04 – Silverscale – Killing is not as easy as it seems

He sat down on the soft ground, feeling the damp soil wet his clothes a little. The clothes too were regenerated as they were with each respawn, he realized, much like his body. He had his tie on again, and removed it. Then, he closed his eyes. If he wanted to live in peace, he had to kill that beast.

His eyes shot open, and he looked at his right palm with intent.

“Fireball!” He yelled with enthusiasm. At the same time he used his mind and will to operate upon his own mana, performing the magic. He felt something move, but did not pay too much attention to it at first. He realized that it was not coming from within himself, but felt more like the swirling of wind around his body.

It only lasted a moment, then it coalesced into something tangible above his palm. The ball of fire appeared right there, a little bit larger and stronger, and a little bit less wild to control. He also felt that it used less mana and willpower to make it happen, which was a good thing. If this was the power of a one-word chant, then he presumed that longer ones would be even better. Too bad they sounded very cringe to do, but if this was the price to pay for magic then he was glad to pay it.

A loud roar shook the whole forest.

“Yeah, come to me little bitch!” David said, with a bloodthirsty grin on his face, as he got up from his seat.

It took the animal less than two minutes to reach David’s position. He could hear it now, barreling through the forest, as it stomped the ground violently to propel its large body forward. It was closing in on his position, and fast. In mere seconds it would be here, and the hunt would begin. But this time David would not be just a defenseless prey, because he had a plan.

“Heralds of the fiery pits of hell, lend me your aid. Uhm…” He paused for a moment, searching for the right words in his mind. There was sweat on his forehead, and he knew that either he pulled this off or he was just as good as dead. “Fire gods watch as I deliver judgement upon this wretched land… damn, it’s hard! The prophecy of Ragnarök--”

The time ran out. The beast smashed through a dead tree, sending splinters flying in every direction. It was just to the right of where David was, coming from a slightly different direction than where the sound came from. He turned to face it, and looked at the yellow maned animal in the eyes. The two locked gazes with each other, and kept staring for a moment that seemed to stretch for eternity.

There was no fear in David’s dark eyes. There was no worry about his life. He had never felt pain so far, not even after he died three times. Perhaps death really was painless and quick. Perhaps he really was in a game, where he could just respawn and redo it all again whenever he failed.

The beast’s eyes were a bright gold, slightly darker than its mane. Its feline face was surrounded by thin keratinous needles that went from a pale yellow to a dark brown at their tips. They were filled to the brim with poison, the same paralyzing one that took him out the first time.

The beast was on all fours, proud and dangerous like a yellow lion. It was facing David, but its body was slightly tilted sideways, exposing its side.

“Now, die!” He yelled, and released all the magic that had gathered during his chant.

The ball of fire was as big as his head, and was hovering above his two hands stretched towards the sky. The smoke coming out of its top was thick and black, while the orange and yellow flames danced upwards from the white core. Waves of heat radiated from it and distorted the light, bathing the area with their energy.

It left with the speed of a bullet, leaving a swaying David on the verge of fainting behind it as it sped towards the beast that was threatening its caster. Its oval shape became more and more like a needle, almost an imitation of the beast’s poisonous weapons.

It struck true, and inflicted a direct hit on the side of the animal. The ball then exploded after losing cohesion because of the impact, and the flames rolled down the back and sides of the animals like a burning liquid. Like boiling oil, they covered the beast with their concentrated death.

Then they dissipated into motes of mana, returning to the atmosphere.

David looked up, with great effort since he had planted his face on the ground after collapsing from exhaustion. The beast was whimpering and yapping, and rolled on the wet grass and moist earth to try and take out the fire. It got up after rolling three times, and there was a small spot of burned fur where his fiery bullet had hit it.

But nothing else.

The beast was not only still alive, but his attack had barely scratched it. It snarled and roared, then charged.

This time the pain was real. The beast bit into his legs, tearing muscles and blood vessels. It shattered bone and ripped the tissues until David fainted. He had to thank his exhaustion from the magic spell, because he knew that without it he would have endured much worse pain.

