Chapter 63: Revival

Agni spent the rest of her time awaiting Katrin's departure from the Wilderness Tabernacle. During the wait she hunted lone Grimlock Stags and conversed with Shula to pass the time. Due to the fact that both still were in the party together, Agni could check Katrin's status at any time as well as her location via the world map and minimap features. What she didn't plan on was the duration of the 'First Death' status ailment which forced her to wait until the wee hours of the morning.

Due to the Grimlock's propensity for being active in the evening, Katrin decided to spend the night and leave early in the morning once the effect wore off. She found Agni sleeping just outside the barrier to the Wilderness Tabernacle in the early hours of the next day.

"Hey, sleepy head." Katrin said, her voice low just in case a Grimlock happened to be nearby.

Agni raised her head, her eyes meeting Katrin's though she was still mostly asleep.

"H-hey.." She tried to match Katrin's energy, only to fail spectacularly -- especially with Agni's severe case of bed head. Katrin on the other hand looked impeccable. She seemed alert and ready to journey.

"Are you sure you should be sleeping out here? That's quite bold…" Katrin said as she took a seat next to the sleepy succubus.

"I'm fine. Shula's keeping watch." Agni responded as she stretched. The truth was that she spent so much extra energy farming Fulger Stags that she was dead tired at the moment, working on barely two hours of rest.

Katrin could tell just as much by a glance, she'd never seen her party mate so sleepy.

"Ha ha." She chuckled to herself. Indeed, Katrin's good mood was related to the fact that she no longer felt like shit. The effects of 'First Death' were terribly draining on the body. Extremely low energy from the 'de-level' effect, halved stats which resulted in significantly lower strength and a general sense of weakness. Even recovering was a hassle so stepping foot outside of any safe zone in such a state was akin to a death sentence under most circumstances.

Katrin spent most of her time gathering knowledge during her brief stay at the Tabernacle, after all it was one of the major focuses of being a Scribe -- that and, of course, scribing. Wayla was kind enough to allow Katrin to read all the books she wanted and in turn Katrin greedily soaked up that knowledge, learning much more about the lore of the world of Adventia in the process. She was sure to use this knowledge sometime in the future, but for now the two focused on returning to Grenvale.

Their return to the Trainer's Chapel was uneventful and after allowing Agni a few more hours of sleep, the two decided to continue their goal to acquire new strength before the remainder of their final two weeks of tutelage expired. With this in mind, their latest battle was very eye opening. They decided to spend their time during the day honing their individual skills as best as possible. Agni realized the value of long range attacks and began to focus on gaining mastery over her Elemental Manipulation. Katrin on the other hand began to save up for an item known as a Grimoire. A Grimoire was a magical book that contained all of the spells a magic user knew. It was a mystical weapon more akin to a magical familiar than any gun , blade or polearm. For Katrin it would eliminate the need to touch flat surfaces directly, with her Grimoire near she could use any spell she had placed within it's pages. Unfortunately, this required Katrin to actually learn the spells rather than use pseudo spells via her scribe magic.

It was an acceptable tradeoff to her, so she also acquired a magical specialty. Rather than acquire the 'Elemental Manipulation' ability, Katrin chose 'Earth Mastery' and 'Air Mastery', two of the most common elements. Unlike manipulation, masteries allowed one to learn spells and add them to one's knowledge. The ability was needed to acquire affinity in the element and also to use constructed spells, spells with specific steps for casting.

While Agni could use constructed spells if she desired, it would cost her more mana because she didn't know or use the proper hand seals to activate or manipulate the mana and elemental mix. On the other hand, for Katrin she would use much less mana by combining hand seals and using her mana to manipulate the energies that were channeled. It made magical use more practical, in exchange for sacrificing control and allowing the hand seals to automate some of the process.

In addition, the Grimoire itself also further decreased the mana costs as well as improved the spell effects as long as the Grimoire was forced open to the corresponding page of the spell in use. This could also be controlled mentally, and as such the Grimoire, when equipped, would block off a small portion of the user's Mana points. This served to allow the user to activate the Grimoire freely and it was a small sacrifice many magic users were willing to take for the ease of use.

The final benefit of a Grimoire, as Katrin learned from Wayla, was that it could allow her to activate freely any of the spells she learned using her Scribe abilities as well -- since they were etched into the pages of the Grimoire itself.

On the other hand, Agni, having gotten a feel for her 'Whisper' ability decided to keep the new abilities 'Iron Fang,Iron Claw' as well as 'Extend'. She liked the idea of having a mid-range attack that she could launch simply by pointing her fingers as well as an unarmed melee option. Thus she sparred with Bracha during the daytime hours and then later at night Katrin and she would use their newly acquired combat styles to quickly become accustomed to them.

With her remaining 15 Potential Points, Agni decided to improve her combat ability even further. She acquired a skill called 'Toughness' for 5 PP, which allowed her to gain 5% resistance to physical damage, (upon mastery, up to 15%) and it's counterpart, 'Resistance' which performed the same except for magic damage.

Finally, at the behest of Ren, Agni also acquired the ability to use Whips by purchasing 'Whip Mastery' with her final PP.

"So long wings. Maybe next rank!" Agni mused to herself dejectedly as she thought about all the fun she was missing. With all of her PP spent, Agni felt even more confident that she could better handle situations like the ambush in Sprim Row. The two threw themselves into their training, returning to the Trainer's Chapel each night -- tired as dogs. So much so that after their bath they would both climb into the same bed and fall asleep, wild style with arms, legs and elbows being placed in reckless abandon.

Finally, in the blink of an eye their first two weeks in the world of Adventia had come and gone.