Chapter 129
After the battle all of the guards took a break to recover from the fight and secure the area. I wasn't the only one that leveled and it was pretty obvious based on all the people who were standing around staring into space. There weren't any casualties and it didn't take long for Bella to patch up the few people who had gotten so minor injuries, so everyone was in good spirits.
"How about you guys? Did all of you level too?" I turned to my friends to see that glassy look in their eyes as well.
All of them nodded, there were smiles all around.
Torien stopped staring into space and looked over at . "That thing must have out-leveled us by quite a bit, I got more than one main level."
"Any new interesting skills or spells?" I asked.
"Mmm, my class has been leaning towards a scout role for a while now. It seems clearing out rooms while watching for demons has influenced the new skill I got. It's an ability that helps better at spotting clues, tracks, or anything out of place. Pretty useful considering so of the reasons we ca here in the first place."
I nodded. "That's true. How about you Bella?"
She blinked a few tis before turning to . "Ah, I actually got two new abilities related to healing. Until now a lot of the abilities have been focused on nature control, things like [Entangling Roots], but I've been healing so much lately I got two new abilities related to that. I was hoping I would get a more powerful healing spell but instead, I got sothing that lets heal multiple people at once and sothing that lets heal at range. Probably more useful for the kind of stuff we usually do so I'm quite happy about it."
Morrigan shoulder-bumped . "How about you?"
I laughed. "I actually haven't looked yet."
"Then stop bothering us and look!" She grinned and pushed away.
"Alright, alright." I smiled and brought the notifications back up.
[Your level has increased from level 41 to level 42]
[Novice Magic Swordsman has increased from level 9 to level 10]
[Luck Magic has increased from level 1 to level 6]
[Light Magic has increased from level 9 to level 10]
[Light Manipulation has increased from level 9 to level 12]
One main level and one class level. Not bad considering my participation was mainly relegated to support. I wasn't sure how strong the guards we fought with were but I was sure they were above our level. I can usually tell based on that weird feeling Silva told about but there are so many of them and they're close enough in level to that it's harder to tell. Mimi probably knows but I'm not actually interested enough to ask.
I got five levels in luck magic, another in light magic, and three more in light manipulation. I did a lot of on-the-fly modifications of my light magic, so that makes sense. I think what I did with fireflies and the light beam was probably my most significant contribution to the fight so it's not a surprise that I leveled in both of those related skills. I'm pretty sure most of the experience I gained in luck magic was because it was the first ti I used it in combat not because it was all that useful in the sche of things. Five levels aren't anything to complain about though.
[Learned Enhancent Magic Spell Light Imbue]
[Learned Light Magic Spell Light Ward]
[Learned Luck Magic Spell A Touch of Good Luck]
[Light Imbue - Enchantnt Magic Spell]
Imbue a weapon or object with Light magic making it glow and apply light damage when it hits enemies. Light Imbue can only damage dark and shadow aligned enemies. The strength of the enchantnt is increased by Magic Force and the duration of the enchantnt is increased by Magic Control. Larger weapons and objects take a proportionally larger amount of magic to enchant. Light Imbue can be applied to others' weapons but the wielder of the weapon determines who is considered an enemy for the purposes of this spell. The effects of objects imbued with light vary.
Very similar to [Fla Imbue] but arguably a worthless variant. There could be subtle benefits to [Light Imbue] such as heatless glowing items and it should be more helpful against other shadow and dark monsters, but past that, the applications seem minimal.
[Light Ward - Light Magic Spell]
Create a pane of light that can block or deflect physical and magic damage. Strength of the barrier is affected by Magic Force and Magic Control. Brightness and size are affected by Magic Force. Color, shape, and range are affected by Magic Control. Light Ward is weak against shadow and dark-aligned attacks.
Now this seems like a good spell. This is the first spell I've gotten that's had any kind of defensive properties, everything until now has been either offensive or utility-focused. Feeling out the spell, I could also tell that I would have a decent amount of control over how the spell looked as well.
I cast the spell in front of and a simple slightly glowing pane of blue glass-like light appeared. There was sothing amusing about creating the quintessential status window as the first thing I did with the ability. I obviously didn't actually put my status on it, I wasn't stupid, but I was able to write so text and display it on the pane of light by combining it with my [Light Signal] spell.
"Oh Lilith! What's that?" Morrigan ca right over, looking intrigued by my experintation.
"It's my new ability, [Light Ward] it lets create a defensive barrier. I'm ssing around and combining it with [Light Signal]."
Torien looked at incredulously. "You get a barrier spell and the first thing you do with it isn't, you know, block an attack. It's write a ssage on it?"
"Tori! Knock it off, I like it when Lilith experints with her magic. She's been able to do so neat stuff with it. And despite what a lot of people have said about the usefulness of light magic, that last fight went as smoothly as it did because of her ability to adapt her light magic spells." Morrigan looked cute defending like that.
"I'm not trying to discourage her from experinting. It's just so like her to ss around like that." Torien shrugged.
Bella sighed. "As long as she doesn't do it while we're relaxing I'm fine. When she first got her light magic she started giving a headache with how much she was making it shine and fly around the room. When she started making rainbows flash all over the book I was reading I had to ask her to stop."
I laughed. "Yeah! I rember that. I was so excited to use magic for the first ti that I wanted to figure out everything I could about it. I was ssing around so much that I ended up unlocking [Light Manipulation] through that. I'm really glad I did though, it's allowed to do a lot more with my light magic than I could have without it."
