We rented a couple of horses and rode out of town, down the south road. It had been years since I had last ridden, but it was just like riding a bike. We chatted as we rode—mostly me asking questions about the area and Yunyun happily answering, enthusiastically telling me everything she knew. She was a very bright girl—very knowledgeable.
Eventually, we stopped on top of a hill and tied our horses off to a few low hanging limbs. Looking out over the field ahead of us, Yunyun pointed. "You see the rises in the terrain?"
"The bumps?"
She nodded. "Those are giant toads. They burrow down into the ground and camouflage themselves, when they aren't on the surface. Let's go take that one off by itself and I'll show you my favorite spell for dealing with enemies."
As soon as we were in range of the giant toad, the thing burrowed up out of the ground and leapt at us.
"Saber of Light!"
There was a thunderous crash as a beam of yellow energy swept through the frog… which then exploded in a fountain of flash-boiled gore. Held in Yunyun's hand was a buzzing… lightsaber. Well, that's what it looked like, minus the hilt. A bar of bright yellow mana that hummed with something like the infamous lightsaber sound. After a moment, she dismissed the spell.
"Wow. Okay, that's cool," I chuckled. "So, what's that spell called?"
"Saber of Light! It's an advanced level lightning spell. Wind Blade is an intermediary-level wind spell that works similarly, but… why bother most of the time when you can just use less mana for Saber of Light and still do more damage?"
"In a situation where you wouldn't want to use electricity," I supplied immediately, and she nodded.
"True, but it's so versatile that I use it about ninety percent of the time. Ideally, what you want is High Speed Casting, in addition to a multitude of spells of different elements, types, and uses—which comes from buying the 'tiered magic' skills. Normally, you would save up your points and then buy the Basic Magic skill, which gives you all of the basic magic spells. Then do it again for Intermediate Magic, and again for Advanced Magic. But… I learned the hard way that you can't always just save your points for what you want, so it's best to spend them on what's most useful. You don't need every single advanced spell when you can pick and choose a few really good ones—and when learning them lowers the cost of Advanced Magic anyway. So I've been buying individual Advanced spells for a while now. It's made me more versatile."
"Versatility is good," I agreed.
"Mm! Stay here a moment and watch," she instructed, and walked off towards another of the lumps in the ground. A moment later, a toad burrowed its way up. "Light of Reflection!"
I watched as the girl disappeared. The toad looked around, having lost her entirely. The toad did, however, spot me. It started hopping my direction, only for Yunyun to call out, "Paralyze!"
The toad froze as the girl reappeared. "Sleep!"
The toad fell asleep and the girl sent me a smile, before pointing her hand at it. "Crystal Prison!"
The toad was encased in ice and, a moment later, Yunyun followed it up with, "Inferno!" which shattered the ice and boiled, then burned the toad in just a moment.
I watched as Yunyun walked back. "Well? What did you think?" she asked, sounding hopeful.
"That was awesome," I sent her a grin.
Yunyun beamed a smile in return. "Check your status card. You should have those spells available now. And since we're in a group, you might have gained enough experience to level."
Pulling out my card, sure enough, I had advanced from level 1 to level 2. My current skill point count was at ten. "Hey Yunyun, how many skill points do you get per level?"
"It varies!"
I blinked. "By person? Based on stats? Or something else?"
"Yes," she nodded. "People have been trying to figure out how the divine system works for ages and have determined there are several factors to gaining skill points. Firstly, it's based on your primary stat. The higher it is, the more skill points you earn. For us, that's magic power. However! There is a hidden stat that doesn't show up on your stat card. We can intuit its value only at level 1."
Looking over my stat card and thinking back to what Luna had said, I thought I had it. "Intelligence."
"Yes! Intelligence is the only stat you can't raise by spending points on it. You can raise it by studying, however. Studying, learning new things, taking up an instrument, anything that exercises the mind. This is why I'm constantly learning."
"So, based on your intelligence, then based on your dump stat. What else?"
