[Luna POV]
As soon as they heard the signal, Ophidia blinked behind dad and threw a straight punch. Dad dodged out of the way at the last second and moved away from her. She didn’t let him rest and chased after him with a combo of kicks and punches. He dodged and parried as many as he could but was hit once or twice. Ophidia’s last kick sent him sliding backwards.
“Oi! Who taught you to fight like that?” (Deacon)
“Grey taught her the basics.” (Luna)
“*Sigh* Honestly, I should have expected something like that.” (Deacon)
“Is what Ophidia doing not normal?” (Luna)
“Of course not! No brawler or martial artist I’ve ever fought has fought like her.” (Deacon)
“Anyway, you better watch out.” (Luna)
Dad turned back to face Ophidia again but he couldn’t find her.
“At least there is no mist this time.” (Deacon)
After saying this, dad dodged to the side and Ophidia’s attack missed. He then counterattacked with a punch of his own. The hit landed in Ophidia’s stomach and she stumbled back some.
“Guh.” (Ophidia)
“My turn to press the attack.” (Deacon)
He charged at Ophidia and went for a shoulder tackle. Ophidia recovered and dodged to the side. She then then ran to him after he stopped and punched. The hit landed then she teleported behind him and hit him again. She did this several times and on the final hit, she punched him square in the jaw. When the punch landed, we all heard a cracking sound.
“All right, stop, that’s enough!” (Luna)
I walked over to them and used healing magic on dad.
“Thanks Luna, and Ophidia, that was a good hit.” (Deacon)
“Thank you.” (Ophidia)
“You up for more dad?” (Luna)
“Haha. Naturally, let me see what you can do now Luna.” (Deacon)
“Fufufu. Ready yourself.” (Luna)
We backed away from each other. I pulled a sword out of my inventory and tossed it to him. He caught and readied it.
“Velvet, give the signal.” (Luna)
“Ready……Begin!” (Velvet)
I immediately covered the area with mist and activated my stealth skill. I then opened several Gates and prepared to fire. I made my way over to dad’s location and conjured an illusory me to go at him as I followed closely behind it.
“You do this every time Luna, you need to change it up a bit.” (Deacon)
As soon as the illusion ran into him and disappeared he turned around anticipating me to attack from behind. Taking this chance I kicked the back of his knee then backed off into the mist. His posture broke and I fired a spear from a Gate.
“What!?” He yelled as he sloppily dodged the spear by falling face down.
He then rolled to dodge a few more weapons I fired at him before he managed to get back up. I then went to attack like Ophidia did and got in a few good passes before he got a feeling for my rhythm. On the last swipe, he swung his sword where I would appear and I blocked it by conjuring a shield with stellar magic. I then dispersed the mist.
“What kind of shield is this?” (Deacon)
“I’ll explain later. Now, I’m all warmed up, let’s get to the real fun.” (Luna)
I jumped back, readied my short sword, then shot forward. Dad dodged my attack by a hair and I turned to try again. When I went for the attack, I went faster than the last time and dad didn’t move. I stopped my sword just before his throat.
“You can do better than that, dad.” (Luna)
“I don’t know if I can, actually. I couldn’t see that last move of yours.” (Deacon)
“Tch. Looks like the only decent opponent I can have is Skadi then.” I said as I pulled back my sword.
I healed the cuts that dad received and walked to stand by Velvet and Ophidia.
“You want a turn, Velvet?” (Luna)
“I’m good.” (Velvet)
“Sorry I couldn’t give you a challenge Luna.” (Deacon)
“It’s fine, I expected this to happen one day.” (Luna)
“What are we going to do now?” (Ophidia)
“I guess I’ll make some more constellations.” (Luna)
“Mind if I watch, master?” (Ophidia)
“Not at all.” (Luna)
“I’m going to watch Soleil and practice some dark magic.” (Velvet)
“Guess I’ll watch with Ophidia.” (Deacon)
I sat down on the spot and crossed my legs.
“I said you could watch, but I don’t know if it will be interesting.” (Luna)
“We’ll be the judge of that.” (Ophidia)
The both of them sat down as well and stared at me. I closed my eyes and began to think of things to turn into constellations. I then realized that there were some that could be extremely useful for buffs.
‘Come to me, my knowledge of video games.’
I pictured the skill constellations and what effects they would have. I then used my skill.
“Woah.” (Deacon)
I opened my eyes and found all of the constellations that I was making floating around me in a circle. The began to grow larger and float up into the sky. Once they reached the height of the other constellations, they shone for a few seconds then dulled to the same brightness as the other constellations already up there.
“Heh. With this, stellar magic users will be in high demand.” (Luna)
“What do those do, master?” (Ophidia)
“All of those will be the source of buffs, like the wing one. For example, the one that looks like a bow will help temporarily improve an archer’s archery, or that one that looks like a snake will buff stealth skills.” (Luna)
“You’re the same as always Luna.” (Deacon)
“Why would I be any different?” (Luna)
“Are you going to make any more?” (Ophidia)
“Yes, but I want to try something different this time.” (Luna)
I then dropped 11 large stones out of my inventory in a circle around us.
‘Let’s see, how did it look and what did it do again?’
I closed my eyes and tried to remember the standing stones and their effects. When I started to recall one, I picture the constellation in my mind and touched one of the stones. I used constellation creation and then opened my eyes. On the stone that I was touching was the constellation I just imagined.
“Hahahahahaha! It worked! Now, to see if it will work as intended.” I looked over to Ophidia and dad. “Ophidia, channel some mana into this stone, then use some magic after, then tell me if your mana recovers any faster than normal.”
