Fortunately for Kaltyr, her Enchanting skill leveled up to 2 after enchanting both her shirt and cargo pants. With the level-up, she immediately confirmed a few things: that her identification range changed to a maximum of two meters, and the properties of her primary weapon.
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Enchantment Slots Maximum capacity: 1 Decent-quality and 1 Inferior-quality — [1 Decent-quality Water Affinity] Properties: – +9% water damage in water, natural rain, during Blue Hours, and within holy spaces of the Water God — [Empty] |
The girl was disappointed by how many goo her primary weapon was capable of housing even if that was the most of any of her spears, but ecstatic at the enchantment property. It was another one that could take effect during the Blue Hours and in water, giving her much more incentive to be more combatively active during said time period, and increasing her odds of survival within bodies of water. All that Kaltyr could think to wish for was that her spear’s next enchantment was similar, but she kept her expectations reasonable. Even if the odds of gaining such enchantment properties wasn’t as low as she initially expected, she had no doubt that her luck would eventually run out.
A possible example of Lady Luck forsaking her was the fact that she was all out of phantasmal goo and could not enchant anything else, which flipped a switch in the lass’s mind: leisure time was over, and she had to return to the bloody grind of leveling her Life and skill levels. With a solemn, determined look, Kaltyr gathered her stuff—including the deerskin string bag, rations, the bag of water, and her weapons. She stepped out into the forest and traveled for a while in a new direction, entering the untouched parts of the forest around her that she hadn’t gotten to yet.
She revealed her position by noisily stomping on every branch, passing through every small bush, and blasting her powerful aura in all directions by channeling Body Mana Reinforcement and Item Mana Infusion as much as she could at a rate that would let her fight a few battles before needing to recharge her energy stores. When she fought, she didn’t immediately overwhelm her enemies, instead taking the time to practice her spear arts through live combat. She cast the two spell skills she knew as often as she could, becoming accustomed to channeling both internal and external skills simultaneously. It was rough, and she experienced backlash once from straining her control over the energy, but it was efficient. Several skills leveled up at least once during combat, including her spell skills Crude Mana Bolt and Bubble Pain Splash. She didn’t think she’d ever use Crude Mana Bolt in an actual battle where she fought for her life because she chose to travel the road of Internal Mana Manipulation, but the practice was worth it, since effectively controlling her mana was of considerable importance. Several times during combat, including when she fought the family of deer, her concentration was shaken after taking damage, which could have cost her life. Control over her mana was paramount.
Skewering beasts with her beautiful, handmade spear—whose blue ribbons engraved into its surface shone magnificently under the sunlight—whilst being intoxicated by the enriching, earthy smell of the forest, had Kaltyr in her most peaceful mental state yet. She slowly came to forget about the anxiety and fear brought by her amnesia, cast away the addictive exhilaration that came with seeing her skills improve, and simply existed as a hunter. The hunter allowed the delightfully sweet perfumes of forest flowers to guide her nose while listening to the echoes of the wind whisper in her ears as she ran. When she happened upon a spot where a gap in the canopy shined a curtain of radiant light beams, she temporarily bid farewell to the whispers so that she could stand still beneath the sky, allowing the mysteriously-absent sun’s rays warm her skin before returning to her hunt. When she encountered a beast whose ferocity led it to choose her as an opponent, she accepted its invitation to dance with open arms. Her feet glided atop the uneven dirt floor as though it were a stage, and she bounced lively from foot to foot, capering as she blocked slashes and dodged bites, even humming along to an invisible tune while her hands subtly angled her spear just right to slay her opponent in a single strike when she got bored of playing with it.
Even when she expended all of her mana and needed to absorb ambient magical essence, she calmly seated herself in the lotus position, spear lying in her lap, and took what she needed from the world. Multiple beasts sought to take advantage of her vulnerable state, but the hunter never stopped watching her surroundings. When required, she instantly armed herself with the spear, reinforced herself and the weapon, then ended the attacker before resuming her meditation.
