72. Magic Theory

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Name: Leaf Fei

Age: 16 | Level: 20

Race: Dark Elf

Affiliation: Fifth Plateau

Attributes:

Strength: 8 | Endurance: 7

Speed: 15 | Dexterity: 15

Intelligence: 8 | Luck: 2

Equipment:

Regular Leather Armor: +20 Defense.

Long Bow: 20~50 Attack

Sub-Attributes:

Stamina: 52/52 | MP: 80/80

Swiftness: 46 | Agility: 45

Senses: 45 | Atr Cap: 55

Attack: 65.5 | Defense: 49 (29 + 20)

Magic Attack: 24 | MP Regen: 0.56/min

Proficiencies:

- Archery (Lv.8)

- Tracking (Lv.7)

- Hunting (Lv.7)

- Mana Control (Lv.4)

- Mana Sense (Lv.2)

Magic Skills:

- Plant Magic (Lv.4) => [Emergence (T.9); Entangle (T.10)]

- Spirit Magic (Lv.4) => [Dark Mantle (T.10)]

Cognitive Skills (Passive):

- Nature Perception (Lv.7)

- Physical Damage Resistance (Lv.1)

- Magical Damage Resistance (Lv.1)

Spontaneous Skills (Active):

- Projectile Reinforcement (Lv.7)

- Stealth (Lv.6)

- Reinforcement (Lv.5)

- Scan (Lv.4)

- Weapon Reinforcement (Lv.4)

Unique or Racial Traits:

- Spiritual Sense: An elven ability that allows one to perceive and talk to spirits. Thanks to this, elves possess a large talent when it comes to anything related to mana manipulation. They are also master at tracking spiritual traces and have very high empathy.

- Dark Taint: A taint in the soul that signifies one’s fall from a pure elf after having been engrossed in dark emotions. They gain an affinity with dark spirits but lose every ability to communicate with light spirits.

Note: One of many young warrior scouts of the hidden village of the dark elves. They mostly live secluded because of their dark taint and the stigmata associated with it.

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‘Strong… but nothing I can’t handle,’ Rakna thought as he appraised the people surrounding him. Most of them were between levels 18 and 20. It would be a bit hard for him to take on all of them in his normal state but if he were to transform, it’d be another story. He also had ten free points unused in case of an emergency.

Thus, he was faced with a choice and he had five options; to kill, to run, to subdue, to surrender, or to talk. He honestly could go with any.

Well, he wasn’t just going to kill them because they pointed a weapon at him. He wasn’t that cruel but it was still an option depending on what they wanted to do with him. He could run, but that would mean letting go of a chance to learn more about the Plateau. He could capture them but that might make him some enemies. He could surrender but he had no idea of how they would treat him and he had no intention of being a prisoner ever again in his life.

‘That only leaves ‘talking’ as the most viable option but that also…’ He trailed as he frowned at the fierce expressions of the young elves in front of him. In fact, most of them were even younger than him for some reason. ‘It doesn’t seem they’re ready for diplomacy,’ he concluded and clicked his tongue internally.

“…no thanks,” he ultimately spoke up and before the elves could react, cold mist gushed out of his body akin to steam and drowned the swamp as a large portion of the water and mud froze over.

“Fall back!” The leading elf shouted and jumped away from the mist that continued to fill more and more volume.

On the other hand, Rakna activated Stealth and turned into a wolf with two tails. He ran off toward the edge of the mist’s area of effect and hid inside a bush with his stealth still in effect. He instantly disengaged his mist afterward and the elves realized without much surprise that he had vanished.

“Regroup! He might be waiting to ambush us somewhere. Let’s go back to the village and report before doing anything,” the leader said as they gathered before around him.

When they left his sight, Rakna squinted his eyes. He hadn’t chosen to run; unironically, this had been the perfect example of a strategic retreat. His objective was precisely to make them retreat so he could follow them back to their home.

Of course, they probably knew this swamp way better than he did and although his stealth skill was at quite a high level now, it still wasn’t perfect and they seemed to be adept at dealing with a hidden threat. But, unfortunately for them, they didn’t know who he was.

Rakna jumped out of the bush and unfurled his wings. He flew off and activated Fabled Sight to look where their smell came from. His vision zoomed past the small gaps between the branches of the trees and locked on the dark elves.

He snorted and started tailing them from a safe distance while flying in arcs. Since it was still nighttime, it would be even harder to spot him in the air. At the same time, his Stealth and Tracking leveled up and after a few minutes of continuous moving, he finally spotted a variance in the landscape.

At first, it just looked like a slightly bigger tree but when he got a closer look, it was a sort of artificial plant with dark elves standing on top of it like sentinels.

