[DCI] Chapter 45 - The Arcane Way (Patreon)

Levia trotted to the dresser to pick up some clothes from her very scarce collection. After a moment of pondering, she put on simple black shorts and a plain gray t-shirt. Since they had been bought through the D-Shop, there was no problem with their size and they fit our lithe friend perfectly.

When everyone was dressed at least somewhat decently, we brought one more chair to my desk and sat in front of it together. Aisha took my right side while Levia was seated on my left. She was curiously watching everything that transpired on the monitor screen.

“I’ll miss being able to take a peek at my information at any moment.” Aisha sighed softly while rubbing her wrist. “You don’t get to appreciate the nice things until you lose them.”

“We will get your watch back in no time, trust me.” I winked at her. “Until then, we will have to share like in the good old times. Or I’ll get one more somehow.”

“Don’t waste your money on it. I can live with sharing.” She smirked at me. “Another reason to get all close and personal with you is always welcome.”

I shook my head and returned my focus to the screen in front of us.

“You two seem to possess good chemistry,” Levia commented from the side, glancing our way.

“Well, we’ve gone through a thing or two together.” I chuckled lightly. “I’m certainly glad to have Aisha by my side, even though she can be a handful at times.”

The fierce drakan lady slugged me in the shoulder with a grin. “And I’m more than just happy that I ended up with a master such as him. It never gets boring around this guy. The things you’ve seen so far are nothing when compared to how he usually is.”

“Excluding the recent show.” I smiled wryly. “That situation was a little bit special.”

Aisha snorted. “Obviously. That’s between you and me as mates. And you truly are an incredible mate. I would even dare to say that we are soul mates. I haven’t ever felt such a pull towards someone during my first round.”

“You two are mates?” Levia’s brows rose faintly. “I assumed you were fulfilling his nature as the mentioned Overlord of Lust. It seems that I have been mistaken.”

“I can imagine why you would think that considering what you saw.” I nodded, trying not to smirk.

“That part certainly isn’t wrong since we do get quite some nice boons from getting frisky but it’s not all that there is to it. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but I guess I’ve fallen for his peculiar charm. It’s rare to find such an individual amongst my kin,” my dazzling girlfriend replied with a barely distinguishable trace of a blush. “Plus, I was just a tad horny and he was just the kind and nice guy he usually is and lent me his dick for a little while. It’s kind of my fault you had to awkwardly wait in the bathroom.”

“I did not mind. And I did not spend that brief moment idly. Your bathroom is a very intriguing place, including all the health and beauty products,” Levia replied calmly. “If you do not mind me asking, what kind of benefits do you get for having intercourse?”

“I guess we haven’t introduced my Class to you properly yet.” I rubbed my chin. “Besides simple abilities like Command, Encourage, Intimidate, Thought Communication, Transfer Lifeforce and Spirit, I do have a few that work on a more intimate level. My summons can also belong to two categories, being either a Subordinate or Bonded, and that changes a few things.”

“For Subordinates, he can use the mentioned skills, and also slightly boost things like Vitality, Spiritual, and Fatigue Recovery a little bit by making the target feel good. And it’s not all about sex or sexual stimulation. A massage and such should work too, albeit it won’t be as effective, of course,” Aisha continued after me.

“Right. As for the Bonded, they get additional stats just for being in that category and also for partaking in the activities she mentioned, with the latter being a big but temporary boost. Plus, I can transport Bonded back and forth between my position and here a few times a day, they get some Mental Resistance for being one, and a few other small buffs,” I added.

“Fascinating. Am I a Subordinate right now, then?” Levia asked.

“Yes, you are. That’s where everyone summoned by me starts. To become Bonded, I would need you to… submit yourself to me. But, as I said in the beginning, there’s no need to worry. I literally can’t force anyone to do that, contrary to the other Overlords from what we have gathered,” I explained. “Here. I can show you your current status.”

