Though I was incredibly interested in the armor summoning spell, Sunless Regalia. I couldn't discount how much more valuable a movement ability could be. Watching Seline the Vampire and Achel flash around has left me jealous.
Not to mention the value it will have for our escape plan, which as of now was busting a hole in the side of the Colosseum and just making a run for it.
Name: Pearlescent Step
Type: Movement Spell
Lore: The followers of the Lady of The Sun have always been safe from her flames. Yet few have ever been allowed to step upon it.
Incantation: N\A
Requirements: 40 Intelligence, 35 Dexterity, and 8 Faith
Cost: 500,000 Essence
'Thank god there isn't an incantation, its viability would go down immensely if I had to speak an entire sentence before using it' I commented to myself as I bought the spell.
The golden fire surged as motes of energy came out of my chest and seemingly fed the fire. Moments later ethereal golden ribbons extended from the base of the holy arc. Wiggling and grasping until they extended towards my right leg.
The ribbons flowed into my calf for nearly a minute until all that was left was a circle of runes. Dark red runes surround a white flame.
Images flooded my mind, mana drills, practice, and an extremely basic understanding of rune script.
I knew instinctively that all I had to do was send a certain amount of mana into the seal on my leg to activate the spell. Roughly fifty mana per use, luckily there didn't seem to be a limit on consecutive uses.
'Jeez, not that I don't like tattoos but a couple more and I'll have to try out for a boy band' I chuckled to myself as I rubbed the tingling away from my calf.
I rose to my feet and sent a pulse of mana into the tattoo on my leg. I immediately felt the pull as the rune scrip sucked up the required mana. Near instantly my legs from the knee down caught fire, tinted pearlescent white.
I took a step, and I appeared across the room. Near the doorway that was thirty-five feet away in less than a blink. Two trails of white fire were slowly being extinguished as I turned to look behind me.
"Yeah, I could get used to this," I said with near-childlike excitement as I teleported around the room, only stopping when I felt my mana pool reach half. Still, I had 'stepped' thirteen times and traveled the equivalent of four hundred feet around the room, in under five seconds.
So if I had to theoretically run for my life I could be nearly 800 feet away in under ten seconds. I'd need to thoroughly practice this spell to meld into the spear stances and attacks I had learned from Ivar.
Not a bad deal. Plus the fact I could also buy the armor spell, with barely a smidgen of essence to spare. As I needed to level up three times to get my faith into the requirements.
Though, I would need to wait a while to be able to get the last spell. Which had the most stringent requirements, a whopping ninety-nine in intelligence and more than a few levels for my other stats.
Name: Armament Ignitus
Spell Type: Weapon Buff
Lore: A weapon is only as strong as the power behind it. The power of the sun and the sunless can strike nearly any foe. Be they a spirit or a formless elemental, nothing can deny the purification.
Incantation: (LOCKED)
Requirements: 99 Intelligence, 45 Dexterity, and 25 Faith
Cost:1,500,000 Essence
Fifty-six levels away and somewhere around seven million essence. This was supposed to be my strongest spell in the first tier and my only offensive one. Yet for my other spell, I had just enough essence stocked away to level up to the requirements and afford the spell.
Name: Sunless Regalia
Spell Type: Conjuration
Lore: The Armor worn by the ????'s legion. Her flames may not completely protect her soldiers but it does act as a way to deliver her wrath to any who dare strike her warriors. Cursed to burn till the end times.
Incantation: (LOCKED)
Requirements: 65 Intelligence, 30 Dexterity, and 12 Faith
Cost: 725,000 Essence
I had roughly one point three million essence left, and I only needed to level faith up three times to meet those requirements. Which I quickly did and bought the spell immediately. Once again, the rather large amount of essence left my chest and entered the Arc. Near spontaneously, the motes erupted and rushed towards my head in the form of thin golden ribbons.
This time the memories I received were nearly the equivalent of speech lessons, oddly enough. Cadence, volume, and timing. Thousands of attempts led to failures, but those few successes led to a breakthrough. Almost against my willpower, my lips moved. Closely followed by my mana surging in a specific and well-practiced pattern.
"Favored fire, I am thy vessel. Consume all in the purity of her flames until only I alone remain. Sunless Regalia!" Over three-thirds of my mana pool was instantly gone and I nearly staggered at the loss. A ring of black fire came to life around me, slowly climbing higher and higher.
It took a mere blink for it to solidify into a thin ashen plate armor, in a royalist style. A rolling cape of black flames seemed just a bit too pretentious. It merely lacked a helmet but I felt a mental nudge and a hood of flames that extended from the cape easily answered the call.
As for first impressions, I felt safe for probably the first time in this tower. Yet something about this armor made my cheek itch uncontrollably. I vigorously wiped it, yet I felt something rub off and coat my hand. Looking down, I noticed a glossy black substance had found its way onto my cheek. 'Lip gloss?'
I vaguely heard a sound that surprised me so much I jumped a foot into the air. Only to realize it was an ethereal-sounding feminine giggle.
Ok, that was it. I could no longer try to ignore it. The woman in the flaming black kimono was real and most likely the first person I'd met in this new world. Her beauty was divine and her lips had burned me on a level I couldn't even comprehend.
It was so shocking that I wrote it off as a dream, yet in that same dream I saw an image of the maze, the swamp, and this gothic Collesum I now found myself in.
She might have brought me here if her beauty truly matched her status which I'd bet it did. The fact remained that besides a giggle this was the first time she had interacted with me since then.
"Would you like to talk?" I asked in a low voice as I looked around the room. My ears began burning in embarrassment as I was talking to an empty room.
"Reach the fiftieth floor." A clipped statement, yet an answer nonetheless. Her voice wasn't anything special, which made me question if somebody was messing with me. Yet, I doubted it.
It almost seemed like this woman was orchestrating everything. The black flames of my cape-turned cloak were too similar to the flames of her kimono. So from my class to being placed here and having the ability to make a safe zone and 'mortal arcs' from the start. I'd bet my left arm she had placed her finger on the scale of my every action and journey up to this point.
The two big questions that entered my mind after that realization were: was she the reason I had fallen forty floors down? And what was her goal for doing all this?
'Why couldn't it have just been a normal dungeon? A few floors, a few pieces of loot, and a single boss fight.' I sighed as I let the armor spell fade away as I sat back on the bed, intent on waiting for Achel to bring our potential teammates.