Chapter 190: Uri
Rainer rushed out of the Enchanter’s Guild, Locklar and another 3rd Tier by his side. The rest of the Hel’te 3rd Tiers were out in the world, either exploring or setting up lands for their people who were mixed with Furtak’s and Kara’s own, apart from those who stayed behind as Guild guards. They had never seen and therefore had little prejudice towards either of the two races. In fact, their status as Rainer’s ‘friends’ made them quickly welcome among the mixed Nature Elves and Humans.
Outside and staring down the new arrivals, Rainer was more than ready to fight it out with them. He fully expected a challenge to come his way even if it wouldn’t be a full blown a.s.sault. From what he understood via Ren, the Monsters of this world let them rule. A simple lack of interest seeming to be the root cause. And Rainer’s group were otherworldly aliens after all.
However, his plans and schemes for how best to use his new Draconic heritage and the sheer fearsome pressure that charging up [Arcane Awakening: Violet Death] generated were cut short.
His eyes snapped over to Locklar, who had a smile on his face. The old man had clearly misrepresented the situation as dire, when it was anything but.
The 3rd Tier Monster, and Rainer had trouble calling it a Monster, looked akin to a long-furred cow with Avian features shaping its head. It was no bigger than the bovine animals he was familiar with. It wasn’t interested in Rainer’s approach and instead gently touched the edge of the Enchanters Guild’s circular metal foundation with its hoof out of curiosity. She even seemed to be quite embarra.s.sed after it left a mark and hurriedly tried to wipe it away.
Apart from an older 2nd Tier Mage and several 2nd Tiers looking more like guards than speakers, the rest of the group were far younger, many below Tier 1 level 10. It was clear they had only recently awoken their Affinity.
“Greetings, World Traveler,” the old woman said, giving off a smile you’d expect from a grandmother and not a negotiator of any sort.
Rainer only gave an almost depressed smile in return. He could hardly sic his ‘dragon-ness’ on such a friendly looking group. The innocent-eyed curiosity of the bovine’s bright blue eyes looking over the Guild couldn’t be so easily squashed. The angling of her body to hide the mark she left was far too funny to ruin with intimidation. While Tiamat’s reaction was cute, both Locklar’s and Delilah"s were lacking in different ways, so he had hoped to rectify the situation. It seemed he’d be left wanting.
“Is something the better?” the old woman asked, as if sensing his mood.
“I had hoped you would be a little less friendly,” Rainer answered honestly. Why on Earth she said ‘better’ was beyond him. Was she asking if things could be better? Across the universe, Elelaria gave his Avatar a punch on the shoulder as he relayed the conversation. The Elf had thought her enchanted armor and strength would be enough to at least not get hurt in the effort, but she was now stuck hissing in pain as she clutched her hand. Rainer’s Avatar in the City of Wealth did his best not to look smug as he healed her. Judging by her disgruntled thanks he guessed he failed.
“Perhaps we chose right in the end.” Surprisingly, a light melodious voice came from the 3rd Tier bovine, with a tone that didn’t really match her playful behavior. “Many of our compatriots wanted to come out a bit more threatening, but looking at your fake body and your friends, I think that would have been unwise.”
“It would have been,” Rainer confirmed without a speck of shame earning a pleasant-to-listen-to laughter from the bovine. He now had a pretty strong urge to feel what the fur was like, but imagined trying to pet her would come off as rude. Or something worse.
“You may,” she said pleasantly.
Rainer happily took up the offer, not caring if he misunderstood just exactly what he ‘may’. She seemed to have meant exactly that as he pet the sun-colored fur on her back without a care in the world. The gazes from everyone else in the group seemed to be shocked. Only now did Rainer now realize that perhaps his Dragon-half was affecting this Monster. Their reactions clearly showed this wasn’t normal behavior.
She was softer than expected and Rainer nearly forgot what he was here for. Fond memories of his childhood pet surfaced and he grew a bit misty eyed. Even if the relation between her and the one in front of him was basically non-existent. She seemed pretty happy when he smoothed out some of the silver and green feathers on her face.
