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Vol. 4 - Growth - Chapter 18
🕑 Added 2019-03-03 17:54:51 +0000 UTCSelena looked around Thomas's room and let out a soft sigh of disappointment, "Unfortunately, you and I are the only two living things in this room and Unholy magic is really only effective on living or undead targets. Still, you can practice the form of the spell and use it on an animal or something later to get a real feel for it. Enervating spells are the exact counter for healing spells. You flood your target with Unholy magic that eats away at their very lifeforce. Depending on how much mana you consume while casting the spell it will have varying effects. If you use only a little mana it will make them feel sick, a little more and you can weaken them, a lot more and you can outright kill them."
She looked at Thomas to make sure he was paying close attention and seeing that he was she continued, "Unlike regular elemental spells your Power attribute isn't quite as important as how much mana you use to cast an Unholy spell. The more mana you use the more powerful the spell will become. How else would I be able to counter Dean Zorzic's Holy magic inside of your body when my Power attribute is even lower than yours?"
Thomas nodded in understanding, it made more sense now how she could pump enough power into him to counter someone like Dean Zorzic. Selena continued on, "That doesn't mean Power is completely useless of course. Like anything else, you can get more out of your spell if your Power is higher. Unholy has the advantage of being able to increase its strength not just from your Power attribute but also the amount of mana you use to cast the spell."
Selena smiled, "Now that I've explained that I want you to aim your spell at one of the barriers surrounding the room to cast your spell while using as little mana as possible. There's no point in you expending a large amount of mana when you only need to learn the form of the spell. Point your hand at the wall and imagine a beam of energy continuously coming out of your hand to strike your target."
Thomas found the explanation of Unholy magic to be rather interesting. Thomas turned a bit to his right and pointed the palm of his hand at the wall. He'd never dismissed the little ball of pitch black fog-like energy so he didn't need to summon it back up. Thomas pictured a pitch black beam firing from his hand and striking the barrier while urging his Unholy energy just a little bit. The black energy around his hand swirled for a moment before a beam of black energy shot out of the palm of his hand and struck the barrier.
The beam was only a few millimeters thick and didn't even cause a ripple on the barrier. Selena looked at the thin beam and nodded, "Unholy magic is naturally destructive to life just as fire magic naturally burns. The more power you use with this spell the more destructive it will be. Remember that and try to gauge your targets appropriately before you use it."
Thomas kept the beam going and focused inside of himself to feel how much of his mana was being consumed. Because of how weak he'd willed the beam to be he wasn't losing very much mana at all. What was surprising to him though was he was losing less than thirty percent of the mana to 'waste' from his lacking mana control. He was surprised for a moment, but then recalled that his race lowered the mana costs of his Holy and Unholy magic by twenty-five percent.
After checking how effective his mana control for Unholy magic was he cut off the beam and looked at Selena with a grin on his face. She maintained a serious expression as she continued the lesson, "Just remember to use more mana when casting that spell on a living target. The strength of the spell you just cast would barely be enough to make a mouse sick, let alone a monster or person."
Selena stepped to the side and crossed her arms beneath her ample bosom before she continued, "The only other spell you're qualified to learn at the moment is the second staple of Unholy magic. The life drain spell. Like the enervating spell, you need to cast a beam of Unholy energy at your target. However, once the beam connects you need to will it to 'suck' out the targets lifeforce and pull it into yourself. This spell will only work on targets that have a strong life force. It's useless against things like most plants or small insects."
Thomas nodded in understanding. It was just useless against things with too little life force. However, in a world such as this, there would be things like Treants or massive insects that would have enough life force to use the life drain spell on. Thomas looked from Selena back to the wall and lifted his hand once again. As he did Selena spoke up, "Your spell will automatically fail when you try to use it on the barrier. You should still try it out though, you should get a feeling of suction from the spell before it fails. That will let you know that the spell would work on a living target."
Thomas once again fired a beam of black energy that was only a few millimeters thick at the barrier. When the beam connected with the barrier he willed it to drain the life out of the barrier. He felt a weak sensation of suction for a brief moment before the thin beam 'snapped' and vanished. When the spell broke he felt a small pang of pain in his head but it disappeared as quickly as it came.
Seeing Thomas wince, Selena smiled and explained, "When a spell that's connected directly to you is broken there is a bit of backlash. How strong the backlash is, depends on the strength of the spell and how violently it's broken."
Thomas thought about the time he broke Selena's earth wall spell and looked at her to ask, "So back when I punched your earth wall spell did I hurt you?"
Selena shook her head, "That spell wasn't directly connected to me. I was merely maintaining it with mana. The life draining spell creates a direct connection between you and the target and you will be subjected to the backlash. Try to keep that in mind. Just like the enervating spell you shouldn't use this spell on a target that you feel might be able to break it. Don't be afraid to use it if you need to though. This spell has the benefit of moving the life force of the target into yourself. This gives a bit of a healing effect. It's not nearly as strong as real healing magic, but it definitely helps out."
