Chapter 506 - Shroud of the Stellar Sea (Patreon)

“Julius, you’re fair, what are the terms of the bet?” I asked him.

I shot Iona a quick look, wordlessly sending an essay to her.

I know you’re more fair than Julius is, but Artemis would listen to him more than you.

Bless Iona’s heart, she immediately understood me, replying with a raised eyebrow.

I completely understand, and would’ve suggested the same thing.

Julius stroked his chin.

“Well. Let’s get far away from here, we don’t know if your new shield will deflect things at unusual angles. Artemis is going to throw enough firepower at you that I’d prefer a mountain between us and anything fragile. The terms are one full mana pool. If Artemis can’t break your shield with her entire mana pool, you win. Otherwise, she wins.”

“The more mana I have left, the longer the loser has to do their thing!” Artemis quickly jumped in. Iona looked incredulous. Julius shook his head.

“Nope. That wasn’t part of the bet.”

Artemis’s face fell, but then quickly picked up again.

“Oh! Iona! You’ve got some sweet archery skills, and I want to test out my shield. Try after?”

Iona grinned.

“Sure! I’d be happy to!”

We passed through the gardens, and Artemis’s eyes lit up at the trees.

“Oh! I could shoot the trees, and see if you can block them. It’ll let me go a little more aggressively, since I don’t need to worry about killing them.”

I gasped in horror.

“Artemis! No!” I protested. “I’d get better! The trees wouldn’t!”

Iona shot Artemis a dirty look, promising terrible retribution if she tried. Artemis defiantly tossed her hair back.

“You’re invincible and the closest thing to unkillable I’ve ever seen.” She said. “Your shield skill is about protecting other people. Just protecting yourself is almost a pointless exercise.”

She had a point, and Iona was stroking her chin thoughtfully.

“We could try an exercise with random trees getting shot.” The Valkyrie proposed. “You do have a point with protecting a number of targets over one.”

I was in full agreement.

“I could also test the battlefield awareness skill, and see if I can prod it to merge.” I added. It was ripe to merge with [The World Around Me], both of them being extremely similar perception skills, and extensively using it would give it better chances of merging.

Frankly, the best way of merging the skills would be high-pressure, high-stress situations. Artemis shooting at my precious mango trees was better than shooting at some random forestry I didn’t care about, and finding an orphanage to use as firing practice while I defended would be the best experience yet.

All that said, I wasn’t quite ready to line orphans up and tell Artemis “Go nuts”.

We wandered off to a more deserted section of our mountain, finding a relatively open clearing. I eyed the trees around me.

“This is a pretty good spot.” I said, pointing to a dozen trees. “Let’s call those the targets?”

Artemis shrugged.

“Sure.”

“Mind if I join in?” Iona asked. “It’ll let us escalate further.”

I eyed my mana and estimated Artemis’s, running some calculations.

Even after Iona’s contributions, I was pretty sure my mana reserves weren’t going to be the issue with my bet. It was immediate overwhelming impulse that concerned me.

“Yup.” I activated [Arbiter’s Eyes], gaining a new and different perspective.

It was like I suddenly had a minor top-down view of the world on a different ‘layer’ of sight, the skill letting me process both views seamlessly. I didn’t even need to break out [Parallel Thoughts] to think about both views!

It wasn’t blowing me away.

[*ding!* [Arbiter’s Eyes] leveled up! 1->2]

My field of view expanded a modest amount, but it was literally doubling in level. Some quick calculations suggested that the view would get suitably epic in time. As it was, I just barely had Artemis, Iona, and the dozen marked trees in my view.

“Begin.” Julius said.

To Artemis’s credit, she didn’t immediately fire on the trees. This was an exercise to figure out my skill and how it worked, not a bet. She cleanly pointed to a tree, levitated a rock, spun it around her hand a few times, then fired away.

The moment she pointed I threw up a large [Shroud of the Stellar Sea] dome in front of the tree. It looked like a direct upgrade of [Mantle of the Stars], which it was. While [Mantle] had been a starry field against an image of the night sky, [Shroud of the Stellar Sea] was taking it to the next level. It was a cut of the thickest part of the galaxy above us, the stars multiplied a hundred times. It was harder to see through, but also visually looked stronger.

