Time remaining until the armistice ends: ~995 years (Teyrin).

 

Amara grinned as the wind brushed over her back, followed by the echo as the dark troll's fists struck the floor behind her. As the troll’s fists bounced into the air, it used the momentum to bring its arms up to strike down at her again. 

As the clenched fists were changing direction, she prepared herself to activate her divine power, waiting until the last moment. 

Divine Body Strengthening!

Amara timed her strike, slapping the fists that were bearing down on her to make them strike the floor next to her. Once again feeling the brush of air that rushed past her, Amara looked up at the monster’s face as she chuckled. “Come on, Grumpy. You can do better than that.”

The dark troll growled in response as it opened its fists to grab her. With the heat surging up in her body, she leaped up and away, making her body revolve in the air to bring her legs out of reach from the giant hands. 

Landing on her feet three meters back, she grinned at Grumpy that growled in anger before it started approaching her. “Too slow!”

While Ezme was forced to spend a lot of time away, Amara had found that fighting was the best way to reduce her stress - to the point that it became addicting. When she first started training on her own again, she had held back quite a bit and been careful to avoid injuries. But with time she grew bored, and started wishing for more excitement in the fights. 

“Oops. Sorry!” Amara exclaimed as she struck Grumpy a little harder than she intended to, causing the bones underneath the thick skin to crack. She raised her palm towards the troll that was holding its broken forearm while mewling. 

Poor thing. Divine Regeneration.

[Ding!]

Nice.

Seeing the skill level up brought a sense of satisfaction she hadn’t felt during the first few years after her ascendence. The levels of skills all seemed arbitrary and pointless in the beginning, but with time she had started to feel the desire to level them up as she felt she was seriously improving. Now, seeing a level up brought a sense of excitement and achievement just like when the characters in games she had played on Earth leveled up - except now it felt more intense. 

The level of Divine Regeneration had been reset after she evolved the skill into being able to target others. The leading cause to why she had to heal someone else, was the same as the current situation - she had accidentally hurt the monster she was using as sparring partner.

Amara smiled as she put her hand on her hip. “Up for more?”

Grumpy growled in anger as it fixed its eyes on her, and started approaching her again. Amara sighed with a smile. You never learn.

Without Ezme, Amara had to find her own sparring partners. Merely finding suitable ones had been time consuming, but once she found the places that territorial monsters used as lairs, she managed to obtain a few regular customers. Grumpy being one of them.

As the fight continued, Amara noticed how Grumpy started to get increasingly slower. “Tired already?”

[Ding-dong!]

Amara raised an eyebrow as she heard the doorbell from the outer room just as she ducked underneath Grumpy’s swiping arm. Putting a bit of extra distance to the troll, she called out. “Who’s there?”

As she sidestepped another blow from Grumpy, she heard the sarcastic reply from the alcove. “Shameless mortal. How many visitors are you getting in my absence, to the point you need to ask?” 

Amara smiled brightly as she glanced at the angel that watched her with crossed arms. “Fluffles!”

Ezme snorted. “Who else were you expecting?”

“I wasn’t expecting anyo-” Amara cut herself off as she realized that Grumpy had taken advantage of her loss of attention. She had no time to dodge the incoming fist, and instead activated her divine power and blocked her face with her forearms. 

While she couldn’t be hurt by Grumpy with her divine power activated, the force of his blows were more than enough to send her flying. A surprised yelp escaped her lips as she struck the wall. 

A slow clapping could be heard from the alcove. “Impressive.”

Amara’s face reddened as she howled. “I lost focus, okay!” 

“I wasn’t referring to you. Your performance was atrocious. Tsk.” Ezme clicked her tongue with a grin. “Mortals never cease to amaze me. Everything always has to revolve around you, doesn’t it?”

Damn it. She played me again.

Amara sighed as she stood up before Grumpy could punch her again, slapping his fist up so it struck the wall instead. Dodging underneath its arm, she closed the distance and put her hand against the troll’s body. With a thrust the troll was pushed back, skidding along the floor to the other side of the room. With the resulting pause in the fighting, Amara used Farsight, Realm Gate and Snatch in succession to send the Grumpy back to its lair on Ramay. 

As the portal closed, Amara turned to look at Ezme as a grin slowly spread on her face. The angel met her gaze and frowned, before she started backing away. “No-no-no-UAH!”

In an instant, Amara had activated her divine power and lunged at the angel. Amara wrapped her arms tightly around the angel’s waist when her face impacted Ezme’s stomach, and squealed with delight as they landed on the floor. “I missed youuu!”

“Get off me! Impudent mortal!” Ezme howled and pushed on her shoulders to get her off.

“No way! My Fluffles is finally back!” Amara laughed while rubbing her face against Ezme with a wide grin. “Don’t be shy, I know you missed me too!”

