The Dive: Birth of a Hero Page 19

  “You mean his race change? He just met up with a friend of mine and discovered it. Though I don’t know when he’ll be able to come back to this island.”

  “I see. I hope the fight is as good as I’m expecting it to be. I’ve never fought a strong caster before.”

  “I will try not to disappoint you. I’ll be at the forest at noon, the day after tomorrow.” With that I ended the two spells, letting out a sigh. Turning around, I faced Denise. “Okay, so that’s taken care of.” I’ve got two days to get as many levels as I can.

  “Two days, huh? I’m totally going to be there to encourage people not to interfere.” Denise grinned broadly to me, sitting up on the bed.

  “Thanks. Now I’ve got to figure out a way to train myself as much as I can for these two days. Though it’s not really that important if I lose…”

  “No, you are not allowed to lose.” Denise glared at me. “This is the bandit leader we’re talking about. You’ve got to show him that you aren’t a pushover!”

  “Okay… fine… so back to finding a way to train.”

  “Well.. I saw you making Mana Stones earlier. If you do that, can’t you train your creation magic? Those aren’t exactly common objects.”

  Listening to her suggestion, I nodded. “I can. I could probably mix runes randomly in them and learn a few spells from the results while I’m at it.”

  “See? That’s the spirit!” Denise grinned to me, so I got to work. There actually was something I was interested in trying out with Mana Stones, anyways. Something that I had been thinking about ever since my first trip to Hell, but had never had the chance to test it.

  “Okay… let’s start with one water, and one fire…”

  Chapter 13

  Not long after I began practicing, the door to the inn room flew open and Cynthia came rushing in, her eyes watering. Jumping up onto the bed, she buried her face in Denise’s shoulder.

  Oh no, this can’t have gone well.. “What’s wrong, Cynthia?” I sat down next to her while Denise cautiously patted her back.

  “I.. I told him… He… still kicked me out…” Her voice was muffled in the other woman’s shoulders, and she had to speak between sobs.

  “Because you didn’t want to be a soldier..?” Rather than answering my question, she nodded her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble for you with your family…”

  Denise shot me a glare, and then rubbed Cynthia’s back. “No… I’m sorry that your father won’t respect your choice. He should be encouraging you to do your best at whatever you want to be, not forcing you into a single role.”

  Cynthia looked up to Denise with watery eyes, her cheeks stained with tears. “I.. I can’t go back.. can I… stay.. with you guys?”

  I smiled to her, nodding my head. “Of course you can. You wanted to have an adventure with us anyways, didn’t you? It’s just starting a bit earlier than we planned.”

  Bringing up her hands, Cynthia brushed her eyes for a few moments, nodding. “Thanks… I might have ended up being homeless… if you guys never came along…”

  Denise chuckled softly, wrapping her arms around the younger woman. “Hey, that just means you don’t have to worry about it now, right? And now you’re going to go off and become one of the best adventurer’s around, making your father wish he had been nicer to you.”

  Looking over to Cynthia, and then to the door, I decided to ask. “What happened with Cedric?”

  Finally, Cynthia started to smile, “When my father said all of that… Cedric… well, Cedric hit him. He stayed behind… after I left.” She was starting to be able to speak more easily now, which was surely a good sign.

  Denise started laughing suddenly, grinning widely. “Oh, I wish I had been there to see that.” Picking the girl up off her lap, she sat her down between the two of us. “Now, before we get started on the adventure, there’s some stuff we need to talk about to make sure you understand. Is that alright?”

  Cynthia nodded her head slightly, looking to the two of us, so I continued where Denise left off. “Every now and then, we’ll be visiting the demon realm. You already met Lilith, so that shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

  “Yeah… that’s fine. She was pretty nice.” Cynthia smiled a bit wider to us.

  “Also, we might have said this before, but we aren’t looking for big action right away. Our first goal is to learn more about this world, and at the same time we’ll keep training you until you reach our level. We’ve already encountered more than we could handle once before, so we want to make sure we are ready before something like that happens again.”

  “Alright… I understand. How much more do I have to go before I’m on the same level as you two..?”

  Opening up the various character windows, I saw that she was level ninety, while Denise and I were each just over two hundred. “You’re almost halfway there. For the next couple of days, I have to do some training myself, so Denise will be in charge of helping you.” Smirking to her, I added, “I’m dueling the leader of the Eternal Brigade before we leave town, so I need to make sure I’m ready.”

  “R-right… Thank you again… for everything. You really didn’t have to do all of this for me…”

  “Well, actually we kind of did. That’s another thing, when we came to this city, I asked Denise to look for a suitable third member for our team. Since we can’t travel at the speed of other foreigners, we needed a native. We also needed someone who wanted to become stronger, but didn’t want to brag about it. After all, we have a few things that we need to keep secret.” I smiled to Denise, and she picked up the explanation from there.

