Explorer of Edregon

With his friends watching over him and ensuring none of those creepy eels would attack him while he was distracted, Vin wanted nothing more than to dive into Introspection and get to work on trying to put together his newest spell.

However, there was something he needed to take care of before that.

Level 45 means another passive point, after all this time, he thought, grinning at the gleaming point in his interface. Alright, System, let’s see what you have for me, shall we?

Constructing the runic formations for new spells was beyond difficult, as he well knew from the many repeated instances of blowing himself up during his attempts to learn Fireball. If there was even the slightest chance one of the System’s offered passive might make doing so easier, he’d be a fool not to take it. Crossing his fingers, he opened the available passives, skimming through the list as he hunted for one particular passive among the others.

Jackpot!

There, right in the center of the list, was a brand-new passive that hadn’t existed for him back at level 35, just ripe for the taking. It even had a straightforward name that didn’t leave any room for misinterpretation.

Spell Builder

Seeing as he’d put together not one, or two, but three new spells at this point, he wasn’t surprised to see the passive waiting for him, but he still couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief as he spotted it. Vin barely even hesitated before making his choice, only taking the time to give the full list a once over to ensure he wasn’t missing anything more important. There were one or two passives that looked like they were related to epic monsters in some fashion, but he was far more interested in crafting new spells.

Unchanging Affinity was still on his list, but he barely even spared a glance for the passive he'd debated taking back at level 35. His focus and the number of affinities he'd discovered had only grown since then, meaning he had so many spell slots to fill before he risked anything like an affinity that it simply wasn't worth taking the passive any more. Just as he told himself the last time, if it truly became an issue down the road, he could always select the passive when he received his next passive point in another ten levels.

“Alright, let’s see what you can do,” he muttered after selecting Spell Builder, eagerly slipping into Introspection and getting to work.

First, before he could even start trying to craft his new spell, he needed to figure out what runic formations could even feasibly be merged together. He had the feeling one day he’d be able to fully design his own spells from the ground up, but that day was far, far from today. For now, he was stuck building off of runic formations he already knew, and merging them together to create entirely new effects.

A skill he was more than happy to have.

“I need to come up with some method of breathing underwater,” he muttered to himself, alone in his personal mana void. “What do we have that might work?”

The first choice was obvious. If he needed to get air underwater, then Create Air was almost certainly going to be the foundation for his new spell. The only tricky thing was how he was going to go about making the spell function without popping his own lungs in the process.

“If I fill them up with too much air, I’ll die,” he muttered, wondering what to try combining the spell with. Sense Air seemed like a viable pick in that case, as he figured he could use it to monitor the amount of air in his lungs and ensure he didn’t pop himself like an overinflated balloon. But when he imagined trying to combine the two runic formations into a spell to serve his current purpose, his Spell Weaver title refused to activate, meaning he didn’t have a winning combination.

“Alright, first idea is a miss… What about Create Air and… Decay?”

Decay was an interesting choice, as he wasn’t exactly a huge fan of the thought of using death magic on himself. That said, the thought of using Decay to potentially get rid of the bad air in his lungs, before refilling them with good, oxygen-rich air via Create Air sounded like it might work. Yet again, Spell Weaver refused to activate, and he clicked his tongue.

He ran down a list of spell combinations that might work, growing increasingly annoyed as each and every one seemed to fail his Spell Weaver title’s test.

Sense Air and Neutralize Poison, to get rid of the carbon dioxide in his lungs.

Create Air and Redirect Gravity, to physically pull the bad air out of his lungs.

He even contemplated using Create Cloud and Whispering Wind in some crazy attempt at physically filling his lungs with a cloud that continuously produced fresh air for him. It wasn’t until he’d exhausted just about all his original ideas and was just bouncing down his spell list that Spell Weaver suddenly kicked on, startling him and making him stare at his two options in shock.

“Create Air and… Replenish!” In hindsight, the combination was so obvious that Vin couldn’t help but smack himself. Without his Spell Weaver title, he never would have thought about combining the two spells, however, as Replenish was arguably the least-used spell in his entire magical arsenal.

Unlawfully taken from NovelFire, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Replenish was one of the very first spells he’d ever learned, way back when he was still brand-new to magic and eager to get his hands on any and all spells available to him. He hadn’t even been aware of the issues of developing mana affinities and the like back then, he’d simply begged Shia to give him easy runic formations to learn, and she had happily done so. It was a nature spell designed around encouraging budding plants to produce missing things like berries or fruits. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as Shia’s Rapid Growth, but Vin had used it a small handful of times throughout their travels when he was feeling a tad peckish and wanted to devour an entire bush’s worth of berries.

Replenish makes so much sense… It should have some runes I can use to make the air within my lungs constantly replenish itself.

Now that he finally had his building blocks picked out, it was time to see just how much his new Spell Builder passive would help him when it came to putting the pieces together. The other spells he’d created at this point, Fireball, Self Destruct, and Binding, had all utilized a tier 2 spell in their construction. Seeing as he was working with nothing more complicated than tier 1 spells this time, he had high hopes that the process would be far easier.

