve been handed the droll task of escorting a special guest at the tournament next month. A Dark Elf Am’zavac.” Rhinese said, shaking her head darkly.

He slowly shook his head, “I haven’t heard of that term before.”

She looked at him in surprise, “Interesting, I thought you knew most everything at this point.”

He gave her an annoyed look, and she continued, “An Am’zavac is the physical representation of an ideal. Essentially, the member of their race that most embodies a concept. You get all kinds: Strength goes to the one with the highest STR, and so on with all the stats, but then you get more interesting and subjective ones, like Grace, or Beauty, or Determination, etcetera. They don’t even go out of their way to fill the titles, they’re perfectly happy to leave them empty if there’s no one good enough for it, and there are higher titles, ones that represent multiple ideals at the same time. While a higher title is held, the lesser ones can’t be.”

Rhinese started massaging her shoulders as she spoke with a tinge of annoyance, “From what I’ve seen and heard: the role sucks. It’s completely honorary, they can lose it at any time, and they have to divest themselves of their original identity for the period they hold the title. They don’t even get to be called or known by their own names, just the title they hold.”

She rubbed her temples, “The issue for us is that there’s a lot of respect associated with being an Am’zavac - even being a former Am’zavac - to the point that even foreign countries like ours treat active ones like visiting royalty.”

Crimson nodded slowly to show he understood, and she continued, “This particular Am’zavac is one of the most important ones: Elegance, a higher title that combines the ideals of Grace and Beauty. This particular Elegance is especially dangerous, having held the title longer than any other Elegance before her: a grand total of four years - from the moment she turned 16 to today.”

He tilted his head in confusion, “What makes this ‘Elegance’ dangerous? I need a little more information.”

“Like I said, Elegance is a higher title, which means that she is more treasured by her race. Even though she is still a student, she is frequently sent out to represent the dignity of the Dark Elves. If we mess up with her, the Dark Elves with have strong grounds to bankrupt us with ‘apology’ money. This particular Elegance is even more dangerous than usual because nobody has ever had time to be in the role. The previous record before her four years was five months - not enough time to adapt to or utilize newfound power to the fullest extent. She’s had that time.”

He raised an eyebrow, “Was someone bought off to keep her in the position that long?”

Rhinese thought about it for a long moment before she shook her head, “I don’t think so. Others have found it suspicious and done the heavy work investigating but found nothing, in addition to that, everything I’ve seen and heard about her indicates that she’s got every right to the title. Not only that, but the dangers of bribing the Selection Committee that long far outweigh the risks. If they did manage to buy the title, you only need to buy it for a week, then auction her off like a rare drop to a noble. It would get you a lot more power, faster, and for infinitely less risk than this suspiciously long amount of time.”

He mulled it over, then said, “It still sounds suspicious to me.”

She waved her hand dismissively, “Doesn’t matter, so long as she’s recognized as an Am’zavac we have to respect her, or risk angering the Dark Elves. Considering the importance of our trade relations with them, Alda can’t afford alienating them in the slightest, so in addition to my usual lessons I’m being drilled day in and day out to make sure that I don’t make a mistake.”

She clutched her head, “I can still hear my tutor’s voice, ringing in my skull. It doesn’t leave when I sleep, when I eat, when I bathe - there is no escaping it!”

“Well,” he said in hesitant amusement, “at least you’ll have learned it all.”

She threw a quill at him.

—————

Crimson waited outside the Adventurer’s Guild first thing in the morning Istday, pack on his back, sword on his hip, and with a full inventory - waiting to be picked up by Nav’s group. After an hour, Nav showed up and led him to a small convoy of a carriage, some wagons, and soldiers on foot surrounded by a dark and hostile atmosphere. All the guards glared at Nav as he got in the carriage with Ryn, and treated Crimson indifferently as he was stuffed into the last wagon in the line.

Though they moved at a deceptively swift pace that made Crimson feel like he was riding in a slow car, it only took a few hours of travel before they stopped. Some of the wolfkin guards swapped with those in wagons. Those that needed to, relieved themselves, and Ryn went among her guards raising morale while shooting dirty gazes at Nav. Crimson felt like he was watching a preschooler hold a grudge.

The rest of the day continued the same way as the sun beat down on their heads, stopping every few hours, rotating, and continuing. They didn’t stop for a meal, and ate during travel. Crimson was also given food, so he gratefully held on to his rations for when he more desperately needed them.

