NOVEL NEXT 141- Demonstrating My Warrior Leadership. Part 3.
At twenty minutes, I open my eyes and take a look. I see thick logs sticking out of the tunnel above and through the piled corpses. Also more dead ants outside it, and the goblins fighting the way I showed them. Looks like it's working. I close my eyes again.
Twenty minutes later, I have four mana points. I approach the huge pile of dirt the goblins brought (moist forest soil that smells really good) and connect with it. Using earth control, I send it toward the tunnel entrance. I use a little to form and harden some spikes for one of the ants that got out and is fighting my people. But I can't manage it, the spikes break against its natural armor.
I finish sealing the tunnel entrance completely, plugging about two meters into the tunnel—which is as far as the dirt they brought me reaches—and apply channeling. I can feel it hardening so much it turns to stone, trapping and immobilizing the ants it catches.
Next, I personally go help with the fight. I grab a severed head from the ground and approach one of the invaders. With my agility, I have no trouble dodging its charge and shoving the severed head into its mouth for it to bite down on. Then I draw my sword and go for its joints.
It's not the same as before when I had fire channeling on the weapon, this is way more work. For starters, I have to be more precise. I'm cutting through one of its legs when I see another coming for me. I turn and launch a point-blank splash with my remaining mana point. The ant, not expecting magic, quickly backs away, dodging it. That gives me time to finish cutting the first one's leg and position myself to fight the second. After all, the ant without a leg is still biting the head I shoved between its mandibles. And since it's so tough, it seems to be having trouble breaking it.
Yeah, I think there's good armor or shield material here.
My opponent advances toward me. Right now, I'm relieved they don't jump. And that it has less agility than me. I dodge it easily and do something crazy.
One of those things where while you're doing it you tell yourself "what the hell are you doing, Bianca?"—but it's too late. I used to do this in MMORPGs, sometimes even in LoL. And it usually ended badly because those impulses are based on thinking I'm better than I actually am.
But hey, this isn't button-mashing a keyboard and moving a mouse. This is more like putting my agility points into practice.
And there I am, gripping my weapon's handle with my right hand as I finish dodging the ant that came at me. And I see the opportunity. I'm on its flank. Its height isn't that great. So I jump onto it. And it's while I'm in the air, already seeing myself falling to the other side and landing on the ground, that I activate explosive strength. It doesn't help me fall, but thanks to my agility I do land on the ant with both feet, don't lose my balance, and grab the sword with both hands to drive it with all my strength—doubled for 15 seconds—into the narrow area of its neck, right between the chitin sections of its head and thorax.
It's tough, but I get it in. And good thing I get it in, because the ant thrashes defensively, and if not for my grip on the sword, it would've thrown me to the ground.
Well, I finish it off by pulling the sword down and to the side, cutting through half its neck. Yellowish liquid comes out, but the damn thing's still alive. I should've gone for cutting instead of stabbing from the start. But I'm not an experienced fighter. You learn these things by trying, right?
When the ant finally drops dead a moment later, I hop back to the ground and go for the other one. Since I still have the buff active, it's easier to finish it off. And I don't go for the rest of its legs this time, I go straight for the neck.
I look around. The goblins and undead are still fighting the few ants that managed to get in. Between all of us, we finish them off quickly.
The goblins raise their spears toward the cave ceiling and let out a victory cry, which the skeleton wolves join in on—even though they don't make any sound. Makes sense, since they don't even have vocal cords. The zombie bears roar.
A notification appears before my eyes.
Congratulations! Your Low Splash spell has leveled up. It is now Intermediate Splash. Its range has increased up to 50% and the opening angle up to 90º.
Congratulations, by improving your basic air and water spells, you have surpassed the limitation imposed by your Aetherblade specialization. You can now upgrade your basic element spells to advanced level.
Congratulations! Your High Earth Control spell has leveled up. It is now Advanced Earth Control. You can now move, loosen, compact, and shape up to 50 cubic meters of earth. Increases control within the range sphere. Control, with prior visualization, allows earth to move, loosen, take shape and compact at great speed, and can even be shot into the air where it can move, loosen, take shape and compact. Range: 100 meters.
Congratulations, your high-level earth control spell has evolved into minor stone control.
Minor stone control: You can move, loosen, compact and shape up to 5 cubic meters of stone. Range: 10 meters.
Wow. So now I can do something similar to shooting stone bullets but, I don't know, with a hardened earth anvil that I create in mid-air and hurl at an enemy? And I can even accelerate it while it's within my control sphere of 100 meters radius from me.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Oh, yes. I smile with pure greed. As a good gamer, I know this feeling. It's like when a new LoL patch benefited one of my mains.
As for the stone control, I already imagined something like that. In fact, I'm disappointed that it lost so much range and volume, but I understand it. Otherwise, if it were the same as my current earth control, it would be completely overpowered. Actually, the range and volume are the same as intermediate earth control.
Finally, since it's not very clear to me what splash does now, I tap on the notification to see the spell:
Intermediate splash: Creates, from the palms, a cone of water with a 90º opening angle and a distance of 45 cm. Damage: 1 point. Cost: 1 MP.
Obviously, it's the same base damage as always, which increases based on my intelligence, my affinity for the water element, and the spell's level.
