Chương 152: Chapter 148

Harrison was having the strangest day in his long career. On one hand, magic. Actual magic. And it was far less whimsical than Harry-Potter. If anything, he felt like he was back in basics, getting his body conditioned.

"One might imagine you had some ulterior motives in all this Miss. Millicent." He hissed out, as the highly vindictive and completely merciless moonwing elf demanded nothing short of perfection from her prior gunman instructor. And indeed, the moment he got a word out that might mean a distraction, the Elf stabbed him with a wooden staff, driving it into his torso as hard as she could. He once more failed to manipulate the field of control in time to block or deflect the stab, although he did cushion the blow.

He knew the training methods demanded by Azdrian combat doctrine was a lot more… draconian than even the SAS programs. Mainly because self-healing was a thing in their world. And to train self-healing, one had to have actual injuries to heal. Convenient.

"What was that Mr. Harrison?" Illy asked off to the side, sounding completely innocent, voice now in perfect posh english like he'd once remembered.

"Are you suggesting I'm having a giggle at your expense here? Perish the thought."

"Less discussion Staff Sergeant Harrison." Selena barked out, pacing around him like a piranha.

"Your objective is to be able to shape your field of control in under a half second. It is the bare minimum standard required from frontline soldiers." The elf paced around him, moving around to his back, out of sight.

"You are tied now with Azdrial. Knowing how we fight and what to expect is critically important for the future." Yes, the Elf was indeed still quite cross about the gunfire noises. A ghost of a smile flickered over Harrison's face. And he instantly refocused on shaping his attuned mana into a tilted plane behind him, which could possibly block the angry elf's stab. As if she'd somehow sensed his inner thoughts. It somewhat worked out.

In that he had another bruise to heal up, with exception of it being near his back left hip instead of directly at the back of his ribcage.

"Again. Reshape it into a cloud, and solidify it faster. Your tracking is adequate for now." He did as instructed, moving his pitifully tiny cloud of attuned mana around himself in orbit, following the direction Selena paced. She alternated, moving left then back to right, then circled around fully left. He kept the cloud of attuned mana hovering between them at all times while he himself remained cross legged on the ground, facing a single direction.

There was a limit to how much mana one could keep under control, and it was a trained skill. The longer he trained, the more mana he'd learn to command. Right now, that number was pitiful. Which meant he had to compensate by being efficient. The very same thing most Azdrial warriors would be drilled hard on. Optimally, one would keep a very thin cloud of mana all around to sense attacks from behind, but otherwise he had to keep the bulk of his attuned mana pointed at the expected danger, ready in action.

And that danger was a rather irate moonwing elf. Illy snickered again, looking over her current notes on possible ways to beat Azdrian defense. They'd been brainstorming techniques and flaws in all this, bouncing ideas off Selena as they trained up the ex-SAS operative. This was equally part of his job. He was being given lessons on magic use for tactical reasons: Combined arms. Harrison had all the experience he needed with Earth based weapons, tactics, and combat.

Having firsthand training with the Azdrian combat techniques would let him get started on the best ways to mix both. He'd be able to study what the Azdrians did, compare it to Earth, and develop potential synergies, or at least find the weakpoints where Earth weapons might be able to beat the Azdrian defense tech. Azdrians kept their field of control where it was needed.

Which meant shooting from multiple angles could very well hit their armor defenses rather than being blocked by the more efficient field of control, which was their first real layer of defense, besides using their swords or actual shields to block melee with. Any damage dealt to the armor shields was more or less the goal, since recharging it took time and also forced them to use up mana. The field of control was a far better first line of defense. Mana couldn't be destroyed.

Bullets would ricochet off a dense enough field, or break apart into something harmless, and the mana itself would only need to be reshaped back where it needed to be.

"Cone defense next." Selena barked out, and jabbed with a malicious twitch of her ears. The staff shot out, and twirled on itself like a fencing disengage, making it unpredictable to where the strike would actually land until she fully lunged into it. She was excellent with a spear, it made sense she could use a staff and mean business. David Harrison tried his best, shaping the cloud of mana behind him into a small cone of denser mana.

Selena's staff finally made contact off to the right side of the cone, sliding off the initial hit, but rapidly began to sink into the cone. Harrison followed his instincts, attempting to think of that attuned mana as part of his own body. Like an arm reaching ahead of him. He pushed the mana outwards, sweeping the staff away with it, rolling the tip of the mana downwards, extending the plane so that the moving staff was further parried with more surface area.

It was as if he was bringing his hand backwards, following a thrown punch, while steadily pushing that punch out of the way. The wooden staff stabbed the side of his tunic, catching just on the tip but otherwise thwarted completely. For once Selena didn't scold him. Instead she stood up straighter and gave him a nod.

