A Relatively Powerful Mage

Imri watched in horror as a large portion of Zhaire's intestines lay outside his body and blood and bile continued to pour from the wound that had cut open his abdomen. By pre-integration standards, he should have died already or would have certainly died shortly afterward. Zhaire wasn’t a pre-integration human, he was one of the highest leveled, and in a class that gave him a good amount of stats that made him tougher to kill. That was the only reason he had a chance.

Fortunately, Sylvi didn’t hesitate, ignoring the intestines that hung outside him like a butcher’s display of sausage links. She focused on preventing the bleeding, spending only a short time shoving his guts back into his body. Imri got a grip on his emotions and rushed in to help. It felt like forever as he continually gave her more and more bandages to help staunch the bleeding. It was too large of a wound to simply press closed with pressure, and quickly there was a small mound of bandages, many of which had become saturated.

He was still alive when Emelia arrived along with Dr. Thompson. Imri let them take charge as Dr. Thompson barked out orders for them. Most of the commands were directed toward Sylvi, who kept her wits about her, acting as his assistant, an extra pair of hands. Emelia also followed his lead, allowing the mundane doctor to direct her when and where to heal.

Imri quickly realized that Emelia was going to go through all her mana and still not have finished healing the serious wound. He raced back to the camp, grabbing a diamond in which he had been storing excess mana for a rainy day. It glowed blue with the telltale signs of large amounts of mana, visible to those who didn’t even have mana sight. He returned and passed it off to Emelia, who immediately started absorbing the mana within. Imri sped off to collect mana in a second gemstone.

They continued this way for hours, Emelia going through several cycles of absorbing mana from various gemstones. As the surgery wore on, and Dr. Thompson had done all he could, the burden fell strictly on Emelia. She continued to pour healing into Zhaire, even using some of her own HP with her second healing spell, though not enough to hinder her abilities. Sometime after the fourth gem she had absorbed, Emelia couldn’t continue. She excused herself and took several steps before collapsing. Imri was at her side before she hit the ground.

“I’m alright,” she assured Imri, only slightly assuaging his concerns. “It’s a condition called overchannel, it's basically from using too much mana in a short amount of time. It reduces mana efficiency and drains your stamina. I won’t be able to cast any more spells for the rest of the day, but as long as I rest I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure, I can check you to make sure it's nothing more serious, though I’m out of my depth when it comes to this mana business,” Dr. Thompson said, his usual snark about magic nowhere to be seen.

“I’m sure, I just need rest,” she reassured the doctor. Dr. Thompson nodded and Imri helped Emelia stand up.

With Imri tending to Emelia, Dr. Thompson did one more check on Zhaire. He gently felt his abdomen, and checked his pulse, blood pressure, and breathing. It was all he could do with the limited amount of equipment available to him.

“He’ll live. With healing potions and another round of healing from Emelia he might be well enough to move in a day or so,” Dr. Thompson said to him.

“He might not have made it without you, thank you,” Sylvi said as the doctor sat down.

“Maybe, but he definitely wouldn’t have survived without her,” he said, his gaze on Emelia.

“Still…” Sylvi started to say before the doctor cut her off.

“It’s alright. I might not be as important as I once was, but I’m still needed. That’s good enough I suppose,” he said.

Imri helped Emelia back to their tent. She collapsed to the ground, falling immediately to sleep from exhaustion. It was nearing dawn, and Imri gave up on getting any sleep. He was running on fumes himself, making sure his first order of business was brewing a cup of coffee strong enough that it almost looked like tar.

Imri sighed, feeling slightly let down that his glyphs had worked objectively as well as he could have hoped, yet far less effectively than needed. He knew it had more to do with the creature’s insane abilities than any shortcomings in his craft.

The first good news came before he could spend too long wallowing in self-pity. A small party had been dispatched at first light, and they had come back with the now lifeless carcass of the Umbral Tiger, the proper name of what they had been calling shadow tigers.

