Ubel CH10

Between battling against a soft cap wall and exploring my system, I found something interesting. Events existed outside of dungeons and raid boss domains. The system even had merit shops to gain items from scoring points within events. I stared at an event labeled Magic Party College in a review. Pulling up the screen came with flashing firework displays and girls dressed in skimpy outfits. The event ensured a full magical education at the low price of 2000 stars. World of Warmage promised an early 1990s era setting on the brink of world war. The best part was I couldn’t take any of my equipment with me.

Education was a sore spot for me. I learned how to read from a schoolmaster my mother hired for my sister when my father was still alive. More than a few times, I got in trouble for listening in and stealing lessons instead of picking apples. This service promised so much more. I wanted it; I needed it to be better so I could protect the girls that mattered to me. Something was coming; I could feel it in my bones.

A crash shifted my focus to roaches scrambling away from a broken jar. My attention shifted to my research room.

Wasps flew around in jars caught by goblin kids for a few copper coins. They shrieked and fled, abandoning their job as the roaches scattered. My arm ached from holding a stylus for too long without crushing it, but how else would I earn dexterity points. Article after article about the pros and cons of using insects for spells flowed over a screen, often contradicting each other. Sketching was the only practice that hammered the image home. On my saved tabs, horseflies appeared drawn and discarded in a flash. Files on dragonflies, common houseflies, and beetles of all kinds appeared in separate folders. My hands moved faster, drawing and shading the insects as I struggled to see them fly. Colors appeared splotchy as I edited details at a rapid pace to mimic spell creation. At this point I didn’t care what kind of flying insect I used so long as it could carry my spells to their targets. Once I had my image down, the next step in the process was drawing my creature with runes.

I was still balls with the art and felt hardly closer to being an enchanter. Taking a break in my training was the only thing keeping me sane. I had limits, and I often found them with magnetic weights, which led me to focus on areas where I felt weak. My roaches had fallen to the wayside in favor of a more useful image.

Heavenly Tribulation without a self-contained form was unreliable. Even without actual spells my skills would be better off through an image to better facilitate them. I was well away from any truly powerful images or scenes. For the moment, I wanted to create a few insects to quickly target my enemies and unleash their payloads. That felt more within my ability.

Veronica helped by showing me how she was taught.

My hands continued drawing different flying insects, often shifting their parts until something completely alien formed, and it felt like I was on the right path. A smile spread across my face.

“Have you finished the primer on enchanting I painstakingly wrote for you?” Veronica asked.

She had to make sure I knew how much effort she put into it. I glanced up at the woman with raven black hair and a bronze complexion. Her molten brown eyes drew me in, taking my attention away from drawing bugs.

I fiddled with my stylus, thankful that my dexterity was high enough not to crush it. Dexterity was something I struggled to match with my growing strength. I licked my lips as I started with runes for the eyes; they were the windows to the soul and moved to swirling wings. Most of the squiggles didn’t make sense to me, but my witch was happy enough to watch me work. Some of my lines started to clash in places as I tried to put more detail into my work.

Veronica’s warm breath tickled my ear. “It's almost beautiful, like someone other than you made it.”

“Only I can screw up edges like that,” I said.

Her voice was all honey. “Still, it's functional, which is more than what most people end up with.” Her lop-sided grin was encouraging. “Draw it a thousand times before Mos finishes supper.”

“She hasn’t started; she’s working through flexibility exercises,” I said.

“Exactly,” Veronica said. “Don’t take your work to her. I don’t want you getting distracted.”

“You seemed happy enough to squat while I practice,” I said.

“I have a surprise for you when you finish. Don’t disappoint me.”

I rolled my eyes and went to work. Once I knew the pattern, it was child’s play to draw it. This step was as important as finding my last skill for my class. I still needed to use my Eidolon Armory skill and find weapons for it. Losing 100,000 HP for each ring was going to suck.

“Do you know anything about skills that cost health?” I asked.

“Do I look like a meathead to you?”

I smirked. “I guess you don’t know anything.”

Veronica scoffed. “Your manipulation is clumsy.”

I grunted.

