The Wandsmith [LitRPG, Isekai, Harem]

"Morning," Ori said softly to the stirring fairy.

Ruenne'del shifted beside him, her breath slow and even. Her pink pigtails were tousled from sleep, and her dragonfly-like wings shimmered faintly in the morning light. Her pale skin caught the soft glow of the hearth. The longhouse was quiet, still heavy with sleep, its timbers creaking only faintly in the morning chill. Beyond the window slats, the realm outside was just beginning to stir, but here, all was hushed.

Ori watched her for a moment, his silver eyes lingering on the gentle rise and fall of her chest. She looked so small like this. Peaceful, vulnerable in a way he rarely saw. And yet there was something fierce beneath it all, a wildness just under the surface. She was strange, fae, utterly unlike anyone he had ever known, and yet she had chosen him. Someone whose very nature was antithetical to certainty, yet cursed with an affinity for divination. His presence by her side was a small but desperately needed escape. It filled her with a quiet, aching gratitude he could feel through their bond.

The very same connection, even now, thrummed gently with muted feelings. He could sense the edges of her sleep-hazed awareness, the flickers of her emotional landscape. There was contentment, amusement, and something deeper, raw and hard to name. He reached for it, only for it to flutter.

"You think too much," she said, her scratchy voice roughened further by sleep, the sound dragging a half-smile to Ori's lips.

He leaned in and brushed a knuckle across her cheek. Her eyes opened fully, silver eyes turning gold in the firelight, before she shifted, rising just enough to press her lips to his.

The kiss was slow and unhurried. Her lips were warm and soft, her emotions unguarded. Through the bond, Ori felt her response not just in body but in soul. There was no urgency in her, only that same curiosity and unshaped desire that lingered just beneath the surface. She was revelling in the unknown, in the freedom of the present, heedless of the future.

In her, there was a newfound joy and fear in knowing something might end, but not how, a hunger for experiences provided by chance and change. For a brief second, Ori forgot to worry about the future, forgot to fear what her kind might do or where she might one day go.

They ended their kiss when Freya asked if it was safe to come out yet. Not that she could not already see and likely feel much of what Ori could while resting within his soul space if she chose to. It was an odd realisation. One he knew he would need to be more mindful of if he ever formed new familiar bonds or hosted more passengers in the invisible non-corporeal space that was becoming his soul's makeshift hotel.

"So there are three rifts left. I think the one far to the east should be next. It's the furthest away but probably the easiest or at least should hold the fewest surprises."

"And you want to strengthen yourself with that Aether before tackling the rest?" Freya asked.

"Yeah. The other two rifts… well, I don't really know how to deal with the one with the massive burrowing earthworms without using my domain. And if I did, it would be all or nothing. I would be vulnerable if something went wrong. And the other…"

"It is close to one of the caches of opportunity Thraxis mentioned."

"Yep. Loot cave."

Ruenne'del gave Ori a puzzled look.

Freya jumped in before he could explain. "So why not go there first?"

"Because what if the Aether Rift and the cave are in the same place? What effect could Aether have on such a site? From what I remember, mister mc-creepy dragon-face said this cache might help me understand my divine curse. If it holds anything to do with curses, what would happen if Aether twisted it? It turns animals into monsters. So if this place is anything like the god who cursed me… well."

Ori had avoided looking at this particular section of his Library of Fates. It served as both a deadline and a reminder of the lives he had taken. But now, with a slow breath, he opened it and checked the details of his divine curse.

Curse: Graceless Infernal Deathclock

Rank: Divine

Description: This curse feeds upon the Grace you accumulate.

Notes: You have [1 year, 11 months, 3 weeks, 5 days and 13 hours] to live. Extend this time by avenging the god you killed. For every infernal slain with a level disparity greater than one, gain an hour of life. Additionally, gain one hour of life for each level the infernal is above your own.

"Hmmm. Geographically, since it's to the north, it makes sense to tackle the worms next. Would save you some travel," Freya said, unaware of Ori's internal melodrama.

"Yeah." Ori scratched his scalp, fingers snagging in his tangled, half-regrown hair. It was matted and overdue a proper wash. Idly, he considered giving Raven an updated shopping list—essentials, toiletries, and fast food to store in her ring.

"You're worried about the worms?" Freya asked.

"I just don't have a way to fight underground," Ori admitted. "Or survive if I get dragged under."

Freya was silent in thought. Ruenne'del said nothing either, content to observe unless she had something to add.

