The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (53 page)

“
Hmm, that sounds
like a good idea. Alright, we’ll go with that. If the
connection does force her to obey, though, you’ll have to be
kept apart in order to uphold our law.”

“
That shouldn’t
be a problem. After all, that rune on her forehead doesn’t seem
to say anything like Obey.” I smiled, pointing to Levi’s
forehead. Lilith, as if noticing for the first time, looked at the
rune for a few moments. Then, she grinned widely, a small giggle
turning into a long laugh.

“
Freedom… oh
that is too perfect. You’re right, with this there shouldn’t
be a problem. If anything, the marking will protect her from forced
control.”

“
Yeah. Maybe with
the angels it would be something like Order, where they were forced
to obey, but that’s not really how demons work is it?”

“
No, it’s
definitely not. This training seems to have been a great idea. She
might be mistaken for a Reborn, but with the abilities being so close
to your own, she could easily defend herself if need be.”

Just then, Levy began to
wake up, stirring slightly in Lilith’s arms, and then looking
down to herself. “I.. what am I? Reborn..? But.. that’s a
third evolution..”

“
No, sweetie, you
aren’t a reborn. You’re the only one of your kind, a
Bonded Acolyte. Is it alright if we check something real quick?”
When Levy nodded, Lilith smiled again. “Okay, Jin here is going
to tell you to do something. No matter what, you mustn’t do it.
Understand?”

“
Not really.. but
okay…” She turned her head to look at me.

“
Hmm… poke
Lilith’s nose.” I nodded to my random instruction,
causing Lilith to laugh again.

“
Eh? Why?”
Levy looked up to Lilith, and for a moment I thought she’d
really do it. “I don’t get it..”

“
It’s alright,
sweetie. We just had to check something. There’s a lot about
your race that we don’t know, and we were afraid that you would
be under a compulsion to obey.” Lilith hugged Levy close to her
chest, and nodded to me. “I guess you could consider your race
to be a powerful variant of the Reborn, that could only be reached
because you were taught by Jin. And, since he’s the one who
taught you, you were given special abilities that let you spy on him
any time you want.”

That must have been her
revenge on me for this sudden scare, so I just let it go. “Spy
on him..? Why would I..?” Levy seemed confused again, causing
both Lilith and myself to laugh.

“
It’s okay,
Levy. What she means is that as a Bonded Acolyte, you’ll be
able to hear or find me from anywhere as long as we are in the same
world. Even when I’m gone, if you focus you should be able to
sense my condition. It might be a bit strange at first, so I
apologize. Also, after today I’ll no longer be teaching you.”

That last line seemed to
hit her like a punch, her face tightening up, her eyes watering. “Was
I a bad student? I did whatever you told me..”

I smiled to her, shaking
my head. “No, that’s not it at all. Honestly, I can’t
teach you anymore because you’re already almost as strong as I
am. All you have to do is learn the spells to match your new
strength.”

Levy blinked, the dampness
clearing from her eyes after a single tear fell. Then, she turned to
look at Lilith. “Is that true..? I’m almost as strong as
him?”

“
That’s right,
sweetie. You did really good, and I’m proud of you. Jin said
that you should be able to learn most of the spells he has just by
reading about them. Isn’t that great?”

Levy smiled wide, nodding
her head. “Yeah!” She then turned to look at me again,her
former shyness gone. “Thank you. I can honestly say I never
would have gotten like this without your help.”

Quite literally.

She grinned again, looking
to me. “I heard that… you didn’t say anything…
but I heard it…”

...It lets her listen
to my inner voice, not just my outer one? So not fair.

Levy laughed at my
thought, sticking out her tongue. “Deal with it.” She
then turned to Lilith. “I can hear him thinking! It’s not
very loud, but I can!”

Lilith chuckled, “So,
what’s he thinking now?” She looked to me with a wicked
glance, but I have to admit I was trying to avert my eyes from the
two of them.

Levy’s blush almost
heated up the air around her. “He’s thinking I should get
some clothes on. Why didn’t you tell me I was naked! Gah, this
is embarrassing!” She covered her face with her hands, as if
she could disappear. Of course, her reaction just made Lilith laugh
even more.

“
Fine, fine, let’s
get you home and into a proper dress! I never imagined your first
time evolving would turn out like this! None of the dresses I had
prepared will suit you.” At my confused appearance, Lilith
immediately clarified. “Scroll Fiends have four arms.”

“
Ah. So you need a
two-armed dress sized for a human child.”

“
Exactly. And who
knows if she’ll turn into an adult before her next evolution.
We must prepare!” Lilith stood up excitedly, picking Levy up
and cradling her in her arms. “To Envy!”

Before she had the chance
to vanish on me, I shouted out, “Hey, wait! I have a quick
question!”

Lilith, in the process of
getting ready to jump, paused to look at me before I continued. “Levy
has two abilities called Mana Recovery and Mana Pool. If you
remember, I didn’t have anything like that. I was hoping you
could tell me if there was somewhere to train it, or if it was
something I’d have to work out on my own.”

“
Hmm… because
I’m in a good mood… I’ll tell you.” She
smiled wide. “We don’t have any facilities like that. Her
magic talent is something she was born with.” And with that,
Lilith hopped away at super-demon speed.

