Explorer of Edregon

Once they'd finished chatting with Neurol and tucked away his letter, Vin and Shia spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about the web and chatting with the locals. They tried to speak with the other new merider, whose upper torso looked like that of some sort of scaled lizard, but the man refused to meet with them. Clearly something had happened, because the moment Vin tried to ask a question through his doorway about the fragment he'd come from, the merider's smile grew strained and he slammed the door in their face.

Just like Kark, the rest of the meriders were painfully upbeat and overly friendly, to the point where it was almost creepy sometimes. Vin had to tear himself away from more than one conversation that just wouldn't end because the meriders seemed to be happy to just talk forever unless they had a specific task they were supposed to be doing.

After a while, Shia broke off to go investigate some of the plants growing nearby with Kark as her guide, the merider having finished up his repairs of the forest path by that point. With the two of them gone, Vin retreated back to Kark's nest with the merider's permission for a much needed break. As much fun as talking with a bunch of half-humanoid-half-spider people was, too much socializing tuckered him out rather quickly.

Giving Scoots a few pets as the furgil rubbed against his ankles, Vin let himself flop into Kark's blanket pile, letting out a welcome sigh as the soft textures enveloped him.

"Edregon just keeps getting weirder," he muttered, scratching Scoots behind the ear as the living fluffball curled up against his feet. Now that he finally had a second to breathe, he pulled up his system interface.

Vinnie Stone

Magical Explorer: Lvl 32

Titles: Human Vessel (Lesser), Common Ally (Minor)

Exp. 497,860/528,000

Strength: 13

Dexterity: 26

Endurance: 52

Vigor: 23

Focus: 46

Magic: 49

Attribute Points: 3

Skill Points: 2

Passive Points: 0

Vows/Boons: Vow of Benevolence/Grace of Gods (Boon)

Capstone: Runic Recalibration, Flexible Formations

Passives: Mental Map, Polyglot, Distance Runner, Threat Detection, Iron Mind, Mana Well

Skills: Tracking lvl 7, Runecraft lvl 12, Introspection lvl 8, Dungeoneering lvl 9, Total Resistance lvl 3, Running lvl 16, Cartography lvl 6, Drawing lvl 8

Tier 0 Spells: Sense Stone (earth), Sense Life (life), Sense Magic (neutral), Sense Curse (curse), Sense Air (wind), Sense Dimension (spatial)

Tier 1 Spells: Renewal (life), Entangle (nature), Replenish (nature), Light (light), Summon Stone (earth), Concealment (neutral), Familiar Pheromones (nature), Whispering Wind (wind), Create Water (water), Isolate Dimension (spatial)

Tier 2 Spells: Stone Shot (earth), Stone Wall (earth), Stone Shape (earth), Stone Furniture (earth)

Vin blinked at the sheer amount of information that popped up to answer his summons. It was easy to forget just how far he'd come since first appearing on Edregon.

Starting with his attributes, Vin briefly contemplated where to place his three new points for hitting level 32, before shrugging and dropping them all into focus. He'd been tempted to knock his magic up to a nice solid 50, but it would happen naturally once he leveled up one more time. And seeing as he was about to try his hand at learning a brand new affinity, more focus couldn't possibly hurt.

More problematic, was what he should do with his new skill point. Vin had been keeping one in reserve, just because his Running skill was slowly inching its way up toward level 20 and he wanted to be prepared to evolve it if given the chance. However, it seemed the last few remaining levels were quite a bit harder to achieve, as he'd been running around like a maniac the past couple of days and only leveled the skill a few times.

Regardless, he didn't have any other skills nearing the level cap, which meant he was free to snag a brand-new skill from his class list if he wanted. Vin briefly scanned through the list of Explorer skills, but none of them really jumped out at him. There were far more options available with the general skill list, so he decided he'd just hold out until level 34 and take a closer look at that list once he could actually afford one.

