Last night was just hectic, I didn't expect to use so much in that one attack.
I'm not apologizing.
To be fair, I did get a little annoyed at the end. But can you blame me? Anyone would start building up frustration at the thought of never seeing something through. And in my case, I didn't get to see what the road treasure was, and personally I think I should stop thinking about it before I take out my annoyance on the next thing I see. Big or small, passive or harmless, I don't care. And these loud crows outside my window are only further testing the amount of things I can take.
Still, I do wonder where old man Lux went off to.
When I brought home my poor tired small legs with that girl this morning, the "house" was more vacant than the servers of some heist game that had a poor launch. The internet was in shambles.
And since that girl is still sleeping on my own bed I worked so hard on making, I've decided to spend the rather quiet morning reading up on some old books collecting dust within the cellar.
And it honestly felt weird. Because the last time I put my brain to use and scan over some words on paper, it was when I found a rather.. questionable erotic manga under my bed. I didn't even know I had it, or maybe I've just forgotten about it. But one thing remains certain.
And that's the hope that no one will find it within my now empty room.
I ended up reading about 4 whole, boulder heavy history books. Each one the size of 8 sandwiches stacked on top one another.
I'm hungry.
They were about the history of the Luthran Kingdom, the Fundamentals of magic, an encyclopedia of all known monsters, and about the other 3 kingdoms of the continent. All in that order.
But let's be fair, who cares about the history of some old Kingdom? And who's gonna sit in their home reading up on the many monstrosities that are basically a cancer of this world? But even I have a brain to store things in, so I just speedread through them. A couple interesting parts here and there, but that's about all I can say.
The two books worth keeping a mind on, is about the 3 other Kingdoms.
And the absolute MEGATON that was the fundamentals of magic. If my body wasn't strengthened from the many souls of creatures good and bad within my body, I would have more trouble lifting the damn book than my giant iron of a sword that is currently stashed in a bush just outside.
Apart from the Luthran Kingdom, there exists the Kingdom of Azula, which is the Kingdom of sorcery.
The Kingdom of Draevak, of dragons and summoners.
And the absolute loner that is the 4th and final known Kingdom of Ragnav, which specializes in alchemy. This Kingdom is not particularly favored, as alchemy is considered taboo in this world. Due to the fact that the chemical altering of life is blasphemy.
Of course, there was a time when it wasn't seen as a sin, being used to for the good of mankind and the like. This was quickly abolished however, when humans started using it to physically ruin themselves in pursuit of strength out of paranoia.
Or getting high from it.
And as a result, the Kingdom shut its gates to everyone wanting to get in or out.
A real piece of work those guys..
Magic is so damn convoluted, in a sense that there's many types of it. And I've gotten a brain hemorrhage just trying to make sense of it and piece it all together.
First, you have to understand just what magic is.
Magic is just... well using your mind to channel your inner aura, then channeling it into your brain, then bring it to reality and give a physical form to it. Pretty simple, right? WRONG!
Not only do you have to give form to your aura, but you also have to somehow bring it to your brain, then you have to MENTALLY piece together the correct formula and give a shape to it.
HOWEVER.
Since there is an endless ever-increasing number of spells, each one has a very specific unique formula you have to piece together within your brain, while it's in a controlled and stable state.
You follow so far?
You need to have the correct state of mind to be able to effectively put two and two together and produce the result you want. If you're nervous, unsure, hesitant, or a tad bit mentally unstable in the head, you'll cause your brain to enter a state of shock. Like when you get a brain freeze from flooding your throat in dairy whole milk, ice cold ice cream not fit for a diabete patient on a summer afternoon. And depending on just how big the spell is, you'll either experience a small headache, or you'll just pass out.
But the punishment doesn't stop there, there's more.
You need to have the right amount of "mana" to spend.
Mana is essentially just brain juice, separate to your aura. You spend mana to channel your aura.
But the greater number of spells you memorize, the more it takes up your brain, the more it takes up your brain, the more it becomes a burden to your mana. It's kind of like a hard drive. Bigger spells, more disc space.
And because of this, your "hard drive" is vulnerable to getting corrupt, or just dying.
That's right, the more mana you use, the more exhausted you'll become mentally.
And if you attempt to use more while you're out, then you'll strain your brain and end up braindead.
BUT THERE'S MORE.
There is another kind of "magic" which is summoning. You take what I just told you about using your mana to channel your aura, but you don't send it to your brain. You send it to a "catalyst", which is just an item to dump all your juice on. It can be whatever you want it to be, a book, a wand, a goddamn stick.
It needs to be properly "coded" before it's able to hold in all your magic though. If it's a defective item with low magic efficiency, your mana will just end up leaking from it, wasting all your precious juicy goodness.
Then you take your catalyst, and you begin... you guessed it, channel your aura into it. Then you begin putting together whatever it is you want to summon.
