Spiteful Healer

Chapter 70: Candle, Water, Meat

“Fwah, I’m stuffed.” Chax patted his stomach as he and Aegis walked side by side through the busy streets of Kordas, avoiding the passing wagons and carts while brushing shoulders with other players and NPCs alike on that busy afternoon.

“What was that meat? I’ve got to ask the chef how he cooked it.” Aegis also patted his stomach.

“Don’t bother, many cook players have tried, he won’t share any of his recipes.” Chax put his hand on Aegis' shoulder. “Now, let’s talk enchanting. Doing the math it looks like we’ll make the most profit if I have you enchant, let's see, around… 500,” Chax clarified. "then we turn around and sell the 500 enchanted weapons, and we should land at around 5 to 7 hundred thousand gold, after my fees. That'll convert to 5 to 7 thousand dollars in real world currency. Enough to to cover your bills."

Aegis didn’t have the exact numbers, but he decided for now to trust in Chax's Merchant skills to handle it. At the very least, it looked like Chax's plan meant Aegis could pay for his Mom’s month-long vacation.

“Is it that easy to make that much money?” Aegis said out loud as he thought on it.

“Easy?” Chax chuckled while looking at him with a raised eyebrow. “Iron isn’t exactly raining down from the skies here in Kalmoore. The only decent mine that’s been discovered on this island is under the control of the Night Hunters. We’ll have to play it cool, else we might crash the market with how much you’re suddenly bringing to the table. You’ll be making a lot of mid level players around here very, very happy.” Chax patted him on the shoulder again.

“Would there be enough left over to buy an Airship ticket?” Aegis asked hopefully.

“Hah? Hell no,” Chax dismissed this idea as if Aegis was crazy.

“Why not?” Aegis replied anxiously.

“Well, you could try, but, the only Airship that regulars Kalmoore -” Chax pointed up at the Airship docked at the Skyport, visible from nearly anywhere in Kordas. “-is player owned. I’ve never met the guy, but I’ve heard he’s some rich retired whale who spent his fortune buying it.”

“Whale?” Aegis asked, confused.

“A whale, you know, someone who spends a lot of real money on video games. Guys like him are the reason it’s so easy to sell gold.” Chax shrugged.

“But there’s a chance, right? If I ask him?” Aegis asked.

“Eh, doubt it. The only time he ever leaves port is with a full entourage of high level Night Hunter members to protect his ship, and convincing all of them to get on board instead of grinding high level dungeons is going to cost you more than any typical Airship ticket.” Chax shrugged.

The more Chax spoke, the more difficult his simple escort quest was beginning to sound, but Aegis wasn’t ready to give up just yet. They arrived at the enchanting tower shortly after where Aegis saw the familiar Enchantress [Ma’hinasha - Level 60].

Chax bought a couple of enchanting orbs out of pocket for Aegis to get started with, and in exchange Aegis traded over to him 500 of his lowest quality Iron weapons. After discussing inventory sizes and Aegis promising to upgrade Chax’ merchant bags with more expansive higher quality ones to increase his already large inventory, Aegis got to work on enchanting.

It took an entire day in-game to enchant all 500 of the Iron weapons. Aegis favored using his level 30 bless skill as the primary enchant, but made sure to mix it up as per Chax’ instructions in order to make it easier to sell them en-masse. Chax left Aegis once he’d started the process in order to sell the first 500 iron weapons, periodically returning to the tower with his profits from the first batch in order to buy more lesser enchanting orbs for Aegis to use. When he'd finished selling the last of them and bought the last bundle of enchanting orbs, it took Aegis a final two hours to use them to finish off the remaining enchants. During that time, Aegis got two amazingly delightful notifications.

Level Up! Enchanting(Beginner) has reached Level 30!

Congratulations! You have reached the maximum level for Enchanting(Beginner). In order to progress further, you will need to advance the skill to (Intermediate). Level Up! Crafting Mastery(Beginner) has reached Level 30!

Congratulations! You have reached the maximum level for Crafting Mastery(Beginner). In order to progress further, you will need to advance the skill to (Intermediate).

