[LitF] 17. A Mage's Life (Patreon)

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[A/N: This is yesterday's chapter. Sorry it's late.]

As he moved further into the first floor, the number of goblins significantly increased, and so did the quality of their equipment.

He thrust his longsword. It pierced a globin's heart. The fiftieth monster in the room died miserably in a single strike. It had been the last one.

| Progress to Level 2: +0.05% → 1.177%

Leveling up was painfully slow.

Killing a monster of the awakener's level always gave a 0.001% increase. Killing one hundred thousand monsters of one's level would inevitably end up with a level up.

When awakeners killed monsters at a higher level than theirs, Fate rewarded them with more progression, up to 1%. Naturally, killing monsters of a lower level than oneself netted less than the base 0.001%.

Even beasts of the same level might provide a different progression percentage if they weren't of the same level as the awakener. According to Graham, scholars had developed complex formulas to get an estimate, but Fate sometimes changed the rules without forewarning.

Ultimately, the conclusion was obvious: Fate wanted the Fated Races to kill stronger monsters.

Everything pointed in that direction. Progression was equally shared among awakeners when they killed monsters together. Even so, if two level 1 awakeners got together to kill a single level 2 monster, each one would progress more than 0.001%. Moreover, monsters were almost always weaker than awakeners of the same level, so it wasn't even hard to kill above one's level. In fact, Arthur was confident he could easily kill level 2 monsters.

Fate made everything easy for the awakeners.

However, as one kept leveling up, the issue became finding good opportunities. It didn't matter if you had a group of level 50 people who could kill a lonely level 60 monster. Which dungeon would spawn such a high-level monster alone? So, it might be better to bring fewer people to kill multiple level 55 monsters instead.

Despite how easy Fate made things, Dungeons weren't convenient training grounds but real dangers to the world. They didn't create countless rooms with a single enemy but used numbers to suppress delvers as soon as possible.

When anyone found a good hunting ground, they didn't want to needlessly share the spoils. Fewer people in the attack group meant they could level up faster. There was a balance between risk and reward.

Graham had said there was a trend of delver groups starting small, growing quickly, then reverting into small groups. In the end, strong awakeners explored dungeons in groups of three at most: a healer, an attacker, and a defender. Some even went in alone. Healers and rich people with the money to buy the proper skills or potions had an advantage.

At least, that was true for awakeners who still could level up. Those who couldn't or didn't want to level up only sought to maximize how many monsters they could kill. They started with big groups of weak people and started going alone as soon as they could.

Arthur could eventually kill a hundred thousand level 1 goblins to get to level 2. It wasn't a grand feat, only a matter of time. It would be even easier if the dungeon weren't so obnoxious and let him fight monsters alone.

"Why are the goblins still level 1?" he asked Graham as he moved into another room. This time, the seventy monsters didn't look undernourished. They also wielded rusty daggers and wore leather armor. "They look stronger than the first ones."

"I told you how dungeons are weaker closer to the entrance, my prince," the knight replied. "Up until now, the goblins you fought didn't even have access to all stat points of a level 1 monster. You'll find actual level 1 opponents in a room or two."

Arthur sighed. Fate really loved the Fated Races and hated dungeons.

As foretold, two rooms later, the prince found his limits.

The place had one hundred goblins wearing the same leather armor as the previous ones, but the rusty daggers had been upgraded into rusty short swords instead. About a tenth also carried rotten wood shields. The monsters themselves were full of muscles.

The prince double-checked his equipment and stepped inside.

Level 1 monsters could have up to a total of 130 stat points or so. Arthur only had 110 agility, so depending on how the goblins' stats were distributed, their base speed might be faster than his. However, his equipment was incomparably better than the goblins, and he had the Improved Speed skill. It should be an easy slaughter.

It wasn't. The monsters surrounded him and attacked from all sides. He did his best but was still struck multiple times. His royal knight armor wasn't damaged, but suddenly, as he turned to swing his sword, he failed to find his footing.

The prince fell to the ground, and horror soon filled him. The little beasts jumped on him, pinning him down, and started to take his armor off.

