Dungeon of Niflheim

“There’s no need to worry, I may be fond of them but that’s all, whether he dies or not is his problem not mine.” Frost saw the worried expression on his guardian’s face and dissuade her thoughts. He didn’t really know if what he said was how he truly felt but chose to believe it.

‘Besides it’s not as though I can help him in any way, no one even knows what poison he’s suffering from.’

Knock knock

A knocking came from the door.

“Yes” Maya replied

“Sir Frost miss Maya, it’s Damarcus. The young master asked me to hand you items to aid in the operation tonight.” Damarcus opened up the door, he was holding a large sack filled with items. He passed the sack to Frost before bowing.

.....

“Young master Leo also asked for you to meet him downstairs in the main reception room in 10 minutes.” Damarcus gave one last message before closing the door and heading towards his guard post outside of Douglas’s room.

Frost opened up the sack while Maya looked over his shoulder to see what was inside. The contents of the sack were as follows.

· Low level health potion x 4

· Low level mana potion x 4

· Lesser antidote x 2

· Simplified map of the compound

· A set of leather armour

· A whistle

· A steel dagger

· Smoke bombs x2

“Quite a diverse set of items, the full set of leather armour is a nice touch.” Frost pulled out the pieces of leather armour: an upper torso, vambraces (wrist guards), greaves (shin guards), boots, elbow guards, pauldrons (shoulder guards) and a choker. The quality was pretty high as well.

While Frost was inspecting the leather armour Maya reached in a started pulling out the potions.

“These aren’t half bad, of course the potions produced by the dungeon would be of much higher quality, lacking impurities but for a countryside viscounty, not bad.” Maya twirled the glass potions in her hands, taking a quick sniff of the liquid inside before placing the cap back on.

She then went on to inspect the smoke bombs and whistle.

“Guess theses are for either requesting help and or generating a signal.” The smoke bombs released a dense red smoke when thrown. These smoke bombs were usually used during monster stampedes by groups that were in danger, sending out the smoke would make them stand out among the sea of monsters letting their allies know of their position and that they needed help.

Maya struggled to see how much help they’d be, given most the battle should take part within the manor and the sound of battle would block out the sound of the whistle but hey she wasn’t one to refuse free stuff.

She placed the items back within the sack after she finished inspecting. It’d be easier for Frost to place the entire sack into his new storage ring rather than one item at a time. Frost already took advantage of the free time to practise retrieving items from the ring at a moment’s notice, his glaives in particular. He was going to take both weapons with him just in case.

“Maya turn around.”

“Hmmmm why?”

“Because I’m going to put on the leather armour.” He needed to remove his robes to put on all the pieces and didn’t want to be seen by Maya while he undressed. He was going to wear the complete set given by Leo, since it was of higher quality than the pieces, he purchased in the money pit plus a complete, matching set was more aesthetically pleasing.

“Don’t wanna” Maya smiled flirtatiously, winking at him. Why would she ignore such a feast for her eyes.

Frost sighed and sucked up his embarrassment and began to undress.

“woah! Woah!” Maya wooed and whistled as Frost removed more and more of his clothes, her eyes were glued to Frost’s body, eyeing his well-formed abs and backside. She suddenly had the urge to give him some money as she drooled.

Frost did his best to ignore the heated gaze on his body as he quickly adorned the leather armour.

‘It fits really well,’ Frost twisted and turned. His attire didn’t look much different, his robes covered all the leather so he still had that elegant look, but he could feel the leather on his skin giving him protection from attacks.

Swing swing

Frost swung his glaive around, trying to strain the armour against his body with unusual attacks and was pleasantly surprised. The armour was light and comfortable, it didn’t restrict his movements in the slightest.

“Not bad young master, you cut quite the figure.” Maya giggled as she gazed at her young master as he swung his glaive. Of course, he looked better with less clothes but handsome is still handsome. A little bit of drool could still be seen hanging from her lip.

Frost’s lips twitched as he heard Maya’s comment, he couldn’t help but feel like a piece of meat, being eyed by a predator. Conflicted with the joy of being attractive and the frustration in being simply eye candy, he sighed.

“Remember to use the magic scroll.” Just as Frost was getting ready to leave the room and meet up with Leo downstairs, Maya spoke. Frost didn’t have the chance yet to learn the learn the 2nd circle spell [ice entanglement] that he purchased earlier. Just like with the ice bolt spell he purchased from the dungeon menu, the magic scroll he bought worked the same way, he just needed to input some mana and the knowledge written on the scroll would stream into his mind, giving him the capability to use the spell.

“Ah! I almost forgot about that.” Being reminded Frost withdrew the adventurer’s backpack that he stored within his new storage ring. Opening one of the protected pockets Frost withdrew the magic scroll. The parchment was neatly tied up with a ribbon and sealed with wax. Being able to use a new spell even if he wasn’t very skilled with it would increase his survival capability.

Not wasting anymore time, Frost broke open the wax seal and unfurled the scroll. He then sent a stream of mana into the scroll filling it until it was full, and the scroll shined brightly in response.

In just a few seconds knowledge about the 2nd circle ice spell [ice entanglement] filled his mind and the scroll disintegrated, fusing with his mana.

“Ugh!” Frost groaned in pain, using this magic scroll was a lot less comfortable than the book from the dungeon menu. In fact, it was quite painful, the information was twisted and of lower quality, creating a significant burden on the mind.

