Chapter 345: Magic Arrows

Now that he was here and got to see the place up close, Sila discovered that the well of gold had a structure similar to a bottle with a narrow neck and a wide body. Gold coins were like a golden carpet under their feet. Even though the 99th squad’s members were incompetent, they were fully aware that the situation was serious. They clearly felt the domineering Psychic Oppression coming from the resident of the well.

Theoretically, psychic power is less outstanding compared to qi and magic power in terms of destructive power. It focuses more on synergistic effects and tricky abilities that allow the user to manipulate the system, monsters, and items. Thus, when it comes to pure pressure, the oppression that emits from a psychic-type being is more powerful than the other two energy types. Some psychic-type creatures even have special Psychic Oppression that deliver several debuffs to their opponents before the fight actually starts.

Fortunately, the King of Gold Coins didn’t have that kind of Psychic Oppression. Still, it was a Lord Rank monster. Even its normal Psychic Oppression was fatal when used against a lower-rank opponent, instilling fear into their minds. The bottom of the well was lonesome and quiet, making the sound of clattering gold coins the loudest.

The actual Devourer was at least five times larger than what Fowl had shown them. It looked like a giant fluffy ball. Its eyes were fierce and glowing yellow. Its arms and legs were thin and long, which didn’t match the creature’s body size in the slightest.

“Retreat!” Sila issued his first order. It was the most correct decision. He might be fine, but he wasn’t confident that he could protect his teammates.

They hurriedly flew back to the top of the well. However, the King of Gold Coins refused to let its prey escape. Four more arms protruded from its left shoulder. Out of a total of six arms, the Devourer pointed five of them to its opponents. On each of its arms, there was a golden chain wrapped around its wrist. The chains flew toward the five players at a speed that they couldn’t possibly outrun.

*Clang*

An identical chain appeared on each of the five’s wrists. Miki’s movements became significantly faster while the rest were forced to stop.

Realizing that the others didn’t come with her, Miki turned back. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t move!” Alpha shouted.

Millionaire’s Shackle—one of Arden’s skills—forced its opponents into a ‘slow’ state. It was a skill that could only be activated when its enemies collectively carried more than a million gold on them.

Even the flow of their power became slower, so they couldn’t properly levitate.

Sila circulated qi and found that the speed of his qi circulation was affected by Arden’s skill as well, albeit only to a small degree. He assumed that it was due to the nature of power. Psychic power was disadvantaged against qi.

“Let’s at least put some distance between us and it. Try attacking it with long-distance spells while learning its fighting pattern!” Sila shouted instructions to his teammates.

Miki and Alpha were in an awkward position since they were close-combat fighters. On the other hand, Isaac and Midnight began casting spells.

‘I only practiced magic a little in the Skills Training Ground. Hopefully it works.’

Sila clad his body with energy reinforcement. His power was a mix of three energy types, so he could make it appear as any of the three. Every player had all three energy reserves, but only a few would rely on the two non-primary energies.

An hour ago, Fowl had taught Sila how to support his body in the air using magic power. To do so, traditionally, people would shape their magic power, resonating with ambient mana, to form an invisible hand and use it to drag them around.

For those who had already attained the essence of magic, however, they could connect their magic power into ambient mana, which was the same method Montra and Quasar always used. This utilization granted the user more freedom when moving around. Instead of being carried by magic power, they became a part of mana, able to swim freely in a pool of ambient mana.

As a side note, for a psychic-type player to fight in mid-air, they would have to form a foothold out of their psychic power. Still, the magical feeling of being able to float freely in the sky, albeit a bit unstably, was addicting in a way that Sila found it difficult to describe.

Whenever Sila formed thoughts about where he wanted to be, mana would bring him there. It was something to be expected from the easiest energy type. Magic abilities were difficult at first but became easy once the user got the hang of it like children learning how to ride bicycles. All creatures who had attained the essence of magic could do this, but being good at it or not depended on their aptitude. Magic wasn’t about practicing, so putting in a lot of effort might not be helpful. To become great at using magic meant being thoughtful, capturing the right timing to unleash spells.

