Explorer of Edregon

The next five days went by in what felt like the blink of an eye. As promised, Vin remained right there in town, ready to launch into action at the drop of a hat. Rather than roam around Edregon and investigate new fragments, Vin instead devoted his time toward the numerous spells still on his list to study.

With so many different options available to him, it was hard to decide where to even start. Thankfully, the choice was made for him, as he knew he had to return the truth-gem sooner rather than later.

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

New spell learned! Tier 1 Soul Spell (Detect Truth). 5,000 exp gained.

Thanks to Golrim, he'd known that the truth-detecting magic they'd been using all this time was soul magic, but he had been surprised to discover that Detect Truth was only a tier one spell. Though according to Golrim, all the spell was doing was detecting minor fluctuations in the soul whenever a lie was told, which he supposed wasn't too much of a step up from simply sensing the soul itself.

The spell functioned the same as the truth-gem as well, meaning Vin had to make it crystal clear what he was doing to the subject, or the spell wouldn't have any effect. He couldn't just silently cast the spell and check if someone was lying without warning them.

Despite being only a tier zero and tier one spell, soul magic had proven to be one of the trickier affinities, and pulling those two spells out of Madam Trebella's charm had taken him the better part of two days. But once he'd finished and returned the gem to a slightly irate Myers, he'd dove straight into his next project. Something he'd been meaning to gain for quite some time now.

New spell learned! Tier 1 Fire Spell (Create Flame) 5,000 exp gained.

Finally, after weeks of lamenting over the fact that he didn't have any sort of area-of-effect magic, Vin took his first step towards magic capable of taking down multiple small opponents at once by diving into his fire-knife artifact. Unsurprisingly, Create Flame functioned similarly to Create Water, which meant the base spell itself wasn't all that versatile. On its own, Create Flame was capable of summoning a small, burning fire in the palm of his hands that stretched about a foot tall if he willed it. Though with the application of Runic Recalibration, Vin could do all sorts of different things with the simple spell.

Increase the temperature and make it burn blisteringly hot. Make the flames dance hypnotically in his hand. Even cause it to shoot out of his hand in a pitiful imitation of a flame thrower.

That last one, while useful, absolutely drained his mana whenever he tried it. He definitely needed to uncover an actual combat spell with the fire affinity, but at the very least, it was a start.

Create Flame only took him a few hours to figure out, and the simple, elemental-based spell was like a nice vacation after trying to wrap his head around the basics of soul magic. Which meant he still had plenty of time for his other new artifact.

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

New magical affinity discovered! Gravity affinity. 13,000 exp gained.

New spell learned! Tier 1 Gravity Spell (Enhance Gravity). 5,000 exp gained.

New spell learned! Tier 2 Gravity Spell (Redirect Gravity). 10,000 exp gained.

Level up! Magical Explorer lvl 37.

+3 attribute points

Sure enough, the lesser artifact proved to be a treasure trove of magic, as Vin managed to pull not just a tier zero or tier one spell from it, but a tier two as well, and discover a new affinity of magic. While gravity magic was certainly complicated and hard to understand, it still wasn't nearly as difficult as spatial or soul magic, and Vin managed to crack all of the spells in only three days of dedicated study.

Even with the benefits gained from Artifact Extraordinaire, he may or may not have had to rely on his divine boon once or twice when he got a bit over eager and accidentally activated parts of the spells he was trying to learn.

It turned out, enhancing gravity by a few magnitudes on just one's chest was a very fast way to die based on how quickly his divine boon had triggered.

Five days spent almost entirely within Introspection, only taking breaks to eat with friends and hang out here and there with Lumel, had done wonders for his magical repertoire.

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Though new spells weren't the only benefit he received from his near-week of intense training.

Runecraft increased to lvl 15! 3,000 exp gained.

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Runecraft increased to lvl 17! 3,400 exp gained.

Introspection increased to lvl 12! 2,400 exp gained.

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Introspection increased to lvl 15! 3,000 exp gained.

And his magic-related skills weren't the only ones he had to show for his efforts.

Swimming increased to lvl 2! 200 exp gained.

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Swimming increased to lvl 8! 800 exp gained.

Lumel needed to soak ideally for half an hour each day to prevent her body from drying out, even with her amulet that allowed her to survive on dry land. Vin needed to take breaks to eat and clear his head after straining his brain all day, and when she offered, he happily decided to join Lumel during her evening soaks. With Runic Recalibration and his monstrous mana pool, he was able to dump enough mana into Aqua Sphere to create a giant floating orb of water nearly twenty-five feet wide, which gave the two of them plenty of room to swim around in.

Thanks to his incredible endurance, even while doing something as strenuous as swimming, Vin only needed to poke his head out of the sphere of water to breathe every few minutes. That meant he got in a lot of swimming practice each evening, something Lumel was more than happy to coach him through and offer pointers.

