Chapter 49: Power levelling

Registration and transportation. Of the two, registration is likely the simpler. Oh, I’ll probably have some annoyances what with my species and all, but in the end all it takes is sharing a few elements from my status to clear up any misunderstandings. But as for transporting monster corpses… Machite could only carry a couple at most. Of course, I don’t have to carry the entire corpses back. The adventurer’s guild does pay rewards for submitting certain monster parts as proof of subjugation, but in comparison to selling the entire corpse it’s practically a pittance.

Well, that depends on the monster, though. Nobody’s gonna pay you much for a goblin corpse, after all. They stink and their meat tastes bad from what I know, even putting aside that most people don’t like eating meat from humanoids. Basically, they have no special qualities apart from breeding like rabbits. Anyway, what I’m saying is that people will only pay for stuff that can actually be used. Tasty meat, silky fur, tough hides, horns or other special parts that can be used in brewing potions or other magic…

Anyway, I’ll probably need to hire a cart. I’d buy one, but I don’t know that I’d use it regularly enough to justify the cost. Also, I don’t really have anywhere I could keep it. But a cart, let’s see… I’ll just check through my memories of the last time I was in the city… Yep, should be possible to get one with how much I’ve got. So that leaves pushing the cart.

It uh, should be obvious, but I’m not going to be able to pull it myself. Hiring horses or donkeys would be costly, and managing them would be difficult for me. Machite is the ideal choice, the only question is whether they’re physically capable enough. Elementals, generally speaking, aren’t known for their physical abilities. Heck, technically speaking they don’t have a physical form to begin with.

Frankly, it’d be harder to kill Machite than it would be to kill me. Best most people could do is destroy the summoning medium – but that wouldn’t kill, or even hurt Machite. Just prevent them from being summoned here again. Anyway, of the various elementals, earth elementals are pretty much the most ‘physical’ ones. As for how much they can lift, though, well I’ll have to test that out.

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Looks like I’ll need to summon another earth elemental. Machite is strong, but not enough to draw a full cart on their own. If I go all out, maybe I can summon a high-tier elemental… Maybe I’d better not. A high-tier elemental would probably require a lot more mana to maintain the summon. Another mid-tier should do fine.

I find myself a suitably small and mana rich rock - mana rich for a rock, that is. The summoning is straightforward and without complication, and soon I have a second earth man standing in front of me. One noticeably smaller than the other.

Checking through my memories, I muse aloud, “Have you grown, Machite?”

There is no reply, as per usual. But they have. I guess they’ve gotten stronger since I first summoned them?

“I think I’ll call you… Slate.” I say, not lingering too long on the name. Not like I spent much brainpower on ‘Machite’ either. “They’ll be your junior from now on Machite. Treat each other well.”

There is no response from either of them. I may as well be speaking to a wall. An earthen wall.

Anyway. What’s left now is to rent a cart and register as an adventurer.

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“We don’t allow people to register through magic tool-”

Show them my species. I interrupt the guild staff with the system message.

“…I see.” She blinks. “Well, in that case it’s fine, but I should probably warn you that it could be difficult for you to defeat monsters with your size.”

Show them my level. “I may not look it, but I’m not new to this.”

“I understand. Do you need me to write your details for you?” She asks, showing remarkable composure.

“No, I can do it myself, thanks, if you’ll allow me to borrow your inkwell for a moment.” I reply.

“Of course.” She nods professionally, moving it forwards slightly.

Strictly speaking, the only necessary field to fill out is the name, although it’s frowned upon to leave everything else blank. They don’t even enforce showing the name from your status, so it’s entirely possible to use a pseudonym or fake name.

Anyway. Name: Gerald. Age: not starting that shebang. Gender: male, coz I said so. Level… eh, let’s put above 30. Specialties – in most places ‘magic’ would probably be enough, but this is Arbadak, in the city next to perhaps the best magic academy in the world. Like 80% of adventurers here use magic in some way or another. I’ll put destruction and summoning. Everything else I use is either too specific or unskilled to really put them there. I’d confuse the hell outta people if I put ‘close combat’ on there, heh.

Even if that is technically one of my more powerful methods.