Whipping together the runic formations for Create Air and Replenish, Vin got to work. Going over the countless tiny runes contained within each formation with a fine tooth comb, he carefully picked out what he wanted and what he didn’t, tweaking certain bits here and there and dismissing other portions entirely. Almost immediately, he felt his new passive kick into gear, and he grinned at the realization of what it did.

Spell Builder helped warn him when he was about to attempt to merge the runic formations in a way that wouldn’t work. Rather than resulting in a minor runic backlash, it practically highlighted the error for him, saving him the hassle of suffering the backlash and having to start all over from scratch again. That said, Vin quickly discovered the passive did not prevent him from making mistakes that would result in major, potentially lethal runic backlashes, as he barely managed to catch himself in time before he tweaked a rune involving pressure that he was pretty certain would have made his lungs collapse in on themselves as soon as the spell was cast.

Okay… Spell Builder irons out the edges of my work, saving me from minor backlashes and highlighting areas where I can improve them. It’s a fantastic teaching aid and will save me tons of time, even if it won’t save me from straight up killing myself if I bite off more than I can chew. But that’s alright, that’s what my divine boon is for!

Vin was beyond pleased with his newest passive, and even as he continued working on his latest creation, his mind was awhirl with other potential combinations to try throwing together down the line. No longer was he stuck hunting down artifacts or searching for magical teachers in order to find new spells. No, he was quickly assembling all the tools and knowledge he needed to make his own spells, and his creativity was the limit when it came to what he might be able to put together!

With his friends guarding his body, Vin hadn’t bothered to use his Create Cloud trick to give himself a time limit or anything. He tirelessly worked away at his newest creation, relying on Spell Builder and his own ever-growing knowledge of runes and runic formations to ensure he didn’t make any massive errors. And in what felt like no time at all, he’d done it.

New spell learned! Tier 2 Air Spell (Replenishing Breath). 10,000 exp gained.

“Hell yeah!” he laughed, jumping to his feet and throwing his hands up. “I did it guys, I got the spell! And it only took me…” Vin paused, his eyes going wide as he looked around. The sun wasn’t setting as he’d expected… it was rising, already almost to midday.

“A little under a day,” Shia chuckled, slowly roasting one of the eel monsters over an open flame as she grinned at him. It appeared as though she'd helped herself to his fire-knife while he was busy, no doubt not wanting to try to figure out how to start an actual campfire with the lack of gravity. “I take it you pulled it off?”

“Of course… But why didn’t anyone wake me up? I thought if it was taking too long we were going to take the long way home!”

“Well, the whole point in rushing home was we didn’t want Lumel to worry,” Scule said, popping up onto Shia’s shoulder and tossing what looked like a handful of salt down onto the smoking eel. Most of the salt bounced off and drifted around aimlessly, but at least a few pieces stuck to the eel. “But then we figured giving you the chance to actually put together some sort of ‘breathe underwater’ spell would more than make up for any worry us staying out an extra day might have given her. I imagine she’ll be quite excited when you reveal that one!”

“I’m sorry, guys, you didn’t have to wait around doing nothing just on my behalf,” Vin said as he looked around. “Is Alka still within the dungeon?”

“She pokes her head out every so often to relay her findings and let us know she’s not tied up again, but yeah, she’s still in there,” Shia snorted. “Don’t worry about her, she’s been having a ball. You did miss a rather cute conversation we had with Epli last night, however.”

“I still can’t get used to talking to a taller version of myself,” Scule grumbled. “But yeah, Epli’s alright. The schlime confirmed it was the one who asked Alka to take it away from its fragment, not like we thought Alka actually kidnapped it or anything. We did learn that apparently Alka’s mana tastes much better than whatever energy they were getting from those constant lightning strikes, so that was interesting.”

“I will say, I think Alka’s got some other secret that Epli’s privy too that she doesn’t want us to know,” Shia said, frowning at the thought. “At one point, the schlime turned to look at Alka, as if asking if she should keep something to herself before speaking. It’s actually pretty comical, the schlime can’t subtly glance at anyone because its shape changes to match whoever it’s currently looking at.”

“That does sound pretty funny,” Vin admitted. “What did you ask that made her look toward Alka?”

“I just asked it if it was taking care of Alka and how the ‘big scary golem’ was doing,” Shia shrugged. “After glancing at Alka, Epli just said, ‘yes,’ and ‘fine.’”

“Quite eloquent, those schlimes,” Scule joked, wafting the air above the eel toward his nose. “Lunch is just about ready. What do you guys say we dig in, find Alka, and finally make our way back to Terra? I could use a bit of time to unwind and mess around with my poisons after all this. And the lack of gravity has gotten a bit old, if I'm being honest.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Vin said, sitting back down and licking his lips at the smell of salted eel monster. He briefly wondered what additional secret Alka and Epli were keeping from them, before deciding they should back off a bit and give Alka her space. It was clear the Slayer valued her privacy, and he didn’t want to risk upsetting her again so soon.

They'd just have to hope that she’d choose to confide in them if whatever it was ever became relevant.