“HP doesn’t do what most think it does. More HP doesn’t make it harder to kill anyone except raid bosses. A slit-throat will kill someone with a million HP or a hundred. Like mana, HP is a resource that can be used to power skills like Endurance or Ogre Regeneration. Those skills become the equivalent of stats, with their points empowering their users. Most squires get both of those skills upon joining a Van Raven knightly order. Witches normally get Dark Barrier or Pact Constitution if we feel the need to boost our defenses.”

“So I shouldn’t hesitate to use my HP if I have it.”

“Keep at least 100. You are a living, breathing human, and no amount of HP will change that. Constitution, on the other hand, can make your skin harder than steel.” Veronica said.

Mos walked in carrying a platter of steaks and a bubbling drink that was most likely mine. I thought over what Veronica said and decided it would be worth it to get some points in Eidolon Constitution.

…

I awoke exhausted, with Mos and Veronica sleeping on me. They were so much smaller than my bulky form, thanks to the training gear I was trapped in. Only my face was free, and that was so limiting. Using the Eidolon Constitution had been put off not only because of the cost but also because of what it would do to my body. Constitution wasn’t the same as endurance another skill that worked as a stat.

Once I researched it, I understood constitution would change my body far more than skin deep. A sacrifice of the body was needed to rebuild myself stronger than before. It was inhuman. The thought of losing myself was troubling.

As I watched over Veronica and Mos’s sleeping forms, I debated my options. Eidolon rings could be used to control weapons but had a steep price of 100,000HP. Eidolon Constitution only cost 100HP but would permanently change my body. My skin would no longer be soft compared to a normal human I would be different.

Troll Regeneration only helped knights heal faster from near-fatal damage. Constitution would change my body to make it harder to be damaged in the first place. Every point of HP would count for more with every point in Eidolon Constitution.

Constitution was all or nothing. 99HP could be permanently lost if I don’t have the right mindset. The process requires focus and a practical image to bridge the Eidolon and me. Failing that, the ghostly energy will run rampant, and I could die. The skill had reviews some adventurers compared it to radiation treatment. I had to inflict void/ghost energy on my body and hope my body could adapt.

Eidolons were non-elemental ghosts that could take on the properties of other elements or use their non-element. Altering my body with that energy was going to be a trying experience. All the reviews at least agree an image was needed to help carry the process.

More powerful images like stars and the night sky were actually detrimental to the beginning process. On the bright side, there was no way it would hurt my girls. The image was only in my head, and the void would only appear within me. It didn’t matter where I performed the skill and I preferred to have them close.

Working up the courage was hard. Knowing the pain was coming only made me focus on it more. For my image, I searched through several documentaries and settled on a rock filled with void energy. Not a star or a vast expanse, only a pebble, nothing more.

I sucked in a breath, feeling the almost insignificant weight of Veronica and Mos before focusing on the image. It resembled a smooth riverstone I found. There was nothing significant about it. I let the image float in my mind’s eye in the same way I saw the bugs I drew, even in my dreams. Slowly, runes replaced the simple lines until my image morphed into a void stone made from runes. Once the image appeared, it stuck, and I couldn’t remove the runes. After another hour of no luck changing it or any new rock becoming a runic outline, I settled in for a painful experience.

My relationship with pain was strange. I used to avoid it at all costs, but after being trapped in my training gear, I was forced to face it until I loved it. The pain from a good workout was addicting. I felt that this was only another workout. A soon-to-be-good burn that would drive me to get stronger. So, I began using my skills and power and reached for my health pool.

Losing my health capacity felt like some animal was hollowing me out. Singular points of my HP dropped at a time. It felt like maggots were eating away at my innards. Sweat poured down my face as point after point entered the image of the stone inside me. Red energy, the color of blood, filled the stone, lighting up the runes, and then I felt it.

A cold sensation replaced the tunnels the maggots chewed through. It followed the pain, hollowed bones, melted muscles, and blackening; my skin was filled with a latticework devoid of color, felt only as a cold sensation. Every point of health invested dealt 1000s in void damage. Investing multiple points exponentially multiplied the damage, forcing me to slow down and add a single point per second.

I watched my HP capacity permanently decrease as my body was ransacked with energy that lingered in strange runic patterns. Pain quaked through me, replaced by a lingering chill. I cut off the flow of HP and felt something. The latticework of the Eidolon Constitution clicked into place. The cold feeling that once only lingered slowly pooled in my body. I couldn’t guess if that was a good thing or not.