In the midst of it all, he spent his time learning [Heal]. It was a fascinating spell, and of all the ones he’d learned thus far, almost rivaled [Magic Light] in its ability to build upon its previous versions. It took him most of the day to learn the first level, but he was impressed as its range already exceeded [Lesser Healing’s] max range of three inches.

When casting the spell, a beam of light came out of each of the pads of his fingers and formed a ball a few inches above his hand. When he directed it at a target, the ball then turned into a beam, but only extended a grand total of five inches.

He was forced to stop his study as the day closed and they set up camp for the night. Nav came his way, hauling a bundle of canvas, sticks, and rope to make the hopeful offer, “Want to share a tent?”

Crimson responded, “I have no idea how to set it up, but I’ll help however I can.”

Nav grinned and swiftly showed him how. Their tent was set up on the inside edge of the barrier that comprised the campsite - a fair distance from the rest of the tents.

Deciding that they were far enough away as they laid in the tent, lit by a [Magic Light] Nav had cast, Crimson used a [Breeze] spell to create a barrier of air outside the tent so they could speak privately.

“Nav, why does everyone hate you?”

After a long moment of heavy silence, Nav grinned while taking a swig of liquor, “You see, I have a sense of what we call loyalty and integrity that they all lack. Everyone, both here and at home, used to love Alois - Rhea’s father. He was a very powerful man, and we wolfkin - we respect power. We really should respect those with honor though.”

He took a deep pull from the bottle, “In the past, Alois was able to level up fast enough to outpace his weakness, but eventually, he hit the wall known as Lv.50, and his weakness caught up to him, ensuring that he’d never break that wall. He’s still powerful, in a way, but his strength is now about..” He tapped his fingers on the bottle in thought for a moment, “Lv.25, I’d say. Roughly half his strength with the [Blessing of the Gods] granting him extra power. Without it, I’d say he would already be dead.”

After a moment of quiet sorrow, he continued, “With his strength in decline, he lost the respect of his wife, who had not only broken past the Lv.50 wall, but was showing no sign of slowing down, as well as the rest of his tribe. He couldn’t be banished - seeing as he was the Chief’s husband and Rhea’s father, but his position only got worse as the Chief’s daughter showed signs of inheriting his weakness.

“When it was revealed that she really did take after her father, he was no longer treated with apathy, but animosity. His blood was considered something like poison and he was made a pariah, and Rhea along with him.”

Nav let out a deep and ferocious growl, one surprising for his slim form and that made all the other wolfkin growls Crimson had heard seem pathetic by comparison.

“They had forgotten who Alois was - he was our hero! Our party: The Mountain Wolves cleared no less than seven [Natural Dungeons] with our hero at the lead. He was brave, honorable, and wanted to make a better world for the next generation. Everyone adored him!

“We all cheered the day he proposed to one of our party members: Reah - the Chief’s daughter. No one was better suited for her, and they were deeply in love. She could have been a [Tailor] or a [Farmer] or a [Champion of the Gods] for all that he cared, he just loved her.”

Nav stopped for another moment to take a drink, seeming to drown in memories of happier days, before speaking once more, “Everyone forgot. They forgot their hero, but…I didn’t. I had followed Alois into the Abyss and back. I would never forget the debts I owe him. I will never forget his honor, unstained by the dirt everyone else tried to throw on it. I will never forget the Hero of Lupaken.”

He looked at Crimson with a dark look, “Why does everyone here hate me? It’s because I’ve kept my loyalty to the one who earned it. It’s because I don’t blindly show my belly to the ones with the highest [Levels]. It’s because they understand deep down that I’m right, and Alois should still be respected.”

After a long moment of silence, he spoke for the last time that evening, “And I’ll be sent to my next life as a goblin before I let the same thing happen to his daughter.”

—————

The rest of the trip was relatively quiet, with deceptively swift progress. Crimson shared at tent with Nav every night, but the conversation topics were much lighter than the first night. His days were peaceful as well, with extremely profitable training.

He spent time learning [Heal], started familiarizing himself with [585th Claymore] for his [Sword Kinship Skill] - which went up a level to 4. He also practiced his calligraphy to level up his [Advanced Calligraphy], which had just reached Lv.9, so he hoped to max it before arriving.

He practiced with his sword, spending at least an hour each morning, and practicing at least a little during each of the longer breaks. Because of his efforts, he reached [Sword Mastery] Lv.64 in three days. The pace was a little too slow to meet his goal, but considering the fact that they were traveling it was a pace he was happy with. The time he spent ‘accidentally’ training his [Eyes of Will] and his [Intermediate Linguist] also paid off, with [Eyes of Will] going up a level to 5 and [Intermediate Linguist] going up four to Lv.7 from all the time he spent listening to the wolfkin language - called Kiiwolf - which just made him even more giddy. He was now passible in the language, and practiced speaking it with Nav at night.

