NOVEL WEB Chapter 78 - Chaos Shield
When Tesilim said that the chaos would be soon, he meant it. During the past week, he had been storing up his mana as they waited for the twins, and now he needed to get rid of some of it. So, with nothing else stopping them, they had left the Adventurer’s Guild and headed out of the city.
On the way to the designated chaos area, the party had made some light conversation, mainly on what to expect from the fey bunnies and questions for Jasmine regarding what she could bring to the table.
“I prefer to use a staff as my weapon, but since Arelion and I share memories, I can find my way around daggers and swords. Mainly, daggers since that is what he prefers as well.” The half-elf had said, and to no one’s surprise, Lili had wanted to spar. However, Jasmine declined the request, and Lili didn’t push, letting the half-elf continue explaining her powers.
Jasmine mainly considered herself a caster, and her proficiency with the staff was to help her stay alive when things got close and personal, which had been the case for most of her life so far. Instead, she would prefer to buff, heal, and stay as far from the enemy as possible. Something she was suited for since, like her brother, her magic was innate, which opened her up to do anything she wished as long as she could will it, and her magic supported the concepts. And since she had access to light magic and a few other things via Luxana’s mana, she could easily accomplish her desired role.
In terms of what she was currently capable of, well, she could make simple shields appear around allies for a brief second, which, when time correctly, could negate strikes. Of course, she could also heal and cleanse or shoot burning beams or orbs of light, among other things.
Jasmine explained that unlike her brother, who used a lot of techniques to activate his abilities, she preferred to use magic without them. Naturally, she didn’t gain the boost from a technique but on the other hand, her effects came about faster since there was less build-up.
Basically, Jasmine was a fan of free forming her magic, whereas her brother liked to be more exact. Still, it didn’t mean she didn’t have one or two techniques to help her in combat.
It didn't take long for the party to arrive at the designated chaotic location for Tesilim to release his magic. The party stood some distance from the Chaos Elf, and like usual, Lili and Alyx were acting just like it was just regular business hours. At the same time, Rose looked apprehensive, and Jasmine looked excited for what was to come. Of course, they all had their shields up as they waited for Tesilim to do his thing.
For his part, Tesilim was looking at his mana and saw that he had 90 points to spend. He knew that some fights were coming up, so he didn't want to spend too much of it just in case he needed some in a pinch. In the end, he chose to only spend 25 on one of his spells. And without much fanfare, Tesilim unleashed a simple bolt of flame at a tree.
Alyx wasn't worried about how the magic affected this particular spell as much since he had already seen most of Tesilim’s current spells while they were empowered. Instead, the gnome was more curious about how the effects of Tesilim’s chaotic disposition came to be, and he had his notebook ready to take notes.
Like always, Tesilim’s spell blessed apart a chunk of a tree, and he got his notification.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
Warning! Chaos Event Imminent, prepare yourself.
Rolling d20. 4. Rolling d20. 15.
🔷
“Alright! It's coming, get ready!” Tesilim yelled at his companions, who quickly went into full alert mode.
The first to notice something was Alyx, who was sensing the world with his senses while looking around with his glowing gem eyes. The gnome felt a flicker of magic around Tesilim. It was something he hadn’t felt before and registered to him as various flavors of fruits. The taste quickly disappeared as everyone noticed the change. Around Tesilim, a fluctuating multicolor shield had appeared.
Intrigued, the gnome approached his curiosity stronger than ever. Meanwhile, Rose sighed in relief, seeing as nothing crazy had-had happened. Completely opposing Rose, Jasmine was extremely disappointed not to witness an explosion. Lili was the one least concerned about the entire ordeal, at least on the outside. Inside, she was trembling with excitement, much like Alyx, though mainly due to her higher rank, she had felt the flicker of power around Tesilim. In fact, now that it had stabilized, the shield blazed in her senses. She didn’t know exactly how, but the shield was infused with Tesilim’s Chaos Mana. The interesting thing was that, unlike the stuff she had seen in his soul, she innately knew she couldn’t consume the mana in the shield. Either way, just being around the manifested energy gave her a rush of excitement that she struggled to hide.