“I never said that!” Ezme howled, trying to sound angry but couldn’t hide the embarrassment that rose in her voice. “Get off! You stink of sweat!”

“It’s fine, we can take a bath toge-aow-aow-aow!” Amara exclaimed in pain, but couldn’t stop smiling despite the discomfort.

“In your dreams! Let go!” Ezme commanded while pinching and pulling on Amara’s cheek harder.

“Stop it! I’ve let go already!” Amara exclaimed while laughing. 

“Insolent!” Ezme pushed Amara off her and stood up, immediately hiding her reddened face from view. “Get a bath already, and be quick about it!”

“Yes ma’am!” Amara shot up with a grin and ran towards the bathroom.

“What was that?!” Ezme howled in anger after her.

“Nothing!” (Amara)

 

_______________

“A-Amara! That’s enough!” Ezme gasped as she pushed Amara away from her lips. 

Amara smiled wryly as she leaned back and watched the angel’s blushed cheeks. Ah, Fluffles. It’s not that easy to beat me, is it?

Seemingly sensing how Amara was looking at her, Ezme kept her eyes averted. “Anyway! Show me!” 

Amara let out a content sigh with a smile. Status.

“Hmm. Seems you’re still making progress.” Ezme said while reading through Amara’s screen.

Amara sighed and shrugged in response. “I haven't leveled up in a while now though.”

“True...” Ezme replied. “We might need to kick things up a bit. Give you more of a challenge.”

“Sounds good.” Amara replied as she patted the angel’s wings. My pool of divine power isn’t increasing at the same rate anymore either. I’m not sure how it works exactly, but I think the size of my pool of divine power depends on my level. So more levels would mean I can get a larger pool.

I suppose getting a class evolution or titles is another way to increase it. Maybe I should try and get the next class evolution?

Though it doesn’t even become available until level 50 anyway...

“How’s it going with making new weapons by the way? Are you getting anywhere with ones that work with divine power?” Ezme asked.

Amara groaned in response. 

“That bad, huh.” Ezme said amused.

“It’s...difficult to enchant things with divine power.” Amara replied dejectedly. “There’s a reason it took me so long to make my first enchantment. Without any skills for it...”

“I know. You’ll get there eventually.” Ezme replied with a smile, before they sank into a contemplative silence.

I don’t get why it’s so hard. And no matter how many times I’ve done it, I’m not getting a divine skill for it. It needs to be done by forming a complete mental image, every time.

When she first realized that she didn’t get a divine skill after the first time she imbued an item with divine power, Amara was confused. After attempting it several times, she knew something was up.

And nobody was able to give her an answer for why that was. Ezme seemed surprised that she didn’t get a skill for divine enchanting, but apparently it was a rare, while not unprecedented occurrence. According to her, some actions simply didn’t yield a new skill, depending on what one was trying to achieve.   

So Amara had gone to Morpheus, who had simply shrugged his shoulders. {“I don’t know. I never got a skill for it either.” (Morpheus)}

I wonder why-

“Speaking of enchanting...” Ezme said curiously and cocked her head, interrupting Amara’s thoughts. “You said you had something to show me?”

Amara grinned as she stood up and nodded towards the alcove. “Follow me.”

The pair went to the room that had become Amara’s workshop during the years, and where she spent a lot of her time.  Now, it had shelves and racks lining the curved walls, giving it the appearance of a polygon. 

More shelves and racks stood in the center of the room together with tables, with a fair share of microscopes and other equipment on them that Amara had used to study the effects of enchanting in closer detail. Though progress had been slow, she felt that she had understood the limits of her current capabilities - whether it was regarding enchanting with mana or divine power. Which in her own opinion, made her unable to make any useful items.

Amara went up to the table where her latest project was. It was an ordinary steel ingot, with a remote control resting on top of it. 

Other ingots were placed around the tables in disarray, and one of the shelves was filled to the brim with a neat stack. Steel ingots were what Amara used to test new enchantments on. 

Her choice of using metal ingots was no coincidence; metal was simply easier to imbue with mana compared to many other materials. Forged metal was even easier. The books she had read said as much, and her own experiments had confirmed it. For instance, more mana could be imbued into items made with metal compared to wood. Although metal wasn’t the best material to imbue, it was the most suitable for Amara’s purposes. 

The books had mentioned that jewels were exceptionally good to use for enchantments, but they were small - and therefore more difficult to enchant. Jewels were also expensive, and Amara didn’t see a point in stealing expensive items for the purpose of testing.

Picking up the remote, Amara handed it to Ezme before she put her hand on the end of the ingot and poured her mana into it. Ready to show off her invention, she looked at Ezme with a smile. “Push the button.”

Ezme raised her eyebrow before she glanced down at the control in her hand. Turning her eyes to the ingot on the table, she pushed the button on the remote.