  “So he had me look for people that weren’t very strong, but kept trying anyways. There weren’t very many people that seemed suitable, really just three in the end. The first was a guy that looked like he was from a noble family, so he would probably have a hard time keeping a secret. The other was a girl that seemed alright until we approached her, and then got an attitude with us. Finally, there was you.”

  To finish things off, I reached my hand up to pat Cynthia’s head. “So if anything, we should be thanking you for being nice, despite how your father treated you.”

  “Ah… alright.” She nodded her head, looking to the two of us. “You know, it kind of ruins a girl’s mood when she hears she was picked for a reason like that, and not because she was special.” Despite her words, Cynthia laughed softly. “But thanks for being honest? I guess I can understand why you wanted someone weak like I was. Better to build up a foundation, right?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at her logic. “Well, actually it was because people who were struggling to gain strength like that didn’t seem as likely to brag if they got it. But I like your reason better, so we’ll stick with that.”

  Cynthia blushed a bit, but nodded again. “Okay… well, I know you can make money… And about the demons… what other secrets am I supposed to keep..?”

  Denise looked up to me, and smiled, so I went ahead to tell her the rest. “Well, I’m the first foreigner to ever become a mage, and I’d like that to be kept secret for now. Also, when I said that we encountered something we couldn’t handle, I mean the two of us were killed. I worked with Levy to make a ritual that brought Denise back, but she’s not really human anymore. We don’t know what race she is, but it’s close enough to pass for human at a glance.”

  “Wow… you really did create resurrection magic? I thought only angels could bring people back from the dead?”

  Raising my eyebrows, I looked at Cynthia. Was she not listening when I explained it to Kirasami? “Angels can’t do it. I heard from a very reliable source that resurrection magic didn’t exist in this world.” If it did, that god would have been able to do it, but he said it was impossible with this world’s magic at the time.

  “So what… that’s another of their lies?” Cynthia’s brows knitted together as she thought of that, and sighed. “I’ve really got to forget everything I thought I knew about the world when I’
m with you, don’t I?”

  I grinned, patting her shoulder. “Isn’t that half of the fun?” After hearing my reply, the three of us laughed together. “If you want, you could probably go train for a little while today still. I’ve got to work on my own magic, so I’ll be staying here until tonight.”

  “You said I only grow stronger that fast when you are around, right? Does that mean it will be like it was before if I train without you?” She seemed a bit worried when she asked, so I shook my head.

  “No, there was something else that was blocking your growth until a certain point, but you pushed past it. You’d grow at a more normal rate now even if I wasn’t there. It just won’t be the monstrous growth rate you experienced the last couple days.”

  Satisfied with my words, she smiled to me. “Then… Denise? Would you mind training me for a little while? Even if I don’t get much stronger… I need more experience fighting.”

  “Sure, kid. Let’s go and leave Jin to do his boring magic training.” Denise winked to me, and then carried Cynthia out, almost dragging her from the room.

  Okay, back to the quiet… Well, not quite. I should check in with Levy. Forgot to exchange notes with her on Origin magic when she came here. Levy was technically in another dimension, so in order to contact her I had to either summon a Hellgate, or use the full chant for the Message spell. “Wings of light, signs of beginning, may my voice reach to the farthest corner.”

  “Hey, Jin, that you?” As soon as the spell connected, I heard a happy reply from the demoness on the other end.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Wanted to see if you had made any progress with Origin Magic yet. We forgot to exchange notes on that when you were here before.”

  “Oh! Right, sorry. We were meeting Cynthia and it completely slipped my mind. So far, I’ve figured out how to make baby monsters, and imp gems.”

  “Imp gems? I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.”

  “You haven’t? You know how all demons start out as imps, right? Well, before we become an imp, we spend a bit of time as a crystal, called an imp gem. It’s basically the infant form of a demon, I guess.”

  Hearing her progress, I allowed myself a small smile. “So you’ve learned how to make baby monsters, then? That’s interesting.”

  Levy let out a sigh on the other end of the call. “Yeah, well, I don’t have any aging magic so they are stuck as babies. I’d have to raise them the hard way for them to be any use.”

  “True, I suppose that would be a problem. On my end, I made a more advanced item creation spell that allows more detail. I tested it earlier, and I can make Mana Stones using this method, so that might be helpful for you.”

  “Mana Stones, huh? Those are actually pretty common in Hell, but I’ve heard they are pretty rare in the human world?”

  Common in Hell? Well.. they are formed near concentrations of magic, and Hell is a dimension created by magic, so I guess it makes sense. That would explain why it was so easy to find the minerals to paint the statue. “Yeah, they are. I’m hoping that if I can develop it into an even stronger spell, I can make magic items.”