Aegis was standing over an enchanting orb at a table with a round indentation in the center designed to hold the orb in place, within the Enchanting tower. His enchanting station was off the way from the center of the room but still on the first floor of the round building. There were curtains separating the enchanting station he was using from the others adjacent to his to offer some privacy, but all were visible from the main desk in the middle that sat in front of the spiral staircase leading to the upper floors. When Aegis had gotten these notifications, he and Chax were the only players in the building.

“I’ve finished, and hit level 30 enchanting,” Aegis said as he opened a trade menu with Chax to hand over the enchanted weapons. With the menu open, Chax pressed a few buttons on his interface outside of the trading window, until suddenly Aegis received a strange message in a different color than he’d ever seen before.

[SYSTEM MESSAGE]

You have received a gift!

A player who wishes to remain anonymous has sent you 4000$. The currency has been automatically converted to your local currency (USD) and added to your Averon Inc. Account balance.

“There,” Chax said as he hit the accept button on the in-game trade and took the 500 enchanted items as Aegis’ eyes went wide reading the message. “I’m a man of my word, and I have a soft spot for people who take care of their parents, so I went ahead and sold 400,000 gold for real currency already. I’ll send the rest of whatever profits we make to you as gold, once I’m done selling it all.”

“Holy shit… actual real money, from playing a game.” Aegis was momentarily stunned as he went deep into his game menu to access his Averon account, seeing that the money was really there, and he was able to withdraw it with the click of a button. Aegis couldn’t help himself and ran forward and gave Chax a big hug.

“H-hey, relax.” Chax chuckled. “It’s not a big deal. If you’ve really got land filled with this stuff, together we can make a lot more. We might even be able to buy a restaurant in Kordas someday.” Chax chuckled.

“I’ll be right back!” Aegis shouted excitedly as he quickly logged out of the game.

Eli hopped out of his Simbox and ran over to see his mom’s Simbox was empty. He glanced around worriedly, only to hear the toilet flushing in the bathroom and a moment later Jillian stepped out to see his big dumb grin staring back at her.

“Mom, I did it!” Eli cheered.

“Did what?” she asked, startled and looking half asleep.

“I got the money, you can take the whole next month off of work!” Eli shouted excitedly.

“Oh, great, finally! Phew, I was beginning to get worried.” Jillian let out a big sigh of relief.

“So you gonna call your boss?” Eli asked her.

“Huh? No, I already called him a few days ago.” Jillain shrugged nonchalantly, causing Eli to stare at her confused.

“You took the month off before I had the money?” Eli asked apprehensively.

“Yup.” She smiled.

“What was all that stuff you said about not taking risks?” Eli replied.

“What risk?” She smiled back as she leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. “You know your father might have gotten all that money, but I still think I’m the rich one.” She pulled Eli in and gave him a big hug. Eli felt the urge to be annoyed with his mom but instead just let it go and let her hug him, his arms limp at his side as they stood there for a few seconds. “Ok, that’s enough mushy stuff, I gotta get back in there, this intermediate class quest is kicking my ass.” She gently patted him on his head after letting go of her hug.

“See you back in Rene!” She said last before shutting her Simbox. Eli kept standing there for a moment staring at her Simbox with a big proud smile before he realized he’d left Chax in the middle of the Enchanting tower, and quickly rushed to log back in as well.

When he logged back into the world he had a friend list message from Chax informing them that he’d left to sell the enchanted Iron items and he’d be heading to Rene afterwards. Aegis had discussed the details of where Rene was and what to sell over their meal in their restaurant, but he hadn’t yet set things up for it properly.

While still standing in the Enchanting Tower, he entered his friends list menu and let Ruffily know that Chax would be joining them in Rene and requested she build a house for him to be a resident, and she replied with an excited woof message. When he finally finished and closed out his menus he was startled to see that Ma’hinasha had left the front desk and was standing right in front of him, staring him in the eyes.

“I’ve been watching you. You’re quite skilled at using those orbs. You have grown quite a lot since I first saw you. Many people enter my tower to learn the art of enchanting, but few make it very far. You seem worthy... But before I teach you more, first, you must prove you have what it takes.”

Quest: Ma’hinasha has requested that you prove yourself to her by demonstrating you have what it takes to become an Great Enchanter.

