Chapter 129

After the battle all of the guards took a break to recover from the fight and secure the area. I wasn't the only one that leveled and it was pretty obvious based on all the people who were standing around staring into space. There weren't any casualties and it didn't take long for Bella to patch up the few people who had gotten some minor injuries, so everyone was in good spirits.

"How about you guys? Did all of you level too?" I turned to my friends to see that glassy look in their eyes as well.

All of them nodded, there were smiles all around.

Torien stopped staring into space and looked over at me. "That thing must have out-leveled us by quite a bit, I got more than one main level."

"Any new interesting skills or spells?" I asked.

"Mmm, my class has been leaning towards a scout role for a while now. It seems clearing out rooms while watching for demons has influenced the new skill I got. It's an ability that helps me better at spotting clues, tracks, or anything out of place. Pretty useful considering some of the reasons we came here in the first place."

I nodded. "That's true. How about you Bella?"

She blinked a few times before turning to me. "Ah, I actually got two new abilities related to healing. Until now a lot of the abilities have been focused on nature control, things like [Entangling Roots], but I've been healing so much lately I got two new abilities related to that. I was hoping I would get a more powerful healing spell but instead, I got something that lets me heal multiple people at once and something that lets me heal at range. Probably more useful for the kind of stuff we usually do so I'm quite happy about it."

Morrigan shoulder-bumped me. "How about you?"

I laughed. "I actually haven't looked yet."

"Then stop bothering us and look!" She grinned and pushed me away.

"Alright, alright." I smiled and brought the notifications back up.

[Your level has increased from level 41 to level 42][Novice Magic Swordsman has increased from level 9 to level 10][Luck Magic has increased from level 1 to level 6][Light Magic has increased from level 9 to level 10][Light Manipulation has increased from level 9 to level 12]

One main level and one class level. Not bad considering my participation was mainly relegated to support. I wasn't sure how strong the guards we fought with were but I was sure they were above our level. I can usually tell based on that weird feeling Silva told me about but there are so many of them and they're close enough in level to me that it's harder to tell. Mimi probably knows but I'm not actually interested enough to ask.

I got five levels in luck magic, another in light magic, and three more in light manipulation. I did a lot of on-the-fly modifications of my light magic, so that makes sense. I think what I did with fireflies and the light beam was probably my most significant contribution to the fight so it's not a surprise that I leveled in both of those related skills. I'm pretty sure most of the experience I gained in luck magic was because it was the first time I used it in combat not because it was all that useful in the scheme of things. Five levels aren't anything to complain about though.

[Learned Enhancement Magic Spell Light Imbue][Learned Light Magic Spell Light Ward][Learned Luck Magic Spell A Touch of Good Luck]

[Light Imbue - Enchantment Magic Spell]Imbue a weapon or object with Light magic making it glow and apply light damage when it hits enemies. Light Imbue can only damage dark and shadow aligned enemies. The strength of the enchantment is increased by Magic Force and the duration of the enchantment is increased by Magic Control. Larger weapons and objects take a proportionally larger amount of magic to enchant. Light Imbue can be applied to others' weapons but the wielder of the weapon determines who is considered an enemy for the purposes of this spell. The effects of objects imbued with light vary.

Very similar to [Flame Imbue] but arguably a worthless variant. There could be subtle benefits to [Light Imbue] such as heatless glowing items and it should be more helpful against other shadow and dark monsters, but past that, the applications seem minimal.

[Light Ward - Light Magic Spell]Create a pane of light that can block or deflect physical and magic damage. Strength of the barrier is affected by Magic Force and Magic Control. Brightness and size are affected by Magic Force. Color, shape, and range are affected by Magic Control. Light Ward is weak against shadow and dark-aligned attacks.

Now this seems like a good spell. This is the first spell I've gotten that's had any kind of defensive properties, everything until now has been either offensive or utility-focused. Feeling out the spell, I could also tell that I would have a decent amount of control over how the spell looked as well.

I cast the spell in front of me and a simple slightly glowing pane of blue glass-like light appeared. There was something amusing about creating the quintessential status window as the first thing I did with the ability. I obviously didn't actually put my status on it, I wasn't stupid, but I was able to write some text and display it on the pane of light by combining it with my [Light Signal] spell.

"Oh Lilith! What's that?" Morrigan came right over, looking intrigued by my experimentation.

"It's my new ability, [Light Ward] it lets me create a defensive barrier. I'm messing around and combining it with [Light Signal]."

Torien looked at me incredulously. "You get a barrier spell and the first thing you do with it isn't, you know, block an attack. It's write a message on it?"

"Tori! Knock it off, I like it when Lilith experiments with her magic. She's been able to do some neat stuff with it. And despite what a lot of people have said about the usefulness of light magic, that last fight went as smoothly as it did because of her ability to adapt her light magic spells." Morrigan looked cute defending me like that.

"I'm not trying to discourage her from experimenting. It's just so like her to mess around like that." Torien shrugged.

Bella sighed. "As long as she doesn't do it while we're relaxing I'm fine. When she first got her light magic she started giving me a headache with how much she was making it shine and fly around the room. When she started making rainbows flash all over the book I was reading I had to ask her to stop."

I laughed. "Yeah! I remember that. I was so excited to use magic for the first time that I wanted to figure out everything I could about it. I was messing around so much that I ended up unlocking [Light Manipulation] through that. I'm really glad I did though, it's allowed me to do a lot more with my light magic than I could have without it."