Slowly, on my status screen, a single point in Eidolon Constitution appeared. A strange feeling swept through my body that I couldn’t put my finger on. There was something inside me, an energy that wasn’t there before, and while it was faint, I could feel it wasn’t mana or health.

Later that day, I grabbed the bar in the gym and lifted more than I ever had before. Hours went by in a flash as I trained harder and longer. There was some force keeping my bones and tendons together better than before. It could only be the constitution; while it was horrible to go through, the benefits were outstanding.

I ended that day over the 950 limit in strength, dexterity, and vitality. The finish line was so close I could taste it. My future was almost within reach; I only needed a little more constitution.

The gains weren’t insignificant. Every point was slightly harder to train than the one before, and counted more. I could imagine that training without high-end equipment would quickly become difficult in the future.

I decided to give more of my time to transforming my HP into constitution. After finding a nice dark corner in my workshop, I went to work.

Mos joined me just when I finished my third point. “Have you heard of the tier letter war of 1255?” Mos asked.

I had not, so I quickly searched and found an article with one hundred million dead in the headline.

“It was bloody,” I said.

“Veronica said skills have letter ranks but tiers in power. I have to wonder if that has something to do with the war.” Mos said.

I thought about it while coming off the pain from my skill. Freshly off of the skill, my bones felt as solid as jelly, and my muscles might as well have been fluid. The skin of my face looked a little shinier, but there were no other changes.

“If a war can force the system to use letters instead of tiers or tiers instead of letters, could it force the system to add non-adventurers?” Mos asked.

“Goblins have their own way of getting stronger,” I said.

“So do humans, but here you are.” Veronica chimed in.

I didn’t want them to get the system. That thought was sudden and felt incredibly selfish to an overpowering degree. Was it a bad thing to want an advantage? I was also neglecting human ways of gaining strength because I had the system’s easy path to power. My mana roots were still mostly clogged, and I hadn’t used them to condense my mana into a form.

With Veronica present, I realized I had someone who could answer my questions.

“What do you know about condensing mana in the body?”

“Forbidden practice is forbidden for a reason. No one wants the suppression wars to start again.”

“Why am I hearing this for the first time?” Mos asked.

“Goblins grow stronger based on their wealth, but that isn’t forbidden,” I said.

“You know nothing of adventurers and the true history of this world. If we started the path again, the crusades would begin anew. The system and its resources are the only paths to power open to us. Goblins were created by the system to mock us, no offense, Mos.”

“Human mythology is weird,” Mos said.

“To the Northeast is the Yellow River border. I heard people on that side cultivate.”

“They use a system-approved method that allows them to absorb a system-generated resource called qi to improve themselves. 99.999% of them hit unpassable roadblocks and die before reaching the third realm of their cultivation. The adventurers were always more than a match for their Sect Elders.” My eyes must have given my feelings away. “Numerous raid bosses and the White Stag populate the forests between their nation and ours. We have nothing to worry about from them. I am more worried about the Pirate Empire of Barbados on our eastern coast or the Southern Kingdom of Providence, only separated from us by the Black Marsh. If not for the Spirit River to our West, we would have to deal with far worse powers.” Veronica said.

I guessed that compared to them, the King In Yellow seemed rather silly. A single raid boss, no matter how powerful, was less than a country.

“Thanks. I have a lot to think about.” I said.

When I recovered from my constitution training, I went back into the grind and slowly racked up stat points. Every point after 950 took an agonizing amount of time and effort to raise. Every point drew me closer to what I felt was a bottleneck like what Veronica described the Jade Empire cultivators had to deal with. I took breaks, worked on my bugs, and took a potion to clean up my mana roots. More mana regeneration couldn’t be a bad thing.

A day went by, and I was on the cusp of reaching it. More weight was needed, but my constitution helped push me forward. I stood at 999 strength. It was a heavy feeling being a stone’s throw away from freedom. The training gear on my body hummed. Was I right? I felt right; all I needed was a single point in strength, and I would be free. Touching, feeling, and holding Veronica and Mos would no longer be a dream.

