Attaching Siyla's mechanical arm to a new, shiny harness, Fel gave it a final pat down to make sure all was in order.
"I will never get used to this," sighed Siyla, rolling her prosthetic shoulder.
"I'll try to get you a proper socket as soon as possible. Hopefully, they have good enough surgical skill here… I'll have to design a socket as well."
"Socket?"
"Yes, it's like the harness, but connects directly to your skeleton. However, I'll need a medical professional to design and attach one."
"Mmm, well, I guess we can ask around, I'm sure Verris or one of the lightning Mages would know. Though we'd have to wait for them to get back."
With a deep stretch, Siyla hopped out of the bed and walked to the door. But just as she was about to open it, a rapid knocking rang out from the other side. Opening it, Siyla was met with Mysvain's excited face.
"Guys, guys! The siege has lifted!"
"Hm? Wait, what. How?"
"The Association finally sent a dozen Mages to assist us. We sallied out and crushed the death wave in a pincer attack!"
"Just a dozen Mages?"
"Yes, a dozen. But don't underestimate them, among them were 2 master Mages. The main reason we couldn't break the siege was because those damn undead could enhance their spells with runes, so even though they had lesser numbers, their strength equalled ours, so we could only hole up under our barrier."
"But, there's no way a single undead master Mage could repel four master Mages, no matter how powerful he is. Without a master Mage's protection, and under the assault of 4, there's no way the death wave could hold up."
Fel got up from the bed, "Master Mages seem to be rather powerful."
"Powerful is an understatement. A decent master Mage could defeat 10 level 1 Mages at the same time! But there's no time to waste, let's pack up and get out of this dull shelter. I may enjoy isolation, but they could at least put some décor in this place."
Attaching Siyla's mechanical arm to a new, shiny harness, Fel gave it a final pat down to make sure all was in order.
"I will never get used to this," sighed Siyla, rolling her prosthetic shoulder.
"I'll try to get you a proper socket as soon as possible. Hopefully, they have good enough surgical skill here… I'll have to design a socket as well."
"Socket?"
"Yes, it's like the harness, but connects directly to your skeleton. However, I'll need a medical professional to design and attach one."
"Mmm, well, I guess we can ask around, I'm sure Verris or one of the lightning Mages would know. Though we'd have to wait for them to get back."
With a deep stretch, Siyla hopped out of the bed and walked to the door. But just as she was about to open it, a rapid knocking rang out from the other side. Opening it, Siyla was met with Mysvain's excited face.
"Guys, guys! The siege has lifted!"
"Hm? Wait, what. How?"
"The Association finally sent a dozen Mages to assist us. We sallied out and crushed the death wave in a pincer attack!"
"Just a dozen Mages?"
"Yes, a dozen. But don't underestimate them, among them were 2 master Mages. The main reason we couldn't break the siege was because those damn undead could enhance their spells with runes, so even though they had lesser numbers, their strength equalled ours, so we could only hole up under our barrier."
"But, there's no way a single undead master Mage could repel four master Mages, no matter how powerful he is. Without a master Mage's protection, and under the assault of 4, there's no way the death wave could hold up."
Fel got up from the bed, "Master Mages seem to be rather powerful."
"Powerful is an understatement. A decent master Mage could defeat 10 level 1 Mages at the same time! But there's no time to waste, let's pack up and get out of this dull shelter. I may enjoy isolation, but they could at least put some décor in this place."
"So we can leave whenever?"
"Pretty much, the restriction has been lifted, says so on the signboard too."
Fel felt the Academy was quite lax at times, there wasn't even so much as an announcement.
While walking through the blank corridors, Fel conversed with Mysvain while Siyla got used to her arm, "We never met another Mage did we?"
"Most lightning Mages are combatants, lightning isn't suitable for creation. Among the lightning Mages of this Academy, I'm the only dedicated crafter."
"So aren't you the only Mage here apart from us?"
"… Yes. What about it?"
But before Fel could retort, the trio found themselves at the end of a corridor, facing a solid, stone wall.
