章 53: Chapter 21 - More Power
The quarry seemed a lot smaller from up in the air, almost difficult to recognize. But the clear grey and white color still made it stand out from the surroundings, making Lilly's landing spot clear.
The race had been stopped as soon as she was lifted from the ground and had instead become a training trip, since she fell almost immediately. Thankfully, Eolande's adept reflexes ensured that only Lilly's pride suffered any damage.
After that, Lilly focused more on stability than speed and made sure Eolande was below her at all times.
'Okay, let's have a safe landing now,' she thought, descending slowly towards the rocky ground. She felt an immense relief as soon as her feet touched the ground again, but she didn't regret taking the trip. In fact, she thought it was extremely exciting to fly.
"I won!" She exclaimed, seeing Eolande walk towards her from the road to the quarry.
"You sure did, kiddo! It was like seeing a hawk in flight, the way you soared through the sky!" Eolande replied, sounding exactly like a parent encouraging her kid.
"Okay, maybe you would have beaten me if you tried," Lilly conceded with a smile. "The thing I'm most excited about testing is the attack this thing has. But I think it's rather powerful, so I don't want to use it without being surrounded by stone."
"Oh, it has an attack then? I was curious about that. I thought the increased control might have counted since you didn't mention it. Most powerful staffs have integrated attacks."
"Yeah, the enchantment has attack, flame, and amplify as runes. I'm guessing it takes the flame I insert and amplifies it with its stored mana in some shape. What do you think the attack might look like?"
Eolande pondered before suggesting, "Hmm, might be a normal ball of fire? Or… I'm not sure how phoenixes use flames, but maybe a breath? Or maybe you can decide."
"I'll just have to try, I guess. Let's go to my crater first," Lilly said as she excitedly walked deeper into the quarry.
It was a short walk, but it left a bit of an impression seeing the crater she had made the last time. It was deeper than she remembered, with a flat surface on the bottom where the lava had been.
Even her tracks after walking out and outline where she had lain to cool off were still there. Lilly felt a twinge of embarrassment at how revealing the indentations were. 'I'll need to erase that evidence before we leave,' she resolved silently.
Positioning herself at the crater's edge, she asked, "It's fine if I just stand here and fire toward the crater, right?"
"Sure, I'll be standing far away in any case. But make sure to hold the staff firmly; if it fires something at high speeds, it might slip out of your grip due to the recoil," Eolande warned, looking a tad worried.
"I'll hold it firmly. I won't be trying much power at first in any case, so don't worry," Lilly replied, attempting to dissuade Eolande's fears. "Now get out of here, I'm going to test it."
Eolande was gone before she could even finish her sentence. 'How does she do that so silently? Is it the shoes?' Lilly wondered.
Turning back towards the crater with the staff firmly gripped in both hands, she readied herself for the test. Ever so gently, she started inserting her flame into the staff, with a clear image of attacking.
It reacted immediately, sending a large stream of flame forward, illuminating the darkening crater. Lilly tried adjusting the power she put in at first, and could clearly see the reaction right away. It quickly adjusted to her input, feeling very much like an amplifier of the power she exerted.
'This is pretty cool! Let's try changing the shape of the attack somehow.' She tried focusing on a sharper attack, which turned the flame into a narrow beam of intense fire. 'Oh, cool! This seems a lot faster than the normal flame. I can probably do something like that as well, but not this easily.'
She really wanted to test the limits of the output, but first considered what could go wrong. 'Shooting down towards the rocky ground shouldn't be a problem… right?'
Throwing caution to the wind, she decided to just go full blast, and sent a massive amount of her flame into the staff. A high-pitched scream of energy sounded out as the beam expanded massively, drilling deep into the ground in mere moments.
The kickback of the attack, however, caught Lilly off guard, propelling the beam up toward the edge of the crater until she managed to stop it by halting her input.
Lilly was shocked by the power, and especially the sharpness of it. 'I could cut through thousands of houses with this thing. Or invading fleets, I guess. I'm curious about the range…'
Her thoughts were interrupted by a burning smell, which made her look down. 'Ah, I've done it again…' Most of her clothes were gone, and the scraps still remaining were on fire. 'I really need to enchant some clothing to be fire-proof, and soon. Especially underwear.'
"Elly, I think I'm done testing the attack!" She shouted, hoping for some useful input, putting the wardrobe problems aside for now.
Eolande appeared moments later, as usual, and immediately started laughing, as expected.
"Sure, get it out. Ha ha, I'm so silly," Lilly retorted, striving to appear nonchalant despite her reddening face.
It took Eolande a moment to regain her composure, even turning away in an attempt to stifle her giggles. She stopped, took a deep breath, turned around, and immediately started laughing again. "It's still burning, ahahah!"
Lilly couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the thought of her own appearance, but she composed herself quickly. "How do I get back to the city?"
Eolande eventually seemed able to compose herself and put on a thinking face, although still smiling. "I could offer you my jacket, but I don't have much underneath. Are you fine going commando, or do you want me to go back to get something?"
"Considering I'll be flying, I'd very much prefer wearing pants. You can go while I start training again, but first, I'd like to hear your thoughts about the attack."
"Sure, how did it go?" Eolande asked, studying the crater and seeing the narrow and glowing red crack. "Oh wow, that seems powerful! I see exactly where you lost control since there's less heat towards the top. Does it go in deep?"
"I don't know, but I think so. I'd really like to test the range on this thing, but I'm not sure how. Safely, at least."
Eolande had climbed down to the crater to have a closer look, studying the trail from a distance. "This is really deep, I can't even see the end! How much power were you using?"