"Luck. Someone with high luck will get lots more skill points. But don't bother putting points into luck to earn more skill points—it's a losing game. You won't break even until much higher in levels, but to get to that point, you would have been better off spending the points on skills, spells, or other stat points."
I nodded at that. "Of course. You'd basically have to be ridiculously lucky right from the start for it to matter. What else?"
"Experience. Both experience points from killing monsters and experience from doing things. A lot of people forget that those are two different things! You gained enough experience points to level, but you didn't actually do anything to do it, so you got the bare minimum skill points for the amount of experience gained, plus your luck, intelligence, and main stat. However, if you had done things, gained actual experience at something, you would gain more points. For instance, say you learn Saber of Light. You spend the next week training with it. Learning its ins and outs. How best to cast it, when, the minimum amount of mana you can use to do the job, how to change its shape, and so on… you might gain between one and five skill points, depending on what you learned—which would be best put into the skill you trained with. Or like with crafting classes. If an armorer spends all his time making armor, he'll gain an amazing amount of skill points over time—which he should then put back into skills that improve his ability to craft. The gain in skills acquired through experience makes up for the much slower rate of level growth. It's how, when you're young and still level 1, you save up enough points to buy Advanced Magic without leveling. You could go your whole life without leveling and still have lots of skill points."
"So, practice everything you learn and try new things. And… trying to power level, that is, quickly grind up levels, is shooting yourself in the foot."
"Mm! Exactly right! Also, if you practice and train, you can raise your stats that way. It's not much, but every little bit helps. So if a thief spends every day running through an obstacle course, they may gain a point or two to their stats directly, but they could also gain a point or two when they level. Just like studying increases intelligence, exercise increases physical stats. Putting points in is the fast and easy way, but doing the work rewards you with points, instead of costing points."
That kind of made the case for taking my time between levels and trying to game the system as much as possible. The question is, where to focus. I'll have to do some research, then sit down and make a spreadsheet of time and effort vs reward, to maximize gains while minimizing time between levels. And lucky me, I have a new friend who might just volunteer to be my little helper in this research project, and is already pretty knowledgeable on the subject herself. Hell, she might agree to it just because it would count as grinding up her own intelligence score.
"So," Yunyun spoke up, drawing my attention. "Did you get the spells? And do you want to learn more? I know lots!"
"Is there any problem with learning them now and not buying them until later?"
The girl shook her head. "Nn! No problem. Some people don't like having a cluttered skill list, but I think it just means that I've got options!"
Looking over my card, I hummed. "I think I'm going to need to see a few again. While we're at it, can you show me the rest of your spells too?"
"Sure! I'd be happy to."
In the end, we spent the whole day out in the field, with Yunyun showing me every spell she knew. We didn't kill any more toads until I had every spell she knew, and a few of her skills, available to learn. Then, together, we figured out what to put my points into for now, for a versatile set of spells and skills.
So, when I finished learning spells from Yunyun and bought what I could, my spell and skill list consisted of:
Spells:
Saber of Light – Cost: 3.
Light of Reflection – Cost: 3.
Sleep – Cost: 2.
Skills:
High-Speed Casting – Cost: 3.
After learning those spells, I had practiced with Light of Reflection and Sleep to familiarize myself with them and how they worked, before Yunyun turned me loose on more toads. Saber of Light was fun—very fun. It could be cast with the minimum amount of mana and then sustained as long as I had mana to spend. At no mana cost other than the base cost to keep it running, I could change its shape and solidity at will, from classic lightsaber to whip, or even shoot it as a projectile. Adding more mana to it allowed me to lengthen it and increase my range.
It took only one toad for me to figure out about how much mana I needed to put into the spell to cut through one like an actual lightsaber and kill it in one blow, and my next step was to make a note to put in the practice and figure out how to only apply that much mana only at the moment of impact, to cut back on mana cost. The next three I killed by myself, while trying various techniques. Casting Invisibility, because I wasn't going to refer to it in my head by the long-winded spell name, before attacking a toad with the whip. Running towards a toad, casting sleep, and hitting it while it couldn't fight back. The final one, I pointed the lightsaber at and just extended it until it penetrated, then fed it power until it caused the toad's skin to explode around the saber.