Unfortunately, his [Sophisticated Mana Influence] and [Sophisticated Mana Sense] both showed no sign of moving, and were sitting rather annoyingly comfortably at Lv.10, and he wanted to make progress with them somehow, whether it be [Advancement] or [Evolution].

As an interesting side effect, when he reached Lv.5 for [Eyes of Will], he could now see the other person’s will when he made eye contact. It wasn’t a precise thing, usually only a general sense of determination or rage or joy, and it seemed to only occur with whatever part of their will was most dominant, but it was still fascinating.

[Intermediate Linguist] also gained a new effect at Lv.5, but all it did was speed up the already insane rate at which he learned linguistics to even greater heights. He now only needed to hear a word once to remember it, and once he learned the meaning as well, it was slotted into his vocabulary. The stupid fast rate was a combination of the [Skill], his [Linguist Title], and his [Blessings of Trans’Du’Niir]. He had a hard time imagining himself getting any faster, but there was definitely an [Advanced Linguist Skill], and he was dead set to learn it.

—————

On the last day of travel, Crimson stared at the spell book for [Heal]. It had just became Level 5 which increased the range of the beam to 6 feet, but that wasn’t the important thing. He’d just had a flash of insight.

[Heal] built on a lot of what he’d learned with [Lesser Healing], so it felt like a natural progression of his knowledge - as it should be - but what intrigued him was that a lot of the principles of [Heal] coincided with the principles of [Magic Light]. They used several basic structures in common with one another that made his progress with the spell extremely fast. It aroused his curiosity.

Curious, he wondered for a time if they were compatible in anyway. After mulling it over for a bit, he decided to stop wasting time just wondering and attempt to apply the concept of a ‘battery’ from [Magic Light]. It allowed the spell to be maintained for a set amount of time without being supplied with mana, and it felt like the easiest thing to implement in the spell.

‘Easy’ quickly became a relative term as it took the whole morning to implement the change. The entire weave of the spell had to be adjust to support and interact with the battery, which was essentially pure trial and effort to figure out which aspects of the spell could and could not be changed.

The end result was an orb that cast [Heal] in 360° around itself with a 1ft range and quickly burned through the contents of its battery. The spell in this state was completely useless. It was less efficient than [Treatment], but with the cost of a much superior spell. He needed a way to make it actually useful before he could dub his modifications a success.

Scratching his head, Crimson considered the problem for a long moment before a solution occurred to him: what if he used a ‘string’ of mana to direct the flow of the healing energy?

This idea didn’t take too long to incorporate into the spell - due to the simplicity of the structure of mana strings - and the orb suddenly became a lot more efficient, allowing him to tie the strings to a target and send a fair amount the power of the spell down the strings to said target.

There was some significant loss, which confused him. Why did it do that? The spell could originally send its full might up to a distance of six feet, only dropping off in strength from then on, but even a few inches long string experienced some loss.

It only took a bit of inspection to discover the root of the problem: the string itself wasn’t meant to be a current for magic.

Originally, the concept of a mana string was actually utilized to manipulate the spell from a distance, allowing it to be moved around without direct interaction. They were also used in the actual forming of the spell, allowing Crimson to form a complex spell weave a distance from himself, but they weren’t actually meant to be a complex conduit. Certainly, he’d used them in the past to sent pure mana into the [Magic Light] spell, but mana alone wouldn’t be enough to put strain on the weave without being a significant overload.

Crimson theorized that the reason the strings worked for the healing orb at all was that it shared enough commonalities with principles of mana transfer to semi-function, but with significant loss.

The solution to the problem was obvious: he needed to create a structure in the strings that could sustain a better transfer. Essentially, he needed to make a wire, not a string.

Irritatingly, he was interrupted by lunch, but he immediately got back to work when they set off once more. He wanted to finish his idea before they arrived since he was making significant progress.

He wove the mana into a few different shapes to test different ideas. His first idea was to make mana mimic the shape of an actual wire, but that didn’t work since the idea was essentially two independent structures - the inner ‘wire’ and the outer ‘sheath’ - that needed to interact with each other, but actually interfered.

Crimson couldn’t see the mana with his eyes, but he grumpily glared at the space where he’d placed the weave. He knew that there ought to be a way to get the two structures to interact with no issues, but he didn’t have the time or understanding to make it work, so he was forced to shift gears and try another solution.