"Show me your spell list," Freya said at last. Ori obliged, displaying his page from the Library of Fate.

"You haven't moved Lesser Smite to your Core yet?" she asked, brows furrowing.

"Ah, no. Haven't really needed to?"

"The sooner you move it, the sooner it can evolve. Maybe it'll adjust to suit your sensibilities—make it less flashy, perhaps." Freya continued.

"Yeah, alright." Ori shifted the spell into his Core.

"You've got Void Dance?" Freya blinked in surprise.

"I picked it up from Poppy in the dreaming."

"You can gain skills from your bonded through dreams? Wild luck. You, Ori, are a preposterous being," Freya said incredulously.

Ori shrugged, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I can't really use it. Still having lessons with Poppy on moving through the void. Maybe I could in an emergency? But underground, with no space to walk? I'm not relying on it."

"Hmmm. What about Light Field? It looks like it can be upgraded."

"Oh yeah, it's basically just a mass version of Light Orb. Handy against void spells, but I left it alone. I didn't think I needed more attack spells." Ori scratched his head again. "Guess this situation proves me wrong."

"Well, it's good you haven't finalised it," Freya said after a moment's thought.

"Use the Rift to evolve it," Ruenne'del suggested, her voice scratchy but certain.

"Yes! A great opportunity. Use your Aethermancy to shape the evolution. Normally, you'd need rare reagents and catalysts to create a signature spell. But perhaps you could brute-force it using your Peritia and the rift," Freya added in approval.

"Signature spell?" Ori asked, confused.

"It's rare. Not usually done before Sovereign rank. But spellcasters can create spells outside of their constellation. They're part of your style, your identity, often unique. Powerful. Expensive to create," Freya explained. "If you can combine your ridiculous range of affinities with your traits, domain and comprehension, you might be able to craft something truly frightening."

Ori tilted his head, bemused but curious. His thoughts drifted to what the spell might become.

"Make a list of your talents. Think about how they could be folded into one spell in a synergistic way."

Ori began listing traits mentally as he opened his character sheet. Then, with a flick of his hand, he cast Light Field. Hundreds of marbles of cool, silvery light hung suspended around them. The spell was beautiful but inert, gentle and lacking impact. They resembled stars but without heat or weight. Pretty, but hollow.

"So I could fold all my affinities into this?"

"Perhaps. As a form of high magic, made of many parts. You could use separate affinities working in concert. But also," Freya added thoughtfully, "consider what the spell is not. A signature spell is more powerful when focused on a single goal, unless the goal is to be flexible."

Ori watched the drifting lights and considered not just what the spell could become but what it should be.

He imagined how each of his affinities could be integrated. With Light Field as both foundation and inspiration, the core of a concept began to take shape. The Harmonic affinities—Celestial, Astral and Cosmic—would provide the light, while Void and Abyssal would fill the space between. Ori envisioned a true star field, a wide area-of-effect spell that blended his brightest and darkest aspects into a single, coherent construct.

But Ori wanted more.

While Light Field remained active, he condensed a sphere of raw Mana, turning his focus to the kind of feedback such a construct might produce.

He spent the day experimenting, modifying the Mana to include feedback structures. Bit by bit, he began enchanting the Mana itself to form recursive signal paths, layering magical logic systems that mirrored programming functions and instruction sets. Drawing on rusty principles from his undergraduate degree in electronic engineering, Ori attempted to build a kind of magical microprocessor from Mana.

His early iterations were crude and unstable, doing little more than oscillating between two states. But by the end of the second day, his Mana constructs could shift aspects based on environmental input, detect the difference between living and non-living matter, and even respond to his conscious and subconscious intent with increasing nuance.

His true breakthrough came late the next night in the longhouse. He succeeded in using Astral aspected mana to embed a persistent memory within an external void space, allowing a spell to retain information across separate castings. With this foundation in place, Ori finally felt prepared to venture out and begin crafting his signature spell.

They had left the hamlet several hours earlier. Horace had stood at the edge of the trees, watching as Ori and Ruenne'del disappeared into the forest. His sharp, elven gaze lingered on them longer than seemed necessary. He had followed them for days now, his presence sensed only when Ori pulsed his domain or when Lysara's tremor sense caught his movements. The elven hunter had stood with his arms folded, leaning against a tree, eyes fixed on them until the woods swallowed them from view.