Artemis’s rock cracked through the air, setting my teeth on edge. It shattered against my shield, the stars in the area faintly pulsing. My mana barely twitched at the attack, but it wasn’t like Artemis had put her all into it.

“Good.” She said, bringing up her second hand and pointing to another tree. “Let’s go.”

Like some sort of [Conductor], Artemis pointed from tree to tree, launching an attack at each one. She went faster and faster, her hands flashing as she launched rocks at different trees.

To my minor dismay, I found it simplicity itself to keep up with her. She just moved so slowly compared to me. I’d gotten stronger, and somewhat left her in the dust.

It got much harder once Artemis started faking her signals. She pointed at a tree three meters to my left, and shot a rock at one two to my right. I almost stumbled on the first one, just barely getting a barrier in place, but then I was ignoring her hands, and just paying attention to the attacks themselves.

The more we practiced, the more comfortable I got with the skill. I could see the strong value in [Arbiter’s Eyes] giving me an entirely new perspective in battle, another way to keep track and see everything that was going on.

[Parallel Thoughts] let me briefly debate if I wanted to stop using [Arbiter’s Eyes] and see if [The World Around Me] was good enough. If it wasn’t, I’d have to revisit keeping the skill. At the same time, if I stopped using the skill now, the odds of it merging plummeted.

Hmmmm.

[The World Around Me] would eventually become strong enough one way or another. I decided to be greedy, and continued trying to merge the two together. There was a chance I’d get punished for the decision, but the worst-case scenario wasn’t that bad.

Iona walked up next to Artemis and stretched. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to distract me - because it was working - or letting me know she was joining in. Perhaps a bit of both?

Iona summoned her bow and arrows, and slowly took aim at a tree, firing a shot off at a leaf. I blocked it, and she quickly ramped up her pace, firing arrows as quickly as she could summon them.

Unlike Artemis’s straight and simple Earth attacks, Iona got fancy with [Trick Shot]. She fired a few arrows in high curves, forcing me to block from unusual angles. When a dozen arrows came raining down, she shot a brilliant arrow into the storm, where one arrow bumped into a second, which collided with a third, ending up redirecting half the swarm at the last second from their original targets, to an entirely new set of targets. I was forced to expand my shield to its limit to catch everything.

The second time she tried that, I stopped the ‘cascade’ arrow before it could touch anything, and glowed under Iona’s silent praise as she blew me a kiss.

I almost rolled my eyes when Artemis shot a full-powered gravel shot at my face. Teenage me would’ve flinched so hard, and gone through a dozen different stages of betrayal and grief. I was just happy that Artemis wasn’t pulling any punches, and giving my skill a proper workout.

I blocked that last shot in style, concaving my shield to get all the gravel into one spot, then dismissing the shield to have it fall right into my hand. Artemis vigorously applauded that move.

“Well done!” She said. “That was excellent! I’ve got some feedback, but let’s see how you handle our bet.”

I picked out one piece of gravel and flicked it back to Artemis. Iona started to police her arrows.

“No dropping trees on my head.” I updated the rules. That would be an easy way for Artemis to break my shield. I could hold a tree for a moment to get out from under it, but holding up a fully grown tree for any length of time with pure mana was a sucker’s bet. If I had a ‘solid’ element, it’d be easy… but then my shields would look completely different.

Celestial giveth and Celestial taketh.

“But-” Artemis protested.

“No.” Iona and Julius chorused in unison. “This is about your ability to break her shield with your skills, not about how clever you are in setting up the environment. Otherwise, Elaine can also move, and she’d outrun everything you can throw at her.” Julius said. “Artemis wins if she gets anything of hers to touch Elaine or her clothing. Elaine wins once Artemis blows her entire mana pool.”

“The two of you should back up a bit.” I said. Iona’s armor flowed over her, and she took a position defending Julius.

I smirked at Artemis, who mimicked my look right back. I then activated the shield around me, seeing it spring to life for the first time.

Artemis was sneaky. I made sure to wrap myself up entirely in the [Shroud], including the bottoms of my feet. My shield had inherited the innate flexibility and movement from [Mantle], and I briefly toyed with the idea of making it into a big bubble, then letting it bend and flex as she hit it. Like trying to punch a balloon.

