Reign of The Demon King

Practical Magic

“Okay, so monsters. Monsters are separated into 6 tiers; D, C, B, A, S, and S+. There is technically another tier of monsters for sacred beasts, but they don’t attack people the way traditional monsters do, as they typically stay away from humans and prey on other monsters. Actually, they are often worshiped over feared. D-tier monsters are ones that just about any adventurer can take care of, and the ones that you will run into the most, but new adventurers like yourself should still be careful around them, as lower-ranked adventurers will still likely need to fight together to take one down. Defeating enough monsters will increase your reputation and skills and certain monsters will increase certain skills more than others. Also, it’s worth keeping certain parts of monsters as some do sell at a decent price. Here at the guild, you can accept quests to defeat specific monsters. These quests are usually posted when there are too many monsters in the area or certain monsters start being overly aggressive. You need to accept a quest in order to receive payment for defeating a monster unless you defeat a specific monster that was causing trouble, though it is best to avoid doing something like that as you could end up stealing someone else’s job. Monsters usually reside in forests, caves, mountain ranges, oceans and dungeons, but there are times when they leave these habitats, either due to a lack of food or another monster scaring them away. That covers the basics when it comes to monsters. Any questions?” He finished.

“What would happen if we were to run into a sacred beast?” Renji asks.

“A good question. You have nothing to worry about when it comes to that. There have been adventurers that have run into sacred beasts and were not injured. According to them, sacred beasts only attack if provoked or if you intrude into their territory, but usually they will give a warning before attacking. But running into a sacred beast is an extremely rare event, so it’s unlikely you will ever come face to face with one.” He answered.

Renji nodded, satisfied with the answers.

“Okay, now onto dungeons. Dungeons are maze-like structures created by the god of chaos. They hold treasures, traps, riddles, puzzles and, of course, monsters. Just like monsters, dungeons have tiers as well; bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, and adamantium. The rewards get increasingly better in line with the difficulty of the dungeon. In order to completely clear a dungeon, you must defeat the dungeon boss, which can be found at the end of the dungeon. The dungeon boss will be in a massive room with a setting that coincides with the boss in the room. Because of this, the final room can vary greatly between dungeons. Monsters continually spawn in the dungeon even after the dungeon boss is defeated, though they will spawn much less frequently. Dungeon bosses respawn after a certain period of time, with them taking longer to respawn the higher tier of dungeon they are located in. Bronze dungeons will have a D tier monster as a boss, silver a C tier, gold a B, platinum an A and diamond an S, and adamantium an S+ . Usually, once a dungeon boss respawns, it will respawn on the same tier as before, but there are times when it will increase in tiers, thus changing the difficulty of the dungeon as a whole. Because of this, we typically send out several parties of adventurers to investigate the dungeon once the dungeon boss has respawned, which we will know because of the way the monsters around the dungeon act. Occasionally, dungeons that appear and disappear once cleared spawn randomly outside human settlements. When this happens, the guild gathers experienced adventurers to test the first couple of levels to gauge the level of the dungeon; that way, adventures that are capable of clearing platinum level dungeons don’t breeze through bronze level dungeons, robbing newer adventurers of a valuable experience. There are fewer tiers of dungeons than adventurers, but that is due to a dungeon requiring a relatively large party of adventurers to finish, allowing for multiple ranks of adventurers to clear it. As the hero, you will probably clear at least a couple of dungeons in search of artifacts that spawn in certain dungeons. Our kingdom has an oracle in the royal palace that receives a divination as to when and where an artifact will spawn. That covers dungeons. How are we keeping up?” He asks.

Renji urges him to continue, the information being stored within his mind, but Himari was struggling to remember all the details. Archie caught on to this and gave her a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry, there won’t be a test of any kind, so you don’t need to remember everything we are going over today. If you have any questions in the future, I urge you to ask them without any hesitation,” He notes.

