50 DanMachi 20

Getting down on the main floor I'm met with a group of girls, hanging out in our living room.

Yes, the Elf who wanted to see me was Riveria, and she was joined by Lefiya, the two amazon girls, and the stoic-looking half-spirit.

"Hey, guys what brings you here?" I greet the gang.

"Ah! There you are, Andrew! Are you free right now? I need some help with one of the spells I'm working on." She asks but the stops and inspects me closer. "Somethings different about you, did you level up?" she asks tilting her head.

"As a matter of fact, I did." I say with a smile but after noticing the two amazon's gaze, I quickly change the topic. "What kind of spell are we talking about?"

"Oj, don't change the topic. How strong are you now?" Tiona, the bigger of the two amazons, asks, nay demands.

"Not your concern." I said waving her off.

"Hey!" She stands up to shout something, but before she can do anything, [Mind Arts] forces her mind to shut down and she flops down on the sofa passed out. Drool starts running down her chin as she starts snoring.

"Now that we got rid of the annoyance." I say with a clap of my hands "Could you explain to me what kind of spell-crafting help you need?" I ask, turning to the aghast Elf, with a bright smile. The others, Ais and Tione, however, didn't appreciate me taking out their comrade.

Tione jumped to her feet and started shouting. "What did you do with my sister!?" She raised he fists ready to attack. Meanwhile, Ais stood up and started channeling mana into her sword preparing for an attack at any moment. I sigh, wave my hand, and shatter her spell, then send out 91 of [Mind Arts] tendrils and assault their minds. Their unprotected minds offering no resistance at all, shut down in merely a moment and without an ounce of fight. Both girls fell back to the same sofa, covering the already fainted Tiona.

Lefiya on the other hand, scared and at the same time shocked by my display, didn't even attempt to move a muscle. The three fainted girls now lay motionlessly on the sofa, droll flowing out of their mouths.

This skill is way overpowered in a world, where skills are granted at level-ups and only when they are truly needed. Barely anyone had any mental shields, and even those that had it could be easily shattered by my skill. I could even alter their memories, and make them believe in all kinds of things, make them my eternal slaves or fall in love with me, but that path is a pretty dark place, so let's not go down that road.

I turn towards the stunned Riveria, and I nudge her shoulder. She jerks back from my sudden touch and shudders when she notices my annoyed smile.

"W-w-what did you do to them?" She asks with fear in her voice.

"Not much, just shut down their minds for a bit, they will wake up in about 30 minutes. They will have a light headache, though. That should make them learn their manners. They are in my house and even if they are 'stronger'." I do air quotes. "They should learn to respect others."

"D-d-did you j-j-just take out 3 t-t-top tier adventurers without lifting an f-f-finger?" Asks the stuttering Lefiya.

"Yeah, but I could have done all that at level one. One of my skills can be pretty nasty when I want it to be." I say with a wicked smile. "Now, start talking." I say turning towards Riviera. "What spell do you need help with and why come with the whole gang? You're pulling too much attention towards my small familia. People will start talking, and in the end, I'll have to take care of some idiots, who think they can get to you, by going through me." I say with displeasure clear in my voice, mostly coming from my exhausted state.

"I'm sorry." She says while standing up and bowing. "I didn't think that through. The girls wanted to join me and Lefiya on an outing and I didn't stop them. If anyone needs to be punished, it should be me." She was honest, based on what I can see in her mind. When she mentioned a punishment, I was barely able to hold back a laugh. A few really scandalous scenes dominated the thoughts of the prim and proper High Elf. Keeping my wry smile hidden, I can't help but think about what I would have done with the erotic elf if I didn't already have my girl.

"Save me from your excuses." I said waving her off. "The spell?" I ask for the third or the fourth time today.

"Ah yes!" She says, looks around to locate her bag, and starts rummaging through it. She takes out a notebook and flips through the pages fast, stopping at one with so many scribbles that I couldn't make out anything comprehensible from my position. She hands me the notebook and I look at it with confusion.

I look at it from one angle, then rotate the notebook by ninety degrees, then flip it by one hundred and eighty, and finally understand what she's attempting. I shake my head at her amateurish attempt at creating a Life rune-based spell.

"So if I understand what you're attempting here, you're planning on creating a continuous spell, which you would only need to activate once and supply mana to it over time." I say and she nods, to which I cast [Alter Orb]. "Something like this? It shoots out condensed beams of different affinities, modular and changeable on the fly, fully based on my wants." She looks at it with amazement, then clears her throat and says.

"Yes but I need mine with healing capabilities and to focus on healing the critically injured ones."

"Hmm. What about a spell that would heal people around you in an area?" I say as I dispel my spell.

"Yes, that would be preferable." She says and nods.

I flip her notebook to an empty page and start writing out the runic script. First adding the Life rune, extending it with an area of effect rune. "Do you want the spell area to be modular or static?" I ask and she looks at me with a clueless expression. "The static option costs less mana for its initial cast but has a fixed area of influence. While the Modular one would cost more for the initial cast, but you could extend its reach when you need it."

