A Jaded Life Chapter 192

I had to chuckle to myself, the final edit of the advertisent I had fild looked quite good. I was having so second thoughts about my actions, but from a purely artistic point-of-view, I was quite happy with my creation. And not just artistically - it was also what I had intended from a ta-gaming perspective and even, to use an overused label, from a propaganda point-of-view. What I had created pointed clearly to the darker aspects of Road to Purgatory, sothing I wanted to, well, advertise, even with the advertisent featuring a slave-gladiator, but it would also serve as a great red herring.

The previous clips of mostly featured the tis I had used my ice-magic to create mist and a few clips of using my weapons, only the one of Sigmir and saving Lenore all that ti back and one or two of those I had uploaded had any actual Ice-Magic, aning icicles and similar attacks or more than a slight hint of Darkness-Magic. Especially Darkness-Magic was nigh impossible to spot from recordings, even I had difficulties seeing the hints of its use, and that was with knowing what to look for and knowing that it was there to look at. No, an outsider looking at the clips and would likely assu that I was a necromancer, using so sort of mist or gas to carry the necrotic effects of my magic. It seed that so sort of delivery chanism was quite important for necromantic magics, similar to my blood magic, needing either direct application or so carrier. Additionally, I hoped that most would look at the advertisent and assu that it was made to show off, featuring my biggest and baddest magic, instead of a failed experint.

Because, sadly, that was what it was; the magic Lenore and I had used had a limited purpose, a very limited one at that. It was great to kill far weaker beings and spread terror, especially the second part - in that, it might be the supre magic. The only thing worse I could imagine was so sort of wide-range, mind-altering effect that added cannibalistic and berserker-effects to those afflicted while leaving their mories intact. But even that might not bring the sa amount of terror as to see your loved ones, especially the weakest ones, aning the children, be snuffed out by a cold mist only to rise again, hungering for your flesh.

Other than as a terror-weapon it was useless, as two survivors in the village proved. Luckily Adra and Rai had been vigilant and killed them before they could flee, but even those two hadn’t been stronger than Lenore and I, they had been mid-level fifty, failing to wipe them out in the area-of-effect attack was just that, failure. So, Lenore and I would have to look at the magic again, either discard it or change it further to make it useful.

But I wondered if we should even try to make the magic stronger, more useful.

After Lenore and I had recorded the speaking-clips for the advertisent, we had waited for night to fall and snuck into the village under the cover of darkness. While Lenore had been unaffected by what we had found there, I was not. Even now, in the real world, without the much more intimate feelings for the world of Mundus I had in the ga world, I was asking myself if, maybe, just maybe, there was sothing like “evil” magic. Sure, I could argue that magic was just a tool and all that, but the images of young orcs, not more than children, killed and raised by the magic, it made wonder. Was there a good application for that tool? Or was that particular tool a purely evil one? I had shied away from going into the buildings, knowing that, if there had been younger children or toddlers, they would be there, dead in their cribs and beds, maybe gnawed on by their zombified relatives.

Outside the ga, I could argue with myself, that if we strengthened it, we would be able to use it as an actual attack, against enemies that were of similar strength to us - that it was an attack that would work great against enemies that believed that quantity was the only quality they needed, but just rembering what I had felt in that village, made a mockery of that.

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With so ntal effort, I forced my mind away from the mories of that place and of the nightmares I had suffered, not only directly after the ritual but in the night after, the nightmares that had made log out, just an hour ago. I had edited the advertisent, arguing with myself that I already had the footage and it would be foolish not to use it.

Maybe there were better ways to use my magic, maybe I could find sothing better.

With those thoughts, I imrsed myself in the hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours recorded by beta-testers. I could only access what was open to the public which was a lot less now that it was generally known to be possible to block access, but still quite a few had uploaded things.

As my only search-filter was that I wanted to see magic, the amount was reduced but not by much. There were still thousands of clips, but I was looking for inspiration, so I picked one, more or less at random, and started watching.

The first clip I saw was rather simple, the viewpoint was of a guildmage, according to the title, and he simply moved after so sort of knight or paladin and fired small, flaming spheres that clung to the target, like so sort of magical napalm. They didn’t splash around, making them good single-target attacks but sadly, the whole casting was done with a simple command of “Flaming Orb” and a glowing wand, making it rather pointless for . I watched a little longer, but other than a flaming sphere, which was the bigger, area of effect version the mage used when multiple enemies went for them, there was nothing more to find.

The next clip was of another guild-mage and I only watched about thirty seconds of him repeating Water Orb, firing a - who would have thought - water orb at his enemies, that looked just like the Flaming Orb, though the additional damage-effect looked slightly corrosive, like so sort of acid.

I had a feeling that I would be at it for quite a while.

About five hours later, I waved away the screen and wanted to hit my head against a table, wall or any hard surface, really.

The vast majority of clips I had seen used similar thods, they had so sort of tool, like the wand of the guild-mages and used an activation-command to cast their magic. Others used only a chant, which was similarly just an activation-command, just in another language, wasn’t it? Maybe with so sort of gesture, but not always, and much longer than the simple one-word commands used with wands and the like. Which explained why the longer chants were used for non-combat magic, things like warming food, lighting a campfire or nding small tears in clothes, for those it hardly mattered if the cast took a second or two or if it took a full minute. But in combat, that made a difference.

However, that vast majority was not what made feel like an utter moron. No, that was reserved for one of the few Sorcerer-clips I had found, a clip featuring so demon in the desert, hunting with fire-magic. The magic was not vastly different from the magic used by guild-mages, just that he wasn’t using a wand, or activation-words. It had taken a minute to realise what he was doing and only because I had seen sothing similar before.

He had a bracelet, made from leather and stones around his hand and used his magic simply by pointing his right hand at the enemy and a fiery projectile shot out. After a few of those, I finally realised that the stones in his bracelet were Rune Stones, like those I had gotten right at the beginning, when I had landed in Mundus. Just that mine had strict limits on how fast they could absorb Astral Power, making unable to use them for more than completing a single spell before they needed to be recharged.

The sorcerer in the clip was obviously not hampered by that, maybe due to better rune-stones, maybe due to better skills, I wasn't sure. But he was able to complete his magic with only a tiny delay, sothing that would improve my combat-capabilities by a lot, if I could copy his style. I had been too tunnel-visioned on using so great, eternal-ice made spell-focus that allowed to use all my spells without effort. And I would love to have so sort of universal-focus, that allowed to safely use attacks like the one I had used against the end-boss of the glacier-dungeon, but it was just not realistic with my current skill.

I made a ntal note to acquire so rune-stones in the next city, enough to inscribe my favourite Icicle-Spell and maybe so darkness, anti-magic effect for the other arm.