I Am Progressing

Ever since we’d started on our journey in earnest, Liandra had pretty much given up resisting. She probably thought that we were headed to our doom and would only end up delivering the offering vessel back into the cult’s hands.

It didn’t really matter to me what she believed, but her cooperation made the journey smoother and that was what mattered.

I stood from my crouching position over the river that I was washing my face in. The water of this world was surprisingly pristine and unpolluted.

It was probably because of the existence of magic that they hadn’t developed anything like steam engines. Mana was a sufficient fuel source and it created no byproducts that could be considered pollutants.

Looking at the position of the sun told me that we only had around half a day until we’d reach the Precipice of Night. Honestly, I was a little nervous.

I’d spent the past two and a half days with [Warrior’s Trappings] active as often as possible, fighting pretty much every mob that crossed our path and seeking out more during rest stops or whenever we camped for the night.

As it turns out, entrusting my back to Priya was a pretty good decision. According to Antenora, Liandra’s thoughts wandered often and divulged a lot of useful information, which Antenora shared with us around the campfire.

It wasn’t anything super vital, but we learned about the approximate number of forces we’d have to deal with upon breaching the Precipice of Night and a few of the strongest foes we’d have to face.

Luckily, the archbishop was still the strongest person in the cult despite this new information which meant that I would pretty much breeze past the rest, especially after how much stronger I’d gotten these past few days.

With Antenora preoccupied with supervising Liandra, Lucrezia had taken a lot of time to start improving herself as well, especially after I started going on my nightly hunts. She’d accompanied me and Priya for a few times once I had gained sufficient levels.

We had to work on our coordination anyway and there was nothing better than live combat to do so. Plus, due to [Warrior’s Trappings], we had to reduce the time we had for the usual skill leveling program that I’d thought up for her earlier on, so it gave us an excuse to spend time together.

As for Priya, she was pretty much the perfect assistant. Throughout my training period, she’d only watched from the sidelines and had stepped in only a few times during the beginning when I was still getting used to my newfound weaknesses.

Otherwise, she left me to grind completely on my own which allowed the system to recognize my battles as far more difficult due to my reduced stats and a lack of aid.

Had she regularly stepped in for fear of my life, I probably wouldn’t have gained so many levels so quickly.

Even so, in terms of pure numbers I was still below the archbishop. Hopefully, the skills I’d gained would be enough to compensate. I couldn’t rely on an asspull like last time.

“Everything alright, Ryuuko?”

Priya’s voice snapped me out of my train of thought. Apparently, I’d been staring off into space while lost in thought for a few minutes already.

“Yeah, everything’s swell. I guess I just kinda zoned out while thinking, huh? How long do we have before we’re leaving?”

“Probably an hour? Lucrezia’s still taking a break and Antenora’s taking the time to grill the librarian for information.”

The upward inflection in her tone told me that she wasn’t exactly sure. An hour was a fine estimate, but I wanted to make sure before I ran off and started fighting things.

“Sounds good. You mind checking with the others in case something’s changed?”

Priya nodded and made her way back to the campsite briskly.

While I waited, I decided to test out a few of my skills. With my recently gained levels, I’d acquired [Hydromancy], [Aeromancy], and [Geomancy] to complete the elemental manipulation suite.

Honestly, their names were kind of strange to me seeing as the suffix really should’ve been “-kinesis” instead of “-mancy”, but [Rulebook]’s explanation of their abilities were fairly straightforward, so I was probably just reading too much into it.

More importantly, having the ability to use all four elements allowed me to meet the prerequisites of the [Spatiomancy] skill. I had also considered the [Chronomancy] skill to pair with it, but something told me that fucking around with time probably wasn’t the best idea right now.

Using [Spatiomancy] drained an enormous amount of mana to the point where even my sizable mana pool could only keep up with it for a total of three uses. I could produce effects such as teleportation, spatial warping, and even spatial distortion in order to destroy objects and creatures.

However, the greater the effect, the more mana I’d drain. That much was to be expected. It was pretty much on a whole ‘nother level compared to the [Teleportation] skill that Antenora possessed.

I had a feeling that it’d be pretty damn useful against the archbishop though, seeing as spatial distortions seemed to bypass physical defenses, so I ended up acquiring the [Penumbric Conversion] skill.

Basically, the skill allowed me to convert mana into Darkness. Normally, this skill would be pretty useless for me, but its second level allowed me to do the opposite: convert Darkness into mana. While this might’ve sounded pretty good for me, the conversion rate was 1 point per second, which was still too low.

Instead, the [Penumbric Conversion] skill’s true benefit came at level 3, which allowed me to treat Darkness as mana and vice versa. For anyone else, this wouldn’t have been great, but since my Darkness hasn’t ever run out on me, I assumed I pretty much had limitless mana now.

The only thing left to do was to test that theory.

I exhaled and activated my [Omnidirectional Vision] skill, combining it with [Eagle Eye] to penetrate any obstructions that were around me.

Three wolves to the left, six slimes to the south, and...

My eyes widened.

One Ghereit to the north.

Priya was heading back to me right now, but I figured I could return before she arrived.

I focused on the area around the ghereit and used [Spatiomancy] to teleport. Within an instant, the space around my departure and arrival area twisted and I appeared at my destination.

The ghereit standing before me stared in confusion for a second before its territorial instincts kicked it and caused it to snarl at me.

It was a large, four-legged creature covered in a mix of matted fur and dull scales. Back on earth, this thing could be considered a chimera, but it was more of a cross between a lion and a lizard rather than the traditional mixture of a lion, goat, and snake.

It pawed the ground as it prepared to attack me, but I wasn’t too worried.

I lifted my hand toward it and distorted the space around its head. Its instincts probably told it that whatever was happening was dangerous, so it leapt to the side, but not before the space twisted violently, tearing one of its ears off.

That’s two uses. My mana pool hasn’t dropped at all, and it looks like I’m doing fine on Darkness. Let’s finish this quickly, then!

I immediately charged toward the ghereit, not giving it any chances to adjust to the pain of my unnatural attack and recover. It growled at me angrily and raised a paw to swipe at me.

With my stats currently lowered by [Warrior’s Trappings], I’d probably die immediately if it struck me. Unfortunately for it, I teleported away just before its claws connected with me.

I thrust my hand forward as I appeared above the ghereit. By the time it noticed me, I was already touching its back.

Distort!

The moment [Spatiomancy] activated, its entire body spun around as if it were in some sort of invisible blender, tearing it apart in an absolutely grotesque manner. As sinew snapped and bones shattered, even I was disgusted by the effects of my own skill.

I quickly teleported away before the gore could splatter on me and dusted myself off, making sure that my clothes were gut-free.

Yet another teleport saw me back at the riverside where Priya had just arrived. She looked at me curiously as I appeared from thin air, but didn’t question it.

“We’ll be leaving in an hour, Ryuuko.” Priya confirmed.

I grinned.

“Perfect.”