Sofia ordered the scouts to take some distance and only engage in battle if they were followed. Whatever they had found didn’t pursue them. From that bit of information alone, Sofia could guess that the enemy either hadn’t detected the skeletons or didn’t go out of its way to attack. So it was probably safe enough to approach. For extra precautions, she had Pareth go to the front guard a bit further so she could see the enemy through him a bit earlier than if she had to go herself.
<...
2023-05-31 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Fever went down enough that I could work, not the most comfortable day of work but job's done, this is fresh off the printing press!
I wouldn't be surprised if I can't release quite on time for a few days, but chapters should come out either way unless I have a relapse. Anyway, thanks for the kind messages yesterday <3 , and enjoy!
Sofia and Pareth went all out.
Amidst the flurry of b...
2023-05-30 16:02:26 +0000 UTC
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Hey, I have a bit of a fever, too much to write if I'm being honest. And this is currently the end of my backlog, so depending how my health evolves, there is a possibility that I could miss a day or two... sorry
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“Student, salute,” the Master ordered, demonstrating with a short, polite bow, and Sofia followed suit.
The challenge officially started. The Master stood about three meters away from Sofia, straight like a rod, arms behind his bac...
2023-05-29 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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The last whirring sound was almost a death sentence. Not only the orbs all got generally faster again, but they had desynchronized. Dodging the orbs became a nightmare, and in no time, Sofia had touched at least three more. She couldn’t even begin to try dealing with their effects; all they did was make her health fall faster. By now, she was at around 60% health, chewing a minor healing candy and in a mad dance to avoid the incoming things from all around.
Sofia’s senses had gone i...
2023-05-28 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The orbs had started moving. All of them, in a circle around the obelisk, like the tiny planet they looked like. They were now in orbit.
They all moved slowly like small sluggish planets, barely a centimeter a second. That they moved at all made them infinitely harder to navigate through, however, and even worse to keep track of.
If I stay facing the current, since they all move in the same direction, I’ll at least not have to watch my back... This sure makes everything much...
2023-05-27 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Sofia was increasingly worried as minutes passed and the floor’s task did not complete. Did she mess up something? Was there a stronger hidden enemy incoming? She was back at full mana but still missing 40% of her health and could lose more if the wrong elves died. It made it hard to relax.
As the day turned to night, things were calming down in the city; fires were being put out, and the last remnants of the invaders still hiding in the city were being hunted down. The invaders remai...
2023-05-26 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Seeing the shield mage dying so gruesomely, one of the griffin riders fled. Pareth turned to look at the four others and prepared to jump. They all fled. One of them fumbled his reins somehow and blocked one of his griffin’s wings, sending him tumbling to the ground.
Since the Vampire Skeletons were now free, Sofia sent them to finish off the unlucky rider while she jumped out of the ground and deployed her wings.
Thank the Lords. I can come out now. This guy took so long to...
2023-05-25 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Some kind of slime? Water mage.
Behind Sofia, water quietly seeped out of the walls, gathering into a puddle on the ground.
Pareth was too big to come out in these tunnels, so she had to improvise. It was unlikely that any physical attack would work on the watery blob that was trying to be sneaky and taking human form behind her back. Do I shock it with the low-power bolt? No…
Then she had a devious idea. She directly summoned a good quantity of Silverwat...
2023-05-24 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Sofia could have maybe broken through the shield and flown away, but she stayed to be able to trace the mana back to its caster. Sure enough, she managed to get a feel for the general direction of the spellcaster, who had to also be inside the shield. She looked in that direction, but all she could see was a swarm of infantrymen in black and red.
Unless it’s for a single target, many of their soldiers will die…
I got what I came for anyway. Better get ready before...
2023-05-23 16:00:12 +0000 UTC
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That’s another one of the five targets!
Sofia followed the signal to a big house that stood out from the surrounding buildings. Looks like they’re alone inside. In such a large house? Strange. She sliced the lock with her dagger and stepped into the entrance hall. Second floor, under… A bed? Hard to tell with all the walls in the way. They look rather small. A kid, maybe?
The closer she got, the clearer her mana senses could read the surroundings. ...
