BT - Book 1 - Chapter 25 (Patreon)

Micah gasped for breath as he tried to follow the galloping Onkert Daemon.  He’d gotten close enough to the stag to wound it with an air knife, slashing open its leg and leaving a blood trail for the Daemon to follow, but his tiny body couldn’t keep up.  The Onkert barrelled through the forest, digging its armored knuckles into the soil as it shouldered past old growth trees and trampled underbrush.

Already he was only following his summon by sound and its path of destruction.  The Onkert was far ahead of him, occasionally howling as it sought its injured quarry.  Micah stopped for a second to catch his breath, his rail thin arms and legs trembling from exertion.  Idley, he hoped that the sound of the Onkert scared away whatever else might be in the forest.  His tiny sweat soaked form wasn’t in any shape to fight off a particularly aggressive rabbit let alone a boar, wolf or monster.

A howl of triumph interrupted, Micah’s panting.  With a grunt, he pushed off of the tree and began jogging down the trail left by the Daemon.  Hopefully, it would follow its commands and only subdue the stag.  He’d never seen the Onkert’s disobey Brenden, but this was also his first summoning.  Only the Sixteen knew if the incantation binding its will was done completely correctly.

About four minutes later, Micah staggered into the clear, sweat streaming down his body and his breath coming in short ragged bursts.  The Daemon held the stag pinned to the forest floor, its slavering wolf jaws whining and snapping at it, but unable to harm the majestic but aging creature.

Mentally, he assessed the time and sighed.  There wasn’t time to drag the stag back to his cave before the summoning ritual ran out.  Quickly, he began pulling ingredients out of the backpack that had become the bane of his existence on the jog over.  He didn’t look forward to it, but Micah would need to make a priority out of cardio once again.  Getting winded from even this minor piece of exertion was downright embarrassing

Quickly, he set up the transference ritual around the stag.  It had given up struggling, exhausted from the chase, but it eyed him nonetheless as Micah traced a circle of quartz dust around it and began placing the reagents at their places.  He made adjustments on the fly, judging the time of the ritual from the angle of the sun and hoping that his calculations were correct.  Rituals weren’t meant to be performed on the fly, but he would only have one chance at this.

One minute left.  Micah threw his spear into the center of the circle.  He needed to enchant something and it was all he had on hand that would serve as a proper medium for the amount of energy he planned on tapping from the stag.

The words came easily, a dab of blood from the stag’s injured leg on his index finger, Micah rapidly traced the necessary runes onto the haft of the spear.  Another smudge of blood and he traced the other set on the weapon’s glittering metal head. 

The spell reached its crescendo just before the Onkert dissipated.  Micah’s hand on the stag pulsed as he mentally reached into the core of its being.  Unlike the smaller woodland creatures, it had gravity and purpose to go with its age.  The temporal energy was just under the surface, clustered around the creature’s withered muscles and poorly healed wounds.

With the help of the ritual, Micah drew the energy from the stag, pouring it into the hasty runes inscribed in the animal’s blood on the spear.  For a second, the blood glowed white hot before evaporating and leaving behind intricate char marks on the spear.  Temporal power built in the weapon, contained for now by the ritualistic bindings he’d inscribed on it.

Then the Onkert faded, turning translucent and immaterial in the blink of an eye.  The stag, partially rejuvenated by Micah’s magic, stood up and bounded out of the clearing, but he didn’t have the time to look at it.  The entirety of Micah’s focus was concentrated on the small chisel in his hand and he layered inscription after inscription on the weapon.  

He worked on, almost in a trance, grabbing reagents from the backpack absently as the layers of enchantments on the spear deepened.  Finally, with the sun low in the sky, Micah sank a full point of moon attunement into the spear, finishing his work.  Without the stag, this project would have cost him at least five full points, functionally crippling him as a spellcaster.

For a brief second, nothing happened.  Micah cursed himself as he stared at the inert weapon.  He didn’t have the spare attunement to waste on failed projects. Then, starting with the butt of the spear, his rune carvings began to glow.  Slowly, greenish gold light traced up their intricate curves and whorls until they hit the head of the spear which burst to light in a strobe of white.

Micah fell back, an invisible wave of force knocking him off of his feet.  A manic grin on his face, he stood up, ignoring the persistent pain in his lower back and picked up the spear.  It was lighter, pulsing with latent energy.  

Setting himself, he performed a simple thrust.  He felt a small portion of his mana flow into the weapon and a focused jet of air shot out from the weapon, boring a two inch deep hole into a nearby tree.  It wasn’t as powerful as his air knife, but the enchantment was more than enough to give him a ranged option while using the spear.

Walking up to the tree, Micah placed his thumb in the hole.  It was still warm from the friction of the air against the tough bark, but the scar from the wind spike was almost deep enough to get his entire finger into it.  

Micah nodded in satisfaction before taking a step backward.  This time he swung the haft of the spear horizontally at the tree, like a staff. It pulled more mana, and the weapon writhed, wrapping itself around the tree before hardening once again.  Micah gave it a quick exploratory yank but it held firm.