Morrigan nodded in agreement. "Many mages neglect magic control and the associated manipulation skills. Some mages make the mistake that more power is always better and then they get tripped up when a little bit of magic control would solve their problems more efficiently. It's one of my biggest shortcomings, because I have to rely on wild magic it's harder for me to practice with individual manipulation skills. I'm somewhat proficient in everything but I'll never have the skill of someone who can specialize in one particular element."

I scratched my horn while thinking. "Yeah, the jack of all trades problem."

"What's that?" Morrigan asked.

"Oh, I suppose I should explain. Where I come from there's a saying that gets interpreted in a few different ways. If I remember correctly it goes something like, 'Jack of all trades, master of none. Oftentimes better than a master of one.' However the second line is very often omitted. There are a few different ways that people end up thinking about a 'jack of all trades,' but it usually comes down to whether you favor versatility or specialization. Being good at a large number of different things allows you to combine your skills in ways that might be greater than the sum of their parts. At the same time, being the best at one thing does have its advantages as well."

Mimi suddenly spoke up, "What do you think? Which do you favor?"

I smiled. "I've always been in the camp of versatility. Don't get me wrong, there are times when calling a specialist is the right call but there is also something called the 80-20 rule where I come from. This is another thing that isn't a hard and fast universal truth or anything, but it goes, '80 percent of results come from the first 20 percent of effort.' or something like that, there are lots of variants to that one. The idea is, if you look at most skills, 20 percent of mastery will usually get you 80 percent of what you need from it. Obviously that isn't always true but you can usually get a lot done with that first 20 percent. If you get 20 percent good at a lot of different things, your skills can combine in ways that you don't expect and bring you a lot more value than you would think. It allows you to be a generalist. That's the way I look at things anyway."

Morrigan leaned on me and set her head on my shoulder. "Lilith... I love you. I've always felt... lesser than other mages or... real mages as I sometimes think of them. Your way of thinking makes me feel... I don't know, special. Like I have a strength that others don't."

I patted her on the leg. "Are you kidding? You kept hurling fireballs that entire fight, I had to reserve my mana just in case I needed it later. You have tons of advantages. Everything has trade offs but quantity is a quality all its own."

Silva smirked at me. "You sure do have a lot of sayings where you come from."

I laughed in response. "That's true."

Sometimes the magic that translates everything between us translates the meaning of my sayings directly, other times they have to ask me what a word is or what the saying means. The logic behind what is translated cleanly and what isn't is really muddy. It catches me off guard sometimes.

Anyway, I have one last spell to look at.

[A Touch of Good Luck - Luck Magic Spell]Touch a friend and wish them luck. The magnitude of this effect is affected by [Luck].

I stared at the incredibly short and unhelpful message. That's it?

I looked over and patted Morrigan on the shoulder and activated the spell. "Good luck." I felt the spell trigger and take a small amount of mana. It did something but it's unclear what.

Morrigan turned to me in confusion. "Er, thanks?"

I shrugged and smiled. "New spell."

Morrigan's ears perked up. "What's it do?"

"Gives you good luck. That's basically all it says."

Her brows furrowed. "Odd, That's all it says?"

"Touch a friend and wish them luck. The magnitude of this effect is affected by Luck."

"Weird. Maybe not surprising considering the uncharted territory of luck magic."

"Yeah, I thought I would test it out. It certainly did something, I felt it take mana, no idea how strong the effect is or how long it lasts," I said.

I noticed Jasper walking up to us. "Lilith, I wanted to come thank you and your friends. When we were first told about your participation today I wasn't sure how useful you would be but that spell you used was very helpful." He turned to my friends. "And all of you coordinated well with my men. You have my thanks." He nodded and focused on me again. "We're planning on getting back to clearing the rest of the floor soon. Make sure you and your group finish looking through your status if you haven't already and prepare to move on."

I nodded. "Sure, I appreciate the kind words."

Jasper smiled and walked away.

"Prick."

I turned to look at Silva. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "There's something about that guy. I don't trust him. I can't tell you what it is but... I don't know. He's condescending."

Torien furrowed her brows. "He didn't come off that way to me..."

Silva shrugged. "Maybe it's nothing. Just be careful."

I nodded. "Noted."

It's not like I knew the guy well. I didn't have any reason to believe this was some kind of trap though and the guy has been pretty nice so far. It doesn't hurt to stay on guard if one of my friends has a bad feeling but I haven't noticed anything myself yet.

I glanced over at him, he has 1863 positive karma but it can always be tricky to rely on that. It's not the highest number but it's also far from negative. Most of the nearby guards have worse karma than he does but he's also the captain and has been around longer. I can't really make a solid judgement based on his karma alone.

I scratched the base of my horn. "Go ahead and keep an eye on him but don't do anything unless he's overtly attacking one of us. Come find me if it's something important, otherwise Torien is still in charge. I trust her judgement. Don't take any unnecessary risks, the most important thing is that we all come out safe."

Silva nodded in response but didn't speak. It was hard for me to tell if Silva was just being paranoid but I couldn't take any chances in a situation with demons around every corner, literally.

Maybe ten or fifteen minutes later the ballroom was completely cleared and our groups were spread along one wall where many of the service doors reentered the castle proper. Instead of barricading all of the doors, it was easier to just go through all of the small doors at once and methodically search for the demons this time around. The two groups from my party members were spaced out at the thirds, likely to improve our coverage in the connected rooms and root out any hiding demons.

"Alright everyone! Advance!"

I took a deep breath and gripped my sword as the doors swung open and we moved to the next phase.