Inferno: A LitRPG Adventure (Elemental Mastery Book 2), page 7
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Gabriel said.
Zephyr did. For most people, the Shadowswarm were creatures of myth and legend, largely contained beyond the northern battlelines by the valiant efforts of the Storm Scions. In contrast, the Fennean Empire waged open, endless war against the rest of the world, while the Blight Boundary spanned across continents, the diseased and warped vegetation upon its edges visible from many miles away. Of course the leaders of the world would be more invested in the efforts of the Phoenix Knights and the Frost Guardians.
“Alright, here we are,” Gabriel announced. He swept his hand over a spot on the battlements, and then gestured into the sky. “This is where we fought those iron drones this morning, and the dragon appeared somewhere there. Why don’t you go ahead and find out where that dragon’s lair is right now? Then I’ll teach you one spell, and if you manage to learn it quickly enough, we’ll go punch whoever is controlling that dragon in the face.”
“Gabriel, I still haven’t found the ritual that His Excellency was talking about yet, much less figured out if we can perform it at all,” Vincent objected. “And we also need a separate ritual to free the dragon from the night prince possessing it. I’ll have to find that too.”
“Balls of Fire!” Gabriel sighed. “That’s what I get for assuming too much. I thought you’d have gotten everything figured out by the time we got here. Aren’t you three pretty much miracle workers?”
“No, not exactly,” Nella said. “But don’t worry. As far as the rituals go, we can ask Avora about them later. We learn Tempest spells really quickly. I can’t imagine rituals will be much different.”
“That’s true.” Zephyr clicked his tongue in mild irritation. Avora knew how quickly the trio could acquire and cast even the most complex and difficult Tempest magic spells. Why hadn’t the Grand Sage simply pointed out the rituals in their grimoires or written them out for the trio? He took a deep and calming breath that evened out his annoyance. Perhaps Avora was just worn out. After all, the Grand Sage was still recovering from severe injuries, and almost no one had the hale and reckless constitution that Gabriel demonstrated.
“It’s alright,” Vincent said, pointing at a number etched upon the battlement floor. “This is section seventeen. At least we know where to come back now when we’re ready. Once we get some time, I’ll look through our Tempest grimoire again and find what we need. We might be good to go dragon-hunting as early as tomorrow morning!”
“That’s probably for the best,” Zephyr said. “After all, we need to sort out our armor, work on the talismans, and start learning Inferno magic. Rushing off to find the dragon when we’re still so unprepared isn’t wise.”
“Fine, fine.” Gabriel grunted and stretched his lower back. He looked up into the sky, noted the sun’s position, then turned to the trio. “In that case, lunch?”
Chapter 6
Blackstone Keep had a vast dining hall within its depths. It was much larger than the one in the Tempest School which, Zephyr now realized, only seemed large because of how empty it was. The Phoenix Knights’ dining hall, which Gabriel called a mess hall in military fashion, sported row upon row of sturdy rectangular tables and long wooden benches.
It was lunchtime, so the expansive chamber was packed with hundreds of Phoenix Knights who ate, drank, and boasted uproariously. The scent of roasted meat, grilled vegetables, and even beer filled the air. Zephyr couldn’t help comparing Blackstone Keep to the Tempest School again, where the total number of inhabitants, the kitchen and cleaning staff included, barely amounted to sixty people.
“How many Phoenix Knights are in this place?” Nella asked, raising her voice to make herself heard over the cacophony.
“We’re just over a thousand strong here,” Gabriel told her. “The rest of us are working contracts all over the world. I’d just finished one myself before I went to the induction ceremony at the Tempest School. I’d expect Brass to recall everyone she can via firebird messengers soon though. If the Empire breaks through here, all of the southeastern continent is finished.”
“What about the Inferno School? Are there many Phoenix Knights there too?” Vincent asked.
“Not as many as there are here,” Gabriel replied. “When I held the rank of a Master, I used to teach the Battle Mage classes held toward the end of the year. It was fun, but not having any rank or responsibility is even more fun!”