By the end of it all, I was wiped the fuck out, but at least not completely out of mana. Yunyun excitedly congratulated me on picking it up so fast, and we mounted up and rode back to town. Along the way, I checked my adventurer card and found I'd leveled twice more just from the level difference. It was not ideal, given what I knew now, thanks to Yunyun. Actually, I was kind of annoyed.
When I asked why it looked like I'd gotten so much more experience, Yunyun explained that whoever got the last hit, or finishing blow in on a monster got the majority of the experience. So, apparently there was a 'Last Hit bonus' too. While that was great if you were farming experience, it was bad if you didn't actually want to level quickly and instead wanted to munchkin as much as possible before leveling. Especially when the monsters around here were so much higher level that it only took a few to level you up, because you were using spells way above your level but had the stats to back it up and make it do actual damage.
Still, fourteen more points was good—and that was two more than the twelve I'd had, six I assume was at level 1 and the other six earned at level 2. Seeing an immediate jump of one point per level pretty much confirmed what Yunyun said—putting any sort of effort into working on something would be rewarded.
Spells:
Paralyze – Cost: 2.
Inferno – Cost: 3.
Mana Shield (SB) – Cost: 1.
Skills:
One-Handed Sword (SB) – Cost: 1.
The last seven points, I left in the hole for now. I wasn't in a hurry to spend them on combat spells that I hopefully wouldn't be using. I needed to talk with the guild and see if there were any other Spell Blades around I could get to show me some advanced spells and skills anyway. I wasn't planning to get myself into trouble with the local nobility or other problems any time soon, but shit could happen, so it was a good idea to work on getting stronger, but at the same time if I kept my head down for a while and worked on building up money that should be fine too.
We returned our rented horses and made our way back to the guild office to turn in the quest. Luna handed over the coins to Yunyun and she split them up to hand me my share. I shook my head and wrapped her hand back around the coins. "Nope. Keep it."
"But—"
I sent her a smile and bulled on through. Over the course of the day, I'd come to realize a few things about Yunyun's personality. Something I sort of remembered from what I'd seen of the anime, but meeting her in person had confirmed. Namely… she was a pushover. She was shy, reticent, hesitant, and a pushover. Oh, once she was talking about something she knew or was doing something she did well, she opened up and relaxed, but outside of those times? Not so much. To the point where she would refuse, or not do things she wanted if it embarrassed her, or made her feel awkward.
So the best way forward with Yunyun… was through.
Taking her hand, I pulled her into my side and walked towards the hall, wrapping my arm around her waist and settling my hand on her hip. "Come on. I'll buy you dinner and we can celebrate. I want to pay you back for helping me out."
"But, I, that is, you shouldn't have to, you just got into town and don't have any money—"
"On the contrary. I made a lot of money yesterday in the market. I've got plenty. Let me treat you, as a friend."
"W-we're, we're friends?!" she squeaked.
"Sure," I squeezed her hip. I could feel her blush from here and considered stopping… but teasing her was just too fun. "Why not? You helped me out and taught me a lot today. Come on."
Silently, she nodded, and I led her over to a small table in a corner where we sat down, side by side—I had her right up against the wall where she couldn't escape. I even managed to keep her pulled right up against my side. The waitress came by and we ordered not long after, before I turned my attention back to Yunyun. Deciding to try to get her to open up again, I asked, "So, you're a good adventurer—"
"I, I wouldn't say that…"
"Nah, you're great. So, what kind of things would you, or others, like to buy for convenience. Like, if someone opened up a shop marketed at adventurers, what are some things that would absolutely sell that aren't already on the market?"
Yunyun frowned at that as she looked up at me. "It's hard to say, really. I'm sure I could think of a few things. But do you know someone who can make them?"
I smiled and nodded. "I do. I can show you later, if you like."
"Maybe?" she hesitantly asked.
"Good enough. Do you know anyone around who buys or sells magic items?"