Meanwhile, as everyone stared at Tesilim, he was so freaking glad that the system popped a notification explaining precisely what was going on. Things were definitely changing for the better with his system, much like it had said it could, and now it was explaining things more and more.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
Attention! Due to a Chaos Event, a Chaos Shield has sprouted around you. The shield will completely block the next incoming attack if the power behind it is D Rank or lower. Additionally, the entity responsible for the attack will have a Chaos Event trigger regardless of whether the attack was fully blocked or not. Once the event triggers, the shield will disperse.
🔷
The first to speak was Jasmine, whose curiosity finally got to her, “So, what’s up with the shield?”
“It came from my power and will stop the next attack while also triggering another chaotic event,” Tesilim answered, willing his screen to move towards and float above Alyx’s notebook. Seeing the screen move across the space, Lili moved behind Alyx as if she were inspecting his notes.
“Meaning we aren’t safe yet? And instead, it will trigger mid-combat, possibly screwing us over?” Rose spoke up, her tone serious as she thought ahead to their incoming fight.
“Come on, Rose! Don’t be so negative!” Jasmine answered as she patted Rose on the shoulder.
“No, Jasmine. This is serious. We could get hurt or killed because a random fireball came out of nowhere at a crucial moment.”
“It's fine! Just means we have to be extra alert!” Jasmine replied happily to the worried redhead.
Having read the description from Tesilim's screen, his two companions had two very different thoughts on it. For his part, Alyx was glad that he had such detailed information about what the shield did and its possible workings. It was an interesting thing to see and a strong ability overall, even if a bit useless at such a low rank. Alyx wasn't sure what the chances of Tesilim getting the ability again were, but if he managed to get it at a higher rank and for a much longer period of time, it would be an incredibly overpowered thing. Blocking a D-rank attack was not really a great boon. However, if it managed to block an A-rank, S-rank, or even a Demigod-level attack without any true cost, it would be a complete game changer that could put Tesilim at a definitive advantage in a fight.
Outside of the possibilities the shield could have, and what was even more interesting to Alyx was the taste he had experienced. The taste had to be some side effect from the Chaos Mana. It made the gnome wonder why he had managed to feel the mana now when he couldn’t feel anything from other effects triggered by it or from the shield right in front of him.
Unbeknownst to the gnome, Lili had an answer to his question, one that she wouldn't be able to share until such time when she revealed her power to feel Chaos Mana. Much like Alyx, she questioned why she had been able to feel the magic at work when, before, the Chaos Mana had gone unfelt by her when it triggered an event.
The answer came rather quickly after reading the event description, unlike before, where the Chaos Mana empowered a spell and was diluted into it, which somehow triggered an event in the process—this time around, the Chaos Mana’s event resulted in itself being the result of its own event. It was, basically, a manifestation of itself that would then use the same energy in the shield to trigger another chaos event. Lili was sure of it since she could feel the energy radiating from the shield around Tesilim. However, unlike the mana in his soul, she couldn’t consume the mana of the shield.
Her guess was that the Chaos Mana had two states, a passive one like it was found in Tesilim’s soul and an active state, which came about when infused into a spell. In fact, the only reason she could sense the mana in the shield at all was that both states of Chaos Mana were present.
Tesilim’s original imbued spell triggered the Chaos Mana to make the shield via the Chaos Event. The shield was then made in two stages and with two different effects. The first stage was the creation of the shield itself, and the effect was that it would intercept an attack, and upon blocking that attack, it would trigger the secondary effect. From there, the second phase introduced the passive Chaos Mana into the shield and trapped it within. That was also where it all came together. When the shield was broken, it would trigger the passive Chaos Mana, turning it into its active state and, therefore, creating another Chaos Event as a secondary effect.
The entire thing was foolproof, and the reason she couldn’t absorb the passive Chaos Mana found in the shield. Since to get to the passive mana, she needed to break the shield. This would, of course, be counted as an attack and leave her with nothing as the mana activated, triggering an effect. Thinking about it, the only way to maybe get to the mana was with time magic powerful enough to delay the inner mechanisms of the shield. And that was so far out of the question that it wasn’t even funny.
If Alyx knew about Lili’s inner rambling, he would realize that what he had felt was the passive Chaos Mana encountering existence for a fraction of a second before the shield enveloped it. Even then, the gnome was rather smart, and having seen Tesilim’s chaos mana at work multiple times, he was beginning to suspect that his Chaos Mana had to be in different states of being. Otherwise, why would it not simply trigger itself when inside the elf’s soul? Still, he needed to know more and wondered if Tesilim would let him into his soul again.