While compared to my lifetime, my time trapped in my training gear hadn’t been long, it had been miserable. I moved forward because I had no choice. Once I made my decision to kill the villagers who stood back and let my sister die of the yellow death, the world stopped feeling real. The pain from working my body was the only thing anchoring me to reality. Training toward a goal gave my life purpose, and fighting in the dungeon was a great outlet for my stress. I was ready to put this part of my life behind me and move forward.

Throbbing joints, strained muscles, and wobbling knees told me I had time to take a break.

A thousand was the first human barrier and would take all day to break through. Since I was already worn out, it would be better to alter my focus to something more relaxing. I left to find Veronica moving even in my training gear wasn’t so bad when it was to do something right.

I heard beautifully familiar notes. The music was unlike anything I’ve heard outside a system documentary. A recent purchase came to mind that I hadn’t made. I found the source in Veronica’s room.

Inside were red walls covered in runic drawings of different crows in details I couldn’t match. Some looked like they could fly off the pages. There was one colored drawing of a red room containing a nest surrounded by crows with a moon hanging over it with a smile on its face. Was it her domain or intent?

The music brought about a feeling of melancholy and made the images on the drawing seem to move. On closer inspection, the moon was also made from numerous tiny runes drawn with fine etching skills. Her wall decorations used runes in ways I couldn’t touch. I felt jealous of her hard work. Reaching my current level of physical stats wasn’t my own doing her enchanting helped me get to my current level. Without her, I couldn’t have done it.

Her playing stopped, and she sat her fiddle down. She gazed at me with her soft brown eyes, and I clapped. Veronica smiled and bowed, standing on her bed in her panties and bra. Around her neck was the war bride collar I bought her.

Veronica bit her lip as I lost myself in her eyes. “Are you ready to get out of your gear?” I raised my eyebrows. “Sorry, that was obvious. Here’s a better question: if you could learn a movement skill without taking up a skill slot, would you.”

“That isn’t possible,” I said.

Veronica hopped off her bed, and her feet hovered above the ground. She zoomed into me, kissed me on the cheek, and retreated back to the bed in a flash.

“Nothing is impossible. I don’t have a skill to make ink for my birds, a skill to enchant, or a skill to fly my broom. All my skills are loaded to recover mana and resist weather conditions. You don’t need a skill to ride a horse unless you’re an adventurer.” Veronica said.

“Skills are more than an ability to do something,” I said.

“They are crystalized experience, manifestations of will, or training wheels. Only when something can’t be learned naturally should a skill slot be used. Anything you can do without a skill like moving shouldn’t need one.” Veronica said.

She did know more about magic than I did and had a better education. Maybe the event would help me catch up. It was supposed to act as a closed timeline. No time would pass from when I entered to when I exited. I could have years of education and training and stop being such a liability. Because of my weaknesses, I couldn’t even sleep in the same bed as them.

The isolation was painful; the only times I could touch them was when we kissed. Or what I did with Mos. I glanced down at Veronica. She was so quick to leave her nation behind and join up. I didn’t get it; how could anyone abandon their cause so casually. Then again, I did the same to survive.

“So what should I save it for instead?” I asked.

“Anything you can’t learn through time and study. I saw a goblin with copper scales; it was strange, but he wouldn’t have been able to get them without the skill. I just don’t want you to get something useless like the whistling skill.” Veronica said.

“I imagine whistling loud enough to shatter eardrums could be useful.”

“Practice and get there on your own,” Veronica said.

“There is a skill I would like to practice if you’re willing.” I sucked in a breath and prepared for my first real venture into flirting.

The witch smirked and popped her bronze hip. “Oh, you want to see if my spells can punch through your armor.”

“This skill is more utility and doesn’t take up a slot. I’m sure I can use it without taking up a slot. Are you sure you’re up for it? I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Talking too much failed to increase my charisma at all. It was time to get to grinding.

“Aren’t you a glutton for punishment? Do you want to draw more bugs?”

I reached out and gently grabbed her thigh. A grunt was my only reply before her thighs were wrapped around my face.

Veronica’s thighs squeezed around my face. “I see you’ve grown a taste for deviance.” I licked her as she pressed her clothed cunny against my face.”