I moved through the menus in the DCI Hub and navigated to the Subordinate Management section. Two silhouettes were present on the selection disks, belonging to my Level 10 drakan mate, and our new Level 5 lunar elf recruit. Thankfully, in their clothes.

Without further ado, I brought up Levia’s information.

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INFORMATION

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Name: Levia

Race: Lunar Elf

Age: 74

Affiliation: Lucas King

Position: Subordinate

Class: Witch

Level: 5

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“I see. So my position can change depending on the circumstances.” She nodded to herself. “I am already Level 5? How come? We only visited the Dungeon briefly.”

“Another one of the perks behind his Class. We talked about it earlier. All the experience we gathered during that adventure went straight to you,” Aisha answered her question. “I admit that it will be extremely useful. She should have plenty of stat points now, right?”

“She should. Let’s see since we are already here and planned to take care of them anyway,” I agreed and switched the displayed data.

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ATTRIBUTES

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Strength: 5

Agility: 10

Constitution: 9

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 25

Mystique: 5

Ingenuity: 5

[Available Points: 20]

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Yep. We have some clicking to do.” I smiled at them both and turned to Levia. “Do you have any specific wishes regarding the progression of your Class? Which path did you follow during your previous life?”

“I was focusing on Ingenuity, an aspect related to the more artisanal skills and abilities of my Class. It certainly helps with concoctions and artifacts. I put some points in Mystique when I came up with a new way of fighting using arcana,” the quiet Witch replied. “To be perfectly honest, I was somewhat regretful that I did not discover such an option much earlier. Concoctions, mixtures, and magical trinkets can be strong and useful but my arcana raised my firepower and safety considerably. I would have liked to invest more into it.”

“Well, now you have a chance to do exactly that.” Aisha grinned at her. “Especially with Lucas by your side. I bet he already has tens of ideas on how to make your dream come true in the most efficient and also entertaining way. He guided my progress from the start and I can’t get enough of the path he suggested. Annihilation is just pure joy.”

“Compared to your more or less traditional paths, Levia’s idea is slightly more unusual. I don’t exactly know any perfect ways to develop her Class towards her goal in the best possible way but I can assume.” I stared at the numbers on the screen, considering our options.

“Whatever it is, you will figure something out.” She patted me on the shoulder with a confident smile.

“The first steps are obvious, though. We gotta raise both Class-specific stats to ten at least. That will leave us with ten more to distribute however we want,” I mused, turning to Levia. “So, do you really want to focus on your arcana during this run?”

“I will follow the path you need me to,” the Witch replied softly. “I can give suggestions if you require them, but as your Subordinate, I shall focus on the aspects that will benefit your plans for our party the most.”

Aisha chuckled and shook her head. “That’s not how it works here. We figure things out together and pick the best options out of those that satisfy all of us.”

“As she said.” I gestured at her with my thumb. “You will be of use with either choice. Besides, I bet your actual, on-hand experience at making potions and other mixtures will greatly enhance your capabilities even if you choose to chase after a more magical path. We both saw how amazing your curses and simple spells cast with the cards are. Therefore, feel free to let me know what we are picking as our goal.”

Levia clearly pondered over our words for a minute, staring at the displayed digits intently. Finally coming to a decision, she turned her pretty, blue face back to us.

“Let us go with Mystique, then. I have a feeling that those cards of yours will allow me to reach new heights with my arcanas,” she announced.

“Alright. But before we get to that, let me grab something for you.” I nodded and stood up.

They followed me with their gazes, curiously looking for what I was going to do. Even Aisha had no idea though that wasn’t too surprising in this particular case. I had noticed Levia slowly rubbing her exposed arms on the side but she didn’t seem intent on letting us know about her discomfort or doing something about it on her own.

Thus, I moved to the balcony and closed the window we'd had open for the night. Before getting back to them, I stopped by the wardrobe and fished out one of my clean, black hoodies. It was nice and comfy but not too thick. Perfect for the situation.

Coming back, I extended it to her. “Hop in. And for the future, don’t be afraid to freely say, ask, or do whatever you feel like. This is now your home too and we can be considered roommates. It’s your right to make yourself comfortable and ask us to give you the opportunity to do so.”