Objective: 0/1 Ma’hinasha Impressed.

Quest Giver: Grand Enchantress Ma’hinasha

Reward: Enchanting(Intermediate)

Difficulty: Moderate

Restrictions: Enchanting(Beginner): 30

Aegis’ eyes lit up with excitement as he hit accept. He hadn’t the slightest idea what to expect but he was eager to take on a new challenge and get his first intermediate skill.

“I’ll do it.” Aegis nodded at her.

“Very well, follow me.” She beckoned him with a wave of her hand as she turned and made for the spiral staircase. Aegis followed her up the stairs until they came to a landing on the second floor. The staircase continued upwards to a third floor that looked to be at least 10 meters above them, but Ma’hinasha was interested in leading Aegis to a table set out on this open roomed floor. This floor narrowed, it was smaller than the floor below it. It had statues lining the walls at even intervals, totalling 8, all depicting a cloaked humanoid with a hood pulled down over it's face, hands clasping an enchanting orb in front of their chests. Around them were drapes of dark purple fabric, with small altars glowing light red from the incense burning on them spread about the room. Small streams of smoke rose up from the incense spreading their very powerful, flowery scent, and the end result was that the entire floor was very smoky.

Ma’hinasha stopped in front of the large dark brown oaken table with a single strip of purple table cloth laying across it vertically, hanging off the ends. There were no chairs for them to sit in, instead the table was a bit higher up than a typical table, as if it was meant to be stood at, not sat at, and laying in the center of the table were three items. A small white candle on a simple iron candle stand, a vial of water, and a strange looking piece of gray meat set neatly on a plate.

Upon first looking at these three items, Aegis had absolutely no clue what to expect. Nothing his mind came up with could logically explain to him what these three items had to do with each other, or enchanting, but Ma’hinasha waited on one end of the table for him to approach, watching his every move as he did until he got to the side of the table across from her.

“You no doubt believe that Enchanting is the art of placing a spell into an enchanting orb, which then transfers the properties of that spell to an object permanently. And while that is what it has become today, that is not how it began.” She said as she ran her fingers along the edge of the table and began to pace in front of Aegis.

“An enchanting orb assists you in capturing the essence of a very specific formation of magic, be it arcane, divine, natural, or demonic, once the magic is formed into a spell and captured within an enchanting orb, its form becomes absolute." She paused for a moment to look at Aegis, and he gave her a nod. "You cannot infuse an item with a spell directly, that is not how spells are intended to work. If you try to do so without an orb…” Ma’hinasha turned and shot a firebolt out of her right palm at a nearby statue, which dispersed on impact. “The results are predictable, the firebolt does not enchant the statue. It simply does what it was made to do, be a bolt of flames.” She moved back to standing across from Aegis and leaned down towards the three items in front of her.

“However, if you were to say, infuse magic into an object directly, before you’ve converted the magic into a specific spell -” Ma’hinasha reached down and put her hands on the candle’s wick, and it immediately erupted into a small red flickering flame. “The object accepts the magic, and becomes enchanted. Of course, unlike enchanting orbs, these enchants can’t be made permanent by anything but the most legendary of enchanters, but for now, it will be challenging enough for you to force your raw divine magic into an object without casting a spell. That is the essence of what it truly means to be an enchanter,” Ma’hinasha finished as Aegis now understood what the three objects were for.

“Since you are a user of Divine magic, I’ve taken the liberty of selecting three items that your style of magic does particularly well with. So your task is simple,” She said as she pinched the candle’s flame to extinguish it. “Light the candle, purify the diseased meat, and make this into holy water. If you manage to do all of that, you can consider me impressed,” She finished as she looked at Aegis’ focused expression, he was glaring at the three objects carefully as his mind began to race for a solution to this test.

“Don’t rush, take your time. And don’t feel ashamed if you feel the need to give up, many who have made it this far in their enchanting journey do not pass this point. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” She smiled and gave him one last wave before walking around the table and back down the spiral staircase to the first floor. Aegis waited until he could no longer hear the sound of her footsteps, then leaned into the candle, putting his arms on either side of it. He ran his mind over everything that Ma’hinasha had explained to him.

