After Sera had explained Nia the situation, the latter could only groan. “Of cause one of you two would get such a skill… And here i was hoping i wouldn’t have to explain to you about the emotional and mental skills.” She quickly collected her thoughts. The topic wasn’t as simple as the others she had lectured the two before. “Well, most skills are nice to have. Even in cases where they don’t quite match one’s build, they can become trump-cards or simply another option to tackle problems arising in the future. However the emotional and mental skills are an exception. Fortunately it is rare to get them awarded and even rarer and harder to gain them naturally, but it does happen from time to time. To name a few examples of the better known ones, Wrath which is sometimes gained by berserker-like classes, Kindness by healers and Heartless by ‘hunters’.
Sure, they come with certain advantages, however they change your mind. Literally! Make it easier for you to get into their name-giving mood or mindset! Do you want someone in your party who enters a frenzied state by the slightest provocation? Someone who can’t kill and wants to heal the enemies? Long story short, don’t try to get them and if you have them, don’t try level them. Though i guess the latter will be hard as they tend to enforce behavior which levels them.”
[Your Dimensional Guide class has reached Lv 1.]
If such an explanation already got her a level, she would have liked to have the class at the time she told the twins about the Realms. Too bad that one needed a certain amount of experience in whatever the class was about to unlock them. She was regretting it a bit that she hadn’t checked the options sooner, maybe before or after the dungeon, but whether she would have gotten the class then was also questionable.
“Is there a list-“
Sera was about to ask something, however Nia interrupted her as she sensed more approaching foes. “We got company!”
“What about the-“
“Later!”
Quickly the party shifted from their casual talk into a combat ready formation… at least as much as it was possible with a vanguard and “hunter”, as their mage didn’t need and want to fight. Three poison flame lizards appeared only moments later. The amount of enemies being an indicator that the dungeon was slowly recovering from the initial depletion of foes.
“Finally!” The warrior shouted excitedly. “Nia, let one or two live, we want to try something!”
The assassin definitely started to see the first signs of her teammates new skill, though thinking back, maybe not. For the past two, three days the scythe-wielder did a bunch of crazy things.
“Fine, fine, if i’m not in danger…” Pushing the useless thoughts aside, Nia answered, then proceeded to cover half the area in her usual black smoke and dived into it.
The following fight was over rather quickly. While the party was technically outnumbered, as Sarah stood on the sidelines, and outleveled, the enemies were two level 22 lizards and one level 23, it didn’t matter much. The assassin quickly evened the number, thanks to her magic only with minimal resistance. Then it didn’t take long and two unconscious lizards, one partially dismembered and bleeding, were laying on the floor. It showed that everyone besides one had experience in combat and especially so against their current foe.
“I guess it’s now my turn.” The until then rather silent mage suddenly quietly interjected. Stepping closer to one of the beasts, she covered her right hand with water and touched the one and a half meter long and still in flames covered lizard. The water seemed to be able to overcome the natural defenses of the beast. Though apparently it wasn’t perfect. The hissing, like droplets of water on a hot plate or fire, was an indicator and soon she had to remove her hand from the body and switch out the water around it.
A few minutes passed while the two fighters stood guard and made sure that the enemies wouldn’t awake. During that time, ever so often a new glow would be added to the mages mana construct or shift around. The girl also had to renew her water coating multiple times.
However then suddenly the lizard burst into smoke.
Nia was about to spring into action, assuming the beast had done something, a last effort to flee or attack its captors, yet she could only react in confusion as the smoke cleared and the body had vanished. It took her a moment to process that whatever the girl had done, had apparently killed the lizard in a pretty abrupt and finite way, since nothing of it was left.
“Well, looks like that wasn’t it.” A notion which was supported by the statement of the mage. She then went over to the next body and continued her experiments.
Nia was kind of intrigued by the result, but it also felt very wrong. For an assassin getting rid of a body or hiding the result of their actions was elemental in higher realms, otherwise healers could easily revive whatever had been killed.
However bodies weren’t supposed to dissipate that quickly. Even in a burned or shredded state they would linger for a time. But now something which was alive moments ago simply vanished.
