Light It Up!
Clad in his [Mystic Deep] armor, Magnus' left hand gripped tightly on the handle of a silver round shield called [Defiance]. His right hand was holding [Wayward], a single-bladed axe with a back spike, whose curvy and long blade was embellished with seashell-like ridges and blue magic inscriptions. His shoulder-length hair was blowing in the wind that carried the pungent smell of an impending war.
He glanced to the side, at his best friend who was wearing his black [Nocturnal] armor and holding [Hell's Edge], a long sword whose vantablack blade devoured light like a black hole.
Some hundred meters away, stood Vulture, Azrael's Protagonist who had recruited TJ into her Team. Vulture was her Alias; nobody knew her real name except those closest to her. That's how it was with Protagonists; they were mostly known by their Aliases.
Her Team name was [Murder of Crows]. and it was a pretty well-established Team, with over a hundred Supporting Characters. All of them stood on this barren land, wearing all kinds of dark-colored armors, staring fearlessly at the enemy Alliance on the other side of the field.
[Murder of Crows] was allied with two other Teams, Magnus' included. He swiped his gaze across all his allies, almost shivering upon sensing the domineering and intimidating Aura radiating off The Crows. They stood as if they could already taste victory. And then he glanced behind, at his small gang of weirdos, who had been named [Sea Creatures] by Atlantis. Definitely not the most prominent Team sponsored by the god; that would be a much larger Team called [Atlanteans] headed by a pair of twin Protagonists.
"Every battle is won before it is fought," TJ's voice broke the silence between the two best friends.
Magnus looked at him with a funny expression. "Did you just quote Sun Tzu?"
At that question, TJ went back into silence. Magnus could only roll his eyes while fixing the grip on his weapons, slightly shifting about uncomfortably.
A few tense minutes later, a loud horn finally echoed all across the battlefield, signaling the start of the war. The horn was actually blown by nobody; it was a product of a narration, as the war itself had been designed and scheduled by the gods.
Not wanting to wait any longer, TJ immediately charged ahead with unmatched Aura of bloodlust. Magnus ran alongside him, observing as his friend placed two fingers on the flat side of his sword's blade, and then swiped them forward and pass the tip, creating a friction as if he was starting a fire with flint and steel. And start a fire, he did. It was [Death Flame], a floating ball of black fire that rapidly grew in size, before TJ sent it upward and shot it toward the opposing army. The blade of [Hell's Edge] itself greatly enhanced TJ's affinity to darkness, therefore intensifying the destructiveness and travel speed of the black fire. Once it landed on the enemy side, tens of people were turned to ash in a second, before the fire quickly spread in all directions, wildly rotting the soil and consuming more lives.
There was a bloodthirsty grin blooming on TJ's face.
---
"So yeah, since apparently you can learn skills frighteningly fast, let's get you to start learning [Ignite]," said Magnus after he was done reminiscing. TJ and he were still standing within the [Unbreakable] dome, with the former preparing to cast [Rejuvenate] again for practice after a few minutes of rest.
After he was done with the spell, he was immediately spent, having only been left with 2 mana points. "So I can only recover one point per minute," he said under heavy breaths.
"Naturally, yeah," replied Magnus. "Although, most people would recover their mana by absorbing it from the surroundings. It's faster that way."
"How do I—" TJ suddenly raised one brow, seemingly having come up with an idea. He sat down, relaxed his body, and started breathing slowly.
Magnus pulled up his friend's Status Window, and then a few seconds later saw the number for his Perception stat ticked up by three points. At this point, Magnus couldn't even be surprised anymore. Besides, his friend's talent would allow him to increase his DP faster, so he couldn't complain.
Less than two minutes later, TJ opened his eyes and stood up with renewed vigor. "Having only ten mana points is super inconvenient, but let's continue."
Magnus raised his index finger. "Hold up. Before that, I'll do something that might help you with your mana reserves."
'Four times increase will cost us two hundred AP,' reminded Magnus 2.0. 'Personally, I think we'll be fine losing that much, and then of course another hundred for the next usage of the anti-god membrane.'