“Out of all spells in existence, there are two particular spells that are both beginning and finishing points. They are Magic Arrow and Magic Shield. The former is for attacking while the other is for defending. Only when you have mastered the timing of these two spells can you completely comprehend the complexity of other spells.” That was what Fowl had said to Sila during his stay in the Skills Training Ground.

The two spells were of the lowest tier that everyone, regardless of their energy type, could learn. Magic Arrow was the first skill players tended to have. As for Magic Shield, it was a spell that generated a small shield with weak defense, which proved to be difficult to make use of. It was even inferior to energy reinforcement, so the skill wasn’t popular among players.

Just the beginning of the lesson already tapped into Sila’s grave problem. Due to the racial limitation, Sila couldn’t use other kinds of magic except for Orbiting Cosmos. The other magic skills he had were item skills and Element-Changing Nightmare Magical Qi.

“You still don’t understand. Magic power is unlike qi or psychic power. Magic is nature. The greatest is no different from the lowest. All spells started as one tiny root before branching out and expanding endlessly. However, they all share the same beginning, and they all exist under the same sky..”

Firstly, Fowl taught Sila how to read ambient mana. It was an advanced technique only available to those with the essence of magic. Mastering this technique meant having a great start. In the world of Monster Soul, aside from high-level monsters, there were only a handful of players able to sense ambient mana.

Ambient mana was a treasure that nature gave away for free. Those with the higher Unison Percentage had the right to take it first.

You practiced qi to develop qi and acknowledged yourself to strengthen psychic power. However, for magic power, you became one with it.

Fowl didn’t explain further than this, though she did tell him that there were still many ways in which he could grow. Not only did Sila fail to understand the importance of the essence of magic, but he also had a half-baked understanding of the essence of qi and the essence of psychic.

The complexity of “Fusion”, “Unison”, and “Creativity” was far deeper than what Sila believed them to be. Nevertheless, Fowl refused to tell him more since their lesson was supposed to be about levitation.

It took Sila half an hour to learn how to levitate and another half to learn Magic Arrow. There is a saying about Magic Arrow, that it is a skill that even a dumb monkey can use as long as it possesses the skill and enough magic power reserves.

“Anyone can ‘use’ it, but being able to make full use of it is a totally different matter,” Fowl said to Sila.

Using Magic Arrow efficiently is like shooting a gun efficiently. Anyone with enough finger strength can fire a bullet from the gun, but the hard part is hitting your target accurately and neutralising them with the least amount of bullets.

Being able to read ambient mana was just the start of how to become one with magic. Every molecule of mana would change itself to match the kind of magic skills that someone around them was about to trigger. Still, a lot of experience was required to comprehend what the mana is doing.

Sila hardly spotted a difference when Fowl demonstrated various kinds of Magic Arrow. In fact, he never really ‘saw’ ambient mana. Fowl said to Sila that Magic’s Unison meant becoming one with magic. She said he had to give some part of his power to nature, and nature will respond in kind, giving him a part of it back. The cycle of magic was give and take. Trying to selfishly extract mana from nature was, by itself, an incomplete cycle.

Magic power poured out from Sila’s body, densely. With regards to the display of power, magic power was very different from psychic power or qi. It always alerted the surroundings as soon as the user tried to activate it. For Sila, who was rather keen on concealment, it made him feel awkward every time he used it.

Fowl added that, at an advanced level, although a magic user still couldn’t conceal their power, there existed a method to blend their power with their surroundings. There was also an option of using a specific spell that focused on concealment. Nevertheless, she noted that Sila shouldn’t try to run before he could walk.

Borrowing mana was a part of Heaven's Decree Sword Art, so Sila got a hang of how to do it relatively easily. The difficult part was he usually borrowed the power to deliver an attack. Never once did he borrow the mana in order to unite himself with it.

