Stygian Mage

It had been eight days since Soren arrived in Bellfalls. During this time, Soren did almost nothing but practice his spells and research about the related topics in a rental practice chamber. The rent for a practice chamber made for Rank 1 Initiators was quite expensive as renting such a room for eight days straight, brought Soren’s balance down to the single digits; the rent for the hotel room also contributed to this, of course. Apart from this, he also went to the library once to store all the information he could in Isaac’s database; he had done this in all the previous towns that he had visited so far. In Bellfalls, though, it did not cost him anything to use the library; this was the case only for the Initiators.

But regardless of how much he had to pay for the other things, Soren didn’t feel that his time was wasted; especially when he saw his <Dark Gravity> spell amongst his ‘Innate Spells’ list. Three days into the practice, Soren had already mastered this spell of his. Given that he could now cast this powerful spell without any restriction on its uses, his overall strength had increased quite a bit.

Of course, <Dark Gravity> was not the only one he increased his mastery in during these days.

“Spell Mastery Increased. Dark Raven – Level 5/10.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Frost Domain – Level 4/10.”

 “Spell Mastery Increased. Create Undead: Low Tier Ⅱ – Level 4/15.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Ice Barrage – Level 5/10.”

“Skill Mastery Increased. Shadow Steps – Level 6/15.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Waterball – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Vessel Assimilated. Innate Spell Learned: Waterball – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Evolution Possible.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Rainfall – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Vessel Assimilated. Innate Spell Learned: Rainfall – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Evolution Possible.”

 “Spell Mastery Increased. Dark Gravity – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Vessel Assimilated. Innate Spell Learned: Dark Gravity – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Evolution Possible.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Shadow Prison – Level 3/10.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Water Bubbles – Level 2/10.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Ice Wall – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Vessel Assimilated. Innate Spell Learned: Ice Wall – Level 10/10.”

“Spell Evolution Possible.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Ice Spikes – Level 4/10.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Snow Blades – Level 3/10.”

“Spell Mastery Increased. Ice Chakra – Level 2/10.”

…..

The Beast Tide had already started a few days ago but as there were only Rank 0 Beasts amongst the tide, Captain Hans had not called for any Rank 1 Initiators for now. Beasts with the cultivation level of Rank 0 were only physically strong. It was only when they broke through to Rank 1 and evolved special abilities that they started becoming a real threat. And while none of the Beasts at Rank 1 and above were similar to each other, they all had one thing in common; they all possessed some kind of magical ability. This magical ability varied from mutated body parts to natural spell formations. Because of this reason, the Beasts at and above Rank 1 were generally also called Magic Beasts.

After knowing that the Beast Tide currently didn’t have any Magic Beast in it, Soren had decided to continue his practice for a few more days. It was now the eighth day and most probably, the Magic Beasts were going to show up soon. As such, Soren decided to end his practice and got ready to go on the wall anytime; of course, he didn’t tense up because of this and was just relaxing in a restaurant, eating his spicy chicken drumstick.

As for Argus, he was sitting on top of the table and was also enjoying the food with Soren. Because he didn’t like spicy things, Soren had specially instructed the restaurant to make food without any spices in it for him. Bland roasted soft meat was Argus’ favorite; unlike Soren who liked his food extra spicy. Seeing Argus eat his bland food with a blissful expression on his small face, Soren only had one thought on his mind – ‘how could someone eat such bland food?’. Of course, the fact that Argus was not a human like he was and that his taste buds were very different had been completely ignored by Soren.

Well, at least he stopped peeing on my clothes. – A fact that Soren was truly thankful for.

Because he still hadn’t found the cleaning spell yet, he had thrown out all the clothes that Argus had peed on; he didn’t want to waste his time washing them.

But removing those thoughts, for now, Soren decided to focus on his drumstick.

Knock! Knock!

