Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Dream Retirement Lifestyle

Chapter 10: Dream Retirement Lifestyle

 

“You now have half of your essence abilities now.” Said Amara. “You are still missing some attack spells, but you can think about leaving some unawakened in case you find a particularly rare stone.”

“You already have an unusual essence set, which has been awakening unusual abilities.” Remarked Redell in turn. “Rare awakening stones don’t awaken ‘better’ abilities, but uncommon abilities may be harder to counter on account of their rarity.”

According to the archives, the dimension essence, harmonic essence, and balance essence had been legendary, epic, and uncommon in rarity respectively.

“So, I could go ahead and get them all awakened?”

“That is one option. It would put you at an advantage progress wise. You cannot rank up to bronze without progressing all of your abilities. Holding out for a rare awakening stone would set you back.”

“However,” continued Amara, “there may be opportunities to earn five star or four star awakening stones in the future. The Adventure Society will award them to new adventurers for exceptional performance, and Sanshi is famous for its competitions, should you choose to operate there.” While Nara’s Guide used gaming terminology such as Legendary and Epic, the classification in Erras was based off of stars, with more stars indicating a rarer or higher quality item.

“Well, I’ve never been one for ‘exceptional performance’.”

The group gave Nara funny looks, Chelsea in particular.

“I may be strange here because of my racial abilities, but back on my world I’ve always just put in a moderate amount of effort. Not quite mediocre but not standout either.”

They still didn’t seem particularly convinced.

“I’ve literally been lounging around playing with magic, practicing a musical instrument, and traveling the world. That’s like, my dream retirement lifestyle. Anyway, I’ve just been told I have ten new magical powers and I’ve only tried out one of them. Let’s go outside and try them out!” With her new perception and aura abilities, the magic in the world had felt more tangible than ever before. And she had a deep, irresistible itch to mess with it. Even now, Nara was wiggling her fingers in the dimension membrane, and Chelsea shot her a disapproving glower.

“Let’s go outside before she decides to see if she can tear the membrane separating our world from astral annihilation.”

“I definitely can’t.” Nara said. 

“Did you try?”

“No…”

 

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It was during the winter holidays when Nara had her soul rudely yanked from her body. She had lost six months to the astral, and an additional five weeks had passed since her arrival at the crafting compound. In Erras, each week has 6 days, each month has 5 weeks, and each year has 12 months. It was now the 7^th month of the year, which the locals simply referred to as such. The outside temperature was hot and humid, but the compound was close in proximity to the coastline and shielded by large jungle trees as well as some array magic, producing a pleasant environment. Nara’s newly minted iron rank attributes also dampened the effects of heat and cold, which was an unexpected and welcome boon.

California coastline born and raised; she was weak to the elements.

 

“I guess I’ll go in order.” Nara said. She activated Phase Shift for a moment, and felt mana quickly drain from her body. “Oh boy,” she said, “extreme mana cost per second is no joke.”

“Visually, there was no difference.” Amara explained to Nara. “But my senses could tell that there was a change.”

“You were also harder to detect.” Said Chelsea, “could be useful for a sneak attack if you had the opportunity and timed it well. With that ramping mana cost, you couldn’t sustain it.”

Nara could also feel her aura ability take effect, and she began to slowly gain instances of [Integrity] due to her missing mana. It had little effect, for now, but with a longer engagement, she would benefit.

“Activate it again.” Said Amara, “I’m going to attack you during that time. Don’t let the ability drop, even if you are surprised.”

Nara took a breath, and in the next moment activated it. She couldn’t even sense the attack that flew through her; it was executed with such breakneck speed and power. Behind her, there was a loud roar and some of the jungle trees were obliterated into wood mist.

“You can drop the ability.” Amara said.

“Amara.” Chelsea said disapprovingly, “I’ll have to fix the forest now.”

“You know I love to see you work.” Amara replied to her, and Chelsea harrumphed.

Nara dropped the ability. The attack was too fast to for her to even been frightened. Acknowledging that the group could obliterate her just like the jungle at any moment, she decided not to worry about what she couldn’t control, and let her worry wash away.

“Well?” Nara asked, “What’s the result?”

“If you can react fast enough, you can avoid all damage and effects.” Said Amara.

“If.” Emphased Chelsea.

“I can’t react to that.”

“No.”

“Frankly,” Redell said, “you have the reaction speed of a drunk. We’ll have to work on that.”

 

Her next ability was [Astral Blessing]. There wasn’t much to test, as all aura abilities were largely passive. Even now, it was doing its slow work, gradually stacking and restoring her mana.

“Laius will teach you aura control.” Said Amara. “He’s particularly good at it, and you have some unique qualities which will benefit from his expertise.

