Chapter 30: 1.30 Cloudgazing

Faragi

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''One thing has been bothering me.'' I spoke after several minutes of silence. 

Velariah was still laying on her back and seemed content.  I wondered if all that armor wouldn't cook her alive, it didn’t seem to be the case. 

''Hm?'' She replied without opening her mouth. 

''What about mages and casters?'' I asked. 

''What about them?'' 

I thought for a few seconds how to put it as clearly as I could. 

''You see, you talked about all this inherity stuff and how people would need corium to be able to use certain skills. How does it work for casters? Are they born with knowledge of a skill or?'' 

I actually had a hard time understanding how they started out. I get the fact that when you know spells you could improve them, but how would you get your first spell? 

''Nobody is born with knowledge of any skill. You have to learn them through combat, mages and casters are no exception. For them to learn their first spell, they would need to evolve their inherity for the first time.''  

She took a deep breath before continuing.  

''There are many different inherities, most of them are pretty straightforward. Take mine and my fathers for example, ours both revolve around the sword. That doesn't mean you can't use magic while using the sword. You've seen what my father can do. I can't use magic yet. Mine is limited to simply doing more damage with the sword than the average person, for now.'' 

She paused again for a few moments and looked at me. I nodded in understanding. 

''Now some inherities allow you to purely focus on spells. More often than not, they do not limit you to a specific element. In this case, the caster can choose what path they want to take. For example, if they want to grow strong with fire magic, they would buy a staff with a fire orb. This orb allows for their corium to synthesize fire-related abilities. You understand it so far?'' 

''I think I do, yes.'' I confirmed. 

''Well now. When you just start out, you pick a staff with the element you want, or if your inherity limits to a specific element, you need to pick a staff with that element's orb. Next up, and here is where your question gets answered. Because of the orb synergizing with your inherity, anything you do with your staff that kills monsters will absorb their corium.'' 

''Hold on a second. You're telling me that in order to learn your first spell, you need to club enemies to death with a staff?'' 

''Correct!'' Velariah happily replied.  

''That seems... inconvenient to say the least.''  

Inconvenient was an understatement. Going into combat without a proper weapon seemed like a suicide mission to me. Hell, I would hate to admit it, but a school arc seemed like a dream compared to this.  

''The best way to go around it is to get a party to immobilize or almost finish off a monster and then have the fledgling caster slay it in order to absorb their corium.'' 

Oh, I guessed leeching was a thing here too. Scrap what I thought earlier, school arcs still sucked! 

''I do wonder if I will be able to use some sort of magic.'' I said absent-mindedly. 

''Honestly?'' Velariah replied. "'I doubt it. I know for certain you have an inherity related to your poison and venom resistance. You might have another that deals with your own, or they might be combined into one. It's very rare to have two inherities.'' 

''And three?'' I asked curiously. 

''Never happened before.'' She stated. 

Interesting. 

''Two is already extremely rare, people who are born with double inherity are destined to become diamond level adventurers, possibly higher. Of course, a large portion of it depends on how early the person starts, their lifespan, their eagerness to improve, their party, etcetera.'' 

''Lifespan?'' I spoke, ''So elves have a natural advantage when it comes to that?'' 

''That would be correct. Though, humans seem to generally evolve their inherities faster than elves so it kind of makes up for it but still.'' 

''What about lizardmen, what does their lifespan look like?''  

''You're thinking about Draco, right? I'm not sure what your fiction authors write about them on earth but in this world, they outlive humans by at least doubling their age. No need to worry about him'' 

That was at least somewhat of a relief. As far as I knew they were generally shorter, at least in the novels I had read.  

It left me wondering about my own. I wasn't exactly human anymore, but half of me still was. 

''You're thinking about your own now, aren’t you?'' Velariah rolled to her side close to me. 

I nodded. 

''Not sure, you're not exactly human anymore, are ya?'' 

Thanks for adding salt to the wound. 

''Don’t worry though, I doubt that cute face of yours will become any less pretty for many years to come.'' 

''Vel!'' I let out in embarrassment. 

''Tuh-tuh, you don’t get to call me that. Yet.'' She winked. 

What was with the flirting? I didn't mind the dwarf doing it before but with Velariah I didn’t actually know how to respond to it. I could feel my cheeks heat up after her show of affection. 

''Do you like me Vel?'' I quietly asked. The words barely escaped my lips but I wanted to ask honestly and straight up. 

''How could I not like you?'' She smiled. 

I looked at one of the pedipalps that lay beside me, then behind me. 