"Passing. We will take a pause to train self-healing. Show me your chest." He lifted his tank top to reveal a heavy amount of welts and bruises from all directions. In combat operations, damage he'd taken would generally be caused by the environment. Gunshot wounds were more rare; if he was actually fired on in the first place, something had gone off plan. And if he was hit, something had gone horribly off plan. Lack of proper intel was the general culprit.

Modern operations weren't in the business of giving the enemy a fair chance or even a fair fight. Unfortunately, the fantasy world this Elf had come from was on the other end of it. There were very few ways of downing an enemy unseen, when that target was on guard. Azdrians were far more hands on, and the only efficient and reliable method of killing one another wasn't from ranged combat but from melee, where both the defense and offensive tools could be fully powered by mana. Which meant his body was the weapon.

Maintaining it and keeping it healed was as important as maintaining a gun. And among the soldiers, there was nothing better in the business than nature-aligned healing spells.

"Holy runes are powerful. However, they are fundamentally inefficient and grows worse over time. One will heal twice the amount of damage with nature aligned magic, and do so with half the cost to your body. Continual use of holy magic requires more and more mana. Thus, holy magic should be reserved for extreme wounds that cannot be healed, or must be instantly healed." His tutor spoke. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

And thus his current training regiment required him to master nature based healing. This would be the twentieth time he'd healed bruises, and he was already beginning to feel slightly nauseous, lightheaded, and signs that felt similar to dehydration. Which were the early symptoms of fatal mana necrosis. Selena had confirmed within the next three to four weeks he'd be dead. He'd be far more worried about that, but fortunately, Illy had a plan. Illy had been one busy bee in the prior round.

The current round at Zakka was intense, and the constant attempt to complete the System's strange quests quickly enough to get coins for what came later had kept her occupied the whole round. But she did get some lucky rolls happening. And some actual luck of the situation. She wasn't certain if that was the System nudging things along, especially now given what Leon had sent her of Wade's discoveries.

But in between the wheeling and dealing, along with hunting down a criminal who'd stolen high end armor, weapons and gear from the vendors in the area and almost caused the three of them to get chased out of the city, she had managed to get some good work done. Specifically in convincing the demons the trio had not been the ones who'd stolen their gear. No demons could outright steal from one another, not after they'd signed a contract specifically not to do so. Which meant it had to be a mortal.

And there were no other mortals in the ringed city other than them. That spiraled right back to getting a lot of different sized fingers all pointed their way. The thief had also somehow snuck through the entire city without being seen a single time by anyone. This made it rather difficult to convince the demons here. Selena had been the most valued member of the team for that. Her training as a paladin and mercenary had taught her oddly quite a lot about tracking things in the wilds.

And more specifically, tracking people. Moonwing Paladins weren't quite to paladin-like, and more armored bounty hunters working for the highest bidder. With some amount of personal pride. It had backfired slightly as some of Selena's divination spells to identify how the thief actually looked pointed right back to Leon of all people. That one didn't make any sense to the trio until later after the round.

But other spells by the Moonwing managed to get a better lock on, and Selena was able to prove the criminal had entered the city from under the mithril sea at a different angle than they had from the docks. Equally the thief had also left in the same direction hours ago, now fully loaded with all kinds of power. Nobody knew where, they could track the target under the mithril sea, but that wasn't exactly a safe place to be.

The demons absolutely had no intention of hunting down anyone in the blackrotten fields beyond for even some high level armor and gear, and neither had the trio. Regardless, the important part was that Illy had gotten a silver lootbox out of clearing their names. And fortunately, she didn't have Wade's luck stats, which meant there wasn't a happy meal surprise trying to turn her into the meal when she did find and open the silver chest: Mana Purge Elixir II - Removes all debuffs related to mana necrosis.

Heals all damage previously inflicted by the removed debuff. Three uses remaining. The vial she got was as large as a regular mana potion, and glowed sickly purple and green. Highly useful, just not for any player in the game. If she died here from mana necrosis she'd return back home perfectly healthy. And she'd need to go through a lot of mana to die within the few hours that the game allowed. Which meant this potion was something more dedicated to helping non-players out.

And equally not useful for demons, who could simply die and reform themselves a few hours later. As an interesting bit of trivia she learned, that was historically one of the reasons Demonkind was so feared as warriors, and generally considered extremely dangerous. They weren't simply immortal warriors unafraid of any death that ate souls and drank in fear from their enemies. They were also some of the strongest spellcasters in the realms, since mana overuse was not something they worried for.

Summoning one to the mortal realm was not done lightly in the past. But that was the past, and now their entire race was completely changed. Unless she could find a way to smuggle this potion out with her back to Earth, her uses for it here were very, very limited. More importantly to the silver lootbox treasure she'd gotten was a followup to that quest, this time rewarding a gold lootbox - eliminate the enemy criminal that had nearly gotten them chased out of the city.