I axed the idea. Artemis was going to hit it so hard that a little bit of flex wouldn’t matter.

“Ready!” I yelled, but nothing happened. I frowned.

It seemed like my shield entirely absorbed Sound as well. Excellent for blocking some attacks, annoying when it came to communication. Good for privacy though, and the skill had fundamentally, decades ago, started off as [Privacy].

It was wrapped around me like a shroud, and I shot Artemis a thumb’s up.

She walked right up to me, grinning like a devil.

Oh no.

Oh no oh no. I did not like where this was going.

My world turned white a moment later. Lightning, Earth, and Darkness all hammered at my shield, breaking through a moment later and sending me flying with the force of the Earth hitting me. My hair frazzled as Lightning played over it, and I snapped my wings open to regain control.

Artemis stopped the moment she realized she’d won, with an insufferable grin on her face.

“You got me.” I admitted as I fluttered down, Iona and Julius hurrying over.

“Uh uh uh. Is that anyway to address your queen?” Artemis wagged a finger at me.

I turned the sarcasm up to 8.

“Oh your most majestic royal highness.” I rolled my eyes at her. She looked pleased as punch.

“She’s going to be insufferable.” I stage-whispered to Iona.

She grinned at me.

“You made the bad bet!” She stage-whispered back.

Artemis turned to Iona.

“I really want to see if my new skill can handle your arrows, but, err, could you aim for a foot or something?” She asked.

Iona nodded, and the two spread out. I mentally reviewed what Artemis had done, thanks to the perfect [Astral Archives] memory.

Artemis had picked a single point on my shield and hit it with everything all at once. In theory, she could’ve brought 21 different skills and attacks to bear. In practice, Artemis wasn’t purely offensive attacks.

Just mostly.

Darkness had been the primary attacking element. It was exceptionally good at destroying things, and multiple concentrated skills in a single point, followed by an outpouring of Lightning and Earth attacks at the same point, had been too much for my shield.

Artemis was simply able to bring a lot more power and mana to bear in a single point in a single moment. At the same time, I knew her and her skills.

She’d basically blown her entire mana pool to scratch me. I still had practically all my mana left. In a real fight, she would’ve won the battle and lost the war. Unlike when I’d initially gotten my shield and Artemis had helped me test the limits, she hadn’t gone soft or easy on me. I’d gotten the full might and power of Ranger Artemis at point-blank range, and shrugged it off.

My musings and review took a fraction of a second. Iona summoned her bow and a dozen arrows, while Artemis got into position.

I swear she was low on mana… had I been wrong about that?

“You know,” Julius said conversationally, like he was talking about the weather. “You did barge in on them while they were discussing their wedding, and you did just blast Iona’s fiancée with a huge amount of magical might. She might be a little annoyed at you… I’m sure you thought of that before asking to test your shield though.”

Artemis paled at the same time Iona brought her bow up and back in a single fluid motion, the string pulled back to her lips. In a flurry of movements, Iona unleashed a dozen arrows right at Artemis.

To Twitchy’s credit, she tried to dive out of the way, aiming to save her skin over properly testing her shield. I was watching closely, and huh.

Tiny disks of Darkness automatically popped up around Artemis, intercepting the arrows and ‘eating’ them whole.

Iona’s blessing was stupid in a lot of ways. She was able to see exactly how Artemis’s skill worked, and how much mana she had left.

With expert precision, Iona broke Artemis’s shield, and without leaving a scratch on the woman, managed to fire arrows around her in a way that pinned her perfectly to a tree, not leaving any room for Artemis to move.

She didn’t have to say or do anything. Iona simply looked incredibly smug at the outcome. Julius was laughing himself sick at Artemis’s face. I walked over and linked arms to her, pretending to study Artemis.

“Hmmm, an unusual species of lightning bug you seem to have caught. Do you think we’ve got room in the entryway for the display?”

Artemis started to wriggle her way out, cursing and swearing the whole way. Iona had expertly arranged the arrows in such a tight cluster that there was barely anything to work with in the first place!

Iona looked thoughtful for a minute, then shook her head.

“No no, too foul-mouthed, what will the guests think?” She said.

“I kept your house clean for almost four years!” Artemis shouted. Julius barked a single laugh, instantly shutting up as Artemis glared at him.

