A Relatively Powerful Mage

It took Imri over an hour to make the last kilometer of the journey, moving at a slow shambling pace. He hoped that his effort had been enough. When he finally reached the natural wonder, he knew instantly. Relief and exhilaration were plastered across the faces of everyone who had helped carry the warrior.

Rayden was conscious, sitting in the miraculous spring like he was taking a relaxing bath. Imri exhaled and allowed himself to collapse to the ground, still breathing heavily as his stamina regeneration struggled to offset the over-channel penalty. With Rayden no longer in imminent danger, he allowed himself to check his notifications.

Quest Updated

Celestial Mage Rank Up F to E: Learn new space or time spells 8/10, rank up space or time spells 5/10, learn new gravity spells 5/5, rank up gravity spells 3/5, visit celestial bodies 1/2.

Imri Padar has reached level 27 in Celestial Mage (2F)

Imri Padar has reached level 27 in Primordial (1E)

Primary Stats

Strength 131 (+1)

Agility 102 (+1)

Constitution 119 (+1)

Intelligence 204 (+2)

Willpower 168 (+1)

Charisma 107 (+1)

Secondary Stats

HP 175 (+3)

FP 131 (+2)

MP 497 (+12)

Mana Efficiency 472 (+11)

Crafting Efficiency 524 (+12)

The journey back to Celestia was far more subdued, moving at a sedate pace due to Imri’s over-channel strain. Rayden didn’t say a single thing, just constantly looking down at his arm where the troglodyte had bitten him. Despite the leisurely pace, Imri was forced to enter a walking meditation to keep up with the constant fatigue. The over-channel debuff began to fade; it was still active but was far less debilitating. Imri would still have to restrain himself from using his mana for several hours.

Despite his status saying his FP was high, Imri felt exhausted. He waved off the person who told him the council wanted to speak with him, they could wait. He returned to his home, where Emelia was already fast asleep. Imri laid down and instantly drifted off. When he awoke several hours later, he knew he could no longer put off the council.

They were all assembled in the town hall before Imri even arrived, likely arguing the entire time he had been sleeping. It wasn’t a full settlement meeting, only the three councilors and Major Harper were in attendance.

“What the hell were you thinking? We should have gotten a report immediately,” Laura berated him the moment he entered.

“Why? It’s not like there is anything you can do,” Imri pointed out, much to the annoyance of everyone. Imri ignored it and briefly described what he had learned about the troglodytes, including their strengths and weaknesses. He made sure to emphasize that no one else stood a chance without a fairly high amplitude Temporal Expansion enchantment.

“And yet your group defeated two of them?” The major asked skeptically.

“We’re higher level and better equipped. Not everything is about the number of soldiers, especially in this new reality,” Imri said with a shrug.

“Do we even know there are more of them?” Steve asked.

“We don’t know for sure, but I highly doubt there were only two,” Imri said with another shrug.

“This only strengthens my argument for closing the caves,” Laura pointed out.

“Nothing has changed. The creatures are strong, but I told everyone they would likely be of similar strength to the Drakes. While we almost lost Rayden, we didn’t, and next time we’ll have an antidote to their venom.”

“What if they come out in mass? What is our chance of fending off a large group of them?” Major Harper asked.

“They won't, they're subterranean creatures,” Imri reminded him.

“But if they do?” the major asked insistently.

“We’re screwed,” Imri said with another shrug.

“We should put it to a vote. All those in favor of collapsing the caves,” Laura said, raising her hand. Imri wasn’t sure what he was going to do if they all agreed to abandon the caves, he refused to give up such a powerful resource. Fortunately, he didn’t have to take any drastic action, both Steve and Emry sided with him, not raising their hands. They went in circles for a while, both sides arguing at each other with no progress. Not wanting to waste his valuable time, Imri stood and left without comment.

Imri had a few hours and nothing imminent that he could work on. He didn’t want to do any enchanting, even a minor mana expenditure would bring back the over-channel debuff. He decided to spend his day with Emelia. She had just woken up when he returned, and she enthusiastically agreed with his idea.

Celestia had quite a few more establishments than it had only a week ago, but there still wasn’t much in the way of leisure. The tavern had both drinks and food and was the only locale that loosely fit the criteria for a date. Despite this, Imri was enjoying just being around Emelia.

“Do you think it's wrong that I’ve barely thought of my family? I miss them, but I think of them in the past tense, like they are already gone even though I have no idea,” Emelia asked.

“If everyone stopped and considered everything that was lost, we wouldn’t be able to get anything done,” Imri said as he thought of his own family. He hadn’t considered them much, but he hoped they had survived somehow.

“Do you think we’ll ever get to a point where we can go back to the way things were, where we don’t think about survival and rebuilding?” she asked.

“I hope so,” Imri said. Though he hoped to build a place where this would be true for the average person, he doubted his work would ever be done.

After their meal, they went to the lake. Emelia loved the water, and Imri enjoyed the view. Imri was beginning to suspect she had some secret merfolk heritage with how much time she wanted to spend in the water. She eventually convinced him to join her in the water with a mischievous grin. They swam for a while until eventually, Emelia led him to a secluded cove.

They were hidden from view of anyone on the cliffs above and most of the lake, but they wouldn’t be hidden if someone happened to be near the cove on the lake. Despite this, Emelia reached into his trunks and began teasing him.

