Chapter 45

I woke what I assumed was several hou- bells later to Torien softly calling my name. Bella was still fast asleep hugging my side with a peaceful look on her face. I decided to let her sleep a bit so I shimmied out from under her.

I was still a bit groggy but I kinda felt amazing. That rest really refreshed me. I stretched a bit and looked over at Torien. She looked a little worn down too but seemed happy. A bit of a contrast to how she looked when I went to sleep.

"You seem in good spirits this morning." I said smiling.

Torien looked embarrassed at the comment. "Ah, it's just... Talking with my sister last night lightened my mood. Also, I'm sorry about how I was treating Mimi. I guess I didn't realize how I was acting. I was still thinking of her has a monster instead of a thinking person... and I think I was being jealous."

"Jealous?" That came out of nowhere.

"Yeah I um... I feel kinda stupid after Mori pointed it out to me but apparently I can get like that sometimes, it's just, it usually happens when I'm being protective of her... I... I think I'm jealous that you're already taking Mimi under your wing, teaching her and taking responsibility for her, while I'm still a slave who belongs to someone else. It feels even more dumb because just last night you said you would try to buy us. I promise I'll warm up to Mimi, I was just being dumb. I-I'm sorry..."

I pulled Torien into a hug, she froze, completely caught off guard but quickly relaxed into it. "It's okay Torien, the situation is complicated for all of us, I would say you should apologize to Mimi but I don't think she would understand at this point anyway." I chuckled.

When I pulled back Torien had an embarrassed smile on her face. "Thanks for... not being too mad."

I put my hand on her shoulder, "Thanks for apologizing and explaining how you felt. It means a lot to me. It's important that we work this stuff out so we can all get along with each other." I looked around, the sun was still down and most of the light was coming from the camp fire. Morrigan was standing over by her tent digging through her pack. "You should probably get some rest. I'm just gonna wake Bella up really quick before I take over for you."

She nodded and walked back to the fire.

I crawled back into my tent and found Bella already sitting up rubbing her eyes. "Oh good, you're already up."

"Mhmm..." Bella replied sleepily.

"How much of that did you hear?"

"Mmm, not much. It wasn't as warm so I woke up just now."

"For someone who grew up on a farm you don't seem like much of a morning person."

Bella looked up at me with the first ever annoyed stare I ever saw on her face... it was cute. "I don't usually wake up in the middle of the night after fighting for my life the previous couple days."

I smiled at her. "Fair enough I guess."

She wasn't able to keep up her grumpy mood for long because her mouth quickly cracked into a smile. I picked up Mimi on the way out of the tent and Bella and I sat by the fire.

Torien stretched out before looking over to us. "Alright, my turn to sleep." She glanced over to the tent she shared with her sister. "Looks like Mori couldn't wait any longer." She yawned while walking over to her tent.

I sat Mimi's sword sheath down next to us as I stared into the fire. It was still quiet out and I don't think I was entirely awake yet so I decided to finally check on the notifications I had been putting off.

[Learned passive skill Double Down][Double Down - Exceptionally Rare Passive Skill]It doesn't take long for those blessed with luck to try their hand at gambling. And after a few good hands they start to push their advantage further. Whenever you take actions you perceive as risky you get bonus experience or rewards when you succeed and experience penalties or diminished rewards when you fail.

This one seemed like a bit of a mixed bag. If I played things too safe it wouldn't activate but if I did anything I thought of as risky I would get bonuses. The downside was if I ever messed up I really messed up. But generally, as long as I didn't risk too much, I could get a lot more out of small gambles. Taking a penalty when I already lose seems like it wouldn't be as bad as getting a bonus on top of a win right? Still, I would need to be careful that I didn't take unnecessary risks or make high-stakes gambles just for some bonuses. I would need to be careful to only take calculated risks where I could.