“Guildmaster?” the old woman of earlier called out to him after a few minutes. That was the usual t.i.tle that had spread in this world.
“Yes?”
“I imagine she wishes to get to what we came here for,” a pleasant voice rang out beside him. “I’ll save some time. They wish to exchange magical information and planned to use the children here as ‘peace offerings’ by having them join your Guild, hoping you’d grow attached to at least one of them and share some secrets. Any indiscretions by them could be pa.s.sed off as normally curious children after all.”
The old woman’s face paled and she shifted her posture enough that Rainer got the idea she was less grandmother and far more warrior in truth.
“But they didn’t really mean any harm. It’s normal to be wary of those from another world... right?”
“Right,” Rainer agreed, noting he technically might have attacked and captured a possibly innocent 3rd Tier High Elf. The biggest evidence against him was only his alien status. Especially given that he had no real reason to trust the Fa.r.s.eer’s visions after all. Of course, the High Elves were anything but innocent, but he didn’t truly know that at the time.
“And we accept anyone interested in learning,” he answered, far more diplomatically than planned with Elelaria’s prodding from worlds away. The sentiment was what he truly felt anyways. Apart from his own views, Earth’s inclusive ideas of education were strong in him. Far be it for him to ignore possible genius just because they came from an enemy.
He was convinced he could turn anyone he wished to his camp anyways. His own Charisma combined with his myriad of toys and advantages were simply too tantalizing to mostly anyone. Even the originally more standoffish 3rd Tiers of Locklar’s world were downright friendly after being invited to [Sleep Learning].
“Truly?” the bovine beside him asked, tilting her head.
“Truly. That was the founding sentiment of the Guild after all,” Rainer said, explaining proudly a bit of the short history behind his Guild. They really did have Enchanters from everywhere and anywhere with a variety of races. The goal of the Enchanter’s Guild was creating the knowledge of tomorrow rather than h.o.a.rding the knowledge of today. The Enchantments they currently knew and how to make them could be spread to the entire Universe for all Rainer cared.
“You are far better than these stingy Humans that live with us. Acting all offended just when I asked to look at certain Spell Formulae and Runes for fun. I can’t even read,” she huffed in annoyance.
Rainer smiled at her somehow pouting look and her response had caused even the cold-looking guards to look a bit embarra.s.sed.
“‘Stingy’ seems to be the primary trait of Mages. Don’t take it personally,” Rainer said, a bit disappointed internally. The rumors he first came across on this world had led him to believe the Mages of this place had avoided this common failing. He jokingly wondered if there were genes related to mana talent that happened to join together with whatever made a person naturally stingy. Maybe his lack of it was a good thing.
“We had gathered it was as such,” the Monster answered.
Normally Rainer would be far more annoyed, even after the subterfuge had been openly revealed, but he found himself enjoying the company of this Monster too much to care, and led everyone into the Guild. Was there a better word to describe the general race of those who had System given cla.s.ses but lacked the need or benefit of Trials?
Inviting them to the Guild was hardly a security risk. The tower with the Mana-Well had not only his Avatar always at the ready to hide in other worlds, but was shielded against outside teleportation and lighter detection. There was no need at the moment to worry about its safety.
“You’ll let me read spells?” she asked hopefully, her eyes practically shining.
“We have a open library filled with them,” Rainer answered, “and I’m pretty adept at teaching Runes too,” he added, noting inwardly that he hadn’t succeeded in teaching anyone yet, but his ability to teach them directly still technically made him the best at it as far as he was aware. No one could compare to his method of directly displaying and teaching Runes just with a look from the student. It was just a question of how much faster it would be, not if it was faster.
“You can call me Uri if needed,” she added as they headed in, her feather covered tail swishing back and forth pleasantly, clearly viewing her name as unimportant. Her att.i.tude seemed to cause continued amazement in the people behind her.
Rainer went a bit on auto-pilot as he gave them a tour of the place. He was acting little different than a proxy for Elelaria who was guiding his actions from elsewhere. Once Uri ended up in the Library, somehow enjoying it despite truly not being able to read, he zoned out even further, leaving himself to focus on the Dungeon.