She did as I asked and poured some mana into the stone. The constellation glowed a little and then a smaller version of the constellation appeared on the back of the hand that touched the stone. Ophidia then started to teleport until her mana depleted some. After waiting for a few minutes, she reported her findings.
“My mana is recovering a little faster than normal.” (Ophidia)
“Good, that means that it works as intended.” (Luna)
“Is this a permanent effect?” (Deacon)
“No, this effect lasts until the constellation on the back of her hand disappears. It should stay there for about a week or she uses another one of the stones I’m about to make.” (Luna)
“Why not make it permanent?” (Deacon)
“Because that’s not how it works right now. Once I fully ascend I can make them like that, but for now, temporary is the best I can do.” (Luna)
“Will the effect persist outside of your domain?” (Ophidia)
“Not sure. We just have to wait and see.” (Luna)
I turned back to the other stones and went to putting a constellation onto each of them.
“Where are these going to be placed?” (Deacon)
“I’m going to keep them for now, but in the future, I plan on asking Grey to put them in the guild. Though if I wanted to, I could also just place them randomly around the world and let people find them. Maybe I’ll do both.” (Luna)
“Why do that?” (Ophidia)
“It would add a mystical and adventurous feel to them. Imagine it, you are making your way through an old, unexplored forest and come across a clearing with an old stone with carvings it. You walk up to the stone to inspect it and when you touch it, it shines. Once the light dies down, you have a mark on your hand and feel like you received a small boon. Or something like that.” (Luna)
“Good idea Luna, that sounds like something adventurers would enjoy.” (Deacon)
“I see. Sounds interesting.” (Ophidia)
I started putting the stones back in my inventory when Tamamo spoke to me.
{Luna, their meeting is over and Amagi and Anastasia are moving back to the office.}
‘Thanks Tamamo.’
{Glad to be of assistance.}
“Looks like mom and Ana are done with their meeting.” (Luna)
“I’ll go and tell Velvet and Soleil.” (Ophidia)
“How long have we been in here?” (Deacon)
“I don’t know, two hours maybe?” (Luna)
The other three came over to us and I dissolved the domain. Once that was done, we made our way to mom’s office.
Chaos Realm:
Grey: Oooh. I'll happily put those in the guild, and I also like the idea of spreading them around the world in obscure places for people to find.
Luna: We can finalize everything later then, I need to tweak some of the effects on a few of the stones to be more socially acceptable in this world.
Grey: Fair enough.
Yeah, I don't think the ones that help with things like necromancy or allowing people to paralyze people would be used for good things.
Luna: I'm open to suggestions for help with those.
About the stones... might I suggest that the ones in the guild give like a 25% boost or something while the ones outside in the world provide like a 50% boost?
Maybe have ones near an authority's main be more effective for that specific authority, so you place standing stones that relate to authorities nearish to temples, you know a stone that really relates to a specific authority in is within a hundred miles of that authority's main temple. This entire comment is about the ones not in adventurers guilds, which I think there should be but like a miniature set that have the full effect but temporarily or be less effective like you're suggesting @Vexile12. Imagine you know what every stone does but has no idea where the the permanent/more effective one is that would cause people to actually explore unexplored locations or look more closely that things they didn't before. What do you think @Paytoechip
Also give Luna have a to keep the abyss away.
@Gizmo_The_Assassin Also make sure that there's a new dungeon with dwarven architecture that when beaten has a chance to drop a crown that can store one of the stones' effects.
@Gizmo_The_Assassin Instead of near the churches, have them near places with a high connection to the authority. The churches are a connection to the gods themselves, not the actual authorities.
You know how many constellations are ways of solidifying or creating myths? In the future one of the biggest boons Luna could offer her favorite mortals would be to immortalize one of their deeds as a constellation which provides some effect useful to or reminiscent of said mortal hero/adventurer
‘Come to me, my knowledge of video games.’
Haha, and they said playing video games was a waste of time...
Thanks for the chapter! ヾ(≧▽≦*)o
‘Come to me, my knowledge of video games.’
Jajajaja
*a portal opens and I come out of it*
Hello! It’s been a while! How are you all doing?
Good.
Grey: Good.
Luna: Great.
@Paytoechip Great! *i clap my hands*
So Luna, I saw that you made some buff stones. Aaaaand I got some suggestions to those.
For exemple, you could put them in secret chambers in a dungeon, or in a ruin that people didn't explore fully. Or you could put them in an already searched ruin, and then people would be like "and this was here all this time and we didn't even know it?!" When in reality it was made recently.
You could also use different stones for different buffs. And the more expensive a stone, like a jewel, the more the effect is strong. So, for a dumb stone you can find in the wild, the effect wouldn't be a week or mounth, but more of an hour or something.
@Clayton4956 Luna: Oooh. I like those ideas.
Grey: I do as well.
@Paytoechip Great! Because I have some more ideas for you!
Certain stones wouldn’t be compatible with a certain constellation or buff and this would even lessen the buff.
Some stones or jewels could store and give multiple buffs at the same time! Like the more expensive a stone is, the more cuffs it can give at the same time! Or maybe another criteria would tell the number of buffs a stone could store.
Do monsters here drop any magic stone or something?
@Clayton4956 Golems do.
Grey: How about you make the stone buffs less potent so that they don’t overshadow the buffs from the constellations in the sky?
Luna: Sounds good to me.
(Meta: Sorry it took me so long to reply, I thought I did already, but I guess I hit cancel instead of post.)
@Paytoechip
*suddenly emerges from a... turkey????*
These ideas sound awesome. I approve!
@Paytoechip (Meta: What if the golems that have the stones also have it's buffs?