Chapter 16: Wolfocracy

Edward didn’t have to go that far until he ran into Circe walking down the circular tower staircase.

“Just in time Edward, I was heading for the practice room. Let’s go and you can show me your progress.”, Circe didn’t wait for Edward to say anything as she headed for the practice room, expecting him to follow after her.

Once they were both inside, Circe just moved to the side and waited for him to show her his progress.

Edward nodded towards her before creating a water ball and shooting it straight at the target on the wall in the distance. Since he came here to impress, he didn’t hold anything back on the speed of the water ball. Once it hit the target, the ball exploded into into small water droplets but there was no sign of damage on the wall.

“What are those walls made of. I thought I could at least make a mark or something…” muttered Edward as he turned around and waited for Circe to give her judgment, only to notice that she was looking at him and not at the target, a questioning look in her eyes.

“What?” asked Edward with an innocent look in his eyes. “I hit the target just as you told me to.”

“That you did, but I expected you to just control it to float towards the target. How did you manage to turn it into an attack in just one week without any instructions of supervision?”

“Erm…” Edward was tongue tied, not expecting it to be such a big deal.

“You’re not getting out of this one. Not even taking into account that you didn’t have the necessary mana to practice up to this level, but even with your perfect basic magic aptitude, you shouldn’t have been able to learn the level of control necessary to keep the spell stable until it reached that speed. Do you have anyone else teaching you? You should know that having two masters in the same field is highly frowned upon in the magician guild.”

Seeing that getting out of this one didn’t seem easy, Edward sighed and decided to just tell her the truth, at least a part of it.

“I can sometimes speak to the spirit I made a contract and she taught me how to do it… I swear I didn’t take any other mage as a teacher.”

Circe just looked in Edward’s eyes for a good moment, trying to ascertain if he was telling the truth before asking: “And how exactly are you communicating with the water spirit?”

“I don’t know. I just happen to hear her speaking to me sometimes while I’m channeling my mana. She made me practice some control exercises…”

Circe kept staring at him, apparently only half believing his story, but since Edward didn’t seem to want to say more, she eventually gave up and just turned around to walk towards the door.

“Come after me. Now that you are actually able to use magic we’ll have to get you a status tablet.”

Edward didn’t really understand what a status tablet was, but he was happy to stop getting interrogated and just followed after her. After descending a few floors, they entered a new room, one Edward hasn’t been in before.

As Edward was looking around at the room made almost completely out of wood, looking like some sort of ancient altar, Circe said to him: “Go to the center of the room and wait there.”

Edward nodded and walked up to a small circle drawn in the center of the room. After staying in the circle for quite a while with nothing happening, he turned around and was about to question Circe when vines sprouted out of the edges of the circle and started covering his body.

“Don’t panic. It’s normal.” Just as Edward wanted to force his way out of the vines, he heard Circe’s voice which calmed him down somewhat and he let the vines completely encase him.

It took almost an hour until the vines finally receded, leaving behind a single palm-sized wooden tablet sitting at Edward’s legs. Edward bent down and picked it up with a still slightly confused expression hanging on his face. As his hand touched the tablet, lines of text started appearing on it.

<Name: Edward Black>
<Class: Beginner Water Mage>
<Mana: 39/42>
<Level: 1>
<Level Life Force: 1/100>
<Spells: Water Ball, Cost: 2;
Unknown, Cost: ?>

Circe came up to him and, taking a look at the text on the tablet, raised an eyebrow and said: “You’ve learned another spell?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never used any other spell besides Water Ball.” Said Edward in reply while shaking his head.

Circe nodded and replied: “Doesn’t matter. Now that you have a status tablet, you can finally work on increasing your level. To increase one’s level, you will have to kill other living beings and use the tablet to absorb their life force, this way their life force will be added to yours and your levels will increase.”

‘So it’s like experience. Great.’ Thought Edward as he asked: “So, what use does leveling up have?”

“It will increase a being’s level of existence to a new level, together with their mana, resistance and strength.” Replied Circe as a quite long tablet, looking similar to Edward’s appeared in her hand. She then showed the writing on it to Edward.

<Name: Circe Winterhope>
<Class: Advanced Ice Mage>
<Sub-Class: Intermediate Air Mage>
<Sub-Class: Ice Regent Guardian>
<Mana: 5600/5600>
<Level: 42>
<Level Life Force: 32/100>
<Spells: Water Ball, Cost: 2;
Water Blade, Cost 6;
Water Chain, Cost: 8;
Water Vortex, Cost: 15;
—————————————
Ice World, Cost: 2100;>

As Edward was gawking like an idiot at the hundreds of spells displayed on the card, Circe explained: “This is my status card. As you progress in level and learn more spells, they will get recognized by the tablet and displayed here. Now that you understand a bit about the status tablet, it’s time to set up your schedule.”

“Wait a moment.” Said Edward as he broke out of his stupor “Why is the amount of experience you need to level up the same as mine even tho you are like 40 levels higher than me?”

Circe took a confused look at her card and asked: “Experience?”

“Oops, I mean life force. I misspoke.” Said Edward with an awkward expression.

“Oh, to increase your level, you will have to kill beings of the same level as you. The life force of beings of lower level won’t do anything towards your leveling up progress.”

Edward nodded in understanding and asked: “What about killing higher level beings?”

“It will indeed increase your level faster, depending on the difference, but don’t underestimate the difference a single level brings. For example, a single level will bring you around 100 more mana, which doesn’t seem like much, but in your case it means a total of 50 more water balls. That’s not even taking into consideration the increase in strength, speed and resistance.”