Ori had felt a quiet pressure at his back. The kind of watchfulness one expected from someone used to studying prey, not people. He wondered how much Horace had understood about what he truly was or was doing. He could not tell whether the hunter's silence meant approval or quiet disapproval, only that it was no accident. Horace had seen something. Ori could only hope that, given the lack of reaction from the rest of the settlement, it was nothing that would come back to trouble them later.

"So, are you going to tell me what you're up to with your signature spell? Perhaps I could warn you before you do something silly?" Freya asked, her voice dry and suspicious as she hovered beside Ori's shoulder in sprite form.

"No," Ori replied with a slight grin. "Because I'm pretty sure it'll upset you. And besides, even if you do see it, you'll be immune. Hopefully, you'll only ever see the effect it has, and that will be enough."

"That's not comforting," Freya said under her breath. "You know, as a responsible spell tutor of the ​​Arcanum Collegium Deo at Vespasian, I should report you to the department of Magical Misconduct."

"Yeah, good luck with that. I'm fairly sure I break about five laws of magic just by waking up," Ori scoffed as they trudged through the forest. The forest was thick with morning mist and birdsong. Ruenne'del walked by his side, eyes still half-lidded with sleep. Her wings caught the light with an opalescent shimmer under the great sword now slung diagonally across her back.

"Still too loud." Ruenne'del suddenly announced, mildly frustrated.

Ori glanced back. "Loud? I'm not saying anything."

"Your busy mind leaks into your presence, we all hear it."

Ori frowned.

"You clench too much. Like... screaming muscles. Quiet muscles. No scream."

Ori slowed his pace, eyes narrowing. "Right. So, I'm flexing when I should be... what? Not flexing? Relaxed?"

Ruenne'del sighed, then shrugged.

"That clears it right up," Ori sighed.

Rue sighed. The bond between them pulsed faintly with her simmering frustration, the kind that came not from anger but from the difficulty of translation. She knew what she meant. She felt it instinctively. But the words were like clumsy tools in her hands.

Ori found it endearing. There was something about how she held back, not because she didn't care, but because she didn't yet know how to express it. Her clipped speech, a reflection of her restraint, her quiet certainty made him want to listen more closely, not less.

He stopped walking. "Alright. Let's try again. I'll shut my brain off. You do whatever it is you do when you move around without anyone noticing."

She stepped towards him and placed a hand over his chest. Her fingers were cold, delicate but strong. She tilted her head, silver eyes watching him with intense focus.

"Breathe. No power or spell. Just feel the world. Don't press into it."

He nodded slowly and took a breath, then another, this time less forced. He tried to pull his awareness inward, not like a wall, but like sinking beneath water, or being the water itself, flowing through a sinkhole. Rue nodded once, faint approval through the bond.

"Now, watch."

Then she stepped back, vanishing into the underbrush.

Ori blinked. This was Rue's Presence Inversion, a technique that effectively reversed the effect of her Presence turning it into a negative value. If not for their bond, he wouldn't have known she was there at all. But now he understood that, despite how invisible she felt, any mundane sensor or camera would still detect her just as clearly as if she weren't using the technique at all.

"Yeah... that's super creepy," he whispered.

Rue stepped out from behind a tree without a sound.

With Vision of the Progenitor active, Ori watched her repeat the trick. There was no gradual shift or moment of focus. She simply disappeared as if flicking a switch. It wasn't something she built through effort or discipline. It was a natural extension of her being. Something Ori both admired and envied.

They had been at this for hours now, but he was getting there. Rue had grown frustrated earlier. He had felt it through their bond. Her thoughts were hard to follow. Her explanations were short and imprecise. Little more than feelings wrapped in clipped words. But he had kept trying.

And now, something shifted. Her gaze softened. She stepped close and kissed him.

Her lips were soft. Her breath turned to steam in the morning chill. She pulled him down by the collar to make up for the foot and a half of height between them. The closeness of her small frame against his own brought a rush of warmth that settled low in his chest. It was slow and deliberate. A kiss filled with purpose as much as passion. Within it was gratitude for trying. Unspoken praise and quiet encouragement. A rare moment of intimacy that turned off his thoughts even as it lit a spark deep inside.

As she pulled away, the forest around them seemed to exhale. A breeze stirred the leaves. A bird called out, distant but clear. Insects resumed their gentle hum.

The world had stopped noticing him, at least as much as it had.

Ori's presence, once loud and intrusive, had quietened. It no longer pushed out into the world but settled, like a pendulum at rest.