Thomas finally dismissed the Unholy energy wrapped around his hand as he looked at Selena. According to her his rank in Unholy was too low to learn anything else so there was nothing left for her to teach him. He now needed to practice with it on some living targets to get it to rank up so he could learn more. Sadly, he wasn't entirely sure when he would be in the middle of nowhere so he could practice with it. Even using it in the dungeon was simply too dangerous.
Selena looked at Thomas and gave him a small smile, "I honestly expected this to take the rest of the day. I didn't even expect you to be able to control it right away. It's a good thing I had you put out the candles and create the ward right away as a precaution."
Thomas chuckled and nodded, "Definitely a good thing. Ever since I came to this world I've been able to quickly learn anything I wanted to."
Selena looked jealous for a moment, but it passed quickly as she said, "It's a good thing you can. If it took you a long time to learn things your progress in class would be much slower than everyone else given the low rank of your mana control. Most people wouldn't even be able to convert their mana into an element without at least a rank of fifty in their mana control. You seem to break all the known rules."
Thomas laughed and couldn't help but think of his 'Quick Learner' innate ability. It seemed like there was a lot more to it than he was aware of. He was already certain that it gave him an experience boost when he gained experience in his skills and abilities. Now though, it seemed like it also helped him with the speed at which he could learn things and even somewhat 'break' the rules of some things. The AI during his character creation hadn't been lying when she said that some of the innate abilities could be game breaking.
He thought about his 'All Seeing Eyes' and sighed. That ability had a domineering name and was an S grade innate ability. He knew he was wasting it, he just had no idea how to do anything related to his eyes. How do you make your eyes do something that human eyes weren't designed to do? His only hope seemed to be to rank it up as high as he could and hope things would trigger automatically or in special situations.
Selena spoke up, "Before you extinguish the candles make sure you don't feel any remnants of Unholy magic within your practice space. They are excellent products and will absorb all the Unholy magic in the room but you must never become complacent and risk exposing yourself. If it's found that you practice Unholy magic there is nothing anyone could do to protect you from being hunted down."
Thomas took her warning very seriously. The worst thing that could happen to him was not death, it was losing a potential customer base! He looked around the room and tried to feel for any remaining Unholy energy left sitting around. He spent a good couple of minutes trying to find any hint of it before he turned to Selena and said, "I don't feel anything. The room seems to be clean."
Selena gave a nod of approval as she said, "Good. Go ahead and put the candles out. With this, there's nothing else I can teach you until you get your rank in Unholy magic up higher. When you get your Unholy magic to rank fifty let me know and we'll have your next lesson."
System Notice: New Quest!
Selena ??? ?????????, wants you to seek her out for another lesson in the use of Unholy magic when your rank in Unholy magic reaches 50.
Rewards: ???
When Thomas received the quest his eyes widened marginally. Most times when he got a quest from an individual it would give either just their first name or their whole name even if he didn't know it. However, Selena's name was censored! He found that to be extremely intriguing and his desire to find out more about her grew. It seemed like quite a few of the people he'd come to associate with had very interesting pasts and identities. Hekrin had the title of Grandmaster and some connection to the King of Reykhoten. Selena refused to say anything about herself but she was clearly someone with enough pull to stay in the Mayor's manor and be sent to Ulvstad to try and convince Hekrin to return to the capitol.
As he pondered about all of this, Thomas waved his hand and used a burst of wind magic to put out the wicks of the four candles before he walked around the room and collected all four of them. He placed them in the box with the remaining candles and stored the whole box inside of his inventory. With the barrier gone any further practice of his Unholy magic would reveal it. Selena pulled her hood up and said, "We're done with what Fulin asked us to do and I've taught you what I can for now. There's no need for us to meet up tomorrow, so spend the next three days doing whatever you want. I'll see you again when classes resume."
Thomas felt a little disappointed that he wouldn't be spending the next three days with her. He couldn't come up with a reason to ask her to stick with him so he could only watch as he covered herself up and snuck out of the men's dormitory to go about her own business for the next three days. Thomas sighed and looked around his empty dorm room. The day was half over and he didn't feel like going into the dungeon right now. That would be his first plan tomorrow, after all, he needed to get at least one more elemental magic up to rank twenty-five for Hekrin's quest.
He crossed his arms over his chest as he tried to decide on a course of action. He would spend the rest of today practicing his 'Transmutation' and 'All Seeing Eyes' skills. Tomorrow he would head to the dungeon alone and stick to the first three floors. He just needed to practice his magic, though he could do the repeatable quest for some extra experience. If he got his fifth element to rank twenty-five before classes resumed he would spend the rest of his time working on his innate abilities. With his next few days planned out he got to work.
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Cody S.
Thanks!
Erik Zorger
he could only watch as he covered herself up and snuck out of the men's dormitory to go about her own business for the next three days. She gender swaps in the middle here.