And psychic… Telepathy and telekinesis isn’t really enough to call myself that, I don’t think. If someone told me they were psychic, I’d think they could read my mind and hypnotise me into becoming their best friend or make me a vegetable. I don’t got that.

From there the process is mostly simple. Turns out that a second staff member has to confirm my details along with the one that had been speaking to me so that higher ups who could look at it later won’t think it’s some sort of prank.

Still, before long I have yet another card to carry around. The lowest rank, copper. It’s not made from copper though, it’s just colouring. Think I read something somewhere that they used to be made of the actual metals, but then they had issues with the cards being stolen and melted down…

Now the cards have no intrinsic value and are keyed to their holder’s mana. When supplied with the holder’s mana and a guild device is used on the card, it produces a reaction that allows them to verify it. Practical, cheap on the guild’s end, and reduces the chances of it getting stolen from an adventurer.

With that done, I rent the cart I had in mind from a bemused dude and set off from the city with my two earth elementals pulling it behind them.

All the quests on the guild’s board are in my head, naturally, although due to my rank I can only complete the lowest ranked requests. Not that I particularly mind, completing quests is something I’ll do if it’s convenient. The rank can also go up from selling them enough monsters.

My aim is simply bronze rank, the next one up. I don’t have a particular need for a higher guild rank, but it could come in handy in the future. Once I’ve achieved that – and I don’t expect it to take too long – I’ll stop selling to the guild and instead sell directly to butchers, leatherworkers, smiths and the like. Some are in exclusive contracts with the guild, but not all, and going direct will net me more profits, although it will take a bit longer and require a fair amount of market knowledge.

Thankfully, gathering that sort of knowledge is simple for me, and it doesn’t take much for me to figure out where I can go to get the best prices.

Finding monsters is also simple, and yet not. The city is, of course, an important one, being next to Wehttam. A center of trade and magical knowledge. And, therefore, the roads and areas outside the city are heavily patrolled by soldiers. What they don’t find, adventurers will, meaning there are practically no monsters near the city or roads.

Still, if you move away from the roads, away from the city, then you will inevitably encounter more monsters. And if you know exactly where they are, as well as any other adventurer parties to avoid their area of activity, well then, it’s simplicity itself to just move from one monster to the next.

Any truly powerful monsters have long been driven out or exterminated, so what’s left is only low level animals and monsters. I’d be surprised to see anything over level twenty around here at all. As a consequence, most adventurers around here are also similarly weak, the stronger ones having left for rougher waters. Some quite literally, acting as guards on the trading vessels that go to and from the city.

That is to say, this isn’t a very good place to level up. Maybe some of the adventurers in the city are in parties with all the other members in another city, specifically so they can sell levelling services easier? It wouldn’t surprise me. As for me, well I don’t have much choice other than to make do for the time being. Maybe I could go to another city, I’m fast enough after all. But then I’d have to figure out the situation there, look for another place to rent a cart, so on and so forth… Time I’m not looking to spend right now.

Putting that aside for now, I’ve reached my first prey. The common goblin. Probably from a small group, it’s practically impossible for it to be anything large as they’re basically exterminated on sight like pests. But, well… If it so happens that a couple are outside when the extermination happens, then they’ll start popping up again like cockroaches.

Another benefit of this outing is that it’s a perfect opportunity for practical magic tests.

Hovering behind the small green thing as it forages, I unleash my first spell. Invisible to normal sight but visible to mana sight, a projectile speeds towards it, striking it in the torso. As if it had received a solid shove, it falls over sideways with a yelp.

Force push, literally a spell to move things around. Naturally I upped the juice to give it more oomph, seems like it’s good enough to disrupt balance, maybe knock them down or perhaps move them out of the way of something. Wasn’t meant to be lethal, of course.

A second projectile hits its exposed back, and a loud snap echoes as its spine breaks. A small yet messy hole about the size of a fifty cent coin is visible at the point of impact.

Force spike I call it. Technically speaking, it’s pretty much the same spell, but rather than spreading the force over most or all the surface area, it’s concentrated. A large amount of force on a small area, like hitting it with a hammer. Not really a spike, I guess. But ‘force hammer’ would make me think that it was going to apply a large amount of force on a large area, so here we are.

