Wuxia - Mtl
CH.223 Maybe Practice Does Pay Off
CH.223 Maybe Practice Does Pay Off
As usual, morning came, I woke up and headed to the factory. Nothing more to it.
A thing worth mentioning is the Tournament Packs , , , and that I unlocked when I … located a rogue dungeon. Laura got the cards from them, so that’s nice. I had around 80% of the cards already, and most of the stuff I didn’t have were just vanillas, but there were a few fusion and ritual monsters I didn’t have.
Kwagar Hercules, Warrior of Tradition, Dokurorider and Skull Guardian. Two fusions and two rituals. Not bad.
Also, Blue Medicine and Soul of the Pure if I want to heal myself, or someone else. Well, Red Medicine is still better than Blue, but Soul of the Pure is better than Red Medicine. And Poison of the Old Man is better than Soul of the Pure.
“Oh yeah, did that poison activating plan work?” I wondered aloud, thinking back to when I thought that Poison Mummy or Lord Poison would be able to activate Poison of the Old Man to make me healing potions, as well as poisons that I could store in the storage.
“We did try it.” Laura answered. “But when they activate the card, they always produce poison, not the healing potion, so I haven’t turned it into a full production. Either you or I would have to activate the card if we want the healing potion.”
“Oh. Alright. Well, at least we’ll have some poison, I guess. Maybe we should make a stockpile of like 100 … units of it and call it good?”
“You are using the word ‘units’ all wrong.” Laura commented.
“Well sorry. I don’t know how large a poison bottle made by Poison of the Old Man is. I meant to have the card activated 100 times and store that.”
“Yes, yes. I understood what you meant. I’ll make sure it gets done.” Laura accepted my proposition.
“Thanks. Sorry to push it on you.”
“Well only one of us has to sleep and with the even higher time dilation between this world and outside, I have plenty of time while you sleep.”
“... yeah. Again, thanks and sorry.”
During breakfast, I tried to make some plans for us for the day, but Ellanora didn’t let Alice skip her dancing lessons two days in a row, so at least she was tied up, so no adventuring. Sure I could go with Ria, but Ria was also asked to help the maids again. … they really are trying to steal her. I was even officially asked if they could borrow Ria as extra help during the party, as they would need all the hands they could have. I let the decision about it up to Ria, and she agreed to help as payment for all that the maids had done for her. Well, she will also get a uniform, like the ones the rest of the maids wear, as a payment. A navy dress, with an apron. White tights and black shoes. So I guess that’s not a bad deal from my PoV to agree to either.
That means I have some solo time, so I decided to train. Sword practice and space magic. Well, that was the plan, but when I summoned Familiar Knight, he said we should also add a shield to my arsenal, as my sword, an arming sword, is primarily a one-handed weapon, so I can use my duel disk as a pseudo shield. It is orichalcum so it shouldn't break just because it took a hit from a sword. Sure it wasn’t an actual shield, but I did have a bronze and copper shield from the dungeon, which Cardo got from the dungeon’s challenge rooms. And of course there is always Millennium Shield, but it isn’t exactly something that I can always use. And it falls into the same problems as my other monsters, where I have to summon it out. It is much faster for me to just take a shield from storage and use it. Or even activate my duel disk and use it as a blocking and/or parrying tool.
As we kept going, Familiar Knight stopped pulling his punches and was hitting me what he claimed to be 70% of his full force. The blows were strong to the point where I, from time to time, either failed to block them, or they forced my sword out of my hand. And that led to me getting some shallow cuts into both my clothing and my skin. Thankfully, I could just put my clothes into storage, use the repair feature to fix them, and then get them out again. And then I just summoned Dancing Fairy to take care of the shallow cuts I was getting, so no permanent wounds would stay on my skin. Sure it hurt a ton, but that might be a good thing. Maybe I can get the Defense Boost skill thanks to this.
“Oh? I didn’t know someone was here.” I heard a voice coming from the direction of the main house.
I did get a bit distracted by it, but I still blocked Familiar Knights' attack and gave him an order to stand back. Then I turned to look who had arrived.
It was a group of four people. One of them, I knew quite well. Well, not really, but I was acquainted with him. Jonathan Garner, Angelina’s son. And yeah, we did eat dinner together basically every day. And sometimes lunch, if I was here instead of somewhere else. They, the Garner family, still ate breakfast at their own house, so we never shared that.
With him were a knight, or someone dressed in leather armor, with a sword at his hip and a shield on his back. Someone that looked like a mage. A man with a staff, dressed in a robe. Why do mages wear robes? Alice doesn’t. And neither does Lua. Do robes just have better capabilities to accept enchantments that help magicians or something? I guess I could ask Dark Magician, and the rest of his variants, about that. The fourth person was a lady, about 25 give or take, dressed in the normal maid attire of the house.
