Chapter 189 - 179

Rhea hesitated, struggling to understand why he had his dagger drawn, until she caught his smirk and growled, "Must you phrase things that way?" Nick snickered, shaking his head. "Where's the fun in that?" Considering how tense she had been, seeing her roll her eyes and huff was a good sign that she wasn't in a funk anymore. "Alright, enough of that." He chuckled, pointing his dagger down, "I actually have a way to shield the dagger, but it might be a bit weird. We need to find a decently powerful monster because I need blood and bone as a catalyst, and I doubt any of us wants to volunteer theirs." Elia tilted her head, curious about where he was going, but Rhea simply nodded. Ever since their conversation by the fire, she had become very accepting of all his oddities, and while this would likely push their perception of his magic further away from what a typical Mage should be capable of, he was already straining that illusion. It's better if we hide from the Ultimers than for me to maintain the illusion of normalcy. The girls have already seen too much anyway. "Want me to go hunt for one?" Elia asked, and he nodded. He could do it himself, but he wanted to get this done as quickly as possible, which would require some preparation, particularly because it wasn't a formal ritual. "That sounds good, anything mammalian would work, but please keep the size small, and be sure to keep it alive and as uninjured as possible. Rhea, you should try to clean up the hilt as well as you can in the meantime. Use alchemical solutions if you need to; just make sure no foreign mana remains on it." He ordered, sitting down and plunging his dagger into the ground. He wouldn't need an actual circle for this, but having a counterpoint to anchor the magic would be useful, and his dagger would serve that purpose well. After the girls began following his instructions, Nick leaned down to whisper, "I promise I'll get you a nice meal after this. Just make sure that the mana stays stable." A faint pulse answered him, as the remnant inside the dagger acknowledged his request. Given how greedily it had feasted on the troll, it had been surprisingly well-behaved. It's probably been digesting all this time. Despite its strength, it had been starved for who knows how long. With that done, he began preparing the anti-divination magic. African divination is such a vast field that it can hardly be described as a singular practice, but that is precisely why it's so useful. There is always something that fits. Unfortunately, Nick didn't know every little detail. His memory was practically eidetic at that point, but that didn't mean the books he had read on the subject were that comprehensive. Still, this particular case shouldn't be too difficult. Chepsageinik were master diviners and locators of the Nandi people of Kenya, and they could just as easily find something as they could obscure it. There was a reason Nick chose this specific tradition over others he was more familiar with. While Norse and Hermetic divination spells existed, and he was confident he could cobble something together from them, why bother when he already had exactly what he needed? To find something, the Nandi shamans typically used Barbarek, small round stones that they tossed and interpreted. However, when it came to sympathetic magics, they developed a unique method of using living animals that was unmatched. Only the skin-walkers of the Navajo could claim equal mastery, and their own practice demanded interaction with the animal spirit in a manner that felt far too intimate for this particular situation. No, the Nandi way would do. First, Nick summoned a glob of water to clean himself. Even though he did his best to keep dust, dirt, and blood from reaching him, that wasn't always possible, especially in the middle of a fight when his attention was focused more on his enemies' actions. The ball of water moved around his body, collecting tiny particles he would have otherwise dismissed but knew could weaken the spell he was about to cast. When he was finally completely clean, he sighed in appreciation. It's surprising how quickly one can adapt to being dirty all the time without modern amenities, but this is so much better. Soon enough, he felt Elia return with her prey held in her hands. Surprisingly, she didn't seem to have needed to use foxfire, as the grassland cat hung limply in her grip, its eyes glazed over. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Illusions? She must have really gained a boost in power if she can use them on a predator with such keen senses. At the same time, Rhea joined him, holding the broken dagger wrapped in a clean cloth. The metal shimmered, almost as if it had just been polished, but no smell of oil wafted from it. It was simply high-quality materials crafted by masters. "Thank you, both of you. Please, put the hilt next to my dagger and hand me the cat," he ordered, reaching up to grab the dazed predator. It wasn't much larger than Talbot, though it had very sharp teeth and a leaner, more angular face. A quick glance at its claws told Nick that it could likely shear through muscle and bone with ease, reminding him that he wasn't the only one who could surprise his enemies with his appearance. The cat might have passed as a house pet to an inexperienced observer, but his senses indicated that it was at least a level thirty creature, strong enough to take down most soldiers. "Alright. Elia, stand back a bit. Rhea, sit down opposite me and don't move away. This might be a bit shocking, but it's the best way I know." Rhea sat down, curiously eyeing the cat. "Can you tell me what to expect?" Nick gently set the monster down next to the hilt and wrapped his hand around its neck. "What I'm doing is called sympathetic magic. It is possibly the oldest kind there is, and is a way to transfer qualities from one thing to another. It can be used to summon a reaction from otherwise inanimate things, or to remove certain undesired traces from an object and transfer them to something