As Laius nodded in confirmation, he handed Nara another treat to snack on as her mana passively regenerated. This time it was some sort of dried fruit spiced in a way that was refreshing in the slight heat.  

 

[Refresh] was similar. It did its work reliably and passively. Amara made Nara run around in laps while occasionally expending mana. To her delight, her new iron rank attributes kept her in peak shape. Expending mana recovered her stamina, and expending stamina recovered her health. She wasn’t currently injured, but in the heat of battle, it would preserve her condition. As she did so and both her mana and stamina dropped, stacks of Integrity continued to accumulate. Those two abilities in harmony created a slow acting feedback loop that allowed her to persist.

Jogging lightly in place, Nara asked, “Does this mean I have to try to run when I’m injured to recover quicker?”

“Seems so.” Redell said, “that would be the downside. The two abilities in conjunction are perfect for continued exertion and light injuries, but any extreme injury could interrupt this process.”

 

The fourth ability she had awakened was [Cosmic Path]. She activated the ability, and a painted swath of the cosmos manifested beneath her feet. Looking down, she felt as if she was standing on an invisible pane of glass, gazing down into deep space. As she moved quicker, the path slightly elongated, forming a slight trail. Movement caused the view of space to shift, as if she was truly looking into its depths. Just conjuring the path allowed her to move faster, and she sprinted across the clearing with an exhilaration she had never felt towards running in her life. By expending additional mana, this speed bonus increased even further, and she felt her lips uncontrollably curl upwards and she let out a whoop of joy, leaping into the air.

She felt as if she had just launched herself off the moon. She had activated the weight reduction effect, and her arms flailed as she sailed through the air. As she landed, she tumbled, and finally face-planted. She pushed herself up, laughing as she rubbed her nose.

“And it says I’ll be able to walk on water!” Nara pumped her fists excitedly at the thought.

 

Nara held a transparent sword in her hand. She had conjured [Horizon’s Edge] from her [Dimension Sword] ability. The sword blade was paper thin and appeared two dimensional. From one side, the sunlight caused the sword to shimmer with the light of dawn. When she turned the sword over, the colors shifted to that of twilight.

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“Shame.” She muttered, as she brushed her hand past her ear and manifested Nirvana’s sword form, “Such a pretty sword will go unused.”

She invoked the effect of Horizon’s Edge into Nirvana, and the silver Damascus shimmered with sunset colors instead. Nodding, she conceded, “I can work with this.”

Nirvana’s bow form was unusual in comparison to Earth’s bows, and to her benefit. When she brought her fingers into place, all she had to do was flick the ethereal string and it would fire fast and straight magic arrows. Holding the string for a greater period of time and pulling back allowed her to fire a charged shot with considerably more power, but lower frequency.

For now, she ignored the staff form of the weapon. It served mostly as a defensive form, increasing her resilience to damage. But she did not have the skill to manipulate the staff and didn’t want to overstretch her learning capability and time.

As she was now, most of her shots missed the training dummy the group had prepared for her. When her arrows or sword strikes did hit, she could sense her afflictions take hold.

Once they did, she cast Entropy on the dummy.

“From order to disorder.” She felt a little silly, casting spells, and wondered if, despite everything, it would simply whiff. But the spell took hold. Gradually, the afflictions began to increase. If she pressed the attack dealing additional instances of Dimensional Instability, then Entropy would accumulate stacks even faster. In a fight against a large number of enemies, she could also deal a few strikes, cast Entropy, and leave the target be as Entropy did the work. Eventually, she could return to deal massive damage after instances had already accumulated on their own. A relatively simple combination, but it did require her to personally engage every enemy.

 

It was slightly out of order at this point, but Nara demonstrated Dimension Node for the group again. The node itself had an effective range around it, and she could teleport anywhere within that sphere to move around. To teleport to another node, she did not have to be within the range of a node, but could do so from anywhere, as long as she could sense it.

It had less range than her Astral Jump, as Astral Jump could additionally function with her full line of sight, regardless of distance. Dimension Node required the nodes to be within her aura or perception range. However, for an iron rank, the range of her aura was massive.

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Title: [Unbounded]

• Your ingenuity in the face of transcendent power has awakened awareness of your own soul and refined your ability to shape it.
• You can disperse your own aura and use it to shield against soul attacks.
• The range of your aura is greatly increased.
• Your aura is harder to read and detect.
• Your aura signature has changed. Your unbounded will can be detected if your aura is examined by an aura sensing power or when projecting your aura. The echo of transcendent power within your aura is increased.

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Based on the effect of the title, Nara postulated that Titles reflected the experiences of the soul. Her experiences in the astral resulted in two Titles, the other being [Spirit Warrior].

