The first thing I did when I had control of my Avatar was test to see which spells I could use. I started with Mage Armor attuned to earth mana, causing a thin layer of stone to form around my body. Technically the stone was formed on top of the eponymous barrier the spell generated, but it certainly looked like I'd petrified myself. Clapping my hands, there was a sharp cracking sound and a small cloud of dust. The Armor itself seemed undamaged, and my motion wasn't hindered at all. In short, a successful casting.

Next was Locate Object. I withdrew the Divination Tool and focused. For this one, I needed to give a directive to the spell, kind of like how I aimed Voices at Nyx. Mica had mentioned that I might get multiple results if I wasn't specific enough, so... Where is the closest of Nyx's Core shards that's within a hundred meters of the surface? I didn't want to have to dig into the mantle or something...

Channeling the spell through the compass was strange. It reminded me of putting my hand against a drain in a sink, that feeling of suction as the water tried to get through the gaps. Only it was much creepier coming from the phantom limb that was my Heart. 

A few new runes lit up inside the casing of the compass, and the liquid in the crystal swirled as metal flecks forced themselves into the shape of a needle. The direction was... East and a little down. Hopefully that meant it was close.

That just left the Teleport spell. If I could get it to work, pretty much all my troubles would vanish on the spot. I could reach the shards, escape enemies, and avoid detection simply by teleporting as far and as quickly as possible. Too bad the spell was so complicated. Without the Magic menu, there were several parts that I wasn't confident in my memory for. I might have tried it anyway, just to see what happened... But it's a teleport spell, you know? Of all the spells that could miscast disastrously, Teleport was the most famous.

It was an unsatisfying result, especially since I was fairly confident Voices of the Chorus was the more complicated of the two spells. Being able to use that one but not this one wounded my pride. I promised that I would devote myself to studying it properly once I got back home. Until then... I would need to walk. Or float, if it seemed like I could get away with using the Air Armor without drawing attention to myself.

Hmm... May as well test that now. I dismissed my Stone Armor and used the Air variant instead. I felt a slight sense of lethargy from using too much magic, but I was able to shake it off easily enough.

Unlike with the Stone variant, the Air Armor was invisible aside from the slightly transparent barrier all Mage Armor had. I could feel it, though. A dull current around my entire body, neutralizing some of my weight and running across my skin like a thousand feathers. In the night's darkness, I would definitely be able to use it without anyone noticing.

I tried moving around with it and- Well, it wasn't the first time I've hit my head on a ceiling, but I'd never managed to scrape my knee on one before. I'd say practicing in a building was a bad idea, but practicing where someone could see was guaranteed to draw trouble. At least it wasn't painful.

I would have liked to practice more, but I was running on a time limit. I left the building without encountering any trouble, and the streets outside were clear as well. Actually, compared to last time it was utterly desolate. Either everybody left the city, or there was some kind of curfew in effect. Annoying whichever way it went, since I was going to stand out no matter what I did.

With that in mind, I jumped up towards my apartment's roof, using the fire escape as a safety in case I undershot it. I felt a surge of exhilaration and terror as the ground rapidly fell away from me, but there was no adrenaline to accompany it. I did end up misjudging it. I could only wince at the racket I made from just a light impact against the metal railing. It took two more jumps from there to reach the roof.

I took a moment to process my feelings. The terror was obvious. I wasn't afraid of heights, but I didn't fully trust my ability to survive a long fall. Something to practice later. On the other hand, I'd just scaled a five story building in seconds. My athletic ability was technically higher inside the dungeon, but I hadn't really had a chance to do anything unusual. Being able to run around fast and without getting tired was awesome, but part of me still felt it was... mundane. Compared to magic, it was just a cool thing I could do, nothing world shattering.

I turned and looked back towards the ground, so far away. I hadn't actually put much effort in. A growing, reckless part of me wanted to kick off with all the strength I had, and see how high I could go. I wanted to fly. This was something I could never do in the dungeon, nor in the world before the dungeon.

I struggled with myself for a moment. Already, I was starting to recover my focus. I could still jump around while working towards the shard. Looking towards the proper direction, my eyes were captured by a familiar object. Up above, the moon shone down strongly.

A familiar calm settled over me as I looked up at it. I'd spent many nights gazing up at the sky like this. It was a comfort to me. I hadn't had a chance to see the moon since all this started. Then again... I'd had so much to do, still had so much to do. Maybe I just hadn't felt the need to look.

Ah. A sudden thought struck me. I was supposed to get a buff from moonlight, right? And from the night as well. No, everyone got a bonus from the night. Does it work on Earth? If so, it would probably be worse for me. I would benefit, but so would each individual person who picked a fight with me. Being outnumbered was a pain.