Himari smiles at the reassuring statement and Archie decides to continue.

“Now magic…” The rant he was about to go on was interrupted by Angelica raising her hand.

“You don’t need to explain too much, I already gave them the rundown on magic.” She stated.

“Perfect, that saves me some time. Well, with the long explanations out of the way, why don’t we try using magic?” He suggests.

Himari’s eyes light up, excited about the prospect of using magic. They headed outside the guild to the back where there was a training area that they could use. The ground was sandy and very spacious. There was an area to practice hand-to-hand combat, a range with targets to shoot projectiles at, and wooden dummies to practice both your hand-to-hand combat and weapons on. He took them towards the open area and turned towards them.

“Okay, Angelica, did you teach them about how to use and sense their mana?” Archie questions.

“No, I stuck to teaching them the tiers and elements as well as the uses for incantations. I thought it would be best to begin practical applications of magic once they had their mana levels measured.” She answered.

“Understandable. I guess I will take over explaining how to use magic.” He states.

He lifts his hand and a small flame ignites on his palm.

“This is fire magic, obviously. I create this flame by focusing my mana on the center of my hand and imagining a flame rising from the center.” He explains before extinguishing the flame.

“Now, in order to use magic, you must first be able to sense the mana inside. Close your eyes.” He orders, as the two promptly comply.

“Take a deep breath and feel. Feel the wind, the ground beneath your feet, the blood in your veins, the air in your lungs, feel it all flow through, under, and within your body. Now combine everything you are feeling and envision what that would look like, what it would feel like.”

He left them to follow his directions for a second before he continued.

“Do you feel that? The ground, the air, the blood in your body, it feels similar, does it not?” He questions.

Renji wasn’t really sure what he was talking about, but now that he mentioned something, he did feel that everything felt similar, like they all almost had the same feel, but were also clearly different.

“The reason everything feels similar is because mana resides in everything. It is in the air, ground, plants, animals, and even buildings. Once you are able to sense the similarity between everything, you will be able to sense your mana.”

With Archie pointing out the way everything felt somewhat similar, he could feel something within himself that was similar to everything else. The energy he felt, he also felt within everything else.

“Do you feel it, your mana?” He asks.

“I do. It’s strange how familiar it feels, even though my world doesn't have anything like mana.” Renji replied.

“There may be something similar in your world. Mana can be equated to a lot of things. Old researchers once referred to mana as nature's energy since everything possessed it, but once we found out that it could be used for magic, it was renamed to mana.” He explained.

“That’s possible, some religions in my world believed there were spiritual energies.” Renji noted.

“Now that you can sense mana, using magic will be second nature. Although you can use magic without being able to sense mana, your control will be spotty and there will be times when you use much more power than necessary. So, Renji, why don’t you try and create a small flame on the palm of your hand like I did.” Archie suggested.

He nods as he closes his eyes and focuses on the familiar energy he was feeling in himself. The more he concentrated, the easier it became for him to sense it. The mana flowed through his body fluidly like a river. He imagined the river channeling itself towards his hand and erupting like a mini geyser from the palm of his hand. He then imagined the geyser of mana erupting into flames. A dim light began to shine over his closed eyelids, so he opened them in response and saw a small flame dancing in the palm of his hand. He had to admit, he was pretty excited to see that he could create flames seemingly from nothing, but he made sure to keep the excited look away from his face.

“Very good! You caught onto this very quickly,” Archie noted.

“Now, why don’t you try?” He suggests, looking towards Himari.

She nodded nervously, unsure if she would be able to do the same thing as easily as Renji, but she was determined not to disappoint them.

“Himari, since you have an affinity for holy magic, why don’t you try and create a light barrier. It is a bit more complicated than creating a small flame on the palm of your hand as you have to form your mana into a shape, but I have confidence that you can do it.” Angelica suggests.

Although Angelica’s faith in her instilled her with more confidence, she still wasn't very sure of herself, but she decided to try nonetheless.