Back to the fight against Arden, the King of Gold Coins, Sila’s magic power that he had sent out slowly resonated with ambient mana and returned to him. Suddenly, his vision became brighter as if he had broken through a bottleneck and received profound enlightenment. The ambient mana seemed like it was alive. An incomprehensible feeling rushed into his mind.

He extended his hand, firing four magic arrows toward Arden.

Sila’s magic arrows weren’t ordinary. They came from the item skill: Artifact Manifestation. Fowl had taught Sila how to unleash the spell without chanting, simply making use of the property of the power instead of the completed spell.

Some magic users weren’t good at chants, such as Revin. They would extract a part of their spells to directly use it without chanting. This method was faster, but the output of the spell would naturally become weaker. The spell would also lose most of its special attributes.

The decrease of output was supposed to be severe, though there was an exception. “Magic” held ranks in high regard and was stable, unlike psychic power. Sila had the essence of magic, so he was considered elite in the world of magic. The output of his Artifact Manifestation only fell by twenty percent when he omitted the chant. They might lose their special options, but the spell itself was already powerful.

This meant if he properly chanted “Artifact Manifestation”, the spell would generate a magical object, which could be stored in his system window. The object would sometimes come with special options, such as the Seven Luminaries Arrow or the Thousand Ruptures Axe. However, if he omitted the chant, the spell would only generate an elemental magic arrow. It was still more powerful than an ordinary magic arrow though.

All four magic arrows flew slowly as they approached their target. Sila discovered that since the arrows weren’t classified as objects, his passive skill—Hidden Weapon Mastery—wouldn’t affect them, resulting in poorer accuracy and speed.

There was also the effect of Millionaire’s Shackle, which made Sila’s arrows become significantly slower. Arden shifted their trajectories with ease using Psychic Manipulation, making them miss their target completely. It curled up and rolled its body toward Sila’s team in the same manner as a steamroller.

Sila glanced at his teammates to see Miki and Alpha protecting Midnight and Isaac, who were still casting their spells. He realized that Arden’s shackles also slowed casting times. Sila was the only one who could move relatively fine, chantlessly firing magic arrows.

The previous first batch of magic arrows was for gauging the distance. Sila had never used magic arrows on a moving target before. In fact, he had just learned how to fire magic arrows an hour ago. He was curious about the difference between magic arrows, moving objects through psychic power, and firing qi-strengthened hidden weapons.

Thanks to Flaming Cloud Qi’s Cloud Part, Sila could spot the differences in no time.

Firing a hidden weapon through qi was like shooting an object with a mini launcher. The object could be anything. The destructive force depended on how well the user flicked the object away. Cladding the object with qi reinforcement would also increase the power.

As for moving an object with psychic power, Sila had experienced it by executing Lookhin’s Oceanic Mind. He still clearly remembered the feeling of that time. With this method, the user could finely control an object similar to moving their arms. The object could fly in a straight line, zigzag, stay still, and more. However, it lacked the destructive power. That was the reason why psychic type players tended to use bombs as their projectiles.

Lastly, a magic arrow was like a rocket with pre-determined capabilities. The spellcaster had to define the target and the amount of power, then the magic arrow would manifest according to them. Thus, the casting process was the most important. Once fired, the user could no longer control it. Though that meant they could shift their focus to their next spells without caring about the arrow anymore.

Because of this, magic arrows excel at one particular aspect, which the other two energy types can’t replicate: overwhelming the enemy with numbers.

There was no need to be wary of qi deviation or psychic power going out of control.

Easy and safe. These were good qualities of magic power.

Now that Sila had realized the excellence of magic, he no longer tried to control the arrows’ trajectories. He manifested fifty wind magic arrows. Think, define, and release. That was all it took. The magic arrows would do their jobs themselves. He didn’t even need them to achieve something complex. Just flying forward was enough.

The wind arrows got their energy from Orbiting Cosmos. Together, they completely covered Sila, presenting themselves as a spiky wall. They flew in a straight line toward Arden, bombarding it.

