Arcanist In Another World-Chapter 4: Wicked and Absurd

Valens turned with his bones groaning and joints cracking, already preparing another Fireball to deal with the bunch. A pair of them shambling forward. Clacking their jaws in a way that sounded like a sort of twisted laughter. Hissing through rotten teeth with their eye sockets shining painfully empty.

It seemed this quest was physical in nature just as it was magical. Having a Magus play the warrior could be an amusing notion had the subject of it not been Valens. He’d pay to see a fellow disciple of arcane have a go at a group of soldiers.

Himself, not much.

But he’d grown accustomed to a degree of bad luck lately, and he’d learned how to respond.

He raised his head and gave them a weighing look, remembering how the last pair reacted to his spell. One of them had lost a leg to the fire while the other proved a touch more resilient, and if he had to guess it must be something about the difference between the numbers that hovered over their heads. One of them was Level 8, and the other Level 6.

“So you’re helping me out by letting me know about it, eh?” Valens muttered. “I suppose I must appreciate the gesture.”

So then, these new ones were stronger. A Level 11 and a Level 10. Didn’t look much different except they had fancied a pair of rusted swords rather than spears. That was good. Ask any soldier worth his training about the ancient weapons, then likely he’d say a spear is a better weapon than a sword. Easier to use, for one. Had more reach and a nasty, sharp tip.

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There was one thing that made him pause. The mana well in his chest had dwindled somewhat with the use of Fireballs, and it wasn’t renewing fast enough to keep up with the output. By the size of it, if he were to deplete all the source, it would take about an hour and a half for it to get back to full.

He had to pay attention to the amount he was using for his spells, as for some reason he couldn’t reach out to the ambient mana around him to replenish the source — or rather, he couldn’t use the ambient mana at all. He couldn’t accelerate the speed at which it spilled into his own mana source, which boggled his mind.

That wasn’t how magic worked. The notion that he was limited as to how he could use mana didn’t quite sit with the fact that he had his own mana source now. What was the reason for it, exactly, when you had all the mana in the world?

Questions for later, he presumed, as the skeleton pair came stumbling closer. He lifted the Fireball, and was about to fling it when he caught something strange in his sound vision. Resonance showed him other outlines, cadavers that followed the first pair… a dozen of them.

Trouble was, these ones seemed faster and stronger.

That decided it. Valens turned, without giving another look to the first pair, to his back and started the other way that the draft pushed him on. Through the sloping cave, that rotten stench heavy on his back, bare feet bleeding and catching the odd sharp stone that dug painful little holes particularly round his right foot.

He didn’t have the time to stop and manage a Lifesurge to heal them both. He picked up speed, sweat dripping down his chin. His breaths came out in short, quick gasps as he tried to open up some distance with the creatures.

The wet, slippery ground slowly gave way to a blanket of moss, covering every inch of the cave. He slipped and slid over the sticky moss, air hissing in his throat. He stumbled and nearly fell, caught a stone protruding from the wall and hauled himself back to his feet.

He came to a skittering stop when a pair of skeletons appeared a moment after, both of them holding rusted spears in their hands. Hollowed eyes stared blankly at him for a second before they leapt and thrust at him.

Valens jumped back. He sent a Fireball loose toward the pair of them and called for another one, doubling over when pain flared alive all over his chest. He cursed. The creatures were swaying there in his path, trying to brush the flames off from their bones, failing desperately. The Fireball was still alive, a beast of its own, stretching its tongues across the gaps of their bones.

That was when the crowd of cadavers behind his back caught up to him. Valens gave them a cold glance, then back at the burning pair before him. He clenched his teeth as he decided to risk it. He didn’t have enough mana to deal with this crowd, and he didn’t know what would happen if his source depleted completely.

He shielded his head with his left arm, running past the burning pair with his heart thumping in his chest. A bony hand tried to jerk him back, left a smoldering patch of pain round his arm when Valens managed to whisk himself free. Then he was off, a crowd of animated corpses by his tail, an endless cave stretching before him.

You have managed to defeat [Skeleton - lvl 11]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

You have managed to defeat [Skeleton - lvl 9]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

You have leveled up! 5 Stat Points granted!

“Shit,” he cursed when the words appeared once again, as if mocking him. “You’re one sick bastard!”

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Valens found an odd pocket in the cave barely wide enough to wedge himself in after dealing with a number of those skeletons. His arms and legs were covered in nicks, pain stinging dully in the back of his mind as he managed a Blockage around the mouth of the cave to block the air flowing out of the pocket.

Ding! You have learned the Class Skill ‘Blockage - ‘Master’. Do you want to register it in one of your skill slots?

“You’re enjoying this, aren't you?” he muttered with a frown when the words appeared, waving them off as one might swat away an annoying fly.

This mad Magus was playing with him, and only burdened himself with a sentence or two to tell him about things that appeared to be obvious. Valens tried to ask him a dozen times to see if he’d respond, but so far the only thing he got close to a conversation were these strange words.

He mopped at his face and winced his way to the back wall of the pocket, sat groaning down to the mossy ground, pulling the tails of his robe over his legs against the cold. It was always cold and wet in the cave, not that he expected anything else from it.

