Chronicles of the True Wizard

By the end of his aiming practice, Felix managed to get his Fire Bolt cast time down to just 15 seconds or so. He tested Mana Bolt and, after a few tries, managed to cast it in similar time as well. He collected all the batteries and ran back to the rest room. He practiced alternating the construction of both spell forms along with his aim while running, which was still pretty bad. It helped that the spell form didn’t bounce up and down with his body while he ran, but his eyes did.

Felix made it back to the rest room and quickly emptied the table of food then filled his inventory. He placed all the batteries on the table then quickly performed his workout circuit while practicing his spell form construction and aim. He bathed and summoned his bed from his inventory. He had thought he could replace sleep with meditation since it restored energy, but his body was telling him that he was dead wrong. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

When Felix woke up, he collected all the batteries and his bed. It was time to leave the dungeon. Felix headed over to where the exit was located on his map without issue. When he got there he was greeted by an identical wooden door to the one that hung at the entrance. He touched the door.

Puzzle Dungeon C

Would you like to leave the dungeon?

Warning: You will be unable to retry this dungeon.

Yes

No

It’s not worth collecting the thousand daggers, as tempting as that sound. I feel like I’ll miss out by staying here that long. I haven’t even gained a single level in here. Yes.

Congratulations!

You have completed Puzzle Dungeon C.

The nearest unclaimed fort will be revealed on your map.

Calculating Bonus Rewards.

+4000 Profession XP

Error: No Profession found.

You will be returned to the entrance in 3 seconds.

WHAT. Oh god I could have gotten so much XP for my profession. I wasted so much time. shit shit SHIT.

Felix found himself in a hole in a rock staring out at the forest where a large fox had chased him just a few days ago. Maybe a week. Thankfully the fox seemed to have moved on by now.

I really need some way to keep track of time…

I. am. an. idiot. Tutorial Screen.

Tutorial Status

There are 91,394/100,000 people.

There are 115 days, 3 hours, 5 minutes remaining.

You have completed 1 dungeon.

You have helped kill 0 world bosses.

You have captured 0 forts.

More people survived than I would have expected. It’s been over 8 days, and I can barely cast spells to defend myself. Maybe I should just take up the great sword. Or daggers, maybe the dungeon was trying to tell me something.

Unwilling to dwell any further, Felix opened his map. On the map, which had returned to the System map instead of his paper version from his library, there was now another white dot way out to the south west. The area for almost a mile around the dungeon had also been revealed. The dungeon lay on the border between a large mountain range to the north and a forest to the south.

With nothing better to do Felix headed towards the unclaimed fort. It helped that he loved completing quests and the tutorial screen looked like a big quest to him, or an achievement tracker, which was even more enticing.

Walking to the south west the forest got gradually thinner to the point where he didn’t encounter any large foxes on his first few hours of travel. He did see lots of birds which he promptly tried to shoot down with Mana Bolts to practice his aim. The only one he managed to hit was sitting perfectly still on a tree branch, and he had aimed at the one next to it. Only slightly miffed, Felix continued walking towards the white dot on his map.

After five hours, he checked the tutorial screen. This time, Felix was fairly certain another fox wasn’t going to ambush him so he decided to run and practice his spells. He didn’t run before this because he didn’t want to exhaust himself if he was going to have to fight. He ran and practiced, shooting at a bird whenever he saw one or just trees when he didn’t. He traveled for almost fifteen hours when he finally reached the edge of the tree line.

He had encountered a single fox that tried to run him down while he traveled. He had shot a Fire Bolt at it and missed horribly hitting the ground. The fox saw the fire though and scurried away, so mission accomplished, sort of.

When the sky finally blackened, Felix didn’t want to encounter any nocturnal predators so he decided to meditate to replenish some of his energy then keep going. He meditated for two and a half hours, while practicing with spell forms, before continuing on his travels once again.

With confidence he could at least scare off a fox if he encountered any, Felix decided to perform his standard bodyweight workout routine. He then jogged and meditated in repetition for another nine hours before he caught sight of three huge mountain peaks towering over the rest of the mountain range way in the distance but directly in front of him. Checking his map, he confirmed that was probably where the fort was.

He continued to travel for another six hours through plains, passing by a huge number of boars, none of which seemed to pay Felix any mind. Eventually he realized the entrance to the fort he was heading towards definitely was not on this side of the three mountain peaks. Checking his map he found the outline of a road heading out of the mountains.

Seems like a safe bet for the entrance to a fort.

He changed direction so he was heading slightly left towards the road.

Three hours and one successful hit of a flying bird later, Felix stood on a dirt road looking up at the ruined walls of a small town, maybe even city, nestled in the valley between three huge mountain peaks. At the back of the fort a large Victorian castle peaked over the other buildings. Most of the fort was obscured by the mountains on both sides, but it definitely looked like a rugged medieval castle town.

Felix walked the road up the mountain and made his way into the fort. The fort had a stone ramp easily 20 meters wide leading up to a bridge with stairs on one side for pedestrians. The bridge was a long flat stone walkway that led between the two mountains to either side and into the valley.