"You're getting better."

"Nothing compared to what you can do."

"No, it isn't" Rue smirked before pulling him down for another kiss.

Ori cast Lesser Smite at the charging greater-ranked Spore Elk. The mutated creature, seven feet tall at the shoulder, barrelled towards him in flames. Its back was burdened with swollen, spore-laden mushrooms that burst as it burned, releasing noxious clouds which only fed the fire of its disintegration. Momentum carried it forward long after its brain had cooked beyond function.

Ruenne'del stayed behind him. Her Presence and the Grace of a fae princess somehow repelled the insidious spores, even as the air thickened into a milky mist.

At first, Ori had moved with deliberate caution. His recent phobia of mushrooms and fungal growths, born from the first demons he had slain, had almost convinced him to abandon the effort entirely. Easiest rift or not, he had nearly walked away. But when he discovered that Purifying Light—perhaps his favourite spell—could neutralise both airborne and internal toxins with ease and that his Aethermancy and Aura rendered even the most mutagenic elements of the corrupted spores inert, his confidence grew. His pace quickened. His bonded followed, and together they pressed on.

"The Rift's close."

Ori's voice was low as he moved through the thinning forest. Milky white spores drifted like mist between the trees, clinging to the underbrush and muffling sound.

Ruenne'del followed behind. Her movements were silent with her greatsword held loosely at her side. Through their bond, Ori felt her tension. Not fear, but a focused alertness.

He advanced with Prismatic Shields already active. The hexagonal dome shimmered faintly around them, almost invisible save for its soft, soap-bubble sheen. This time, his shield adapted itself not for impact but for containment, to hold back the choking spores long enough for him to strike down the monsters and cleanse the air with Purifying Light.

The next elk came fast. A Greater-ranked brute, taller than a horse, its coat clumped with fungal growths and mushroom blooms. It charged with a guttural cry, scattering spores in a thick trail behind it. Ori didn't hesitate.

A spectral hand flashed. One of his Array blades drove through the beast's throat. Prismatic Weapon shimmered as the edge bit through bone and sinew. The elk staggered, collapsed, and bled out spores and rot.

The spores thickened. Visibility fell to a few meters. Ori's silver eyes glowed through the haze, tracking shapes through Vision of the Progenitor. The clouded air gave him too little time to react.

He fell back on instinct. His spectral blades struck out as shapes emerged from the white mist. Reach of the Progenitor allowed him to stab at distant shadows. Whenever something entered his field of visibility, his magic flared, reducing it to ash.

The grind began.

Ruenne'del drifted behind him like a ghost. Neither of them spoke. Mantle of Battle Harmony linked their movements, their shared rhythm forming a perfect balance from which they could move and strike.

When the spores thickened too far to see, Ori overcharged Purifying Light. Multifocal castings erupted in white fire while their auras repelled the rest. Together, they burned a path forward.

More came. Dozens. Some limped, their forms already warped beyond recognition. Others were fast, lithe, vicious. They came like knives thrown from the shadows. Their antlers cracked like dry bone. Contact with skin left trails of festering rot. Their speed made them difficult to target. Ori could only land a few Smites before they crossed into melee.

He relied on Mind Over Motion, blinking short distances with bursts of acceleration. It was effective but limited to a handful of casts per hour.

Even still, he bled. The elks came from all sides. Their strikes weren't deadly, but they cut and bruised. They wore him down. His magic kept him going, cleansing wounds from himself and his bonded before they could infect or corrupt.

Then he felt them.

The Sovereign-ranked Spore Elks loomed ominously from the mist. Twenty-four of them, each over nine feet tall at the shoulder. Their antlers cast long, thorned shadows across the clearing as if a forest of bones had grown legs. Each one carried enough power to crush a typical sovereign rank spellcaster on their own. Together, they brought pressure so thick the air itself seemed to press against his skin.

He activated his full suite of passive boosts. Space rippled around him as his aura flared, distorting the air. His eyes became twin holes of light, brilliant and unblinking, as the full spectrum of his traits surged into effect.

The High Human stood still for a moment, surveying the world before him. Twisted trees bowed under fungal growths, spores choked the air, and Sovereign-ranked beasts loomed like wendigos made flesh.

He looked upon a world ruled too long by rot and ruin with cold dissatisfaction and quiet distaste and decided that if no place in this realm would suit him, then he would remake it or build another one that did.