“Ol-dea?”
“Yes, Little Flame?” the three-eyed woman replied without much thought, looking at the Flame personified hovering in front of her face. Those wings of hers were truly beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the brightly shining fire that made up the core of her Soul and being. How those wings kept the little thing aloft, with no obvious magic and a lack of movement, was a mystery she wanted to solve.
Ol-dea wanted to a.s.sume the Fairy wasn’t using magic, but nothing she learned about Luna suggested that she would care about a Dungeon’s rules. Nor did anything Ol-dea learned about Rainer suggest that he would do more than joke around with Luna if the Fairy forced him to have to repeat the Dungeon. Did a Familiar technically even need the requirements to enter the Third Tower of Conquest and beyond?
“What’s your weird eye for?”
The Fairy’s question clearly caused several awkward looks amongst the group, but Ol-dea didn’t mind. It wasn’t a rare question even as extra eyes were more commonplace on their plane. Though it was usually asked by those far younger.
“To see,” Ol-dea answered with faux offense, enjoying the disgruntled look on the Flame’s face. Her extra eye dealt with both the general manipulation of Magic and Soul as well as detection related to both. But she had a feeling the actual answer wasn’t important.
The Fairy silently regarded her for quite some time before floating towards the disturbing red-head. The young looking Mage made her feel quite disconcerted whenever he spared a glance towards her extra eye. It was a far less innocent look than the one she just recieved.
“Luna would like an extra eye,” she heard the Fairy state to the man.
“What possibly for?” the redhead asked in what seemed to be a long suffering manner. It was quite clear that if it hadn’t been for Rainer the man wouldn’t even consider the small flying thing any more important than an actual b.u.t.terfly. Ol-dea had been given knowledge of a few languages by these crazy mind mages.
The Fairy hadn’t enjoyed being sidelined at the start of this stage with the rest of the non-Aura users here either. It didn’t help that Rainer happened to be an Aura user himself, something that surprised Ol-dea personally.
“To see,” the Fairy responded, quite pleased with herself.
“I’m sure Rainer wouldn’t mind me experimenting on you a tiny bit,” the man responded clearly not talking about experimenting with an extra eye, leaving the Fairy to hide in the skull of the Undead who had stayed behind to guard them. The Little Flame gave the image of a hissing and hiding snake as she traded glares with the Mage.
She was hardly unfamiliar with Necromancy. It was her guess that most Mage societies tended towards raising the dead at some point, either in greed for immortality or love for a deceased companion. Which made this sentient—and leveling—one all the more impressive to her. His abilities beyond that weren’t anything to scoff at either. Soul-Eaters were fearsome things in any form they took. Looking at him with her third eye was distinctly unpleasant no matter how kind and personable the actual Undead was.
What a strange group of people.
Kara crept slowly through the underbrush, crawling on all fours as she had been for quite a while, ignoring the likely snickers Rainer was unleashing half a mile away. Capturing the runaway Monster, all while killing and fighting far stronger ones, in this 2nd Dungeon stage hadn’t been straightforward at all.
It was recommended to have an Aura user that specialized heavily in pure speed, but they figured it was unneeded. What was faster than a Void-step after all? But the Monster always seemed to sense it somehow and escape the moment she stepped at it. It seemed like a coincidence at first, though repeated attempts had proven otherwise.
Now, she turned back to her Wolfkin form and suppressed her Aura, hoping stealth would help. For others, suppressing their Aura like this meant they couldn’t use it for the next few seconds after they returned to normal. Kara was no different in this… but she had two pools of Aura. So she could burst out with her Demonic half at any point.
Just a few feet away from the rabbit-looking thing, Kara felt her heart nearly beating out of her chest. Her eyes narrowed as she leapt forward; like a caged beast finally gaining freedom, her Demonic Aura erupted out. Just as her hand was about to grab the thing, it vanished at a speed far beyond hers, leaving the leaping Wolfkin to fall face first into the mud beneath.