Hours passed, the sky shifted colors until it was blue, and the hunter’s bag was so full of corpses that she was forced to carry many under her arms, so she began the trek back to her territory. While a passionate ballad full of energy and excitement had played in her mind when she hunted, now a soft, slow, soothing melody relaxed her and dispelled her heartfelt bloodlust. She walked absentmindedly within Stealth Mode, somewhat sure that she headed in the right direction, but didn’t care enough to really check. Her eyes fogged over as the calls of forest creatures, song of the wind, and the sound of her own shuffling steps through the undergrowth lulled her senses. Kaltyr’s mind entered an almost blank state as she lazily put one foot in front of the other, not necessarily slow, but definitely not fast. She ambled so peacefully that she didn’t even bother to push away, walk around, or duck under some branches, just letting them drag across her face and torso as she pondered over nothing, saw nothing, and became nothing. The girl’s mental state would have been the end of her had she not been stealthed, because any beast could land a fatal strike on her at the time, but no beast in the area came close to dispelling her spiritual invisibility. She even trudged past a sleeping wolf, dispelled its Stealth Mode, caused it to jump to its feet in fright, and went on by without it sensing the slightest bit of her presence.
Yet, her enlightened state could not last forever, and the mental pinging of her Stealth skill’s level raising eventually nudged her out of it. But rather than panic and wonder what the hell just happened…Kaltyr merely smiled and continued walking. The sky was purple by the time she “awoke” from her special state of mind, but she felt no need to hurry. Everything was great. Rushing was pointless. Time was abundant. Relaxation was necessary.
……
The dark clouds looming above rendered the red backdrop that was the sky to the role of a cuckold. No longer was the earth’s ceiling, despite it being a new dawn, a bright hue. The fluffy pillows of the sky from before were replaced with menacing storm clouds that threatened torrential downpours onto all those beneath them. In fact, said storm did not merely threaten, but made good on its promise. Yet it was not sudden in the least, as they tended to be. For half a week did the tempest growl and moan, gathering itself and growing in might before it unleashed its pent-up fury and wrath upon the denizens of the forest it took shape over. The storm accompanied its scattered waters with violent gales and arrows of lightning, uprooting trees and striking others down.
But that was the night before, and a new morn since rose under more peaceful conditions. While the wet, woodland-scented breeze still often picked up enough in speed to remind the forest creatures of the mighty Child of Nature above, the environment suffered devastation no longer. The air was moist, and droplets remained as the downpour’s aftermath, leaving no surface uncovered. A fog of cold serenity hovered over the biome, seemingly dampening all sound and color while simultaneously leaving everything in peace. The forest inhabitants moved more lazily, without purpose, either calmed by the dampening haze or taking advantage of the hushed, soothing atmosphere to get more sleep.
One such creature was a small girl named Kaltyr, who slept soundly, and stealthed, beneath her lean-to, undisturbed by the outside elements.
Kind of.
Moisture collected on the small branch of one of the sticks used to build her small dwelling until a droplet was formed, and adhesion could no longer contest against gravity. Soundlessly, the water drop fell from the slanted ceiling of Kaltyr’s lean-to until it landed with a nigh inaudible splut. In her eye. The girl twitched at the sudden contact until her arm raised to wipe her face, and she yawned. It was a new day. A special day.
Kaltyr pushed herself up with her elbows, slowly recalling the memories of the night before with a smile. She sat up in the lotus position, her hair brushing against the top of her lean-to. Her body was damp with water, her clothes squishing with every movement. While the lean-to mostly sheltered her from the breeze and the occasional light rain that came after the downpour, the structure did nothing to keep her dry during the storm’s peak.
