Chapter 53 Elements
"Nope, nothing really. It was completely quiet outside! But more importantly, I saw you change!" Bree said with an excited grin. "When you fell asleep, you completely turned into metal! You had quite a little bit of rust growing on your body, though..."
Eisen listened to further explanations from Bree on what his body looked like, and then began to laugh loudly. "A rusty old body, huh? Of course that’s it." He smiled and sat down on one of the wooden stumps that acted as chairs, leaned back against the table while looking at Bree.
"You can go to sleep if you want. I know you say you don’t need much sleep, but I’m sure that you still need a little bit. And you’ve been working hard for the past few days as well, so just relax for a bit.
"Thanks~... I’ll take a nap, then. Just wake me up when something’s going on..." Bree said and stretched slightly, opening her mouth widely in a yawn.
"Goodnight!" Eisen chuckled and turned around to look at the table in front of him. Maybe he would be able to train something that he hasn’t in a while! His Magic Manipulation!
Just trying to form things with Mana was incredibly fun to Eisen, even if what he made didn’t seem to have any real use other than being aesthetically pleasing and fun to play around with. And if he would manage to Rank his Mana Manipulation skill up again, he would finally be able to continue with that lesson in the book that Morrom gave him!
Eisen looked around to try and figure out what to do with his mana, until he laid eyes on Aotori. He could just copy her using his mana copy skill, but Eisen would probably gain more proficiency if he actually did everything manually while using her as a simple reference.
So, Eisen pushed out some of his mana out of his palm and formed it into a sphere. Then, he slowly turned the round sphere into a more lenghty shape that was supposed to be the bird’s body. Out of that body, Eisen pulled two wings, and re-supplied the structure with more mana due to the amount that was necessary.
And at last, Eisen added two legs, finishing up the base structure for the bird.
But now it was time for details. Part for part all over the Bird’s body, Eisen turned parts of it into feathers of different sizes depending on where they were placed, and then added facial details. That meant that Eisen formed eyes and a proper beak on the bird made of mana.
"Done!" Eisen muttered to himself with a grin on his face and started to try and control the Mana Bird’s movement. Since it was made of mana, it wouldn’t have any problem floating around. So, slowly but surely the bird began to move its wings up and down in a natural way, and took off from the table according to Eisen’s mental commands. Well, you could say it was technically flying, but it really didn’t look like it was actually. It was just... unnatural. Like a badly animated scene in a movie or something.
"At least my Mana Manipulation went up. If I ever want to really try, I might have to see if I can get some kind of skill through using mana copy on Aotori or something like that. Anyway, shall I go for Yamikuma next?" Eisen asked himself quietly and pushed out a large amount of his mana out of his palms, preparing some of the mana pills in case he needed them, and began to work on the next mana creature.
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[Mana Manipulation reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2]
[It is now possible to infuse elements into mana]
[Due to Ranking-up your Mana Manipulation Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS]
[Congratulations! You’ve reached an important step on the path of magic!]
[You can choose between These Elements:]
-[Earth]
-[Fire]
-[Water]
-[Wind]
-[Light]
-[Dark]
[Due to your own nature that has been derived from your actions so far, two elements have been found to fit best to you, and are recommended to be chosen from:]
-[Earth]
-[Fire]
[Due to your occupation, a special combination has been found out of your recommended elements:]
-[Flame of the Earth]
[It is possible to preview all of these options]
"I see, I see..." Eisen muttered to himself and looked at the three lists in front of him, and since it was possible to preview the possible elements, Eisen thought it would be a good idea to do so before making a bad choice.
First, Eisen concentrated on the Dark Element to see what it was about, and in front of him a new window popped up. Inside that window was a list of what was possible with it, with different illustrations about what it looked like. The dark Element was mainly about de-buffing or cursing enemies and hiding yourself from sight. It was a type of magic often used by rogues or assassins type classes.
As for Light Magic, it was rather about healing or buffing your companions, and sometimes creating mirages to confuse your enemies. Usually, supporters or healers would use this kind of magic.
Wind magic was all about speed, and doing damage to others through quick attacks or through sharp blades and cuts in general. Often, people who would rely largely on blades and speed in general would rely on wind magic, beside Mages of course.
Next was Water magic, which was a type of magic that often relied on steady damage over time, and often is able to stun enemies rather easily and slow them down.
After looking through these of the basic elements, Eisen moved on to his recommended elements. So far, the Dark, Light, Wind and Water elements seemed like they would be useful in combat, but Eisen thought they weren’t really a good fit to him. On the other hand, the earth and fire elements seemed more like they would. He spent most of his life around the flames of the forge, and the earth element remided him of different metals, which were his specialty to work with. And when it came to the other crafts he was familiar with, all somehow came back to earth. Leatherworking needed the hides of animals that spent their lives treading on the dirt benath their feet and living off of the fruits that it bears.
And Tailoring mostly used fabrics made out of different plants, like cotton for example, and these plants of course grew out of the earth. These two elements immediately spoke to him when Eisen thought about it that way.
Fire magic was about large amounts of instantaneous damage, and often times about large area attacks. The ones that would use fire magic were those that wanted to do as much damage at once in burst attacks to kill their enemies quickly.
And at last out of the two recommended elements, Earth. It seemed to had a lot to do with defense and changing the environment around you to your advantage. The ones that would use this, were the ’Tanks’ that would take on the brunt of enemy attacks.
Of course, all of these magic types were also used by normal mages, who had a lot higher variety of possible attacks in their arsenal.
But lastly, Eisen was most curious about the special combination that was created through his occupation... Flame of the Earth Magic.
Excited to see what it would be, Eisen concentrated on it and carefully read through the description.
It told him that this special element had parts of both Fire and Earth magic, but was largely meant for utiliary use rather than combat use. However... it didn’t tell him much more. At the end, it told him that it was meant to just be explored.
For some reason, this absolutely thrilled Eisen. So he cleared his throat, and quietly said. "I choose Flame of the Earth Magic as my Element."
[Magic Element assigned]
[Flame of the Earth Magic Skill learned]
And so, Eisen grabbed the book he got from Morrom, and flipped it open to the chapter where he couldn’t continue anymore, prepared to start practicing further.