NOVEL WEB Chapter 60 - Tom
Novaris. Quin. 905. AGC.
Nodel. Waning Crescent 🌘. Day 27.
Lili had been very tempted to go and take some of Tesilim's Chaos Mana. However, she still felt it was too early in their friendship to reveal that part of her. So, she had to ensure she was at full capacity in the morning without making her two companions suspicious of her. Due to this, Lili found herself going down the tower and heading outside late into the night. The guards had questioned her, but she explained that she wanted to get some fresh air and, as a Low C Ranker, she should be fine outside. The guards, not wanting to deal with an adventurer, let her leave.
So, Lili slinked away into the always moonless night. She hadn't completely lied as she did want to look at the stars for a bit and enjoy being out at night. More importantly, she needed to get some matter to refill her mana. As always, the denser the matter, the better, and she had spotted some rocks earlier that were lying about, so she quickly made her way towards them. They were far enough from the tower that no one would notice them missing the following day.
Soon enough, Lili arrived at the spot and placing a hand on them caused them to quickly disappear as she absorbed the matter and, through her soul, was able to turn it into mana she could use. Lili spent a couple of hours just walking around, taking a few trees, some rocks, and even some weak monsters until finally, her soul was back to full.
With that done and her ability to constantly consume the air around her, she could keep going with her ruse that she had a normal soul like most people did. So she returned to the tower, got in bed, and fell asleep for some well-deserved rest.
Nodel. Waning Crescent 🌘. Day 28.
Tesilim woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go. He quickly went through his morning routine of cleaning himself up and making sure all his stuff was ready. Then he met up with Lili and Alyx, and they headed downstairs for breakfast. It was early in the morning, but not too early, and if Tesilim had to guess, it was probably around 10 AM. Either way, they were soon downstairs and were getting some monster meat, bread, and ale.
After eating and relaxing for another hour in the guard tower, the party decided it was time to head back out. Specifically, they needed to return to their camping spot, which they had left behind after fighting the wolves. It's not like they had left anything important behind, and the wards should have kept it mostly intact.
Before heading out, Tesilim did like he always did, especially now that he was out in dangerous territory, and rolled for his weapon die. He rolled a six, which got him in his shield, something that Tesilim was more than fine with, at least until it disappeared one whole minute after leaving the tower. Still unbothered, Tesilim just rolled again. The second time around, he got his daggers, hoping they would last longer than one whole minute or an hour.
After an hour or so of traveling, they finally made it back to their camp, and Tesilim cursed yet again as his daggers disappeared. Thankfully, the camp was just fine, and he inspected his goods, and so did Lili, as Alyx didn't need to worry about his stuff, as an incredible amount of magic protected it. Seeing that everything was good, Tesilim decided to roll his die again. For this third time, he got the boxing gloves, and since they didn't disappear after a minute, he hoped they would last for much longer.
Either way, now that they had found the camp unbothered, it was time to go back out into the forest and start patrolling for more dangerous or annoying monsters.
It wasn't long into their patrol when his party was annoyed by some freaking birds. The birds were made of leaves, and Tesilim wasn't sure how to feel about that. They had just been strolling through the woods when a quarter of a tree's leaves suddenly started flying. Tesilim had to imagine that the bird leaves didn't really have much of a brain as they were extremely weak, and he figured that they would just attack whatever came close to the tree.
The birds didn't last long. With a couple of fiery explosions from Tesilim’s boxing gloves and Alyx’s fire lightning, they were quickly reduced to ash. In terms of damage, the birds didn't do much. They left some paper cuts on Tesilim’s skin and didn’t even touch Lili or Alyx.
Sadly, it was right after that incident that Tesilim’s gloves disappeared as they had only been summoned for an hour. Still, it was nice to use them, and then Tesilim rolled his die again. That time around, he got his daggers, though they promptly disappeared one whole minute later, and he had to roll yet again. He got his boots. Tesilim was fine with that, as they made him have to use his other spells and stuff in order to fight. Thankfully, the boots lasted more than an hour, meaning he would have them for the foreseeable future.
After getting his boots, it seemed like the world decided it would be a day of combat. The party ran into some aberrations. More specifically, they ran into some shifter hounds that were massacring a huge bear. There were 20 of the hounds, and due to their size and savagery, the bear was almost dead. Even so, the bear was a distraction that would allow the party to start the fight on their terms. This meant Tesilim wanted to one-shot the beasts as payback for Earth and because his Chaos Mana was about 30 points from filling up.