Mostly because she didn’t hide beneath her hovel at all during it. When the sky’s tears began scattering themselves across the land the night before, Kaltyr immediately gathered her necessary equipment—mainly her spear—and sinisterly laughed at the heavens before plunging herself into the forest’s depths, unconcerned by the lack of sunlight. She wholly felt akin to a creature of the night as she fought the storm’s buffeting gusts of wind and rain, hunting for a challenge. The lass had already determined days prior that when the conditions of her gear’s enchantments were met, she would become even more powerful. However, she could really only test one of the conditions—that she be in water. She waded into the nearby river until she felt the noticeable change in speed granted by her clothing, recording in her guidebook and memory that only a fourth of her body needed to be submerged for them to activate…but only if the equipment with the enchantments were infused. She spent a long time swimming about randomly, waiting for that boost in speed to suddenly activate, before realizing that the enchantment didn’t come for free even after spending phantasmal goo. Mana was spent through infusing the enchanted equipment to trigger the properties. Thankfully, not a staggering amount. Additionally, when she activated her enchantments, a strange pressure befell her meridians and soul, making the channeling of mana more difficult, but not painful or uncomfortable in any other way.
Thus, when the sky released its water-affinity attack against the ground below, Kaltyr wasted no time before ascertaining whether the effects of her enchantments were lies—they weren’t. The girl felt tangible differences in her strength and speed under the rain, and fueled by her newfound power, hunted many more beasts that were displaced from their usual routines by nature’s wrath. Even without the enchantments she would have slaughtered her foes, but with them, Kaltyr felt invincible, and even took on several packs of beasts one after the other.
Finished reminiscing about the night’s events, Kaltyr turned her attention to the few sounds she consistently heard since awakening, which appeared to originate from…within the clearing. Eyes squinted in suspicion, she grabbed her spear—which she kept beside her while she slept—and crawled out from under the lean-to. She stepped out into a world of fresh forest scent, fog, and most of all: sparkles, as everything, not just the grass, was covered in dew that reflected light quite similarly to gemstones.
But the beautiful scenery was not enough to stop Kaltyr from beginning to boil with rage, because surrounding her storage lean-to was an entire colony of ravenous rabbits nomming on her collection of corpses—each beast bigger than her head. It was as she feared: her clearing’s invisible barrier keeping beasts out had disappeared. Her only safe zone in the world was no longer safe.
However, the girl neither cursed The System nor froze in fear. In fact, she gave a quick whispered prayer to The System in thanks for bestowing upon her the safe zone at all and having it last an entire week. And she remained stoic because she had nothing to fear. Even if her Stealth’s level wasn’t so high compared to her Life Level, Stealth Mode was enough for any creature to make it through the night alive with a little luck. One would normally assume that Kaltyr wouldn’t have such luck on her side due to the piles of corpses she kept around, but they’d be wrong. If anything, those corpses helped hide the girl’s presence, because any beast that came across them would not bother venturing into the “empty” lean-to when there was one full of enough food to last them weeks. Any smart beast would find the food, drag as many corpses away as possible, and only return once their supply ran out, because that was the safest option. No need to stick around and risk being caught with tons of food by their competitors.
However, the colony of rabbits currently munching on her belongings was not “any” beast, but a bunch of beasts. With numbers came power, and the dozen rabbits between Life Levels 1 and 3 had a lot of it. No wonder they dared enter her territory, Kaltyr thought, because there so many of them!
Kaltyr immediately armed herself with three more of the spears lined up against her personal dwelling and picked out targets. Then, with one throw after the other, dew was dyed red with rabbit blood. It was only after the second instakill by spear throw did the rest of the colony react by either reinforcing their bodies and fleeing, or reinforcing their bodies and facing the Life Level 5 opponent suddenly standing over them. Only a couple of the rabbits were smart enough to scamper off, however, and around seven of them remained to fight Kaltyr.
The fierce bunnies released bloodthirsty squeaks and chitters before jumping at the girl, nearly all at once, aiming to bite into her legs with their long, sharp incisors. In response, Kaltyr jumped up and over the fluffy horde, simultaneously slashing down and taking out one of them. Its Life Level 1 mana provided barely any resistance to Kaltyr’s spear as it passed through its spine with ease, quickly putting it out of commission. Then she landed, her feet on the ground again, and sent out a jab at one of the rabbits fast enough to recover from its first failed assault. It didn’t last long either, as even its Life Level 3 mana was forcefully dispelled long enough by the girl’s infused speartip for it to pass through the beast’s skull.