He flayed, trying to free himself, but found his 100 points of strength weren't enough to move the monsters that did not look that heavy. There were just too many of them above him. He couldn't move an inch.

One of them pulled his head up and bit his neck deeply.

The pain was terrible but nothing mind-blowing. Arthur's mind stats, together with his Mind Resistance skill, accepted the pain but didn't let it overwhelm him. As he desperately tried to find a way to get out of that situation, he recalled the Mighty Roar skill.

He mentally willed Fate to activate the skill, opened his mouth, and let out an outcry of rage and frustration.

The A-tier skill was based on his body stats. While his strength and agility weren't much, his vitality had reached 500 points. All 710 body points fueled the roar, and a powerful shockwave left his mouth, covering his entire surroundings.

Yet, it was a sound attack, not one that would push the goblins away. There was no physical sign of what happened except the furious sound of his voice and the immediate freezing of all goblins.

The prince's fear increased as he thought the skill had failed. Was he so weak as to be defeated by a bunch of level 1 goblins despite all his advantages? Was he just a lousy warrior?

A moment later, the weight on top of him swiftly decreased. All the monsters started turning into mana, being absorbed back into the dungeon.

| Progress to Level 2: +0.1% → 1.298%

A hundred dead monsters of his level merely pushed him 0.1% closer to level 2.

Graham appeared in his field of view, offering his hand to help the prince. Arthur accepted it and took his helmet off after standing up. He pressed his neck, which was only barely hurting. However, it was still bleeding fast, and he was surprised to find that the goblin had taken a small piece of his throat with the vicious, deep bite.

The prince immediately activated the Self-Healing Surge skill. He couldn't feel Fate's mana, but the injury started closing fast. His skin regrew, and he had to take his hand off, or it might mess up the regeneration process.

When the skill was done six minutes later, only a fully healed half-inch cavity remained.

Graham waited until then to admonish Arthur.

"Don't get fooled by your body stats, Your Highness. 100 points strength is a lot compared to the unawakened, but for a physical fighter, it's negligible even against level 1 monsters. If it weren't for your A-tier Improved Physical Resistance, which you find lacking, the goblin would've bitten deeper."

The prince widened his eyes. "Deeper means..."

The knight nodded. "Death, Prince Boria. If your spine broke, you would be dead. The other skill you never gave much thought to, Elasticity, might have saved you when you were buried under so many enemies. But to be fair, if you merely lost enough of your neck that you couldn't breathe, Tamara or a potion could've saved you before you suffocated or drowned in your own blood."

The graphical details made Arthur uncomfortable. The Mind Resistance skill also assisted there, but it didn't stop him from understanding the gravity of the situation.

"Nevertheless, don't feel too bad about your performance, sire. Most squires do worse on their first delve. You could've done much better, but you saved yourself in the end."

The prince shook his head, sighing. "And how many squires have my mind stats and skills when they delve for the first time? I shouldn't even have gotten pinned down in the first place. Even after falling, I could've deployed a Mind Shield before getting overwhelmed, too."

"Milord, I won't deny you could also have done much better," Graham acknowledged. "However, defeating one hundred enemies with similar body stats from all sides isn't as easy as you seem to think. You're expecting to fight like me on your first attempt, but I'm a veteran warrior. You also don't have some of the skills I have. And remember, you're also not expected to ever physically fight that well. You're a mage first. Your goal is to build muscle memory."

Arthur still wasn't entirely convinced, but he saw no sense in insisting. The scar on his throat would be a reminder of how bad he was and an incentive to do better.

He put his helmet back on and picked his sword from the ground.

"What now?"

"Now, Your Highness, we go back to the previous room and wait for the monsters to respawn here. Your first goal is to kill them without suffering an injury. Then, you're expected to keep going until you defeat this floor's boss by yourself."

The prince nodded. "I'm not saying I need skills to grow stronger, but I have 3 free mind slots. Shouldn't I use the chance to get used to new skills, too?"

