Chapter 903: Nymph magic |
Sofia quickly navigated her system menu to bring up her signature skill’s description.
[Awakening of the five calamities]: /ULTIMATE rank Signature Skill/
The Saintomancer has created yet another tool for sorrowful destruction.
Channel any amount of mana over 1 000 000 to invoke one of five Elemental Skeleton Destroyers hereby known as the five calamities.
You may invoke one additional calamity for each time you have died during the current battle.
Each calamity is a singular and unique invokation.
Calamities disappear when they run out of mana.
Charm bonus: +500% Size
Cooldown: One month per invoked calamity.
Calamity of Blood
Calamity of Bones
Calamity of Spirits
Calamity of Plasma
Calamity of Light
“Hohoh?” Thu’ul Nak reacted, seeing Sofia’s expression shift, “At last, a good draw?”
“Five hundred percent size increase.”
“Pretty good! Very good, even! That is on the higher end. Yours are those Destroyers that are already sizable, the extra size would naturally increase their speed and magic range, though not to a comparable extent to the size increase itself, I’m afraid, but a hefty boon nonetheless.”
“I would have to try it to see but it is still on cooldown right now. I do think it is quite good too. Just at face value 500% is an insane number… The resistances on the other hand, they are just fine…” Sofia said, handing the coral charm back to Thu’ul Nak, “May I try the other ones?”
Thu’ul Nak seemed to take no offense at Sofia not instantly deciding to buy his creation, and gracefully swapped the charm in his hand to another one. It was of about the same size, and had the appearance of a small pearly four-petals flower that changed color depending on the angle one looked at it. Again the custom system appraisal window appeared beside it.
[Bend Reality Infinite Bloom Charm] -22 Stones-
Magic touching you that you are immune to, magic that you negate and magic that you dispel is instead turned into a cloud of mana petals that linger in the air and heavily damage those hostile to you that touch them.
Passively creates mana petals around you at a slow rate.
Touching the petals allows you to absorb their mana instead.
Craftsman: Master Thousand Flowers
“This one is the latest work of a dear friend of mine, Elder Nymph Thousand Flower,” Thu’ul Nak explained, “She produces some of the most resilient items out there, although that tends to be at the detriment of the actually useful effects.”
“Not the best of sales speeches, isn’t it?”
Thu’ul Nak snickered. “Truly so? It seems to complement your fighting style quite well, if you were to ask me.”
Remembering how she just had to have her saint set items repaired, Sofia had to reluctantly admit that he was right, and grabbed the small flower, holding it against her chestplate for a few seconds. When she let go it stayed perfectly in place.
Almost immediately, a pale petal of translucent golden light silently formed nearby, falling slowly as is carried by the smoothest of breezes.
“The color is directly affected by the nature of your mana,” Thu’ul Nak commented, “I had guessed yours would be grey, but I suppose not. Mine were purple, if you wonder.”
“Does the color change anything?” Sofia asked.
“Why, fashion and style, of course. You cannot be wearing clashing colors. If you have no idea, for a yellow like this, I would suggest avoiding bright blue or green garments. General rules.”
“Hum… Thank you for the advice?”
“It’s nothing. Now, familiarize yourself with the charm, play around with it. Feel its power.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Sofia nodded, and watched the petals appear around her first. A new one seemed to appear every few seconds, although there was no consistency as to the exact timing and location. They floated on ambient mana currents for a bit until touching the ground and scattering into a small plume of volatile mana.
After watching them for a few minutes and trying different things, Sofia already came to a few conclusions.
Let’s see… One petal forms on average every two and a half seconds, anywhere in a five meters radius, three meters tall cylinder centered on me. They do not react to my aura but instead follow mana currents. Touching one instantly restores about 320 thousand mana every time, so about the equivalent of half a second of my natural regeneration.
“Does the mana the petals contain–” Sofia started, only for Thu’ul Nak to answer her question before she was done asking it.
“The passives are dependent on your own regeneration,” he said, “The active ones will repurpose the mana from the negated spells instead, so results vary.”
“Could I try that? Can you send a weak spell my way for me to dispel?”
“Certainly.”
Thu’ul Nak took a step back, his wings opening slightly, and pointed a single finger at Sofia.