Kaltyr backstepped and deflected rabbit charges with the butt of her spear while the remaining beasts pushed forward, now even more riled up after seeing their companions be slain. The girl’s expression was completely placid as she swiftly spun her spear with experience, knocking aside the big furballs and making time for herself to cast Bubble Pain Splash. When it was complete, Kaltyr held it in front of her face for a few moments longer while she carefully used her mana to cut it in two, attempting to create two smaller Bubble Pain Splash spells from the original.
Then the bubble popped, and insidious mana spilled onto the grass in front of her—another failed experimental test. Since learning the Bubble Pain Splash spell from the phantasmal fish, Kaltyr had experimented with its limits and what she could change about it. She tried meddling with the initial casting process, which resulted in mana backlash every time, before moving on to molding the bubble after the spell was cast, which still ended in failure, like just now. The spell didn’t seem to be capable of sustaining any modifications.
Another couple rabbits fell to Kaltyr’s calculated strikes before the rest of them finally sobered up and realized their place in the hierarchy. However, the girl was merciless and would not let them escape. Those rabbits damaged the corpses she left out to phantabilize into phantasms, which compromised the quality of goo they would eventually drop upon being farmed. After many fish coming back from the dead as floating, spellslinging glass sculptures, it became clear to Kaltyr that the physical condition of the corpse that phantabilized was the determining factor behind whether the phantasmal goo was Inferior, Decent, or Good. It seemed that badly damaged corpses left Inferior goo, normally wounded corpses with few big injuries had bigger chances of dropping Decent jellies, and only bodies with as few injuries as possible could drop Good-quality stuff. She speculated that Perfect goo had the same requirements as Good, but just had a really low chance of dropping. Complete-quality could probably only be obtained from fusion.
Thus, Kaltyr’s rage was not alleviated in the least even after she ran through the last Life Level 3 beast and splattered another low-level bunny with her boot. Given the sizes of her enemies, she would either have to be much more powerful or much more skilled than she currently was to kill them without leaving too much damage. She may have gained several more corpses, but they would all most likely drop Inferior-quality goods.
The girl sighed at the gory mess she made, blood and guts covering large swaths of grass in her clearing while the sources were scattered around, dead or twitching a little before they also met their end. However, besides relocating the rabbit corpses to underneath the storage lean-to, she did nothing to tidy up the place. The next rains would surely clean the place up.
“Speak of the devil…” Kaltyr mumbled to herself as a flash of light illuminated the sky before a peal of thunder crashed into her eardrums, followed by rain. Even the wind chose right then to pick up. The storm was now well rested after its morning slumber, and it was time for another violent tantrum.
The girl’s mood brightened considerably as she sat herself down onto her bed beneath her personal lean-to, pulling up her Status Profile and its relevant branches.
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Name: Kaltyr (Kal-tier) |
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Life Level: 5 |
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Available Stat Points: 0 [Open List to View] |
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Effects: [Peckish] [Open List to View] |
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??? |
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Title: [None] [Open List to View] |
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Class: [None] [Open List to View] |
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Skills [Open List to View] |
Kaltyr managed to increase her Life Level to 5 through countless slaughters the last three days, but something told her that she should be even stronger than that after how many creature she killed. She surmised that the relatively low average Life Level of the beasts were why she was still only at 5, but nothing could be done about that. She came across so few beasts above Life Level 2 that the rabbits from just a bit earlier were the first she’d seen at level 3, while she’d assassinated a level 4 lizard as big as a medium-sized dog the night before during the torrential downpour. The reptile seemed to be relocating from near the river—which was flooding—as it scurried south along the forest floor as fast as it could with Body Mana Reinforcement. It happened to be heading directly toward Kaltyr during one of the few times she was stealthed, so she simply crouched down with her spear pointed toward the beast so that it skewered itself. Between having a spear stuck in its eye and a knife stabbed into its brain through the skull, it didn’t struggle for long, and Kaltyr didn’t even get to know the extents of its power.
