Congratulations!
You have created new spells for the Biomancer class, you have gained sufficient knowledge and increased the efficiency of the spell Life Hack, the spells Cellular Manipulation and Cell Growth have been added.
I read the message and looked over my stats page a few times, a smile crept onto my face before I began laughing, I only got a few good ones out before Sett was knocking on my door telling me it was time to leave for the wall. Two things crossed my mind as I walked toward the door. Blood samples and targets for my new spells.
Hextia and ten splinters followed behind me through the door while Sett held onto my arm while she escorted me to the shuttle, Rin met us at the garage and gave me a passionate kiss before giving Sett a small glare. 'Wonder what happened there' I thought.
We boarded the shuttle and headed straight for the wall, though today I would be going with Hextia first to test my new spells, as much as I liked being a healer I still wanted to be able to defend myself if the need arose and combat spells as a healer were nearly nonexistent while as a biomancer I might have a chance to do more than wait for someone to be injured.
Though I wouldn't have to worry about someone noticing my new spells during an intense battle like what we had on the wall I would still need to be careful not to expose my new class.
We soon came upon the city, its outskirts embroiled in flames with only the wall preventing the conflagration from devouring the rest of the city. There was a tower near the wall where we could park the shuttle, luckily not the one I had decimated, though I could see a familiar old man standing on my platform. I wonder what the old bastard who put a bounty on me wanted.
Hextia had her splinters exit the shuttle forming two small columns of warriors on each side of me and set in between while Hextias' true body walked behind us. I walked forward until we met the old man at the lift. He greeted me with a sour voice, "Young Avarith, one day the city will be rid of all the little monsters. You included."
I ignored him and waited patiently for the lift, he was right though, there would come a day when my usefulness as a healer would not be able to protect me from the bounty hunters once this invasion had been thwarted. They wouldn't come anywhere near my home but I wouldn't be able to travel as I pleased either, not to mention the ever looming threat of my parents' enemies. Once the lift arrived and we had all boarded I looked back at the old man, "You are right that eventually, the invasion will end, and a few bounty hunters may come after me but you should have kept to yourself and not instigated a fight with me."
This buffoon was becoming quite the thorn, since he wanted me to be the villain then I had better play my role well. On our way down the lift I sent a message to Warren, I needed information on the old man, I hoped we could find something as leverage against his relentless prying.
Other than the surprise visit the trip to the wall was almost pleasant, the sounds of battle and the constant stream of warriors rushing from and to the wall kept any romance from the stroll, though that never stopped Sett from publicly displaying her affection.
Once we reached the wall she made sure to wrap herself around me and take my breath away with a passionate kiss as if to say that I belonged to her and the female adventurers should back off, once she was done she strode away towards the guildhall.
I had a smirk on my face as Hextia escorted me to the wall, she silently explained that she would take a portion of the frontlines and provide openings for me to cast my spells. To maintain my cover I would heal those around me if they were in trouble while I would be using my umbrella shield for defense.
The wall was impressive from the ground at nearly 100 meters tall and 40 meters thick, I was surprised that the goblins would think that they could penetrate the defenses of the city. Hextia brought me to a lift that would take us to the top of the wall that was quickly filling up with other adventurers, Hextia used her splinters to roughly make space for us with only mild complaints from those who haven't been to the wall often enough to know the subtle rules.
"-Don't worry master, no one will touch you while I am here.-"
Her protectiveness and the smugness in her voice caught me off guard making me elicit a chuckle. She turned her head towards me and I could imagine she was pouting with that adorable face forcing me to hold in another laugh. It only took a few minutes to reach the top of the wall, on our way I listened to the adventurers' gossip of how an army of gnolls had reinforced the goblin and kobold forces, effectively putting the city under a great deal of pressure.
The first thing I saw as we reached the top of the wall was a small waterfall of blood cascading towards us, I opened my umbrella and felt the blood splatter across its surface. I didn't believe I would actually use my weapon to keep me dry but it was better than being soaked in blood before I had even gotten to the front lines.
The lift stopped and the adventurers began moving out, once they left the lift they began moving to the left and right where stairs lead to the ramparts. I followed Hextias' lead and went up the left stairwell, once we reached the top the splinters all unsheathed their blades and moved forwards. Surprisingly most adventurers moved out of our way and I heard a few whispers of "the undying legion" I mentioned it to Hextia who claimed that someone she saved asked her who she and her splinter were and where they came from.
She had wanted to be mysterious so she made up a name, the undying legion, to be fair so long as her main memory was intact she wouldn't die so it was an accurate description of her abilities though she had a long way to go before she controlled a legion of splinters.
