Ar'Kendrithyst

Erick met his new bodyguard in the morning on the front porch. His third story front porch. Aside from that awkward start, Poi was a very proper bluescale dragonkin, who was thereafter always, at most, 15 feet away from Erick at all times. With a straight back and no-nonsense attitude, Erick immediately tried to get Poi to smile, or joke, or talk, or anything, except stand at the side like a monolith carved out of sapphire, dressed up like a city guard.

Aside from that, his first day after calling it quits as a teacher was very boring. He mostly stayed inside the apartment and read Ulrick Ulrick’s book on Ancient Script for the Beginner Enchanter. There was some aura practice on the roof, but he didn’t want to wear himself out, so he kept it to one iteration.

He definitely did not miss his date with the farms. He showed up for that appointment an hour ahead of schedule. They were more or less ready for him by then, so Valok told him to let loose, and he did. He cast [Call Lightning] three times in a row. By the third casting, the rain was coming down slightly stronger than before. Maybe twice as hard? The rain was still pretty gentle, but now it came down like a proper Summer shower. Valok had planned on 4 or 5 castings, but the revelation of harder rain by cast 3 meant that Erick was done for the day.

On the way back to the Sewerhouse, Erick stopped at the market to buy some produce from several farmers, but when he went to pay, many of them dropped their prices in half. One nice older greyscale even gave him a bag of not-zucchini for free. Erick paid for the bag, though. The bag was nice, tough canvas. He made a point to overpay on that, and the man just smiled.

Taking mental stock of all the items Erick had ever bought in Spur that included canvas bags, maybe he needed to start carrying around two or three in his shoulderbag at all times.

And then he was home! He cooked dinner for himself and Al one night, and then Al cooked dinner the next. And then the process repeated. Personal [Ward] in the morning, study the Ancient Script book, a bit of aura practice, and then a stop at the farm for some afternoon rains. Cap it all off with dinner with Al, who had been doing his own things all day, too. He was still remaking the sewers and setting the Human District to rights.

The Sewerhouse settling pools were still settling, so that job was still at least 15 days away, and probably more like 20. As it was, Erick was involved in a whole lot of nothing except raising his various skills; mostly numerically, in the form of experience.

Jane would have laughed at him and called it a ‘training montage’ if she was here. She was still in the Crystal Desert, though, still hunting crystal mimics and the occasional rock elemental with Savral and his team, constantly on the lookout for crystal slimes. But thanks to Al having [Telepathy], Erick was able to check in with Jane at night and hear all about her days, while Al checked in with Savral. Erick put [Telepathy] on the short list of spells to get, but [Telepathy] was one of the restricted-by-law skills, because it affected the mind. He could buy it, sure, it was right there in the Script for 1 point, but he probably shouldn’t, not right now.

Jane had a bit of a big revelation though. Jane and Erick had apparently encountered a crystal slime on the trek to Spur, all those tendays ago. Erick remembered now; it was that jelly-like thing that had been nestled at the base of a crystal agave. All crystal slimes were over level 50, but they could sense danger for miles around, so finding one before it left the area was the only hard part. If only they had killed it, which was supposed to be really easy, they would have gotten almost 1.8 billion experience split between the two of them.

That’s when the jokes started. Jane and Erick encountering a crystal slime and not knowing the crystal slime for what it was, was a pretty common occurrence. No one hunted for a crystal slime and then actually got one, but everyone knew a precocious neighbor child who told stories of playing with a crystal slime. Or some rookie adventurer, running from a crystal mimic only to fall on a crystal slime, killing it, then immediately buying up to Scion of Strength. Or someone dying of thirst in the Crystal Forest, only to be led to water by a crystal slime.

Erick started a little argument about killing something that was obviously a good monster, but Al and Savral shut that down pretty hard. ‘There are no good monsters, don’t fool yourself.’ Slimes are as neutral of an existence as possible in the monster kingdom, but they’re mindless, and if one of them found you wounded and unable to move off the ground, there was an even chance of it accidentally smothering you as leaving you alone.