  “You’re an enchanter anyways, so why do you need a more powerful spell just to save you that extra step? I’ve seen you work, and you can create spell effects quickly.”

  “Okay.. good point. I guess my next step then is to come up with an item I’ve been wanting for a while. Something to let me store things without weighing me down.”

  Levy paused at that. Eventually, she spoke up, her voice worried. “You aren’t thinking about using World Creation, are you? You know what mom said…”

  “No, not that. It would be a much, much lesser effect. Basically create just enough space to store an item, and then stop. I’ll just have to figure out how to do that eventually. In the meantime, mind copying down your monster creation spell to show me next time we meet up? I might have an idea how to age them.”

  “Really? Sure! I’ll write it down for you. Also, so far I’ve only been able to make creatures that actually exist. I’m still testing to find a way to make my own creations.”

  “You’ve not had a lot of time, so just making what you have is already a good achievement. And you were close to evolving again, you said. After you do, let me know and I’ll go visit you.”

  “Will do. I’m looking forward to seeing what I become, too! By the way, your friend from earlier really was close to evolving. Just an hour or so after we got back he changed into a Shade Fiend. He was pretty excited about that, and is still training now.”

  “That’s good to know. I figured Kirasami wouldn’t take too long, since he kept his magic abilities. I’m interested in seeing what he turns into as well.”

  With that, we ended the call, and I got back to my own training. For the most part, I was simply mass producing Mana Stones. Each one I gave a different spell from my list, and once that ran out, I started grouping together some random runes into stones and seeing if they would react.

  Apparently, to turn a gem into a Mana Stone, the runes have to line up in the proper patterns to make the spell. The only thing that the stone itself fills in is the diagram after the runes are assembled. Given that, I made twenty gems before I managed to get a Mana Stone. Incidentally, the color of the gem changes depending on the runes inside of it.

  This method of making a spell is really inefficient. Normally it takes me maybe ten minutes to come up with a complex one, but with this, I had to burn through nearly a full hour. Let’s see what I got, though…

  Lifting the stone up, I inspected it carefully. It was a yellow topaz, because I put multiple lightning runes in it. After studying the Lightning Stone for a while, I became able to understand how the spell worked. By infusing the caster’s body in lightning, it added both a damaging shield and a massive speed boost.

  Lightning Aura has been added to your Spell List

  Magical Knowledge has increased to 27

  I blinked a bit while looking at the message. Didn’t I study those other two Mana Stones before, as well? Did I just not study them long enough? Though, the extra level was nice. While mass producing Mana Stones, I had received four more levels in Origin Magic, bringing it up to sixteen.

  Maybe I should make a couple new spells? But what would be good? I sat down on the bed, thinking about what kind of spells I could need that I would use frequently. I didn’t want to just make something that I would just use once, but rather something I could master.

  In the end, there was only one spell that came to mind, and it was another divination spell. Though, this one was closer to Scan than the others that I had made. Pulling out a piece of paper, I began drawing out the lines of runes that would become this spell. The spell I was making had two steps, analyze and inform. The analyze step would do just as it says, analyzing a target to determine their ability. Then the inform step would give me that information.

  Read Talent has been added to your Spell List

  Okay…. so how do I test this out? I looked out the window, glancing around to try and find anyone that seemed like a good subject. Once I spotted a passing guard, I smiled and opened my grimoire to retrieve the spell. “Eyes of the soul, find the light that transcends wisdom.” I’m not quite sure what I had expected the spell to do, but I was pleasantly surprised with the result.

  Name: Hallon Farris

  Race: Human

  Title: Shattered Realm Guard

  Fame: 30

  Gild: 4222

  Level: 48

  Health: 610

  Mana: 0

  Strength:90

  Agility: 32

  Endurance: 130

  Wisdom: 30

  Intelligence: 20

  Luck: 2

  Attack: 10 + 81

  Defense: 10 + 108.5

  Talent: Swordsmanship 18, Heavy Armor 10, Shield 10, Merchant 2, Guardian 8

  Divination has increased to 5

  Nice, so I can read someone’s character information, now? I recalled Kirasami having an ability like
this, but he said he had to study a target for a while to do it. That would probably be something from the Stealth talent, unless there is a Stalking one. Which would mean this spell is a magic shortcut for that.

  Looking at his talents, I smiled a bit seeing Guardian listed. “That should be good for a warrior to have, but we won’t be able to train it like we have been, if it’s a team skill.” I decided that I should get back to my own training, after I spent some of my points I had accumulated so far.

  Your Agility has increased to 200, you will be granted a new Agility-related Talent based on your current abilities and style of activity.

  New Talent Unlocked!