'Right. How much do we have…' thought Magnus while fishing out his phone from the pocket to check on the time. 'Ten more minutes until the membranes wear off.'
Magnus 2.0 then quickly got to work.
ʳ As a reward for all his friend's efforts so far, Magnus decided to gift him +4 increase in mana points. ʴ
For the Health and Mana stats, +1 meant ten points increase.
Magnus too, had received a few bonuses from Atlantis to kickstart his Protagonist career. It felt a bit repulsive to follow in the footsteps of the guy he hated so much, but he dismissed the feeling since he knew it was unnecessary. He was doing this for his best friend.
Immediately after Magnus 2.0 was done with the narration, TJ suddenly felt his body automatically suck in mana from the air hungrily. Not even three seconds later, he saw a forty-point increase in his Mana. "Damn, whatever you just did made my Mana ballooned. Thanks, man."
"No worries. Right then, shall we start with the next skill?"
"Sure. [Ignite], was it?"
"Mhm. Believe it or not, it's actually the only fire element spell I have on my disposal," confessed Magnus.
"Whatever. Just show me how it looks like."
"Aight. Let's light it up!" shouted Magnus with an excited grin before it shifted into a serious expression.
Magnus' mana was still constantly being drained for keeping [Unbreakable] up, while [Subtle] practically cost him almost zero mana. But ignoring that, he started drawing more mana from his body and channeled it into his hand. The mana carried in it only one attribute—heat. As it neared his palm, the heat intensified, before it shot upward to create a tiny glaring red orb that turned into fire in an instant. Currently hovering just a few centimeters above Magnus' palm was a ball of flaming fire the size of a tennis ball. Magnus smiled and said, "This is [Ignite]. The name speaks for itself; it ignites a fire that, on this scale, will last for about five seconds before it…" the fire then slowly started to dissipate. "Yeah, before it goes 'poof'. Cost me like three mana or something. Honestly I stopped paying attention to how much mana I spend a long time ago."
'It's like when you have a lot of money. You stop caring how much it's used for little expenses,' Magnus 2.0 remarked.
TJ was staring at the vanishing fire intently. Even after it was completely gone, he still didn't move.
Rolling his eyes, Magnus once again opened up TJ's Status Window. 'Oh, would you look at that? Another two-point increase in his Perception. Hooray…'
After a minute standing in silence, TJ finally lifted his left hand. Just like how he'd channeled his mana to cast [Rejuvenate], he tapped into that colorless energy within his body, added a red glow and heat attribute into its core, and then sent it into his palm. A notification from the system then appeared on his screen as the fire 'whooshed' to life above his hand.
[Congratulations! You have learned a skill!
Skill Name: Ignite (Lv. 1)
Description: When the caster uses fire element mana to heat the air, it condenses into a ball of fire.
Mana Cost: 2 points
Cooldown: None.]
TJ read the description of the skill as the fire above his hand was slowly disappearing. Immediately afterward, he casted the skill again. When the spell ended, he casted it one more time. He did this over and over for a little more than ten times before he saw a notification that said the skill had leveled up. A smile crept on his face as he formed another ball of fire. The fire now looked slightly brighter than before.
Magnus watched all that happening with a bored expression. "You know, you could've just added more mana into the fire ball, made it bigger and decreased the amount of time you had to re-[Ignite]. Feels more efficient that way."
"Well, you could've told me," TJ retorted while looking at his friend with a hint of anger.
"You didn't ask." Ignoring TJ's death glare, Magnus checked out the increase in his DP. He was stunned to see the numbers. '600 points! Nice! I guess a leveled skill gives me this much DP.'
He then glanced at his friend who was clearly drained of mana, and then pulled up his phone again to check on the time. Seeing that the membranes were almost at their time limit and looking around at the crowd of people who, although not noticing the seemingly empty park clearing, started to flock around the area, Magnus made a decision.
"Dude, are your parents home?" asked Magnus.
TJ looked at him, brows furrowed. "My mom's probably at Mrs. Harold's house. My dad's…I don't know where he went. Why?"
"Let's change location. Your back yard's big enough."
TJ glanced around and guessed why his friend suddenly wanted to get out of the park. "Fine."