Flexing his will, the spear softened, releasing the tree, before hardening once again in its traditional shape and length.  It looked like the enchantment was a complete success.  In addition to his usual minor strengthening and sharpening runes, he’d managed to infuse the weapon with two low tier elemental effects.  Wind spike and vine capture weren’t the most powerful or useful enchantments that he’d learned in his time at the Royal Academy, but they were the only two that he thought he could pull off unclassed and at his present skill level.  

That said, if he were willing to sell it the spear would probably be worth between twelve and twenty attunement.  A small fortune to someone as impoverished as Micah, but to a warrior a weapon was their life.  Adding magical utility abilities that the average blessed soldier wouldn’t have the affinities to access except through an enchantment made enchanting a lucrative art.

Checking his status sheet, Micah smiled.  Whether it was the rushed circumstances of the casting or the complexity of the enchantment itself, he’d reached ten in the skill.  Now it was only a matter of returning to his cave and utilizing the class crystal that he’d stored there.  Once he had a class he could start earning levels and unlock his higher tier spells.  Given the liberal rewards Ankros gave for clearing dungeons and killing monsters, especially without assistance, Micah would be on track to earn back the attunement he’d spent on enchanting in no time.

He began walking back, spear over one shoulder and a much lighter backpack slung over the other.  Behind him the sun began to dip below the horizon spurring Micah to walk faster.  Even if the forest weren’t dangerous after dark, he needed to get home by sundown or his Mother would be upset.

Really, given his mental age it probably should have bothered Micah that his Mother would still scold and ground him, but instead he found it endearing.  Having to pretend to be a child once again helped keep his focus on what truly mattered and motivated him.  It was more than watching numbers go up on his status.  The average people, the forsaken and those with common blessings, they too deserved a chance to live their own lives free from the constant risk of death.  Society needed people like his Father just as much as it needed the ‘legendary heroes’ of the Royal Knights.

It would be too easy to become enraptured in gaining power just for the sake of growing stronger.  Some of the adventurers in the Lancers and almost the entirety of the Golden Drakes and Royal Knights fell into that trap.  As far as Micah could tell, they only bothered with gaining levels and skills to become more powerful than their rivals.  

They’d lost their way.  They didn’t answer Mursa’s call to increase knowledge and learning.  They didn’t follow Luxos command to improve society as a whole.  The only God they even theoretically supported with their constant intercine struggles was Ankros, and even then their growth was more a matter of posturing than actually pitting themselves against the champions of other nations.

Micah’s thoughts were interrupted by the cold and wet tip of an animal’s muzzle pressing against his cheek.  He jumped, whipping around with the spear at ready.  The stag from earlier cocked its head at him in bemusement, its great antlers flashing in the orange afternoon light.

He frowned slightly, noticing that despite the animal being noticeably younger its fur was snow white rather than its previous brownish grey.  It snorted at Micah before walking slowly toward him.  Without showing any fear, it nuzzled his shoulder once again.

Micah lowered the spear and stroked its muzzle.  Its fur was softer than expected, a rich white mat that tangled around his fingers.  The stag stepped backward and pawed lightly at the forest soil before snorting again, shaking its head in the general direction he’d been walking.

“Fine,” Micah chuckled, “I’ll lead the way.”  

He couldn’t be sure, but the stag clearly wasn’t an ordinary deer.  It wasn’t an unheard of phenomena for an ordinary animal to receive a deity’s blessing and gain an affinity.  It didn’t happen as often as with Humans, Elves, and the Durgh, but it certainly did happen and when it did, it was usually coupled with an increase in intelligence.  Either way, he wasn’t going to get rid of it without attacking it, and given his current lack of class that didn’t seem like the best choice available to him.

Finally he reached the cave.  He stepped into the cavern’s mouth, his new companion following him fairly closely.  It stopped, its nose wrinkling in disgust, likely at the unappetizing scent of the caged animals inside.  The stag snorted once before exiting the cave and walking around the crag that it was situated.  It looked at him one more time before beginning to eat grass in disinterest.

“Fair enough,” Micah shrugged, chuckling slightly at the animal’s almost instant dismissal of his ‘base.’  “I didn’t pick it because it’s pretty.”

He walked inside, passing by his food stores and the cages of the raccoons and squirrels.  In the bowels of the cave he fished a burlap sack out of an alcove in the wall and removed the class crystal hidden inside.  Seating himself on the hard floor of the cavern, he placed both hands on it before diving into the misty realm of whatever force governed classes.

About fifteen minutes later he stood up, stretching some of the soreness out of his body.  This time, class selection didn’t carry with it any of the drama or uncertainty.  As soon as he heard that Thaumaturge was an option, Micah selected it.  The class selection still burned his hands slightly, but other than that one minor setback, all there was to do was see how far the supposedly legendary class could take him.