2023-05-22 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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The easiest way to protect the key targets from harm happened to be the same way that Sofia intended to use. Destroy the army before it has any chance to march that deep into the city. And what was the best way to topple an army? Go for the leaders.
Unless they were level 300 and up, Pareth could handle them. She couldn’t [Identify] anyone to see their level, but that wasn’t any different than fighting a monster, and she rarely shied away from that.
Sofia’s ...
2023-05-21 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“There we are!” Sen exclaimed as he proudly welcomed the participants to a rickety iron platform leading to the true ‘Ranking spire’. In front of the group was a tower inside the tower. Everyone was awed at the sight, but Sofia was even more shocked at how much mana flowed through the inner tower’s walls. Both up and down, the spire seemed infinite. The mana flowed in waves from top to bottom. Forget the glamor and decorations of the outer tower; this inner tower was a bare stick of...
2023-05-20 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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I promise and I deliver, next chapter in half an hour.
Here's what the last poll's result got us, with Demon form Sofia winning over Zerei and Pareth with a whopping 57% of votes
Oh, and welcome back (* ^ ω ^)
2023-05-20 15:32:23 +0000 UTC
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Sofia didn’t quite understand how, but she knew Pareth wanted her to throw the bolts right then and there. And so she did. The bolts hit Mornn. The explosion was bright but weak. Pareth teleported to Sofia. Standing right before her, his weapon had become a giant pair of shears. He tried to snip the Sun Saintess in half at the waist.
Once again, the momentum of his weapon was stopped by a wave of mana, but this time, he prevented Mornn from moving by blocking the ways out of the shear...
2023-05-12 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Medical appointment screwed with my schedule, had no time to proofread this one at all, might be a bit dirty, sorry
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Sofia didn’t exactly know how Astelia would react to the blood, but she didn’t expect her to just freeze like a statue with a terrified expression. [Immovable object]? She’s going to be stuck like that for at least five seconds.
She walked up to Astelia and pressed her mithril dagger agains...
2023-05-11 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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The Knight crossed the hundred meters in half a second, and his Mithril war hammer came down at a terrifying speed. Sofia blocked with the blessed shield, which shattered under the hit but absorbed all the damage. The bone construct would repair itself given time, but for now, whatever was left of it could only give Sofia the bonus for being there. That was both of his skills.
Sofia jumped back to avoid the follow-up strikes. The graveyard skeletons were starting to come out, b...
2023-05-10 16:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Why does the system exist? I’ve already thought about that a bunch, so…
“To help the people worthy of it to get stronger. Perhaps to prepare us to fight off something or someone, like the Phageid. For one reason or another, it wants to create an elite of strong people. So like...”
Though it doesn’t really explain the summonings, but the fact that the Angel went out of his way to fight the Alphageid in the trial makes me think that. And it can’t be that the...
2023-05-09 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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See, I knew [Poker face] wasn’t such a terrible skill.
Goodbye ‘master’’. Won’t miss your strangulations but thanks for the advice and the fast pass.
Sofia was still recovering from the chokehold; she was now in another small room, or something more akin to a white cube? I better get rid of this white uniform and get dressed.
[Ranking Spire Phase 1 : Floor 7/10]
2023-05-08 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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“The young adults mostly have brown belts… I’ll take a brown one too. I risk looking overconfident with this one, but with the other one, I risk looking like a child.”
I’m tempted to take a red one, but this is not the place to be taking such high risks. Not when I can get ‘thrown out’. The brown one is already a bit dangerous; white is probably the safest choice. But also a bit boring.
She grabbed a brown belt and returned to the painting with the clearest ...
2023-05-07 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Sofia entered the code on exit door 7 and opened it. Her vision changed.
So that’s that done.
[Objective completed in 4 months 35 days 17 hours, teleporting to floor 5]
“Seven hours shy of five months. And I’m not even halfway done with phase 1.”
[Ranking Spire Phase 1 : Floor 5/10]
[Objective : Completely fill one of the orbs with your mana.]
[Preparation time : 10s; Time limit : 2...