A young woman in a white uniform approached the trio and Gabriel as they sat down at an empty table. She wore a flat-topped cap that was also white, and she held a stack of wooden tablets in her arms.
“Hello!” the woman said. She pointed to a tag on her uniform. “My name’s Tila, and I’ll be your server this afternoon.”
Tila passed out the wooden tablets to each of them. Zephyr swept his gaze over the words etched upon their surfaces and realized that it was a menu.
Isn’t this a military fortress? he wondered, swiftly reading a few of the choices listed on the tablet. Roasted leek soup. Grilled potato pastries. Tomato-infused bread. Despite himself, Zephyr found his mouth watering.
Nella had sat down beside Zephyr, and she was salivating. Zephyr glanced at where she’d placed her finger upon the menu. Steamed rainbow trout garnished with dried mushrooms.
“This one!” she cried. “I want this one!”
Tila laughed, covering her mouth politely as she did so.
“I was going to say that I’d give you a few minutes to look through our choices and decide, but it seems like that’s not necessary,” she said.
“Wow.” Vincent’s eyes were wide with awe. “You have all these items available? Here, in the middle of nowhere? How do you get all the ingredients here?”
“Firebird messengers with mage bands,” Gabriel explained, handing back his menu to Tila. “The usual, please.”
“Seriously, Gabriel?” Tila protested. “You can’t eat that all the time. It’s bad for you.”
“Bah,” Gabriel scoffed and turned to the trio with a long-suffering look. “Man can’t even eat what he wants even though he spends all his time fighting monsters.”
“Archmage Brass told us all that you can only have one serving of this dish every week,” Tila said.
“What?” Gabriel demanded, his eyes bulging with outrage. “But…”
“Since you’ve been away for the last two months, sure, I’ll have it brought out in a bit, but you don’t get to eat that again until a week later,” Tila said. “I remember the last time you were here. You had that for all three meals, every day for five months.”
“Just… just what exactly have you been ordering, Gabriel?” Vincent asked.
“You’ll see soon enough,” the Phoenix Knight said, before sending a disgruntled glare Tila’s way. “Fine. Just get me my lunch. Balls of Fire, this place is so annoying sometimes.”
Vincent ordered a platter of roast beef and grilled carrots. Zephyr decided on the tomato-infused bread.
“He’s vegetarian,” Nella explained, when Tila asked Zephyr if that would be enough for him. “It’s a Wu monk thing.”
“You’re a Wu monk?” Tila smiled quizzically, her eyes flashing to Zephyr’s dark hair.
“I’m just a lay disciple,” he replied, clasping his hands before him in prayer and giving the server a shallow seated bow.
“Oh, that’s nice.” Tila fumbled in her pockets and produced a smaller piece of paper. “Our head chef, Master Giorda, has put together a vegetarian menu for our Wu monk guests. Do you want to take a look at this?”
“Maybe later,” Zephyr said. “The bread is good for now.”
“Give him a double portion,” Gabriel said. “He’s a big fellow, and he needs more food for all those muscles.”
“Got it!” Tila nodded. “So, trout, roast beef, tomato bread, and Gabriel’s usual. Does that sound right?”
Everyone nodded.
“I’ll put in your order with the kitchen, then come back with a jug of sweet tea!” Tila announced, before turning around and striding away.
“Oh, I can definitely get used to the food here,” Nella said, eyeing the tremendous plate of food on the adjacent table. The Phoenix Knight eating from it saluted them cheerily, then bit into a huge joint of pork.
“Is this really alright for everyone to feast like this, Gabriel?” Zephyr asked. “Aren’t we in the middle of a war?”
“It’s precisely because we’re in the middle of a war that we’re eating like this,” Gabriel said. “Good food is how you keep morale up. Also, as you heard from Rina just now, our supply lines haven’t been cut yet, so we might as well eat the best we can.”
Zephyr nodded, before a curious thought struck him.