“Is it your turn?” I asked. “I can stop here.” I told them.
I had been practicing with the sword, and ‘shield’, for about an hour. I was planning on going at it for the full 2 hours I could keep my knight summoned, but I can quit a bit early. That would give me time to practice space magic before lunch.
“That won’t be necessary.” The knight said. “There is space for all of us.”
“Yes. Why don’t you train with me?” Jonathan asked.
“... sure. I can do that.” I took me a second to gather my wits, but of course I agreed. Why not, right? Get some outside point of views into my training. Might give me an idea on how good I actually am at the moment.
“... I’m beat…” I muttered to myself after another hour of sword practice. I may or may not have gotten a bit competitive against a literal child, as Jonathan’s technique was way better than mine. Reminder that Jonathan is 10 So I took the training extra seriously, and by the end, I was beat.
“Well, you didn't do half bad.” The knight was trying to compliment me. “But honestly speaking, if your sword was of worse quality, you would have broken it in two.”
“... thanks. That really lifts my spirits.”
“I’m not trying to. You aren’t a little kid.” He said. “Just pointing out something that could get you killed if you aren’t aware of it. It didn’t seem like … the knight that you summoned had told you about it.”
“Well, I’ll also always be using that sword, so I don’t see the issue.”
“Just something to think about. Even the best of swords can break. You don’t want that happening when you have your life on the line.”
“... okay. Thanks.” I thanked the knight. What he said was legitimately useful information.
“Sir, may I make a request?” The magician asked me. After we stopped practicing with swords, he had taken over and Jonathan had been practicing magic for about 10 minutes now. I had thought about leaving, but I was both recovering and just interested in his training.
“Sure, go for it.”
“You can summon powerful magician, can’t you?” He asked.
“... depends on your definition of powerful, but yes.”
“Any that use fire magic?”
“Few.” I answered, as I pulled open my collection and checked my fire spellcasters. “Four, in total.”
“Could you summon one? I’d like for Jonathan to see a powerful fire magician.” The mage requested.
“Sure. I don’t mind.” I answered as I got the strongest of them out of my collection. “Legendary Flame Lord.”
My magician quickly rose from his card and was ready to serve us.
We spent about another hour at the training grounds, with both my magician and Jonathan’s teacher teaching him about advanced fire magic. It is interesting that the Book of Secret Arts which I installed into Flame Lord became handy like this. I really didn’t consider it when I installed it, and just installed it because why not. And completion reasons. I wanted a magic book of each attribute.
The best part, for me, was seeing Legendary Flame Lord cast spells that made colored flames. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. He went through all the colors of a rainbow, before even making some black and white flames. The color of the flame actually has nothing to do with its power, but more so to do with the fire's secondary effects. For example, black flames hurt the most, while white hurts very little. Even though both can inflict similar damage to your skin, and the rest of your body. White flames are honestly terrifying. They can burn your skin off, and all you will feel is that it is slightly hot.
Green ones are good for treatment. Not sure why, but they just are. So if you want a fire massage, find a mage that can use green flames. … Fire massage does not sound safe at all.
Blue and orange flames were apparently the best for general use though. They were just the most mana efficient, so that is what you want.
Of course after all that practice, I took a quick bath before lunch. Sure I could have gone without one, but why not have one. It doesn't cost anything to have Aqua Madoor fill up a bathtub for me. Well, I guess it takes a few minutes of time, but I spend more time in the bathtub, than it takes for him to fill it up with lukewarm water.
With myself clean of sweat, I put on my clothes that had been cleaned by storage and got ready for lunch.
The afternoon was spent much the same as the morning. Practice. But this time, magic. Paulina, Alice, Ria and I all gathered at the training grounds.
Alice was going to practice her flight skill, and dark magic.
Ria was working on offensive fire magic. The type where you surround your weapon in fire. I was a little afraid she would get burned, but let’s hope she won’t.
Paulina practiced both the mana flight, not that she could fly yet, as well as telekinesis. Followed by earth and water magic, when Alice swapped over to dark magic.
And I, of course, practiced mana flight, not that I could fly either, telekinesis, and space magic.
“YES! I did it!” I called out.
I was feeling an invisible wall before my eyes. Space Wall. A directional defensive barrier made by space magic. This was the first time I’d successfully cast one and had it be stable enough that I could touch it before it broke.
Of course, this one wasn’t made to last either, and fell apart just 10 seconds later, but lasting for ten seconds is a lot longer than the usual one or two seconds.
