<~> Chapter 129After the battle all of the guards took a break to recover from the fight and secure the area. I wasn't the only ohat leveled and it retty obvious based on all the people who were standing around staring into space. There weren't any casualties and it didn't take long for Bel to patch up the few people who had gotten some minor injuries, so everyone was in good spirits.

  "How about you guys? Did all of you level too?" I turo my friends to see that gssy look in their eyes as well.

  All of them here were smiles all around.

  Torien stopped staring into spad looked over at me. "That thing must have out-leveled us by quite a bit, I got more than one main level."

  "Any new iing skills or spells?" I asked.

  "Mmm, my css has been leaning towards a scout role for a while now. It seems clearing out rooms while watg for demons has influehe new skill I got. It's an ability that helps me better at spotting clues, tracks, or anything out of pce. Pretty useful sidering some of the reasons we came here in the first pce."

  I nodded. "That's true. How about you Bel?"

  She blinked a few times before turning to me. "Ah, I actually got two new abilities reted to healing. Until now a lot of the abilities have been focused on nature trol, things like [Entangling Roots], but I've been healing so much tely I got two new abilities reted to that. I was hoping I would get a more powerful healing spell but instead, I got something that lets me heal multiple people at ond something that lets me heal at range. Probably more useful for the kind of stuff we usually do so I'm quite happy about it."

  Man shoulder-bumped me. "How about you?"

  I ughed. "I actually haven't looked yet."

  "Then stop b us and look!" She grinned and pushed me away.

  "Alright, alright." I smiled and brought the notifications back up.

  [Your level has increased from level 41 to level 42][Novice Magian has increased from level 9 to level 10][Luck Magic has increased from level 1 to level 6][Light Magic has increased from level 9 to level 10][Light Manipution has increased from level 9 to level 12]

  One main level and one css level. Not bad sidering my participation was mainly relegated to support. I wasn't sure how strong the guards we fought with were but I was sure they were above our level. I usually tell based on that weird feeling Silva told me about but there are so many of them and they're close enough in level to me that it's harder to tell. Mimi probably knows but I'm not actually ied enough to ask.

  I got five levels in luck magiother in light magid three more in light manipution. I did a lot of on-the-fly modifications of my light magic, so that makes sense. I think what I did with fireflies and the light beam robably my most signifit tribution to the fight so it's not a surprise that I leveled in both of those reted skills. I'm pretty sure most of the experience I gained in luck magic was because it was the first time I used it in bat not because it was all that useful in the scheme of things. Five levels aren't anything to pin about though.

  [Learned Enha Magic Spell Light Imbue][Learned Light Magic Spell Light Ward][Learned Luck Magic Spell A Touch of Good Luck]

  [Light Imbue - Entment Magic Spell]Imbue a on or object with Light magic making it glow and apply light damage when it hits enemies. Light Imbue only damage dark and shadow aligned ehe strength of the entment is increased by Magic Ford the duration of the entment is increased by Magitrol. Larger ons and objects take a proportionally rger amount of magic to ent. Light Imbue be applied to others' ons but the wielder of the oermines who is sidered an enemy for the purposes of this spell. The effects of objects imbued with light vary.

  Very simir to [Fme Imbue] but arguably a worthless variant. There could be subtle bes to [Light Imbue] such as heatless glowing items and it should be more helpful against other shadow and dark monsters, but past that, the applications seem minimal.

  [Light Ward - Light Magic Spell]Create a pane of light that block or deflect physical and magic damage. Strength of the barrier is affected by Magic Ford Magitrol. Brightness and size are affected by Magic Force. Color, shape, and range are affected by Magitrol. Light Ward is weak against shadow and dark-aligtacks.

  Now this seems like a good spell. This is the first spell I've gotten that's had any kind of defensive properties, everything until now has beeher offensive or utility-focused. Feeling out the spell, I could also tell that I would have a det amount of trol over how the spell looked as well.

  I cast the spell in front of me and a simple slightly glowing pane of blue gss-like light appeared. There was something amusing about creating the quintessential status window as the first thing I did with the ability. I obviously didn't actually put my status on it, I wasn't stupid, but I was able to write some text and dispy it on the pane of light by bining it with my [Light Signal] spell.

  "Oh Lilith! What's that?" Man came right over, looking intrigued by my experimentation.

  "It's my new ability, [Light Ward] it lets me create a defensive barrier. I'm messing around and bining it with [Light Signal]."

  Torien looked at me incredulously. "You get a barrier spell and the first thing you do with it isn't, you know, blo attabsp;It's write a message on it?"

  "Tori! Knock it off, I like it when Lilith experiments with her magic. She's been able to do some stuff with it. Ae what a lot of people have said about the usefulness of light magic, that st fight went as smoothly as it did because of her ability to adapt her light magic spells." Man looked cute defending me like that.

  "I'm n to disce her from experimenting. It's just so like her to mess around like that." Torien shrugged.

  Bel sighed. "As long as she doesn't do it while we're rexing I'm fine. When she first got her light magic she started giving me a headache with how much she was making it shine and fly around the room. Whearted making rainbows fsh all over the book I was reading I had to ask her to stop."

  I ughed. "Yeah! I remember that. I was so excited to use magic for the first time that I wao figure out everything I could about it. I was messing around so much that I ended up unlog [Light Manipution] through that. I'm really gd I did though, it's allowed me to do a lot more with my light magic than I could have without it."

  Man nodded in agreement. "Many mages magitrol and the associated manipution skills. Some mages make the mistake that more power is always better and then they get tripped up when a little bit of magitrol would solve their problems more effitly. It's one of my biggest shortings, because I have to rely on wild magic it's harder for me to practice with individual manipution skills. I'm somerofit ihing but I'll never have the skill of someone who specialize in one particur element."