It can be anything, a dragon, a harpy, a goddamn dungeon bug.
You can't just start summoning a colossal with a sword and laser beam eyes damn you, what's wrong with you? There are rules you need to follow.
First, you have to encounter whatever it is you want to make your slave. Then you need to start studying its biological components with a very specific pair of lens they give you at a summoner's school. Depending on how big or just absurd it is, the process can get lengthy or tedious.
Once you succeed, it's all yours.
Sadly, it's not as easy as it sounds.
We're almost done, keep up.
You get the monster, great, but now you have to properly "code" it as to not have it kill you. I say this because amateur summoners exist, and a great handful of them have died to their own creations.
How do you code it? Well, it's actually pretty simple.
You analyze it, then pour your mana onto your catalyst, feeding it the right amount of mana.
If you feed too much, it'll explode.
Feed it too little, and your summon will hit like a wet sponge.
Then you piece together a very specific "behavior" formula onto it.
Each formula and composition differing for each summon.
Of course, it's possible to own more than one summon, you'd need quite a bit of mana storage and brain power though.
Once you've got the right coded catalyst, a fully analyzed being, with the right amount of mana fed, and properly coded behavior, then congratulations, you'll now have something else to show up to your birthday party when no one else bothered to show up.
There are other peculiar types of magic that are different from your traditional sorceries.
Such as "Miracles" which are pretty much holy spells you conjure with your faith. But miracles are one of the rarest to even come across, as you can only learn spells from people that actually know them. And right now, the only human to process any is the King of the Luthran Kingdom. And he's pretty stingy about them.
There's also blood magic, dark magic, pyromancy, and lighting magic.
There's probably more but I've yet to discover what the heck they are, so I'll leave it here for now.
So yeah, magic is stupid.
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I've decided to head out on a pretty foggy afternoon outside of the walls to do some scouting and look for new places to hone my skills. Just getting outside of the walls was more tedious than it had to be, I had to skillfully dodge and weave around the many knights patrolling the dirty streets.
I even almost ran into a Knight from the Order of the King's Will. I swear those guys are such a pain.
They're supposed to be a faction of higher Knights entrusted by the King to fulfill various duties a normal knight can't handle. And the one I saw had red hair with a couple of white strands and a scar on his left eye, and he had a prosthetic bronze left arm. Before he could see me, I swiftly dove inside a shadow and hopped back out of it and ran once he was gone.
Yes, I can do that.
*KAWW* *KAW* *KAAAW*
"These damn crows"
I can't seem to get away from them, everywhere I look they're always just there, ruining my day.
Their filthy black feathers dropping onto my hair. My promise to my wife remains, these flying rodents WILL be wiped from the face of this world.
I resume my walk further away from the wall until the Kingdom isn't visible. And then I reach a weird red forest area. All the trees have red leaves on them, the darkened grass below me pooling from the excess red leaves falling from their original branches.
*KAWW* *KAW*
I scan my surroundings in annoyance, only to find the hundreds of crows sitting on the various tree branches and broken scattered ruin walls around me, just staring.
The hell is so interesting about me anyway?
Before I have the time to decide just how to murder these heathens, a laugh echoes from the ruins of a church just ahead of me.
"Haha.. HaHaHa.. Ha Ha Ha.."
And out steps a figure covered in a black hood with red outlines.
"I have been watching you... deathbearer.."
Death who now?
I shoot them a look of confusion as they unveil their hood, revealing a woman with long brown hair, she appears to be around her 20's. Pretty average looking. And she's got a mark similar to the one on my right hand on her forehead. Except hers looks like it's only half of something, and its slightly faded.
She scans my confused face as she approaches slowly, before she speaks in a slight low raspy voice.
"It is you... the boy who walks in death, are you not?"
Again, I shoot her a look that says 'listen lady, I have no clue what something as edgy as that could mean, but you've got the wrong dude'
Before I could even muster up the courage of speaking like a normal human being, she pulls out a long, black thin stake from god knows where, and then a single crow flies and stands on top of it.
Then the various crows that were scattered around the trees take off in flight and circle around the area from above.
"Your authority over death will be mine, boy..." She says in her now louder, raspy voice.
Oh, I get it, this woman thinks she can steal my extra thick great sword huh? Well, she can't have it, I found it fair and square, and I'll be damned if this woman who probably belongs with those other freaks of the church tries taking it from my hands.
"Very well" I say dramatically and awkwardly, in the determined voice to protect what is mine.
I raise my sword up high to begin channeling it, but a crow flies by my face, leaving a scratch.
She gives me a condescending laugh before speaking.
"Are you really the bearer of death, boy? Your bloodlust is far too weak , a brat like you is better off going home to fetch daddy's sandals" she says as she raises her stake higher, spilling forth a beam of crows my direction.
