15 Chapter 15
I managed to get home in one piece, luckily it seemed like nobody had seen me receive the money. It was fairly late and the guild was much less crowded than during the day. Plus, I hadn't had anyone trigger my Sixth Sense, which was a pretty good sign that I was in the clear. Even so, I sped home and didn't make any unnecessary stops. The moon was starting to set by the time I made it back. 'I must have been gone longer than I thought'
As I approached the door I could see the dark shop with a single candle burning. By the candle sat Miach and Naaza, both looking worried. I quickly opened the door and shut it behind me, making sure to shut the blinds to the windows as well. I turned to find Miach and Naaza giving me weird looks until I dropped the bag of 375k on the table. Just the sound of the money thumping on the table was enough to get their attention. I could see the question forming in both of their minds, so I decided to get out in front of it before their imaginations took over.
"You know the development ability Hunter?" I asked calmly.
Bother of their faces immediately became confused, "Yeah, but what does that have to ..." Naaza started, but I cut her off.
"I was at the market and I bought some bait from a sketchy guy near the market so that I could gather the monsters necessary, but it worked a bit too well," I said, gesturing to the money on the table.
"You still need to take your cut," Miach said, pushing the money back toward me.
"I already have," I replied, pushing the money back across the table.
Naaza's mouth fell open slightly, "You made 500k in one day?!?"
Miach immediately gestured for me to lie down, presumable to check my stats. I'll admit, I was curious about the increase, but I wasn't optimistic about the amount of stat growth I would have this time. This was nowhere near the level of the life-and-death struggle I had engaged in before. However, Miach and Naaza insisted on seeing my status, so I relented and laid down on the floor, and waited for Miach to update my status. It didn't take long for him to hand me the paper with my improved stats.
[Augustus Zahard
Lv. 1
STR: B-743
END: A-818
DEX: B-701
AGI: C-652
MAG: S-900
(A/N: All of the increases are less than 50 btw)
Magic:
Magicule Manipulation
Skills:
Tensura]
I nodded as I looked at the sheet of paper, this was the increase that I had expected. Even though it wasn't anywhere near as much as last time, Miach and Naaza still looked blown away by the increase. Thinking about it I did realize that to them my increase would be incredible, it normally takes people years to increase their level. Ais has an OP skill against monsters, but even she took a whole year to level up. I started to wonder if my sub-skills Remove Racial Limits and Indefinite Growth have anything to do with my rapid increase, but it's impossible to tell what specifically is the cause.
Anyway, after updating my stats we all retired to our respective rooms. I fell fast asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I woke up early the next morning and sat in my bed, enjoying the warmth of the covers. As I took a few extra minutes to rest in my bed I considered what abilities I want to work toward next. I considered going for a holy miracle next but quickly dismissed it. I am still at the phase where I want to obtain a bunch of easier abilities to learn instead of going all in on a single powerful ability.
This train of thought led me to consider the two Arts, Concealment and Instantmove. Both of which would be extremely useful to me. I also doubted that it would take an extremely long time for me to learn both of them. I would normally try to go for Formhide and its stronger version Haze, but I don't see any reason to go for either at the moment. Concealment will most likely prove to be good enough for the time being.
After I rose from my bed I began to practice Instantmove first due to it being the more difficult of the two to learn, or at least that is what I thought. I managed to get the Art down in two and a half hours because of its highly physical nature. Next, I moved on to concealment. I can say confidently that I was not prepared for how difficult it was to learn this Art. This was truly the first real difficulty I have encountered when it comes to gaining Arts and Skills so far. Magic just takes a long time to get the magic circle down, which makes them more annoying than anything else. My physical Arts just require a lot of repetition as well, but concealment is about extremely fine management of my aura.
In the end, I managed to master it as well, but the process wasn't fun whatsoever. The training process was mostly just me unsuccessfully trying to use my aura to make myself invisible. Even though the process was horrible, the results were well worth it. I could now turn invisible at will, but since Concealment isn't as powerful as Formhide it is easier to see through. My guess is that even though it's a bit weaker than Formhide, I can still probably get by most monsters if I am careful. I am only worried about the effectiveness of the Art down on the Lower-Deep floors.