"I do!" she nodded. "I can introduce you, if you like."
"Sure, I'd appreciate that. We can do that tomorrow, if you'll meet me in the morning again."
Yunyun smiled happily and nodded. "Mm!"
"Great. Now… What is there for a man to read around here?" I asked, and Yunyun's eyes lit up—literally.
"I have several favorites! Let's see, how about…"
And like that, Yunyun was drawn out of her shell. She forgot all about how close we were sitting, or her nervousness. Seeing this confident, expressive side of her was nice.
Our food arrived and we talked as we ate, finishing our dinner without really noticing, as eventually the conversations around us grew quieter, fewer and further between as people began to leave. Until eventually, it was late into the night when we both realized the time. I helped her up and, since she was staying in the guild too, walked her up to her room.
"Goodnight. Sleep well, Yunyun," I told her as she stepped into her rented room.
The young woman blushed a dark, dark red. "Y-y-y-you, you too!"
And then, she slammed the door in my face. I held in my laugh until I got to my own room. I had a pretty good idea where her mind had went, given the types of books she described to me. The girl was a romantic at heart and had gushed over how the heroines of the novels she enjoyed had been swept off their feet, rescued, and other cheesy cliches. Or those bodice rippers she had unashamedly told me about, where the heroine was seduced by some rich hero, or noble, or merchant, then pushed down and ravished all night long.
Shaking my head, I turned on the room's magic light and made myself comfortable, removing my boots, socks, and coat. Sitting down at the room's small table, I considered what I could do to impress Wiz tomorrow. Because I had a plan in mind, now. Forget fighting, I was going to do my best to take over the economy of this place. Wiz, and her failing shop based on what I knew of canon, would be my first step to securing a future of taking it easy, living in a big house, and spending my days making Yunyun and girls like her squeal. And it's definitely going to be Yunyun first. That girl needs lovin'.
"Ugh. I need something that anyone can, but more importantly, will want to use. Alright, think. Something an adventurer wouldn't want to leave home without…"
With a sigh, I pulled out my phone and ear buds. Checking the charge and finding it about half down, I frowned before popping in the ear buds and turning on some music. I had disabled all of the wireless crap, turned the brightness all the way down, and removed extraneous apps and things I didn't need but they weren't going to stay charged forever.
Although… Reaching into my jacket pocket, I pulled out the charging cable. What would be required to recharge it?
Immediately, schematics for a simple charger came to mind—something I could set the phone on and charge wirelessly while charging the ear buds by cable. It wouldn't actually take much to make it, but the problem was, how to power it.
And another idea flowed into my mind. A modification to the charger, to allow me to charge it using mana.
Okay, but what if I'm out of mana. Actually… how do my clothes, ring, and rod power themselves?
The answer to that was… off of my mana. They were leeching off of me. It was small, but now that I looked for it…
I stood and took off my clothes, folding them and putting them on the bed. Immediately, I felt like a weight I hadn't realized was there had been lifted off my shoulders. Throughout the day, I had spent a lot of mana testing my new spells, but the whole time, it had felt like I was using just a little more than I was actually spending to cast. And now I knew why.
Ugh. Okay. That explains it. If the enchantments are always on, and they are, then they'll always be burning at least a little mana. And it has to come from somewhere. The nearest source of mana is the wearer, so… there you go. So, how do I generate more mana?
My mind was immediately filled with ideas. A way to enchant material to absorb sunlight and turn it into mana. A way to store mana indefinitely, and then use it when needed. A way to transmit mana to a storage device, or to a piece of equipment.
Wew. Okay. But even shortcutting with a wand of telekinesis and fire, there's only so much I can do without specialized tools. So, I need something that can do that for me. Tools to make the tools, as it were. What about a thing that can… take existing material and reshape it. That can be programmed to reshape and assemble things on command. Basically, a magical fabricator?
Once more, I was met with a yes, but it would be very mana intensive, and would basically require the mana converter and storage unit to work. And all of that was going way out of my way and away from the initial goal of building something to sell to turn a profit.