That decided, Vin dismissed his interface entirely, shifting into a cross legged position and slipping into Introspection. As the familiar black void rose up around him, he focused on his mental snapshot of Tremorsense that he'd gotten from Neurol and began walking around the runic formation within his own mana, analyzing it carefully.

Sure enough, Vin had enough experience with runic formations at this point to immediately pick out the portion of the runes that had to be the base spell. Ignoring the rest, he got to work on recreating the tier 0 spell, blazing through the formation with astonishing speed compared to when he'd first begun learning magic. In what felt like no time at all Vin took a step back, grinning at the completed formation.

"Sense Vibrations," he muttered, finally flooding the rune with his mana and exiting Introspection as he tried out the new spell. The first thing he noticed was that the feedback he received from Sense Vibrations wasn't quite like any of his other tier 0 spells. The mana seeped out of his body in what felt like a thin sheet, never actually losing connection with him while spreading out across the ground in an impossibly thin layer. The base radius was only about as wide as Kark's nest, but that was more than enough for him to detect the small source of vibrations directly at his feet.

Vin grinned as he felt the near-silent snoring of Scoots through his magic, now able to sense every minute twitch and shake of Kark's fuzzy friend. Anytime Scoots moved, tiny vibrations were sent back along the thin sheet of mana straight into his body. He couldn't actually tell much more than the fact that something was in contact with his spell, but it was still an interesting experience.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

New spell learned! Tier 0 Vibration Spell (Sense Vibrations). 2,500 exp gained.

Not bad, he thought to himself, wondering how much time he'd actually spent learning the spell. One of these days he was going to have to check with Madam Trebella and see if she had any magic that could accurately tell time. He knew she had time-based rituals, so he didn't feel like that would be too much of a stretch.

Based on the fact that he was still alone and wasn't hungry yet, he guessed it hadn't taken him more than an hour or two to figure out the new spell. With nothing but time on his hands as he waited for his friends to finish up with their own tasks, Vin dove back into Introspection, focusing on Tremorsense yet again as he finally got to work transcribing the entire runic structure this time around.

Unfortunately, he didn't have any tricks or cheat codes to make this one go faster. Tremorsense was drastically different from all his other spells, so not even his Flexible Formations passive was of much help here. It did help reduce runic backlashes, however, which was a welcome surprise Vin received when he accidentally made a tiny mistake and witnessed the rune he'd been working on somehow bend back into the correct position with only a minor flex of his will. It didn't do anything for the larger errors, but it was huge that he could iron out some of his smaller mistakes without just having to start all over.

Knowing this, he tried to pick up the pace, only to immediately misshape one of the runes and knock himself out of Introspection entirely with a backlash that forced his entire body to shake violently.

"Sorry Scoots," he chuckled, giving the living furball some apology pets as Scoots angrily looked at him for disturbing its nap before curling up against his leg once more. "Note to self, just because I can smooth out the small stuff, doesn't mean I can sprint my way through a tier one spell. Not yet anyway."

His friends still hadn't returned, so Vin shrugged and went straight back into Introspection, starting all over again. He was beginning to grow a little hungry at that point, but he was determined to finish up the spell before night fell.

One more violent backlash and who knew how many hours later, Vin emerged from Introspection with a huge grin on his face, and a welcome notification in front of him.

New spell learned! Tier 1 Vibration Spell (Tremorsense). 5,000 exp gained.

Two spells in one day? Hell yeah! He mentally cheered as he dismissed the notification. He didn't even care that one of them was only a tier 0, that was still a huge personal accomplishment for him.

Before he could try out his new spell, however, he blinked as he realized Kark's nest had grown far livelier since the last time he'd shaken himself out of his skill.

Shia sat at the table in the middle of the room, carefully going over what looked like a few different species of moss of all things she had growing on some pieces of bark. Scule was very carefully mixing a few colorful vials full of liquid, situated as far away from everyone else as he could get in the small building. Reginald was playing with Scoots, the two of them running around happily squeaking and yapping at one another while Kark laughed and clapped. Occasionally, the merider would toss them some small bits of dried meat, and the two competed to see who could get to each one first.