The moment Soren heard the knocking, his heart tensed up and his hand that was bringing the drumstick to his mouth abruptly stopped in the air. This was not because he was about to go to fight the Beast Tide, but because he had received a small trauma from a very similar situation.

Maybe I should just stop eating chicken drumsticks.

A completely random thought passed his mind as a young man in the City-Guard’s uniform entered the room after getting permission from Soren.

“Sir, Captain Hans sent me to get you. All the others are also gathering at the barrack.” The young man first bowed politely and then relayed the message.

“He could have just sent me a message. Why did he send someone?” While saying that, Soren wiped his and Argus’ hands and mouth properly and then picked him up to go to the barrack.

“His communicator broke this morning. He has yet to get a new one.” The young city guard said as he took a step back, allowing Soren to exit the room, and then followed him.

“Pay the bill.” Soren suddenly said as he walked out of the restaurant, stunning the young man who was following him and rendering him speechless. Nevertheless, the young city guard paid the bill at the counter and then ran to catch up to Soren.

……

Currently, the setup at the wall had been slightly changed to deal with the Beast Tide properly. The space at the top of the wall had been cleared up and all the redundant items had been removed. The City-Guard Office had hired a large number of Initiators, so they needed a large space to accommodate them all on top of the wall; most of these Initiators joined through the Hunter’s Association but some were hired directly.

Apart from that, several ladders had been installed at different sections of the wall. After all, Warrior type Initiators mainly fought in close range; their forte was close combat. Asking them to use bows and crossbows to kill the enemies from above the wall was just wasting a huge amount of manpower. For that reason, the ladders had been installed which could allow these types of Initiators to go down the wall any time they wanted to fight the Beasts in close range; when not in use, the ladders were retracted for safety purposes. Naturally, these ladders were mostly used by the low ranking Initiators. Peak Rank 0 and Rank 1 Initiators could easily jump down the wall without getting hurt so they didn’t need it; especially for the Initiators who focused on physical strength. And although there was some danger involved in jumping down into the crowd of the Beasts, it was not something that could not be managed with some cover fire from the top; this was true only for the peak Rank 0 Initiators and not for the Rank 1s, though.

All in all, the whole system was crude but effective. After all, the result was already showing.

The Beast Tide came in waves and the town had just survived the last one. A large number of dead bodies were scattered outside the wall right now; the majority were of the Beasts but some were of the Initiators too. The surviving Initiators were also outside the wall right now, trying to scavenge as much as they could. In this situation, it was not possible to tell which Beast was killed by whom. As such, their loot depended entirely on what they could bring in from the death ground outside before the next wave arrived; this loot was not counted towards the reward that the City-Guards Office had promised.

Of course, this was only the case with the Rank 0 Initiators. As for the Rank 1 Initiators, there was no one there who dared to take their kill; that was just asking for death.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, your assistance will be required from now on. We already had a Magic Beast come up in the last wave.” Captain Hans said after all the Rank 1 Initiators had been gathered at the barracks; including Soren.

From what Soren had been told, the Magic Beast that was in the last wave was killed by Captain Hans; the corpse of the Beast was obviously the Captain’s loot. Fortunately, this Magic Beast was not a flying type and Hans, being an Earth Element based Spellcaster, could kill it from the wall. According to what the young city guard had told Soren on the way, this Magic Beast was actually a Rank 1 Garatee; the same kind of Beast that Soren had once killed to test his <Dark Gravity>. After evolving and breaking through to Rank 1, this particular Magic Beast had gained an additional tail which had increased its maneuverability by quite a bit. Not only that, but this Magic Beast had also gained a spell formation of Wind Element. Other than increasing its speed, this spell formation also allowed the Beast to use <Wind Blades> spell to attack from afar.

Given this Magic Beast’s speed, it would have been very hard to deal with it. But Captain Hans had continuously used spells with a large area of effect on it and had finally killed this Beast after thoroughly weakening it first. Of course, the Spellcaster type Initiators from the City-Guards Office also helped him from the side so it became much easier for him.