“Infuse raw magic into an item… how?” he mumbled. “Casting a spell, supposedly that turns the magic into the spell. So it’s gotta be a step before that.” He thought out loud as he looked at his mana bar in his interface. “Mana’s the key here.” He concluded. He gently placed his finger tips on the wick of the candle and squeezed it, but nothing happened. He took a deep breath, inhaling the heavy incensed air as he tried to think clearly.

“Use mana without casting a spell…” He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it felt like to cast a spell, but without actually casting one. Whenever he’d wanted to cast the spell he just called out the name and the game handled the rest, like he’d summoned his will forward through words. And suddenly it clicked in his head how it worked. The Simbox was able to read his intentions not just through his words, but his intent to speak, just how it was able to tell him how to build a bridge just by his intent to build a bridge, and feed him the information that his architecture's skill level could. He only needed to force the same intent through to light the candle, without using spellcasting words. He needed something to help himself mentally associate with intent, and then he thought of Pyri.

Pyri, the wizard class player - she had a wizard passive skill related to control. She canceled her spells not by using words, but with intent and the snapping of her fingers. Aegis opened his eyes as he came to all of these conclusions. With one hand on the wick of the candle, he held his other hand above it and focused with all his might on his intent, he wanted to infuse his divine magic into the candle. He wanted to light the candle with his magic, with a holy flame. He winced his eyes shut one last time.

*Snap*

He opened his eyes to see an unlit candle. He let out a disappointed sigh, thinking on what he could be doing wrong, but he noticed his mana bar was slowly refilling - he had spent 200 of his mana on something. It was working, he just needed to use more mana. He got excited once more - he was on the right track, he just underestimated the amount of mana he’d have to use. He closed his eyes shut tight again, this time thinking of his intent of flooding as much magic as he possibly could into the candle to light the small flame, and once he had it in his mind, he snapped his finger.

*Snap*

He immediately felt the heat and heard the whooshing sound of the flame igniting as he opened his eyes and pulled his fingers away from the wick. A small white flame resembling Sapphire’s holy fire spell was flickering peacefully on the candle’s wick. Looking at his mana bar, he’d spent 1000 mana to do it.

“Yes!” Aegis shouted excitedly. For the first time in this game he felt like he wasn’t just casting spells in a game world, he felt as though he’d actually learned how to use magic. He couldn’t hold it in and ended up doing a small fist pump to himself, and in that time the small flame extinguished itself. “Only lasted like 30 seconds, guess my skill is low,” Aegis commented. He then creaked his neck and cracked his knuckles, stretching his elbows out as he moved in front of the diseased meat.

Knowing that he needed to imagine his divine magic infusing itself into the meat and ridding it of impurities, his mind ended up at his Cleanse spell. He thought about how it felt to cast the spell as he gently touched the meat with one hand and waited patiently for his mana to regenerate. Once he was back above 1000 mana, he closed his eyes, thought about his intent, and snapped his fingers with his free hand as he felt a rush of light flow from his fingertips into the meat. Aegis’ mana dropped to 0 while the meat gave off a bright warm white glow for a moment. Once the glow was gone, the meat had changed color to a much more edible looking dark red.

The last step was the holy water, and as Aegis moved to the vial he repeated the process with this time imagining the bless spell instead of cleanse. With his mana full, he infused it with all he had and watched as light transferred from his fingertips into the water and the itemcard for the vial changed from [Vial of Water] to [Vial of Holy Water]. He was out of mana again, but he’d done it, and excitedly ran downstairs to Ma’hinasha.

“I’m ready to show you what I can do.” Aegis tried to hold in his excitement.

“Really now? That was rather quick.” She looked at him impressed. “Lead the way.” She motioned him back up the stairs. Aegis quickly rushed over to the table to stand behind it, motioning to the water and meat first as she approached.

“Not bad…” She inspected the meat first, then picked up the vial and looked at it from all sides. “Not bad at all. And a practical demonstration, if you will…” She motioned to the candle. Aegis put his right hand’s fingers on the wick, held his left hand back then snapped his fingers, and the bright white flame erupted, dancing in the smoke of the incense as he pulled his hands back.