“What are firebird messengers?” he asked. “I’ve already heard them mentioned a few times, but I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of them before.”
“Oh, they’re like djinns, Inferno elementals. They’re really helpful and smart, but they’re not as tough as djinns, nor can they cast any spells, so they aren’t much use in a fight,” Gabriel explained. “They can use enchanted items though, such as mage bands. That’s why they’re such excellent couriers.”
“I have heard of them!” Vincent said. “The Phoenix Knights also hire out their firebirds as couriers to anyone willing and able to pay for their services. That’s another source of wealth for them!”
“That’s true.” Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t really pay attention to that part, though. Maybe when we have time, I’ll show you the firebird roost in Blackstone Keep. They can’t really talk, but they’re very friendly.”
“While we’re waiting for our food, let’s get our essence orbs sorted,” Nella said. She unfurled a codex display. “So what’s the plan? We only know one Inferno magic spell. Should we just enhance our overall mastery of Inferno magic first? That will help us learn new spells far more quickly.”
“Let’s do that,” Zephyr agreed. “We should begin by getting our Inferno magic mastery all the way up to Mage level first. We can save the rest to enhance our spells and spell variants.”
“Alright.” Nella furrowed her brow. Zephyr felt her reaching for the essence orbs. She frowned as she assigned a pair of them, though.
Inferno Magic empowered!
Magic: Inferno (initiate)
Progress to Adept: 1/40 essence orbs
+0.5% personal Inferno ether reserves
+0.5% Inferno spell casting speed
+0.5% Inferno spell learning rate
+0.5% Inferno spell efficacy
“Look. We need twice the amount of essence orbs to get to Adept level in Inferno magic,” she said. “And every essence orb now gives half the benefits.”
“That’s odd,” Zephyr mused. He ran the numbers swiftly in his head. “We should still have enough to get us to Mage level, as we’d planned. We just won’t be progressing as quickly as we’d thought.”
“Should we still do that, then?” Vincent said. “Or should we stop somewhere around Adept level and save the rest for our spells and spell variants? Those might take twice the amount of essence orbs to enhance as well.”
“I believe we should,” Zephyr said. “Even at this rate, we will still have more than a hundred essence orbs after we get to Mage level in Inferno magic. That’s still a lot of spells and spell variants we can enhance, even if doing so now costs twice as many essence orbs.”
“I agree.” Nella nodded. “Remember that dragon this morning? Avora said that the night prince almost certainly had some help in controlling that dragon. Knowing what we know now, whoever provided that help uses Tyrant magic. How powerful must a Slave-Master be to work alongside a night prince?”
“I think I understand what you’re getting at, Nella,” Vincent said. “We’re not starting off by fighting weak Shadowswarm creatures inside a Phase One Dark Labyrinth. We’ll be facing powerful enemies right from the start, and if Inferno magic is the best weapon we have against them, we need to acquire power in it quickly.”
“Learning new spells and then enhancing them and their variants won’t do us much good if we don’t have the overall prowess in Inferno magic to back them up,” Zephyr said. “That’s why we should get to Mage level first, learn the most important spells, and enhance those. That will allow us to destroy iron drones more easily, which in turn gets us more essence orbs.”
“Alright. I’ll get that sorted out then,” Nella said. The ranger looked intently at the codex display once more and expended four hundred essence orbs all at once.
Magic: Inferno (Mage)
Progress to Master: 0/4,000 essence orbs
+450% personal Inferno ether reserves
+450% Inferno spell casting speed
+450% Inferno spell learning rate
+450% Inferno spell efficacy
Gabriel flinched as the codex display announced the trio’s ascension to Mage level mastery of Inferno magic.
“What did you three just do?” he demanded. “Your magical aura just surged by an insane amount!”
Gabriel wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. All around the mess hall, Phoenix Knights were muttering and pointing at the trio, their eyes wide with awe and disbelief.
“Hello, everyone. Please don’t mind us. Sorry for disturbing your meal,” Vincent said politely, waving to everyone staring at the trio.
