Chương 364: Progress and Power

It took two weeks for me to get to a point where I could actually enclose a small area in my senses and start to read the 'laws of reality' with any level of precision. I learned much more slowly than Anise did, but I was quite happy with my progress, especially after Elder Veridian told me that she had taken nearly 6 months to learn the same.

Part of my accelerated learning pace was probably because I was innately talented in alteration essence, but a bigger part of it was the Ability I had picked up in the Market., {Space Capsule}. I had originally intended to use {Space Capsule} to isolate a small area, and then try to modify it using shaping essence… but it also proved surprisingly helpful for learning Elder Veridian's magic system.

Once I figured set up a {Space Capsule} inside of one of mom's boxes, I asked my parents not to disturb it, because I was practicing magic with it. Then, I started the most dull part of the training - staring at the patch of air and trying to see beyond the physical world. It was mind-bogglingly frustrating and time consuming. However, after weeks of staring at an empty pocket of air in our storage room, I finally got it. In the middle of the space capsule I had set up, there was a sort of… film.

Inside of that film, I could see something, but my human senses were utterly unequipped to tell me what it was. It was like the taste of light, or the smell of orange. Every time I tried to explore it with my senses, I got back nonsensical feedback from my five senses, until I learned to start ignoring what my other senses were telling me and focus only on the essence. Even that was far from perfect - I still got back confusing and difficult to understand bits of information with my essence sense.

It took me weeks to even decode something incredibly basic, and that was only from studying the exact same patch of air over and over again. I could easily see myself taking four or five times as long to understand something simple, if the air inside of my {Space Capsule} had any sort of interaction with the outside world. From there, it took me another week to figure out how to make a simple modification to the capsule of space, if I focused only on using the new magic system.

What I decided to do in my space capsule, to start out with, was isolate light and heat. I knew that in other dimensions, they were different things - so why were they so deeply intertwined in this dimension? That experiment… did not go as planned. I did, indeed, make a simple modification to the laws of reality within my space capsule, but separating light and heat broke something.

I still wasn't entirely sure what happened afterwards - I heard a popping sound, and then the entire patch of air I had been modifying turned green and started hissing at me. I strongly suspected it was poisonous, acidic, or both. I turned it over to Veridian, who had a guard lob it over the side of the sanctuary. My next experiment went much better.

Now that I was trying to be less ambitious, I took one of the rocks that emitted light, and then tried to convert the light it emitted into starlight instead of regular light. After all, rocks couldn't chemically alter other rocks, so there was obviously some kind of difference between the two different types of light. This went much better - perhaps because the rock had been explicitly modified by starlight already, so it was conceptually much closer to what I was trying to convert it into.

The rock only produced starlight for a few hours before it ran out of essence and turned back into a regular light-emitting rock. However, it was confirmation I was heading in the right direction at least. My next step, naturally, was to try to combine my two dimensional alteration systems. The AI back in the Market had suggested that I get an Eldritch ability evolution by transforming the laws of reality somehow, then using those altered laws of reality to do something amazing.

I could confirm that this new magic system was cheaper than my first alteration system, due to how limited it was - but I still wanted my Ability evolution to upgrade my main Ability, which probably meant that it needed to be used in the process. However, the night after my first success, when Elder Veridian had already returned home, I heard a familiar ringing sound. I groaned, and got up as I listened carefully for the danger level of the raid. A few moments later, I relaxed. Two bells.

The city shouldn't have any real issue fending this one off. The Astral Tides were also due in another week or two, so this was probably the last raid of the year. While we could get unlucky, raids were usually a few months apart. I dashed out of my room, and found my parents, who were also climbing out of their rooms, as well as Anise, who was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Our parents were already out of their room, and both gripping weapons.

However, there was a certain tension in their bodies, almost like the first few raids we had lived through. I frowned. Why were our parents nervous? This was just a two bell raid. Two bell raids weren't threats - they were annoyances.

"Are you two going to help with the raid?" asked my mother. There was an undercurrent of worry in her voice. Ah. So that was why they were tense and worried. They weren't afraid of the city getting damaged, or anything of the sort. They were just worried that this would be the first raid where we openly participated as heroes. Anise and I glanced at each other, before I sighed, and nodded. A two-bell raid was easy, and I didn't want to pass up on the Achievement for helping out anymore.

Furthermore, I wanted to help the city save some essence where I could. If we tried to do something big to change this city's fate, we would probably need it to be as strong as possible, either to help us or in case something went wrong. Helping clean up smaller raids would help the city save essence for real threats.

"We're going to help out," said Anise.

"We'll stay safe though. We won't leave the block." I saw our parents relax.

"We'll come with you, then," said my father.

"I'm not leaving my two little girls alone during a raid. Besides, I might not have an affinity for any of the four essences, but I'm a good hand with a blade." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. My mother smiled.

"I can hit a bullseye from over a hundred meters away on a shooting range. Past that point my aim gets pretty dodgy, because of wind currents and material limitations… but I won't leave you two alone either." Anise and I looked at each other, before we shrugged. More help was fine, and I honestly didn't want to leave my parents alone during the raid either. They seemed afraid that something would happen to Anise and I, but I was just as worried that something might happen to them.

I loved both of our parents a great deal this time, and I didn't want to lose them. Unlike usual, we stepped out of the house. I took a look at the skies. There was a giant cloud of… something. It looked like someone had taken a human eyeball, and then stitched a pair of wings on it. Somehow the bizarre monsters were flying. Now that I suspected this world hadn't had its monsters replaced by an external threat, I had to wonder why the monsters were designed this way.