''I could name you ten reasons right off the bat, probably more.'' 

''Never mind those, I don't care. You're you, that doesn’t change.'' 

I didn't know what to say. I had thought it impossible for anyone to look past the monster part. And I really didn’t mean to be cheesy there. It seemed Velariah had seen past it. She even seemed to go as far as to actually like me. 

''I don't know Vel, I've known you for like, a week.'' 

I would put it off for now. It's not like I didn't like the elf, I did, but I wasn't sure if I had feelings for her in that way. Maybe I did? Did I like females? 

I even went as far as thinking what would happen if I did start to like a guy and things went... to the next step, so to say. Could I have children? What would they look like? Please don't tell me I would get thousands and had to lay eggs. Maybe a same sex relationship wasn't such a bad prospect... 

I was getting way too far ahead of myself and I could see Velariah's expression change to one of worry.  

''You alright, Elania?'' 

I shook off my thoughts. 

''I am, don't worry, I'm just not ready for this, I guess. I do like you but it's early, too early.'' 

''No problem, I have all the time.'' 

Was that a reference to her lifespan? If so, touché Vel. 

''Also, what does ''right off the bat'' mean?'' She said as she rolled on her back again. 

''Oh right, you likely don't have baseball in this world.'' 

''Baseball?'' A question rose beside me. 

''It's a very popular game in my country. You have a person hit a ball that is thrown at them with a bat, something that resembles a club, then they try to run to certain checkpoints while another team tries to catch the ball and tag them with it.'' 

I paused for a second to let Velariah get a mental image of what the game looks like. I doubted she would succeed.  

''Right off the bat means something like ''directly'' or ''without even having to think about it''.  

''Interesting.'' She replied.  

She did seem interested in anything I told her from my world and I doubted she could feign that curious nature of hers. It was quite fun to see how something that was so normal for me could be such fantasy material for this elf. 

''The game sounds weird though, I would probably have to see it.''  

''Hah, in my world, millions of people pay to see it.'' 

She rolled to face me again. 

''How in the world does that work?'' 

Time to blow her mind. 

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''You see, we have this box that has like a mirror in it. It can show you things happening on the other side of the world. Almost everyone in my country has one, and many people use it to watch ''baseball''.'' 

I wasn't a sports fanatic myself, but I knew baseball was insanely popular. 

''What? How?'' She raised her eyebrows. ''How?'' She asked again. ''I don’t believe you.'' 

If only I could roll to my side as easily as she could. This position was pretty damn uncomfortable when talking to someone lying next to me.  

''It's called a Television and it's one of great many an invention humanity has made.'' I curled my lips in a smile.  

''We don't have magic, instead, we use the power of science to create things that you would deem impossible.'' 

''How does that science thing work? Can I learn it?''  

Oh, she wanted it, and she wanted it badly. I could see a fire in her eyes. 

''In all honesty, forget it. It took humanity hundreds of years to acquire the knowledge to make something like that. The basics of science come down to observing and experimenting and then writing down what happens. You learn the properties of certain materials and then combine them with other materials and repeat the process thousands, if not millions of times. After many, many years you will be able to create things that will then help in creating other things. It's a very long story and I doubt it will do us any good in this world.'' 

''Oh.'' She looked disappointed. 

''I know a thing or two as you may have noticed, but advanced technology is far, far beyond me. I would have no idea how a television works.'' 

She remained silent. 

''Do you not have anything like that in this world. Like, a crystal ball that you can look into which shows you what is on the outside of another crystal ball?'' 

She shook her head. 

''Such a thing doesn't exist.'' 

''Shame.'' I spoke. ''Guess there are probably a lot more things that will turn out to be false.'' 

I sighed.  

''By the way, miss Leafguard, do tell me about this kingdom if you will.'' 

I would eventually have to learn about this world as it seemed I'd be living here now. I decided to limit my scope to the elves and their kingdom for now seeing as I would have to deal with them the most. Other kingdoms would come later and whenever necessary. I was going to forget, otherwise. 

It appeared she wasn't charmed by me calling her by her last name. 

''Please just call me Velariah.'' She sighed. 

''Will Vel do?'' I teased. 

''Only if you go out with me.'' 

''Velariah it is!'' I grinned. 

''You're evil!'' 

Look who's talking. 

''Wait, tell me how this world views same-sex relationships first, will you? Since you appear to be so eager.''  

''Long story or short?'' She asked. 

''how long is long?'' 

''Fairly short, actually.''  

''Then go for that.'' 