Mysvain strode ahead and touched the wall, muttering a long string of words before injecting a sliver of his energy into it. A few seconds later, the wall lit up with hundreds of yellow runes before smoothly sliding into the floor.
Not a moment later, a flood of thunderous explosions crashed into the trio's ears, along with the familiar sight of dense, torso-thick thunderbolts. Yet to Fel, the scene was completely different from before.
Before, he could only see an apocalyptic and chaotic mess, but now, now he could see rivers of yellow energy swim between the rain of thunderbolts, and perhaps more importantly, streams of a grand, golden energy, arrogantly striding through the thunderous pillars of doom.
"Mysvain."
"Yea? Remember the deal you mentioned a few days ago?"
"Yep."
"I'll take you up on that."
—-
A few weeks later, Fel was injecting energy into the last few spell-bullets, a new type that contained the power of a Level 1 middle spell. It was time for him to complete his first compulsory mission of the year. He was already halfway through the year, and it was about time for him to get off his arse.
Taking inventory of his items, Fel thought of how well the spell-bullets and handguns sold. He almost killed himself trying to keep up with the demand. Eventually, he and Mysvain had to inflate the price to ¾ of a crystal coin a bullet which calmed down the situation. With the relatively abundant source of divine energy, Fel could saturate his body once a day, enough to fill 1000 bullets, but compared to the more common types of energy, this was mind-numbingly slow.
With the money, he repaired his power armour and upgraded everything to suit his new powers. Now thinking about it, Fel found that his finances fluctuated quite a bit. One day he was stinking rich, and the next as poor as the beggar next door. Well, money was made to be spent anyway.
As Fel was lost in his thoughts, absent-mindedly checking his firearms, a silver figure appeared behind him, reaching out and placing a hand on his shoulder.
"You done yet?"
"Mhm? Ah yes, all's good, are we going now?"
"We were supposed to leave 10 minutes ago… the carriage has been waiting in front for ages."
Shoving his equipment into his ring, Fel got to his feet and marched off towards the front door, flicking back his robes, "Very well, it is time to be off."
Siyla ground her face against her palm, "This idiot."
In the carriage, Fel looking out the window as the trees and buildings moved past.
"Can you remind me of where we're going?"
"You can't even remember that? You've been rather absent-minded lately."
"Sorry about that, there have just been a few things on my mind, and spending the last few days storing my energy really took it out of me."
"I forgot about that, I guess you won't be near any sources of lightning energy for a while. But anyway, since we have the time, it wouldn't hurt to remind you."
"We're going to the recently uncovered Telos ruins. Only half the apprentices who entered the ruins escaped, and even then they didn't get much. However, what they did get was fairly valuable. Ancient writings from the pre-invasion era, even better, with a dialect similar to our common language. If we can get our hands on more, we could surely deepen our understanding of magic."
"If I remember correctly, the ruins contain a dense, darkness attributed energy. Why are we being sent there?"
"Because your lightning energy restrains darkness energy, you shouldn't be in much danger there as long as you bring enough supplies. As for me, well, we're pretty much a package deal."
"Hehe. So how long is the journey?"
"It should take half a week to get there. It's impressive that it stayed hidden for so long despite its close proximity to the Academy."
Soon after, the carriage passed by the gates, still damaged from the death wave. Though a few weeks had past, small fissures and holes scoured the inner walls, not to mention the outer wall that had endured a hammering. Not an inch of it had gone unscathed, and the earth around it, well it was like the surface of the moon, peppered with deep, gaping craters.
Fel could feel traces of death energy even from within the carriage, the battle was obviously fierce, it was a shame he missed it. He remembered that even Verris and the crew were injured during the fight, and had to hole up in their rooms to purify their bodies of the death energy.
It was strange that simple runes could turn the tide of battle so much, even when outnumbered, the undead could rival the Mages here, simply because the undead knew how to conjure runes while the Mages weren't capable of that.
"Say, we haven't got much news from the outside world have we?"