Sofia immediately dispelled the income spell with [Heat Death] before she could even get a glimpse of whatever magic it was, and suddenly felt nauseous. That was a hundred million mana, more than half of what she had, instantly gone.
I SAID WEAK.
A wide cloud of about three hundred golden petals burst out of Thu’ul Nak’s fingertip and many of them directly collided with him dispersing into nothing as he himself seemed to passively dispel them.
So the dispel ones still contain about the same amount of mana?
“It says it only targets hostile,” Sofia deadpanned, as she could clearly not defend herself if this ascended truly intended to attack her.
“Ahahah! No worries, I was merely emitting some hostility for demonstration purposes, see,” he justified himself, waving his hands through a cluster of petals and being unable to interact with them, as they phased right through him. “If you need more details, I have done some testing myself. Damage is directly proportional one to one with the mana contained, assuming no defenses, and is pure mana element, only reduced by general magic resistance. The hostility requirement is also actually pretty strict, so wrongful targeting is unlikely unless someone REALLY wants to stab you.”
“How so greatly reassuring of you to put so much emphasis on that… Ahah…”
Thu’ul Nak seemed quite amused by Sofia’s reactions. “I jest. It really is quite strict, but tricking it into targeting you is quite simple, if you know the right tricks. Much, much simpler than tricking it into not targeting you when it should, for that matter, as the wearer’s own hostility toward the person will have a great impact on whether or not the attack magic will spread and activate. Thoughts?”
“I like it. A bit more than yours, honestly.”
“That is what a craftsman gets for playing around with random result magic… May this old bug use a petty salesman trick to convince you into a purchase?”
Sofia shrugged, “I respect that you’re warning me in advance.”
“I must, it would be regrettable if you were to get the wrong idea, after all. Please stand still. You are immune to cold damage, right?”
“Yes? Wait–!”
It was too late, Thu’ul Nak raised a finger and the air around Sofia condensed into millions of frozen magical runes that mercilessly slammed into her creating deafening explosions of frost.
The onslaught stopped three seconds later. Sofia stood in the middle of a complete storm of frozen petals that flew through her as her mana was already back to full, and crashed by the millions into the training ground’s fully frozen walls.
Thu’ul Nak, who was nowhere to be seen, reappeared next to Sofia. “So? A spectacle well worth twenty-two stones, wouldn’t you agree?”
“It is pretty impressive… I still want to try the third one first.”
“Well, of course. Let me introduce you to the work of our mana efficiency specialist Hong Bo…”
Sofia got to try the [Power Loop Repeating Charm] and was actually impressed by the performance of the unassuming item. Any bolt she fired would be followed by three more at about 30% of the original’s power with a slight delay, and she would get a mana refund of anywhere between five and ten percent on the cost of her active skills. Despite that, she still ended up purchasing the [Bend Reality Infinite Bloom Charm], discounted to 21 stones.
What really pushed her to that decision were two factors, firstly that she actually had a lot of ‘immunities’. The obvious one was cold damage from VPPV, but the Blessing and Mark of the deep’s protection would also trigger the petals when they countered a spell, and so would anything hitting her helmet while she was above 40% health, and anything getting neutered by [Singularity edict]. With so many vectors to activate the charm in addition to the straightforward dispel from [Heat Death], Sofia felt that if this charm wasn’t good enough for her then nothing ever would. Additionally, and even though it was a bit of a reach, she hoped that when she inevitably ended up on the receiving end of an Ascended’s attacks again, it would actually inflict some damage if they happened to cast the wrong spell at her.
Afterwards, Thu’ul Nak quickly excused himself, being a very busy craftsman, and Sofia was left to her own devices in Tirage. There were many shops, but her purse was currently hurting a lot, so she only bought some food to keep Pestle quiet and decided to take her leave without visiting more.
I can easily come back now. I really want to be home to watch the Ark finale.
I still have a bit of time, though… A fine occasion to work on VPPV’s progress.
At least one light year of distance…
Surely there’s something I can target? So damn empty.
Hmm… This area is fully fucking empty… That one too, not even a trace of anything to stop my light.
Maybe… Oh! Woah that is tiny. Another space rock?
Sofia got Pestle to enter her ring as she had to change clothes to access that particular location, because the light there was from a time closer to when she had just returned from her short trip to the Deep.
Walking into a random alley of Tirage city, Sofia disappeared.