Which was unfortunately not something that was getting done that round, so she had to kiss goodbye to that sweet gold lootbox reward. Halfway through handling Leon's underground tournament quest - which of course the giant Russian idiot had been magnetically drawn to joining - she'd gotten a more… interesting notification. The criminal that had been a thorn at their side had died. Flat out. Either a critter got him under the sea, or he tripped and fell on a sword.

Regardless, the thief was dead as a doorknob according to the System. And the wording of the quest had been like one of those challenge gauntlets - so long as the enemy was dead somehow, she'd get the win. And that had led to another gold chest, basically for having done jack squat other than clearing the first quest. Hence her actual lucky break. She'd thought was real luck until Leon filled her in on a shapeshifter that'd come chasing the Yank. And how the System had a lot more agency and cleverness behind it.

Perhaps it had intentionally worded the quest to be open ended, knowing Wade had a solid chance of killing the Nathir coming after him. Or that was a potential future, which meant it was worth at least wording the quest this way. Regardless she had the Yank to thank for her free meal. That lootbox had given her the second piece she needed to pair with her silver lootbox. One-Round Safepocket - Allows you to store one item within a 1 cubic feet in a safezone accessible only to yourself.

This cannot be looted by other players and will remain soulbound to you until the next round. And there it was, the means of smuggling things back. Courtesy of the Yank, but she'd learn that one much later. Fortunately, the System considered a crate as a singular item, even if it carried a bunch of random crap inside, so she got around the 1 item limit through that. She got her hands on one that fit the dimensions perfectly, and proceeded to stuff it with all kinds of loot she'd gotten that round.

Mana potions, a few low quality mana crystals, some small trinkets and rings, mithril anchors and finally her silver loot treasure. Given she was basically broke and coinless on Azdrial, she had to get a little more resourceful with how to get things. It had cost her a few future favors to some of these demons, which mostly involved promises to summon them onto the mortal plane without slavery terms the moment she could manage.

She had no idea how to summon a demon, but the demons here told her the days of Warlocks being high class and clever mortals was long gone. The difficult part of being a warlock used to be having just the goddamn balls to summon a soul-eating demon in the first place, not getting instantly eaten by them with good use of pre-made warding magic, and negotiating a contract that would bind them to service that the demon didn't find a loophole around later.

Which was a skill of its own that was more charisma than it was intelligence. Lawyer mages basically. These days, demons weren't particularly into the business of killing off a mortal summoner who could summon them away from hell, and even further unwilling to kill a friendly mortal summoner who could help them and others out of hell. Not to mention the entire race had slowly warped from the loss of their identity as feared jailors of Hell to something more mundane.

The city here was in desperate need of food and supplies, which didn't grow easily in Hell. Many demons out on the mortal plane were trying to help the rest of their community by having supplies bought and sent back. Friendly mortals were a rarity. Many still remembered the old days of Hell, and who Demons used to be. So them being used like expendable slaves wasn't just an economic thing but also revenge on their entire race.

There were a lot of long lived mortal races, and holy magic along with natural healing meant even humans lived past a century in terms of age. History was a complex thing. Usually only the more recent generation of mortals were coming around to not hating demonkind, since they hadn't lived through the age of Hell. People like Selena, who was far too young to have ever seen demonkind at it's prime.

But for now, all she needed to do was recite the written words, say the right names, get a good amount of mana for the spell, and have the drawing ability of a six year old or better. The rest of the round had some interests, but generally nothing of great value was completed, and she ended the round with a C-tier rank. Barely enough to buy her boon with nothing else to show for it. Poor Leon on the other hand. Arriving into that round with an absolute killer boon, perfect for fighting.

And no blade to use it with, only his soulbound hammer. They'd been convinced 5 coins was the goal, and had relaxed on their laurels once they reached that number. Worst text she'd ever gotten that morning. The only silver lining to all of that was in the knowledge things scaled up in the storefront, and that meant other things could too. And once she was up to current with Leon and the Yank through texts, it had been time to move onto to phase two of convincing her Father things here were real.

He'd be arriving in a few days. She got another set of texts, this one from her other favorite Yank. He'd lived longer in Las Vegas than he had back in Yekaterinburg, so he counted as a Yank in her eyes, even if the accent wasn't southern and kept a healthier diet than freedom burgers. LEON: Wade asking me to come with him to Arcane Realm for this round, what do you think devushka? ILLY: You can? How the feck would you do that? LEON: I grab his shoulder when swap happens. His blessing might overrule regular rules.

We don't yet know. Might work. That… would probably work. What Leon was asking her was a different question. ILLY: I'm fine in Zakka, I've got knife-ears with me and we both speak Demonic. The place is safe enough, I'm prepared to handle most issues myself. The turnip's in a tight spot on the other hand. You should go with him. Plus, more danger, more coins.

Ahead on the field, Selena now swapped the lesson back to basic mage training, explaining the process needed to cast a simple arcane bolt, which was the most basic of the free magic casting. And the moment he'd managed, she got the next text, from the Yank himself: WADE: How did you teach Harrison to use magic?? wtf??