…

Ink poured out of the castle in waves, throwing out malfunctioning ice golems with it. Mana swirled around baroness Camilla, turning ink black as it approached her body’s natural magic shell. Faces appeared in the ink, moving through the beginnings of a mana storm, changing it to mirror her own domain. Clouds more ink than water covered the sky above the stronghold, swallowing the landscape as creatures emerged from her domain, Ink Well. A hole opened in the clouds, deep, dark, and foreboding.

Despite her initial salvo, there was one holdout even has her rival fell.

Standing at the top of the castle, unmolested, was a man dressed in golden armor with a golden wreath wrapped with thorns around his head. Only his armor remained unmolested by her assault. Eagles made of light and noise were grounded on the battlements, watching as Baroness Camila’s spell made short work of the forces within the keep. She held herself with pride as a woman who mirrored the summer queens of old. Her lips were dyed green from alchemy experiments to bring her body a little closer to its peak. Golden, green, and blue ribbons enchanted by her daughters wrapped around the crown of her hate bathed her in numerous protections. The man, a mere guard captain named Anathema, remained unblemished from the might of her family's vast wealth and history. An outlier had survived when the blood of a former queen died out.

Even with her vengeance finished, his unblemished appearance was a black mark on her ancestry. The last black mark had been done by her ancestor, who surrendered to the warlock Van Raven. Cultural mixing had altered inheritance to its proper place, but still, the blood of the man who made her ancestors kneel ruled over them all. With the kidnapping of the princess and the flight of the adventurers, she had an opportunity but not an excuse until recently.

The Winter whore who owned the castle had the misfortune of being the mother of her daughter’s captain. As the 50th daughter of a powerful baroness, Lorie Winters had no chance of rising unless she managed to stand out. The misfortunate company of green-as-grass girls from a middling sorority ended with the death of her child. It was the fault of the captain, who took a foolish task to prevent a company of knights from recruiting an alchemist. Veronica was all the excuse she needed to declare war without her rivals stabbing her in the back. She still had to give certain parties a piece of the land conquered. Loose relations weren’t the reason for the reprisal; she was angry. Some idiot girl getting her daughter lost behind enemy lines before a plague swept through wasn’t a baroness’s concern. Out of 89 daughters Veronica was one of many spirited and well trained. Her death wasn’t the excuse; this war was the excuse Camilla needed to take her wrath out on a deserving target.

This war was a proof of concept more than an opportunistic land grab. Her political views allowed her to secretly sponsor knight orders of her own as rebels against witch supremacy. Her girls promised them they only wanted to be equal and so they rebelled against Van Raven to take the eastern lands of the kingdom. It would all start with the barony of her family’s long-time rivals.

Companies of knights charged, and witches flew overhead to hold land taken while Camilla Summers secured enough power to make a play for count of the eastern lands of Van Raven. Even for a Baroness of her power, it was a massive undertaking that took decades of careful planning under the noses of adventurers. Quests were given to map out neighboring lands and count the brooms and lances of her soon-to-be enemies. Knights were in short supply thanks to her own power block.

As ink and men flowed to the fort, the man Anathema stood his ground, one hand clutching a golden spear and the other a flaming sword. Ink burst up through the stairs of the battlement as monsters charged the man. While she held him in this keep, he couldn’t rally Winter's forces or flee in exile with Winter's heir. By holding this knight in check, she effectively ended the Winter bloodline.

“Heavenly Light,” her arm fell away as the castle shattered, and the knight captain floated standing in the air. Through the shadow of her domain, sunlight lit up the ground below. The arm that labored to strike down her ink monsters held the flaming sword, ready to strike again.

She felt something from the man that shouldn’t exist. Existing within the mana tightly controlled within the man’s magical shell was the qi of a cultivator.

His words were spoken from far away, but she could clearly hear them as if he were next to her. “I am ashamed a mere witch forced me to reveal the least of my power. Perhaps I am like a sword left on the mantle for generations. I have grown rusty and chipped. Wielding my strength so clumsily is dishonorable. I should have finished you in a single slice.”

Camilla flew higher, struggling to reform her domain. The ribbons on her hat flared to light to their limit. Sunlight on the ground shrank. She reached for her maximum power and sent out of message.