2023-05-06 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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The base plan was simple: lead the lesser dragon to a dead end at the end of a very long straight corridor at the edge of its territory by having it chase a line of birds.
There was a very nice T-shaped place she had found. She would block two sides of it with moving walls. This created an L-shaped shaped dead end to lead the monster into.
When the dragon was in place, she would step in to bait the mowing wall at the right side of the T a few meters back, thus blocking the lesser ...
2023-05-05 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Sofia followed the map to reach the chest, noticing paths unexplored by the birds, and explored paths that existed on the map but not for real. This was obviously the work of the moving walls, but they didn’t seem to want to move much if it wasn’t to try to lead her to a dead end. Overall, the path she took was still mostly mapped out already. She found the chest. It was like the first one. Inside, she found a small scroll. I8… E3, I8… There has to be more, so let’s keep going...
2023-05-04 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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She had focused on the map for all of twenty seconds, and it had been enough for both paths to be walled. She turned around, searching for anything useful, but there was nothing other than herself in this isolated straight corridor.
Her first reflex was to check all of the walls for the hard speckled stone. There could be one without it that she could use to escape. She also conjured her graveyard. The two non-moving side walls had the hard stuff behind them. Sofia ran to one of the new...
2023-05-03 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Sofia yanked on the metal chains; they broke under her strength. With the stat candy, my body is starting to be crazy, even without the demon form. How long until I can do the same things with and without it?
“Status seems alright. Very little light in here, but that’s no problem anymore.” I’ll assess the situation first and switch Pareth’s body if needed.
She could sense the nearby layout with her mana senses. It looked like some kind of prison with mo...
2023-05-02 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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This white orb safeguard... It feels like a trap. If you leave when you fall unconscious, it means you cannot sleep. But we can piece together that there is downtime between levels, and we have no indication of how long the trial will last.
But then again, it also allows you to survive if you pass out during a fight…
No way I’m picking the white orb, though. I’m here to break everything. I’m ready. I’ll say it; this is rank one or nothing. I’ll pu...
2023-05-01 16:00:15 +0000 UTC
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“What is it? Are you going to fix my class? Get me out of scribe-only mode? Punish me for doing something wrong?”
“No to the first and the last; meddling with your class isn’t in my interest or authority, and there is nothing to punish you for. You do push the boundaries of what is acceptable; however, as far as I am concerned, you are making a perfectly valid usage of the system in place.”
Really? Surprising. But I guess it is the system that made the rules all this...
2023-04-30 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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The middle of summer. Sofia, Alith, Zerei, and Astelia had gone on a boat trip from the southern coast of Couvauz to the Beastman continent. Teleporting past the sea was dangerous, and flying wasn’t much better, so they took the trip on the armored dwarven ship ‘The Metal-Head’. This had gone without trouble, unlike the voyage to the first trial’s towers. A few flying monsters attacked, but the dwarven cannoneers weren’t joking around. The group never had to intervene to help defend...
2023-04-29 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Author note:
Hey!
Two quick announcements today.
First of all, I'm warning in advance that I'll be taking a one week break sometime this may, probably from the 12th to the 19th, so no chapters during that time.
Secondly, thank you everyone for voting on the art poll! In line with the results, I have commissioned an artist for an illustration of demon form Sofia! It will probably be the cover of book 2 whenever I ...
2023-04-28 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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How did I end up here…
Sofia was currently stuck in a narrow bone coffin of her own making, with only a few holes to let air in. She couldn’t open her eyes. Even if she kept them closed, she only saw white. Every bit of the coffin’s interior was covered in small ritual circles that shone like miniature suns. It was no exaggeration to say that a single one of them could obstruct your vision if you looked in its direction, let alone hundreds of them.
[Venerabl...
2023-04-27 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“Yes, the skills I cast without the system are much more flexible, but also weaker.”
“That is because our brains cannot keep up with the complexity required to make the skills so strong from the get go. The system-less way to get there is to start by designing a weak version, mastering that until it’s natural, then adding onto it, yes. You cannot learn to fly before you learn to stand. But without the constraint of the system, you can try many different ways to stand.”
...
2023-04-26 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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