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“I see, thank you for explaining.” Replied Edward, not really taking it to heart.

Circe nodded and said: “For your schedule, you’ll need to split your time between learning new spells and increasing your level, both equal when it comes to importance. You can set your own schedule, but I need you to report your progress to me at least once a month.”

“I understand. How do I go about learning new spells?”

“As you know, spells are mostly our imagination given form using mana, an exception being ancient spells, being passed down from generation to generation, but you don’t have to care about those for now. To learn a new spell, you will need to form a clear image of that spell inside your mind and have the necessary mana to cast it. There are books on basic level spells in the tower’s library if you want to browse through them, but remember that most spells are just an outline and the end result might be different from person to person. Look.” Said Circe as she materialized a water ball in the palm of her hand.

Edward didn’t really understand what she was trying to prove, but as Circe brought the Water Ball closer to his face, he started feeling a coldness coming out of it, prompting Circe to explain: “This is the same spell as yours, even down to the mana cost, but my inborn strong ice affinity makes it’s default temperature a lot colder. As the spells grow more and more complicated, so will the differences between them.”

Seeing that Edward seemed to understand somewhat, Circe said: “Now that you are finally an Water Mage, you can go register with the adventurer guild and take quests to increase your level and earn money. The tower is always open if you need to browse the spell library or just need to ask me anything. You can spend your time however you want, but don’t forget about giving me a report on your progress at least once a month. Also, I will need to know where you’re staying so I can reach you if I need you for anything.”

Edward bowed towards Circe as he replied: “Thank you for all the help, master. I’m staying at Violet Flower inn. You can ask the innkeeper there if you need to find me, she is a friend.”

“Is that the demi-human inn?”

“It is.”

“All right. You are free to go now.” Said Circe as she turned around and started walking towards the door.

“She’s not that bad after all.” Muttered Edward after she was gone as he picked up his status tablet and started walking towards the door as well.

‘Hmm, I forgot to ask her how she managed to make her status tablet disappear.’ Thought Edward, but to his surprise, as his thoughts ended, the tablet disappeared into thin air.

“Huh?….. Appear?” muttered Edward and the tablet was in his hand once again.

‘I see. You can just will it away… Disappear.’

Done with his business at the magician guild for now, he decided to put learning a new spell for another time and go to register with the adventurer guild. He was slowly running out of money, having only around 15 silvers left.

After walking out of the magician guild, Edward walked slowly through the crowded streets, enjoying the atmosphere until he eventually arrived in front of the adventurer guild.

Edward made his way towards the second floor and headed straight for the information counter. There was now another guild employee there instead of the woman from before. Seeing Edward take a seat at his counter, he asked: “How can I help you?”

“Hello, I wanted to register with the adventurer guild.”

The employee nodded and placed a tablet if front of Edward. Edward didn’t waste any time and placed his hands on the tablet.

<Name: Edward Black>
<Race: Human,*****>
<Age: 18>
<Level 1>
<Class: Water Mage>
<Sub-Class: N/A>
<Title: N/A>
<Guild: Magician Guild>
<Affiliation: N/A>
<Achievements: N/A>
<Crimes: N/A>

The clerk nodded after seeing the information on the tablet and quickly wrote something on a piece of paper before handing it over to Edward together with a token that had the mark of the adventurer guild on it.

“Go to the registration hall with this token and paper to finish your registration. After that is done, you can come back here if you want to pick or submit quests.”

Edward nodded and thanked the clerk before heading for the residential district to register. After entering the registration hall, he quickly found the <Adventurer Registration> counter and took his spot at the back of the queue. An hour later, he finished his registration there and was given a badge with the adventurer guild mark on one side and hid name followed by the letter F on the other.

“Guess everyone has to start somewhere..” Mumbled Edward as he started heading back towards the adventurer guild to take a look at the quest board. All this back and forth wasted a lot of time and it was already starting to get late. He wanted to at least manage to grab a quest before he had to leave the city.

Inside the first floor of the adventurer guild, he skipped past all the tables filled with adventurers happily drinking and went in front of one of the quest boards. It was orderly split into quests by rank so it didn’t take Edward long to find the F rank quests.

There, looking at the quests in the F section, an expression of disappointment slowly started appearing on Edward’s face.

<Quest 5 - F rank>
<Help with the construction work of a new store in the marketplace.>
<5 Coppers / day>

<Quest 12 - F rank>
<Clean up the clogged sewers in the western part of the city>
<21 Coppers>

<Quest 37 - F rank>
<Join the City Guards for night patrols around the city streets>
<Fighter class required>
<20 coppers/ night>
——————

‘What is with this bullshit quests? Adventurer my ass, more like manual labor.’ Cursed Edward in his head as he took a look at the quests in the A section as well.

<Quest 1 - A rank>
<A group of merchants have been attacked by a pack of Blood Hawks as they were passing the Plymman Volcano. We fear that the Hawks might be getting too close to the city.>
<Mission: Wipe out the Blood Hawks>
<Requirements: Magician or Ranger class>
<Reward: 10 gold / hawk, proof of kill required>

He just needed to look at a single quest to understand that he needed to increase his rank if he wanted to take on a decent quest. Letting out a sigh, he turned back, ready to look for a quest from the F rank that was at least decent, when he felt a hand tapping on his right shoulder.

“What’s troubling you, friend?”

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