Aside from hearing about Jane’s adventures, Erick didn’t experience much of life outside of his apartment and the Farmer’s Market over the next few days. Al had suggested he lay low for a while, but that was already Erick’s plan. Poi seemed to be fine with guarding Erick in Erick’s apartment, but Erick didn’t really know how Poi felt about anything. The man was unnaturally silent.

So, for three days, Erick stayed away from the Mage’s Guild, generally in the apartment, save for trips to the farms. [Call Lightning] gained 1500 experience a day, since Valok wanted him to cast it three times in a row each time. [Ward] leveled, too, since he was putting on a 510 mana personal [Ward] every day, but the experience gained was counted without Clarity, which had leveled to 10. So every 510 point [Ward] gained him 1020 [Ward] experience. [Ward]’s blue box was getting bigger with every level, but it was only level 9.

Meditation leveled to X in all that casting. That skill read much cleaner, now.

Today was the fourth day since he had given his last lecture and then hidden away from most of Mage society. This afternoon he would return to the Mage Guild, but not before he finished up a few other tasks. One of the tasks he had finished yesterday was reading the Ancient Script book from Ulrick Ulrick, and learning the language. He could now comfortably read and write in Ancient Script. With a little bit of conversing with Al, he could even speak the language. Ancient Script sounded very beep-boopy crick-cracky when Erick spoke it. He didn’t like how it sounded, but it flowed so easily into itself that rhyming was rather simple.

Erick thought that maybe that ability to rhyme was why Ancient Script was widespread in enchanting. Al did not believe that for one second, but it was hard to argue with Erick’s creation of a new spell in Ecks.

When Erick tried to read another one of Al’s language books, it might as well have been Mandarin. [Language Acquisition] had run its course. He’d have to learn new languages the hard way, from now on. Or, he could pay Irogh 1000G and get the buff reapplied.

As for his own magic, Erick wasn’t anywhere near rank 10 with anything and thus able to actually make a real aura skill, but he was plodding forward, making progress. Right now, he was up on the roof of the Sewerhouse, preparing to put in more steps toward that goal.

The sun shone down upon Erick and the rest of Spur. Erick sat on a small jut of stone atop the center of the Sewerhouse. There were no obstacles around him; Al had [Stoneshape]d the roof mostly flat, ridding the space of any evidence there was ever a party up here. Poi waited to the side, as usual, well out of Erick’s area of effect.

Erick centered himself, activating Meditation and preparing a chain of mana connecting three of his skills, to twist what was to come into something else.

Aurify.

Altering: Bludgeoning.

[Force Shrapnel].

Orbs of hardened white mana erupted from Erick, like a hundred billiard balls, all going every direction, spaking and cracking against the stone and each other as they swirled around Erick in a mockery of orbital physics. They crashed in and out, but not against him; this was his aura after all. Erick held his mana open wide, feeding the aura. He could not sustain it for long, only 4 minutes without Meditation, and an extra 30 seconds with Meditation. And that was fine, because 4:30 was already near his limit of personal focus; it was hard to maintain all these spell effects at once.

If his Force Shrapnel was level 10, he could create an actual [Force Shrapnel Aura: Bludgeoning], and not have the spell demand his total concentration. But [Force Shrapnel] wasn’t 10. None of his spells were level 10. [Call Lightning] was close, but it was not there. Not yet.

Erick’s mana gave out. The billiard ball aura vanished like so much spent mana.

He relaxed into the sun, leaning backward, breathing. Just, breathing.

And there’s another 1350ish exp for a few more spells...

Status.

As he stared at his status screen, part of him held a deep regret for not recognizing and killing that crystal slime. His experience had grown, for sure, but it hadn’t noticeably grown since the battle with the shadowcats. Erick was going to be 19 for a very, very long time.