As if it was sacrificed.
Continuing that line of thought, Nia had to admit that it was the most logical conclusion, unless the insanity of the twins had led them down a path to knowledge even she, a resident of the realms for more than three cycles, was unaware of. However, the implications in both cases were nothing the girl wanted to deal with. It would just end in more reasons for the twins to be searched for, and in extension her. Whether it was to become an ally, to remove potential future enemies or because the actions of the twins went against the values of the people of the Realms.
Though she guessed that was what she had signed up for. With the prophecy looming over the realms one wrong move could easily make them wanted.
Meanwhile the structure around Sarah had shifted to cover the body. Furthermore engravings for a ritual had appeared on the ground. Though whatever the mage tried to achieve didn’t seem to come to fruition, as soon the second body dispersed into smoke.
“Tsk.” A bit frustrated the girl announced the results to her sister. “Well, the good news is that i can sacrifice other beings, maybe even without direct contact. The bad news is that it’s very unlikely for us to salvage anything from the bodies. I can’t get the mana density around them low enough.”
Using the opportunity of the scientist not working on something, Nia decided to inform her about the risks of her new discoveries. With the contract in place, she could only hope that the mage knew when to keep things hidden.
Quickly overcoming her heartbroken state of being unable to cook up anything edible for the time being, Sera decided that she would work with the meat anyway. If she had the time. It would be hard to level her maid class otherwise. Sarah didn’t have a laboratory her sister had to take care of, dust to remove in it or clothes to prepare.
She did think about using the leather of the beasts to create clothing, however it would most likely be nothing comparable to their current equipment. Also while she knew how to sew, tanning was, aside from some basics, unfortunately not on her extensive list of things she had looked much into. The days and weeks it could take to get leather ready for further processing had always deterred her.
So she headed over to the last remaining corpse, before it could vanish like the other two. A slight haze of smoke had already started to appear.
Though apparently Eas had other ideas. The weird feeling from her aura, which the girl had pushed to the back of her mind, suddenly vanished and was replaced by a message of the system.
[The Soul-binding Aura skill had been derived from your Aura skill.]
Fighting against the lizards with the stuff her sister had thrown into her aura, apparently souls, was harder than she had anticipated. Sera had already experience with multitasking, as she never truly focused on just one objective, but being forced to to fight while also somehow keeping her aura under her control was a first. It worked out in the end, since the girl tried to stay focused for once, but if she could choose, she would rather not experience it again. At least her intuition had helped her more and more in getting it under control.
With the new skill she hoped all her work would at least pay off in some way.
[Soul-binding Aura]
[A skill born from a mix of genius, insanity and intuition. While it was derived from the normal Aura skill, it doesn’t send out intent, mostly doesn’t consume mana and has generally little in common with other aura skills. Attracting nearby vesselless souls, it will trap those and aid the mana recovery instead of its consumption. Furthermore offers a defense against #####, will make people close by uncomfortable and offer a slight glow in darkness. Mana recovered, defensive strength, range and strength of the induced feeling as well as glow scale with souls bound.]
That was a lot. Not that she understood even half of it, however she guessed it was a very useful ability. Especially making people uncomfortable. As an idol she didn’t mind sharing her time with fans, but some went too far and that would hopefully prevent such events happening in the future. Admittedly currently she wasn’t very active as an idol or knew anything about the idol culture in the Realms, however that was a fact she hoped to change soon.
Also unnerving the opponent, when they clashed in fights, could be useful.
“Did you get a new skill?” Sera’s thoughts about her new skill were interrupted by her sister.
“Yeah… A soul-binding aura apparently. How did you know?” The warrior answered.
“My Chrysopoeia skill leveled up… Interesting… It seems i can gain levels in it from other people learning skills.” Having gotten an expected useless answer, she was about to ask Sarah about her new skill and for a better understandable description, however the mage was already focused on something else. “Hey, Nia, you don’t happen to have an aura skill?” The scientist was slowly creeping closer to their guide, ready to pounce at her prey at the first sign of weakness.
The body of the lizard was completely forgotten.