"Modular sounds way better for my needs." I nod again and add an attribute rune for adjusting the size of the area, inserting a few more runes for the channeling effect and filtering on wounded allies adding another few runes to prioritize heavily wounded people, then adjusting its chant, and voila, the spell is ready.

"There, try it like this." I say handing her back the notebook, complete with the chant and the runic sequence.

[Gift of Life lvl 1]

- Creates an orb of life-infused mana, floating over the user, sending out pulses of life energy, healing and revitalizing all nearby wounded allies, prioritizing the heavily injured.

- Area of effect can be adjusted on the fly.

{Affinity: Life}

{Chant: Save our Souls, Gift of Life.}

"Damn, I've been attempting to create a similar spell for a week, and you just did it in what, five minutes?" She says biting her nails and when she realizes what she's doing a light blush appears on her face.

"Well, I do have a lot more experience with spell crafting than you do. So there is nothing to be ashamed of. You were on the right path, you just made a few small mistakes on your way." I say with a small smile. "Try casting the spell and check its mana efficiency." She nods and casts the spell. Not a moment later a light green orb forms over her head and starts to shoot out pulses of life energy, waking even me up from my tiered state, the fainted girls by my side, stir, but thankfully stay down. I really didn't want to knock them out once again. Riveria cancels the spell, and a light frown appears on her face.

"It's better than I expected, I could probably keep it up for" She places and starts tapping her finger on her chin when she was done calculating the spell's mana consumption, she continues "about ten minutes tops. More if I use mana potions after casting it. Now I just need to figure out how strong the healing effect is."

"The spell should be strong enough to heal most wounds. It won't regrow limbs or organs, but it will stop bleeding, and close open wounds, but you should test it out. May I suggest going to the training grounds and ordering some of your familia members to have a rougher training session? Make sure you have potions and other healing items for worst-case scenarios." She gives me a serious nod.

"Thank you for the idea, some of our members sometimes need to let loose." She says looking at Tiona and Tione. "Oh by the way where is Olive? The girls wanted to go out with her."

"I think she's still in bed. We arrived home from the dungeon pretty late. Let me check if she's up for it, if not I'll just teleport you and your girls to the Loki estate." She nods in agreement and I walk upstairs.

Opening the door to our room I find Olive snuggled up in bed hugging my pillow. I walk up to her a gently place a kiss on her forehead.

"Hmm?" Her eyes flutter and she looks up at me with a cute but sleepy face.

"Your girlfriends are downstairs. Do you want to go out with them?" I ask with a gentle tone.

"Um... Sure, just give me a minute or two to get ready." She says while stretching.

"Okay, ill notify them, don't go back to sleep." I say planting a kiss on her lips. She squirms and with a smile, she starts getting out of bed. I would have loved to stay and watch her change, but the guests downstairs were waiting.

"I'll be downstairs." I say closing the door and going down to the living room.

"Yeah she's coming, but she needs a few minutes to get ready." I say to the only two of the five girls still conscious. "Meanwhile, what's new at the Loki familia?"

"Not much, I successfully taught everyone in the ace team how to utilize their mana. Some, like Lefiya or Ais, had more success than the others, but everyone can cast spells without chanting after focusing a bit."

"Yes! I'm up to five simultaneous spells at the same time!" Happily announces the teenage elf.

"Good to hear. Have you managed to use it in combat already or do you still need to fully focus on the casting?" I ask curiously.

"I can multicast two spells without full focus, but my teacher is up to ten." Lefiya answers with a happy smile while looking at Riveria.

"Nice, keep working on that. You might never need fifty simultaneous spells, but it will help you learn how to split your focus with better proficiency." I say with a nod.

"What's your current limit?" Asks Riveria.

"To be totally honest, I've got no idea." I say scratching the side of my head.

"Aren't you curious?" She asks, to which I just shrug.

"Not really, I mostly go for quality, not quantity, but ill humor you." I say rising my hand, fifty magic circles form without trouble, an additional fifty form after that, and a little strain forms on my mind. I add fifty more the strain becomes almost unbearable, until I activate [Focus], at which point it disappears completely. I keep adding more and more circles, till the point I start getting a mind-splitting headache and blood starts dripping from my nose.

I could feel the mana channels in my body dangerously heating up. I was stretching my mind, my mana capacity, and my manipulation too wide, by controlling over 500 spells at the same time. With a final grunt, I attempt to add another one but feel something burst and my consciousness starts slowly fading, the spells around me crumble, and at that moment my mind was hit by a rebound. It brought with itself a moment of clarity, which lasted only a second, but left with a few notifications.

[Skill: [Multitasking] unlocked.]

[Skill: [Multicasting] unlocked.]

[Class: [Sorcerer] unlocked.]

[Skill: [Mana Manipulation] has reached Level 97]

[Skill: [Focus] has reached Level 45]

[Multitasking LVL:1/100]

- Allows the user to focus on multiple things at the same time.

- Mental strain suffered from splitting your focus reduced by 0.5%/LVL.