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Available Stat Points: 0 |
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External Mana Manipulation: 7 |
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Internal Mana Manipulation: 18 |
Regarding her stat points, Kaltyr remembered to distribute them according to the plan she set for herself—after putting all five points from Life Level 3 into External Mana Manipulation to allow her to cast some spells, she placed four out of five from the next two levels into Internal, creating her current arrangement. At the moment it would look unbalanced to an outsider, but she speculated that with many more level-ups her clever combination of skills and spell skills could make up the difference in power between anyone who solely focused on either path… Though, she needed to find civilization to confirm it. She needed teachers to teach her new and better skills, as well as opponents to compare herself against. Additionally, she didn’t know how “Classes”, “Titles”, or the “???” might play parts in one’s power. It was a possibility, though Kaltyr doubted it, that due to those three variables most people didn’t heavily focus on either of the stats.
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-General Skills- |
-Class Specific Skills- |
??? |
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Magic Sense Lvl: 6 |
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Small Projectile Throwing Arts Lvl: 5 |
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Fishing Lvl: 9 |
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Body Mana Reinforcement Lvl: 6 |
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Item Mana Infusion Lvl: 5 |
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Small Blade Arts Lvl: 4 |
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Stealth Lvl: 8 |
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Stealth Strike Lvl: 6 |
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Grappling Lvl: 4 |
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Sword Arts Lvl: 0 |
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Improvisation Lvl: 6 |
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Whittling Lvl: 4 |
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Spear Arts Lvl: 6 |
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Enchanting Lvl: 6 |
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Large Projectile Throwing Arts Lvl: 4 |
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Cooking Lvl: 2 |
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Bubble Pain Splash Lvl: 3 |
Of course, most of the change to her character sheet came from her list of skills. Magic Sense, Fishing, Body Mana Reinforcement, Item Mana Infusion, Stealth, Enchanting, and Cooking were all the skills she naturally leveled-up through her daily routines. Magic Sense was always on, but Kaltyr made sure to increase the percentage of total magical information she perceived form her surroundings by focusing on the magical layer of the world. The Fishing skill didn’t seem necessary all too necessary for survival, but it was a byproduct of her slaying so many fish to farm phantasms. Body Mana Reinforcement and Item Mana Infusion were skills Kaltyr almost always had in use for the sake of becoming accustomed to their usage and increasing their levels—it was becoming second nature to use magic because of that, like she hoped would happen. Stealth, as well, she used at all times when she wasn’t using mana, like when she slept—it was the easiest of all to level-up.
Enchanting was also a part of her daily routine thanks to the constant supply of fish that phantabilized—for some reason always during the day, not that she was complaining—and most of her gear was enchanted to their max capacities. Her shirt, undershirt, cargo pants, boots individually, socks individually, primary spear, and most of her secondary spears were fully enchanted. She considered enchanting her jacket—which she put aside and forgot about on the very first day—but the forest was often hot enough without that particular article of clothing.
It wasn’t much, in the grand scheme of things, as not a single piece of her equipment was capable of housing anything more than a single Good goo at most, but it was an accomplishment to her. In fact, the only reason not every spear was enchanted was because she put aside a portion of the goo for fusions into higher degrees. So far, she had a single Perfect-quality goo. Granted, since it was made from the phantasms of regular fish it was likely level 1 or 0, but it was still a Perfect goo!