How the creature had so quickly been tracked down was explained as Caroline smiled triumphantly. She had gained her class just hours before the fight. Imri had advised her earlier that day to specialize in one or two types of magic, a common trend he had noticed among most classes, taking inspiration from various fictions if she couldn’t think of anything on her own. Fortunately, she didn’t need much inspiration, deciding to take inspiration from being a female alchemist who also wanted magic, she leaned into the classic witch trope. She focused on divination magic and curses that debilitated her enemies. She also had a trait that let her know the status and location of anything she had cursed. She had combined this with a curse that increased bleed and slowed HP regeneration, making sure the Umbral Tiger hadn’t recovered while giving her instinctual knowledge of where and when the creature had perished.

Caroline had gained two levels for her contribution, while others who had contributed in any meaningful way had gained a level. Those gains, along with the material gains of harvesting the carcass had the camp in a far more upbeat mood. When word spread that Zhaire would make a full recovery, the atmosphere was practically jubilant.

After Sylvi and Emelia had gotten some well-deserved rest, they had a quick meeting to adjust the travel plans. The topic quickly turned to the obvious question, how would they reach the settlement site before the one-week timer ended? They had just under three days remaining, and Sylvi estimated they had another two and half days of travel remaining at the pace they had been going. If they wasted the entire day recovering, it would require them to up the already arduous pace, something Imri wasn’t sure he could accomplish. It also was something Zhaire certainly couldn’t handle in his current condition. With no alternatives, it became clear that they would need to split the group. Sylvi and Imri would continue to the settlement site with the majority of the group. Dr. Thompson, Emelia, and a contingent of soldiers would stay behind to make sure Zhaire recovered before rejoining them at the settlement.

Imri was somewhat leery of being apart from Emelia, the last time having been when the Chixel captured the majority of the camp. However, it quickly became apparent that Emelia was still exhausted from the amount of healing spells she had cast the night before. It would also be selfish of him to want her nearby when Zhaire might need more healing. Emelia, sensing his apprehension through their bond, laid a reassuring hand across his arm.

It took another hour to get the camp ready to move out again. Before they could go, there was one final thing Imri needed to do. He, Emelia, and Sylvi checked on Zhaire, who was still unconscious with the bedraggled Dr. Thompson watching over him. The large tent they were using as a field hospital was a bit crowded with all of them.

“How is he?” Imri asked.

“Serious condition, though his injuries are healing faster than anything I’ve ever witnessed before the integration. He’ll pull through,” the doctor explained.

“Is it possible to wake him?” Imri asked. Dr. Thompson glared at him, but when Imri didn’t back down he sighed.

“Possible, yes, though I wouldn’t advise it.”

“I’ll help him if it makes his condition worse,” Emelia reassured him, though she looked barely able to stand.

“Do it,” Imri commanded. The doctor didn’t argue, instead going through the supplies and measuring out a dosage of stimulant. It didn’t take long for the drug to take effect, Zhaire sitting bolt upright and clutching at the spot where his abdomen had been stitched shut.

“Mr. Reeves, you're fine, you're in a field hospital,” Dr. Thompson explained as Zhaire looked about frantically, his breathing coming too fast in panicked breaths. Fortunately, he calmed down before he seriously aggravated his injury, though his movements did pop a couple of stitches producing a small trickle of blood.

“Zhaire, this is important. You’re too injured to get to the settlement in time, I need to get your nexus or it will be wasted,” Imri explained.

“Ah,” Zhaire said softly as he realized the situation. “I guess I only have myself to blame for this.”

“It’s not all bad, we got revenge for you. I doubt we would have taken it down if you hadn’t done what you had,” Imri explained.

“Not that what you did wasn’t idiotic,” Sylvi admonished, her tone of disapproval not curtailed in the slightest.

“Yeah, it was. I guess I got overconfident from fighting Ulfr hounds and Azala,” he said in a raspy voice.

“The nexus?” Imri asked, a note of desperation in his voice as he feared Zhaire was avoiding the subject. Zhaire let out a defeated sigh.