"Uh, I was testing the maximum output. The staff lost about a quarter of its stored energy in a few seconds, so it was very intense."
"Yeah, no kidding! Oh my gods, melting tens of meters of rock instantly is insanely powerful! You could slay almost anything with that." She seemed genuinely shocked at the destructive power she was seeing.
"You don't need to be very close to it to get burned either… Or at least I'm assuming that's what happened to my clothes."
"It probably superheats the air around it, so it's no wonder your clothes disintegrated. I wonder what the core temperature was…"
"What…" Lily was about to ask how well it would work against Grandfather, but remembered how easy it would be to spy on them right now. Then she became very conscious of her nakedness, but tried her best not to show it. "What do you think I could defeat?"
Eolande regarded her thoughtfully before responding. "That fire drake we met would probably turn into a crisp, even with its fire protection. There are creatures with immense protective qualities or heat resistance that could survive, but those are mostly on the tyrant side of the scale, hidden from populated areas. I think you can safely call yourself a Protector now!" She grinned and playfully patted Lilly on the shoulder as she said that last part.
Lilly sighed in relief, feeling a bit more capable of protecting the city now. It had been part of her goal for a while, even if it wasn't the main focus. "Well, I'll get to training a bit more then. You go get me some clothes, and not something I'd be embarrassed to wear!"
Eolande recoiled as if caught before the act, clearly having had some nefarious plans. "Fine, some normal clothes, coming up," she said as she disappeared out of the quarry.
'Now then. I need to take it a bit slower than last time, so I don't sink in the lava. No, wait, it's too dense for me to sink. But still…' Lilly was pondering her process as she floated down to the middle of the crater, hanging onto the staff with her hands. The protective necklace was placed safely away from the crater, so riding the staff wouldn't be very pleasant.
As she sat down in the middle of the crater once again, this time with the staff in her hands, she wondered how much the staff would help her process. She closed her eyes and focused, first sending some of the flame into the staff to activate the improved control.
Then she began pushing the flame into every crevice of her body with greatly improved accuracy. Once she no longer felt any remaining spots, she started circulating it again, and could immediately feel the burn, even stronger than last time.
The roaring flame seemed to be cleansing her body again, removing impurities that remained after the last time. It burned, but she gritted her teeth, trying to keep the process going as long as possible.
She was intent on improving fast enough to give the plan the best chance it could get, and that required at least this much effort and pain. It was a good pain, she kept telling herself, a good pain that did good. Healthy, good, healthy. Glowing skin even, pretty.
Her thought process had slowed down from the pain, but she kept going a bit longer. She was able to that. And Elly need time to get back. Maybe even she brought someone along?? Someone pretty and nice, with nice muscles and big b–
Something suddenly hit her forehead sharply, making her confused. She stopped the flames, eager to look around her and find the culprit. All she could see through the distorted air was red, red everywhere. Except for a small circle far above her that seemed to show the darkening sky.
'Oh gods, did I sink that deep? How long was I sitting here?'
She thought back to the training, sensing that she might have pushed herself a bit too far. She couldn't even think straight as she was focusing, and she still felt a bit groggy. 'Who threw the rock then? Did it just fall down? Or did Elly somehow hit me from up there?'
Looking upwards, she caught a glimpse of a figure darting across the sky, its voice carrying down to her. "DUMB–" the shout was cut off as the figure passed out of sight, only to reappear with a follow-up: "ASS!"
'Ah, it was Elly, after all. I should get out of here before she throws another rock,' Lilly thought, grabbing the staff tightly in her hands and floating upwards.
Once again, she was surprised by the depth she had managed to sink to, floating tens of meters upwards before reaching the surface. 'I need to find a better way to do this.'
She spotted Eolande as soon as she appeared out of the crater, and saw she looked furious. "What the hell are you doing!? How long were you going to stay like that? Did your brain stop working?"
Lilly bit her lips as she realized how scared Eolande had been for her. "I'm sorry, Elly. I think my brain really slowed down a lot while I was training; my thoughts were all weird. I still don't feel right."
Eolande still looked mad, but perhaps slightly more anxious now. "We're not doing this again before you find a different method, just so you know!"
Lilly landed away from the crater, slightly scared of falling into it. The ground immediately started melting around her feet though, forcing her to support herself with the staff, still floating. "I know, this won't be repeated, promise. Thank you for waking me up, though. It was a nice throw."
Eolande seemed guilty about the line of blood trickling from Lilly's forehead. "What was I supposed to do? I couldn't just jump down there!"
"No, I mean it! Thank you, Elly. I don't know how long I would have been down there if you hadn't come, or how deep… You're getting a big hug when I cool down!"
"... Try using the healing again, please."
"Oh, right! Hang on." Lilly tried focusing on both floating and healing at the same time, and it seemed to work well. The staff started glowing again while still floating, and a faint light traveled to her forehead.
"Oh man, that really does tickle!" Lilly exclaimed. She knew scratching would be a bad idea while it was healing, but luckily it stopped pretty soon. "Does it look healed?"
"It's hard to say without washing the blood off, but it seems to have stopped bleeding at least. Now keep cooling down so I can get my hug. Your clothes are over by the necklace."
"I don't know what I would do without you, Elly. Thanks again."
That finally seemed to get a smile out of Eolande. "Well, as long as you're aware, I guess."
Now cool enough to lie down, Lilly lay on her back, looking at the red sky. 'Just a few more weeks of this and I'll finally be able to relax again… I really can't wait.'
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット