Book 2: Chapter 3

Book 2: Chapter 3

The Days of Training

When I got outside from the entrance, the falling rain is stopping.

I carried the Giant Spiders torso that is tied with straw rope on my shoulder, passed the garden that is planted with few vegetables and various types of herbs and carried it until the processing place.

Surly disciple, put that on the table. Ill only teach you the method, but youll do it yourself.

Roger, master.

First is the legs.

I placed the Giant Spiders torso on the table, then I cut off the from their joints using the knife for dismantling. Master nodded after I cut off the first leg, then she also entrusted me to deal with the rest while she took out the Giant Spiders head from the bag. Then she began the work of taking out its eyeballs. It seems that the spiders eyeballs can become a powerful neurotoxin if its allowed to ferment, but I havent learned until that far so Im not getting involved with that work.The source of this content nov(el)bi((n))

Master is a sorcerer, but she said that her true occupation is an alchemist. Until now I have been doing things like boiling medicinal herb or poisonous grass by imitating her, but Im also learning the way to create potions bit by bit.

Also I misunderstood but, it seems that there is no skill for alchemy. To be more precise, the skill of Mana Control is necessary because mana is used to refine the medicine, but I was told that the most important thing for alchemy is the amount of your knowledge and precision.

By the way cooking is in the same category. It looks like there are skills for cutting ingredient and judging ingredients, but they are only useful to make it harder to fail in cooking. What decide the cookings tastiness is the ingredients and the sense of the cook.

Have you finished with the preparation?

Yes.

After I nodded, master cut open the Giant Spiders stomach with a cleave and put in the chemical that had been prepared beforehand at the mucus that is the base for forming the string inside the body.

This mucus will turn into string the moment it touched air, so from here it has to be processed quickly.

Now.

With that signal I made a small cut on my palm with my knife and dripped that blood into the spiders body.

My blood and chemical reacted and the yellowish white string base changed to red. After that I patiently stirred that mucus using a wooden stick. After a while the sticks tip became dyed dark red and a lump of fiber is finished.

Well, good work. The result is also good because of the fresh ingredient.

Master said that after she inspected the lump of fiber. I too sighed in relieve hearing that.

Other than my circumstance, I also told master about my fighting style. Masters appearance is of someone at the middle of her thirty, but as a dark elf who is called as evil race, it seems that she has actually lived for more than 300 years. She hasnt told me the reason why a dark elf like her is living in this country like this, but master said that not only she can do sorcery and alchemy, she can also fight as a scout.

Even that strange shaped knife that had small ring with diamond shaped blade attached on top of it was something that master used at the past. She is lending around ten of them to me.

Type wise, it was something similar to the kunai in that womans knowledge. But there was almost no part for holding with that knife. It seemed that the way to use it is as a hidden weapon by putting your finger through the ring part and hide the blade in your palm.

But, as expected the field of combat that master specialized in isnt close quarter combat, but sorcery.

It seemed that she is level 4 in light and darkness. And she has obtained as far as level 5 in fire and wind. Furthermore master is using magic instead of sorcery as though its only natural.

I thought that sorcery is widely used and magic is an old skill that has become obsolete, but according to master, apparently anyone who research sorcery will one day arrive at magic. Most likely its only one among several hundred sorcerers, but a magician definitely exist among that number.

Im glad I was able to learn that at this point of time. If I dont know, it might become a fatal blunder for me when Im facing a magician.

After being taught that much, I cant keep saying that I cant expose my hands to her. On the contrary, I should display all the weapons in my possession to her and beg for her teaching.

My weapons that drew masters interest were illusion and pendulum. She was especially interested with how I mixed blood with string and manipulated it with mana. She then said that I should carefully selected what kind of string to use.

And so in the end I decided to use a string that is made from the material of spider monster. But, the best kind of material to use in that case is apparently Arachne, however such item rarely appear in the market. And so this time I ended up using the string of Giant Spider that is living around here as the material. As a material, Giant Spiders string is moderately good, but when processing monster string, master taught me that the ingredients freshness is more important than the monsters type.

All the strings that Giant Spider shot out is sticky, but it could be processed to be a tough string without stickiness if a chemical is mixed with it while the strings base is still inside the spiders body. However although monster string is tough, thats because the monsters own mana is flowing inside it. It seems that mana will get in my way if I try to manipulate the string with my own mana. Ill be able to control that string to some degree if I mix my blood to that ingredient, but Ill need a cauldron worth of blood for that.

There master thought up an idea. The idea is a brute force technique of mixing my blood into the monster mucus during the processing time so that the material will get familiarized with my mana. Furthermore that method will be difficult if its not done within several hours of the monsters death. I spent more than one month to search for a Giant Spider and finally hunted it successfully.

