I was beginning to realize that being important was not a good thing if I wanted to live a peaceful life.
Mizuki had no choice about it, which I understood now more than ever must be an enormous pain in the ass to live with. Unfortunately, it seemed like I had managed to drag myself into th...
2025-11-15 08:08:11 +0000 UTC View PostSoul magic, as it turned out, was not very easy to learn.
There were certain fields of magic that I knew I was just worse at. Any form of offensive magic was substantially more difficult for me to grasp even from a textbook. Spell formations just wouldn’t stick in my head, and even after ...
2025-11-11 07:25:43 +0000 UTC View PostNightmare’s Call lvl 4 -> 8
Danger Sense lvl 4 -> 8
Harmonic Awareness lvl 4 -> 8
Split the Shadows lvl 8 -> 10
Nightmare Forged lvl 3 -> 7
My body had not been prep...
2025-11-10 05:42:25 +0000 UTC View PostIn retrospect, this had been a really bad idea. It hadn't really been a good idea in the moment either, but it was much worse now that it was actually happening.
Doubletime was still active—in fact, it was the only concentration spell I still had active. It gave me just enough time to rea...
2025-11-07 07:22:02 +0000 UTC View PostA full-body chill shivered through me, urging me to move as fast as I could, but my legs stayed put.
My instincts hadn’t failed me yet, but I couldn’t listen to them now. Judging from what they were processing as danger to me, there was nowhere safe to run. This was an entirely differen...
2025-11-04 04:09:55 +0000 UTC View PostI stared down the Highmaster. Just as before, my danger sense was going off at every possible opportunity. A major difference, however, was that Lanaeus wasn’t the only one causing it. In fact, he wasn't even responsible for most of it. That honor went to the plague, or seemed to be very happy ...
2025-11-01 06:41:22 +0000 UTC View PostThe path was easier than I thought it would be. The only problem was avoiding the bodies.
On some level, I had wondered if I was going to need to deal with other people who had successfully managed to deal with the plague who were trying to keep an eye out, but that turned out to be a needl...
2025-10-30 05:02:30 +0000 UTC View PostIn a secluded, heavily restricted section of the Federation underground, Sebastian and a handful of mages specially picked for this task unleashed devastation on the Grancrest guild’s village.
The process was simple, but simple didn’t mean easy. It required a good deal of precision to g...
2025-10-26 15:41:24 +0000 UTC View PostCale blew his whistle again, urging his men forward.
He’d lost one already. Even after healing, they weren’t in the shape they’d been before they had run into a plague capable of putting the strongest man down with a touch. That had been the kind of job that they would spend weeks if ...
2025-10-25 00:06:22 +0000 UTC View PostI had been correct. Hanging was significantly easier to survive than bathing in acidic slime was.
A few months ago, I had made an incredibly stupid play and jumped headfirst into a Master-tier slime. It had worked out, but in retrospect, it had been completely moronic doing that with zero p...
2025-10-22 23:09:46 +0000 UTC View PostWell, shit. That could have gone better.
At least the new room they had me in was more comfortable, though they had been much more thorough in making sure I couldn’t fight back this time. Rather than have my lifeline across from me like it was evidence or something, they had remo...
2025-10-21 02:06:19 +0000 UTC View Post“Magic item!” Erica called out.
She wasn’t the only one monitoring this interrogation room, obviously. Though she had reached Adept and comfortably settled into place with her power and was interrogating a restrained pre-teen whose magical focus had been removed from him, there was al...
2025-10-18 21:27:52 +0000 UTC View PostWell, shit.
Highmaster, and on a human at that. With monsters, we were supposedly supposed to be able to fight a tier up as long as we were able to outstrategy them. People, on the other hand…
Nightmare’s Call didn’t pick up that he was lying, either. Unlike Sebastian, Lanaeus d...
2025-10-18 00:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostSebastian Ferris was winning. That much was undeniable.
It hadn’t even been a week, and his winning trajectory was painted clearly in the stars.
Grancrest might have had stronger adventurers in general. They might even have been able to win an outright pitched battle.
Fortunat...
2025-10-16 16:32:00 +0000 UTC View PostI cast Spare the Dying on Watson one more time, taking assessment of my mana. I was at about three-quarters capacity, since mana regeneration slowed down the closer a mage was to full. After using that spell, I had a minute where I could do other things before I had to tend to Watson again lest h...