She takes a deep breath before closing her eyes and lifting her hand. She unconsciously drew upon her archery training in order to sense her mana. She calmed herself and steadied her breathing. The sounds and feeling of nature became more clear, and she was able to clearly tell that they all had a somewhat familiar feeling thanks to mana. She drew upon that feeling in order to sense the mana within herself. She concentrated it on the palm of her hand, a feeling she was used to thanks to her using the hand that she grasped her bow with. She could feel the mana gathering, so she shaped it as best she could and imagined a barrier forming. She opened her eyes and saw a mishaped rectangle of yellow light in her hand.

Despite the misshapen form and flimsy look and feel of it, she couldn’t help but be proud of what she did.

“Look! Look! I did it! I made a barrier!” She exclaims as she jumps up and down.

“Mhm, truly impressive. Renji’s flames were much brighter and more vibrant than what most people would create their first time and Himari’s barrier was well-formed for her first time using magic. Both of you grasped what could be considered a vague concept for you quite easily. I’m sure you both will become powerful mages in your own right.” Archie pointed out.

“Another thing, be careful when you use mana. It is an integral part of your body and if you were to completely exhaust your mana reserves, you could severely damage your body or even die.” Angelica added.

“Good to know,” Himari notes with a nervous chuckle.

“Mana is a part of you, so the more you use it, the easier it will be to use. It’s somewhat similar to when a baby is uncomfortable with walking in the beginning but progressively gets better until they can do it without a second thought. It will be as natural as breathing and will flow through and out of your body like water. Using magic will become easier and easier, and you might even begin using it in your daily life. The limits to what you are capable of are limitless with the help of magic,” Archie noted.

“For now, your training will help you get used to your mana and the way it feels and flows. We won't move to really using magic for a couple of days. Of course, we’ll work on your skills with your weapons and hand-to-hand combat in between your magic training. We’ll start the day off with hand-to-hand combat training, then move to magic training and end with you practicing with the weapons you chose.”

“Why do we need hand-to-hand combat if we’re going to be fighting monsters and demons?” Himari asks.

“There are many monsters that are close to human size and are humanoid in form, like zombies, skeletons, goblins, etc. Also, demons are mostly humanoid. You will most likely find yourself in close-combat scenarios with them. But, of course, that is based on what the records say. Demons could look differently than they have been depicted or could have changed in appearance over the years.” Angelica answered.

“Also, knowing how to defend yourself is always a valuable skill. There is no shortage of evil people that would want to attack you for your belongings and the relationship between humans and the other races is shaky at best.” Archie added.

Renji opened his mouth to ask a question, but he decided to spare Himari having to listen to what he assumed would be a history lesson. He started to squint, the light from the setting sun blaring into his eyes.

“Well, that’s our sign to end things there for today. We’ll get started bright and early tomorrow.” Archie says.

“Thank you for being so hands-on with the help,” Angelica said.

“There’s no need to thank me, it is an honor to help the princess and the hero.” He noted with a smile as he headed back into the guild.

"Wait, I have one more question," Renji calls out.

Archie turned around with a raised eyebrow, awaiting his question.

"How were you able to see who we were? The king gave us these necklaces, specifically, so something like that wouldn't happen. Will there be more people that can do what you did?" He asked.

"I see. Well, if that's what's bothering you, then you have nothing to worry about. I am one of the very few people that would be able to see through your necklaces. Most of the other people that would see through it are part of the King's guard or are very high-ranking adventurers that don't spend a lot of time in the city. Plus, you will no longer have a need for those necklaces in a couple of weeks. But to be more specific, I have a skill that allows me to see through all disguises which is how I got my name, Archie the all seeing." He answered.

"Hm," Renji groaned as he took in the information.

"Well, if that's all, then I will see you all tomorrow." He noted with a wave.

“I’ll escort you two back to your inn,” Angelica says as she leads the way.