The man shook his head. "Not yet, my prince. You already have what you need to clear this floor. I'll give you new skills when we get to the next one."

"That's the plan? I'll keep beating floors and learning new skills?"

"No, Prince Boria. After you beat the second floor, you'll already have shown mastery of the basics of physical combat. I'll start teaching you proper magic, and we'll slowly integrate it into your fighting style until it becomes your main tool instead of a supportive one."

Arthur sighed, but he was looking up to it.

He returned to the previous room and waited for the goblins to respawn.

= - = - =

It didn't take Arthur long to defeat the one hundred goblins without getting hurt.

Arthur learned too fast. 444 points of intelligence and the Knowledge Hoarder trait, now at 1-4, let him memorize things quickly, including his mistakes. 100 points of wisdom and the Quick Mind trait allowed him to understand things quickly and make split-second decisions in battle.

He took a while to finish the first floor, though.

The goblins' levels quickly increased after the fiftieth room. The first floor's boss room had a level 7 hobgoblin aided by hundreds of level 6 goblins, a minority of which wielded long-range weapons. A dozen were even mages.

There was simply no way for him to kill them at level 1. His level increased relatively quick after he started facing level 2 goblins, but weeks later, he learned the horrors of what Graham called "progression grinding."

"Endless battles are the only way to increase your level, sire."

He got an achievement for killing 100 monsters per day for 100 non-consecutive days and reached level 6 before he finally cleared the floor. Although he didn't get physically stronger, that showed him the importance of mind stats and how his build would assist him in his future battles.

Killing the hobgoblin boss felt glorious, and getting a skill crystal when opening his first boss's chest filled him with a unique sense of accomplishment.

Cutting the monster's belly open with the power of his muscles made Arthur regret having picked a mage's path a little. He found he liked close-range combat as much as he dreamed of when he was a child. He really had a knight's heart.

But he lived for his people, not for personal gratification.

He endured.

= - = - =

Frustratingly, one of the six skills Graham gave Arthur after the first floor was called Extra-Sensory Awareness. It let the prince feel everything around him as a sort of sixth sense. When he added it to his combat arsenal, he became capable of battling large groups much better than ever.

"Some people use this skill as a crutch, milord. They can't fight at all if they are cut from it. You had to learn how to use your five senses first."

Yet, not even the extra awareness could make up for the sheer difference in body stats on the second floor. Arthur was too slow to deal with dozens of level 7 enemies or stronger, and his attacks were too weak.

Even reaching level 7 himself didn't help as much because he no longer invested in intelligence or wisdom. He could only think of so many tactics and make so many decisions against ridiculously fast foes.

"Improve your perception until it has 200 points, Prince Boria," Graham had ordered as the prince leveled up.

Arthur had been surprised. "Perception? Really? Isn't that a waste?"

"Mages often attack from a distance, sire. You must be able to see your enemy to hit them."

As if to make a point, the prince also learned the Improved Long Distance Sight skill. Although neither stat or skill would help him in the short term, Graham's reasoning made sense, and did as told.

In the end, on the day Arthur completed 2 years in the dungeon, he had only reached level 8, and the end of the second floor was nowhere in sight. He truly felt the despair of delvers who couldn't find enemies in small numbers at their level or higher to level up.

"That is enough, Your Highness," Graham said that day. "After you chose the mage path, you were never meant to clear the second floor without magic. My wife's father claimed you wouldn't even clear the first floor. He insisted you lacked spine. He couldn't have been more wrong."

The prince wasn't caught entirely by surprise by either revelation. After all, Stinson hated him, and as he threw himself time and time again at the same wall of enemies with little progress for months, it became evident that unless Graham joined the fight to reduce the monsters' numbers in the rooms, Arthur wouldn't even be able to clear the second floor alone, much less reach level 100. Something would eventually change, though the knight refused to reveal anything when asked.

"Finally," Arthur breathed. "Time for magic?"

It wasn't a hard guess; he had been told to put points on the magnitude stat after taking perception to 200.

Graham nodded.

= - = - =

Arthur was prehending a sword, keeping it floating before him.