“Promise me I’ll get one of those fancy nobility things, the highest one you can give,” he conceded.

“Done,” Imri said without hesitating. While he would have preferred the highest titles go to someone a bit less reckless, he couldn’t deny that Zhaire had earned some measure of compensation for his role in getting them this far.

Quest Updated Special Progress

Form a settlement Time Remaining: 2 Days 22 Hours and 17 Minutes Place the nexus of civilization before one week elapses. Bonus: 1 Additional nexus has been claimed, settlement will start with bonus experience.

“If that’s all, Mr. Reeves shouldn't be awake,” Dr. Thompson reminded them, his firm expression broaching no argument.

“Recover quick, big guy, or I’ll pass you by,” Sylvi said with a wicked grin.

“I doubt that. I’ll be on my feet in no time,” Zhaire said defiantly as Dr. Thompson administered a sedative to counteract the earlier stimulant. Before Zhaire had fully drifted off they were all shooed off by an annoyed doctor who reasserted their authority.

With the nexus taken care of, Imri couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He said goodbye to Emelia with a passionate kiss. Imri said a silent prayer that this wouldn’t be like last time, that she would be fine. Emelia just rolled her eyes, annoyance at being treated like a damsel in distress passing through the Empathic Bond.

They continued their march through the seagrass plains at a slightly faster pace. With everyone who had been struggling to stay behind, Imri was now the clear weakest link. Imri did his best to keep up, not wanting to be the reason they didn’t make it in time. Sylvi must have been able to judge his limits well, because he never faltered, but constantly felt like he would at any moment.

Everyone was on high alert for more Umbral Tigers, but the plains were eerily silent. There was a glimmer of hope that their actions had scared the predators off. As Avery had noted, they were extremely cautious hunters, only attacking when their prey was unaware or injured. It was a good thing too, otherwise, the creature could have easily killed them all last night, before Imri even finished the glyph. Just a few probably could decimate their entire camp, even with sentries on alert. Imri doubted he was the only one who came to this conclusion, as everyone was especially vigilant.

Whether it was due to vigilance or an unwillingness to attack by the Umbral Tigers, the column managed their hike without casualties. They stopped with enough time to set up camp before nightfall, no one wanting to scramble to beat the dark with potential danger lurking nearby.

Imri took advantage of the downtime to use his new device to test the mana density. He infused some mana and took several readings. The average density was at 18.57, a slight increase from the day prior, and almost double that of the stone forest. This also explained how the Umbral Tigers were so powerful. The mana density had an exponential effect, with monsters and treasure being closer to four times greater in an area twice as dense. Unfortunately, he couldn’t directly benefit from the increased mana density, human skin was only able to absorb small amounts of mana from the air. Only creatures like the Starseekers could efficiently take advantage of the greater mana, with their horns specifically designed to absorb mana.

Imri sighed and put away the mana density reader. He briefly considered spending a small amount of time enchanting, he was only 1 new design away from advancing his profession to D rank. Unfortunately, he was too exhausted to think clearly, and he decided to take advantage of whatever sleep he could manage.

He awoke in the morning, no one having woken him for his shift as a sentry. Sylvi pointed out that he was definitely not a good sentry, and she had decided it was better for him to get as much sleep as possible, so they could make better time. Imri gave a token protest at the treatment, but he realized she had probably made the correct call.

They reached the foot of the mountains several hours after midday. They started the steep ascent, relying heavily on Sylvi’s guidance to steadily hike onward. There were still several hours of daylight when they stopped for the day, making camp on a ridge that was just large enough for their entire group. The number of sentries was scaled back as they had a far easier time watching the narrow switchbacks than open plains. Everyone was put at ease when Avery confirmed that the Umbral Tiger hadn’t ever ventured into the mountain trails, though he did remind everyone that there could still be even more dangerous predators.