Naturally, even with his dramatic increase in skill, he couldn't hold a candle to how well Lumel moved in the water. Even with her billowing robe, the pulmon seemed to be able to drift around in the water without any effort as if she were flying, to the point that Vin was pretty sure her species had some sort of supernatural swimming ability.

Ironically enough, despite finally making the big shift and actually moving into Terra, Lumel still spent most of her time down in the Underside. She claimed it was different now, seeing as she knew she had friendly faces and an actual home to come back to each night, but she was determined not to leave her work unfinished. Whatever that strange, 'last great secret' of the Underside was, she swore she'd figure it out or die trying.

From his lunches with friends and chatting with them before bed, Vin knew that Scule spent most of his time waiting around for the fourth wave training with Bill and Casper. The Alchemist and Herbalist had become quite the duo, each one able to enhance the other's skills and help the other level remarkably quickly. Scule had all the poisonous herbs and alchemical reagents he could want, and the petian was near giddy with excitement as he threw himself into his poison crafting.

Despite having given up her room, at Shia and Vin's insistence, Alka dropped by at least once a day to hang out with them and chat about the progress her trainees were making. Even though the six Earthers looked absolutely haggard and exhausted every time Vin spotted them running around town or battling their way through drills, each one had an almost eerie determination burning behind their eyes that reminded Vin of Alka's own, back when she actually had eyes to look out of. From what Alka said, each of her trainees was finally at the point where they could comfortably take down a big bad bear with whatever random weapon Alka threw at their head, which according to her, was about the bare minimum she'd expected by now.

Shia had actually surprised Vin by revealing she'd befriended an entirely different Herbalist than Casper, and the two of them had trekked all over Vin's fragment and even into the Sacred Forest, communing with nature wherever they went. It wasn't the fact that Shia had made a friend that surprised him of course, as the elf seemed to make friends pretty much anywhere they ended up staying for more than a few hours. It was the fact that Vin had actually met the Herbalist once before.

It was the woman he'd found bleeding out after the battle of wave two who had managed to save herself thanks to the herbs she'd collected.

Vin learned from Shia that the woman's name was Mary, and the two of them had become fast friends. Unlike Casper, whose main focus was on finding potent herbs for the Chefs to cook with or for Bill to use in his potions, Mary was more interested in discovering new plants and propagating them. Shia had actually met the Herbalist when the plants she'd been communing with led her to a secret herb garden Mary had been cultivating in one of the forests.

After hearing that, Vin wasn't shocked in the slightest to hear they'd become friends. Showing a Druid your secret garden was basically cheating.

While Vin and his friends had their hands full as they waited for the monsters to strike, they were far from the only ones hard at work in preparation for the fourth wave. Every day, the town seemed to grow just a bit more complete and impressive than the day prior. With her crafters and the former prisoners at her disposal, not only had Witherson finished building the residential areas for the current Earthers, but for once, they even managed to work ahead and prepare enough apartments for a thousand fresh faces to live in as soon as they got here. They also finally finished the library and clock tower in the town square, added a good number of improvements to the many workshops and 'stores' for crafters to give away their creations, and with Shia's help, even created a large park within the town walls.

Speaking of which…

Gone was the simple, thin stone wall that had once surrounded their meager excuse for a camp. The wall had not only been reinforced and lengthened, it had been pushed farther outward to allow for more space for the town to grow. This had required the former prisoners to in turn push their own small offshoot of town farther out as well, as they still refused to actually live within the town walls. Thankfully, they hadn't minded all too much, as it gave them an excuse to make improvements of their own using the knowledge and skill advancements they'd gained from all their time working under Witherson. The general had even written up some blueprints for them and helped direct everything, meaning their constructions got to benefit from the additional durability effect of her Architect class.

In only five short days, the town had all but been transformed yet again. Where once a tiny, haphazardly thrown together camp of only a hundred scared Earthers had huddled together those first ten days on an unknown world, now stood a small fortress bustling with activity as everyone prepared for the inevitable wave of monsters to appear. Arrows were crafted and lugged around in barrels to different locations on the walls, ready to be rained down upon the thick sea of monsters that would be clawing at the gate. Weapons were repaired and sharpened, handed out to everyone regardless of their individual skill level.

They even had new tools at their disposal, such as minor healing potions courtesy of Bill's newly prestiged Knowledgeable Alchemist class, as well as literal magic grenades that anyone could use thanks to Alice and Myers' joint efforts and research of the explosive fox monsters. Both the potions and the explosives were rather limited in supply, but just knowing that they existed was a massive morale boost to all those of the first and second wave who had seen the explosive power of Myers' crossbow in action, or the healing that Vin, Shia, and Frank were capable of.

For the first time since arriving on Edregon, Vin and the rest of the Earthers felt something they'd never experienced before. This time, they weren't going to be caught unawares when the monsters showed up. This time, they would be the ones to bring devastation and slaughter to their foes when the time came.

This time, they were ready.