Perhaps he had been too naïve and stupid to think that this world was not a danger to him just because he could revive himself.

Reincarnating in 3, 2, 1…

5° Reincarnation.

>Body upgraded with: Innate knowledge: spell theory.

>Complete objective to unlock new area.

Process complete. The chant was lame, but the idea was right. Also, that was not a spell but just raw fire mana. Learn some spells if you want to use them. Namaste, and good luck!

He respawned.

He found out that he was yelling, despite being in the white room for a while. As soon as his consciousness was reconnected with his body, the knowledge of the state it was in before he died made him scream and yell until his lungs were burning.

They were not the only thing that was in pain, though. He felt the odd sensation that he always felt whenever he revived. What last time was just an itch that he could not scratch, now felt like a billion of tiny needles piercing his skin all at the same time. It was infuriating, itchy, painful, and annoying.

The amount of pain that he was feeling, both now and with his last death, was staggering. He tried to joke on it, to say that he was paying for all the pain that he did not feel with the last deaths, but he did not laugh.

The only solace came as he remembered the fact that after a few seconds, all these sensations would go away and he would be perfectly fine. He began to count, gritting his teeth so that he could resist the pain better.

“One.” He wanted to scratch himself so hard that his skin would fall off.

“Two.” The needles were piercing his bones, his tendons, and his whole body was convulsing.

“Three.” Even his internal organs hurt, but the pain was odd and unfamiliar. It was not like getting hit. They felt as if on fire, and itchy as hell.

“Four.” This should be the last second, he thought.

The pain receded, slowly, but was still there. The needles felt like they were being extracted from his body one after the other, from his brain and his organs first, then from the rest. Each extraction took some of the pain away, but not before sending one final jolt of to his brain.

It took fifteen minutes for the last of the sensation to end, fifteen minutes of agony that never seemed to cease. The pain and itchiness were decreasing so slowly that the body was adapting to the change, and thus the pain never seemed to truly become more bearable. It was always right on the verge of making him scream, but never enough that doing so would bring him any peace.

When the last needle was out, metaphorically because there were no needles nor anything tangible that he could act upon, he sighed in relief. Not only death, but even the rebirth had been something he only wanted to forget. But forget it he will not, because if there was one thing that he wanted more than anything now, was ensuring that this process would not happen again.

It was good to feel the silence again, without the constant screams his central nervous system was sending to his consciousness. The sounds of the forests were soothing to his ears, and the gentle feeling of the wind and the grass was music compared to what he felt before.

And it was clear, now, that death was not the best way to get stronger. He would, of course, get stronger each time he died if he managed to overcome the pain that came with each resurrection. But the pain was growing stronger with each respawn, and had already reached the point where the fear of feeling it again overpowered his desire to get new powers and magic.

This was not a video game, and he had been an idiot to ever think that it was. It took him some real pain to actually figure it out.

Now that he could think clearly again, he noticed that indeed what the messages said about the spell he used the last time was right. What he had been doing so far was trying to shape mana with his will, after only having attuned it with the element of fire. It was natural that the attacks were ineffective, because the mana lacked instructions on what to do after it hit its target.

But with the new knowledge that had been implanted in his brain, everything was going to change.

He sat down, cross legged, and closed his eyes. The spell theory that he had been gifted with was very different that what he had expected it to be. It was not a list of magic spells, nor was it a way to build his own magic spells. Despite the system mocking him for shaping mana directly, it appeared that he was given a way to use magic on the fly without any need for rigid and boring spells. A better way to do just what he had been doing all along.

He had been given the key, the password with which he could read the world of mana. Mana, it turned out, was a kind of energy that permeated the whole universe. Magic was possible when the mage managed to imprint his own will upon said energy, and with that will he could shape the mana into whatever he wanted. The spells were just crutches that could be used, so that by having more structure, more power could be crammed into one single cast without losing control.