"Yes, I heard there were a series of death waves that almost crippled the association. It was no wonder that reinforcements turned up late."
"I wonder if it will be a peaceful trip."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, when we left the village, we were ambushed twice, and we encountered a death wave on our way to Collesti. The only uneventful trip was when we went to the Academy, but we were with Jarvis, no doubt that master Mage was pulling strings in the background."
"Who knows, but what happens, happens."
Three days later, midday, the carriage sped down a long, dirt path with a dense forest to either side. Despite travelling as fast as a car, the uneven terrain didn't obstruct the carriage in the slightest, it seemed a sort of pressure rode ahead of the carriage, ironing out the road before it. Though the Mages of the 1st layer couldn't rival the undead, they were ingenious in their own right.
Suddenly, a dark explosion tore into the carriage, sending Fel and Siyla flying out while instantly slaying the driver while gravely injuring the deer-like steed.
"Dear Mages, I hope you'll leave behind your belongings. We have you surrounded with 20 apprentices and 2 true Mages."
"What are you doing you idiot! You probably blew up all their stuff!"
"That's where you're wrong, they'd keep their most valuable belongings on their bodies, behind their barriers. I'm sure that whatever is left on them will net a sweet profit."
Hidden in the smouldering ruins of the carriage, Fel and Siyla patiently observed their surroundings, taking note of their opponents positions.
"Siyla, why would there be such a large group of rouge Mages?"
"Their Academy probably fell to the death wave, though if they wanted to, they could find another Academy to study in. I don't think they're respectable people."
"Fel, there's four apprentices to the south, six to the west, six to the east and four to the north. The true Mages are at the south and north."
"Thanks Aerl."
"Siyla, I got their positions."
"Here are a few grenades, there's six to the east," Fel paused to point out their exact positions, "I'll take out the west. After that, we rush to the west so we won't get caught in a pincer attack by the Mages to our north and south."
On the other side, the rouge Mages were getting impatient.
"Hey, you think we killed them?"
"No way, an apprentice couldn't afford such a carriage, they're definitely Mages, and such a spell can't injure a Mage. But I see where you're coming from, what kind of Mage would deign to remain in such rubble."
Suddenly, several camouflaged spheres flew from the wreckage, landing at the feet of various apprentices.
The apprentices weren't stupid and turned heel, erecting a barrier as they fled. But they weren't fast enough. The spheres erupted with heavenly lightning, the pressure it emitted alone was able to freeze the apprentices in place, allowing for the milky lightning to wash over them and burn them to a crisp.
Immediately afterward, two figures shot out from the wreckage and dashed to the west, firing out flashes of gold and silver at the remaining apprentices. Though the rouge Mages erected barriers to protect their apprentices, the gold and silver flashes flew through them as if they were paper and slew the apprentices. Such hastily prepared barriers couldn't even slow down the high tiered energies.
Now rid of the apprentices and in a better position, Fel and Siyla hunkered down behind the dense trees, donning their armour and equipping their weapons.
"What? How did they kill all the apprentices so quickly?"
"Shut up Dirth, use the emblem, we can't contend with them."
Fel steadied his rifle, setting his sights on Dirth, "So unprofessional."
With the flick of his finger, a flash of milky gold light flew from the rifles' muzzle, bearing down on the panicking Dirth who tossed out a circular, metal emblem with 7, large, dark crystals revolving around it.
Streams of dark energy were syphoned from the crystals and absorbed by the emblem, light that cycled the energy through its dense runes, mashing the four streams into one before blasting the mass at the incoming milky gold lightning.
The two spells collided in midair, the resulting outbreak of energy tearing up the earth and almost uprooting trees. Despite the mass of dark energy being over twice as large as the flash of golden lightning, the two forces were even and cancelled each other out.
Seeing that the emblem was charging another shot, Fel waved at Siyla, "Form a shield, we're ploughing through, I don't have many of these bullets in stock."