Walking down the walkway, Felix noted that there was enough housing to house at least a few thousand people, with families of three occupying the houses, at least tens of thousands. And that is excluding what was evidently once shops and warehouses as well as the massive Victorian style castle towering over the town way at the back.

Felix walked through the town admiring the large stone brick construction which appeared modern because the bricks sported a perfectly uniform size and shape, likely due to the assistance of magic. All of the buildings were shells of what they must have once been. The roofs were missing from every building he passed and the walls, which were in the best state, were crumbling. The layouts of the buildings were obvious from the rubble, but none of them were in a habitable state. There was vegetation growing over everything that gave the whole town a very fantastical vibe. Felix figured it must have been a few thousand years since it had been abandoned, though it was in better condition than he would have expected.

He eventually made it to the castle, which was in a much better state compared to the rest of the town and even sported its own wall around the compound. The roof and most of the walls were completely intact making this the only currently livable building. Heading through the gates Felix noticed that the castle grounds contained at least four buildings. There was the main building, one that looked like a stable and two others likely for staff and guests Felix guessed.

He walked through the empty arched doorway at least ten meters tall with rotted hinges on either side and walked into a massive open room with pillars supporting the ceiling along either side. There were small piles of dust and rot along the foot of the walls and pillars, that had likely once been a banner or art of some kind. Heading to the stairs at the back he headed up to a similarly open room with shorter ceilings. At the back and in the middle of the room lay a huge chair with a smaller one to its left and right.

Felix sat on the throne.

Who could lay their eyes on an abandoned throne and resist the urge to sit in it. Not me.

Fort Capture

Would you like to claim this fort?

Yes

No

You have no warnings or additional info for me? Just a seven word yes or no? Sure why not I guess, it’s a decent a place as any to set up for a while. I need to practice my spell casting and do some self directed research into spell forms. Yes.

Congratulations!

You have claimed a fort. You may manage your fort from this throne at any time.

Alrighty then. Let’s see what I can manage.

Felix was immediately bombarded with options. He skimmed over them but they seemed fine to him so he left them as is. He only meditated while traveling and his body still needs sleep every once in a while but he decided to go explore at least the castle before going to sleep

Felix walked around and peered through countless doorways. He found more rooms in this castle than he would ever know what to do with. After a few hours he headed to the large room that was once the bedroom. He was only able to identify it because it had a large bed sized discoloration set against one of the walls. Felix summoned his own bed and slept for almost seven hours.

The next day Felix performed his basic workout. He ran through the town exploring a different area from yesterday and aiming his spells only at stones that were already damaged. Then, he looped back around to the castle and explored the open areas a bit.

He managed to find a fairly open field within the castle’s wall that seemed like a good place to practice his aim. He retrieved some loose bricks from the buildings around him and set them up as targets on a window sill.

He moved himself to about 25 meters away and began firing his spells, alternating between the two of them. His shot on the flying bird the other day was definitely a lucky shot. He managed to hit the stones every time, but not always dead center. Once he had knocked all of the stones off the window sill, he went and found smaller stones and set those up.

He continued this for about five hours before he decided to try something he had wanted to do but was hesitant about before now. Comparing the spell forms for the Mana Bolt and the Fire Bolt, there were a lot of similarities. Starting from the outside of the spell, they had the exact same shape up to a point.

Felix knew the Mana Bolt was fired a lot faster and he was hoping if he could find the similarities between the two he could adjust the Fire Bolt to be faster as well. The outer ring on the Fire Bolt was only slightly thinner than the one on the Mana Bolt. Needing to start somewhere, Felix decided to try increasing the thickness of the line by 50%.

He pushed mana into the spell and fed it almost twenty points before the entire spell exploded. The Fire Bolt was summoned, but when it was propelled, the entire ball exploded outwards in a cone.

Well I guess that might be useful if something gets really close to me, or if I can cast spells from much further away. I’ll call this… Fire Blast?

Felix tried again this time with 10% increased thickness. The Fire Bolt traveled faster for about five meters before it fell apart. It seemed as though the small bolt of fire could only handle so much power propelling it. It reminded Felix of a water balloon whereas the Mana Bolt seemed more like an actual dart or a bullet. It was solid whereas the Fire Bolt is more like a balloon of fire.

Well that was a failure. I’m definitely gonna need to get my hands on some sort of spell primer or something. That did remind me of something I should be practicing though.

Up to this point Felix had been constructing the spell forms just a few inches from his body, usually his hands. Felix began constructing the spell forms further and further away from him. It was fairly easy up a few meters where it became much harder. Felix kept pushing though and while he practiced his spell casting range he also fired them at targets. As expected, firing spells from that far away severely hurt his aim.

Felix continued on for another five hours then ran his workout circuit again. He ate and drank from the reserves in his inventory and continued to practice throughout the day and while meditating every other night. The mana batteries were the only reason he managed to keep up. Otherwise, he would have run out of mana and had to wait for his pool to slowly refill. The batteries refilled much slower here compared to the dungeon, but it was more than enough for Felix currently. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .