Chapter 76: The Ice Wolf Queen (2)

Earlier that day at the Baron’s Mansion.

“Stand still boy,” Raspard said as he placed a hand on the Crown Prince of Mier’s head. A surge of Mana followed as Raspard tried to get a sense for his target’s Soul. He needed someone who interreacted closely with his target recently.

As he was doing this, Yarik carefully monitored him. Any sense of an additional magic and there would be hell to pay.

He considered David no different from his own son. Even with the vast resources of the Skyborne Mage Guild, Yarik had over centuries only ended up having a single daughter. Engaging her to David held a far higher meaning in such a case.

“The read is blurry, but this’ll work wonders,” Raspard mumbled quietly to himself before asking to speak with Yarik in private.

“Did you notice Yarik?” Raspard asked. He barely kept a grin down. He didn’t want to earn Yarik’s rage given a lack of a current target.

“Notice what?”

“Your boy has less Life than he should,” Raspard said. He knew the exact amount was only a few years, but he wouldn’t mention specifics.

Having no idea either, when and if the Prince’s lack of Life Energy had anything to do with his target. But he cared not, anything to get more help would be ideal.

The fact that Yulia needed his help at all meant the task was not as simple as it seemed. But a Fruit of the World Tree, along with 100 years of life from the doses of Fairy Dust, was more than anything for an all but dead man.

“You mean…” Yarik growled out in understanding.

Raspard said nothing and let Yarik’s imagination do the work.

The Prince’s age of 33 was well known. He had reached the second tier at age 30. Reaching level 25 at 30 was by no means a record, especially as a Human, but attempting and beating the trial with not even a subclass at that age was a grand feat. At least, when not knowing of Foreign Lord Magus’ accomplishments.

Seeing Yarik stew in anger, Raspard left the room. His goal had been accomplished. He knew the general direction his target went, though some strange interference made it unclear. His spell normally revealed a target’s exact location.

Which, unknown to him, was exactly why Yulia had chosen to hire him.

Speaking with his employer, Maya, Raspard told that he knew the general direction. Though, until he got closer, he couldn’t guess how far.

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“Just tell me when we are about a day away. My mistress is more than capable of catching up,” Maya answered.

The lack of fear and respect perturbed Raspard, but still remembering his duel with this “Mistress”, he held himself back.

“Will she be assisting us in the fight?” Raspard asked. He wished to make sure of the matter.

“Of course. Would she offer such a payment if she were capable of doing it alone? Act your part and lead me there. Handle his companions and she will handle him.” Maya answered. That wasn’t the exact truth, as her Queen only intended on acting at the last possible moment, but she wanted to reassure Raspard.

“Once Yarik prepares himself, along with additional help, we’ll be off.”

Maya didn’t respond. She was too worried how relieved she’d sound at having additional help. Or what, in actuality, she viewed as additional fodder for her Queen.

In another room of the Baron’s Mansion Yarik sat with the grey haired [Sword Saint], Elijah. Yarik personally inspected the Prince’s Life Energy. While he couldn’t get an exact reading like Raspard, he knew it wasn’t the same as before.

And with Yarik’s ability in Mana he didn’t believe Raspard could steal Life Energy from right under his nose. A method to steal Life Energy without Magic? Yarik knew of no such thing, nor could even imagine such a thing.

“Elijah…we can’t let this go unanswered. With Raspard there, it is our best chance. I already suspect he might know of the deposits in the North.”

“I won’t come cheaply.” Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“I know,” Yarik responded. They prepared to leave. Yarik took out masks from his Spatial Ring. It wasn’t the first time he would act in secret.

--

Entering [Sleep Learning] Rainer decided to spend this night on Auto-pilot to fully solidify all the knowledge from the various notes and books. But first, his interest was seeing if not only he could recreate the magical bark in here, but also a recently deceased corpse.

Using [Arcane Sight], Rainer thought over the magical bark. The strange lines of magic that crossed the non-living wood. And soon it appeared in front of him.

He then focused on a recently deceased Fae, the Female [Runic Knight] who’s enchantments he had studied closely. Though, lacking the ability to study them in use, they didn’t provide the same knowledge as Elru’s.

His eyes opened wide in excitement as he saw the corpse form in front of him, but it almost instantly began dissipating into Mana. No different than when any Fae died. However, the process was extremely quick; leaving no time for Rainer to experiment.

