Chapter 281: Wind magic

With everyone leaving Eldrian was soon left alone with Elizabeth, who quickly came up to him and asked why he didn't join their guild.

The question actually caught him off guard, and he didn't reply right away. Instead, Eldrian first thought about it, with the game having been online for a while now people at least knew the basic advantages of a guild. 

These advantages were currently not all that great for someone like Eldrian, who had no shortage of quests. But for other players it was quite nice, the quests were similar to what one would get in the adventurers guild. In fact, players still got them there, the difference was that guilds could get priority for certain quests. 

This didn't sound like much, and indeed it wasn't, but the true goal was for the guild to become known in a certain city or even kingdom. This way they would get special quests, with bonus rewards. Eldrian found this slightly ironic as he felt he was getting special quests left and right, yet he had done nothing to actually be worthy of them. 

No guild currently had made a name for themselves to that extent, however some had gone to small villages and done that there. The reward for doing this though had not been that great, especially since these guilds were in an empire, which was extremely safe. 

"I don't think that would be smart." Eldrian finally said, he didn't mind joining but there wasn't really anything compelling him to do so. "I am not near you guys, and I also don't plan to change my way of playing this game. So even if I joined, what would that do?"

"But you don't need to be with us. You can do quests from anywhere and credit it to the guild."

"That just sounds like you want to use me." Eldrian teased, "Besides don't you have a limit on how many people can be part of the guild, certainly you are full."

"We aren't actually. Level 1 guilds can have up to a hundred people, we just have around seventy." Elizabeth quickly replied, though she already understood that Eldrian wasn't going to join. "In any case the offer stands if you change your mind."

With that Eldrian left and logged out. Sitting up in the chair he thought a bit more about the offer, but ultimately he didn't feel like it was a good deal. The Taurus relief mission was likely going to take months to finish, if it was even going to finish that soon. So far Eldrian had a feeling that they were going to be recalled and that would be the end. 

"In any case, that doesn't matter for now. I should log back in and also check out the wind spells." Eldrian mumbled, stopping as he was half lying in the chair. "Right, food first..."

After filling his belly he returned and logged in. As soon as he did he looked through all the notes and books he had been given, looking for wind spells. It just so happened that Pelaros had given him one focused solely on wind, though Eldrian hadn't looked at it much. 

The reason for that was quite simple, wind magic was truly sad at low Tiers. The beginning of the book stated how great it could be, especially at Tier 5 and above. Which wasn't even included in the compendium. It stated how it was possible to use it to fly, send invisible blades to cut your enemies, create magic barriers. 

It sounded amazing, until one realized that before Tier 5 it was extremely weak. Tier 1 wind spells would create a gentle breeze, barely strong enough to flip the pages of a book. Eldrian had in fact learned just such a spell and often used it on warm days. He even managed to maneuver some water magic into it to make the breeze even cooler.

It had no combat usage. Though with the addition Eldrian added it was quite a nice quality of life spell. 

Tier 2 spells were a bit better, but really they only made strong winds. This might be useful in disrupting arrows, and why Eldrian was now looking into it. But really it might not even be strong enough for that. Tier 3 was where the wind truly became strong, as Eldrian had witnessed in one of the fights earlier. 

Quickly Eldrian lost himself in the book, a light ball floating over him and giving him light in the darkness. He was quite shocked at the principles behind wind magic, while the terminology in the book didn't quite match with what Eldrian knew, he could easily understand it. 

Basically, it came down to the fact that wind and most anything relating to air was controlled by pressure. Or so Eldrian came to understand it. The problem with this was that it isn't easy to precisely create these pressure differences.

Eldrian didn't go too deep into the ramblings of the author, not understanding a great deal of it in any case. There was a great deal of theoretical talk on possibly improving it, as well as why it was so limited. Most of it Eldrian simply glossed over for now. 

The basis for improving being possible was Fire and Water magic, both can be summoned without this precise control, and with a lot less mana. Earth wasn't considered as it wasn't considered summoning since actually rocks/mud/sand had to be used.

However, it seemed the author never succeeded in reaching his dreams as the notes on the actual spells inside the book were quite simple. 

These spells are seemingly just to get used to using wind magic. The notes keep mentioning that you must take care to feel the flow, since you cannot see the effect of the spells. I wonder what they mean with that, the flow of mana or wind? Eldrian pondered as he started memorizing one of the stronger Tier 2 spells. 

It was called Ischyros Anemos, and from the description, Eldrian wondered if it would even be strong enough to divert arrows. It certainly wouldn't deflect them. According to the notes on this spell, it would cause the larger branches of a tree to bend and sway. Which didn't sound like much to Eldrian. 

After around an hour, Eldrian felt he had the spell module down pact, it being quite complicated for something which was stated to be useless. Just as Eldrian was about to try and cast it, he bit his tongue as he realized where he was. 

"That was close," Eldrian mumbled as he looked around at the room. He wasn't sure if the spell would even be limited to the room, but it would have certainly done some damage to everything inside if the winds were as strong as described. Most importantly he was a guest and certainly didn't want to be kicked out. 

Inns were expensive and the military lodging certainly wouldn't allow him to learn at ease during the night. While tents were free, Eldrian really didn't want to sit in a tent and learn spells. A room was far comfier, and the blanket he had over his shoulders made him feel at home. 

Leaving his room and heading outside, Eldrian shivered at the coldness of the night, shocked by this. Soon he kept two Floga spells floating next to him, the weak flames didn't do much, but it did keep the slight cold at bay.

Walking in the dark, with two flaming balls of fire around the size of a fist floating around him, Eldrian headed to the north of the fort. His aim the croplands. He believed it should be safe to practice the wind spell there. After twenty minutes of walking, he stood in front of the fields and refocused. Naturally letting the Floga spells die first, since he didn't want to accidentally set the fields aflame. 

Like always just memorizing the spell module wasn't enough for Eldrian to cast the spell, luckily this was a pure wind spell. As such Eldrian just needed to figure out the quantity of mana, the composition being fully wind elemental mana. 

When he overshot the amount of mana he would get a slight headache as a strong wind nearly knocked him off his feet. When he undershot, nothing happened. 

After a few tries, not even an hour later, Eldrian succeeded. His hair quickly being thrown around by the wind and the crops nearly touching the ground. He quickly realized this wind was what he would call storm winds. Though it was certainly not actually classified as storm winds since it was common with rain. 

It was right where you had to carefully use your umbrella, or it would be flipped inside out or taken from your hand. Not strong enough to really bother a person, but if they had a cape or something it could actually really pull them down.

For the most part Eldrian just had his hair constantly smashing into his face, causing him to want to cut it shorter. Funnily enough, his hair had actually become much longer from when he first created his avatar, and it was likely time to cut them. 

This should definitely be capable of throwing arrows off their tracks. Eldrian thought, realizing that it should most certainly at the very least cause the arrows to deviate. As he thought of this he quickly looked up his friend list and contacted Erik and Ilmadia. 

Asking the first to also learn this spell, quickly sending Erik a screenshot (Or rather a viewpoint capture) of the spell module. For Ilmadia instead he asked what she had decided to learn, and if she had managed thus far.

Adding that while the gust spell they had seen might be useful for deflecting a hail of arrows, it would be too difficult to use against single arrows.

So he proposed that she should rather try learning one of the wind creation spells. Eldrian was certain that the Tier 3 version should be even more effective. The only problem was that it would cause everyone trouble, not just the opponents.