Re: Love & Magic

After Zevien and Vernisia entered the portal, they appeared inside a small cave with two passages and a mystical cloudy screen appeared in front of them that exuded some magic power.

*****

[Novice Nether Hideout Dungeon]

-Kill Three Nether Elites and their leader, Nether Acolyte, to complete the dungeon.

-Rewards:

—Kill them in 10 minutes for a gold treasure chest.

—Kill them in 20 minutes for a silver treasure chest.

—Kill them in 30 minutes for a bronze treasure chest.

*****

Seeing the description of the dungeon on the mystical display and the timer beside it, Zevien and Vernisia quickly went inside one of the two passages.

After running for several seconds, they arrived at a hall and saw three humanoid monsters wielding dual blades. They looked humanoid but had dark purple skin and grotesque faces. They wore dark purple ranger-like outfits as well. The three of them glanced at the passage entrance after Zevien and Vernisia arrived and opened their mouths with twisted faces.

*Kraaaaaa!*

After releasing a weird sound, the three of them sped towards Zevien and Vernisia with glowing purple eyes.

“I’ll bind them!” Vernisia said as she waved her hand and released three Shadow Bind Hex as three creepy shadows traveled towards the Nether Elites through the ground.

“I also want to try this new spell,” Zevien said as he activated the Shaman-seed’s power and boosted his magic power up to 3260 before using a new spell that the Shaman-seed unlocked when he surpassed 3000 magic power.

*****

[Ominous Field]

—Cost: Min. 1000 mana

—Effect: The user conjures an orb that can trigger upon the user’s control. Once triggered, the orb creates a force field and forcefully pulls living beings targeted by the user’s intent within ten meters radius.

*****

After Vernisia’s spell immobilized them completely, Zevien threw the Ominous Field orb five meters away from the Nether Elites.

*Swoosh* *Crrack!*

The three Nether Elites got forcefully pulled towards the orb’s force field. They got squeezed into one spot, and no matter how much they struggled, they couldn’t get away.

“That’s a powerful control-type spell,” Vernisia smiled before she waved her hand and used the 2nd Style of Primal Conjuring: Wind Roaring Tiger.

*Swoosh…slash*

The three Nether Elites got wiped out by the vicious gusts of winds filled with sharp wind blades.

“Vernisia, can you control that powerful gust of wind and shape it into a spherical shape?” Zevien said thoughtfully, as he imagined a good way to use that spell.

“Spherical?” Vernisia questioned, but then a light bulb lit up in her head, and her eyes shone. “You mean I let the Wind Tiger avatar release a wind sphere to trap our enemies, and then the powerful wind blades make quick work of them?”

“Yep,” Zevien nodded.

“Hmmm,” Vernisia fell into thought while muttering. “For that, I need to suppress wind blade manifestations inside the sphere so that it only activates after I trap enemies inside. The speed of the Wind Sphere will also be fast, but the casting time will increase by a second since I will be preparing a wind sphere instead of constant wind gusts filled with blades.”

“Let’s go to the boss room. You can try it there,” Zevien said as he turned around and walked towards the cave.

“Yeah, this was pretty easy. From what I sensed, these Nether Elites only had around 500 magic power,” Vernisia nodded as she walked alongside Zevien. “We still have 9 minutes, haha. The gold treasure chest is in the pocket.”

…

After going into another passage, they arrived at another hall and saw the Nether Acolyte floating in the air with purple flames on his hands. His closed eyes instantly opened after Vernisia and Zevien entered the hall.

Zevien waved his hand and quickly released [Ominous Field] five meters away from the Nether Acolyte and triggered it in the air.

*Swooosh*

The Nether Acolyte tried to resist, but he could only resist for a second before he got forcefully pulled towards the force field and got stuck there.

“Ok, I am gonna try it,” Vernisia said with a nod as she focused and used 2nd Style of Primal conjuring, Wind Roaring Tiger!

This time, the avatar of a majestic white tiger roared but as Vernisia controlled the spell, a sphere started to conjure in front of the tiger’s open mouth instead of releasing powerful wind gusts with wind blades like usual.

“Nice, keep going,” Zevien nodded.

“I thought I would lose control, but it’s going smooth so far,” Vernisia said while controlling the magic spell. “I never tried extreme control of mana before, but now that I did it with this spell, it’s obvious that the Magician Growth Boost had a part in increasing the control.”

Suddenly, some blades manifested inside the wind sphere, but Vernisia quickly suppressed them and focused. After two seconds, the sphere was ready, and she threw it towards the Nether Acolyte.

The giant wind sphere that was 10 meters in radius shot towards the monster and trapped it inside before countless wind blades manifested within and attacked viciously.

*Kraaaaaa!*

The Nether Acolyte released strange sounds in anger and tried to escape, but Ominous Field was too strong. Vernisia’s Wind Roaring Tiger couldn’t kill it, so Zevien waved his hand and released a Rage Ball.

“Nice, let me save this spell cast sequence in my 2nd style of Primal Conjuring,” Vernisia spoke with a smile as she liked this way of using Wind Roaring Tiger more. She closed her eyes and saved this spell cast sequence in the spell formation of her 2nd awakening spell so that she would cast it quicker in the future.

