A Jaded Life Chapter 767

Looting the tea store was even more worthwhile than I had ever imagined.

As soon as we reached our lair after the successful looting, I decided to brew myself a cup of tea. I wanted to see just how good a tea needed to be to command such a, at least in my eyes, ridiculous price. Maybe it was one of those rich-people things, where they didn’t buy the tea for the taste but for the price-tag, to show their rich compatriots just how much money they could waste on expensive tea. Or maybe so sort of money laundering sche, allowing them to funnel money elsewhere while justifying it with the excuse that the tea was just that expensive.

That might even have been the case before the change but now, after the Astral River had infused our world, the tea I had taken from the store was truly sothing special. Just brewing it had unleashed a faint dual fragrance, the scent of tea blending with the scent of magic, making it obvious that the change hadn’t passed the leaves by. They had been changed, just as much as I had, and the scent was mouthwateringly good.

My first sip was a cautious one, even if the scent alone made want to gulp the tea down as quickly as possible. There was no telling just what the inclusion of magic into the blend might have done to the tea, just because the scent, and thus likely taste, was delicious didn’t an that it was healthy to drink. After thoroughly scanning it with my magic sight, I was confident that a single sip wouldn’t kill but I wasn’t about to be careless. It would be the height of irony if I managed to kill myself because I was baited by a delicious tea. Amusing enough to make laugh all the way to the afterlife but not sothing I was about to risk. And so, I remained vigilant and limited myself to a single small sip.

And what a sip it was. I let it linger on my tongue for a bit, thoroughly tasting it as shivers of delight ran across my body and I only just managed to suppress a moan of pleasure at the taste. It was, without a doubt, the best tea I had ever tasted, maybe the best thing, period. Light, yet flavourful, akin to a cool breeze during a hot sumr day, the first petals of spring in the air. It made want to wax poetically or try to sing, despite an utter lack of talent for either. In regards to negative effects, no matter how I focused my senses inwards, no matter how I scanned and tried to find any, I failed. Maybe the tea really was safe, the only effect I could detect was an increase in the amount of Astral Power I was regaining. Not a trendous increase, but it was enough to be noticeable.

Letting my breath out slowly, it almost turned into a content sigh. The tea was incredible and I had to keep myself from imdiately taking another sip. Instead, I closed my eyes and kept an eye on the processes within myself, mostly using my Blood Magic but also my ordinary magical perception. I could feel how traces of sothing were absorbed into my body and I was reasonably certain that they didn’t harm , but what they actually did, I had no idea.

For so five minutes, I kept a very close eye on my internal processes, until my vigilance was satisfied. Sure, after that point I continued my watch for another five minutes, to satisfy my paranoia as well but once that, too, was satisfied I took another sip. And kept drinking it, until the entire pot was empty.

As I slept the morning away, I had once more strange dreams, with faint sensations, almost as if sothing was calling . There were so strange images, nothing but outlines, but I thought they might be a ritual circle, maybe runes or maybe I was just imagining things. I wasn’t sure and I couldn’t be sure, not unless I got a better view of what I had seen. Or maybe imagined, when I tried drawing the images I had seen in the morning, it might have been a Rorschach test for all I could glean from it.

Putting those aside, I made myself another pot of tea and kept working on my magic, closing my eyes to delve into the Astral River to find myself a new Ice Rune. There were a few I really wanted to regain, Shatter, Hard Ice and Icicle, all were interesting and sowhat important. Letting myself drift in the Astral I began to consider, my mind going over the different concepts as I considered what would be best. There were other runes I rembered but I doubted I would be able to learn them just yet. Stillness had always been a rather transcendental concept, while things like Liquid Moonlight were based on experintation, lesser runes and understanding. I could rember the feeling of it, but I lacked the power to produce the feeling, I would have to regain more of my power before I could reach for those stronger runes. Even reaching for Hard Ice would be a stretch and not necessarily a beneficial one.

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Shatter would give incredible damage against any fleshy targets that could be penetrated with my Ice, the explosive force of an Icicle shattering within a target was one of the deadliest weapons within my arsenal. Even just shattering Icicles in the air, turning them into razor-sharp shrapnel to rip into my foes was quite dangerous, though far less deadly.

Hard Ice was the straight upgrade to my Ice, giving a higher density, both magical and mundane, while opening a few interesting things up, like better weapons for myself.

Icicle was an outlier, as it was a concept I had never finalised as a rune on Mundus. There, I had rely used Hard Ice as material for my attacks, turning the Hard Ice into frozen spears with my Ice Magic. Gaining the Rune would increase my magical efficiency by quite a bit, but would also limit my options sowhat. In addition, I would have to consider which of the Ice Runes I had learned on Mundus would be discarded, though the Torpor rune was a good contender. If I wanted to send an opponent to sleep, Mind Magic was simply the better option.

Letting my magic flow freely, I weighed the different runes, feeling the ebb and flow within , within the Astral and trying to let both rational thought and instinct guide . Ultimately, I settled on the Icicle Rune.

Within the Astral, I could feel how an Icicle slowly grew, drawn into its sharp, almost fang-like shape as ti passed. Sharpened by ti itself, until heaven send them plumting to the ground, akin to a javelin piercing any target that was unlucky enough to be in the way. The rune wasn’t gentle, nor complicated it was a simple concept that would serve a single purpose.

It might not be the rune with the greatest impact or potential for direct growth but I had a good feeling about the combination of Icicle and Blizzard. It wouldn’t be the Frozen Javelin I had commonly used on Mundus, it would be sothing bigger, sothing stronger. If I managed to push myself in regards to the Hard Ice Rune, maybe even managing to learn it without delving into the Astral River for it, I would likely have the strongest single-target piercing spell I would get for a while. A workhorse, sothing that I could take and use for a long, long ti as my go-to weapon. Just what I wanted and hopefully, sothing that would allow to fight to my full potential.

Opening my eyes, I took another sip of tea, letting the pleasant taste flood through , before I moved into the area we had designated as our training and experintation room. Lia was hard at work, once again pushing herself physically, but when I entered she took a break, watching what I did.

Drawing the runes with practised movents, I quickly ford a simple three-rune formation, using the freshly acquired Icicle Rune, a Blizzard Rune to give things direction before adding an Ice Rune to round things out. The three runes flashed with my power the mont they were completed and an Icicle about the size of my arm shot out, leaving a faintly glittering trace in the air before crashing into the wall with a brutal crunch. I hadn’t put enough oomph into the spell to damage the wall, but just from the noise, could tell that the spell had quite the impact.

“A new creation, Mistress?” Lia quietly asked, looking a little awestruck.

“Sothing new, yes,” I nodded, briefly studying her body, “But it is nothing I need to experint with at the mont, would you like to observe your forms, give you a few hints? We have more than enough ti, and I believe if I give you a bit of blood later, you should be ready to go during the night.”

The only answer I got to my suggestion was a gleeful squeal, before Lia threw herself back into her training, with sitting nearby, watching my student move. There was a strange feeling within my chest, warm, almost glowing, as I observed her growth. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew I liked it.