  I scratched my horn while thinking. "Yeah, the jack of all trades problem."

  "What's that?" Man asked.

  "Oh, I suppose I should expin. Where I e from there's a saying that gets interpreted in a few different ways. If I remember correctly it goes something like, 'Jack of all trades, master of none. Oftentimes better than a master of one.' However the sed line is very often omitted. There are a few different ways that people end up thinking about a 'jack of all trades,' but it usually es down to whether you favor versatility or specialization. Being good at a rge number of different things allows you to bine your skills in ways that might be greater than the sum of their parts. At the same time, being the best at ohing does have its advantages as well."

  Mimi suddenly spoke up, "What do you think? Which do you favor?"

  I smiled. "I've always been in the camp of versatility. Don't get me wrong, there are times when calling a specialist is the right call but there is also something called the 80-20 rule where I e from. This is ahing that isn't a hard and fast universal truth or anything, but it goes, '80 pert of results e from the first 20 pert of effort.' or something like that, there are lots of variants to that ohe idea is, if you look at most skills, 20 pert of mastery will usually get you 80 pert of what you need from it. Obviously that isn't always true but you usually get a lot doh that first 20 pert. If you get 20 pert good at a lot of different things, your skills bine in ways that you don't exped bring you a lot more value than you would think. It allows you to be a generalist. That's the way I look at things anyway."

  Man leaned on me a her head on my shoulder. "Lilith... I love you. I've always felt... lesser than es or... real mages as I sometimes think of them. Your way of thinking makes me feel... I don't know, special. Like I have a strength that others don't."

  I patted her on the leg. "Are you kidding? You kept hurling fireballs that entire fight, I had to reserve my mana just in case I ter. You have tons of advantages. Everything has trade offs but quantity is a quality all its own."

  Silva smirked at me. "You sure do have a lot of sayings where you e from."

  I ughed in respohat's true."

  Sometimes the magic that transtes everythiween us trahe meaning of my sayings directly, other times they have to ask me what a word is or what the saying means. The logic behind what is transted ly and what isn't is really muddy. It catches me off guard sometimes.

  Anyway, I have o spell to look at.

  [A Touch of Good Luck - Luck Magic Spell]Touch a friend and wish them luck. The magnitude of this effect is affected by [Luck].

  I stared at the incredibly short and unhelpful message. That's it?

  I looked over and patted Man on the shoulder and activated the spell. "Good luck." I felt the spell trigger and take a small amount of mana. It did something but it's unclear what.

  Man turo me in fusiohanks?"

  I shrugged and smiled. "New spell."

  Man's ears perked up. "What's it do?"

  "Gives you good luck. That's basically all it says."

  Her brows furrowed. "Odd, That's all it says?"

  "Touch a friend and wish them luck. The magnitude of this effect is affected by Luck."

  "Weird. Maybe not surprising sidering the uncharted territory of luck magic."

  "Yeah, I thought I would test it out. It certainly did something, I felt it take mana, no idea how strong the effect is or how long it sts," I said.

  I noticed Jasper walking up to us. "Lilith, I wao e thank you and your friends. When we were first told about your participation today I wasn't sure how useful you would be but that spell you used was very helpful." He turo my friends. "And all of you coordinated well with my men. You have my thanks." He nodded and focused on me again. "We're pnning oing back to clearing the rest of the floor soon. Make sure you and yroup finish looking through your status if you haven't already and prepare to move on."

  I nodded. "Sure, I appreciate the kind words."

  Jasper smiled and walked away.

  "Prick."

  I turo look at Silva. "What's wrong?"

  She shook her head. "There's something about that guy. I don't trust him. I 't tell you what it is but... I don't know. He's desding."

  Torien furrowed her brows. "He didn't e off that way to me..."

  Silva shrugged. "Maybe it's nothing. Just be careful."

  I nodded. "Noted."

  It's not like I khe guy well. I didn't have any reason to believe this was some kind of trap though and the guy has beey nice so far. It doesn't hurt to stay on guard if one of my friends has a bad feeling but I haven't noticed anything myself yet.

  I gnced over at him, he has 1863 positive karma but it always be tricky to rely on that. It's not the highest number but it's also far from ive. Most of the nearby guards have worse karma than he does but he's also the captain and has been around longer. I 't really make a solid judgement based on his karma alone.

  I scratched the base of my horn. "Go ahead and keep an eye on him but don't do anything unless he's overtly attag one of us. e find me if it's something important, otherwise Torien is still in charge. I trust her judgement. Don't take any unnecessary risks, the most important thing is that we all e out safe."

  Silva nodded in respo didn't speak. It was hard for me to tell if Silva was just being paranoid but I couldn't take any ces in a situation with demons around every er, literally.

  Maybe ten or fifteen mier the ballroom was pletely cleared and roups were spread along one wall where many of the service doors reehe castle proper. Instead of barrig all of the doors, it was easier to just gh all of the small doors at ond methodically search for the demons this time around. The two groups from my party members were spaced out at the thirds, likely to improve our ce in the ected rooms and root out any hiding demons.

  "Alright everyone! Advance!"

  I took a deep breath and gripped my sword as the doors swung open and we moved to the phase.

  Saine

  Hello! I was happy to see that a lot of you liked the previous fight se! I'm gd, that part was a lot of fun to write! Don't worry though, the castle tour isn't over yet! I hope everyone eheir holidays, the upload will be on new years eve as normally scheduled. Here's to anreat year of Lilith!

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