Once we reached the front the splinters charged into a small opening of the crowd and sealed the space, her splinters moved in complete harmony as one stabbed another sliced while the others moved to block incoming strikes. If I didn't know better I would say that they were a group of warriors who had been through several battles and adventures together, no one would guess that they were all the same mind.
Hextia singled out a target for me so I began to cast Life Hack and sent my mana to invade the kobold warrior, once I could see his bloodlines and his weaknesses began to glow in my vision I activated Cellular Manipulation spell which gave me access to a list of cells in its body. Organs were listed as well as major muscle groups, I decided to stick with my new found discovery and chose the lungs; the cell itself was normal, for now, it seemed that the cell itself was a tiny portion of a single lung.
Unsure of how to proceed I thought of what I wanted but creating a tumor in the lungs might cripple the enemy within a few minutes and might take too long in a normal battle. Luckily I could use this opportunity to find out, I had seen what a tumor looked like and knew it was made up of cancerous cells that had abnormal growth and destroyed the surrounding tissue. Looking at the cell I decided to try giving it new directives such as enhanced reproduction and to attack foreign cells.
The model of the cell had been a dark brownish-red when I first saw it, after my spell took effect it changed to a golden hue, I cast cell growth on this particular spell and left it to its own devices.
I moved on to my next target and did something similar but I placed the cancerous cell in the heart, I gave it the same directives as the first and moved onto my next target, a large goblin in the back of a small crowd that was roaring and ordering the others. I placed the cancerous cell within his brain and let it wreak havoc upon the smaller than average target.
Using the spells repeatedly had cost me about 30% of my mana, meaning at my current reserve I could potentially attack 10 targets though my mana pool would increase as well as my proficiency with my spells so the waste of mana wouldn't be so exaggerated.
I watched the three targets as the tiny specks of gold in them slowly grew, at the one minute mark Lungs began moving a little slower while he began to cough every once in a while. Heart didn't seem to be having any issues though I could see specks of gold in several new places. Brain on the other hand had developed a stutter and a facial tick, he even picked up a smaller goblin and broke its neck so mood swings and enhanced aggression seemed present.
At the two minute mark Lungs was coughing up black blood, Heart seemed incredibly weak as it had dropped its weapon, while Brain had picked up a large club and began attacking anything nearby while roaring at empty spaces which I believed meant it was hallucinating. While I was enjoying the show a wounded soldier collapsed beside me with an arrow protruding from his ribs, I took my eyes away from my new friends and healed the man and tried pulling the arrow out only to have the barbed to break off at the last moment.
I didn't have any tools so I had to cut the wound open and use my knife to cut it out, fortunately, it wasn't too deep but it was incredibly painful. The man lost consciousness for a moment before walking back up to endure the rest of the operation. Though healing the wound after was easy, I had kept an eye on my new friends during the healing process.
Lungs and Heart collapsed around the same time, Lungs couldn't breathe and Heart just looked exhausted and just laid on the ground. Brain was bleeding from his eyes and ears but was still wildly swinging his club.
Lungs died not long after he collapsed, next was Brain who collapsed onto the ground and began seizing before he passed away, while Heart seemed to be fine other than weakness.
I could see that he had cancerous cells attached to several organs and even bones, his strength had been devoured by the malicious cells as they searched for a new host as they broke away from the heart and spread throughout the body.
It would appear that I could cause several years of growth in minutes and the effects were quite deadly, though these were monsters with only a small amount of magic and probably could not use it to defend themselves. If I had cast these spells on warriors I could get away unnoticed but if it was against a magic user I would probably meet great resistance while trying to infect them with my mana.
Having tested my new spells and the interesting results I had accomplished my goals and I told Hextia she could go wild since I wanted to see her in action for a while longer.
I watched as she pushed back large groups of monsters with her blades while doing her best to avoid the enemy counter attacks, though arrows would still strike the splinters now, and again they were fine and continued to butcher the unending swarm.
"-Shield!-"
I didn't have time to think. I just brought my umbrella in front of me and felt a wave of blows and heard metal striking it over and over, when the pings stopped I looked over the edge to see over two dozen goblin archers. Several adventurers had been killed in the attack, a large group of goblins rushed forward and brought shields to bear to protect their archers.
This was new, usually, monsters went with the swarm and overwhelm the enemy or other tricks but these were tactics used by soldiers.
A loud horn blew on the other side of the wall, it was deep and held a while before I heard the pounding of large drums. I had no clue as to what was going on, Hextia began to pull away from the fighting along with the rest of the soldiers. An adventurer behind me bolted towards the lifts while screaming something about orcs, the parapet that overlooked mine had been mounted with cannons and it let loose a salvo. I couldn't see what they were firing at but the fact they were firing at anything was bad news.