He willed his mana to form magic symbols throughout the blade's length. Some runes directly touched the metal, while others floated at some distance and were connected to it by a thin mana tendril. The distance between the characters had to be precise, or the spell wouldn't work.

After drawing dozens of runes, the prince double-checked them, corrected a few mistakes, and cut off his mental connection to the spell and the object it was affecting.

The blade immediately shot toward, aimed at a straw dummy a hundred yards away. Graham had set spread many such practice targets throughout the cave chamber.

The spell was attached to the blade and was fueled by the mana that the magic symbols were made of. It kept going until it firmly struck the dummy's head and penetrated deeply. Arthur had miscalculated the amount of mana required to reach that distance, and the blade tried to keep going, slightly bending the dummy. A few seconds later, the spell's mana was consumed to the point that the runes dissipated, and the effect died down.

The prince sighed.

"Still too slow and wasteful," he concluded and analyzed what he had done wrong.

After getting the Mana Sight skill, Arthur learned that his metal connection to his element was actually an instinctive use of magic. An invisible tentacle-shaped mana "limb" came from his mind, touched a metal object, and established a connection.

Graham's advanced magic theory lessons revealed it was called "intent string."

The intent string was the basis of all magic. Magic prehension was connecting the string to the element and pushing mana into it to get the desired effect. Spellcasting was using mana in specific patterns. Both were considered direct magic, and the amount of mana required to fuel the spell decreased based on one's elemental affinity and comprehension of the laws of nature.

Every awakener only had one intent string until they reached 1,000 points of efflux and got the Multicaster trait.

Intent strings could be thickened or stretched as long as they received enough mana. However, the max amount of mana an awakener could push into a string, or how fast they could do it, was limited by one's efflux stat, mana reach, mana control, and related traits and skills.

Mana control didn't affect the mana limits much, but the more the string was stretched, the harder it became to control, especially for the fine movements required to create precise mana runes. That's what mana control helped the most with and was, therefore, crucial.

Arthur had the Elemental Mana Control skill at S-tier. Mana control was surprisingly not the domain of any stat. It could be increased with hard work but not measured.

The closer the string was to its mana limits, the more painful it was, as if he was stretching a limb. Strong willpower let him overcome the pain and not get distracted by it. Mind stats directly improved one's willpower, so they were as relevant as his S-tier Mind Resistance and A-tier Improved Willpower skills.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Arthur had even more A-tier mind skills that supported his magic. He was truly becoming a mind-specialized mage.

Improved Mind Speed let him think a little faster, while Improved Knowledge Access and Improved Attention to Detail allowed him to more easily recall which runes to use and compare the ones he had created to the patterns in his memory. They had a mediocre stat-point-to-effectiveness ratio because they were passive "improved" skills but still helped a lot.

Improved Spatial Intelligence helped Arthur not mess up with spells. Together with Improved Long Distance Sight, it also guaranteed he could see distant targets and precisely estimate their distance.

Expanded Memory was a weird one. It was a passive skill that improved his memory but wasn't an "improved" one. Graham explained that it affected one's memory differently than the intelligence stat. Something about expanding the natural size of memory sectors. Apparently, his father and Stinson had debated about whether to push Expanded Memory or Telekinesis to S-rank, but the latter won due to safety concerns.

Finally, the last mind skill was Hyperfocus, which let Arthur pay utmost attention to anything he was doing.

It was extremely helpful while studying because Arthur still found magic boring. Without it, he wasn't sure he could've become a mage at all. Its only downside was being weighted, so he had to find the balance between using it and not letting his mind stats fall so low that he wouldn't understand what he was studying.

Crediting his persistence in his studies to the skill was no exaggeration. The subject was also complex on top of boring.

Arthur had learned that elemental mana was to pure mana what a sword and a mace were to a lump of metal. Everything was metal but used differently. A blade was meant to cut. A mace was used as a blunt weapon. And a lump of metal couldn't do either.

Well, the lump could probably be used as a poor substitute for a mace, but the analogy was close enough.