Artemis’s mana had regenerated enough that she was able to use blades of Darkness to slice through a few arrows, giving herself enough wiggle room to fully extract herself.

“Impressive shielding.” Iona praised. “I would’ve expected you to need far more power and mana to pull that off.”

Artemis preened under the kind words.

“It’s a really neat trick I’ve picked up recently, and I’d love to teach it to you.” She said to me.

“Why don’t we start heading back?” Julius suggested. “Elaine’s probably thirsty after classing up, and Iona, now that Elaine’s back, please, let us be good hosts.”

Iona shook her head.

“Oh no! We should be the one thanking you! It’s our place after all, I should apologize for being a poor host.”

Without saying anything, we did all start walking back together.

“Nonsense!” Julius protested. “I’ve been on the road often enough. I know the last thing I want to do when getting home is to have a bunch of guests that I need to tend to. I know I wanted someone with a hot cup of tea, a dinner, and a bath all laid out. It’s the least we can do for you.”

Julius and Iona continued their entirely sincere discussion on politeness and hosting, along with the best way to get back home. I tilted my head at Artemis. I was all for shield upgrades. I’d just gotten one, but another one? Sign me up! [Arbiter of Life and Death] wasn’t restricted in upgrading skills like [The Dawn Sentinel] had been, and there was nothing saying I couldn’t get skills that the book hadn’t described.

“Hit me.” I said.

“Right. Remember how I told you there were two types of shields? Solid walls that you bring up, initial cost but nothing for impact, versus walls that cost no mana, but take magic power and mana on impact?”

I stared at Artemis. I wasn’t an idiot, I’d been using shields most of my life, and had gone through the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft.

“... yes.” I finally confirmed. “Yes, I know how shields work.”

Artemis had a triumphant look on her face.

“But wait! There’s more!” She said. “This only works for a few elements, but destructive shields! They cost almost nothing to conjure, and instead of stopping an attack, destroy it! It’s shit against any attacks that are vitality-reinforced, but it’ll stop anything else for a fraction of the cost!”

“Bad against swords, great against projectiles.” I summed it up.

Artemis nodded.

“Oh yeah! Most Earth attacks are focused on more projectiles, or more speed. Nobody’s trying to throw heavier rocks. Iona here is a great example, where she just shot me with more arrows, instead of going for a heavier one.”

“Two small arrows is the same effort for you to block as one heavy one that’s the same weight.” Iona pointed out. “It also does nothing about a fist to the face.”

“And it takes you twice as long to fire those two. My point exactly!” Artemis was enthused about her shield. “Now, sure, the fist is a valid point, and I’ve got protection with my Earth element, but Elaine, you don’t like being close enough to get hit in the first place, so it’s perfect!”

“If I can even get that sort of skill in Celestial.” I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. It sounded too good to be true.

The ‘anything vitality-reinforced ignores it like tissue paper’ was a big flashing red sign on it, but my experience with Fire and Auri’s Inferno suggested a different angle. I had plenty of experience with the System and how things worked at this point to figure out a lot of the underlying principles on my own.

For a projectile like an arrow, there was the weight, and there was the speed of the arrow. My current shields needed to stop the momentum of the arrow, burning mana every time they were hit. It was the same between an arrow, and a sword swung by a soldier. As a rule of thumb, I’d need about as much mana to defend against an Earth mage’s attack as they needed to conjure and throw the attack in the first place.

For a ‘normal’ shield, not the strongly boosted shield skill I had now.

In contrast, a deletion-style shield would only need to eliminate the weight of an object. An Earth mage could spend 30 mana conjuring a rock, 3,000 sending it to my face, and I’d only need 30 mana to delete it. The offset was, of course, the fist to the face issue Iona had mentioned.

It was worth investigating.

“Bah. Dark is the primary element for this sort of thing, and Celestial’s got enough interesting properties that it should be able to get it working. The vast void between the stars, and all those sorts of things.” Artemis waved her hand.

We arrived back at the villa.

“I see no reason I can’t try to sidegrade, and see what’s offered.” I cautiously said. “Any suggestions how to change my shield like that?”

“Just like any other skill upgrade or modification. Try to destroy things as they hit your shield. If you can use your Celestial element for it, that’d be best.”