Nope. Okay. Something fairly simple. Buffs. Everyone loves buffs. A ring of stat buff. Plus X% to your stat of choice, with a warning that it'll use mana to power the buff. I'll just make one for each stat and see if Wiz likes them.
Something simple in mind, I conjured silver and some small jewels and got to work making rings.
After a quick visit to the bath house and a scrub, I met up with Yunyun in my freshly modified clothes, which now wouldn't drain my mana constantly and would only activate their enchantments when needed. We ate breakfast together and then set out into Axel. Eventually, we came to a stop in front of a shop with a green door. Yunyun tried the handle and, seeing it was open, we made our way inside.
Crafter started feeding me information on all of the magical items on the shelves and… Yep, every one of them was either cursed, or ridiculously high level for this area. Endgame gear being sold in a starting town, essentially. I shut off the feedback as we made our way towards the counter.
From the back, a woman with long brown hair and golden eyes, wearing a purple robe over her dress poked her head out before hurrying behind the counter. She beamed a smile as we approached. "Yunyun! Welcome! What brings you today?"
Yunyun returned the greeting just as enthusiastically. "Wiz! Good morning!" Turning to me, she grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the counter—and into her side, I noticed. "This is my new friend, Michael. He wanted to see your magic items and ask if you wanted to buy some?" The last came out as a question as she sent me a curious look.
"Nice to meet you," I sent the pretty lich a smile, offering my hand. Her hand was soft, if cold, in my own.
"You as well," Wiz smiled. "You have something to show me?"
Nodding, I took out the rings I had made last night. Six in total—one for each stat. I laid them out on the counter between us. "Why don't you give them a try and tell me what you think?"
Humming quietly, Wiz nodded and picked up a ring with a small ruby set on it—the ring for health. Slipping it onto her finger, she raised an eyebrow. "It's draining my mana, slightly. But it also feels like…" Reaching under her robe, she brought out her adventurer card. After checking it, one of her brown eyebrows crept towards her hairline. "It increases health by ten percent."
"Yeah. Not much at the default level, but if you put more mana into it you can increase that."
Wiz's eyes widened as she did so and apparently watched her stat rise. "Is there… some sort of downside?"
"It uses your own mana to fuel the stat increase. Not sure what'll happen if you run out of mana while wearing it."
"Nothing, you'll just remain unconscious until you replenish enough mana to wake up," Wiz waved the concern off. "But really, it's not cursed? It doesn't have any major drawbacks?"
"Uh," I blinked. "Using your own mana is a drawback."
Wiz nodded. "Certainly, it is a minor drawback. But for a controllable increase in a single stat that goes up depending on how much mana you put into it… you've basically just made an entire group of Cleric spells, along with each class-specific skill that increases the main stat, redundant. They would have had to cast those spells anyway, which also cost the caster mana. But more importantly, you don't have to waste skill points to use it! And anyone can use it, regardless of class." Looking at the other rings, she asked, "Which one is strength?"
I pointed to a ring with an emerald. Wiz swapped the health ring for the strength ring. Looking around, she picked up a metal tool. "My strength stat isn't huge, but with this…" She flexed and the metal easily bent in her hands, then molded like putty when she squeezed her hands. "A wizard can suddenly become a viable physical threat."
I sent her a grin. "So what you're saying is, they're valuable."
"Very. I would sell them for no less than… a hundred thousand eris each."
"Guh!" Yunyun made a strangled noise.
"Alright. Now, Yunyun. What's your budget for a magical item?"
The girl winced. "Realistically? I'm looking for something at less than five thousand eris."
"And if I sold each of those at… two thousand?"
"I would buy them all myself," she breathed.
Chuckling, I shook my head. "No need. If you want, I'll make you some."
Yunyun blinked, tilting her head in confusion. "You made them?"
"Oh, you have a crafter class?" Wiz asked, smiling.
"No, he's a Spell Blade. How did you make…?"
I held up a hand. "Wiz, would you be willing to carry a stock of rings like this and sell them for me? Call it… four thousand eris each, and we'll split the profits. Call it… A quarter each, and a quarter to save up to upgrade the store or expand."