“What if someone sees us?” Imri asked, even though logically there was almost no chance of that.

“Let them watch,” she whispered in his ear. Imri hadn’t thought he would be into public sex, but the slight chance of discovery was somehow a huge turn-on.

“This is my new favorite spot on the plateau,” Imri said with a stupid grin afterward.

“Oh really,” she said with a wide grin before adding, “Mine too.”

The next day the overchannel debuff had ended, but Caroline had only been able to make a couple of doses of the antidote. Not wanting to rush back into the caves, everyone agreed to wait another day. While Imri spent some of the day with Emelia, he couldn’t afford a second day of not making any progress. He worked on his least favorite enchantment, the mana absorption panels. It took him the better part of the day, but he was able to finish the sixth and seventh panels. This brought the mana/hour input well over 100, meaning it would be less than a year for his Runic Engineer to rank up. He still would have preferred the unit of time being in the days range rather than months, but at least it wouldn’t take 22 years. The tedious work was also rewarded when he checked his notifications.

Trait Rank

Runic Etching F to E: Allows the runic engineer to inscribe runes with greater speed without sacrificing efficiency. Speed of inscribing runes increased by 1.02% (+.02%) / 10 Agility.

The following morning they were in Caroline's workshop. As promised, she had several more vials containing an antidote to the poison. She also had an elixir, which she handed to Emelia. It was the standard elixir that prompted a natural rank-up earlier. “I was trying to get it down to level 15 but 17 was easy enough,” Caroline explained, referring to Emelia’s level, which had risen by 2 for her efforts saving Rayden. “It also has a special property that will reveal hidden heritages that can be unlocked. However, some can be very tricky to discover, this will only reveal something obvious. It also won’t reveal much about it, just that it exists.”

Emelia nodded and Imri could feel her nervousness through their bond. She drank the elixir in one quick gulp. It took effect immediately, her muscles cramping as her body was physically remade. However, like Imri’s rank-up, the natural evolution was far less strenuous than the monster-infused rank-ups. It was still painful and exhausting, but entirely feasible to withstand.

When the effect wore off and the rank-up was completed, Emelia stared off into space, transfixed on her notifications. She continued staring, and it quickly became apparent that she was disappointed. Eventually, she shared the details of her rank-up.

Human 1E

Primary Stats/Level

Strength .1% (+.05%)

Agility .1% (+.05%)

Constitution .1% (+.05%)

Intelligence .1% (+.05%)

Willpower .1% (+.05%)

Charisma .2% (+.1%)

Secondary Stats/Level

HP .25% (+.15%)

FP .25% (+.15%)

MP .25% (+.15%)

HP Regen .2% (+.2%)

FP Regen .2% (+.2%)

MP Regen .2% (+.2%)

Base Strength increased to 99 (+1)

Base Agility increased to 113 (+1)

Base Constitution increased to 109 (+1)

Base Intelligence increased to 110 (+1)

Base Willpower increased to 114 (+1)

Base Charisma increased to 123 (+2)

Traits Gained

Channeling Conduit (1F): Your body has adapted to channeling large amounts of mana. Increases thresholds for over-channel by 1.5% / 10 Constitution.

Martyr’s Empowerment (1F): Increases your mana efficiency by 1% / 10% of max HP that has been depleted.

Latent Trait Gained

Greater Latent Heritage: You possess a heritage that has remained dormant since your birth. Heritage will activate upon reaching heritage tier 2 if prerequisites are met.

While the raw stats gained were less than any of the monster elixirs, it wasn’t entirely without merit. She had gained her greatest increase in Charisma, her most important stat. She had also gained two traits that were tailored to her repertoire. The ability to push back the over-channel threshold was great, given she tended to need mana in large bursts. Her Martyr’s Empowerment was a combo with her Shared Burden skill, though Imri hoped she was careful not to overdo that tactic. If anything, her two new traits complemented her class well, and Imri didn’t think that was a coincidence.

Finally, there was the Greater Latent Heritage, which as Caroline had predicted was vague in what it would give or how to achieve it. Imri’s Primordial Intuition told him it wasn’t uncommon for people to have latent heritages, but a greater one would be rare. However, it would likely be difficult to achieve. Beyond that basic information, his trait wasn’t any more helpful than the provided system information.

“It’s bad isn’t it?” Emelia said as she shifted nervously.

“In the short term, it's probably slightly weaker than something you could have gained from a monster elixir. Key word being slightly,” Imri emphasized. “However, I think in the long term you made the right call. I have an intuition that the Greater Latent Heritage you can unlock will be far stronger than anything you get from a monster, and I doubt you can have both. Your new traits are also better for you than anything you would have gotten from the other elixirs.”

Emelia nodded, though she still wasn’t entirely convinced, her anxiety was alleviated.

“Is there anything you can do to help identify more information about her latent heritage?” Imri asked Caroline.

“Not at the moment. I’ll try making something stronger based on what I added to the elixir, but no guarantees it will work. Your best bet would be talking to someone who specializes in divination magic,” Caroline said. The only person Imri had met who qualified had been Rhesk, whom he had killed. There was also the divination-like effect from Transcendant Meditation, which was how Imri had ranked up his heritage. However, given Emelia had yet to gain even the basic Meditation skill, that seemed like an unlikely solution.

They thanked Caroline and moved to rejoin the group. They had caves to clear.