Chapter 4: Overwhelming power

Name: Luna

Race: Elf

Class: Mage

Level: 507

Stats

Strength: 626

Speed: 602

Magic: 2411

Dexterity: 1792

Toughness: 825

Wisdom: 4

Magic

Light: 0 (Rank 0)

Fire: 1 (Rank 1)

Water: 12 (Rank 3)

Earth: 8 (Rank 2)

Wind: 5 (Rank 2)

Dark: 1204 (Rank 20)

Skills

Focused mind

Self-control

Fast reading

Quick casting

Mana conservation

Encyclopedic knowledge

Multi-casting

Titles

Outcast

Bookworm

Deranged perfectionist

Archmage

Queen of darkness

Level 507 it says.

507...

"Ara, I think this stone is broken"

"No, it's not, I've been checking your level as it kept gradually increasing over the years using many different appraisal stones, they can't all be wrong"

She's been looking at my level without my knowledge? Just how shameless can she be? And why did she never say anything to me?

"But, if you just look at someone from a distance without their consent the only thing shown is the level, so I don't know about the details"

The high level is not the only unusual part of my status, there's also the fact that I'm rank 20 in dark magic, which is impossible, the highest rank that can be achieved in an attribute of magic is 10, and even that is something that only a few accomplish.

And also, I have a title called 'queen of darkness', did I get that because of the prophecy?

"I've never even heard of someone above level 500..."

A level above 200 is already enough to become famous, and level 300 is enough to have your name written in history books, I think the highest level recorded was that of the great demon king who almost conquered the world 2000 years ago, he was level 422 if I remember correctly...

For the time being, let's take a closer look at my status.

First of all, are my stats, there are many ways to level up and doing so increases all stats, which is why you can become better at magic by improving your sword skills or run faster by practicing your spells, however, the stat that corresponds to whatever it is you practice the most will become higher.

Since I'm a mage, magic is obviously my primary stat, it increases the amount of mana I have available to cast spells and also makes them more powerful, dexterity is also important since it lets me be more precise with my spells.

Also since wisdom is the only stat that does not scale with level it looks like I have no wisdom at all, actually... isn't 4 a low amount of wisdom anyway? Is my status calling me dumb?

Next, there's magic, the first number next to each attribute indicates how many spells I've learned and the rank indicates how good I am at using them, I don't know how I can have rank 20 in dark magic, I'm sure the limit is 10...

Whatever, let's move on to skills.

Skills are either granted when obtaining a title or are simply something that you learned to do trough any method, but only abilities that are unique and remarkable will be shown as skills, for example, the skill to tie your shoelaces will not appear on the list.

Let's look at the descriptions of my skills, although 4 of them seem rather pointless.

Focused mind

Allows one's mind to focus only on relevant matters

Fast reading

Increases reading speed

Quick casting

Reduces the amount of time required to cast a spell

Mana conservation

Decreases the mana consumption for all types of magic

What's even the point of having a description that just says what is already implied by the name? Let's look at the rest.

Self-control

Diminishes the effect on one's thoughts and actions caused by emotions such as anger or fear and protects from attacks against the mind

Oh, this seems like a good one.

Encyclopedic knowledge

Grants possession and quick recollection of information acquired by reading books

So this one just means that I've read a lot so I know some stuff, I wonder how much one has to read for that to count as a skill.

Multi-casting

Allos to simultaneously cast multiple spells, current limit: 18

I believe this skill is called 'double-casting' and 'triple-casting', when the limit is two and three spells respectively and becomes multicasting when it reaches 4, most advanced uses of magic require the combination of multiple spells so this is an important skill, more so for a researcher like me than for a combat mage since the new spells I develop, will naturally be advanced ones, the basic spells already exist.

And finally, we have the titles, these indicate a characteristic of a person or something that they have achieved.

Outcast

An individual who has been rejected by their people

No effect

This is the only title I remember having when I last checked my status, let's look at the new ones.

Bookworm

Someone who has read a truly countless number of books

Grants the fast reading and encyclopedic knowledge skills

Again with the countless thing... I did not actually count how many books I've read in my life, so I guess I lose this round, but I could have if I had wanted to.