After that you will pound that fiber with a stick while unraveling the string bit by bit by yourself. If you also pour your mana into it during that time, the flow of the mana will become even better so dont slack off-

Got it.

Bring the string to me when you finish making it. Ill process it to be fire resistant with alchemy.

Yes.

Master scolded me the moment she saw that the Shield that I created deflected her Fire Arrow.

The mana that you put into it was too big-, feel the sorcerys capacity and adjust your strength-

Another Fire Arrow is shot. I matched the Shields mana with it. this time the Shield is annihilated with the sound of breaking glass.

If you sense that the mana you put isnt enough, parry the magic by diverting it-

Roger.

This sound of glass breaking isnt an actual sound but an auditory hallucination that only I heard. I could hear it is the proof that the mana I poured into the magic was insufficient.

Its a level 2 magic, but theoretically it can defend any kind of sorcery depending on the amount of mana you put into it as long as its not against physical type magic. But, with my current skill and mana, it can only defend against level 1 attack sorcery at best. Against level 2 attack spell, not only the Shield will get smashed, Ill also receive damage.

If its impossible to block than the only way left is to parry. In fact the Shield has the actual physical defensive power of a glass, so if I tried then perhaps Ill be able to parry something like a knife with this, but to do that I need the skill of parrying magic itself using shield or sword to do such feat.

Focus the mind in constructing the magic. Ascertain the type of magic that the enemy fired and its amount of mana instantly, put the appropriate amount of mana, and change your method of defense. Just doing one step of that process is already difficult, but here I have to do all of them simultaneously. Its something next to impossible to do. Furthermore maintaining the Shield after its invoked also consumed mana, so I need even more training to be able to use it skillfully in an instant.

Even so if I can use this perfectly, it should become a formidable weapon in battle against sorcerer.

Study it yourself later. Good grief, its really tiring to keep up with a brat.

You alright?

Master ended the training when my stamina and mana have decreased until below half.

Its not because she is being considerate to me, but because masters stamina consumption rate is fast despite her high stamina value.

A brat shouldnt be considerate with adult-. Also, the sorcery on your hair is unraveling. You should remember its effective time with your bodily sense.

Yes.

The ash that is smeared on my hair in order to hide its conspicuous pink color isnt real ash, but illusion that was made with dark sorcery.

It was just as Viro feared, the luster of my hair increased along with the increase of my mana. A normal ash cant hide my hairs shine anymore. When I consulted to master about that, she taught me several sorcery words and gave me the task of changing my hair color with illusion.

I had completed the sorcery to change hair color more or less, but the words ordering apparently didnt form a proper sentence so its mana consumption was too big and the effective time became short. And so I gave up on changing my hair color and performed an illusion of directly showing ash using darkness particles. With that I succeeded in lengthening its effective time and suppressing my hairs luster.

The result strayed from the task that master assigned on me, but she gave me a barely passing score because apparently that kind of improvisation is important for magic.

.

The training ended and night came. Under the light of the magic lamp that is using magic stone to function, I pounded the spider strings fiber with a stick while unraveling it to turn the lump into string. Master is drinking a homemade medicinal herb alcohol in small sips while talking to me about that woman who attacked me.

That stupid disciple first came here when she was sixteen years old I think. She was already stupid right from the start. She suddenly came here one day and asked me to teach her sorcery because I have the role to help the hiroin(?) when fighting the evil race. Can you believe that? She asked that to me who is from the evil race you know?

So that woman was already like that from the pastor rather, from the very beginning huh.

To be honest, I couldnt understand almost all of that stupid disciples nonsense. But, she was just too delusional while acting so full of confidence. That excessive stupidity made me pitied her. That was why I made her my disciple against my better judgment.

Did she train seriously?

She did it seriously. That was her only good point. But you seeher fickleness was so horrible that in the end she was only half-baked in everything. But, to think that stupid disciple managed to create such odd magic stone using the failed method of a past sorcerer to make a toad learn art, she might actually had real talent.

Frog

So she tried to steal other persons body using such vague method.

But whether it was a coincidence or not, she managed to create a magic stone that was imprinted with her own mind based only on such vague information, so her talentno, her obsession must be out of the norm. However it was a misfortune for that woman that the directions of her efforts were all directed toward the wrong ways.

Time is passing slowly inside this peaceful forest.

There are things that I have to do. However, my life with master(Serjura) here made me felt the warmth like a family that I hadnt felt since my parents died.

I trained in sorcery and magic, learned alchemy, hunted monster, and trained my close quarter combat skill.

One more month passed as I lived such life. Then, a mysterious visitor appeared at this house inside a forest that no ordinary people should know about.