I caught Aisha smiling at me warmly and I could literally feel her reminiscing about our first days together. Levia glanced between my face and the piece of cozy clothing before accepting the gift. She unhurriedly put it on and I took the hood off her head after she was done.

As expected, my hoodie was clearly too big for her and it ended up practically at the same height as the bottom of her shorts, not to mention the slightly baggy sleeves. But, I couldn’t disagree that such a look made her stand out even more with her beautiful white hair and mesmerizing blue skin. Plus, it was utterly cute.

“Great.” I cleared my throat. “Let’s get back to the attributes. We now have ten spare points. Since you want to focus on magic, let’s drop an additional five to Mystique and start raising your Intelligence. At least to make it equal to your Wisdom. With what we have, it will stop at twenty-three. After you level up a few more times, which will happen soon, we will discuss what to do next. Is that acceptable?”

“It is.” The silent Witch nodded faintly. “You should not redirect all the experience to me, though. You need to grow stronger too. It will be dangerous for your levels not to rise high enough before we face the stronger monsters or the Boss variant. If your guild picked the Dungeon properly, they should have calculated your potential growth just the way to increase your chances of survival. Of course, not everything can be perfectly predicted but they are often quite accurate.”

“Don’t worry about that. I will alter the distribution along the way, as soon as you start catching up to us,” I smiled at her reassuringly. “And, there are three of us at all times now so you shouldn’t treat my and Aisha’s levels the same way as a solo Defender’s.”

“Yeah. And we have some tricks up our sleeves too.” My draconic girlfriend flexed her bicep. “With your arcanas, things will get even easier.”

“Regarding that, I saw you got an ability called Cartomancy. Do you have any experience with it from your first life?” I raised a brow at the charming Witch.

“Yes. It has many uses, but can be extremely cryptic. I assume that the Mystique stat influences it to some extent and that was why I did not rely on it that often back then,” Levia replied. “Using specially prepared cards, I was able to check for things like traps in the tunnel ahead, the presence of enemies, possibly also what kind of enemies they were, and some other simple divinations.”

“Seeing the near future?” Aisha asked excitedly.

Levia shook her head. “Unfortunately not. It is not that powerful. At least it was not back when I used it.”

“How fast does it work?” I inquired.

“The divination itself takes just a moment to cast but it often comes as a quite cryptic message which requires me, or us in this case, to decipher it correctly before an accurate answer is revealed. It is easy to misread it if you are in a rush. Therefore, it is nigh impossible to use under pressure and can get dangerous,” she explained.

“A double-edged sword, eh?” Aisha grunted. “Well, I’m sure that Lucas will have no trouble figuring out the riddles of fate.”

I chuckled and waved a hand at her. “Don’t overestimate me this much. You are forgetting that I operate a lot on past knowledge. I don’t have a lot of experience with tricky, fortune-telling riddles.”

“Past knowledge? Are you not a first-time Defender?” It seemed that my statement caught Levia’s curiosity.

“It’s hard to say.” I scratched my head. “Technically, I took down countless Dungeons in this life but they were something like a simulation, an illusion prepared by my guild to scout me. I assume they designed it to recruit people from Earth, or at least find worthy candidates. I learned a lot from it but I’m pretty sure that the knowledge is to some extent limited to what they know even if it was a lot, including some secrets they haven’t shared publicly with other Defenders.”

“That is… a first.” Levia was clearly in small awe, even though her calm expression didn’t show it that much. “Earth’s guilds have very smart and mysterious ways. And very supportive. Defenders from my realm had to scrounge for information on their own. It is no wonder that you two are flourishing with such an advantage.”

“It’s all thanks to him. He puts that knowledge to good use.” My brawny girlfriend mightily slapped my back a few times. “So, what’s the plan now?”

