Volume 1, Chapter 9: The Barrage and The Sword
I forgot something important because I distracted myself with controlling magic at a distance.
…The barrage was its true power.
If I unleashed magical power randomly, I could end up hurt, so what I had to do was constant bombing! Therefore, I tried to make multiple fireballs. I made two for the time being. It was easy. I did my best to invoke them at the same time. The power of the explosion was relatively higher than usual. The MP consumption was exactly the double of the usual amount. Each fireball with added magic power consumed about 4 times the MP, the range was about 1.6 times higher, and the area was 2.56 times bigger.
What? 1.6 times? 1.6 x 1.6 x 1.6 was 4096 ÷ 1000, so it was about 4. MP consumption was also 4 times higher. Magic control also doubled the distance and consumed 8 times more MP.
Especially the fireballs. The fact that the range of explosion was 1.6 times higher meant that the firepower was nearly four times that of a normal fireball. The way the ground got hit by the fireball was also intense. At first, I thought it was due to the increased range, but the firepower could have been different too.
I continued to verify the barrage for the time being.
I tried to invoke 7 at once. However, if I exceeded that number, the invoking speed decreased. I could fire up to 7 with a 0.5 second intervals. The diameter of an ordinary fireball explosion was about 70 cm, so if I lined it up in a row, I could increase to about 5 m.
MP consumption was not linear like the consumption of the water discharge, but the maximum consumption was still 10 per second. My hypothesis seemed to have been correct. With the current MP, the maximum output lasts about 3 minutes at most, but my maximum value increased by 500 each time I leveled up.
However, I didn’t want to deal with a monster that would not die after I released this firepower for 3 minutes long.
Okay. With this, I could deal with multiple enemies at once as long as they died fast. The rest was to strengthen the rock spear to aid me in the offensive strikes.
The power of the rock spear seemed to increase its power when used more MP. I also could invoke 7 spears at the same time without slowing down.
However, the MP consumption increased each time the size of the rock spear increased. It had a similar expansion. I didn’t understand the principles that much though. In the first place, magic itself was the law of conservation of mass. It would be crazy if a physicist heard about magic. I wondered if a physicist would try to seek the cause no matter what. Well, whatever.
The amount of water also increased as the MP consumption increased. Fire was rather special against water and the rock spear. Water and soil depended on the amount, but fire depended on the thermal power (temperature?).
What remained was searching for enemies in advance…How could I do that?
I closed my eyes and tried to be aware of my surroundings. Focus…Done it!
I swung my fist in the direction where I felt the enemy was hiding. Gatchin! There was a response. It was a tree. It hurt. I probably broke my hand. In a normal scenario, I would have gone to the hospital.
I didn’t mean to hurt myself. I chose this place to practice because there was no enemies nearby. I just wanted to practice a little bit before going.
My hand hurt badly. Even the skin peeled off. Speaking of which, the people in the Guild were talking about recovery magic. I imagined how to recover my hand. I tried to imagine my hand returning to its original state over time.
I did it. My skin healed. But I felt that my bones hurt. They were probably broken or cracked. I tried to imagine healing a cracking bone. Then, the pain subsided. Was this recovery magic? I used my mind to invoke recovery magic, and there was no particular effect besides healing.
I used about 2 MPs in total. It was okay because I was a normal wizard. But if I tried to heal a serious injury, my MP would probably run out with just one try. Was that the reason why potions existed in this world? Potions were necessary to parties that did not have wizards. Maybe I should buy potions too. Just in case.
Anyway, I had to search enemies in advance. I did not feel any sign of them, so I had to think about other methods.
I imagined a sensor made of wind and used it to touch a tree 1m away from me. The MP consumption increased a little…but it did not work properly. I wondered what I could do.
What? Was it okay to operate it in the distance? I continued to stretch it further. It consumed more MP when I stretched it, but it did not consume it at an accelerating rate. I also felt that the consumption was very small. I extended it up until 20 m, and that was my limitation. I could not extend it any further. It seemed that it only consumed magical power when I stretched it too much.
The sensor moved like a straight line (like a tentacle?). I tried to touch the leaves, but the leaves did not move. It worked as a sensory organ, but it did not seem to interfere with objects. However, I had no vision of it in my mind and I did not know what was there.
Then, I tried to use the wind on the flat surface. The MP consumption increased at an accelerating rate as the distance increased, but this consumption seemed to be proportional to the distance. It did not bother me much because the original MP consumption was low. I stretched it to 4 m and finally consumed 1 MP. It consumed about 25 MP when extended to 20 m, but it didn’t pose any big problem, for now.
Nevertheless, the information was so much that I had no idea what was going on. I tried shooting one fireball, but I just felt the shock. I didn’t know where it landed. Rather, this shock felt as if a frying pan hit my head. This was terrible. I could not use this method during a battle.