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Title: [Spirit Warrior]

• Fighting off a concerted attack on your soul by a transcendent entity has awakened your awareness of your own soul and refined your ability to use it as a weapon.
• The suppressive force and resistance to suppression of your aura are increased. You can use the suppression resistance of your aura to resist forms of magical suppression beyond just aura suppression.

• After fully suppressing the aura of others, you may use your aura to attack their soul directly.

• Your aura signature has changed. Your unyielding nature in the face of even the greatest power can be detected if your aura is examined by an aura sensing power or when projecting your aura. The echo of transcendent power within your aura is increased.

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When Laius lightly suppressed her aura, her range was vastly reduced, and she could no longer teleport to nodes outside of her perception, such as the node she placed back inside the ritual room. Nodes that were visually visible to her or in close proximity, she could still teleport to.

“You’re aura is hard to suppress.” Said Laius, “Like a mist.”

“What Laius means to say,” clarified Chelsea, “is that those of your rank or even a rank above are not likely to be able to restrict the ability range as he did. You seem to still have limited range with line of sight or perception, which is fantastic.”

Next up was [Crescendo].

“This time, with expression.”

Nara cast the ability on herself and could feel her boons stack with increasing speed. The only boons she had access to so far were recovery boons, so all it amounted to was increasing their potency.

She felt that her abilities were missing some critical components. While she had a spell to accelerate her afflictions, she only dealt two afflictions, and both with the same ability. Similarly, she had a spell to accelerate her own boons, but lacked impactful boons to accelerate.

“My abilities feel very unbalanced. I’m missing a lot.” It was a rather unpleasant sensation that left her feeling incomplete.

“Normal.” Laius said, nodding his head.

 

“The last one is a familiar.”

“The ritual magic your ‘friend’ taught you must have been enough.” Said Amara.

“Enough?”

“Since awakened abilities can reflect knowledge and experiences, familiars can only be awakened when there is prior knowledge of ritual magic. Can you draw a ritual circle?”

“Maybe. I haven’t actually tried before.”

They headed back into the ritual building, and Amara began coaching and overseeing Nara’s slow progress. The ritual circle needed to summon the familiar had appeared within her mind upon awakening the ability and it was also recorded in her Archive. Meanwhile, the rest of the group gathered the material requirements.

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Material requirements:

• 108 [Radiant Quintessence Gems (iron)]
• 108 [Life Quintessence Gems (iron)]
• 1296 [Iron Rank Spirit Coins]

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Familiars were astral beings that served their summoner willingly. Since astral beings possessed no physical form, materials were required to create one. If a familiar’s physical form was destroyed, the summoning ritual would need to be performed again, and the ability would be unavailable until then. Bonded familiars, in contrast, were magic creatures found in physical reality that bonded with their contractor. Bonded familiars are less expensive, have more abilities, and share a closer connection, but lose the convenience of ritual familiars. Death for a bonded familiar is permanent, and the summoner must search for another.

 

After close to an hour, a larger array than any drawn so far obscured the floor of the ritual room. Nara stood nervously in front of the array.

“So, I just… chant the incantation and pour mana in?”

“It is that simple.” Said Amara. The required materials lay in small bowls within the center of the array.

“You may feel lightheaded or a headache from the extreme mana consumption.” Redell mentioned.

Nara steadied herself and chanted the incantation.

“Without time, there is no past, no present, no future. Bring forth the sustainer of thought and creation. Take the Hand of Time.”

She wondered if all incantations were so embarrassing. Nara thought, however, that she must have lost her sense of shame when he rode through a ritual gate into reality and manifested naked in front of Amara.

The circle blazed with golden light. The light bleached the room of all dimension and consumed the light within the room, casting the room in darkness. Within the darkness swirled suns, stars, and planets. Time whirled, stars collapsed and were born anew. With a roar, sound, light, and space was sucked into the circle, sending the room into a blank stillness. Finally, golden light returned to the ritual circle, and a figure coalesced.

The figure was a tall man, with tanned skin and long gleaming golden hair tied back in a long braid. His mannerisms and stance beheld an aura of arrogance and elegance. He wore slim black fitting formal wear. When his eyes flickered open, they revealed gleaming silver irises. Besides his glowing coloration, he appeared entirely human.

While Nara’s head was ringing from the extreme and quick mana consumption, a familiar aura caused her to stare wide-eyed ahead.

Straightening herself from her hunched posture, she gestured to the figure.

“Everyone, meet my imaginary friend!”

“I said,” he spoke in an exasperated tone not dissimilar to Chelsea, “that I wasn’t imaginary.”

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