……

Half the sun had already gone down the horizon when the next wave of Beast Tide started. As the number of Magic Beasts in the tide was still on the lower side, only a few Rank 1 Initiators had been stationed on the wall. Captain Hans had temporarily divided these Rank 1 Initiators into shifts until the situation became worse and the number of Magic Beasts increased. Right now, it was Soren’s turn on the wall; of course, he was not the only Rank 1 Initiator in this shift. Also, only a few Rank 0 Initiators were around him for support as this area was being handled primarily by Soren; others were already killing the Beasts that were swarming down below the wall.

As his assistance was not needed right now, Soren was just sitting with his back supported by the wall and was using this free-time to simulate different spells for his defensive spell. Although he had bought the <Ice Wall> spell before, he was not going to use it for long. It was only a temporary solution as his <Withering Wood> was truly not fit for battles. After he developed the spell that he was trying to create, he would probably remove the <Ice Wall> from his arsenal. As for <Withering Wood>, he was planning on keeping it for its healing property.

For his Defense Spell, he wanted to create a type of spell which would not only have strong defensive strength but also be flexible enough so that it wouldn’t be a hindrance during the battle. After researching and studying so many defensive spells, Soren had already created a basic outline of how his spell would be like. Of course, the spell was just in the starting phase and was nowhere near finished.

For the next part of the spell, he needed to work on the spell formation. This was the hardest part as the spell would completely collapse if the spell formation had even a little bit of a problem. Fortunately for Soren, he had Isaac with him who could simulate the spell based on the created spell formation. This allowed Soren to check the spell and fix the mistakes in the spell formation without any risk of backlash; after all, casting a spell based on a faulty spell formation would result in a severe backlash.

Being able to simulate spells without any risk of backlash truly helped Soren and decreased the time he would otherwise need to create the spell. With this, he made one change after another to the spell formation and had Isaac simulate it to check where the problem was. Given this speed, Soren reckoned that he would be able to create his spell in a month or two; that is if he could work on it continuously without any disturbance.

But when had he been so lucky?

Just as he had simulated a few spell formations and had made some changes, a Magic Beast came out of the jungle and made its way towards the town; the direction it was coming in was where Soren had been stationed. This Magic Beast was a brown colored snake with completely withered skin which made it look like tree bark; it had two green eyes and its forked tongue looked like twigs.

This Magic Beast was a Withered Snake, a Rank 1 Magic Beast of Wood Element which had several spell formations of Wood Element etched in its Core; though, it was one of the weaker Magic Beasts in terms of pure combat ability. Not only was it quite slow, but its defensive ability was also very weak; especially against two elements that were its weakness, fire, and ice. Only its regenerative ability was one of the best amongst the same rank, allowing it to survive in the jungle.

As Soren saw this Beast coming towards his side, he got slightly pissed. He was at a crucial stage of creating the spell formations, and this snake had to come at this time. But because he had already taken the fees for the job, he had to do at least the bare minimum for the sake of the Blood Contract. So, while mumbling out curses in a low voice, Soren stood up and walked to the edge of the wall. Seeing the snake slowly slithering towards his area, he got even more pissed. By now, the snake had already come inside his range so Soren swiftly took out his two meters long magic staff, Moonshard, and held it in his right hand. He then aimed his left palm at the snake and started casting his spell.

Ice Barrage

Ice Barrage

Explode!

After casting <Ice Barrage> twice, Soren sent them towards the Beasts but exploded all of them while they were in the air; creating a dense icy mist above the Beasts.

Rainfall

He then cast <Rainfall> without wasting any time and completely drenched those Beasts.

Frost Domain…..Freeze!!!

CRACK!!!

A loud cracking sound resounded in the air as the spell took effect like a snap of the fingers; it was almost instant. The result of this combo spell turned the whole area in front of that part of the wall into an ice field. None of the Beasts were left alive; not even the Withered Snake.

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