He then tried to recreate the corpse of the Lion-like Demon. A dead body, with a small hole in his head from where Theodore killed him, appeared. Rainer wasn’t sure how useful this would be to practice on, as the body lacked any energy source within.

With the unlimited nature of [Sleep Learning], Rainer quickly recreated the Runes he had made on Kara.

Under [Arcane Awakening] and having no fear of failure, the process finished in only a few minutes.

Without the need to carefully manipulate his Mana, he flew through the enchantment. His recent levels in [Internal Runic Mana Formation] made the process as safe for him as it would be for a Fae. Compared to the amount of Mana he used when enchanting Kara, it was over 100 times that. Speed cost as such.

He looked on. The enchantment succeeded, as far as he could tell.

Rainer created a copy of the notes he took after studying Elru’s Runes and Luna’s casting of [Gift of Lightning]. He would try to cast [Gift of Lightning]. Intending on surpassing any non-Fae student of Fae magic which came before him.

He had the [Sleep Learning] space recreate the chant Luna did but soon found an issue. Trying to follow along, it was as if he lacked the ability to create several of the strange sounds.

He now realized too, that it was almost as if more than one person spoke. As he was now, Rainer had no idea how to replicate this with Magic. He knew no Magic related to sound apart from the skill for infusing his voice with Arcane. Let alone, how to create any other strange words Luna said.

Leaving that for another time, Rainer attempted to enchant the Demon in front of him with the Body Enchantment version of [Gift of Lightning].

Several hours and many bodies later, Rainer found success. But he ran into a problem. He wasn’t sure what the effect was. For all he knew it might shock, or even hurt Kara.

Using a combination of [Aura Drain] and [General Aura Manipulation], Rainer filled the formerly empty Aura pool of the dead Demon and tested out the enchantment. Power surged, and the dead body was seemingly unaffected. Touching it, and not being shocked Rainer only had one more step to complete.

To create it for [Arcane Awakening].

Standing up, he looked at his body. He chose the center of his chest, the same spot where both the Runes for effects similar to [Gift of Lightning] and [Gift of the Giants] were.

He reformed the Runic Lines of [Arcane Awakening] in a multitude of ways. Every time the Rune just fizzled out. Recalling back to the need of his Arcane Aura to complete the Aura Output Rune on Kara, and himself, he now called upon Arcane-Lightning.

During his numerous tests to shock himself in the past, he felt an effect akin to [Gift of Lightning]. He partially converted the Arcane Power of [Arcane Awakening] to Arcane-Lightning, before it then powered the Rune in the center of his chest.

After numerous attempts and several life-ending shocks, he succeeded.

And with some minor corrections from his [Archon] class bonus, the skill became reality.

[Skill Gained: Arcane Awakening: Surge lvl 1/10].

[Arcane Awakening: Surge: Channel the power of Arcane-Lightning in a Rune made of Arcane Awakening. Increases the speed of all one’s abilities.]

[Arcane Awakening has reached level 4]

Instantly his entire body felt almost ethereal. And charged with a surging power.

Yet without any outside comparison, he couldn’t understand how much faster he truly became. In his current level, with [Arcane Awakening], he hadn’t experienced Luna’s [Gift of Lightning].

But a more important change occurred, at least in Rainer’s perspective. As his [Arcane Awakening] leveled he felt the cycling Arcane Energy in his body far more clearly. This he viewed as another step toward whatever requirements he needed for his Third-Tier Class of choice.

Feeling the time that had passed, Rainer decided to see how his new Void skills worked in here before using Auto-pilot solidify the rest of his memories. He would be careful, however, not to level them.

Using [Void Seer], Rainer noted he could just scan across the White Void. With [Void Grasp] Rainer tried to use [Void-walking] but found resistance. He immediately stopped as he gained a general understanding of the skill.

He went into Auto-pilot then, as he wished to save the second level of the skills to further his [Voidwalker] class.

Waking up soon after, all his gains from Nalmar permanently entered his memory.

--

Kara stayed awake the whole night. Standing in the corner of the room, she still trained with her Shield Rune. Though, she hadn’t made the same progress as before.

[Wolfkin, Female, Mystic Dancer lvl 9]

“Kara, if this kept you up all night I’m afraid you won’t be able to sleep for a while,” Rainer said. [Arcane Awakening] reached 100% as he activated Surge. He ran towards her far faster than before. Small tendrils of Arcane-Lightning went around his body.

“It’ll probably take a considerable amount of time. I’ll have to talk to Elru on how to stop midway or something of the sort.”