Did the corporation that owned this world have to make monsters so grotesque? Maybe that was the point. I sighed, and waited for the monsters to descend. Arrows flew towards the flying eyeballs from various other houses on the street, and over half of the arrows that hit a monster killed them on the spot. I took a look at the monsters with soul-sense, and relaxed. I could probably drop over a hundred of them before I ran out of essence.

The swarm had thousands of monsters in it, but with how little life force the eyeballs had, I wasn't even sure if this was a proper two-bell raid. Perhaps the people in charge of the bell had upped the raid difficulty by one since the creatures were agile? As the cloud of eyeballs crept closer to the city, they started to divide themselves out into smaller and smaller groups of monsters.

One of the larger clouds of eyeballs descended a few streets away, and our family moved a bit closer so that we would be in range. I wanted to be close enough to our house that we could run back inside if needed, but I still wanted to help out a bit. Once we were finally in range, Anise fired the first shot. She flung a magic missile at the swarm. The creatures were agile and good at dodging, but Anise's spell was fast enough that she tore through the nearest bat and clipped the wing of another.

The swarm turned towards us as if they were sharks who had smelled blood, and started surging towards us at full speed. Two nearby houses started dumping arrows into the creatures as our family backed up, and my mother and I started loosing our own spells into the swarm. Several monsters died every second to my extinguishes, Anise's missiles, and mother's arrows. One of the eyeballs finally got close enough to dive at us, but the moment it picked up speed, I killed it with a spatial tripwire.

Then, I realized I was being silly, and grinned.

"I'm setting up a field of spatial tripwires. Kill any of the ones that get through!" I said, before I started opening portals left and right to create a killing field. My mother and Anise nodded, and saved their arrows and essence. The surviving cloud of eyeballs dived towards us… and then most of them got ripped apart by my field of traps. The few remaining stragglers were easily picked off by mother and Anise. I glanced back over the skies of the city, and sighed.

It looked like the rest of the city had already dealt with their own clouds of eyeballs. I didn't know if anyone had gotten hurt, but if I needed it, I still had over half of my alteration essence left. I could afford some healing spells. I glanced back at my family, and grinned. This was our first outing as heroes, but I thought it had gone well.

We had helped save some arrows and reduced the risk of casualties in our area, while also moving around in a way that was visible, to make sure we had fulfilled at least some of our role as 'morale boosters.' Veridian still hadn't taught us much about the ceremonial roles that we were supposed to fulfill, but I was more than happy to focus on my new magic system for now.

Slaughter: Kill a Formless - Stage 1 (Warped Wings) for the first time, Kill a Kill a Formless - Stage 1 (Warped Wings) for the tenth time, Kill a Kill a Formless - Stage 1 (Warped Wings) for the hundredth time. Influence: Help defend the city against a Raid Achievement +100, Achievement + 500, Achievement + 700, Achievement +100 With the 1400 Achievement we got from helping to defend the city, we went from 25, 881 Achievement to 27, 281 Achievement.

I was more than happy with that, but I still had one more notification that I hadn't dealt with yet. Endless Hunger of the Ocean has devoured Formless - Stage 1 (Warped Wings) for the first time. A new Skill has been created Twisted Wings that reach towards the Sky - You may spend a massive amount of essence to form temporary wings. These wings will dissolve once they are no longer supplied with essence, and grant you the ability to fly (each flap of your wings costs essence).

While flying with these wings, your Strength and Agility are both boosted by a quarter of a grade. I didn't think this new skill was that useful, but I slotted it anyway. I could test it out later. However, I suspected my umbrella was just a better option if I wanted to fly. Still, I could always test it later to make sure, and it wasn't like there was a cost for abandoning the skills from {Endless Hunger of the Ocean}. I could just remove it later if it turned out to be useless.

I saw a few eyes in the nearby arrow slits widen as Anise and I finished going over our System notifications and my parents stood around awkwardly. Finally, a man spoke up.

"Are you two the heroes I've heard so much about?" he asked. Anise nodded.

"Yeah! My sister and I are the heroes!" Then, I heard her mental voice. <Miria, do you have any alteration essence left? > <Yeah, I'm about half full. If you were thinking of offering them healing, go for it. >"My sister can heal some injuries, if you have wounded!" said Anise.

"Is everyone okay?"

"Nobody got hurt during the fight - you guys managed to distract the little monsters long enough that they didn't go after anyone else. Thanks for the offer, though. Keep doing good work!" called the man. None of the other people seemed to want to interact with us, so we headed back to our bakery. There, we found two people holding up an injured woman. Apparently, word had spread that our bakery now offered healing services.

The woman probably would have made it even without my help, but I gave her a bit of healing magic just to make sure she pulled through. After healing her up, I sent a quick message to Felix and Sallia to make sure they were okay. Both of them were fine, just bored. After that, I waited to see if any other stragglers showed up with injuries for another hour or two. My mother and father stayed up with me. Anise tried, but ended up falling asleep on my shoulder before mom carried her back to bed.

A few other injuries did show up, mostly minor wounds. After a few hours, I decided nobody else was coming, so we went back to bed. It was my first time fighting so openly against a raid, but I had to admit, it felt nice. The monsters had been a good matchup for Anise and I, the Achievement gains had been excellent, and I felt good about helping the people of the city. Our first outing as heroes had gone well.