Re: Love & Magic

*****

[Magic Sacrificing Art-Creation Chalice]

-Special Magic Item

-Rank: Profound

-Effect: You have to sacrifice 100% of your magic power of the stage you are in and infuse three crude spell concepts of your idea into the runes before shaking the chalice. Will produce a magic art that requires no mana to activate and can sustain on its own by absorbing external mana.

*****

“What is magic art?” Vernisia questioned curiously.

“I guess some magical power that requires no mana and can sustain itself?” Zevien guessed after reading the effect.

“Yeah. I can see that, but I wonder how it will be? Headmaster Noril might know about magic arts since it seems like an advanced thing in the path of magic,” Vernisia said.

“Sacrifice 100% of the magic power of the stage we are in…” Zevien muttered. “This means if I use it, I will lose all of my magic power until it drops to 5000.”

“Yeah,” Vernisia nodded thoughtfully, “it’s not a bad bargain, I would say. You should have a bit above 5.8k magic power, right? Then you won’t lose much of your magic power. You can recover it quickly with a magic crystal.”

“Yeah, it feels like this item was never meant to be used by weak magicians,” Zevien said as he rubbed his chin. “Also, what will it produce just by sacrificing a measly amount of eight hundred magic power?”

“Anyway, I think you should use it for that,” Vernisia smiled. “To create your clone so that it can act as either Alucard or Zevien when the time comes.”

“Oh… that’s a good idea,” Zevien nodded as his eyes shone before dimming almost instantly. “Wait, I need to comprehend and produce three crude spell concepts related to cloning for that. It’s not going to be easy.”

“You have fifteen days for that,” Vernisia said with a wry smile. “After fifteen days, we have to enter our 1st magic labyrinths again, and it will increase our magic power. So… If you want to gain magic power, you will have to do it in fifteen days.”

Zevien resolved himself and nodded. “Alright! From today onwards, I am going to seclude myself and focus on creating three crude spell concepts of my idea regarding cloning.”

“Mhmm. I’ll bring you food when it’s time to eat. You will also have to attend two magic occupation classes in the next two weeks, so you have a full thirteen days to focus on only one thing,” Vernisia said before she remembered something and smiled. “Meanwhile, I will learn my new tier-4 magic spell.”

Zevien wryly smiled as he would be behind Vernisia in that regard, but it will be worth it for this chalice to produce a magic art that can create his clone.

…

Time passed as minutes turned into hours and hours into days.

After fourteen days,

“Last one…” Zevien slowly infused the 3rd spell concept he created into the last rune by grabbing it in his hand and pouring the concept into the rune with his eyes closed. The rune told him how to infuse spell concepts, and it was rather easy. He just had to create the form of the spell concept and infuse it into the rune as he would when infusing a spell formation. The form can be anything like drawing some lines and patterns using mana.

Coincidentally, the moment he finished infusing the last spell concept into the rune, Vernisia entered the room with food.

“Oh, is it done?” Vernisia asked after seeing the rune in Zevien’s hand.

“Haha, yep! Though I don’t know how it will turn out, since these spell concepts are really crude,” Zevien said.

Vernisia put the dish on the table before she chuckled. “Let’s eat first and then do it. As they say, work is done better with a full belly, hahaha.”

Zevien wryly smiled as he got the irony and went to eat at the table with Vernisia.

After eating, both of them looked at the chalice on the table.

Taking a deep breath, Zevien started shaking the chalice.

“Urgh…” Zevien felt uncomfortable as he could feel his magic power decreasing as he shook the chalice.

Seeing Zevien uncomfortable, Vernisia grabbed his hand. But then her face changed. “My magic power is decreasing!”

“What?! Leave my hand,” Zevien quickly said.

“I can’t. My hand is stuck. But actually, it’s fine. If more magic power sacrificed can produce a better result, then so be it,” Vernisia said.

“But you will lose a bit more than one thousand of your magic power,” Zevien sighed. Vernisia had over 6k magic power, so she is going to lose a lot of her power.

“It wouldn’t be fine if magic crystals didn’t exist, but it’s fine since they exist,” Vernisia said with a smile.

After a few seconds, they finally felt their magic power stop decreasing, and Zevien also stopped shaking the chalice.

They both looked inside the chalice and saw a mystical white crystal orb with blue-misty sparks whirling inside it.

Zevien grabbed the mystical white crystal orb and got information in his head.

*****

[Magic Art: Mystic Linked Clone]

-Rank: Profound-rank magic art.

-Effect: After learning this magic art, you can summon a clone anytime you want and command it. It will always have some magic power as you and can use the same spells you have learned.

-Note: Infuse mana in the orb so that you can add this crystal orb to your magic eidos body and use the magic art. You can use this magic art without learning it, but to improve this magic art’s rank and power, you will have to gradually learn this magic art and assimilate it into your magic eidos body.

*****

“What the fuck?” Zevien said with a dumbfounded expression.

“Why? Is it bad?” Vernisia asked as her eyebrows furrowed.

“It’s scary…” Zevien muttered.

Vernisia rolled her eyes as she took the crystal orb from Zevien’s hand and got its information in her head. After reading the information she got, it also dumbfounded her. “This… isn’t this too powerful?”

Zevien blankly nodded before he snapped out of his thoughts and sighed. “I feel like I used all of my good luck in getting that chalice from the golden treasure chest. You remember Euclion said that our luck will be really bad after we enter Astral Land because we are fateless. Now I think this chalice is a mark of the last bout of good luck I had.”

“We’ll worry about our future later. Aren’t we already preparing for it by creating a clan? Also, whatever trouble may come, we can solve it together,” Vernisia said as she flicked Zevien’s forehead. “Now stop overthinking things and use that crystal orb.”