Morrigan nodded in agreent. "Many mages neglect magic control and the associated manipulation skills. So mages make the mistake that more power is always better and then they get tripped up when a little bit of magic control would solve their problems more efficiently. It's one of my biggest shortcomings, because I have to rely on wild magic it's harder for to practice with individual manipulation skills. I'm sowhat proficient in everything but I'll never have the skill of soone who can specialize in one particular elent."
I scratched my horn while thinking. "Yeah, the jack of all trades problem."
"What's that?" Morrigan asked.
"Oh, I suppose I should explain. Where I co from there's a saying that gets interpreted in a few different ways. If I rember correctly it goes sothing like, 'Jack of all trades, master of none. Oftentis better than a master of one.' However the second line is very often omitted. There are a few different ways that people end up thinking about a 'jack of all trades,' but it usually cos down to whether you favor versatility or specialization. Being good at a large number of different things allows you to combine your skills in ways that might be greater than the sum of their parts. At the sa ti, being the best at one thing does have its advantages as well."
Mimi suddenly spoke up, "What do you think? Which do you favor?"
I smiled. "I've always been in the camp of versatility. Don't get wrong, there are tis when calling a specialist is the right call but there is also sothing called the 80-20 rule where I co from. This is another thing that isn't a hard and fast universal truth or anything, but it goes, '80 percent of results co from the first 20 percent of effort.' or sothing like that, there are lots of variants to that one. The idea is, if you look at most skills, 20 percent of mastery will usually get you 80 percent of what you need from it. Obviously that isn't always true but you can usually get a lot done with that first 20 percent. If you get 20 percent good at a lot of different things, your skills can combine in ways that you don't expect and bring you a lot more value than you would think. It allows you to be a generalist. That's the way I look at things anyway."
Morrigan leaned on and set her head on my shoulder. "Lilith... I love you. I've always felt... lesser than other mages or... real mages as I sotis think of them. Your way of thinking makes feel... I don't know, special. Like I have a strength that others don't."
I patted her on the leg. "Are you kidding? You kept hurling fireballs that entire fight, I had to reserve my mana just in case I needed it later. You have tons of advantages. Everything has trade offs but quantity is a quality all its own."
Silva smirked at . "You sure do have a lot of sayings where you co from."
I laughed in response. "That's true."
Sotis the magic that translates everything between us translates the aning of my sayings directly, other tis they have to ask what a word is or what the saying ans. The logic behind what is translated cleanly and what isn't is really muddy. It catches off guard sotis.
Anyway, I have one last spell to look at.
[A Touch of Good Luck - Luck Magic Spell]
Touch a friend and wish them luck. The magnitude of this effect is affected by [Luck].
I stared at the incredibly short and unhelpful ssage. That's it?
I looked over and patted Morrigan on the shoulder and activated the spell. "Good luck." I felt the spell trigger and take a small amount of mana. It did sothing but it's unclear what.
Morrigan turned to in confusion. "Er, thanks?"
I shrugged and smiled. "New spell."
Morrigan's ears perked up. "What's it do?"
"Gives you good luck. That's basically all it says."
Her brows furrowed. "Odd, That's all it says?"
"Touch a friend and wish them luck. The magnitude of this effect is affected by Luck."
"Weird. Maybe not surprising considering the uncharted territory of luck magic."
"Yeah, I thought I would test it out. It certainly did sothing, I felt it take mana, no idea how strong the effect is or how long it lasts," I said.
I noticed Jasper walking up to us. "Lilith, I wanted to co thank you and your friends. When we were first told about your participation today I wasn't sure how useful you would be but that spell you used was very helpful." He turned to my friends. "And all of you coordinated well with my n. You have my thanks." He nodded and focused on again. "We're planning on getting back to clearing the rest of the floor soon. Make sure you and your group finish looking through your status if you haven't already and prepare to move on."
I nodded. "Sure, I appreciate the kind words."
Jasper smiled and walked away.
"Prick."
I turned to look at Silva. "What's wrong?"
She shook her head. "There's sothing about that guy. I don't trust him. I can't tell you what it is but... I don't know. He's condescending."
Torien furrowed her brows. "He didn't co off that way to ..."
Silva shrugged. "Maybe it's nothing. Just be careful."
I nodded. "Noted."
It's not like I knew the guy well. I didn't have any reason to believe this was so kind of trap though and the guy has been pretty nice so far. It doesn't hurt to stay on guard if one of my friends has a bad feeling but I haven't noticed anything myself yet.
I glanced over at him, he has 1863 positive karma but it can always be tricky to rely on that. It's not the highest number but it's also far from negative. Most of the nearby guards have worse karma than he does but he's also the captain and has been around longer. I can't really make a solid judgent based on his karma alone.
I scratched the base of my horn. "Go ahead and keep an eye on him but don't do anything unless he's overtly attacking one of us. Co find if it's sothing important, otherwise Torien is still in charge. I trust her judgent. Don't take any unnecessary risks, the most important thing is that we all co out safe."
Silva nodded in response but didn't speak. It was hard for to tell if Silva was just being paranoid but I couldn't take any chances in a situation with demons around every corner, literally.
Maybe ten or fifteen minutes later the ballroom was completely cleared and our groups were spread along one wall where many of the service doors reentered the castle proper. Instead of barricading all of the doors, it was easier to just go through all of the small doors at once and thodically search for the demons this ti around. The two groups from my party mbers were spaced out at the thirds, likely to improve our coverage in the connected rooms and root out any hiding demons.
"Alright everyone! Advance!"
I took a deep breath and gripped my sword as the doors swung open and we moved to the next phase.
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