“Ah, delightful.” She gave a single clap. “It’s always a treat to see a divine enchanter, their white flames are so rarely seen. I get bored of the red, black and green flames of the many wizards, warlocks and druids that come through here.” Ma’hinasha smiled at Aegis. “Snapping fingers, nice touch. Most resort to yelling out ‘enchant’, but I suppose snapping works just fine.” She shrugged, and as she said this Aegis felt silly for not thinking of that. “Now you must be careful, enchanting in this way can be very draining on your mana. As I’m sure you’ve learned, on just these small objects, it’s already quite taxing. I would recommend you improve your skills drastically before trying anything bigger.” She began pacing again.

“You’ve undoubtedly noticed as well, that different objects will react differently to this skill. Feel free to experiment, and do not underestimate divine magic. Its effects aren’t as flashy as say, a druid enchanting seeds to grow larger plants, but purifying food is incredibly valuable for those who lack safe food to eat, and the world is filled with many lands with many troubled souls in need of such magic.” She continued pacing.

“I hope that when we meet again, you will have traveled the lands a great deal and mastered what it takes to infuse your magic into many objects, not just enchanting orbs... For that is what it takes to become a Master Enchanter.” She smiled, and as she spoke, Aegis couldn’t help but feel she was giving him hints at obtaining the advanced skill. He didn’t have time to ponder too much though. As soon as she finished talking, she smiled and turned away from him and he got several notifications popping up in his face.

Quest Complete!1/1 Ma’hinasha Impressed

Congratulations! You have advanced from Enchanting(Beginner): 30 to Enchanting(Intermediate): 30. You may now level this skill up to a maximum of 150.

Your use of the Enchanting skill has unlocked the Enchanting Ability:[Enchant Object(Divine)]

[Enchant Object(Divine)] - Enchanting

Enchant an object with magic type: Divine. The effects of the enchantment, duration, and mana cost depend on the object enchanted, and scale based off of Enchanting’s skill level.

Minimum Cost: 1000 Mana

As Aegis read over these skills for a second, something that had been bothering him for a while rushed to the front of his mind. He waited for his mana to refill and walked back over to the candle and put his fingers on it.

“Enchant Object!” he shouted to use the skill, and it worked. He conveyed intent by shouting out the name of the spell, but suddenly Aegis remembered - Sapphire snapped her fingers every time that she’d created a Holy Fire spell to throw at him back in Orm. It wasn’t just this skill that the Simbox was casting based off of intent, it was all of them. How had he not realized this sooner? He felt like an idiot, he’d seen countless examples of players doing it but he just hadn’t realized how. He thought maybe they had some skill he was missing that let them do it, but that wasn’t it at all. It was an understanding of how the Simbox was reading his intentions, as if the Simbox was letting his thoughts of using his skills bring the skills out of him.

“It’s like… almost like real magic,” Aegis said out loud as he came to the realization. He closed his eyes, put his fingers on his own chest with his right hand, and snapped his fingers with his left while focusing on healing wind. He felt the warm glow and watched as the light of the healing wind wrapped around him. He had managed to cast the Healing Wind spell by snapping his fingers, rather than shouting out the name of the spell. “Hah!” Aegis shouted with glee. He decided to take it one step further.

He closed his eyes, bent his knees and focused as hard as he could on using healing wind on himself. He felt blood rushing to his face, squinting, pressing as hard as he could to get the magic out of him, but nothing happened after a few seconds of trying. Without the finger snap, it wasn’t working. “Puah.” He finally released air as he recomposed himself. He’d seen finger snap casting, and he knew free-hand casting with words worked, but never completely free casting, and wondered if that was even possible. He wasn’t done trying, but decided to give up for now as he headed out of the enchanting tower with a skip in his step as he pondered to himself which was better between his now two available casting options.

Once back in the busy streets of Kordas, Aegis looked around to think about what intermediate skill to learn next. The only thing that came to mind was his class though, despite how unrealistic and impossible it was starting to feel. He found himself staring up at the Airship tower far above him in the distance, unsure if he'd ever get a chance to ride it.

"Only one way to find out." He shrugged nervously to himself as he set off in the direction of the Kordas Skyport.