Suddenly, I thought of putting that information into the Information Manipulation Analysis. Then, the shape of this forest cut into black and white slices and then it came to my mind. As expected, the Information Manipulation Analysis was useful as always.
However, it was not very useful to use the shape of these slices, so I imagined in my head a searching instrument for all living things while using Information Manipulation Analysis. The slices in my head turned into something that resembled a black window, and a small white circle glowed inside. The black window looked like a map, and the small white circle was probably me. The Information Manipulation Analysis was truly useful, indeed.
I wondered if this map would show other people other than me inside the town.
The map also showed some monsters and some who flew in the sky when I increased the radius to 50 m and 10 m vertically at 20 cm intervals. Could this map be a radar?
The radar ate a lot of magical power. But it was great to mix the regular information with the Information Manipulation Analysis. I shall always deploy the radar with the Information Manipulation Analysis for a better function. Still, since it consumed a good amount of MP, I decided to use it when necessary. After a moment, the radar disappeared in front of my head.
It was about time to go to the blacksmith’s store.
I felt many people when I approached the town. It seemed that I could feel the presence even if I do not put out the screen of the radar. This could be very useful.
Looking at the status, I noticed that the radar was not based on wind magic but on perceptual magic. The current level was 3. I tried to appraise all the other magic besides perception, but all of them were level 3. I just increased the power, range and number of bullets with my practice.
With that in mind, I showed my ID to the gatekeeper, went through the gate, and walked down the road to the blacksmith’s store. Did Dveragh-san manage to do the tempering? I bet it wasn’t too difficult for him. After all, the people from my world managed to discover and master it. Even if the people of this world did not know about it, I believed that someone would have come up with this idea sooner or later.
I opened the blacksmith’s door. As usual, Dveragh-san was working hard.
「Excuse me! 」
「You are noisy! Be quiet and wait! 」
The same as always. However, this time, the sword hardened quickly after hitting it. Thanks to that, the waiting time had decreased to about 10 minutes.
The sword was not bent. It seemed to have worked well.
「Hmm. Tempering is amazing. The charcoal iron that came out recently is different when it gets hardened. However, cheap ordinary iron is not good for tempering. Well, I can only use charcoal iron anyway, so there is no problem.」
Charcoal iron…Was he talking about steel? Perhaps, ordinary iron was wrought iron. That made sense. Tempering on wrought iron would give just a few effects. Tempering was suited for steel and not wrought iron.
「I’ll bring you a sword, so wait a minute. I hardened it yesterday and I’m pretty confident about it.」
With that said, Dveragh-san brought a sword from the back of the store. It had a scabbard and the blade length of about 80 cm. It was big.
「Try swinging it. 」
Dveragh-san wanted me to try the sword. So, I drew the sword and tried to swing it in a vertical straight line. It worked nicely.
「Ohh. Maybe you used to be a swordsman. The way you swing is not good, but the movement itself is solid. I can see that you have potential.」
The Martial Arts Qualities was something frightening. Well, I’ll practice the swinging later on.
「It’s easy to handle. Thank you very much. 」
「I am the one who needs to say thanks. I can now make better swords than before. But, is it all right with you? I think this is a secret technique, but it was so easy to teach.」
「Yeah. You can spread it if you want. It is a useful technique after all. 」
If I could spread the manufacture of good weapons cheaply, then I would be able to increase my strength and live safely. For the time being, I kept the sword in the item box.
「You speak well even though you are young. Well, come here if you need something. By the way, you are not wearing an armor, are you?」 freeweb(n)ovel
Come to think of it, I didn’t wear any armor. I wasn’t sure if using armor or not would make a huge difference in defense power. Maybe it could be useful. On the other hand, armor could be a disadvantage because of the heavy weight. It would be bad if I suddenly fell over during a battle because of a heavy armor, right? But, would it be okay if I wore some leather armor?
「I wanted a lighter armor, but I didn’t have the money when I first came to this town, so I thought about getting it later. Is a leather armor good instead of a regular armor? Won’t it hinder my movements?」
「Ahh. Leather armor, you say. I can only make metal armors, but I know about a good leather armor shop. I think it should cost you around 15,000, do you mind that price?」
Was armor more expensive than a sword? Well, the sword I got was free, but maybe, if I bought it normally, it would easily exceed 10,000. And 10,000 was for the unhardened swords. Well, it was a normal price for me right now. It was about one day’s worth of medicinal herbs. I could afford it thankfully.
「No, I don’t mind it. I would like to visit that store. 」
「It’s the armor shop two quarters to the left of the Guild. The owner usually sells cheap armors for beginners, but if you say that Dveragh sent you there, then the owner will prepare you a solid armor.」 free(w)ebnovel
「I understand. Okay, I’m leaving now. 」
I wondered if the armor shop owner was like Dveragh-san…But the fact that he sold cheap armors for beginners indicated that he was a kind person.
I decided to go there for the time being.
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