For a healthy Lord Rank psychic-type monster, each of these arrows was nothing more than a tiny needle. Nevertheless, now that there were so many of them, they weren’t something Arden could scoff at.

Alpha and Miki were stunned. They had been playing the game for a long time, but had never witnessed anyone capable of firing so many magic arrows simultaneously. They, too, were capable of firing magic arrows. However, the most they could fire at the same time was three. The most they had seen someone else did was around ten.

Magic Arrow was among the first few spells players acquired. As they progressed through the game, there were many offensive long-distance skills for them to choose from such as Fireball, Earth Spike, or Ice Lance, so Magic Arrow soon became isolated as it lacked power and complexity. It was only popular among new players, using it as a diversion. No one at a high level would bother to execute it.

Unbeknownst to them, Sila was capable of casting many more. However, the well had a narrow space and the amount of ambient mana was low, so he couldn’t manifest more than he did. If it was an open area, he believed he could muster at least ten thousand arrows at the same time.

A part of the reason he could do that many was due to the fact that he could freely borrow mana from nature. He was the sole being with the essence of magic in this place. If there were other beings with higher Unison Percentage than him, however, he would have to rely on his own magic power. In that case, the most he could muster would be around a hundred magic arrows at the same time.

“Midnight, attack it with offensive spells. Isaac, try to disturb its actions. Miki and Alpha, you two are our defense line. Don’t engage in the battle unless I give you a signal,” Sila ordered as such because he knew dark element magic was potent in its offensive capability while Isaac’s plant summoning magic seemed to be useful as diversion.

“Roger, Leader,” Alpha replied to assure Sila that they understood the command.

Sila’s assault would have been more versatile if he had supporting skills such as Magic Delay. For now, however, he opted to fire another batch of fifty magic arrows to stall for time and observe Arden’s reactions. Wind magic arrows were normally fast, but they were affected by Arden’s Millionaire’s Shackle, resulting in mediocre speed.

Arden resisted the magic arrow’s bombardment while opening its palm, striking at Sila from a long distance. Its Psychic Impact had an incredibly long reach. It hit Sila and sent him flying backward, crashing into the wall behind him.

—Bang!!

Sila’s body got buried underneath the stone rubble. Witnessing the scene, Miki was shocked. “Leader!!”

Attacks from Lord Rank monsters are naturally deadly. The impact seemed so powerful that Alpha almost abandoned his post and went to help Sila. Still, he was fully aware that he couldn’t do much. Arden’s Psychic Impact could have killed him in one hit.

There was a certain fact that the 99th squad members were unaware of, however. While Sila’s magic wasn’t effective against Arden, Arden’s psychic power also had little effect on Sila.

The first reason was that Sila was Lord Rank, similar to Arden. Their ranks were the same, so Sila wasn’t bothered by the domineering pressure of Arden’s Psychic Oppression.

The other reason was that Sila was qi-type. Magic power was weak against psychic power, so his spells were ineffective. On the other hand, his body was clad with qi reinforcement, so Arden’s attack hardly worked on him.

‘Magic’s levitation is so slow. It can’t keep up with my thoughts. If I had been relying on qi, dodging that would’ve been much easier. Still, Revin’s speed was very fast. This means there are some tricks behind it that I don’t know yet,’ Sila thought as he pulled himself out of the wall. Movements through magic power required him to form a thought beforehand, unlike qi which mostly relied on intuition, so he felt rather uncomfortable.

Through psychic perception, Arden realized that its previous attack didn’t work on Sila. Three more arms protruded from its body, creating yet another three golden shackles. The same shackles also formed around Sila’s right arm and both legs, meaning now he had a total of four of them on.

‘It can even use the same skill on the same target, huh?’

Sila clearly felt the slowness of his body. His movements became so sluggish that they were like slow motion. The Arden in his vision wasn’t as slow as him, however. It seemed it had realized who was the real threat that must be eliminated first. It rolled toward Sila at a speed that was like teleportation, baring its nine claws against its opponent.