... It was time to get moving. I'd already wasted something like thirty minutes playing with spells. I moved across the roof tops in order to avoid anyone traveling on the streets. I tried to move quickly without getting too far above the roofs. A light push forward was enough to cross most buildings in a single bound, and I tried to play the crossing from one roof to another as safely as possible. It was fun. That itch to fly straight up kept bothering me the entire way, but the distance I needed to go wasn't that far.

I checked the compass every once in a while, and it eventually changed a little. The needle now pointed more down than East, so I dropped down to the streets again. Or I thought about it at least. I knew I'd probably be fine, but it was still difficult to make myself drop directly down. In the end, I jumped down to smaller buildings until there was a reasonable distance between me and the ground.

I checked to make sure nobody was around, and then dropped the Air Armor. I was sacrificing mobility, but jumping around like that was too conspicuous anyways. If I wanted to be sneaky, then Shadow Armor would be better. Hopefully. I was testing it for the first time.

The barrier that appeared was coated in a thick black murk... Not. That was the best description when I looked at it directly, but out of the corner of my eye it was like nothing was there at all. An absence of light. It was very disorienting not being able to see myself out of the periphery of my vision. It was hardly an invisibility spell though. If I stood in a bright place I would stand out horribly.

With that done, I checked out the area. There wasn't anything special about the place though. It was an alley between two buildings. The shards didn't seem to have any effect on the location they appeared at... Which was better for me, probably.

Now the problem was that I would be randomly digging in the middle of a city... And I really didn't have a solution for that. The best I could do was make the hole as small as possible and rely on the compass giving the exact position.

My understanding of the Excavate spell was fairly high. With that understanding, I tried to create a golf ball sized hole straight in the direction the needle pointed. It was rather difficult to control the spell once enough material blocked the way, so I eventually had to finish the casting and extract that material. It was kind of entertaining to see the powder push its way up above the ground and form a large pile nearby.

After about six attempts, water started to come out. That was annoying. It slowed down the rate I could channel mana into the hole, but it didn't actually seem to interfere with the spell itself. The fine powder to the side dissolved instantly though, creating a really slimy mud. What a mess...

After about ten minutes, there was a drastic change. I felt something interfering with my ability to move mana down near the bottom of the hole. Eventually, I realized the entire area was already soaked in mana. That was a good sign, hopefully. Now the problem was that it was very difficult to dig through the area, much like the crystallized stone on the edges of my dungeon.

I took a full minute to pour mana into the area, not bothering with anything except 'feeling' out everything. It was not an intuitive act. More like trying to use your toes to paint a moving object actually. I got the distinct feeling that I was using the wrong tool for the wrong job, but I didn't have a better alternative.

There was a single spot that I couldn't 'touch' no matter how much mana I poured into it. Found it. I couldn't quite tell how big it was, but I was certain I wouldn't have to expand the edges of the hole. I pulled all of the mana I'd left in the area around the shard and in a line up towards the hole. Then I finally let the spell activate.

There was a minor tremor. I felt my heart sink at the feeling, sure that something disastrous was about to happen. But there was nothing. After a moment of travel time, a surge of liquid mud splashed out of the hole. There was an unusual color mixed in, a bluish grey instead of the dirty brown from the rest of the hole. It might have been valuable, but I was more interested in the shard.

I couldn't find it at first. There was too much mud and silt, so I actually had to look at the compass. Even then, it took me a long moment to find it. It was so small. Probably around three centimeters long, and thin as a needle. Ridiculous. I stored it in my bank and looked at the description.

... Hmm. An hour for five max CP. And I could probably reduce that time if I abandoned caution or increased efficiency. I briefly wondered what would be worth using it as a crafting component, but gave up quickly. I only had four hours left, and I wanted to get every shard in this city in that time.

After that, I would probably post the methods of finding and using the shards on the forums. Considering there were already wars being fought, I could at least give everybody an objective to fight over. It might be interesting to see how many mages were sitting out the fighting because they didn't have a reason to get involved. Or, maybe everyone would work together to get the shards. One could only hope.

I channeled the Locate Object spell into the Divining Tool once again. Once again, it pointed towards the East.

Cipiteca396

Sorry for the delay. I don't handle the cold well, and exploring Earth is not why I wanted to write this story. With the cold, I can't guarantee more than 1 or 2 chapters per month. However, since there probably won't be many more Earth based chapters in the current sub-plot, I should be able to grossly exceed that minimum. I'd like it if I could go back to 3 chapters per week, but that depends on whether I'm passionate enough to ignore my hands turning into icicles or not.