I inspect the goblin briefly as it screams weakly. Debilitating, but not fatal. I rectify that and end its suffering with a small fireball.

As Auden once said to me, force magic is good at speeding things up and slowing them down. Singular things, or things in a small area, that is. He was right, it’s really not good at barriers. Let’s say I was trying to stop a bullet. I could do that with force magic… If I knew precisely where and when to deploy my magic, because I would need to apply a sufficient amount of force in the opposite direction to stop it dead. Doing that in a spherical or even hemispherical shape would be like firing a bullet’s worth of force in every direction at once, constantly.

It's not that it’s impossible. But only as a short reaction, rather than say an earth barrier which you can put up and maintain for a pittance when it isn’t being damaged.

Putting barriers aside, how does punching something hurt it? Is it not just speeding it up or slowing it down a large amount, very quickly? Force magic can naturally do such a thing. It’s basically a magic that punches. Of course, that means that it could be blocked easily with most barriers, but that’s most magic anyway.

Now, the other goblins are… There.

With two earth elementals pulling the cart, even rough terrain or muddy ground is no hindrance, and so long as I keep supplying them with mana, they know no fatigue. As such, travel is smooth and… Perhaps not fast, if it were to be compared to a horse on a road, but a decent pace is maintained.

There are only three goblins in the group, living in a hovel in the ground with an entrance camouflaged with branches and dirt. It’s a simple matter for me to worm my way between them and sneak my way inside.

A flash of light sparks in the dim lighting, causing the three to instinctively close their eyes and shield themselves from the source – a simple light spell. When they open their eyes again a moment later, they panic, waving their arms and tripping over themselves, blinded.

If they had more presence of mind, perhaps they would think it strange that they were blinded so easily; the flash wasn’t that bright. Perhaps they would even touch their fingers to their eyes, which would be sufficient to dislodge the layer of darkness there. Only the simplest of spells, and yet their effect is so significant.

I conjure an orb of water on the head of one of the goblins, who begins to choke and flail around. Hm, less than ideal. I’m having to manually control the orb to follow the goblin’s motions, and I’m less than perfect at doing so, not to mention it potentially takes my attention away from other things. Perhaps if I were to make a droplet of water the ‘core’ of the spell, around which the rest was formed? Then I would only have to direct that into the opponent’s lungs and the spell would do the rest.

Well, at the very least it’s very distracting for the opponent.

Dispelling the water, I cast another spell before also removing the darkness from their eyes. The result is immediate as the goblins blink and charge at each other, biting and clawing. In their eyes, the others appear as dark, forbidding figures.

With their panicked, confused state they didn’t even think twice before assuming that the ‘figures’ were the ones responsible for what was happening.

Would such a method work on more intelligent and skilled opponents? Maybe for a short time. It has its flaws after all, there’s nothing stopping them from recognising each other’s voices, skills or mana if they pay attention. Or rather, the only sense that it disguises is sight.

At this point, the goblins are in a terrible state. The one that I’d been testing the water orb on had barely had time to breath before the others attacked him, and was quick to die. The others were clawing and punching each other, with small wounds all over their bodies. And yet ironically they were both too weak to be able to kill the other quickly, prolonging their own suffering.

Although goblins don’t sell for much, them causing damage all over their bodies will still cut into my profits. A pair of flaming arrows puts an end to the fight.

The elementals lumber in and carry the bodies back to the cart.

I feel a bit sorry for them, but I can only find out so much about how effective a spell is by practicing on dummies. Not to mention illusion magic can’t be practiced on inanimate objects, and although the ones I tested here could be tested on a willing subject, many others could cause actual harm if I were to do that. Much better to test on beasts and monsters.

Although I doubt it’s much relief to them, the best I can do is just to test a few things per monster, to ensure their suffering is brief.

So, where’s my next test subject?

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In the evening I head back to the city, the cart piled decently high. Around the side of the adventurer’s guild is a path for carriages, carts and the like with a large entrance. I enter and sell off the bodies.

I can’t help but wish I was able to dismantle the bodies, which would be a good increase to the profits. Sadly, I just don’t have the physical capabilities, and I don’t think I could instruct the elementals precisely enough to do it well, so I have no choice but to just let it go.

Regardless, money is money, and it’s a welcome trickle into a shallow pond with a broken dam. Wish it were a waterfall, though.