It was Shia who first noticed he'd come to, and she grinned, looking up from her moss. "Welcome back to reality. Figure out any new spells while we were gone?"

"Try two new ones," he said, laughing at Shia's surprised look. "Hold on, I want to test this out." Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and wove together his newest accomplishment. "Tremorsense."

Mana blasted out of his feet, and Vin flinched as it continued to do so with lightning speed. It was almost similar to how he used Runic Recalibration to turn his other sensing spells into a pulse, except for the fact that the spell was doing it far faster, all on its own, and multiple times a second. It was a good thing it was doing it so efficiently as well, otherwise Vin was terrified it would have drained him dry in moments.

As it was, the spell did exactly as advertised. Despite his closed eyes, Vin could flawlessly picture in his head most of what was going on around him. Unlike Sense Vibrations, Tremorsense actually worked to make sense of what exactly he was feeling with his outstretched mana. He could see Reginald and Scoots running around, could feel the minute shaking in Scule's frame as he realized the petian was far more nervous about whatever it was he was doing than he was letting on. Opening his eyes, Vin called out across the room.

"Scule, whatever it is you're doing, maybe you should do it even further away than just the edge of the room? I can feel your trembling from all the way over here."

"Don't distract me!" Scule shouted back, his eyes never leaving the vial in hand as he continued carefully swirling it around while dripping a far thicker substance into it.

"I take it that means your spell works?" Shia snorted. "Who would have thought vibration affinity existed? Makes you wonder just how many different affinities there are out there."

"At least a dozen. Vibration was number eleven on my list, but I still have to delve into my fire protection amulet and learn my first fire affinity spell," Vin said, reaching into his shirt and lifting up the amulet he'd gotten from the dwarves. Despite the amulet being one of protection, he was hoping he could use Flexible Formations to do something he'd yet to actually try.

Crafting his own spell.

"My master was always vague whenever I asked him. Liked to say it, 'depended on who was asking.' Whatever that means," Shia said, shaking her head. "Anyway, I assume you've just been sitting here working on your magic since we last saw each other?"

"Yepp. Nice, relaxing evening for a change. What about you?"

"Kark showed me some of the more interesting plants around the forest, and I got to cram in some serious power leveling," Shia grinned, showing off her jagged teeth. "We both get huge experience boosts from learning spells, but where you get others from finding artifacts, I get mine from discovering new plants and experimenting on them with my magic. Wild Druid is a pretty fun class to level up!"

"I bet! I actually just cracked level 32 myself," Vin admitted, earning himself an impressed look from the Druid.

"Not bad! I'm just about to tip over to 30. Curious exactly what my Capstone is going to be."

Glancing at the focused Rogue, Vin lowered his voice. "Any idea what level Scule's up to now? I know he hasn't gotten many chances to steal stuff lately… I'm just worried about him falling behind."

"I wouldn't worry too hard," Shia said, tossing Scule a knowing glance. "Scule and I have had a few chats about that actually. Strangely enough, his class has a rather interesting benefit to it. Remember, he's not just a Rogue. He's a Determined Rogue. In the same way you get experience for most magical things you encounter as a Magical Explorer, he seems to gain experience just through showing true grit and refusing to give up when the going gets tough. He's mainly focused that on his complex poison experiments, but apparently with how often he does them, it's earned him quite a few levels."

"Huh," Vin muttered, watching Scule let out a massive sigh of relief as the vial in hand finally turned from a sludgy, unpleasant brown to an almost neon pink liquid in the blink of an eye. "I guess that explains why he nearly killed himself with that red smog back in the Crater. Prestige classes are weird."

"And that's only the first prestige," Shia grinned, pointing at him with a piece of moss-covered bark. "From what I've heard, things get really strange after you hit level 40!"