The Knightly Elven… Spider?

It was, wasn’t it?

I looked at the last enhancement for a while and saw it becoming less and less useful.

I wasn’t who I once was anymore. If I’d still been a knight, a spell like this would have been something I could have only dreamed about. Striking twice with a sword? That sounded amazing, not to speak of all the other effects that were included in the same skill.

As things stood, it wouldn’t be as interesting. While it should theoretically work with me bashing my legs against other creatures (and I had a lot of them) I was just hesitant to fight like that. Maybe I was being too careful. I’d grown far, far stronger physically after all, but I didn’t think that was a bad thing.

I went over all possible enhancements one last time and noticed that there was an extra language comprehension that I’d missed earlier. I’d been too fixated on the skills near the bottom of the list. Spirits? What were those?

When no message showed up, I decided to ask the blessing directly. Still, no message showed up. That was a bit… odd, so to say.

All in all, there were some interesting spells that had shown up. The detoxification was a sure-go pick. I immediately confirmed the enhancement as I was going to get the evolution points back through an achievement anyway.

I felt warmth being added to the center of my abdomen as I requested to see the achievements I would need in order for my next evolution.

Huh?

I did not expect that. No new requirements had appeared. On one hand, it would make it easier to get my next evolution, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t be able to get evolution points for an achievement that I knew about.

The next two spells that I was eying were the holy barrier and elemental wall spells. I would first ask Cellestra to poison me in order to get some extra evolution points, though.

I was then reminded that I now had the option to merge certain spells.

Elysa, how do I know which enhancements I can merge together?

Uhh, sure. Just do it one by one by one, please.

I had no idea if this would be the same as getting a new skill or spell, and I wasn’t going to risk the massive pain that I experienced early on.

Information about my spells started flooding into my brain. It didn’t hurt, but it made me dizzy as everything was pressed on top of one another.

When it was all done and over with, I looked at my skill list which had grown significantly from when I’d checked it last time.

I knew what the spells did as the information had flooded my brain. I was still mildly surprised that I had only created four new spells. I do believe that the blessing had told me earlier that I would be able to merge more spells later on.

This multi-barrier was a combination of both the physical and magical barriers. It was quite handy to have both spells combined, especially in a pinch, but it didn’t quite offer something new.

The flame beam seemed to be a combination of the lightning arc and fireball spells. The spell would just create a beam of fire that I could fire forward that would grow in heat for as long as the spell was channeled. As with the lightning arc, its mana cost would grow over the duration.

The venom thread spell would lace my threads with the level of venom that I possessed. I could use the paralytic venom as well.

Lastly, the venom spike was a combination of earthen spike and venom. It would simply lace the spike with the venom of my choice, which would lead to additional damage or paralytic effect as the venom was hopefully brought deeper into the target’s body through the penetrating force that the spike had.

Elysa, will I be able to merge any more spells with the enhancements that I can get?

I was impressed that the blessing was able to provide this information. Useful info was usually in short supply.

The first two combinations of spells seemed to be quite useful. I would only need to enhance one skill to create two new spells after that; wind gust. The last spell… well, it wasn’t quite useful at the moment. I might look into it later, as I felt like it could be somewhat of use if there was to be a battle between elves and humans. If the elves proved to be honest people, I could use it to heal them if necessary.

But for now… it was time to tell Cellestra of my plan.

I walked up to the building and tapped on the wooden wall next to the doorframe to get the elf’s attention.

I saw her put down a cup and walk up to me with a stack of papers in her hands. “Are you done looking into your new spells, etcetera?” She asked with a soft expression.

I nodded with my pedipalps and pointed at the sheets of paper. I needed to ask her a question after all.

“And you need my help?” She asked, as she spread the paper out on the grass.

I nodded again and started spelling as soon as she’d placed the sheets on the ground.

“Got any poison? Need to resist poison effect for achievement.”

“Uh, I got some things that are considered poison yet...” She paused and looked at me. “And you’re sure about this?”

I nodded again before continuing to spell out more. “Got new spell. Can remove poison with it from myself and others.”

“That’s… interesting,” She said softly. “I guess that makes antidotes useless.”

It did in a way. However, antidotes would still be valuable to have if I were to run out of mana.

I looked at the elf who sighed. It seemed she didn’t much care for this plan, but it also seemed she understood I’d be completely fine. She probably knew that I had this all planned out so I wouldn’t be at any risk.

“Alright. Give me a second.”

Cellestra walked back inside and moved into the kitchen area where she started rummaging through the cabinets. “I hope poisonous mushrooms are okay? These are actually pretty weak. Does any poison count?”

I nodded with my pedipalps.

That was my understanding of it at least.

She soon exited the building with one mushroom she held with a pair of tweezers.

“I assume you know what you’re doing. As I said, these aren’t that poisonous, but still.”

“Thank you,” I spelled out as she placed the mushroom in the grass. I picked it up with my pedipalps, got my chelicerae out of the way, and brought the poisonous mushroom to my mouth and ate it.

The taste was nothing to write home about. It wasn’t terrible in any way, but rather, it was without any kind of flavor. It didn’t take long before several messages showed up before me.

That gave me a good bunch of evolution points. It would seem it was time to enhance several more abilities before I was going to set out and search for suitable prey.

“Did it work?” Cellestra asked.

“Yes,” I spelled out for good measure.

The elf sighed in relief. “I’m glad to hear that.”

Her worry was misplaced, but at the same time heartwarming. It was getting harder and harder to leave her behind to go out on hunts…