''Right.'' She started. ''It's widely accepted and not looked down upon save for certain areas and certain... beings.'' 

''Like?'' I questioned. 

''it's frowned upon in dwarven society and it's straight up punishable by death with some of the more... savage races, such as trolls. Not that there are many friendly tribes towards us elves, but still.'' 

She held her hand up to her forehead to shield her eyes from the bright sunlight. 

''To answer your other question. The elven kingdom consists of many smaller towns and villages all scattered throughout this continent. There is a large capital to the north, several weeks of travel out. Duskleaf is three or four days in the same direction, they are our nearest, most valuable trade partner. These two villages are part of the Trueleaf province of which Goldleaf is the capital.'' 

She rolled over to look at me again. 

''The forest nearby is, as I said before, the border to the neighboring human kingdom. Do you want me to tell you about them as well?''  

I shook my head.  

''I'll stick to this for now, I'll ask again some other time about the humans. It would help a lot if I had a map...'' I concluded. 

''I would have to ask my father for one. There aren't many in the village as many people don't travel far.''  

''That would be great, thank you Velariah.'' 

I put extra emphasis on her name, pronouncing it far too elegantly, which earned me a pout from the elf. She really was cute like that! 

I giggled.  

''How about religion?'' I tried to distract her. 

She shook her head.  

''If you're talking churches and cathedrals, we don't have that in this village, Goldleaf would be the first place that has one, and that, in turn, pales in comparison to the Royal Knight's Cathedral. Everyone is free to believe whatever they want and many do so, even without the presence of churches.'' 

''You know, that actually sounds too simple. Back in my world, millions have died as a result of differentiating beliefs.'' 

She looked at me with genuine shock. 

''Are you serious?'' 

I nodded. 

''No way...'' 

''The last war that plagued this world ended literal ages ago, I think they started because of an unquenchable lust for power from one side. That's what I have been told. It ended simply because the wars left the dungeons unchecked. Several cities were decimated and had to be purified because of it. Since then, most races have always worked together to not let something like that happen again...'' 

''I'm happy for you guys. You guys seem to have things sorted out in a way that would make humanity on my world jealous.'' I added to her story. 

Then again, it appeared they had united against a common ''foe''. Turned out dungeons had a far greater impact on this world and its civilizations than I would have ever thought possible. I wondered what would happen of something like that happened to Earth? Something like aliens, maybe? Would they stand together? One could only hope. 

Things quieted down between us, I just relaxed and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my black body parts. I would have thought I would overheat pretty quickly, but that wasn't the case at all.  

I saw a bit of movement in the distance, it appeared a group of rangers had just come out of the forest and another group was moving in. It seemed to be a simple change of patrols. The same thing happened with the guards at the checkpoint, they went inside the barracks before another group came out.  

That brought my mind to tomorrow. I wondered what I should ask Ember. If she turned out to be the ancient one that was mentioned, would they have an answer as to why I appeared in this world? The spider in my dream had called me an anomaly, It had to know something about things that happened in this world.  

If she wasn't, I hoped she could at least point me into the right direction. I would hate to wander around aimlessly, though, I guess there was plenty to do. With a bit of luck, we would get an application in from a healer and we could look around in the dungeon that I had uncovered. I wondered what secrets were hidden in there? It seemed nobody had ever been inside it.  

It was a good thing it wasn't a high-tier dungeon. It would have probably gone out of control due to the lack of mana intake from adventurers.  

I also wondered if I would be able to learn spells like Valtheril's. Whatever that ability did, it made short work of a person that tried to kill me. Something about possessing such power was enticing. It would surely make people think twice before they would strike me. It's quite interesting how someone like me would have to fight to be able to live in peace. I couldn't rely on Valtheril forever... 

''You wanna head back?'' Velariah asked. 

''I'm fine, but if you want to head back, then I'll join you.'' 

I really didn’t know what to do with the rest of the day so we might as well enjoy this peace and quiet while it lasted.  

''Nah, it’s okay.''  

I finally decided to roll myself over to my back. My arms were starting to hurt from lying on them continuously. This position may have been awkward before, but I was starting to overcome that feeling. I couldn't simply not do things because they would make me feel awkward, or so I thought.  

I gazed at the beautiful blue sky and wondered what the night sky from here would look like without light pollution. The one time I actually had the chance to look at the sky I ran into Velariah. Or rather, she ran into me, almost literally.  

I swear the elf used my distraction to inch herself closer to me.  

A smile was plastered on her face when I looked her way. It made my heart rise up in my chest. 

How was I going to deal with this?

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