The next idea wasn’t actually that different from the previous one - and he didn’t truly expect it to work - but he used his mana to create a ‘drinking straw’ for the mana to pass through. It was just the wire with only the ‘sheath’ in place. To his annoyance, it actually worked better than the previous idea.

The issues he could see were actually quite obvious: the mana, despite having what he perceived as a ‘clear pathway,’ didn’t actually ‘know’ what it needed to do, which led to his next idea.

The next structure could be likened as being similar in appearance to Chinese handcuffs, a small tube of woven fibers that were designed to restrict unsuspecting digits when pulled on. The purpose of Crimson’s weave was actually to guide the mana to the spell, not restrict it. It acted as a driving force that would push the mana down the length of the tube and into the spell.

After surveying the spell with some satisfaction, he realized a glaring issue and face palmed. He’d originally set out to attach the spell to a person using the string so it could heal them, what he’d actually created was a remote way to top off a spell that wouldn’t be doing anything. He needed to take the spell out of the structure, not put mana in.

After an hour of wrestling and reworking, his final working solution used the exact same structure as the final working version of the ‘mana wire,’ but incorporated aspects of [Heal] to allow it to both guide and retain the spell. It now operated at full power!

With a few further adjustments, it gained the ability to freely follow around the person it was attached to, allowing Crimson to create a remote way to [Heal] people. With a satisfied grin, he sat back in contentment.

He’d successfully modified a spell into what could be called a brand new spell!

His grin broadened even further as he realized that he could actually further adjust the weave with his experience to create a [Healing Bolt]. All he had to do was pack the battery full of a spell instead of pure mana - which he now found easy after his experience modifying the strings - and create a structure that allowed him to fire the spell at an individual.

After a short amount of time and several adjustments, he had a working [Healing Bolt].

Giddy, he tried to hold in his joy as he heard a guard behind him say to his cohort, “Is he okay? It seems like he’s having spasms.”

Swiftly, he assured them that he was fine, then returned his attention to the two ‘new’ spells he’d made, but his massive grin started to slowly fade as he realized some issues with real world use cases.

Aside from needed a sight line and having a limited range, there weren’t actually too many flaws with [Healing Bolt], it did what it needed to, and it had great utility with its simplicity. The issue came with [Healing Orb].

The use cases he could see for [Healing Orb], or situations where it would be more advantageous than [Healing Bolt], were few in number, and left him quite stumped on its actual usefulness. He could imagine it being useful to stick on a tank at the front lines who would constantly losing health, but it would continue to [Heal] even when the person was at full health, wasting the spell.

Its base spell: [Heal], was also a persistent type healing spell, which means that it would heal over time, not restore a certain amount of health in an instant like [Healing Bolt] could, which made another issue obvious.

Another issue - but one he expected would be an easy fix - was that it currently required contact to be cast on a person.

Crimson sat back and continued to analyze the issues, but before long he was forced to wave the white flag. He didn’t currently know enough about how magic worked for him to create a solution to the problem he viewed as most important: only allowing the spell to heal when needed.

The only attempt he made at actually resolving the problem using brute force resulted in a bloody nose, which he assumed was a sign that his stats weren’t high enough for what he was attempting.

Using water magic to clean the blood, he excitedly inspected the alerts he had from his [Blessing], the tension he’d lost in his shortcomings returning in full.

—————

-Data has been sufficiently compiled.

-Stats have been awarded for effort:

+3 INT

+5 WIS

+2 WIL

+1 PER

-Unique Data detected…

-Alert: similar data has been found in archive

-Compiling Archived and Detected Data…

-Compiling complete.

-Minimum Requisite Data has been achieved.

-Generating 2 quest(s)

-Quest for [Skill: Magic Adaption] has been generated.

-Quest for [Title: Mana Programmer] has been generated.

-Name: [Developing Magic]

- Requirements:

- Achieve 50 INT

- 45/50

- Achieve 55 WIS

- 49/55

- Modify 5 Spells

- 1/5

- Modify [Healing Orb] to allow it to interact with a [Blessing]

- 0/1

-Reward: [Skill: Magic Adaption]

-Time Limit: N

-Failure Condition: N

-…

-Name: [Mana NERD!]

- Requirements:

- Modify 10 Spells

- 0/10

Reward: [Title: Mana Programmer]

Time Limit: N

Failure Condition: N

—————

While happy to see that he could earn new [Skills], Crimson was a little annoyed that he hadn’t yet finished the other two [Quests] he’d been given. Grimly, he swore to himself that he’d make progress before he’d left Lupaken.

Not long after his vow, they arrived in Lupaken.