“Take your time. I don’t think she needs another shock so soon,” Kara said. In truth, she was beyond excited for both the attribute and the skill store she would unlock at level 10. And this new enchantment, and therefore skill, could be the answer.

Rainer laughed at her joke, but Kara only tilted her head confused. This only made him laugh harder as he recalled Gunthar trying to tell a likely similar joke but it not being translated properly at all.

“It’s nothing, just a translation error,” He added. Kara just looked at him strangely and returned to her training.

Rainer sat back on the bed. He used [Void Seer] to glance around, partially intent on leveling it.

In the scroll room, Theodore joined Elru in a discussion. Rainer tried to focus closely, and hear what they were saying. With the aid of the [Archon] class, his skill leveled and granted him such access.

[Void Seer has reached level 2]

[Experience Gained: 14%]

[Voidwalker has leveled up to lvl 14/25. Standard Attributes have been distributed. 1 Attribute and skill point have been rewarded]

“But mixes between Elves and Humans are very rare and almost never work.”

“I see. It was always quite a stretch. Especially now, after learning about Goblins.”

Rainer recalled the Half-Elf he saw but kept using [Void Seer] elsewhere. He quickly felt guilty as he basically spied on Theodore.

He immediately stood up, seeing Furtak speaking about something with a wolf. The [Druidic Magic Language] came from both sides. Where a single word could have a hundred different meanings.

The magic behind it is what caused communication along with the words themselves. Rainer understood this from his skill. Both the word and the power behind it held equal importance.

He got the general gist of the conversation. The wolf seemed displeased about something, while Furtak argued against that.

Getting up, Rainer headed to where he saw Furtak, in the foyer of the mansion.

[Lupin, Female, Ice Wolf Queen lvl 9]

The wolf, with a light blue fur giving the feeling of ice, growled at Rainer’s appearance.

Rainer tried his best to intone friendliness in Druidic speak. His class helped him in the process. The earlier eavesdropping joined with his current attempt.

[Druidic Magic Language has reached level 2]

The wolf ceased her hostilities and Furtak’s jaw dropped.

“Y-you…” He pointed, utterly confused.

The wolf’s mood took a complete turn.

“Greetings, [Archon].” She gave such a meaning in Druidic Tongue and followed with a bow. This time Rainer found himself surprised. Little did he know, his surprised response confirmed the wolf’s conjecture.

He knew not why a monster would show respect to an [Archon]. Especially given the Legend stated the [Archon] gave people the means to fight back against monsters. Legends, however, had a habit of changing over the course of time.

If Furtak was confused before, now he lacked even the means to exclaim his surprise.

“Question. Argument. Reason?” Rainer tried his best to reply in Druidic Tongue. The wolf gave a strange yip that sounded like a laugh before speaking to Furtak.

“She says to speak through me…[Archon]…” Furtak said in a daze. He decided just to go along with the situation for now. He knew not how to even react.

“So, what were you disagreeing about?” Rainer repeated the question normally to Furtak.

“Ah, this I can answer. She disliked that I had decided to hold off on stopping the humans. I tried to explain the partnership but,” Furtak gave a small cry as the [Ice Wolf Queen] bit him. She was currently the size of a normal wolf, far different to her massive size before.

Furtak spoke in Druidic Tongue to the [Ice Wolf Queen].

“She said she would negotiate with you if you can prove you are an [Archon]. As well as give some information on Unicorns. Under the same condition.”

Hesitantly Rainer walked over. He saw little reason as to hide this as her guess and his reaction likely confirmed it. More importantly, he wanted information on Unicorns for Gunthar and Theodore.

He operated [Arcane Awakening], intent on using Shield Mode at any time.

The [Ice Wolf Queen] stretched out a paw and Rainer shared his class with her. She turned around and sat a large table. She spoke a bit to Furtak.

“She says she is happy to discuss terms now.”

“What have you told her so far?” Rainer asked.

“Just that with us alone it wasn’t possible and we needed help to keep the North. She disagreed saying she would gather more monsters,” Furtak answered. He gave a weary glance at Rainer. Already he saw him as a strange and powerful Mage. Now he was utterly stunned and quite happy with himself at having taken the deal offered previously.

“Well, let’s see what she has to say then,” Rainer said. He used both [Void Detection] and [Arcane Awakening] at a low level as a precaution. He still recalled the [Ice Wolf Queen]’s attack which damaged his shield mode.

But what she had to say interested him far more than anything else.