“Retreat back to our borders.” Silence was her reply.

“Heavenly Stairway,” The Anathema said and climbed through the sky.

She turned her broom to fly away.

“Heavenly Chains,” golden chains pierced her domain and wrapped around her wrists and angles. Within the golden sheen of metal, she saw galaxies of stars within the metal.

“Impossible. Only adventurers are this powerful.” Camilla said.

“The time for restraint has ended,” Anathema said.

The spear raised, and she saw the man, but there was no face, only the wrath of a force of heaven. Baroness Camilla felt the spear pierce her.

…

My tongue slipped inside Veronica deep and so well. Her tight love tunnel squeezed and soaked me with her lovely delights. Licking her lips was a unique pleasure; the dark lips moved to my attention, and her legs tightened around my neck the way I liked. We were one at that moment as Veronica gripped my training gear while she rode my face.

Finally, after watching her squat for weeks, I had a taste of her. My libido wanted more as I licked and explored her quim, finding the places she liked the most. Increased stats helped me find the minute changes in her body for every little tell. She was a tricky woman, the witch I found, but her body didn’t lie. Every lick was a lecture in the way her pink delicate cunny loved to express itself.

This was a celebration of the woman who helped me seek my freedom. It didn’t matter how she got here; all that mattered was us. My tongue lapped at her folds, teased her clit, and found the little opening of her urethra. I loved exploring.

When I licked her urethra, she let a drop loose, and I flicked her over-sensitive clit in response. It was like a game, and I loved every minute of it. Her salty juices spilled over my face as I stood in place like a monument and gave her all my attention. Stress leaked out of me like her pussy leaked juices down my throat as her little pushes and grinding thrusts brought her closer.

Hours of pure joy helped me destress in a way that didn’t cost any lives, those poor poisoned kobolds.

Veronica thrust her copper hips against my face as I licked her inner depths, and she spasmed and shook. I let my mind drown in a soup of hormones and endorphins from a job done well. My witch seemed more than satisfied with the foreplay, which gave me a sense of accomplishment. If licking pussy was a skill, I would have earned levels in it.

When she sighed and fell back in her bed still spasming. “You should know I expect you to pound me like my sister Alajandra’s stable boy. That one fucks like the horses. I used to listen to them when I was younger. She caught me once and beat my whipping girl to death. It was sad.”

“Whipping girl,” I asked.

“There used to be whipping boys but many ladies proved not empathetic toward the plight of males. One whipping boy tried to choke a girl to death from the Winter family, so the practice was adjusted. Peasant girls still need money for their families, and everyone feels bad when a little girl is covered in bruises. I did the first four times.” Veronica said.

My eyes widened.

“I’m joking. I cried and begged the healers to help her and made sure to be sneakier.”

“My family owned an orchard. I don’t think I was going to inherit it.” I said.

“If not, your sister, it would have gone to a female cousin who inherited it. Men can’t own property; well, I guess you can here. What are you going to do when the kingdom sends a brigade to wipe out the goblin republic?”

Adventurers created the Van Raven kingdom as an experiment to test several social ideas. Matriarchy was one of them, and without direct interference from adventurers, they always failed. Van Raven was only one in a long line of failure. Artificial wombs created by adventurers had kept the population strong, and adventurer gold had kept society afloat through a series of gambling dens and whore houses propping up the economy. I knew the Van Raven kingdom owed massive debts to some powerful interests. While they haven’t flexed their financial power yet, they would soon, and the nobles might find rebellions across their domains.

“I think it's time I got rid of this curse,” I said and smiled.

Veronica stood on her bed and kissed me.

“I don’t say things to anger you. I don’t want you to be blindsided.” Veronica said.

Translation: get the armor off so I could pound her hard enough to make her sister jealous.

I returned to my gym and, through the system, selected some training music. Men roared in guttural voices in a war chant that got my blood pumping. It was what I needed to surpass my limits and free myself.

Before I could touch the bar and finish off my last point, a horn blew, and I rushed outside. Mos was on my heels as I joined the mass of goblins traveling to the amphitheater. A bitter feeling like fate itself had conspired to screw me over swept over me. There had to be a change, a thrown rock, to start a landslide. I selected the start of the event and vanished.