Archmage

A mage who has gained at least 50 levels by increasing their magic capabilities

Grants the quick casting and mana conservation skills

If my assumptions are correct, I think I might be overqualified for this title...

Queen of darkness

Someone who has mastered the magic of the dark attribute and has taken it beyond what anyone thought to be possible.

Increases the rank limit for the dark attribute to 20.

Oh, I guess that explains a few things.

So the prophecy did not give me this title, after all, it was probably the other way around, I was called the 'queen of darkness' because I had it.

"And that's everything, this certainly is not how I expected my status to look like..."

"Is it just me? Or did you skip one of your titles?"

"But how did my level get so ludicrously high? I've never done any fighting at all"

Everyone knows that the only way to reach a truly high level is to constantly face challenging battles and dangerous situations, which is the exact opposite of the way I've been living my life until now.

"That's probably because of the absurd number of spells you've learned, you get a level up for every 3 spells which means that you rose 410 levels from your spells alone"

"What? That doesn't make any sense!"

After all, if that's how it worked, all mages would just keep learning new spells nonstop to become stronger without putting themselves in danger.

"I don't know the details, but the knowledge of spells occupies a special part of the brain, and the more spells one knows, the more difficult it becomes to learn new ones, that's why even the best mages rarely get to 60, seriously Luna, how did you manage to learn over 1200?"

I already knew all of that, but I've never had a problem learning new spells so I just kept memorizing any that I could find, even many that seemed to have no practical use, the only reason I stopped recently is that I ran out of spells to learn.

"After that, ranks in magic also grant levels, 3 for each rank in your main attribute and 2 for each of the others, so that's an additional 76 levels, then we add the free 10 levels for growing into an adult and the last 11 I guess are from training in magic"

So there's an actual reason why I am that strong.

"Huh... I had no idea" I bring my palms to my face.

Maybe I should have suspected something, I did notice that I could carry heavy weights without much difficulty and I could use powerful spell quite easily, but I never had anyone to compare myself to.

"Aren't you happy? With such a high level you might be able to fulfill your dream of conquering the world!"

"I don't have a dream like that!!!"

I'm already tired enough, I don't need you to make it worse...

"Would you like to set up the tent and get some rest?" Arana makes an actually good suggestion.

"Yes, please..."

I pull the tent out of my storage and she sets it up in an instant, does she have experience doing this?

It's still morning but after running around all day I need to get some sleep.

"Today has been a long day..."

I'm woken up by a delicious smell, outside of the tent Arana seems to be cooking a stew on a pot over a fire, where did she get that from? I thought that all of her stuff was inside of my storage.

"Good morning Luna!"

I look above and see that the sun is starting to rise again, how long have I been asleep?

"You have not eaten anything since you left, right? You must be hungry" She hands me a plate of stew, it smells even better from this close.

"This is delicious!" I feel a tear fall down my face.

Arana is a very good cook, and I was starving so this feels like the best food I've ever had.

"I was thinking that we should stop at a nearby town to buy a few things, regardless of how strong your magic is we should still get some weapons, and if we're going to travel to another country we don't have enough food"

While I'm stuffing myself Arana is explaining what we should be doing next, she's making me feel a bit useless...

"But we're in the middle of nowhere, do you know in which direction the closest town is?"

"I don't, but Longleg can tell us"

A pink long-legged spider wearing a miniature version of Arana's white hat comes out from her sleeve, it's her pet spider Longleg! Most spiders are gross but he's strangely cute.

"Longleg say hello to Luna"

He waves one of his legs at me.

"Hi, Longleg" I wave my hand back at him.

"Can he really tell us where we can find a town?"

"Of course he can! He's a spider!"

Huh? Are spiders known for being able to find settlements and I never heard about it?

"Just kidding, Longleg is special"

Ah, then it makes sense... No wait, I still want an actual explanation!

"See? He's telling us where to go."

The spider is pointing one of its legs towards a direction a bit to my right.

I guess we're going that way.

forli