Amara felt her mana get drained, as the enchantment activated and a yellow flame appeared on top of the ingot. 

Yes! That’s it, baby!

Feeling her chest swell up with pride, her smile broadened as the flame appeared. After letting the enchantment drain her mana for a few seconds, she pulled her hand away to cut off the flow.

“Huh.” Ezme cocked her head in contemplation as the flame disappeared. “Was that an enchantment?”

Amara nodded her head with a large smile. “Yes! I only had to supply it with mana, everything else was handled by the enchantments when you pushed the button!” 

Praise my genius!

When she studied the weapons she had borrowed, the enchantments sometimes referred to different parts that should be affected by the spell, such as the edge of a blade with the Flaming Edge enchantment. This made her realize that enchantments were somehow able to identify the item they were enchanted to, as well as its subcomponents. 

But if the enchantments could differentiate between such things, then Amara theorized that they had to be able to identify other things as well - such as radio waves. Which was exactly what Amara had attempted to make an enchantment do, and succeeded. 

“That’s...pretty impressive…?” Ezme said hesitantly.

What’s with the mediocre response? I get that it was a bit anticlimactic, but this is huge!

Fluffles is normally impressed whenever I show her my progress...was it really that boring?

“Why phrase it as a question!” Amara retorted. “Can’t you see it was activated by only pushing a button! No invocation needed! This is revolutionary!” 

“Yes, but...how is it useful?” Ezme asked with a cocked head.

Really?!

“Well, for starters, it means you don’t need to even need to know what the command is to invoke the enchantment in order to use it! It can be activated and used by anyone with minimal instruction!” Amara exclaimed. “And if you’re able to make an enchantment store its own mana, it means you can activate the enchantment at range!”

“And its applications would be…what exactly?” Ezme asked suspiciously.

“Well…” Amara began. I actually didn’t think that far.

On Earth, radio waves are generally used for communication...but those with magic can learn to communicate through telepathy. And without infrastructure, radio waves aren’t useful for long-distance communication. Any use would have to be short ranged…

Hold on, this isn’t about radio waves! This is about making enchantments activate through other means than invocation!

“I’m not sure what applications it would have, but the key is that enchantments can be activated without an invocation. If it can be done with radio waves, then it can probably be done with electric currents or other things as well.” Amara explained. 

“What kind of applications would that have?” Ezme asked.

Damn you, Fluffles! What’s with the hard questions, can’t you just praise me?!

“...I’m not sure yet.” Amara admitted. “I think it means...actually, yes! If you can get an enchantment to be activated by an electric current - then it could also be adjusted with an electric current! Like how hot a Flame spell should be - meaning that you can have precise, on-demand adjustments of an enchantment! Even if you have no skill or experience when it comes to supplying mana to an enchanted item!”

Amara smiled broadly as she praised her own stroke of genius in her mind. How’s that!

“...That does sound useful.” Ezme said in a contemplative tone.

“See! You shouldn’t doubt me-” (Amara)

“But then the item needs a stable source of electricity as well, no?” Ezme countered. “And most mortal civilizations have no clue about electricity.”

Damn it! Details!

“Well, maybe not now, but...it was just an example. If you can have enchantments activated at certain conditions rather than strictly by an invocation, then-” Amara began with a complicated tone.

The sudden sound of snickering interrupted her thoughts, and she looked at the angel with a confused expression. Her confusion intensified as Ezme’s laughter grew louder, until she realized what was so amusing. 

I got played.

“...You’re really cruel sometimes, you know that?” Amara crossed her arms as the corner of her mouth twitched.

“Sorry. I couldn’t resist.” Ezme said with a bright smile. “Anyway, I’m not sure if anyone has done something like that with enchantments before. As you said, it’s revolutionary. I’m impressed!”

“Mhm.” Amara responded half-heartedly. 

“Oh come on, don’t be grumpy! It was just a little joke!” Ezme exclaimed cheerfully.

“You hurt my feelings.” Amara muttered moodily as she looked away from the angel to hide her curving lips from the angel’s view.

“And here I thought you deserved a reward for your hard work?” Ezme asked teasingly.

Amara raised an eyebrow. A reward?

A reward!

“Such a shame. And here I was, all psyched up too...” Ezme whispered teasingly.

Amara got goosebumps at her whisper, and turned back towards the angel as she asked curiously. “What kind of rewar-mpf?”

Surprised by Ezme’s sudden attack, Amara thought she’d have to stumble backwards to find her balance. But the angel’s iron grip on the back of her neck kept her from escaping.

Just after Amara surrendered and was getting immersed in the kiss, Ezme pulled away. She could only let out a sigh in defeat as she took in the sight of Ezme’s playful, triumphant smile. Well played, Fluffles. 

Well played.