2025-10-14 23:17:25 +0000 UTC View PostFortunately, Watson was by far the worst affected of the patients brough tto me. It seemed like most people who had given the plague a chance to progress had outright died, and the rest of them had attacked their symptoms with reckless abandon.
Typical combat medical advice, according...
2025-10-14 17:32:23 +0000 UTC View PostAlmost all of Watson's left leg had been affected from thigh to ankle, and it had started to spread up towards his abdomen. It hadn't crossed over to his right side yet, but even as I watched, it was actively growing.
“What happened? When did it get worse?” I asked. All my humor had fle...
2025-10-13 02:20:42 +0000 UTC View PostBecause Vallis had already been through here earlier during the same day, I didn’t have much actual healing to do in the medical bay. More time had passed when I’d been in the memory capsules than I’d thought, so I ended up just heading to my lodgings for the time being.
Mizuki was st...
2025-10-12 05:48:09 +0000 UTC View PostSebastian had just about finished with the issues of the day. It had been a narrow thing, but he had always specialized at threading the needle. Guild wars were a tough trick. While they operated on the land of a kingdom, there were certain expectations and exceptions that could be made for them ...
2025-10-11 17:26:55 +0000 UTC View PostThanks to the librarian’s rather lacking explanation, I hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect when it had come to using a memory capsule.
It was less clear than one of the Nightmare-related visions would be.
Not visions, I corrected myself. What had Aria called it agai...
2025-10-11 02:25:37 +0000 UTC View PostI stared at Vallis.
“There’s a catch,” I said. “You wouldn’t be this calm about saying this if you weren’t.”
He cracked a tired smile. “You think like your mother.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Am I right?”
“Somewhat. Your soul, you may have r...
2025-10-09 21:34:53 +0000 UTC View PostOh, it’s this guy again.
“Congratulations on completing the examination,” Sebastian said. “Rest assured that I have heard your concerns with regards to Grancrest operatives present in our examinations. This is a grave matter, and I cannot extend sufficient enough apologies ...
2025-10-09 20:50:15 +0000 UTC View PostI was happy to see that Flare was alive. From our brief bout during the earlier phase of the exam, I could tell that she was competent without being arrogant, and with her bright blue hair and double wand setup, she was easily recognizable enough for me to pick her out of a crowd.
She was l...
2025-10-09 03:51:20 +0000 UTC View PostMizuki spat out the chunk of flesh she’d bitten out of Terrence’s neck. The bloody mess splattered onto the ground beside her. She’d gotten something like half a mouthful of Grancrest adventurer in that one bite.
I rushed to his side, casting Body Scan to confirm just how properly fuc...
2025-10-08 21:56:55 +0000 UTC View PostThis was an awkward time to have a skill evolution force me to make a decision, to put it lightly. Before I could even read what my options were, the adult magma wraith launched itself toward us, each of its steps sinking it up to where a knee would be on a normal humanoid being. Its steps melted...
2025-10-08 01:49:32 +0000 UTC View Post“What do we do?” I asked. “I’m just thinking out loud here, but the magma wraiths aren’t supposed to be here, which makes me assume external interference. It seems a little convenient that one of the wraiths is trailing right back to one of the boxes.”
“I was thinking the same...
2025-10-06 21:09:17 +0000 UTC View PostI cast Heat Ray as I practically leapt back, calling my lifeline to my hand as I did. The data on the spyglass was useful but incomplete, and I had no clue how the magma wraiths would attack when provoked. I wanted to make the first move.
True to the description, my Heat Ray didn’t seem t...
2025-10-05 20:39:29 +0000 UTC View PostWaiting for the group phase of the examination took significantly longer than my similar wait for the one-on-one combat mage segments had been earlier. The guild had planned for this, it seemed, providing a long table stocked with various kinds of local snacks and even proper food and all types o...
2025-10-04 18:26:32 +0000 UTC View PostThaddeus fired immediately. He had no interest in continuing the chatter beyond his confusing declaration, which I was actually annoyed with.
His spell was only visible for a moment, dark, shadowy magic bursting out of the tip of his staff before vanishing into the ether. Danger Sense gave ...
2025-10-03 20:07:25 +0000 UTC View PostThe brightness of whatever spell Sebastian had triggered blinded me even with my eyes squeezed shut. With it came a sense of magic pressure, though interestingly not any of the Danger Sense-induced adrenaline that I would have expected for an offensive spell.
I guess it didn’t really make...
2025-10-02 16:34:55 +0000 UTC View Post