On the other hand, A dark purple ball materialized in front of Zevien’s hand before it flew towards the Nether Acolyte.

*Boom!*

The Nether Acolyte burst into pieces and disappeared.

Below it, on the ground, a gold treasure chest materialized a second after they killed the Nether Acolyte.

A portal also appeared behind the chest; it was the exit portal of this dungeon.

Zevien waited for Vernisia to finish saving the spell sequence as he had something in his mind.

Vernisia opened her eyes after a minute and was confused. “Why didn’t you open the chest yet?”

“Let’s do rock, paper, scissors,” Zevien said with a grin. “The winner will open the chest.”

“Oh? Haha, alright. Sounds good,” Vernisia chuckled and nodded as she stood in front of Zevien and took the stance.

“Rock, Paper, Scissors!”

“I lost…,” Vernisia wryly smiled. “But we will do this every time when we encounter treasure chests or something like that. Let’s see who is more lucky.”

“Yep,” Zevien nodded as he and Vernisia went to the golden treasure chest.

*clank…*

Zevien opened the chest, and a slight golden hue appeared which prevented him and Vernisia from seeing what was inside.

A second later, the golden hue disappeared, and they saw the content of the chest.

“Yes! We also got two yellow-rank magic crystals!” Vernisia said after spotting the two yellow-rank magic crystals.

“Mhmm,” Zevien nodded as he looked at other things.

Aside from two yellow-rank magic crystals, there was a wooden boomerang and a scroll.

The boomerang had a red metallic design, and also magic patterns carved on it.

Zevien touched the boomerang and got information about it. A small mystical screen also appeared on top of the boomerang so they could see it.

*****

[Crimson Wind Boomerang]

-Tier-3 magic item.

-Type: Weapon

-Effects: Infusing mana in the boomerang covers it with fire and makes it more lethal. It can travel according to the user’s strength and always return to the user in a curving route but can be blocked by objects.

*****

“It’s a tier-3 weapon!” Vernisia exclaimed. “Nice. Let’s try its power later.” She then went to pick up the scroll and opened it.

“Hmmm, it’s a tier-2 magic spell, Nether Touch,” Vernisia said after opening the scroll.

*****

[Nether Touch]

—Tier-2 magic spell.

—Effect: Coat your hands with baleful nether power. Nether Touch will affect the first one you touch with your hands and rot them. It can decay the defenses of defense-type spells.

*****

“Hmmm, we should learn this tier-2 magic spell and combine it with a long-range attack-type tier-2 magic spell,” Zevien rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Since this spell can rot defenses, then it’s useful to combine it with a powerful long-range attack type spell.”

“How about that tier-2 spell, Mist Blow Punch?” Vernisia suggested as she remembered a magic spell she had read. “Mist Blow Punch is an attack-type spell with slight control. It can deal a powerful impact to the opponent before spreading mist around the target.

“I saw a guy use it in the Arena. He always waited for the right chance to hit his opponent’s face with this spell so that the mist can annoy and impair their combat ability a bit after damaging them a lot with the punch.”

“That’s actually perfect,” Zevien nodded as he imaged their combined uses. “If we can learn both spells properly and combine them in such that we can also increase their cast limit and combine spell concept of mist with this nether touch, then the mist will possess nether touch effects and while spreading, it can rot defenses.”

“Exactly,” Vernisia nodded as she also had that in mind.

“This dungeon seems safe, so let’s just learn it here,” Zevien said as he sat down cross-legged.

“Alright, the portal doesn’t seem to disappear,” Vernisia nodded as she sat beside Zevien and placed the scroll in front of them in the middle.

Both of them infused mana into the scroll and tried to sense the spelling concept of the magic spell and learn it.

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

Three hours later, Zevien and Vernisia finished comprehending the spell concept at the same time.

“Three hours… Since we have evolved our magic core, we can stay longer. Still, the average time of staying inside a labyrinth as a 5th class magician is 4 hours,” Zevien said as he stood up.

“But we will stay longer,” Vernisia said with resolve. “I am not gaining any magic power, but I guess I will still feel the pressure of leaving.”

“We will stay longer,” Zevien smiled and started walking towards the portal. “Let’s leave this dungeon and enter my second relic’s dungeon. We gotta finish it before our time is up.”

After leaving the dungeon, both of them arrived back in the inn’s room.

Zevien then took out his second relic and infused 100 mana in it before opening another portal.

Both of them entered, and the portal disappeared.

…

*****

[Monarch’s Minions Dungeon]

–Kill 100 Darkist Minions in 20 minutes for a golden treasure chest.

–Kill 100 Darkist Minions in 30 minutes for a silver treasure chest.

–Kill 100 Darkist Minions in 40 minutes for a bronze treasure chest.

*****

“This is some hellish scenery,” Vernisia commented with a frown as she looked at the vast ground oozing out lavas and Darkist minions that looked like tiny humanoid lizards with black patterns on their red skins.

“We are surrounded,” Zevien spoke somberly as he quickly conjured Omni-Barrier.

Vernisia also conjured a common magic barrier using mana and summoned her fairy spirit.

*Neighh!!*

*Creeeeeeeeeee*