Just then, a sudden noise distracts me. It's the totem, who just jumped down from the cabinet and is approaching me.
"Bianca, thank you so much. You've saved us again."
He looks different to me. I think he leveled up. The goblin warriors too, who are definitely stronger now.
Out of curiosity, I squint.
Totem, level 9.
Now that I think about it, I never checked what level the totem was before.
Galp, level 8.
Bramp, level 7.
Lolp, level 7.
If I remember correctly, last time I came here Galp was level 6 and Bramp and Lolp were both 5. All three are still the highest-level goblins, not counting their elderly leader.
Of course, I already know that the levels they've gained aren't just due to this ant attack, but also from the animals they've hunted these past few days.
Lucky goblins, getting XP even from a deer!
As for me, I see that I haven't received any experience points. That means these giant ants are considered animals, not dungeon creatures.
"You can go clean up the cave and repair the damage," I tell them. "I'm going to meditate a bit more and finish driving them out completely."
"That mastery you have is very useful. My grandfather, the totem of our tribe when it was much larger, had it. You are a wise woman, like my grandfather."
Mastery? Wise woman?
Let me break this down. From the beginning, meditation seemed more like a mastery than a spell to me. So I'm not surprised to hear the confirmation from the totem's mouth. As for his grandfather being a wise man (or wise goblin), it's possible that having that ability requires meeting certain requirements.
In my case, it was as simple as choosing it as a spell because of my specialization.
"What exactly does it mean that your grandfather was a wise totem?"
He looks at me for a few moments before answering, as if he's not sure why I'm asking.
"One is wise when one can meditate. To do so, you must first develop three masteries related to mana, mana cores, and energy channels. I only have the first one: Mana Density. I need to grow in years of practice and wisdom to achieve the next."
Oh, Ronan would definitely be interested in this. And he has a high wisdom stat, probably even higher than the totem. The current one, anyway. I imagine not the grandfather yet.
"Totem, I'm not wise. At least not yet. If I can meditate, it's because of my specialization, one I have thanks to spirit magic."
Seeing him suddenly fall prostrate on his knees at my feet, I realize I just let something slip. But hey, they know about the wolf, so what's one more thing?
"Great Sage," he murmurs respectfully without lifting his forehead from the ground.
Oh shit, if the others see him they're going to copy him.
"Get up," I quickly crouch down to grab his arm and pull him upward.
"Great Sage," he repeats once he's back on his feet, "it is a great honor to serve you."
"You didn't tell me about mana density. What does it do and how do you get it?"
"Great Sage does not need the path of a humble totem."
"But Ronan could use it. And remember: call me Bianca."
"In that case, what it does is fortify your mana within your body. It prevents you from feeling sick when you spend it all. You achieve it by closing your eyes in a quiet place and imagining how mana permeates your flesh and bones and becomes denser, stronger, more vital."
Ronan's going to love this. I wonder why such knowledge isn't taught at the academy. Right off the bat, I can even think of some kind of conspiracy to keep selling expensive mana potions; but this isn't a pharmaceutical company from Earth. So maybe it's that the requirements for meditation are so complicated that almost no one can meet them, and that's why they don't teach us mana density. After all, from what the totem says, by itself it doesn't do much—it just relieves that exhaustion from when you've run out of mana. Or maybe I'm wrong and the reason is as simple as meditation being a mastery specific to monsters and not people.
Ah... I'll ask Catrina. Or that professor who was there when the rector interviewed me the first time, the elemental affinities specialist, since it would make sense for her to have studied mana as well.
"Do you know spirit magic then?" I ask the totem.
In the human kingdom, they had no clue it could even exist.
"Yes, Great Sa... Bianca," he corrects himself, and it's obvious he's struggling not to use the respectful title he thinks I should have. "The most powerful demon king, the one who freed our people and other races from slavery, had it."
Oh, shit. I don't like where this is going. Is it that this dark god—who I assume kidnapped me from Earth and chose me for my personality capable of having all four affinities—had everything tied up and perfect for me to follow the path of an ancient demon king?
"And what happened to him? Did they kill him?"
"No, he reigned for many years, until he died of old age. He conquered more than half the known world. Upon his death, the humans attacked and finished off his descendants, reconquering almost all of his kingdoms."
I won't ask why the totem's eyes gleam with renewed fury, his chest swells, and his fangs protrude more than usual from his mouth when he speaks. I know what he's doing. He's imagining himself as one of the commanders under the orders of a new great sage, a dark queen in this case.
In his eyes I have it all: the divine beast and spirit magic.
Which, by the way, they must have only heard about in their legends, because I've used it right in front of their noses and he couldn't identify it.
At most, since he has fire magic, he might have seen the fire element in my sword earlier and been puzzled, since that shouldn't be possible.
"I'm going to meditate again. I've leveled up my earth magic and now I can manipulate stone directly. In a little while, I'll work on part of the tunnel."
I was going to say an hour and twenty minutes, but I don't know if goblins have that human concept of time.
From his expression, the totem looks like he wants to ask something but holds back. I can imagine why, since earlier I transformed earth into stone, yet I just claimed I couldn't manipulate stone.
I don't clarify that it was with spirit magic. I don't feel like reinforcing his belief about me being the great sage.
I step away.