Additionally, not all of her goo stores were of the water affinity—due to her allowing many types of animal corpses to phantabilize—but she solely enchanted her primary equipment with water-affinity goo so that the properties compounded. Kaltyr figured that her gear having a ton of water-related bonuses was the best option because she didn’t have any trouble fighting on dry land without enchantments, thus increasing her survivability odds in water, where she was at more risk, was paramount. However, that wasn’t to say that she wasn’t tempted to use goo of other affinities on her clothes, because the two Life Level 2 deer both dropped Good-quality goo! In fact, Kaltyr tried it…and failed. Despite having no trouble with enchanting stuff before, one detail she had gradually forgotten about reared its ugly head to prevent her from using the earth-affinity goo dropped by the deer—levels. She couldn’t see the levels of either any of her equipment nor her goo because she had no idea how, and Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth never appeared to explain it. However, from all the data she had available to her, Kaltyr could infer the levels of most of her stuff.
The first subjects of inquiry were her primary spear and most of her secondary spears, which she couldn’t identify the enchantment slots of until she raised the Enchanting skill to level 2—thus, they were level 2 items. All of her clothing seemed to be level 0, despite their Good-quality goo capacity, because she could only enchant them with goo obtained from normal fish phantasms. Normal animals, similarly to herself when she first awoke within Manic, seemed to be at Life Level 0, thus her clothing, which couldn’t even accept goo from a level 1 fish, were level 0. And since the Life Level of the creature when it was alive seemed to determine the level of the goo it dropped, it was obvious from there what levels all of her goo were so long as she kept track of what beast they dropped from.
Last of her normal daily routine skills was Cooking, which did not level-up much at all because Kaltyr put minimal effort into preparing her meals. It was boring and she felt it to be a waste of time when all she really needed were the calories. Especially since she didn’t have an eye for what would taste good when cooked with what, leaving all her meals as barely passable in flavor.
Moving on to the rest of her skills, she barely practiced Small Projectile Throwing Arts, Small Blade Arts, Grappling, Improvisation, and Whittling, preferring to use her time on improving the combative arts that she assumed were most useful during her stay in the forest. Specifically, a little bit of Stealth Strike, a lot of Spear Arts, some Large Projectile Throwing Arts, and as much Bubble Pain Splash as she could fit into her schedule after practicing the others. Sword Arts remained at level 0, because she not only didn’t have a real sword—even if deer antlers kind of counted as them—but figured that since she already made so many spears she had no use for learning the way of the sword.
Lastly, the subject that ate away at most of Kaltyr’s time just before sleeping every night the past three days…the two deer. When the couple of Life Level 2 deer phantabilized, a few notable events occurred: to begin with, Kaltyr became certain that the magical essence beam the fish ghosts used was a universal skill among phantasms, because the deer used them in the same way, among other kinds of phantasms. Secondly, the deer were just as lifeless and glass-like as the fish, merely lazily floating in the air, sparkling under the sunlight, and endlessly casting magical essence spells at her, which meant that it was a phantasm thing rather than fish or other beast thing. Lastly, the most important behavior the deer displayed was definitely their unique spell.
Which didn’t, at all, surprise Kaltyr, because beasts other than fish phantabilized before the deer—including the first boar she killed—and displayed unique skills beside the essence beam. But what made the deer’s spell skill special was the fact that the lass nearly learned it!
Yes, “nearly”. Unfortunately for her, Kaltyr was not only hopeless at recreating the boar’s spell, but couldn’t quite figure out the deer spell, either. The spell involved the deer phantasms floating down to the ground, infusing the nearby dirt with magical essence, then pulling it up onto their crystalline, glassy bodies, forming an armor of earth. Kaltyr was stuck at its last phase. She was capable of imbuing the dirt she stood atop with mana easily enough, but how she was supposed to use magic to get it to crawl up her feet and rest of her body to encase her in an armor stumped her. As far as she could tell, the surfaces of the deer phantasms were lined with magical essence that formed hundreds to thousands of tiny vortexes on their “skin”, but Kaltyr never managed to reproduce the same effect. She almost succeeded when she had the sudden realization that maybe all the vortexes were linked to each other, like segments of a chain fence, but she only got so far as to cause the dirt to climb onto her feet before crumbling, reverting back to regular dirt. Thus, Kaltyr was left wondering if it was merely a fluke that she learned Bubble Pain Splash.