Nodding in response, Siyla congealed a large tower shield that shined with prismatic light and charged toward the fleeing Mages, ignoring the hovering emblem, with Fel following closely behind.
Another mass of dark energy blasted towards the duo and crashed into Siyla's shield. The force sent her staggering back and smashed a large dent into her shield. But she regained her balance, repaired the shield and erased the remaining traces of corrosive dark energy with her prismatic lights.
Two more bolts of dark energy smashed into Siyla's shield, though they were equally ineffective against her. The crystals around the emblem dimmed and fell apart, with the emblem itself falling to the ground, four shots was all it had.
Soon after, Siyla and Fel caught up to the comparably unfit Mages, who, sensing their arrival, twirled around and launched their spells at the duo. Moving swiftly, Siyla intercepted them both, easily shrugging them off.
With a grim face, one of the rogue Mages took out a brilliant red crystal and sacrificial dagger, before taking the dagger in hand and stabbing it into the crystal. The dagger sapped the crystal dry, taking the red glow of the crystal for its own and burning so hot the air around it writhed around like a pit of snakes.
Taking aim, he hurled the dagger at Siyla, watching as it burst into flame, forming an almost solid ball of flame around it, so concentrated that the shadow of runes glimmered within it.
Siyla congealed several more shields, one in front of the other, all glimmering with prismatic lights. However, this time, the prismatic lights couldn't restrain the incoming spell, forcing the steel to face the danger alone.
The first shield gave little trouble to the dagger and was melted away like wax to a candle. The second almost stopped the dagger, allowing for the third, final shield, to stop the dagger in its tracks. However, the dagger, despite losing its momentum and falling to the ground, didn't go without a final struggle.
Its flames travelled along Siyla's barrier, chewing away at it, with the ensuing heat growing so hot that the parts in her mechanical arms almost melted together. Though the flames dissipated not long after, Siyla found it rather difficult to move her arm.
The 'divine' energies were highly effective against darkness and death, however, they didn't have such an advantage over other energies.
Seeing that the dagger was somewhat effective, the rouge Mages weaved another round of spells and hurled them at Siyla, intending to take her down once and for all.
At this moment, Fel stepped forward and fired a shot at the incoming spells, blasting them away. He then fired another two shots at the Mages, destroying both their barriers and them.
"I was going to spare both of you for questioning. But after you pulled that stunt, I didn't feel like it anymore."
AUTHORS NOTE EXTENDED:
Unfortunately, I have exams creeping up on me and I'll have to fully concentrate on my studies as this year is rather crucial for me. Therefore, I will be going on hiatus for a month or so. However, during this time I will also be re-writing the story.
The new version won't differ significantly from this one, but I will take all I've learnt so far and pour it all into this. I personally haven't been pleased with my own writing, in fact, I've felt like I've written myself into a corner, therefore, I feel that I have to do this in order to write something I'm proud about.
My main objectives of the re-write are to:
a) Simplify everything - I found that the cultivation system, artifact ranking and monster ranking are just a mess and aren't explicitly stated. I initially wanted to slowly introduce the topic through hints here and there, however, in this case, I feel that it's best for it to be explicitly stated.
b) Give a clear direction and focus - I feel that the concept of the novel is clear, however, for example, Fel doesn't have a clear objective or purpose, and his abilities don't reflect his goals. Therefore, I'll be changing Fel's abilities to more properly support his abilities and strengths.
c) More emotive characters - I believe I've mentioned this in passing, but I really feel that the characters fall flat. Particularly the side characters. No unique quirks or mannerisms. They just exist. Furthermore, there are wayyyy to many of them for me to deal with, so I'll have to work on that as well.
While I would love to continue advancing the story, due to my own, and the novel's circumstances, I'll be pausing for awhile while I sort out everything on my end and hopefully improve the novel. Most likely, there will be a mass release of a bunch of chapters by the time I'm finished. Sorry about this, but I believe that it's for the best - I really want to create an amazing novel that I'm super proud of - have a nice day :)
I'll post a link to my website where you can get updates asap.