Rakna hummed and stopped paying attention to the group he was following. He flew up to an even higher height and looked down at what he guessed was the village he was looking for.

There was nothing around the ‘sentinel tree’ but Rakna managed to spot something odd on the ground next to it. His assumptions were proven right when the dark elves arrived there and opened a secret path leading underground.

“Well then, I might as well,” Rakna muttered and turned into a werewolf whilst flying. He huffed a crystallized haze and a cold star burned into existence in his pupils. “Let’s try this,” he whispered and extended his hand toward the sky while maintaining a stationary flight with mana.

“[Star Make,]” he uttered after some thought and a huge chunk of mana left his mana pool. “Oh, this is bad…” Rakna almost regretted his decision as he saw his mana points appear in the corner of his vision and dangerously get near rock bottom.

A large whirlpool of cold energy emerged from his hand and coalesced into a certain shape. His hand grasped the object he had created and marveled at how exquisite it looked. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had precisely imagined it to be like that, he would have been stunned speechless.

It was a carved trident with very luxurious decorations and several ribbons of a darker shade of blue wrapped around it and flailing with the wind.

Before the dark elves could notice him, Rakna hurriedly used the trident in the way that he had envisioned it in the first place. He whirled the polearm and threw it at the sky where it started glowing before it dispersed into small motes of light.

Then, it happened. A very unnatural formation of clouds began to appear above the swamp and after not even a minute, thunder boomed and a downpour began. The dark elves looked up with bewilderment apparent on their faces as they rushed to take cover from the rain.

On the other hand, Rakna was hidden by both obscurity and the very dense rain currently ravaging the swamp. He almost couldn’t believe his eyes at how well it had worked.

‘I knew it,’ he thought as Pronos gawked at what was happening. A series of System windows came up to him soon after.

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A new sub-spell has been added to your Star Make; please input a name.

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You have developed a new proficiency; Magic Theory.

Magic Theory (Lv.1): The ins and out of magic formations and theories represent the full scope of application of magic as well as its potential.

Magic does not stop at first-degree applications. Legends, stories, emotions, fables, concepts, ideas, hypotheses… the root of magic is everything that has the power to influence the world.

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This was the proficiency he had seen on Nyx’s status. If he understood correctly, it referred to anything that common sense could not truly explain. This was proven by the magic that he had just used. “Call it Neptunia,” Rakna named the spell and another window appeared.

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The Sub-Spell Neptunia has been created.

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Neptunia (T.8): A copy of the legendary Trident wielded by Poseidon, God of the Sea. This spell was created with but one objective in mind; to summon the wrath of the sea and wind.

When crafted, the trident does not possess any piercing power worthy of notice but when thrown at the sky, it will summon a storm in a limited radius and time based on the caster’s overall prowess.

Cost: 150 MP (Soul Core Correction: 123 MP)

Cooldown: 1h

Note: Since the storm will be fueled by cold energy, the ensuing rain will have a freezing temperature.

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‘My cold energy does not possess a direct way to summon something like a thunderstorm,’ Rakna commented inwardly. ‘But it does not mean that I can’t engineer a magic capable of it. But, since the element itself cannot produce such a result, a ‘catalyst’ of some sort is needed. In this case, since I tried to reproduce the Trident of the Sea God, I gave it the ability to manipulate the weather to some extent. This is probably what they call magic theory.’

Until that point, Rakna understood the gist of it. But there was something that confused him. Yes, he understood how he had performed this feat but he couldn’t comprehend why it had worked.

For instance, he was instinctively sure that it would be impossible for him to use cold energy, or simply Star Make, to cause something related to fire; even if instead of Poseidon, he used a figure like Hades as a substitute in his spell creation.

Lightning and rain fell under that same category, so, why did it work? There had to be something that allowed it and the answer probably had something to do with Poseidon.

“A connection between cold stars- no, between Star Magic and Poseidon…” Rakna mumbled as he still paid attention to the dark elves through the rain with Fabled Sight.

“Star, stars, links…!” His eyes widened in realization. “Delphinus; that would be the most likely explanation,” he muttered and Pronos looked at him in confusion.

Rakna ultimately grunted when he saw that every sentinel had sheltered themselves from the cold rain. He had a clear path to the secret entrance he saw earlier and that was the whole purpose of his experiment.

‘I’ll think about this later,’ he decided internally and conjured his cold mist on top of the already blinding storm to make sure he would not be seen. He turned into a therian as he landed on the ground and started looking for the method to open the passage; unbothered by the rain.

He couldn’t even get wet since after manifesting his aura, every single drop of water getting close to him would freeze. After a while, he finally pressed on something on the ground that activated a mechanism. He stepped back and an underground tunnel with a staircase opened up to him.

“Old school,” he snorted and ran inside in his wolf form as the passage closed behind him.