I took a moment to think about our options. “Zeke will take a while to do his magic so we shouldn’t really wait for him. If he is even able to get a read on that smartwatch in the first place. But, if he does, he should be able to cough something very simple up in a matter of a few days. For now, we can get back into the Dungeon to level Levia up some more and hopefully find the last Defender so that we get to know everyone. If they even exist. It’s possible there are only three of us.”

“I can get behind that.” Aisha nodded. “We do need to make some progress, even a slow one. The whole saboteur situation makes it slightly more difficult. It would be great if we were able to deal with it fast. Oh, how I wish people weren’t such twats in this profession.”

“Where there are riches and power, there is always greed. That is the way of the world,” Levia said with a melancholic undertone.

“Sad but true.” I smiled wryly. “Are we going in today?”

“If that would not be a problem, I would like to make proper preparations. I could use more arcanas to be ready to help when the need arises. Additionally, given enough time, I could prepare a thing or two that could aid our delves, make them safer, if we have any information on the Dungeon,” Levia replied.

“We are not in a rush so that’s fine. As for the Dungeon, we haven’t really stumbled on any yet but there supposedly are diseases hanging around those catacombs. We’ve been using some simple all-purpose potions to protect ourselves. Feel free to help yourself to our materials and do whatever you want with them,” I suggested.

“I will do exactly that, then. It should be possible to concoct something useful from the moss you gathered.” She nodded and hopped off her chair, heading towards the new door in the kitchen complex.

We glanced at each other with Aisha and she shrugged. “No idea what I’m gonna do. Maintenance is more or less done. Perhaps I might train a little in the meantime. Or I could go and hunt close to the entrance to give you two some space.”

I rolled my eyes at her obvious smirk and stood up too. “As I said, there’s no rush. With that too. You can take it easy and relax a bit. You deserve it.”

“What about you?” she asked, joining me.

“I’ll see if there’s anything I could help Levia with. It’s a good opportunity to learn more about how her Class works in real life. I won’t hide that I’m driven by intense curiosity too.”

“I bet it’s not just curiosity.” She winked at me and chuckled while passing by.

I landed a soft smack on her tender booty to punish the frivolous drakan, evoking a sharp gasp from my beloved mate. She grinned at me coyly and continued on her way, swaying her hips even more than before.

What did I have to go through with this tease of a woman…

Leaving Aisha to her own plans and ideas, I walked to the kitchen and knocked on the door to Levia’s witchy den before stepping inside. I found her next to one of the counters, shooting me a glance over her shoulder as she was taking some glass utensils out of the cabinets.

And damn, that hoodie of mine which was obviously too big made her look so sexy. I had no idea what it was but girls in oversized clothes were peak allure.

“Mind if I give you a hand?” I asked, closing the door behind me.

“Any help will be appreciated. We should be able to prepare the concoction quicker together.”

“Making some potions?”

“I decided to start with something to fight the diseases you mentioned. While the mixture develops in the cauldron, I will be able to focus on something else, like drawing my arcanas.”

“Great time management skills,” I complimented her, walking closer. “Let’s cook up some meds, then.”

Levia took me under her wings and we began our alchemical adventure. First, we brought out all the necessary equipment and spread it over the wooden counters. She then instructed me on how to prepare the cauldron and left to gather some ingredients from the storage. When she came back with a paper box full of materials, I had the cauldron and the hearth underneath it ready, one filled with water and the other with fire.

I listened to her explanations about the various samples of Luminous Moss and not only as she skilfully cut them into pieces. I saw how careful she was not to touch them so I inquired if it was because making skin contact with the ingredients could spoil them but Levia told me that it was just risky since many species were poisonous.

Obviously, I couldn’t have her put herself in unnecessary danger, even if it was part of her job, so I briefly excused myself and jogged back to my PC. With a few clicks, I ordered a few packs of clinical latex gloves and a medical trash bin. Returning to her workshop, I put the bin inside one of the empty cupboards under the sink and introduced her to the wonders of modern safety measures.