[Learned Luck Magic Spell Coinflip]Create a quarter-palm sized golden coin. When flipped at a target, call a face, if called correctly do high damage otherwise do nothing. Damage is affected by [Magic Force]. Direction, accuracy, and precision is affected by [Magic control]. The spell starts at a 50% chance and increases with luck.

This spell seems rather useful. It's good to finally have a damaging spell, though it looks to be intentionally unreliable. Still compared to no offensive spells it seems like a good option and it scales with luck so it might hit more often than I think. There doesn't seem to be any real indication of how much the chances increase though but I suppose I could test it out later.

[Learned Luck Magic Spell Die Nudge]Any situation where you would fail to hit with an attack, spell, or projectile by a small enough amount, you can pay mana to do magic damage equivalent to the hit instead. You will be automatically aware when this spell is castable. Mana cost is reduced by [Magic Control].

This one seems more useful though kind of an odd spell. I wonder if I could intentionally miss physical attacks to do magic damage instead. The only thing that really makes it look luck related is the name. I probably won't know what it feels like when it activates until it happens though.

[Learned Luck Magic Spell Blackjack]Create two palm sized English pattern playing cards. Kings, Queens, and Jacks, are worth 10 points. Aces are worth 11 points. The cards can be thrown to create an arcane explosion with the magnitude of the face value multiplied by [Magic Force]. Bonus damage applied when drawing a Blackjack, any ace paired with any suit card. The cards can be folded to negate the explosive effect. Higher luck increases the chance of drawing higher values and Blackjacks. Mana use is a flat amount governed by your [Magic Force].

Now this spell is interesting. The idea of flipping a coin is a pretty natural game of chance but this offensive spell is actually fashioned after the Blackjack I know from my world. Additionally it mentions English Pattern cards, I never really knew that was what standard playing cards were called but it makes sense they would need to be identified specifically if they weren't known here. This really begs the question about where this spell comes from though. Does it come from my memories about games of chance? Did a previous [World Traveler] introduce this game here? Where do spells come from?

I decided that, while potentially dangerous, I would activate the spell. It sounded like it would be easy to cancel the spell by folding so it shouldn't be a problem right? I felt a tug of magic as the spell activated and materialized two cards in my hand. Despite being called "palm sized" they looked like standard sized playing cards to me, rectangular in shape, taller on the sides.

Ace of hearts and six of diamonds, a value of 17. Decently high value, especially for my first ever draw. I stood up and walked over to the log farthest away from the camp and gently placed them upside down and jumped back. Fortunately the cards dematerialized as soon as my hand left them, not activating just like it suggested from the description. I drew another hand, this time I drew a 5 of spades and a 4 of hearts. I wondered if I would be able to "hit" on this hand and get a new card but trying to activate the spell or think about adding a card just didn't do anything.

As much as I would like to entertain myself by drawing hands it actually did take a rather noticeable amount of mana to draw each time. More mana than any of the other spells I have. It said it was governed by [Magic Force] but I'm not sure if that means it could become too expensive to use if I continue to put points there. It's probably good that I tried the spell out before allocating my points so I can properly test it after to see how much it affects it.

"What are you doing?" Bella called over from the camp fire.

I folded the hand and again they disappeared. "Oh uh, testing out a new spell?"

"What's it do?"

"...Explode?"

Bella looked at me incredulously. "You cast a spell that was going to explode, in the middle of camp, while half of our party is sleeping?"

I felt guilty. "Well, the spell clearly gave me a way of deactivating it so I thought I'd give it a try..."

She sighed heavily and waved me over. I was a little scared by her attitude but I came over and sat back down next to her. She put her hand on my thigh. "Listen, I think it's great to practice your spells when you have down time. I don't even mind keeping watch while you play with them." Her face turned serious as she continued, "But do not practice combat spells in the middle of an occupied camp while half of it is sleeping. You're really smart, I'd wager smarter than me, so I don't feel like I should have to tell you this."

"Yeah... Sorry... I just got a little overexcited to try it out."

