Leveling through Lust

I was already flaring my mana as I stepped back to the material dimension, afraid that crazy fire and water would have driven closer. Considering the impact they had on the mana, I had no intention of testing their impact directly.

Luckily, they were still tangling in the distance with all the intelligence and control of rabid animals, giving me a chance the focus on the more immediate problem.

The corrosive energies of the Arcana dimension, threatening to melt both my equipment and my skin.

I flared the mana I had gathered, dispelling the corrosive energies that could damage my body more. My clothing and the rest of my equipment weren’t as lucky, I noted as tried to save my clothing once again, but only being half successful. Helpless, I had reinforced the gaps with mana and temporary conjured material replicating the trick Janelor was quite the fan of.

[-690 Mana]

Unlike her, I didn’t construct the spell matrix excessively lightly, so the conjured material would hold a few days. And, luckily, this time, I wasn’t carrying anything I couldn’t replace easily — and only because I didn’t have time to rearm myself after the previous teleport attempt destroyed my weapons.

I really needed to put some time to make my instantaneous teleportation ability useful. Not just because it was a very functional utility ability, but it was obvious that I had no hope of following Aviada’s disappearance without perfecting it.

The chaos that was behind the dome, as revealed by the wound, was rather scary. I couldn’t help but frown as thought about that. I had known that the next crisis wouldn’t have been too far away, but I didn’t expect it to arrive without giving me chance to get a full night’s sleep.

Nor did I expect Aviada to be the source of it.

Apparently, I was still too optimistic.

“What happened, is Aviada well? Where’s she?” Carla asked as she dashed forward to me, taking a step into the wards I had created without care.

I shook my head even as I pulled my gaze away from the battle of elements, turning my gaze toward her, barely holding myself back from giving her a lesson about the perils of walking into mysterious wards.

I decided against it after a momentary consideration. “Don’t worry,” I started instead, wanting to calm her down. “I have discovered that she’s still alive and well.” My words were only partial truth, as while I had detected Aviada was still alive at that moment, I was having significant trouble feeling her as the wound continued to close.

I had no way of divining her fate once it was completely cut other than wishing.

But there was no benefit to Carla knowing that. Whatever Aviada was facing was not something her archer friend could help directly. And even if she tried to rouse the school, it was clearly not an issue that could be the rest of the faculty — at least not by anyone she could talk to.

It was a topic that even Titania knew precious little about, making the headmistress and Janelor the only reliable sources of information, neither a common student from the warrior department could access.

And that assumed she knew what to say in the first place.

“How can we save her?” she asked, her panic replaced by enthusiasm as she heard about her status.

I took a sigh as I turned my attention to the battling elements once more, noting that they were getting weaker — but not at a speed that would make me calm down. Moreover, the water was once again starting to lose against the fire, so I reinforced it with another flash of mana.

[-382 Mana]

“Unfortunately, due to a magical resonance, she had experienced a cascading teleportation failure, and it’ll take a while for me to go and bring her back, so, you should keep it a secret,” I said, not above reinforcing the impression with a judicious application of my Charisma, enough to ensure she wouldn’t go around trying to organize the weaker instructors to act.

The situation was complicated enough without others poking around, or worse, the spies in the school getting wind of the extraordinary nature of Aviada’s disappearance. I didn’t expect them to be able to follow Aviada, but it would be a problem once I successfully saved Aviada.

I steadfastly avoided any possibility of failure.

“I see,” she murmured as she fell silent, not knowing what to say, joining me to watch the dance of the elements. I was reasonably confident that even if the fire managed to defeat the water, it would fade away, but reasonably confident was markedly different from absolute confidence.

And the world was dangerous enough without introducing out-of-control fires with the ability to burn everything, including pure mana.

“Why is this fire still burning?” she asked, her voice calm. Too calm, even. Suppressing the shock medically made her effectively drunk, I realized. “Should we try to extinguish it?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it. You should rest a bit after such a trying ordeal,” I said, and before she could answer, I put my hand on her head, sending her to sleep and healing her wounds simultaneously.

[-281 Mana]

The last thing I needed as I carefully examined a dangerous phenomenon was a functionally drunk warrior that might decide to poke things exactly at the wrong moment.

Instead, I spread my mana carefully, examining the ongoing battle, the elements reacting with a destructiveness I had never seen before. I observed them, not only to control the battle, but also to understand whether there was any trick I could learn from their destructiveness. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case, as before I could pole poke their structure to get a better feel, my mana evaporated with the aftershocks of their fight.

So, I focused on healing myself, which cost me a nice chunk of the mana I had managed to recover as the wounds resisted my attempts to heal them.

[-2890 Mana]

[HP: 6528 / 6528]

I had no idea what the turbulence that escaped from the wound, but there was no doubt about the danger buried in its nature. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have taken that much mana to erase a glancing hit, one that didn’t even connect with me properly.

Even with the system, the world was dangerous.

After that, I waited for the fire and water to slowly extinguish themselves, and once they disappeared, I even went back to the Arcana dimension to check the status of the wound, though this time, I managed to step back before I could receive anything other than cosmetic damage, which was healed easily.

[-296 Mana]

Both the wound, and the elemental chaos in the Arcana dimension were gone. Only then did I dare to step into the area that had been utterly destroyed by the flames to do some magical tests.

Not that I expected much after the destructive battle, aftershocks enough to destroy the spells I tried to construct.

Unsurprisingly, the area was in total flux, the mana dancing chaotically before the System managed to absorb it back.

Yet, the remaining echoes were interesting. The fire had left, for the lack of a better term, its shadow behind, and the sensation was certainly not something I had come close to replicating by fire magic despite my significant expertise backed by my stats.

Yet, some things were clear. It was not something that could be easily replicated by a simple spell, as it had an animalistic feel to it. I would have assumed somehow the beast Carla had mentioned was responsible for that feeling, but I could feel the same echo from the water element, whose source was my spell.

Pity I had bigger priorities than delving into the exact nature of those interesting changes.

I didn’t expect to find anything else, but I still continued to search, not wanting to miss a clue due to laziness.

It was a good thing that I did, because, after five minutes, I found something even more interesting. The residue of a new type of energy, familiar yet different at the same time, distinct enough for me to properly categorize it even if I couldn’t identify its exact nature.

The Divine Spark.

Or, more accurately, A Divine Spark, because even if the residue that remained was too small to be properly interacted — more of a shadow than anything with a substance — it was clear that I wasn’t dealing with the Divine Spark of Light or Darkness. It was something different, with some kind of edge that was lacking by both.

Sharp was the best I could describe the shadow it left.

And just like that, things got even more complicated.

[Level: 32 Experience: 499110 / 528000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6528 / 6528 Mana: 7830 / 8000 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Master Craft [77/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (0/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]