[Multicasting LVL:1/100]

- Mental and magical strain suffered from casting multiple spells at the same time reduced by 0.5%/LVL.

I reeled back and take a shaky breath, then lift my shaking hand in an attempt to clean the trail of blood from my nose, only to smudge it all over my face. I give a quick check on my health status on my system screen only to find myself in a bit of a pickle.

[HS: Dying (Ruptured capillaries in the brain, Internal bleeding, Mental strain, Mana channel strain)]

"Fuck." And a pool of blood leaves my mouth. I try to cast a time reversal on myself, but with the combination of mental and mana channel strain, sharp pain assaults my mind, and the spell just sizzles out of existence. My complexion must have looked deadly pale, because the only lucid person near me was panicking, and trying to cast her new spell.

I take out the highest rank health potion I've got out of my inventory and down it, Riveria was freaking out and successfully cast her new spell focusing it on me. I felt the potion start affecting me, as the healing wave washed over me, slowly but surely the Health Status cleared up, the aliments disappearing from it one by one, leaving only the strained mind and mana channels, which should heal up after a bit of rest.

"Thanks." I say to the still freaking-out High Elf. "I'm alright now."

"How can you be so calm, after spitting out a bucked of blood, Lefiya fainted from it!"

"Pff!" I laugh out loud, I didn't even need to use [Mind Arts] on Lefiya to make her the 4th member of the group to faint today. "I was never in any real danger. The blood was from a ruptured capillary in my nose." I lie while cleaning up the remaining blood from my face. "But thank you for worrying." I say with a small smile.

The secretly perverse elf's face goes crimson but continues to reprimand me. "I know you're lying! That was extremely stupid! I know how much mental strain I suffer from only controlling ten spells, and I'm level six! And you at whatever level you are -"

"Four" I interrupt

"Yes, four, you shouldn't -" but her mental processes come to a screeching halt. "You're level four? You were level two less than weeks ago!"

"Been diving the dungeon quite often." I say with a shrug, making her facepalm. She pauses for a moment and after a sigh, she continues.

"...Anyway, that was foolish, you could have ended up brain dead or even died from an aneurism!"

Olivia chooses this moment to come downstairs, hearing the commotion and seeing all of her friends knocked out. With Riveria standing in front of me and shaking her finger and furiously glaring at me.

"Okay, what did he do now?" She asks after a big sigh.

Both I and Riveria turn her way and answer at the same time.

"Nothing!" "He almost killed himself!"

I look back at Riveria squinting my eyes, she's lucky Olivia is here or I would start bullying her for this.

It took a moment for Olivia to understand what we said, but then her expression turned grim, and started shouting at me. "YOU DID WHAT?!" Her scream made the fainted elf twitch and suddenly wake up. Looking around she spots me and hurriedly asks.

"Are you alright?! There was so much blood!" The teenage elf says worriedly, making me give her a deadpan look. Turning back to my sweetheart I smile and try to save my ass.

"You're misunderstanding them, I was in full control, I only suffered some minor internal bleeding." I say and try to hide the almost half million Valis worth potion I just downed.

"Was that an elixir?" Olivia asks looking at the place where the bottle was just a moment ago.

"That's just your imagination, love, that was a low-quality potion." But she doesn't buy it and sees through my lies in an instant.

"You're lying." She looks at me while squinting her eyes.

"What?! I would never!" Her squint increases and I break under the pressure. "Alright... I was testing how many spells I can safely control at the same time, around 500 by the way, and a few of my blood vessels popped... One of them in my brain." As I say that I can see her wince. "...and I'm suffering from mind and mana channel strain. But those will clear up in a day or so."

"Are you sure you're alright now?" She asks worriedly.

"Yeah, totally," I reassure her.

"Good." She nods and reals back her first and hits me in the gut. "Stop doing stupid shit you idiot." She then proceeds to hug me and starts squeezing me tightly.

"I wasn't in any real danger with Riveria here." I say and send a glare to the elf.

The high-elf looks in another direction clearly embarrassed and lies. "He's right it was a really stupid experiment, but with me and Lefiya here he wasn't in any real danger. Should he have done it alone, there was a chance he would have died, but we were the ones asking about his limits."

Olivia pulls herself up and plants a heartfelt kiss on my lips. "Promise me you won't do anything so stupid without anyone nearby to save your ass." She looks deep into my eyes, while tears form on the side of hers.

"Haa... I promise."

"Thank you." She says while I brush off the tears from her eyes.

"Anyway..." I say while noticing the three troublemakers slowly starting to wake. "...I've got a killer headache and I don't want to be in the same room when these three wake up."

"You did something, didn't you?" she says with accusation in her tone.

"Me? They started it. I just knocked them out. Don't want one or more amazons running after me." I move to leave but then, I remember. "Riveria, here are the books you lent me, I'll give you my notes on them next time we meet." I place the stack of books on the table but start hearing grunts from the three fainted girls. I turn towards Olivia and give her a quick kiss. "Love you, have fun outside." And promptly I evacuate the premise.

'I wonder where did Lili go?'