Chapter
25

Shaking my head at
Lilith’s departure, I decided that if I wanted to get the mana
talents, I’d have to do so on my own. Thankfully, with Levy’s
evolution my mentorship ended. That gave me the rest of today and
tomorrow in order to train myself. There were several methods I had
that could let me burn through my mana quickly, like firing a series
of extremely high powered mana-arrows, or casting Magus Wrath. But I
decided to go a different route.

Getting back to my
cross-legged sitting position, I closed my eyes.
If
there’s one thing I learned from studying Enchanting, there are
rewards to doing things the normal way.
As
such, I decided to work on practicing a certain spell without the
auto-assist feature. Basically, this meant I’d be using my
magic in Hard Mode, but given the concentration it takes to run a
spell like that I should get quite favorable returns.

Bringing my hands
together, I overlaid my palms and touched the tips of my thumbs
together above them to form a circle with my hands. It may seem silly
to strike a meditative pose in the middle of Hell, but if something
works, it works. Next, I focused on the very diagram I had made Levy
memorize before her evolution. Unlike before, this time I wasn’t
relying on any of my game skills to accomplish the task, and using
only my will, as if this were my first time casting the spell.

The image of the diagram
wavered in my mind for a few moments before I was able to lock it in,
and then I took a deep breath, channeling my mana around me like a
protective layer while feeding that image into it. Rather than the
progressively rising heat from before, this time I immediately felt
heat permeating my entire body. Likely, preparing my mana like this
made the spell activate instantly.

I made sure to keep the
spell’s image firmly in my mind, so as to not force my other
skills to take over. As I did, I opened my eyes to watch my mana. It
was indeed dropping, but barely, going at roughly one point per
second. This wouldn’t help me at all, not when I had nearly
three thousand mana to burn through. Instead, I tried a different
tactic.

Focusing again on the
diagram for the Hellfire Aura, I poured more and more of my magic
into it, causing the flames around me to burn larger and hotter. At
the same time, the mana consumption increased to fifteen points per
second. That’s much better, since at this rate I will run out
of mana in just over three minutes. All I had to do was maintain the
pressure and resist the heat enveloping my body.

Normally, my standard
Hellfire resistance would prevent my aura from causing me the least
bit of inconvenience. But now, it was more powerful than usual,
making sweat run down my face. Focusing on a detailed mental image,
exerting pressure on my magic to steadily drain it, all while feeling
like I was sitting in an oven was at times more than I could handle.
Every now and then, my concentration would break and the aura would
return to its normal consumption speed.
Well,
this is fine as long as I keep the image. If the spell doesn’t
cancel, my mana won’t return.

Thanks to this unsteady
pace, the three and a half minute plan turned into well over six
minutes, the concentration getting harder and harder as my mana
dropped lower. Once I was below one quarter of my mana, I could feel
my control slipping as the exhaustion began to set in. When I dropped
below one tenth, it was all I could do to hold onto the spell in its
base form.

Once my mana hit five
percent and I felt like I was about to pass out, I finally released
the spell. On the one hand, my Infernal Magic and Magical Talent both
raised a level during this slow drain. But I wasn’t anywhere
near done yet. My mana recovered over a thousand points per minute,
so I only had a few seconds to rest.

As soon as I was back to
about a fifth of my maximum, I reactivated the Hellfire Aura. Though,
this time I kept it at its base output. Thankfully, that meant I was
no longer being bothered by the intense heat and constant pressure.
All I had to worry about was holding the image. At one point per
second, it would take me another five minutes to get back to the
point of exhaustion.

This cycle repeated for
over a half hour, me gaining another level of Infernal Magic while I
drained myself down to the bare minimum and then recovered for just a
few breaths. Eventually, though, my efforts were rewarded with a few
messages that appeared all at once.

I blinked at the message,
and then filled in my points from the levels I gained while training.
Even though I had been training Hellfire Aura to work on my mana, I
never considered mastering it. And for the master ability to be
something like turning into a demon myself was something I hadn’t
imagined.

“
Levy, I know you
can hear this. Could you tell Lilith I’d like to talk to her
when she’s done shopping? I seemed to have gained something
rather interesting…” Though I knew she heard my message,
I wasn’t entirely sure that Levy would relay it. I could have
just used a spell to contact Lilith directly, but I didn’t want
to interrupt her moment with her daughter by making her ask questions
about what it was I wanted. This was her time, after all.

Well, that was my plan
anyways. The next instant, an exhausted Krath was running up to me.
“You.. have you seen Lilith around here…?”

I looked at him,
dumbfounded for a second, and then remembered that I had Lilith
abandon whatever she was doing to come attend to Levy. Suddenly, I
started laughing. “Sorry, yeah. She was here a little over a
half hour ago. There was an emergency with Levy, and I needed her
help right away.”

“
Ah.. I see.. what
was the problem?” Krath looked to me as if thinking it had
better be something good.

“
Levy was evolving,
but because I was the one that trained her something was forcing her
evolution to stop halfway and she was going into shock.”

“
Levy…
evolved? Already… that’s not a joke, right?” Krath
raised his eyebrows suspiciously to me, and I shook my head. “You
know she’s Lilith’s daughter by now, I take it?”

“
Yeah, she told me
after we got the situation sorted out.”

“
I see. Did she turn
into a Mephit after her mother, or a Scroll Fiend?”

“
Neither.
Apparently, when I train a demon mage one on one, they can evolve
into something new called a Bonded Acolyte. It looks sort of like a
Reborn, but with a black rune tattoo on their forehead.”