Likewise, when casting spells, each element used different magic characters to tell the universe what they wanted to happen, even though they were all mana. Graham didn't know how that worked, only that the universe understood and acted on those symbols.

They knew it was the universe itself that interpreted the patterns instead of Fate because monsters could also cast spells. It also explained why Fate used spells for its skills. It had no intrinsic control over magic, only facilitated it.

"Doesn't that prove there's a god or higher power above Fate?" the prince had asked.

"Milord, what is gravity?" Graham had asked back instead of answering straight.

The question had been too open-ended, and Arthur replied uncertainly, "A pull?"

"Exactly, my prince. Mass creates gravity. Why? Because that's how the world works. Does that proves the existence of a god?"

"Huh... No?"

"Of course not, Your Highness. That's just nature. In the past, an awakener using magic prehension would be considered a god. Now, we know it's only basic magic. Just like mass creates gravity, magic runes in the correct patterns create certain effects. We don't have to understand why or how it works to accept it's just nature running its course. Maybe a god did create everything—we still don't know why many things work the way they do—but our ignorance only proves there are still new mysteries to uncover. There's no obligatory casualty between our current ignorance and the existence of a god."

Whatever the case, the universe only reacted to spells after the awakener cut their connection to the involved runes and the object receiving the spell. Therefore, Arthur had to cut his intent string after creating the runes. Once that happened, if the spell structure made sense, magic happened until the supplied mana was exhausted.

It was like writing a letter in thin air, except the letter was three-dimensional, some symbols changed meaning depending on their distance from each other, and some couldn't be close or even used in the same spell at all. The better Arthur understood the characters or what they and his spell talked about—for instance, acceleration or the gravity that pulled his flying sword down—the less mana he needed to use to achieve the same effect. The same held true for elemental affinity; the higher it was, the less mana was needed.

It was similar to how he made metallic objects float. However, while prehension let him accomplish the same effect as any spell without the need for runes, it was limited to his mana reach. Spells could go as far as the mana in their symbols let them.

Because different elements needed a different "language" to communicate with nature, Graham couldn't assist Arthur much with spellcasting itself beyond a certain point. The man primarily focused on explaining magic theory and technicalities and diving deep into describing how the world worked.

Troubleshooting a failed spell was boring. A failed spell meant the prince had messed up already despite the one's stats, traits, and skills. So, Arthur had to review and question his own memories, looking for logical inconsistencies. If he found none, he had to match his spell against the books Graham used to teach him. If not even that worked, the issue was his shallow understanding of either the spell as a whole, one or more of its individual runes, or the laws of nature related to a rune—like gravity. A superficial comprehension was the hardest to deal with because he had to further pinpoint where he was lacking in a plethora of subjects.

Mages could never stop studying and Arthur, naturally, hated all about it.

'For my people,' he mentally repeated as a mantra. 'For my kingdom.'

= - = - =

One day, Graham answered Arthur's question from months ago: if enchantments weren't elemental, how did storage safes and portals work?

"Milord, to answer that, you must first understand that awakeners who haven't picked an element aren't lacking an element. They can control their mana and produce intent strings; their body simply doesn't change the element of the pure mana they absorb. Therefore, their element is mana itself.

"We still don't call them elemental awakeners, though, because there's a vast difference between them and us.

"When we use direct magic—prehension and spells—we connect with something made of it. You connect with metal; I connect with space. That's the first step and where the issue lies. I told you before how the Fated Races' affinity with pure mana is abysmal. I wasn't exaggerating. You can't connect to your element without enough affinity, no matter how much you understand it.

"To date, there has never been anyone who understood pure mana enough to connect with it. They can't use direct magic at all.

"They would be useless if it wasn't for enchanting.

"Mana is everywhere. It's the fundamental building block of everything. Everything is made of mana, even space itself. I can isolate all matter and heat from a place, yet mana would still be inside because space itself is made of mana. I can't remove that mana at all.