‘No wonder she said there was a chance of failure.’ Not only did someone need the magic capability to cast a second level spell they’d have to unravel such a mass of information without passing out. Luckily Frost had the required mana levels, and his mind was strong enough to quickly sieve out the required information and was only left with a slight headache.

Frost successfully learned the spell, shaking his head in discomfort he made an internal promise.

‘let’s just buy magic scrolls and book from the dungeon menu from now on.’ The pain was very uncomfortable and that was just with a 2nd circle spell, he didn’t even want to imagine what a 3rd or possibly 4th circle spell would feel like.

He now knew the basics of casting the ice entanglement spell. It used a fair amount more mana than ice bolt and would have a fairly significant delay in forming until he reached simple mastery. Frost also found out that he was restricted to a range of 5 metres and could only eventually reach 15 metres after full mastery. He couldn’t help being slightly disappointed. He could already fire an ice bolt with a fair amount of force over 20 metres and could still improve.

Frost frowned as he sieved through all the details.

“What’s wrong, was it that painful?” Maya asked with concern on her face, she moved to place her hand over his head to soothe his pain.

Startled Frost moved back after feeling the coldness of her hand.

“No, the pain’s already gone, it’s the limitations of the spell that’s making me frown....wait you knew there’d be pain?” Frost looked at Maya in annoyance.

‘You didn’t even warn me’. Of course, it wasn’t unbearable, but it was still unexpected, a kind warning from his guardian would have been nice.

“Mmm about a 50% chance. We are in a countryside territory after all. Even if there’s magic scrolls, the quality is determined primarily by the runesmith. Out here the best you’d find would maybe be someone who can make 3rd circle spells on a rare occasion and his 2nd circle spells would be average at best.” Maya spoke with an innocent tone; she wasn’t sure there’d be any issues given Frost’s strength and natural talent with mana, so she didn’t bring it up.

‘It was only a 2nd circle spell so it should have been manageable and looks like it was.’ Maya nodded in assurance seeing that she was right not to worry, Frost merely suffered a temporarily headache. He suffered far more pain to improve his glaive mastery when battling the ice golem.

“Huh?” Frost was confused, he never expected there to be such a difference in quality.

“Think of it like this, if a 2-star weaponsmith made a 2 star weapon and 4-star weaponsmith made the same weapon which would be better?” Maya moved into teaching mode.

“The one made by the 4-star weaponsmith.”

“Exactly, magic scrolls are the same way. The more knowledge and ability the runesmith has the more concise and well written the magic runes become. With lower ranked runesmiths the information is twisted and overwritten causing and much greater burden on the user’s mind, remember the ice bolt spell summoned by the dungeon menu?”

“Yeah, there wasn’t even the slightest amount of pain or confusion, the knowledge was clear as day.” Remembering when he first learned the ice bolt spell once again filled him with annoyance.

‘Using that actually felt good.’ He remembered the rush he felt as if he just had an epiphany.

“That was a perfect magic scroll (well more like a book given it’s details), no unnecessary information and the runes were perfectly drawn. It’s what all runesmiths aim to create. Like magic devices, magic scrolls found in monster lairs and other areas created by the Gods are far superior to anything that can be made by people. So don’t expect items created by people to match those generated by the dungeon menu.” Maya slightly admonished Frost at his naivety. If everything created by people was at the same level, then people wouldn’t risk their lives delving into monster lairs and special dimensions.

“For future reference I’d be wary of trying magic scrolls higher than the 3rd circle that you don’t buy with DP. Even if they work, the burden on your mind would be immense, the risk isn’t worth it.” With her hands on her hips, Maya continued to give advice, it was her job after all.

“How do people learn high level spells then? Do they willingly suffer painful backlash in the hopes that it’d work?” Ryuu the B-rank mage come to the forefront of his mind.

‘Is that what Ryuu did?’ Ignoring the financial cost of repeatedly buying high level scrolls when they didn’t work, the mental strength required alone... Frost’s respect for Ryuu suddenly grew.

“Huh? Unless they’re made of money and have a masochistic side, they’d learn it the old fashioned way.... Study and practise.”

“Ah!” Frost blushed, slightly embarrassed that he didn’t think about that. People can learn magic spells through trial and error, how else were spells originally created if not through this tried-and-true methods.

“Although it’s a much longer process, it costs less and has much less risk of mental damage. Most mages use this method and only occasionally buy scrolls of lower ranks to expand their list of spells or have some extra cash. Only those with significantly deep pockets and or nobles use scrolls since it allows one to achieve magic without much time and effort.”

Frost felt a little embarrassed given that he’s only used magic scrolls and not learned any magic the natural way (lifestyle magic doesn’t count).

Feeling as though he’d end up saying something else that was considered ‘common knowledge’ he decided to end their conversation there.

“Thanks for the lesson, Maya-sensei.” He smiled and bowed slightly towards her before moving to the door but once he started to pull on the handle.

“Young master,” Maya called out with affection.

“Yes Maya” Frost turned around to face her, his hand still on the door.

“Be safe and... have fun.” Maya smiled joyfully but there was still worry in her eyes.

Affected by her gaze Frost choked up, his heart filling with warmth. The word ‘family’ floated in his mind as he smiled back.

“I will, thank you.” He nodded with a bright expression before leaving through the doorway. It was time to meet up with Leo and start this operation.