[The Arbiter of Life and Death] had nothing destructive about it. I started to work out a few different spells I could try making, along with the plain and simple ‘[Nova Lance] objects as they hit my shield’. It wasn’t a great way to get a sidegrade offered - it’d probably take me a few months at minimum, to a couple of years maximum - but it was the only thing I could think of in the moment.

First I needed to master [Shroud of the Stellar Sea], which would take quite a lot of effort. Fortunately, I had an army that was willing to help me out on that front.

My exercises hadn’t gotten the happy [*ding!*] notification of [The World Around Me] merging with [Arbiter’s Eyes]. I could absolutely see a few years of solid practice with the two skills eventually merging them together - but they were far more likely to get merged in the class skill slot over the general one.

With some reluctance for the merger not obtained, I dropped [Arbiter’s Eyes] and picked up [Etheric Aegis]. The skill was a little unusual - it was a passive, but unlike most passives that were ‘always on’, I needed to think about turning it on.

I got a vague sense that my skill had expanded to my tunic, sandals, and everything else I was wearing. It was like me, Elaine, as a person, had expanded, and the clothes were now extensions of my skin. Sandals were now the extension of my feet. It was like they were numb extensions though - I couldn’t feel anything from them.

I looked down at my feet and shrugged. No reason not to experiment! I slowly unwrapped my sandals, noting that the leather straps still felt like ‘me’ even when they were lying down. All while my foot was inside the sandal, the skill was clearly expanded and protecting it. I daintily took my foot out, slowly and carefully.

When my foot was roughly a quarter out, the skill just stopped. No warning, no feedback, no alert, just - one moment it was ‘me’, and the next it wasn’t.

“Whatcha up to?” Artemis asked. It was a fair question, given that I was staring at my foot half-out of my shoe.

“New armor skill.” I told her. “Trying to figure out where it starts, and where it stops.”

Artemis shrugged and grabbed two parts of my tunic, experimentally pulling at it.

“Yup, solid armor skill here.” She said, unable to simply rip it apart.

[*ding!* [Etheric Aegis] leveled up! 1->2]

“We should get you suited up later on, and I’ll start hitting you.” Iona offered. “It’s how Valkyries level their armor skill initially.”

It sounded kinda fun to get wrapped up in armor and thrown around like an invincible pinball. I couldn’t wait.

“Sure! That sounds fun! Wanna have a contest to see who can throw me up the highest?”

Iona laughed and Julius rolled his eyes.

“Fenrir would win that every time, but that could be funny to watch.”

I grinned.

“It’s a deal! Operation: How Far Can We Throw Elaine starts after dinner!” I said.

“You’re going to lose your lunch.” Julius was being waaaaaaaay too sensible with his ‘practical comments’ and ‘rest after eating’ nonsense. “Also, you and Fenrir are way stronger than I am. I’m teaming up with Artemis.” He said to Iona.

Ahh, Julius. I knew I liked him for a reason.

We sat down for… I’m pretty sure it was dinner, but my sense of time and meals was all wonky post classing-up. Titania was a gem, and dinner was fantastic.

It made me miss Auri with a sharp pang of longing.

She’s with the Sixth. She’ll be home soon. I reassured myself. The Sixth had me idly thinking about my various adventures there, and a few items I’d given myself to do once I got back. I’d managed to find a few moonstones and charge them up with [The Stars Never Fade]. Hopefully that should be enough to lure Amber over again! I couldn’t wait to see her again.

Crazy to think that my little beanpole of an apprentice was all grown up and having her own adventures now. Why was time so unfair?! Thinking of things to do, I wanted to chat with Iona about something.

“Hey Iona, I got a really interesting class up offering just now.” I said, starting to broach the topic of [Angel of Mercy] with her.

“Yeah? Tell me about it.” She said. Artemis leaned in.

“Dish! Tell me everything! Then I’ll tell you some neat little classes I got offered relating to the School. The System seems to think it’s the same one…”

My head whirled around at that little teaser, but Artemis just leaned back in her chair and grinned at me.

Titania came in at that moment and bowed slightly.

“There’s a [Courier] for Sentinel Dawn from Sentinel Arachne.” She announced.

Shit.