"Enchanters, which is what every non-elemental awakener becomes, can't connect with the mana which objects are made of, but they can link the objects with each other. It's called the Mortal's Loophole or the Dreamer's Curse, depending on who you ask. They can't use direct magic, but they can indirectly make it happen.

"If everything is made of mana, and you can connect anything to anything else, you can use objects as both magic runes and the targeted element, just like a spell. Almost everything is made of pure mana; you can see the mana in the air, and it's the same type as the mana in the ground or the water you drink. That's good for enchanters. They only need to understand pure mana magic runes.

"They can also see Fate's spells and try to guess which rune does what, but that is a small consolation. Your affinity also makes you understand metal-related matters much faster than you should, including elemental runes. Enchanters have no such advantage.

"As if that wasn't enough, when connecting two objects to each other, the mana they are made of reacts differently than when we're casting spells. Something called 'mana equilibrium' must be reached between the mana of both objects, or the connection explodes, and the magic rebound can hurt or even kill the enchanter. I don't know the specifics, but figuring it out requires a lot of math and dangerous experimentation. Different materials have different equilibriums depending on size and composition, which also interferes with the runes used for enchanting. For instance, two steel blades of the same size might require different runes to do the same thing if the alloy's proportions aren't exactly the same.

"The final nail in the coffin is that they can't lower mana requirements by comprehending things better. An awakener's comprehension is 'pushed' into a spell through the runes they draw with their mana, but an enchanter's mana merely connects two things.

"Fortunately, the payoff is that enchantments can keep going for a very long time. Every object you can see is made of tremendous amounts of mana. Whatever material is used as runes could take forever to disintegrate as it's consumed to fuel an enchantment. Sadly, mana equilibrium is eventually broken after an enchantment starts working and its runes are consumed. Nothing explodes at this point, only while the enchantment is being made, but the connection between objects disappears, and the enchantment fails.

"And that's how enchanters create spatial storages and portals, Prince Boria. They use something to draw magic runes that they connect to space itself."

The prince was impressed but still didn't understand one thing. "How about temporary portals?"

"That's shamanism, sire. It's quite rare and mixes enchanting and alchemy somehow. I told you before how alchemy can make use of elemental resources. Therefore, alchemists can use their elemental affinity to their advantage. I don't know how it works; they protect their secrets like no other."

Arthur hesitated a little before touching on a delicate subject, "What about curses? What kind of magic is it?"

Graham didn't seem to mind. "Curses are highly advanced spells, milord. You know a spell can continue for as long as it is fueled by mana. There are ways to force the target's own body to keep the spell affecting them active. Only biomancers can cast curses, and only if they have a profound understanding of the body, matter, and mana. I also heard whispers of it having to do with enchantments, but I wouldn't know. Cursing is forbidden in the Golden Kingdom."

The prince frowned. "I was told only a stronger awakener than the one who cast a curse can remove it. Why?"

"My prince, spells have an absolute magic hold over any object. After you cut your connection to the spell you just cast and nature makes it work, you can still connect to the targeted object. However, you can't affect it unless you remove its spell. There's no removing individual runes, either; you must remove everything at once. That can only be accomplished if you understand the spell and its related laws of nature as much or more than the one who cast it; otherwise, you can't affect the magic runes at all. Naturally, you can cancel any spell you cast—you can try it right now—but if an enemy blade comes flying your way, you'll only know if you can succeed if you try.

"While we're on that topic, if you connect with an object that someone else has already prehended, the stronger willpower will instantly prevail. Both awakeners will suffer painful mental rebound. The weaker willpower will suffer more, and the stronger will suffer less. The greater the gap between their willpower, the greater the difference.

"That's the basis of advanced magic combat. You have to decide whether to connect an intent string with an incoming attack of your element. Failing to overpower enemy willpower or removing their spell will give you some intel on their strength, but you'll also lose a few moments of focus and maybe get a painful rebound. We'll get to it in the future."

Arthur was enlightened—and depressed. Comprehension was much more important than he had initially guessed when it came to dispelling.

Indeed, mages could never stop studying, which explained why they often locked themselves in their studies in the stories.

He sighed and kept learning.

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