else." Distantly, Nick heard Elia make a sound of realization, as she likely had just remembered the first piece of magic he'd ever shown her. [An Eye for an Eye] was a pretty basic spell and something he wouldn't use again unless there was a very specific need, but the principles behind it were similar. The method, however, was much different. Nick started squeezing the monster's throat while pulling air away from it. It quickly began to struggle as the illusion holding it still weakened in the face of instinctive terror. "I am going to suffocate this monster and use its skin as a way to create a link with the hilt, which will not only cleanse it of previous events that could lead a diviner to find us, but also redirect their attention away from us." He added more strength, making sure not to break the skin accidentally, and funneled more air away from it. It was an inefficient way to kill something in a world where most enemies had high enough CON to survive without air for several minutes at a time, if not longer, but the cat hadn't been given any time to prepare, and the pressure he was exerting on its throat finally became too much. With a crunch, the monster died. CONGRATULATIONS! You have participated in the defeat of [Grassland Hunter Cat - Lv. 29] +4.600 Exp Yeah, yeah. Now for the hard part. Working quickly, Nick pulled his dagger from the ground and slipped it into the monster's flesh, using just enough force to puncture the skin without spilling any blood. What followed was a laborious half-hour as he pried the pelt away from the flesh, working slowly to ensure that not a single capillary burst. It wasn't easy, but Nick had gained enough experience with butchering monsters by this point that he managed, aided by the incredible sharpness of his dagger. Eventually, the job was completed, and he set the carcass aside before picking up the cleaned hilt and placing it within the pelt. "Kipkechik ng'we chebo (may your sins move on)," he murmured in Nandi. A flash of color zipped by, so fleeting that he almost missed it. Nick nearly released the mana, stunned by what he could only imagine was the cat's spirit leaving its body, but he had the presence of mind to hold it together. Mostly driven by instinct, he bound the dagger's magical residue to the cat's, oddly feeling as if he was touching something he couldn't see. Yet, when he attempted to solidify his grasp on the magic, it almost vanished. Thus, he hurriedly returned to gently directing the magic until he finally felt it all come together. CONGRATULATIONS! New Spell developed: [Spiritual Presence Transfer] [Beginner] +6.500 Exp Level up! "Yeah, that should do it," he sighed, torn between frustration at having once again missed out on whatever magic was teasing his senses and satisfaction at a job well done. When he looked up, he found two very morbidly intrigued faces. With the threat of being found by Rhea's family enemies lifted, the three of them took a moment to relax, but after a quick snack of dried thunderhoof, they were back on the march. It didn't take long before they were attacked again. "Do you guys have any ideas why everything seems to be fleeing the north? Even the soldiers mentioned something about monsters leaving their territory." Elia asked, swinging her claws to slice through a Wererat who thought her carefree attitude meant she was an easy target. "I'm pretty sure it has something to the dungeon we destroyed. It's possible that something else happened at the same time, but the timing feels suspicious," Nick commented, practicing his offensive ofuda deployment by using a gust of wind to position a tag where the monsters were about to land, triggering it to explode upon their arrival. So far, he didn't feel he would use it as more than a situational skill. Ofudas were powerful and very versatile, but casting them on the go seemed too inefficient. Elia hummed, slashing another one in two. "Hm, that is true. I guess everyone in Floria felt the pulse of mana when it broke, and that might have stirred up some of the more sensitive monsters. But the northern ranges are very far, and wouldn't they be fleeing in the opposite direction?" "How are you guys so casual about this?!" Rhea shrieked, throwing pellets that exploded into purple smoke, melting the Wererats into biological puddles upon contact. "There are too many!" "Oh, come off it!" Elia laughed. "These guys couldn't hurt us if we let them!" The Wererats didn't appear particularly intelligent to Nick, yet they intensified their assault afterward, as if they had understood the insult. Considering they were as large as a medium-sized dog, had drooling jaws filled with sharp, crooked teeth that likely harbored countless illnesses, and appeared determined to take them down even at the cost of the whole pack's destruction, Nick could see why Rhea was so anxious. However, they weren't any more dangerous than the Cracklers they had faced previously. As one used the blown-up corpse of its comrade as a jumping point to spring at him with its jaws wide open and maddened eyes, Nick decided that maybe their aggression merited a slight elevation of their threat level. It still ended up crashing into his [Force Barrier], resulting in easy pickings for the [Spark] that blossomed from his fingers. He even managed to position it well enough to hit two more rats. "Heh, combo." He chuckled as the ground began to buckle beneath him, indicating that something massive was pushing its way to the surface. "Man, if these guys have a queen too, I'm going to start questioning whether there's a hidden sword in the stone around here." Contrary to his expectations, the creature that emerged when the ground exploded was neither a Wererat queen nor a king, for that matter. It may have been better if it had been one, however, because looking at the massive, worm-like monster with chitinous armor that felt almost invisible to his senses, and a hungry maw filled with thousands of needle-like teeth, he knew they had finally found their first truly dangerous monster.