Rainer wasn’t far behind, catching up after detecting her failed attempt. She glared at his laughing face. The pig-tails she forced his hair into didn’t dampen the embarra.s.sment she felt at all. How did he look so d.a.m.n good with them? It felt more like a prank on herself than him. Was she attracted to men in pigtails now? Was this a thing she had to live with? She had no interest in trying to see what he looked like in a dress anymore.
“Any ideas?” she grumbled, wiping the mud off her face.
“We can just use [Void-Hold] from the Tattoo next time,” Rainer responded.
Rather than feel anger, Kara just felt pure defeat as she laid back on the ground. Rainer letting out an overly ‘cute’ giggle at her only caused her to wish this was quicksand rather than mud. Why had she thought messing with his hair was a good idea? And why was his giggle actually cute to her? Was there any limit to his d.a.m.ned Charisma?
The 3rd Stage of the Dungeon had been as straightforward as the Second Tower of Conquest. It was merely a boss fight with a singular Monster. It ended up a race between Kara and Kaltek as to who would kill it faster. The two hard-hitting Aura users took care of it far too easily.
The reward was the exact same as well, even if the Monster was far smaller and more a humanoid than just a giant blob of eyes and flesh.
With the changes in his Soul, inviting all the 3rd Tiers to [Sleep Learning], and now Kaltek and Ol-dea too, didn’t put any real strain on Rainer. [Living Storage] had also expanded in capability even though its level remained unchanged. So long as they weren’t too strong, he could hold Locklar and another 3rd Tier inside.
If only there was an obvious way he could level the storage s.p.a.ce, but he hadn’t the slightest idea how to even begin doing that. The Skill was far beyond him and was definitely suited to be such a high ranked Dungeon reward. Coming up with something like this on his own was quite far from his current abilities.
“You know, even if my elders were quite sure you weren’t an actual Arcanist, they warned me of being seduced by your magic,” Kaltek finally said after listening to Rainer’s explanation on what this place was. Once they accepted the invite to the party, there was little reason not to invite them. Kara’s father was still considering it, but it wouldn’t affect their timeline too much. Any empty slots would be filled with the [Nature’s Walkers] best. It was just a matter of what enchanted sets needed to be prepared, of either might or magic.
“Were the warnings helpful?” Rainer asked.
“Not in the slightest. I’m thoroughly seduced.”
“And you?” Rainer asked Ol-dea.
“You aren’t my type.”
“Rainer is everyone’s type,” Luna helpfully chimed in from his head.
“That… that’s not inaccurate,” Ol-dea eventually conceded after a long look at Rainer.
“Luna is never inaccurate.”
“Didn’t you make me bald just a few days ago when tr.i.m.m.i.n.g my hair?” Rainer asked. Her control over her flame had mostly settled after the all recent enhancements.
“Luna meant to do that,” she insisted, displeased.
“Of course.” It never did to complain overmuch to someone doing you a favor.
Rainer eventually left them to be on their own. He sent his own Avatars to try and level [Arcane Awakening: Violet Death], on top of seeing if he could get it to affect his Soul more, while he himself decided to see if becoming more Draconic was as straightforward as he expected.
He swirled the Draconic essence in its vial as he prepared to consume it. Art would be working on ways to make it more efficient. It wasn’t exactly freely available even if they currently had a decent amount due to the Dungeon gatherings. It was perfectly reasonable to a.s.sume that the more Draconic he became, the more it would take to make the same progress.
Without further ado, he downed the vial, and used the same techniques as before. Hours pa.s.sed, only interrupted by a message telling him Violet Death had reached level 2, and it was only towards the end of [Sleep Learning] that Rainer actually managed to finish a test of the Draconic essence.
He stared pitfully at his own body. The improvement was so minor, much of the power of the essence worn down by his Arcane and Void halves helping to control and contain it, that it may as well not have happened. Consuming it directly and plainly was obviously a poor choice. Perhaps his imitation of a Monster absorbing a bloodline hadn’t been very good either.
Just how lucky did he get when he absorbed that Soul Dragon’s essence?