Zephyr forced a smile upon his face and joined in the waving too. He glanced sidelong at Nella. The sudden attention seemed to have shocked her into some kind of regression. The ranger was clutching her left upper arm with her right hand and looking straight down at the floor again, something Zephyr hadn’t seen her do in a long time.
Zephyr put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s alright. See? Everyone’s returning to their meals now. There’s nothing to worry about.”
He wasn’t lying. Some of the Phoenix Knights cheered and shook their fists in the air, but the majority simply nodded or smiled politely at the trio before looking away.
Nella raised her head. Her face was red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Vincent said, reaching over and briefly squeezing her fingertips. “Nothing at all.”
Nella released her left upper arm with jerky, yet deliberate motions, took a deep breath, and smoothed out the front of her robes.
“Thank you,” she said to Zephyr and Vincent.
“You’re welcome, always,” Zephyr replied.
Vincent simply smiled and nodded.
“Any of you going to explain what just happened with your magical aura?” Gabriel asked.
Vincent swiftly went over how the trio could use essence orbs to enhance their overall mastery of any type of magic, as long as they’d awakened the corresponding Aspect beforehand. By the time he was done, Gabriel was nodding in admiration.
“That does sound very handy,” the Phoenix Knight said. “I know, I know. There’s satisfaction in progressing the traditional and far more difficult way, but it’s not like you three got those essence orbs for free or anything. You slew so many Shadowswarm creatures and protected all those people threatened by the Dark Labyrinths. Besides, anyone with any sense at all can tell that dark times loom ahead of us. We need powerful mages who fight for the Light, just like you.”
Before Zephyr could reply, Tila arrived with their food. The server placed covered silver platters in front of the trio and Gabriel, before removing the covers deftly and balancing them upon her forearms.
“Enjoy!” she said. “Let me know if you need anything else. And no, Gabriel, you can’t have seconds.”
“Aw, come on!” the Phoenix Knight protested, but Tila was already walking away, humming a cheerful tune to herself. He picked up a fork and grunted. “Well, at least I’ve still got this.”
Gabriel dug in as Zephyr exchanged sidelong glances with his friends.
He ate chocolate cake three times a day for five months? Zephyr thought, fighting the urge to gag.
Chapter 7
After lunch, Gabriel brought them back out on the battlements but this time beneath the shade of a crenelated tower. The Phoenix Knight cracked his knuckles, rolled his shoulders, and stretched his back muscles, as if he were going to partake in some athletic event.
“Alright,” he said. “Now, let’s learn some Inferno magic.”
“Here?” Zephyr asked. “Really?”
“I figured you three would prefer being out in the open after a year spent in the Tempest School’s musty halls,” Gabriel said. “What better place to work on your magic? The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the air is fresh.”
“That’s true.” Zephyr smiled and looked up. “It is a bright and sunny day.”
“But there are no birds,” Vincent pointed out.
“And the air stinks of burnt metal,” Nella added. The ranger shrugged. “But you’re right, Gabriel. I wasn’t looking forward to sitting in a lecture hall and taking notes. Let’s learn some Inferno magic!”
“Now that’s the spirit!” Gabriel cried, thrusting a clenched fist into the air. “First, let’s… What are you doing?”
Vincent had unfurled a codex display. His eyes were closed, but his brow was furrowed in concentration. Cobalt-blue light washed over the magical scroll then, causing Gabriel to jump.
“Oh!” the Phoenix Knight said. “Is that from your Codex of Ascension? How curious?”
“You made our codex display visible to Gabriel?” Zephyr asked. “That’s really amazing, Vincent!”
Vincent opened his eyes and exhaled. Beads of sweat dotted his temples.
“I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time already,” he said. “Looks like my efforts finally worked. All you have to do is immerse your codex display in Tempest ether, then solidify that Tempest ether as if you were creating a shadow-bane conjuration. It’s a bit more difficult than it sounds, but we can practice later.”