As far as he’d seen, the cadavers reacted to his presence not just by sight alone, but also by the smell of his sweat and blood. So hopefully the Blockage would give him some time to think and breathe.

This simple spell was often used by Wind Magi especially during their monthly sewage cleaning duties. They wrapped the currents of wind around their mouths and noses, fixing the mana threads in a tight web that acted as a sort of filter. Valens just extended the spell's reach enough to cover the pocket.

That done, he finally allowed himself a rest.

It pained him that he couldn’t take one of the bags they’d prepared for the journey before the Inquisition's dogs barged in. All that food, and water, and that soft, heavenly sleeping blanket. The lute he’d recently purchased with the money he’d saved. The key to his house in case one day they could return and go back to their lives.

They all reminded him of one thing. Home. That was where he left his past, abandoned his Master to the claws of those bastards, left the only man he had close to a father there all alone. His friends and students in the Institute. That family with their sick daughter who’d come for the second round of her remedy. The orphanage that he visited each week to make sure the kids were safe and sound. The Empire that he called home for as long as he could remember.

Nothing but this bloody cave over his head now. He wasn’t sure how he should feel about any of that.

Apathy tingled over his mind, promising relief from his worries. Ever the useful net, managed across his emotions like a filter. It was a must-learn trick for any of the Life Magi out there. The weight of the job, his Master used to say, left them no other choice but to rely on it.

Muting the thoughts to focus on the patients. Silencing everything in order to become a useful gear in the machine that swallowed the world as a whole that was the Empire.

Valens smiled, but it was a crooked smile that lacked any heart. He then felt the weight of the Apathy over his mind as he lifted his robe to check his wounds.

He quested for lifemana inside his chest, clicked his tongue at how in no time it curled around his fingers. There was too much of it in the air, unlike the scarce source he grew up with in the Empire. Here the abundance of all kinds of mana, be it the life or death, and even void mana, made him realize he was truly in a different world.

So he worked the mana into a pair of ethereal scalpels, the Lifesurge coming to form with barely an effort from his end. Unlike the Fireball, which was a spell decisively well in the boundaries of Warmagic, a Lifesurge had no spell formula. Managed solely by a Life Magus’ control over mana, these scalpels were often used to operate on any wound with perfect precision.

Just to be sure, Valens pulled out a gemstone as well, clutching it tight in his hand. He was about to use it as a Ward to feel out the frequencies of the wounds when he paused. There was a suspicion crawling over the nape of his neck, and this seemed like a good time to test out the theory.

Instead of using the gemstone as a Ward, a tool to track the frequencies of more delicate areas, he called for a Lifeward as one may call a spell formula out of their mind.

The Resonance of his body screamed with scattered gaps all across his skin, outlining every nick and scratch that he’d gotten through the chase, showing him how deep either one went and how serious they needed tending.

“Absurd,” Valens breathed out, gawking down at his bare hands. The Lifeward came to him, with such ease that he didn’t know if he should feel afraid or awed.

There was a reason why Life Magi used a Ward for any operations. Relying on the Resonance itself was technically possible for Life Archmagi, but the disciples and assistants couldn’t hear the frequencies of the world without the use of a Ward. Even the Life Archmagi like Valens had the habit of using a Lifeward to make sure they were getting a clear, uninterrupted rhythm from the wound.

But now, he could manage a Lifeward without any external help. This… could change things. A lot.

“Is this you?” Valens then asked, when he was reminded of those words. “Is this what you were meaning to say when you told me that I’ve learned these skills? That I can use them without relying on anything other than my mind, anymore?”

He shuddered. He must be dealing with an Archmagus here, one that had a terrible grasp over the frequencies. But how? Other than Life Magi, nobody could hear the Resonance of the world, not even the rest of the Archmagi in their respectable fields!

Valens still remembered that one time when he managed a Gravitating Earth just for the show of it, lifting a part of the ground to patch a gap on the wall as a dozen Earth Magi watched in awe, eyes gone red with envy.

While they had to inscribe the spell formula over the ground with conductive ink, and guide the currents of earth mana slowly, painfully as though they were carrying a delicate glass frame over the tip of their fingers, Valens had done it by simply adjusting the frequencies of the ground to fit into that particular gap.

The rest was, well, magic. A perfectly cut block had lifted off the solid ground, and patched itself into the gap. With minute precision. He’d barely shed a single drop of sweat during the process.

But then, they didn’t know much about Void Archmagi, right? Those were gone, when the First of the Magi sealed the Void. Why would he only seal that particular source while letting the other ones remain?

That was the mystery of it. The whys and hows that many a Magus had spent years just to understand.

“Very well,” Valens said after a moment of silence. He understood it, now. He had to complete this trial to get those answers. He couldn’t wait to meet with this fellow Archmagi of his.

*Ding! [Lifesurge(Master) : 1 > 2]

*Ding! [Lifeward(Master) : 1 > 2]

“Hah!” Valens smiled at the words, then checked the Blockage spell to make sure it was holding well. He suspected the trial would keep pushing him, and pushing him hard, so he might as well get some sleep while he had the chance.

It came right away.

….