Her movements were a tad awkward at first but Levia quickly got used to wearing the thin, blue gloves. I told her not to skimp on them and change them often, whenever she needed her hands to be clean during work. She made an appreciative nod and we returned our focus to the task at hand.

Soon, we stood by the cauldron and I held a tray with the ingredients we had processed. I held it up to her whenever she needed to reach for another piece and watched curiously as she stirred the pot while whispering various chants in a language unknown to me.

Each time she added something new to the mixture, she changed the direction of her movements, and sometimes the liquid changed colors too. It was a mesmerizing sight to see a real Witch at work. We lacked some small explosions and puffs of colorful smoke whenever she threw another ingredient in but I guessed that we were doing beginner stuff at the moment. Or the cartoons had just lied to me.

When the next step was to wait for the concoction to lazily boil, we stepped away and tidied up the mess we’d made during the preparations. Checking for the last time if there had been no accidents and the mixture was chilling in the cauldron, we moved to a free counter on the side and Levia brought out her card holder and an entire deck of empty cards.

“How many are you going to prepare today?” I asked, picking one up.

“Enough to fill the holster,” she replied softly. “Since I will be using the markers you lent me before, it will not take long to draw the circuits. May I ask you to fetch them, please?”

I hurried back to my desk, but instead of grabbing the few markers I had, I hastily bought an entire box of them with a rainbow of colors. Mine were surely at the end of their lifespan anyway and something like this was spare change. Literally.

Returning to Levia, I presented my purchase to her. “Keep those here. They are for you to use. No idea if different colors change anything but have at them.”

“Thank you. Are they like paint? Made from different ingredients?”

“I think so. I’m no expert on markers but I would assume that different colors are achieved with different substances even if a clean base is applied.”

“Then I am going to test them all out.” She accepted the box and started browsing through the contents. “Before I prepare ink with better spiritual properties, these shall do great.”

“You did mention that the ink and the paper are important for this. Is there anything we can get you to make it better?” I asked, glancing at the empty cards she’d laid out on the counter.

“I have an idea that would require some time. And your permission.”

“Oh? And that is?”

Levia turned her sleepy face to me. “We can liquefy the energy stored in the Spirit’s Heart. It will become an ink of the highest spiritual quality and conductivity. Though, I am not sure if the cards you provided me with would withstand that much power. If you do not mind making such use of the fallen Pixies, of course.”

I stroked my chin while pondering. “You said that they would definitely be happier to have their life energy put to good use rather than just disappear. If your method doesn’t torment them in the process, I’m all for it.”

“It does not. They will not feel a thing, except for the sensation of freedom and release when their energy is spent during the invocation of the spell.”

“Then sure.” I nodded.

“I will start the preparations during my free time, then. It is not a simple thing to achieve. For now, let us make use of these markers. We have quite a few arcanas to draw.”

“There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about. Previously, it wasn’t really a problem since the number of cards was low, but with a full deck, how will you fetch the one you want without pulling the entire thing out of the holster and looking through them all? Do you memorize the order too?”

“I had a skill called Perfect Draw that allowed me to pick the desired arcana out of a bundle. I am hoping to reclaim it soon,” she explained. “But, before that happens, I plan on carving a simple kinetic enchantment into the bottom of the holster. Every imbued spell has a different mana imprint and if I know them well, I can use that enchantment to push out the one I need.”

“Creative. I like it.” I nodded approvingly. “Perhaps learning Telekinesis will help you bring it back sooner. Past skills are often easier to get when you try to imitate them with something similar. I can teach you a little bit if you want.”

“I shall consider your offer.” She bowed her head respectfully. “We already have so many plans yet our time is very limited.”

“Yeah. It’s always like this.” I chuckled. “I’ll shut up now and let you focus on drawing.”

I stepped away to give Levia more space and peace of mind. She regarded me with one last slow glance and I smiled at her warmly. Returning her face to the front, she took a deep breath, sighed softly, and began the artistic part. I silently observed her from the side, fascinated by the magical process, thinking about everything we'd talked about. Countless ideas swirled in my head.