MMORPG: Rise of the Primordial Godsmith

“Miss Arcane.”

“…As I’ve said, you can just call me Arcane.”

…Arcane,” said Valyr, his mind still thinking about the introduction the faceless woman had given him. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but… you’re the personification of the concept of the Arcane?”

“…More or less,” replied Arcane, taking a bit of time to further clarify herself. “…I am both the concept of the Arcane itself, as well as its personification. The concept and I are one and the same.”

“So… if I’m getting this right, the power behind my class comes from you, then?” asked Valyr after that.

“…Correct.” Arcane nodded, spreading out a bit of energy around her to speed up her responses.

“Check, check… test, test… alright.”

“Anyways, that’s one of the reasons why I’ve had you come here.” Seeing that she’d successfully made their conversation more seamless, Arcane faintly nodded to herself as she continued where she left off.

“I wanted to give you an opportunity to get a better idea of what the concept of the Arcane is truly like.”

“However, that’s not the main reason why you’re here.”

As those words echoed throughout the surroundings, the oppressive pressure Arcane gave off intensified all of a sudden, causing Valyr to grit his teeth as he faced the increased pressure head-on.

“Ataraxia… do you admit your wrongs?” Faintly watching the young man try his best to withstand the pressure she was giving off, Arcane took it as an opportunity to ask him a question.

“…My wrongs?” However, contrary to her expectations, Valyr looked back at her with confusion in response. “I didn’t do anything wrong, though?”

“Think about it for a bit.” Giving off the feeling that she was frowning, Arcane slightly increased the pressure she was giving off, forcing Valyr to expel some of his mana in a bid to reduce the pressure weighing down on him. “You’ve made a single mistake, Ataraxia.”

“That single mistake is the reason why you’re here.”

“…But I really didn’t do anything wrong, though?” responded Valyr after a bit of silence, which only prompted Arcane to increase the pressure she was putting on him even further further.

Though, just as she thought that the current level of pressure would finally cause the young man to confess, Valyr instead tried his best to endure the pressure even more, activating [Limit Break] as he continued to expel more mana.

‘Seriously, what did I do?’ Feeling Arcane’s sharp gaze on him, the young man decided to wrack his mind for answers, knowing that there was a possibility things would go south for him if he didn’t give her the answer she wanted.

Fortunately, everything began to click in his mind the moment he noticed that the pressure weighing down on him at the moment was similar to the pressure that knocked him unconscious.

Connecting two and two together in his mind, Valyr eventually responded to Arcane’s question with a question of his own, even though he was unsure whether the thought he had in mind was correct.

“Is my… does my mistake involve the Nascent Rebirth Elixir?”

Whoosh!

Sensing the pressure weighing down on him disappear the moment he finished his question, the young man immediately let out a sigh of relief, only to then feel confusion as he thought it for a bit more.

“Wait… it really is because of the Nascent Rebirth Elixir?”

“Indeed.” Arcane nodded at him. “The fact that you consumed it is the mistake that I was pertaining to?”

“But why, though?” asked Valyr in return. “Does it not actually improve anything?”

“Oh no. Quite the opposite,” Arcane clarified herself. “Drinking it would definitely improve your stats. Even your affinity towards the elements and the universe’s concepts would be improved once you ingest it.”

“What’s the reason it’s a mistake, then?”

“The fact that it has the ability to improve your mana,” replied Arcane, prompting Valyr to ponder over it for a bit.

“Wait a second…” said the young man soon after, finally gathering his thoughts. “Isn’t that a good thing, though?”

“After all, with the elixir transforming my mana into Arcana, wouldn’t I be able unleash far more power with my magic since I’m powering it with Arcana?”

“That is true, yes.” Arcane nodded. “Replacing mana with Arcana would undoubtedly allow you to squeeze more out of the same magic spell.”

“However, consuming her elixir would mean you’re making the choice of sticking with Arcana forever.”

“Of course, I didn’t say that in order to downplay the time and effort your alchemist friend has spent into the elixir. If anything, it’s a miracle something like that exists with the amount of resources available on your planet.”

“…But yeah.” Arcane gave off a calm aura. “The fact that you were about to consume an elixir like that is the main reason why I decided to bring you here.”

“…” Although Valyr remained silent even after she was done talking, the young man was inwardly shocked when he heard that he was about to cut his journey to the peak short by consuming a single elixir.

‘Does Mystia know that her elixir has this side effect?’ asked Valyr to himself inwardly, only to then shake his head at the question.

‘I’m pretty sure she doesn’t. After all, even I was only able to find out there were higher forms of mana thanks to my friends telling me about it back then.’

‘But that now leaves me with another question.’

‘How can I be sure that Arcane isn’t lying to me about it?’

Coincidentally, just as Valyr was about to ask Arcane the question he had in mind, the latter made a move on her own, utilizing a bit of her energy to copy the properties of the elixir the young man had consumed moments earlier.

Swoosh!

Then, expending a bit more of her energy after that, she conjured a body that matched all of Valyr’s current stats, only to then infuse it with the properties of the Nascent Rebirth Elixir.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Within a matter of seconds, Valyr watched as the body Arcane conjured underwent a myriad of changes, eventually giving off the feeling that the body was on a different realm than him.

Yet, that illusion was quickly broken the moment Arcane tasked it to cast a couple of spells, quickly noticing that the improvement using Arcana brought to his spells was minimal at best.

Seeing that she had caught his attention, Arcane then went ahead and infused more energy into the body, using that energy to try and evolve the energy circulating within it into Essentia.

However, no matter how much she tried, the energy inside it wouldn’t budge, causing one to think as if it was frozen in time.

“Now then…” Feeling like she had shown Valyr more than enough proof of her claims, Arcane took note of the young man’s expression before asking him a question.

“Are you finally willing to believe me?”