It was like a muscle that had to be trained, in the end. While the technique used to train it was very important, it was not the only thing that had to be done. If constructed spells were like bodybuilding, then spell theory was calisthenics. Stronger, more explosive and much more flexible, but only if trained hard.

For a normal person, bodybuilding would be the way to go. For David, who had seen the wonders of spell theory, it was this the way he wanted to go.

The second important thing after the technique was the actual training. The more he used magic, the more he could use it because his mind, will and imagination would become accustomed to the process and much, much stronger than they were now.

Mana pools did not exist, for instance. Saying that he was out of mana only meant that he was exhausted and needed to rest, as the effects of overusing magic were like having to run a marathon while trying to comprehend quantum mechanics. And having to do so all day every day until body and mind fell apart. It was dangerous to say the least.

The only issue was that he could barely comprehend the first part of this new knowledge he had. But that was enough, because he had a new plan in mind on how to kill that damn beast.

“Alright, let’s get going.” He got up and began to look around, his inventory ability at the ready. It was going to be used quite a lot.

David had no idea how to get out of this forest, but one thing was sure: he was not walking out of here without killing the yellow beast. The system talked about objectives to complete, and while he was not sure if the yellow maned, needle-riddled lion was an objective or not he knew that the thing was in the way and had to die.

A small wisp of fire appeared and disappeared soon after, useless for anything practical but definitely enough to alert the wild animal. A loud roar shook the whole forest.

He grinned.

“Showtime.”

Armed with his new spell theory, and after having constructed a possibly viable chant for something that looked like a firebolt, he knew that he could win this time. The secret, or one of the secrets that he learned, was to just tell the mana what to do. The chant was this, not much else, and there was definitely no need for grand words or stupid deities to come into play.

Again, this was what he learned from the first few lines of the monstrous book that was spell theory. It was not a complete understanding, it was not even close to being a shallow one at that, but it was all he could handle before his head started to seriously hurt. Some knowledge was just too much for his mind to handle, for now.

The beast was close now, as David could hear its steps as it ran towards him. He got up, and assumed a solemn position with his hands over his head. Then he began to chant.

“Alright, so I basically need you form a bolt, then slam into that thing over there and burn it. Is it all right by you?”

The ball of heat and fire trembled and shook, embers and sparks flying everywhere while the thick smoke permeated the air. The heat was unbearable, and David could feel his hands grow how even though he was directing the energy elsewhere.

Then, the fiery orb sped towards the animal at a speed much faster than before. It exploded on contact and showered it in bright orange flames that ignited and combusted while consuming its mane and flesh. The beast immediately went for a roll on the ground, but David was ready.

“Not so fast.” He said with a smirk.

Out of his inventory, three large boulders appeared right above the beast, which was still on the ground in an attempt to suffocate the fire. This time, however, the fire was still burning hot and scorching its mane and flesh, filling the air with the smell of burnt meat.

The boulders came crashing down, accelerating for six meters before hitting the beast in three different points. One rock hit it on the head, another landed on top of its torso while the remaining one crushed its hind legs under its weight.

David looked at the scene, in hope that his plan had been successful. And, for a moment, he really believed it was.

Then he felt a strange dizziness overcome him. “Impossible. I measured the amount of mana, or mental energy or whatever that I used… I should be fine…” He muttered to himself, but soon he was unable to even breathe, let alone talk.

It was not his magic that had left him in this state, in fact. The casting of the spell left him a bit dizzy and very tired, and he knew that after depleting almost all of his so-called mana it made sense that the consequences for the body would be harsh. But that was not it.

It was the beast. The monster. It was approaching now, menacing, grotesque and still smoking. Its eyes were bloodshot, and most of its mane was a charcoal black mess of burnt fur and meat. It was pulling itself with its forward legs, because its hind ones were immobile after they were crushed by the falling rocks.

David had failed to predict one thing, and that very thing was the reason why he was lying on the ground without moving right now.

The poison.

He had forgotten about the poison darts.

And he was about to die, again.

He didn’t want to experience the pain.

He didn’t want to have to redo all this again.

And yet…

He hoped that his death, at least, would be painless.