“Brian? What was that?” Alice asked.
“I casted space magic.” I answered. “Like actual space magic, which lasted for long enough that I could feel it with my hand.”
“Really? Show me! Show me!” Alice demanded.
“Yeah. I’ll try.” I agreed. “Space, consolidate into a wall and protect me, Space Wall.” I chanted the spell again.
I moved my mana with the chant, sending it out in a very precise manner. I felt like I was doing everything perfectly, but then again, that is what I’ve been thinking on almost every attempt, but the walls still broke apart in just seconds. Sure there were some that I knew were failures before I even said the final words of the chant, but I still went through with them. At that point, it would have been impossible to save the mana used for the spell, so might as well finish the attempt. At least I had plenty of Pitch-Black Power Stone that I could use to refill my mana, so I could just keep trying over and over again.
The spell succeeded and I could see the slight sign of the space wall forming. It was actually fully invisible for anyone but the caster, or someone skilled with space magic. You could feel it, if you were good at sensing mana, but you can’t see it with just your eyes.
“... did it work?” Alice asked.
“Yeah. It is right here.” I said, placing my hand on it, while it was still around.
Alice did the same, placing her hand perfectly in line with mine and we probably looked like two lovers, holding our hands against the piece of glass separating us.
… that is, until the wall broke again and our hands met.
“... sorry.” After a second, Alice pulled her hand back and said sorry. Honestly, I was expecting a scream and some panicking, but she was almost terrifyingly calm. What did you do to my usual innocent Alice? Who mind controlled her?
“Nah. It’s on me as well. I knew the spell wouldn’t last for long. It never does. But at least it lasts for about 10 seconds now.” I said back. “Cosmo Queen, what do you think?”
“You need more practice.” She said coldly. “That spell is about as basic as we can go, and to have it break that easily is honestly a joke. Do you think it could stop anything if it breaks from some hand holding?”
“... yeah. Probably not. But it is the best result thus far, right?”
“Perhaps. So well done on that part. But you’d better not use this as an excuse to stop training.” She did not sound encouraging at all. “If you think that spell can do anything, it will end like your attempt at being a swordsman.”
“... wow. Thanks. Didn’t have to go that far.”
“Just being realistic here. I don’t want you to have an ego, just because you managed to cast a basic spell.” Cosmo Queen said.
“I still think it is amazing.” Alice said. “Had I known about space magic, maybe I could have learned magic before…”
“Well, you learned magic the other way, so does it matter?” I asked.
“... I guess not.” Alice agreed. “Did you get the skill for space magic?”
“Oh yeah. Let me check.”
Well, no space magic, but something else was there. Sword Technique. I guess I didn’t check after my morning practice, but apparently I got it.
“... so, did you get it?” Alice asked after a few seconds.
“No. Not yet.” I answered. “But I did get the sword technique skill.”
“Really? That’s cool!” She exclaimed.
“Yeah. I guess the morning practice did it. And if I can reliably cast the Space Wall spell, I’ll get the space magic skill in a day or two as well.”
“Yes. You can do it, Brian.” Alice encouraged me.
See Cosmo Queen. That is how you do it. That is much more motivating than anything you are doing. You don’t have to be passive aggressive about it.
Later, I spoke with Lua in the factory, and told her about both my success with space magic, as well as the skill I got. She was also happy for me and congratulated me on the new skill.
But she was the one with the even better news. Her system mission was completed. And that did two things. First, her unique skill leveled up to LV.2. And second, Mia, her system support, got upgraded from basic to standard system support, the same level as Laura.
And because Lua was now done with her mission, she said she wanted to come stay with us in the city, so I promised I would pick her up tomorrow.
We’ll get to live together from tomorrow onwards. I hope everything will go fine.
During dinner, I informed everyone that I would go pick up Lua tomorrow. I got some questions about how I could contact her, but I was able to get around that problem without revealing the true reason. I do have a way of contacting Christina after all, and she doesn’t have the system support.
But another thing was also revealed during dinner, I’d gotten a letter. From an armor shop. Our order was ready for pickup.
I asked the maids if they had taught Ria how to write a response letter, and after Ria answered no, I asked if the maids could teach her how to do it, and have Ria write the response that we would pick up the stuff tomorrow.
In the evening, we used our level ups. Like we do. I was thinking of leveling up my new skill, but decided to go with Mana Control instead. I just think I want it to level 10. Maybe it will help with getting space magic. And honestly, I think my swordsmen will go extra hard on me if they hear I’ve leveled up Sword Technique without their permission.
Ria got a level in Unarmed Combat Technique.
Anyway, that is it for today. Good night.
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