The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (54 page)

“
A new species?
Well… I can understand the urgency in all of this then, my
apologies for being suspicious of you.”

“
It’s no
problem. Since Levy turned into such a form looking like a human
child, Lilith took her shopping for new clothes. Judging by your
appearance, I must have pulled her away from something important. I
should be the one to say sorry.”

Krath smiles slightly,
shaking his head. “It wasn’t that important really. It’s
just the way she took off, we thought there would be an invasion or
something. I think she busted down any doors that didn’t open
fast enough for her.”

That caused me to laugh
again. “Yeah, that sounds like her. By the way, since you’re
here, is it alright if I ask you a question? I was going to ask
Lilith later, but I’d rather let her spend time with Levy if
there is someone else I can get the information from.”

“
Very well, I
understand. Levy is the Queen’s only living offspring right
now, so it is best to give them time to themselves. What is it you
want to know?”

“
Well, after
practicing the Hellfire Aura spell, I just now finished mastering it.
But when I did, it gave me a new aspect of the spell that turns me
into a demon I’ve never heard of. I was hoping you could
explain it to me, it’s called a Rune Devil.”

It was Krath’s turn
to laugh, sitting down with a small crash, his red face split in a
grin. “Lilith said you were like him, after all.”

“
Ah… her
husband was a Rune Devil?”

“
It wasn’t his
final form, but that was one of his evolutions. In the end, he became
a Rune Lord. You weren’t surprised when I mentioned Scroll
Fiends, so I assume you know about them. Well, with some evolutions
there are possible rare variants.” He began explaining to me,
and I nodded.

“
For instance, the
Queen is a variant of a normal Succubus. Well, Scroll Fiends have a
variant as well, called the Rune Fiends. The Rune Devil is the next
evolution after that. With a Scroll Fiend, they can easily memorize
spells just by studying them, but a Rune Fiend can memorize them by
seeing them cast. After their next evolution the difference becomes
more distinct, when a Scroll Fiend typically evolves into a Tome
Demon.

“
A Tome Demon is
capable of instinctively knowing the incantations for any spells they
acquire. But the Rune Fiend’s evolution, a Rune Devil, doesn’t
get any power like that. Instead, they get the ability to directly
manipulate their own magic with runes even if they don’t know a
spell for it. Not only that, but a Rune Devil can negate magic cast
around them by striking it with an equal amount of power and opposing
runes.”

I nodded to his
explanation, thinking I wasn’t really missing much.
Essentially, I already had the abilities of the Scroll and Rune
Fiends, as well as the Tome Demon with my game skills. “Then,
may I ask what the further evolutions of a Rune Devil can do?”

“
Hmm, well I don’t
see why not. There’s only been a few Rune Fiends before, and
the only one to reach Rune Lord was the late King. After Rune Devil,
there are two more evolutions, Adept and Lord. The main difference
between a Rune Devil and Rune Adept is the ease of which they
manipulate magic, and the range they can do so. But a Rune Lord is an
existence on another level. At that point, their ability is limited
purely by their imagination and magic reserves.”

“
So… you’re
saying that a Rune Lord is essentially a master of every type of
magic? An Archmage race?”

“
I suppose that’s
one way of looking at it, yes. Though he no longer needed things such
as spells under normal circumstances, since he could perform
considerable magic with just his demon powers.”

“
And that’s
why he only had two signature spells…”

“
Right! Now you’re
getting it. Mind showing me your demon form for a moment? With Lilith
off shopping it doesn’t seem like I’ll be needed much.”

“
Yeah, just a
second.” I sighed, taking a deep breath. “Levy, you can
tell Lilith not to worry, Krath answered my questions.” At
Krath’s perplexed expression I explained the details of the
Bonded Acolyte race. He had the same concerns that Lilith had
expressed, but when I assured him that we tested the connection and
found that there was no compulsion to obey, he understood.

Next, I decided it would
be best to stand up, because Krath had conveniently neglected to
mention the Rune Devil’s anatomy. If I ended up with twisted
legs while sitting down like that I might break something! “Okay..
spirits of the pit, fires of the world beyond, become the shield that
holds your fury. Hellfire Aura, Demon’s Cloak.”

Wrapping my mana around
myself like I had practiced doing to train myself just a short while
ago, the black and red flames sprouted immediately. Then, they
curved, pouring back into my body. I would like to point out at this
juncture that having your limbs stretch while the flames of hell are
poured directly into your bones is not a comfortable process!

When the transformation
had stopped, I stood nearly even with Krath, my elongated legs
bringing me just under seven feet tall. My arms had likewise
lengthened, but not to the same degree. The biggest changes were my
hair and skin. My hair was grown out, now pitch black and long enough
to reach my waist. My skin, though, turned deep red, with runes
tattooed across my entire body in black. When I brought my hand up to
feel my face, I noticed my pointed fingers, almost like claws, and
found two horns protruding from the sides of my temple, going
directly up.

Krath watched my
transformation, including the mind-wrenching agony, with just a small
nod. “Yes, you really have become a splendid Rune Devil. A
fresh one too, going by appearances.”

“
So… this
is…. god it’s hard to talk with a forked tongue. So this
is how a Rune Devil looks right after evolving?”

“
Exactly. As you get
closer to a Rune Adept, most of the runes on your skin will
disappear. Until then, they will light up as you use them. Let’s
see… hmm..” He was looking over my body for a few
moments until his eyes were drawn to the back of my hand. “Ah!
That one is good. I may be a swordsman, but I know a few of the basic
runes. Try using the Light rune without a spell.”

