NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10: Final Test
[Luna POV]
The day after my fifth birthday I started training with my parents. I don’t regret it, but I wish someone would have told me they were both spartans. Every day was the same. Starting with my father, he made me run laps around the shrine until I nearly passed out, then I would need to do practice swings with a sword. Once that was done, it would be nonstop mock battles with him and some of the other soldiers that lived in the village.
I once asked him why we only did mock battles and he said that the best way to learn was to come face-to-face with death. I would complain if it wasn’t so effective.
After that it was training magic with mother. It wasn’t really that different than what I did before, it was just done on a larger scale. I would have to cast my biggest spells and keep them maintained until my MP ran out. That was the case with my ice and lightning magic. Once I mastered those enough to satisfy my mother, we moved on to healing magic. Out of all the training I did, that was the most painful. I had to constantly cut myself then heal it. That worked until I got healing magic to level five. After that I had to start healing or more accurately curing poison.
Since poison didn’t work on me, we had to drag someone else into my training. Those unlucky people were new recruits that just joined the army and were sent to work under my father. They all had to gain the poison resistance skill and I had to train my healing magic, so my parents joined forces to train all of us.
After that I was trained in my racial skills. Illusion magic was just like the rest of the magic training. When it came to Fox Fire, I was told the effects it has differ depending on the color. Gold color represented normal fire, it gave off heat and could be used in place of fire magic or a flint and steel. Blue represented purification, it was used to purify curses. The degree of purification depended on the Dex stat. Finally, black represented curses. I was told to never use this unless it was absolutely necessary. It scaled with Dex as well. I asked about the Fox Transformation skill but was told that it was different for every individual, and I needed to figure it out on my own.
Mother also wanted to train my space magic but people who had the affinity for it were rare, and the ones that my parents knew were too busy to help. Like this, I continued to train for nine years. Once I had grown to the extent that my parents were satisfied with, I moved on to survival and domestic training with Ana. With her I learned all the basics of camping out and surviving in the wild. That took six months.
After completing the survival training, we move on to domestic training. The excuse I was given for having to do this was to prepare myself for my future with Tamamo. I was taught cooking and cleaning, proper ways to serve tea, as well as etiquette. I trained in this for the last six months. Right now, I was walking in the forest near the village.
I was told to go out and hunt until I reached level five. During these last 10 years, I was forbidden from looking at my status. That restriction was lifted today. When I opened it, I was shocked.
Name: Luna
Race: Kitsune
Sex: Female
Level: 1
Class: Quad-mage
HP: 50/50
MP: 5424/5424
Vit: 45
Def: 60
Res: 68
Str: 69
Int: 115
Agi: 106
Dex: 73
Skills: Presence detection, Trap detection, Trap disarming, Trap creation, Dagger LV. 9, Short sword LV. 10, Archery LV.7, Poison crafting, Appraisal LV.10, Mana Regeneration LV.8, Stealth LV.7, Charm LV.5
Magic Skills: Ice Magic LV.10, Lightning Magic LV.10, Healing Magic LV.9, Space Magic LV.8
Race Skills: Illusion Magic LV.10, Spirit Vision, Fox Fire, Fox Transformation(Sealed), Enhanced Senses, Night Vision, Enhanced Physical Strength
Unique Skills: Status Effect Immunity, Ice Mist, Language Comprehension, Infinite Inventory
Blessings, Divine Protection, and Titles:
Divine Protection of the Moon Goddess, Reincarnated, Fated One of the Moon Goddess, Abyssal Fluff, Master of Ice, Master of Lightning, Master of Illusions, Short sword Master, Magic Swordsman
Master of Ice: Given to those who have mastered Ice Magic.
Master of Lightning: Given to those who have mastered Lightning Magic.
Master of Illusions: Given to those who have mastered Illusion Magic.
Short sword Master: Given to one who has mastered the Short sword.
Magic Swordsman: Given to one who has reached a certain level of mastery in both swords and magic.
While I could have stood there staring at my status all day, I remembered that I was doing my final task. I used my Presence Detection skill and my senses of hearing and smell to try and find any monsters nearby.
The first thing I picked up on was the smell. If I had to describe it, it would be wet dog. I could hear a river nearby, so I activated stealth and stalked over to it. Once there I saw three kobolds. The dog headed humanoids were sitting there eating an animal. I decided to use a bow to take them out from a distance.