She sighed. "At least you could dismiss the spell easy enough. How many spells did you get from that last fight?"

"Five... and a passive skill."

"F-Five?"

"Well two of them are light spells, I haven't looked at them yet."

"Still... I got three so it I guess I shouldn't be complaining but five is a lot."

"Three plus the passive skill were from my class, I got 4 class levels in that one fight. The two other spells are light magic. I probably gained a lot of experience from trying to change my light orb to ultraviolet light while fighting the vampire. I got 3 levels in light magic and 2 levels in light manipulation during that fight too."

"Was that the weird colored light ball you were throwing at it? I saw the monster burn from it but I was too busy to think about what it was."

"Where I come from we have myths about Vampires dying to the sun and burning from ultraviolet light so I thought I would try it. It worked a little but not enough to be worth the effort, at least at this stage."

"I've never heard of ultraviolet light but trying to make changes to magic in combat situations does usually give more system experience."

"Hmm, interesting."

"Let me see what the light spells I got are."

[Learned Light Magic Spell Light Beam]Create a movable beam of light from a single point that can follow you or be set in place. Maximum Strength and intensity of the light is determined by Magic Force.

It's almost funny how simple and anticlimactic this spell is. I unlocked a flashlight.

"I can see why most mages might not think this class is worth the effort."

I cast light beam at a point in front of me into the woods. Illuminating a spot ahead of me just like a flashlight normally would. With a little bit of effort I was able to change the color using light manipulation. I could put more or less energy into the magic to change the brightness and make the beam larger or smaller giving me a way to "focus" the beam so to speak. The "follow you" part of the spell means I can anchor it to a spot relative to myself like my shoulder or I could anchor it to my hand and move it around. It was as literal a translation of a flashlight using magic as you could get.

"Light magic is known for its utility and I can definitely understand it. Even farmers with limited access to magic sometimes learned light magic to work at dark or travel at night," Bella said.

"Yeah," I agreed absentmindedly. I picked a tree off in the distance and focused the beam as much as possible then I changed the color as high as I could go until I got essentially a red laser pointer. I then tried to pump more magic into it but it just stopped, like trying to force something into too small of a container, it just wouldn't let any more in. I tried pointing it at a dead leaf on the ground, nothing. Taking a chance I put my hand in front of it for a second, no discernable heat. I couldn't force it into a higher light spectrum and I couldn't increase its intensity any more. A red dot light was the best I could do.

[Light Manipulation has increased from level 3 to level 4]

Oh, well that's nice I guess. Still, my plans to create deadly heat lasers continue to be put on hold. I'll probably need to get some sort of light magic that can create heat. I don't know though, maybe heat falls too much into the fire magic realm for me to reproduce it using magic. I'll have to continue to test it.

"What are you trying to do now?"

"Burn things with light magic."

"...Why would light burn you?"

"You never had a sunburn before?" I smirked at her.

"I..." She stared at me blankly. After a few moments she looked up at the sky, "I never considered that before." I turned away and checked out my last spell.

[Learned Light Magic Spell Light Signal]Create a ribbon of light magic you can use to write messages with. Strength and intensity of the light is determined by [Magic Force]. The size of the message, fine control over the message's shape, the shape of the ribbon, and mana cost to maintain the message is determined by [Magic Control].

I used my new spell to write out Belladonna in Common, then I wrote it again in English using a calligraphy script.

"Oh! Is that my name? That's so cool!"

"Yep! This spell lets me write things in the air."

I stared at the message as I let it fade away and had an interesting idea. I constrained the signal spell to be purely two-dimensional and then I drew a circle roughly the size of a plate. Inside the circle I put in the runes for creating water and activated it. The light disappeared with the activation but the rune was conjuring water just as it should. I was so dumbfounded I drained away a good chunk of mana before I released the rune circle.

I turned to Bella who looked as shocked as I felt. "Oh shit," I said looking at her.