…Waterfall. Why in the hell didn’t I think of that in the first place? I complained about there not being enough monsters in the area, and what is there, literally right next to the city? Only an entire freaking ocean.

Guess I just didn’t think about it because it’s not humanely possible. How hard is it to swing a sword underwater? How long can you hold your breath, and how deep can you really go? How hard is it to escape from something that has adapted and evolved throughout generations to survive in that environment? Even a lot of magic – elemental magic at least, which is most of what I know at this point – is severely limited in such an environment.

But I’m not human. I don’t need to breathe, and I won’t be affected by the water pressure – at least, not by anything but the deep trenches… Probably. I can reshape myself to be more hydrodynamic, and easily move myself about with telekinesis or absorb. While offensively I may be limited to short-range flash boiling enemies with fire in terms of magic, with absorb I’ll… Also be limited to short ranges, but still.

I really need long-range underwater methods. How could… Maybe… Uh… Alright, let’s shelve that for now. Frankly, the increased density of water as a medium makes any projectile attack less viable.

And my earth elementals will be useless underwater for obvious reasons. I’ll need a water elemental to transport the corpses. Fortunately, it’s easier to lift most things in water than it is in air. Something about buoyancy, I don’t really know. Maybe I get the water elemental to move it to the shore and an earth elemental to move it from there to the cart… That should work.

Why do I feel like I’m becoming a summoner now? Except unlike most people, I’m using them as manual labour rather than combat forces. Well, such is life.

Anyway, I’ll need a new medium for a water elemental. Unlike an earth elemental, it’s not quite as simple as picking up any old rock off the ground. It’s water, so you need something to keep it in. But you also need to make sure it doesn’t leak or get confused for a potion or drink.

The simple solution is to seal a small amount of water completely, usually in glass or some other clear material (you want to see it, right?). Naturally, such things are sold all over the place in this city, in various forms from a plain bubble to incorporated in jewellery and other adornments.

I just buy a small, reasonably priced one of acceptable quality. I don’t care what it looks like, but at least it shouldn’t shatter if it gets bumped the wrong way, right?

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Summoning the water elemental was a simple matter, a mid-tier as planned. I call it Mary, short for marine. Couldn’t really think of many names related to water, that popped in my head, good enough for me.

Unlike the Machite or Slate, Mary doesn’t look humanoid, or even have much of a concrete form at all. It’s more like they’re in whatever form is convenient or pleasing to them at any particular time.

Hit a little snag in that I can’t speak Aquan. Gave it a go based on my understanding of the written language, but I quickly gave up, as it was clear that Mary was having trouble understanding me. Instead, I just write out any instructions in Aquan using mana, easy enough for a magical being of the elements to see even if I don’t concentrate the mana enough to be visible to the human eye, as I found out.

Once I figured that out and sorted how I would transport the bodies, hunting becomes a breeze. I was quite correct in guessing that there would be a lot of sea creatures. Outside of the small area of water which the city can manage and keep clear of anything dangerous, the ocean is teeming with wildlife of all sorts.

After some adjusting, I can soar through the water just as quickly as I can through the air using absorb, which means that pretty much nothing can outrun me. Mary can’t move quite as fast, but she still slips through the currents of water with the ease and speed one would expect of a being of water literally in their home element.

As an added benefit, I get to re-test the viability of my spells, this time underwater, and as expected most of them suffer greatly. Unexpectedly, fire magic, albeit only at practically point-blank distances, is very effective at killing water creatures.

Although water can take a lot more heat energy before rising in temperature than air, this also means temperature changes underwater are generally small and gradual. When exposed to sudden, significant changes in temperature, most fish just can’t handle it. Of course, normally it wouldn’t be possible for fire to burn underwater, but magically created fire is capable of such – technically speaking it doesn’t seem to be the same as normal fire, and doesn’t require oxygen to burn.

Through one method or another, it doesn’t take long to rack up an impressive quantity of kills, many of them at decently high levels – at least, in comparison to the scrubs I fought the day before. Due to the distribution rates, I didn’t get much experience, but it was enough that I would guess that every one of the others would have levelled up at least once.

A good start to the power-levelling, if I do say so myself.

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