I pulled it out of my inventory, placed an arrow on the string, and fired. The arrow flew and landed right between the kobold’s eyes. Before the other two could do anything, I fired another arrow, killing a second on. When it saw this, the third kobold let out a loud howl. I could hear another howl not too far off.
Before the last kobold ran in the direction of the howl, I fired a third arrow killing it. I quickly ran up to inspect the corpses to see if they had anything useful, they didn’t.
I then went over and climbed up a tree. Once I was secure, I checked my status again.
Name: Luna
Race: Kitsune
Sex: Female
Level: 2
Class: Quad-mage
HP: 200/200
MP: 21696/21696
Vit: 180
Def: 240
Res: 272
Str: 276
Int: 460
Agi: 424
Dex: 292
Skills: Presence detection, Trap detection, Trap disarming, Trap creation, Dagger LV. 9, Short sword LV. 10, Archery LV.8, Poison crafting, Appraisal LV.10, Mana Regeneration LV.8, Stealth LV.7, Charm LV.5
Magic Skills: Ice Magic LV.10, Lightning Magic LV.10, Healing Magic LV.9, Space Magic LV.8
Race Skills: Illusion Magic LV.10, Spirit Vision, Fox Fire, Fox Transformation(Sealed), Enhanced Senses, Night Vision, Enhanced Physical Strength
Unique Skills: Status Effect Immunity, Ice Mist, Language Comprehension, Infinite Inventory
Blessings, Divine Protection, and Titles:
Divine Protection of the Moon Goddess, Reincarnated, Fated One of the Moon Goddess, Abyssal Fluff, Master of Ice, Master of Lightning, Master of Illusions, Short sword Master, Magic Swordsman
“This is ridiculous.” I thought to myself.
If my stats increase this much every time, I’m going to have trouble with not hurting people. When I get back, I need to ask if there are any skills that can help with holding back. Just then I heard sticks breaking and heavy breathing. I looked down and saw a group of six normal sized kobolds and a larger one in the back.
Normal kobolds are grey, but the large one, that was clearly the leader, was pure white. When I appraised it, this is what came up.
Name: None
Race: Kobold Leader
Sex: Male
Level: 10
Class: Warrior
HP: 200/200
MP: 5/5
Vit: 80
Def: 75
Res: 20
Str: 50
Int: 10
Agi: 80
Dex: 35
Skills: CQC(claws) LV. 5
Race Skills: Leading, Enhanced Senses, Night Vision
Unique Skills: None
Titles: Pack Leader
“How weak.” I thought.
Instead of wasting arrows on them, I decided to take care of the normal kobolds with lightning magic. I conjured up an image in my head, then used my mana to give it form. Above the heads of the six kobolds, dark clouds started to gather. When they noticed something was off, it was too late. A rain of silver lightning bolts hit the group, instantly killing them. I quickly checked my level and saw it went up by one.
“Now all that’s left is you, Mister Leader.” I said as I jumped down from the tree.
When I landed, I started producing a cold mist. This came from my Ice Mist unique skill. The mist quickly covered the entire area. Normally it would be hard to see a white furred animal in a similar colored mist, but since it was my unique skill that made it, I knew everything that entered it. You could consider the entire area my mist covers my domain. I could control the density and temperature of the mist at will.
Since I had a target trapped, I decided to use this chance to try something I wanted to do for a long time. I took some tools out of my inventory and got to work making some simple traps. I made a few snares and tripwires. I placed the tripwires around the confused kobold leader and ran some lightning magic through them. I then set up the snares and conjured up some illusory kobolds and made it look like they got trapped.
I decreased the density of the mist around the kobold leader enough for it to see the illusory kobolds in the snares. When it started to move towards them, it tripped over a tripwire and became paralyzed due to the lightning magic.
Once I was sure it couldn’t move anymore, I started to decrease the temperature of the mist around the kobold leader to as low as I could. After a while of watching, I could see it was starting to suffer from severe hypothermia. I decided then to put it out of its misery.
Once that was done I checked my level again.
Author's Note:
Here is Saturday's final chapter. I sorry I have to leave you all on a cliffhanger. Let me know what you think of the application of the ice mist in this chapter. I'm going to take a break for a little while, so have a good night. Thanks for reading.