NOVEL WEB Chapter 57 - Camping
The freaking bush was three times the size of Tesilim, and its body was in constant undulating movement, almost as if it was an ooze or something. His fire blast charred it, but whatever it was, it quickly regenerated itself by draining the nearby vegetation, causing plants to wither rapidly.
The bush was going to be a pain in the ass.
Landing from his earlier upward teleport, Tesilim quickly began teleporting back with his glove ability starting his body enhancement as he did so. Moments later, Lili rushed past him, heading straight at the bush thing. Following Lili, though stopping next to him was Alyx, who gave him a quick rundown of the plan.
“Alright, so we have to hit this thing fast and hard; otherwise, it will keep regenerating. Lili will do her thing, which I will follow up with a fire spell. Then, when mine ends, I want you to teleport above it and blast the whole area with a lot of weak fire and ice blasts. Got it?”
Tesilim gave the gnome a nod and felt Alyx extend his presence outward.
Meanwhile, Lili dodged piercing vines as she got before the large shrub entity. There, she finally unleashed the first technique Tesilim had seen from her. Tesilim watched as her daggers were covered in void-like darkness, and she yelled, “Consuming Slash,” as she crossed slash in front of her, sending out two dark slashes of energy. The energy then literally ate its way through the plants leaving a big x mark right through it. After that, Lili quickly backtracked as the plant entity became enraged, and it sent dozens of vines at the white air elf.
After Lili was Alyx, whose presence had enveloped the plant creature while Lili had done her thing, then, as he spoke his chant, words also began appearing above the creature before transforming into the magic circle Tesilim was familiar with.
"By fire's wrath and ember's glow;
Flamethrower, let your fury flow;
Blaze and burn with searing heat;
Turn my foes to ash, complete."
With the chant complete, Tesilim saw the red circle glow brightly before unleashing a torrent of fire directly at the hurting mass of vines underneath. Knowing it was about to be his turn in the fight, Tesilim got ready to teleport as soon as the flame thrower finished. A second later, Lili appeared beside him while watching the shrubbery as the spell's flames sputtered.
Seeing as it was his time to shine, Tesilim boosted his enhancement with some of his pure arcane mana before also unleashing his own technique with an “I am speed” and finally teleporting above the mass of vines. Then, he began to unleash a barrage of ice and fire blasts at the crisp mound of vines while also staying above it by constantly teleporting with his gloves.
Eventually, after using half of his item's mana and feeling like the landscape and monster were 100% destroyed, he teleported back to his two companions with a large grin on his face.
“A bit much, don’t you think?” Alyx said while still staring at the spot where the monster had been, which was now filled with scorched marks and frozen chunks.
“You need to learn to conserve mana!” Lili added before attempting to smack Tesilim’s head. A smack he skillfully dodged as he was on the lookout for it.
“Ha!” Tesilim yelled triumphantly before his world flipped, Lili forcibly making him do a back flip by smacking his head.
“Ouch! What the heck!” He complained while frowning at Lili.
“You only dodged it because you were enhanced, and I wasn’t. How do you like my body enhancement?” She said smugly.
“This is bullshit,” Tesilim mumbled as he got up.
After the fight, they kept walking until the sun began to set, at which point they decided to set camp. According to Lili, the forest edge was only a few hours away, and it would be best if they traveled the last bit early in the morning. So, they found a nice little spot where trees mostly shielded them before setting up.
Well, Tesilim didn’t do much of anything and just watched the other two do their thing.
First up was Lili, who took a small box from her bag. The box was the size of her fist and had a weird green camouflage color. After looking at their somewhat empty yet small camp space, she seemed to find a good spot and carefully set the box down before tapping it and backing away. Soon after, the freaking box popped in a poof of white smoke, and when the magic cleared, there was a freaking green camouflaged tent in its place.
“What the fuck! You have a literal pop-up tent!?” Tesilim yelled as he went to inspect the one-person tent, which thankfully seemed to be just a regular old tent. Well, outside of its color and evident magic.
“Well, yeah. You need a decent tent if you go camping in the woods.”
“Yeah! Not shit! How do I get one!?”
“Well, first, you need at least 500 gold.” An answer that sent Tesilim into a coughing fit.
“Ahem. Alright, that's fair; carry on,” Tesilim said, clearing his throat and looking over at Alyx, who he knew was about to absolutely outdo Lili.
Sure enough, the short bastard pulled out another small box, except the freaking thing, radiated so much magic Tesilim could feel some of it through his weak senses. Lili, on the other hand, clearly felt more and just stared as the gnome placed the box down, and it transformed into a brass blueish metal door with a slight glow.