I dodge to the side, the beam of crows moving in a straight line, smashing up against a tree bark, causing them to explode in a bloody explosion and the tree now falling flat in a dusty collapse, before she summons another wave of crows that are now encircling her.
Whoa, okay I see you.
My heart starts pumping, this is actually staring to get pretty exciting, I haven't had a fight this engaging since coming to this world. I've just been going out and killing whatever slime or forest creature I've stumbled upon.
But this..
Fighting with what appears to be a dark summoner, has me feeling all kinds of giddy inside.
I jump up in the air and run my right hand over my sword, coating it in a red miasma, before slamming down on her with an explosive red slam.
*FWWOOOSH*
The ruins of the church start to fall apart, dust everywhere.
I cough briefly, before looking behind me, and there she stood, not a scratch.
This woman is pretty strong, and it excites me.
"Not too shabby boy.. but your bloodlust will have to be far stronger than mine if you wish t-"
*SHLLLLCK*
The top half of her body is cut clean off, causing a wave of crows to escape from her insides. I've managed to leave an afterimage and appear behind her to deliver that blow. And I am now feeling a rush of smug pride upon my face.
*FLAP FLAP FLAP FLAP FLAP FLAP*
The many crows scattered around the area shift and focus on one spot as the woman's body is now fully rebuilt.
"WHY YOU..!" she yells out at me as the mark on her forehead glows. A couple hundred more crows begin materializing around her.
Actually, we're nearing the thousands now, that's a lot of crows.
As she continues to summon hundreds of crows, her face starts to wither, turning wrinkly.
She continues to just spawn hundreds and hundreds of crows, her face continues to deteriorate.
She then sends them my way, a mob of crows just charging straight at me, their beaks point right at my throat ready to cut me apart. I raise my sword up against my body, shielding me from the onslaught of the hundreds of crows, their heads just smashing against the side of my sword.
I then swing, releasing a red wave forward, clearing the crows that were rapidly shot my direction.
This causes the old lady to slam her stake onto the dirt ground, making the thousands of crows circle above. It looks as if a crow tornado is forming.
Oh yeah, she's pissed.
It seems like she's getting ready for the final attack, so I do the same.
I stab my great sword onto the dirt, just as she did, I then slide my right hand along the edge of the sword.
My hand, leaving a trail of my blood along the sword's edge, coating it in my own blood as it slowly runs along its edge.
I then raise it back up and point it at her, then it instantly lights in a red fiery inferno, burning blood dripping onto the dirt, the small droplets catching on fire as they make contact with the ground.
"W-wha..? Bloodflame magic..?!"
She makes the thousands of crows circling the sky rain down on me in a move of desperation.
I then channel my right hand onto my blade, just as I did on that night of the cabin. Making it lighter than a short knife.
I start rapidly swinging at the thousands of crows being hurled my direction, each crow dying one by one at an overwhelming speed. But I don't see a sign of the onslaught of crows stopping.
So I then throw my sword at the sky, making it tear through the thousands in a line, clearing the way as I jump up and grab a hold of it.
"Well this was fun, toodles" I say as I channel my sword yet again, causing it to illuminate almost as bright as the sun in a red, fiery glow.
Before plunging back down, vaporizing the entire area around me in a red hell.
.
.
.
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*COUGH* *COUGH*
The amount of dust that formed around the area after the initial explosion, along with the many black burning feathers and ash that slowly rain from the sky, is enough to make me cough involuntarily.
I think I have cancer now.
"But what do you think?" I say as I look down at the head of the now old lady, just strewn by my feet as I'm sitting on a broken pillar.
"huh?"
Oh right, that was an inner monologue in my head, she didn't hear that, and she probably doesn't know what cancer is.
Still, that was the most fun thing I didn't even know I could do with my right hand. In a way I'm rather grateful for going through this experience and learning.
"You.. you really are the one that walks in death... the one who will set the heavens ablaze in a new age of grief and darkness"
This lady sure likes to embrace her inner middeschooler.
I yawn and stand up, before picking up my great sword that is currently stabbed onto the ground in front of me. I stab it onto the lady's forehead, she doesn't even scream or anything. She kind of just dies.
But that's what she gets for having all my mornings ruined by her flying rats.
The mark on her forehead glows, before it disappears from her forehead and now appears on my sword. I don't even question it; I just want to get out of here before I contract some sort of disease from all this dust and ash around me.
I slowly make my way up the side of the crater I formed.
I'm not apologizing.
As I reach the now somewhat clean grassland, I quickly notice that nightfall is fast approaching. And I'm feeling a little drained from the amount of blood I lent to my sword, so I make my way back to my "house" to turn in for the night.
Today sure was fun, I should see if I can head into the capital tomorrow to steal from the local barons....
.
.
.
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