I nodded, glancing towards
my hand where his attention was drawn. Indeed, one of the runes
written there was Light. And just thinking about the rune made it
glow, before a sphere of light appeared in front of me.

“
You see? Until you
evolve into a Rune Adept, each of the runes on your skin will light
up as they are used. This can be a fairly big weakness since it warns
your enemy what you are up to.”

I nodded again, and
finally noticed my mana dropping in the corner of my eye. Canceling
the light effect, the reduction didn’t go down at all.
Twenty
five mana every second… that’s more than my maximum
output from the aura. And it’s not affected by using my magic?
Or is it like my creation, where it’s only not affected if my
magic remains near me. Either way.. at this rate… two minutes
is my limit in this form.

Realizing that, I canceled
the Demon’s Cloak, returning to my human form. Thankfully, the
shift back wasn’t as uncomfortable as before. That brief
demonstration lasted over a minute, so my mana was down below half.
“That spell uses quite a lot of power to maintain…”

“
Is that so? Well,
it should be good for when you are in a tight situation, at least.”

“
Yeah. Thank you for
your assistance, Krath. It was a lot of help.” I bowed politely
to the general, and he returned the gesture.

“
It wasn’t a
problem. It will be nice to see the queen happy again. She’s
been getting lonely of late.” He smirked in my direction before
running off in a very Lilith fashion, disappearing before I can make
a retort.

Shaking my head, I sighed.
“Alright… so, for that spell… to maintain it, I
either need to increase my recovery rate, or else get demon items
that do just that. Since my current items double my recovery, I
should be regaining just over ten a second.”

I did some quick
calculations in my head, which had become surprisingly easy after
being trapped in this world despite my normal ineptitude with the
subject, and realized I’d need to triple my recovery rate to
have the spell active for any extended durations. The easiest way to
do that was obviously to raise my wisdom, but I wanted to invest a
bit more into intelligence before I did that.

Once I hit five hundred
intelligence I should be set on mana. I might even unlock another
ability like I did at two hundred! After that, I’ll invest in
wisdom. If every ten points gives one percent recovery, then I’ll
need to train both that and my new talents to their fullest. Also,
I’m sorry Levy if you can hear this, you probably don’t
care about any of this so please ignore it.

The next thing to do would
be to train my mana talents some more. But after leveling up, my
Hellfire Aura doesn’t drain me at all unless I push additional
mana into it. I guess I could lower my recovery rate by discarding my
magic items, but I was against letting my grimoire and staff out of
sight. They were sort of like my personal unique items at this point,
and I was rather attached to them.

Well, I could probably
train my magic with the Demon’s Cloak, but that would be pretty
inefficient since I’d have to completely recast the spell each
time. Maybe… I started grinning as an idea hit me.
Okay,
first I have to get a spell for it!

Heading into the classroom
I trained Levy in, I quickly found a book I could use to search for
the spell I wanted. It wasn’t really that difficult, just a
two-rune spell, so I was able to grasp it almost immediately.

If I don’t have any
good spells to take my magic down to the bottom, then I can get one!
Well, I wanted to say that, but this spell wouldn’t do anything
if I just targeted myself. I’ll have to enchant an item with it
that can run the effect constantly.
And thus
we’re back to enchanting… Let’s see, I need an
item with a gem, and a circle that creates a storage unit within the
item. It’ll have to be powered by the mana it drains.

Pulling out some of the
blank papers, I set myself to work preparing a circle. In a way, this
would be a type of advanced enchanting circle as well, since it is
adding the storage feature and a constant spell. I made sure to
include the Continuing rune into the circle, and added a second rune
circle just outside the center of the diagram. With the Storage and
Cycle runes, it should allow for the creation of an item like what I
want.

But I can’t just
enchant an item with the spell I have right now. I’ve got to
level it up to at least Intermediate first, otherwise it probably
won’t be strong enough to have a visible effect. As such, I set
about casting Drain Magic on myself repeatedly. Sure, it had no real
effect on me, but it was good for accumulating experience on the
spell.

Once the Drain Magic hit
Intermediate, I needed a suitable item to enchant. Problem being..
none of the items Lilith brought me to practice on met the
requirements, that I can remember. And to be honest, I wouldn’t
even know where to begin on what was needed. My plan was foiled
before it began!

“
Damn…”
I sighed, sitting down in a nearby chair and looking over the diagram
I hastily drew. Given that I was in a hurry, I hadn’t even
thought about what I was doing with it. Even so, it actually turned
out to be something that could work.
Does that
mean that advanced enchanting diagrams have to be done on a
case-by-case basis?

With that thought, I
decided to try again. But this time what I wanted to write had no
chance of fitting on paper. Likewise, my Sculpt Earth spell wasn’t
high enough level for me to create the kind of detail I needed. Thus,
the only answer was to practice that spell. Walking outside, I closed
my eyes to think about what to draw in the stone floor surrounding
the tower.

I could draw a map…
but… I want to try doing something from my imagination, not
just copying it. It’ll be better practice if I don’t just
trace the picture. What if…
I had an
idea on what I could draw, and pulled out my grimoire. I’ve
only ever used this spell once before, to create a false wall. So, of
course I needed to get a refresher on the incantation.

Kneeling down, I faced the
wall of the tower and placed my hand on the ground, reading the spell
from the book while keeping the image of the runes in my mind. “I
have read and understood the origin, and command it to shape to my
desire.” Gradually, I stood up, raising my hand above the
surface of the ground. And with it, like a bubbling pool some stone
shifted to follow my hand, until it was about four feet high and
wide. “That should be a good place to start.”