"You have more?"
"As many more as I want."
"Absolutely. But I'm not sure anyone would buy them, even at that price. My shop isn't very successful at all. You might have better luck selling them yourself…"
"Nope," I shook my head, before pushing the rings towards her. "I'll handle the advertising if you'll handle the sales. So, what do you say? Partners?"
Wiz bit her plump lip for a moment, chewing on it in a way that was incredibly distracting, before nodding. "Partners!"
"Great. Then we can both agree that it would be in your best interests, if you want to make a profit, to keep the method of production secret, correct?"
"Of course," the lich nodded. "I won't tell anyone."
I looked to Yunyun and she shook her head. "Who would I even—I mean, I won't tell anyone!"
With a sigh, I pulled the girl into a hug against my side, and she squeaked. I gave her a good squeeze before letting her go. "Alright. Go lock the door please." Yunyun hurried to lock the door and rushed back. "Wiz, you make potions and stuff too, right?"
"I do," she confirmed. "I don't have a crafter class, but it's not actually necessary…"
"And you're a pretty high-level adventurer?"
"Ahh, I'm retired," she chuckled nervously. "But yes, I've got some experience."
"Name an extremely rare and expensive material you'd like to have. As long as it's a mineral or it's dead material, not something living."
Wiz hummed, but Yunyun beat her to it. "Mithril."
"Mithril?" I repeated.
The red-eyed girl nodded. "It's very valuable, because of its magical properties. It's an excellent material to make weapons or armor out of. But incredibly expensive."
"Alright. Mithril." A moment later, a rectangular bar of silvery metal thumped down onto the counter.
Yunyun and Wiz stared.
I conjured a circle of the stuff in my ring size and used my telekinesis ring to scratch the right squiggles onto it, making sure to add a series of mental on/off switches and a built in cutoff so it didn't just keep draining me. Then, I went ahead and added the squiggles for telekinesis and producing heat. That was about all this ring could hold just by size alone, though I could tell the material could easily hold many more enchantments—easily a hundred times as many enchantments as silver.
Pulling off my silver ring, I swapped it with the new mithril ring and pocketed it. I noticed an immediate improvement the moment I cast telekinesis with it—namely, a huge reduction in mana cost. Like, one-tenth of the previous cost. A quick check with the buffs showed that they barely registered as a trickle of a draw on my mana at the base ten percent—roughly one MP per ten minutes. At two hundred percent, that was about twenty MP per minute, per buff. I dropped the buffs and turned a smile on the two women, before looking at Yunyun.
"So, when I said I had just gotten into town—"
"You're a reincarnated hero from another world, like Mitsurugi Kyouya," Wiz supplied instantly.
"Something like that," I shrugged.
Yunyun stared at me with wide red eyes. "You're a hero, and you can… summon any material out of thin air and craft magical items?"
"Not a hero," I shook my head. "No one asked me to do any heroing, that I'm aware of. Other people can be heroes if they want to. I just want to make things, sell them, make some money for all of us, and generally be left to live in peace. As for the rest, yes. That's what I do. Create materials and craft items."
Taking Yunyun's hand, I pulled her closer, until she was barely an inch away and forced to look up to meet my eyes. "Be my partner in this. Wiz can sell items, but I need someone to help me test them. To figure out what works and what doesn't. And what people want as opposed to things that won't sell. Every item I make, you'll get the first crack at—and I'll let you keep them. You, Yunyun, will be the best equipped Arch Wizard who ever lived. Say yes."
The girl blushed and I could feel her trembling against me. She leaned forward the rest of the way, sagging slightly as she rested her body flush against mine. She felt warm and soft in all the right places. Licking her pink lips, she nodded once. "Yes."
"M-me too! I'll help!" Wiz's cool hand latched onto my other one as she pressed her prodigious chest into my arm.
"Excellent," I reached out and put my arm around her waist, my other hand going around behind Yunyun and pulling them two of them into a three way hug. "Now, let's sit down and talk business…"