Imri, as was now his habit, took another reading of the mana density. He expected another increase but when he saw the number he did a double take. It was at 34.7, almost double again what the plains were. While they had set out to find a higher-density region, worry began to creep in. If the plains had enough mana to produce monsters like the Umbral Tiger, what potential dangers lurked in a region this dense? He took several more measurements, just to confirm that there wasn’t a bug in his rune work, even going so far as to extend the sample time beyond the point where it made any noticeable difference. All the readings came back with roughly the same number.

With a couple of hours to spare, he decided to finish his runic enchanter rank-up quest by creating a more permanent version of the glyph he had used. He decided to make it functionally just a flashbang, excluding the slowing component. The main challenge was finding material that was effective enough to take the enchantment while being cheap enough to be disposable. He settled for simply inscribing directly on a baseball-sized rock that contained some rough quartz crystals. While inscribing runes directly into rock wasn’t ideal, the trade-off of mana inefficiency was a worthwhile tradeoff for a disposable item. Compared to the rush work of the more complex glyph, the small quartz rock was an easy task that took less than an hour.

Quest Completed Progress

Runic Enchanter Rank Up E to D Craft functioning runes 50/50, Design different enchantments 10/10, Craft different runes 15/15

Class Tier upgrades available

Glyph Warder A specialized runic enchanter focusing on glyphs.

Runic Smith An upgraded runic enchanter who focuses on producing quality enchantments.

Runic Engineer A upgraded runic enchanter, focusing on optimizing large-scale runic projects.

Imri considered his three options. He quickly discarded the Glyph Warder, while his brief foray into glyphs had proven effective, he couldn’t help but feel their temporary nature was wasteful. The other two options took a bit more deliberation. The Runic Smith would be effective for creating powerful personal items, like the Time Dilation items he had distributed. On the other hand, he hadn’t completed any truly large-scale projects. However, that would hopefully change soon with the founding of their settlement. The engineering variant would certainly help with the setup of a mana-gathering farm, which was high on his priority list. He eventually selected the Runic Engineer, guided by his desire to create a sanctuary for humanity, more than amassing greater personal power.

Profession Tier Upgraded from 1 to 2

Runic Engineer (2F)

Primary Stats / Level Improvement

Strength .05% +.05%

Agility .05% +.05%

Constitution .1% +.1%

Intelligence .4% +.15%

Willpower .35% +.1%

Charisma .15% +.05%

Secondary Stats / Level

HP .1% +.1%

FP .1% +.1%

MP .5% +.25%

Crafting Efficiency .5% +.1%

MP Regen Rate .75% +.25%

Imri Padar has reached Level 11 in Runic Engineer (2F)

Primary Stats Gained New Value

+1 Strength 116

+1 Constitution 102

+3 Intelligence 156

+2 Willpower 138

Secondary Stats Gained

+4 HP 122

+2 FP 92

+16 MP 246

+10 Mana Efficiency 253

+14 Crafting Efficiency 266

Skills Gained Tier/Rank Description

Runic Transference 1F Allow the runic enchanter to transfer a rune from one object to another at a 10% mana discount from creating them by directly inscribing.

Trait Gained

Runic Etching 2F Allows the runic engineer to inscribe runes with greater speed without sacrificing efficiency. Speed of inscribing runes increased by 1% / 10 Agility.

Imri shouted, raising a triumphant fist to the sky, ignoring the strange looks everyone gave him. This was by far the most significant single advancement he had gained. The fact that his profession had gone to F rank from E had given him a moment of anxiety before the rest of the notification flooded his mind. He knew that the tier upgrade had been responsible for the major gains, automatically upgrading his profession when it reached a certain rank. For tier 1 to 2 it was at rank D. He had also gained two skills when he triggered the upgrade, one for his runic enchanter at D rank and one for his new tier 2 profession. He was so giddy that he almost didn’t care that his first tier 2 skill used his lowest attribute.

He couldn’t resist gloating at Sylvi, who had been the only one willing to question his strange antics. She glared at him, but her expression wasn’t anger or annoyance, it was a competitive fire. Imri doubted she would let him get too far ahead. They would need everyone to get stronger if they were going to survive whatever danger inhabited the mountains.