“You’re joking, right.” Was Lili’s only comment as both she and Tesilim watched the gnome open the door to reveal what was the equivalent of a suite at Canopy’s Nest.
“It's pretty awesome, right?” Alyx said while looking at both of their stunned faces.
“How did you get this?” Lili asked. She had seen a lot in her 300 years of life, but the sheer insanity before her was something else.
“How much did it cost? And can I sleep in there?” Were Tesilim’s only questions.
“Well, Maxkalin made it for me.”
“Alright, yeah, that checks out,” Lili answered as if that just made sense.
“Also, Tesilim, I am not sure. It's probably worth more than some cities. And no, you can't sleep in here.”
“What!? Why not!? Also, a whole city!? That's ridiculous!”
“I told you, I can't make your journey too easy. I can teach you and maybe cover a tab here and there, but I have to let you suffer. Sorry. Also, and to be fair, Lili can't sleep in here either.”
“Ugh! This sucks! Fine! Can I at least go inside and check it out?” Tesilim responded, accepting his fate.
Entering the room, Tesilim became extremely jealous. The floor was made of a soft gel-like material that was absolutely amazing. However, it didn’t look like gel; instead, it just looked like regular dark blue tiles. Naturally, Tesilim checked the walls, and sure enough, they were the same, though they looked like they were made of marble.
The large room was incredibly well-lit by something, but Tesilim couldn’t tell what as the light was coming from everywhere. Also, the room smelled like berries and felt nice and cool.
Filling the room was Alyx’s large bed that matched the blue-white coloring of his robes. Tesilim figured it was just the chosen color of his two deities. The sheets were, of course, incredible and felt like a dream. From there, the rest of the room had a large table filled with papers and tomes as well as a massive shelf that didn’t have a proper back but was instead a black void. Finally, there were the other basics like a kitchen and bathroom area.
Tesilim was amazed and he totally wanted one. Sadly, after spending like ten minutes checking out the room, he and Lili were kicked out with the promise that Alyx would share some of his food.
Standing outside the door, Lili and Tesilim just looked at each other before Lili silently sighed, leaving him to despise his single bedroll.
Thankfully, Alyx came out sometime later with some freshly cooked steak, bread, and cold beers, and Tesilim quickly forgave the gnome for kicking him out. After eating under magical lights, Tesilim watched Alyx and Lili go around their small camp, murmuring different spells.
Supposedly, they were putting down alarm spells that would warn them of any incoming threats. It took them a bit of time to do it since they decided to do a spell instead of a ritual, and they had to do three separate ones at different distances to make up for it. Of course, Tesilim questioned the difference and was given a relatively quick explanation.
Basically, the alarm spells could be a bit unstable based on fluctuating mana. Additionally, they were much weaker and easier to bypass, hence why they needed three different ones at different distances in case one failed; another could make up for it. Also, they needed two different spells. One was to alert in case the fist was broken, and the first was the one that actually alerted if anything passed through it. So, overall, spells were okay at best but faster to place overall.
Meanwhile, if they did a ritual, it would take more time but cover many of the weaknesses presented by the spells. Rituals were more stable and could have more built-in defenses than just a simple warning system. Tesilim was told that rituals were only done when a party would stay at a camping sight for more than one night, which made sense to him.
After setting up the alarm, he was surprised that they would still have someone on watch. However, unsurprisingly, they were only doing so to teach him the ways of adventuring, as Alyx was safe inside his room unless a dragon showed up. Meanwhile, everything in the area was weak enough that Lili could handle anything that popped up. And since they were training him, it was best to do it when they were in a relatively safe spot, and he could learn the real basics. So, when they traveled to more dangerous areas, he could put the knowledge to use.
Naturally, the first on watch was Tesilim, and he was given his first clock. It was a rectangular object that measured from Tesilim’s wrist to the tip of his middle finger and around the width of his palm. The thing was separated into two parts. The thinnest was a small band at the bottom with numbers etched into it, going from what Tesilim figured was 6 pm on the left to 6 am on the right. Above the numbers was the largest bit of the rectangle, which was colored in the various colors that identified the afternoon, midnight, and morning. The colors began with a deep orange at 6 pm, then shifted to deeper hues of blue till it was fully black at midnight before it shifted back into the lighter blues until 6 am came around, and it eventually turned to a bright yellow. The colors created a nice gradient strip above which a small illusion of a full moon slowly traveled across, showing the passage of time as it passed over each of the numbers on the bottom strip.
Looking at the clock, he saw it was around eight at night. He was told to wake up Lili at midnight, and finally, Lili would wake up Alyx at four in the morning. Then, with that, everyone went to sleep, well, except for Tesilim, who just lay on his bed reading a book about magic with a small light spell keeping him company.