Another limitation of my invisibility is that it burns through my aura rather quickly, especially when moving. When standing still the aura drain is negligible when compared to moving. Since it was late at night when I mastered the two Arts I just sank back into my bed and slept, rising once more when the sun rose.
I got up, used Clean Wash, ate breakfast, then headed toward the dungeon to grind out some more of my stats. Maybe I would even get to fight an Infant dragon today as well. Since Infant dragons have power comparable to a level 2 it would definitely be worthwhile for me to fight with one. I was deciding between that and just heading deeper into the dungeon. I was confident of my ability to survive on deeper floors, but I don't know if going deeper is the best decision.
On my way to the dungeon, I used Concealment in short bursts and marveled at the fact that I was completely invisible during that time. It was an interesting feeling to go completely unnoticed by people all around me. I decided to keep Concealment off due to the large number of people on the street, even though it's early there are still many people around. As I approached the plaza where the entrance to the dungeon resided, I found the way becoming increasingly crowded.
"Hey, why are so many people here today?" I asked a random adventurer in the crowd next to me.
The man looked over and responded with a slight tinge of frustration in his voice, "The Loki familia is going on an expedition to the Deep Floors. Any time an expedition starts it always gets crowded near the entrance,"
I nodded in thanks and we went our separate ways, me toward the dungeon entrance, and him toward the guild. As I headed for the entrance I searched the mingling crowd for anybody I recognized from the series. Surprisingly, I was able to easily locate most of the famous members of the Loki familia fairly easily, even in the crowd of preparing adventurers. I saw Finn, Tione, Bete, and Riveria with the other members of the Loki familia in the front of the crowd, seemingly in a group meeting.
I walked around the expedition party, giving them plenty of room as I headed for the entrance to the dungeon. Just as I was about to enter the entrance to the dungeon I turned due to a feeling of surprise coming from Regulus inside of me. I turned back to the crowd to see what had surprised him. Now that I was looking for it, I could feel something that was heard to describe. It was like there was another spirit in the crowd, but only partially. Eventually, my eyes met with those of a beautiful blonde girl, Ais Wallenstein.
She stared back at me with wide eyes, showcasing her golden eyes clearly to me. It only took an instant for me to recognize the situation, Ais's mother was a spirit and I currently have a spirit dwelling within me. Since I was able to sense her with some sort of spiritual sense, it made sense that she could sense me too. This situation was so far outside of what I was expecting that I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to interact with the Loki familia yet due to not having enough strength.
I could see the rest of the Loki familia executives turn to look in the direction Ais was looking so I was forced to make a decision. Instead of staying put, I immediately activated concealment and quickly entered the dungeon so that I can avoid the Loki familia for now. Unfortunately, Finn and Tione saw me due to being adjacent to Ais. The meeting sparked the need to get stronger within me, I knew that from here on out things would be more troublesome and I need to prepare.
- (Loki Familia POV) -
"What's wrong Ais," Riveria asked as she turned in the direction Ais was looking.
Tione looked confused as she asked her own question "Who was that? You know him?"
Ais continued to stare wide-eyed at the place where the boy had disappeared into the dungeon. Her mouth moved up and down, but no words escaped her mouth. She wanted to run after the boy, but she found herself frozen in shock. She snapped out of it after a few seconds and prepared to chase the boy with an aura similar to that of her mother down, but she felt Finn's hand grab her arm.
"I don't know who that boy is, or what your relationship is, but it has to wait until later," Finn said, gesturing to the waiting expedition force, "If he's in the dungeon it must mean that he's an adventurer here in Orario, so there's plenty of time to figure things out,"
Ais nodded distantly while the confused and concerned executives of the familia struggled to understand what had just happened to Ais.
- - - (Chapter End) - - -
I don't know if I've said this, but this story takes place 3 years before canon. Ais is 16 during canon, but in this story, she is the same age as the MC (16 now and 19 when canon starts).