Now, could he have just used his water slashes or his magic missiles? Sure, he could have, but after seeing Alyx use lightning, Tesilim was itching to throw some lightning around. So he had asked the wizard for a chain lightning spell, and the gnome had happily taught him.
Chain Lightning: A spell capable of unleashing a lightning bolt that will arc through various enemies. Naturally, the more mana imbued into the spell, the stronger it will be, the more enemies it will strike, and the longer it will last.
Current Rank: D.
Magic Type: Simple Magic - Evocation.
Concentration: No.
Mana Use: One-Off.
Use: Damage.
AoE: No.
Multi-Target: Yes.
So Tesilim began his chant. He wasn't going to bother trying using the circle but was definitely going to imbue a lot of his mana into this spell. Tesilim had been progressing rather decently, but he still knew that he had a long way to go, and every bit of pure mana that he spent would keep taking him that much closer to the next rank. Still, he knew he still had a couple more hours left in their patrol for the day and couldn't just spend all his mana. Thankfully, his Chaos Mana would pick up the pace as he planned to pour 50 points of it into the chain lightning spell.
Feeling the mana burn through his body as it poured out of his soul, he also tasted the rainbow from using his chaotic mana.
“By storm's fury and lightning's might;
Chain lightning strike with blinding light;
Leap and bind with electric force;
And smite my foes with no remorse.”
Finishing the chant, he unleashed his spell as a lightning bolt flew from his hand, sparkling with all sorts of colors and buzzing with electricity. The lightning bolt grew in size as it traveled towards the hounds until it finally struck the first one, only leaving a charred body behind before it moved on to the next and the next and the next. The damn thing just kept increasing in size and power, zapping through all the bodies.
Tesilim watched with his two companions as the sight in front of them became a thing of beauty. The lightning bolt gave off multicolor lights as it got brighter and brighter, sparks flying off. All the while, they could also hear the howls of pain from the hounds within as the magic charred their bodies. Eventually the light show died down, and everything came to a rest, only leaving behind the burnt bodies of the aberrations and the bear.
Of course, Tesilim received the notification as soon as the light show died down.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
Warning! Chaos Event Imminent, prepare yourself.
Rolling d20. Overridden.
🔷
Thankfully, nothing seemed to happen, and Tesilim didn't feel any different. Looking over at his companions, they also seemed just fine, and nothing else was happening in their surroundings. In response, they all just shrugged and moved away from the burned corpses.
After that, the rest of the day was spent on a regular patrol. They weren’t attacked by any more monsters, and they didn't find anything they needed to take care of. In fact, that day was a good example of what the rest of the patrolling week was going to be like.
When night fell at their camp, they ate some food and relaxed for a bit, and they took turns on watch. Then, the next day, they headed out once more. They did some fighting here and there, but nothing serious like it had been with the wood wolves—mostly just weaker monsters. The whole week, aside from those first two days, ended up being a rather relaxing time.
Relaxing in the terms that their fights never got that difficult. However, they still did manage to make progress. Though more specifically, Tesilim and Alyx managed to make some progress. It wasn't much because the fights were easy, but progress was progress.
Eventually, though, it was time to head back to the city, and Tesilim was excited to finally sleep on a proper bed in his amazing room at the five-star inn. Tesilim was still worried about that random Chaos Event, as they never ended up finding out what the hell happened. He just hoped that some poor peasant hadn’t found themselves with blue skin and purple hair or something.
Tom had been doing his rounds in his small village. Then, randomly, a barrel appeared above him, and he only reacted in time to not get completely squashed by it. It was a completely crazy thing to happen. His village was just some no name village in the Magus Empire. And even if the Empire focused on magic, random barrels didn't appear out of nowhere. Still, the barrel looked like a barrel of ale, and considering no one else was around, he decided to open the thing.
Surprising Tom, the barrel was indeed full of ale. Naturally, he did the obvious and immediately tasted the ale, only to find that it was some of the best top-quality ale he'd ever tasted in his life. Of course, Tom did not want to share this fantastic thing, so he promptly sealed the barrel and ran off to his home to deposit the thing before heading back to continue his watch.