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 the mix, too.
Wasn’t there a curse that went...
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 years of practice, I only had three fire spells an...
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 prepared for this. That much was obvious as my soul un...
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 react to the familiar spike of danger, giving me the ...
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 different level of threat from what Highmaster Lanaeus had...
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 to consider other targets in the area but was stil...
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 needless worry.
A good number of the buildings th...
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 get the timing right without also letting the plagu...
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 not months recovering from, replenishing his compa...
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 preparation or understanding of what I was getting ...
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 removed it entirely. I could still distantly feel it, ...
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 always the potential of something coming out of the ...
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 didn’t have any kind of barrier hiding his emotio...
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.
Fortunately for Sebastian and the Federation, guild wars r...
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 he go critical.
Overheal. I knew how...
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 to Iryn, said that leaving a tourniquet on for mo...
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 fled me. This was serious, and the healer most qualif...
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 still awake when I got back. She must have made her ...
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 so long as those expectations met.
Case in p...
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 again? Soul wandering? Something like that.
This...
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 realized, is not quite normal.”
Twelve birt...
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 that our defenses were breached. They will be deal...
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 looking at me like I’d grown a second head, thoug...
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 fucked he was before I pumped a healing spell into hi...
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 the stone surface, and it barreled its way throug...
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,” Mizuki replied, “but that’s the truesteel...
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 to have the biggest effect on the foremost wraith. ...
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 of drinks for those of us who’d finished early. 2025-10-04 18:26:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Thaddeus 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 a warning indicative enough of its location for me...
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 sense to have someone in the higher Master tiers ...
2025-10-02 16:34:55 +0000 UTC View Post