16. Aftermath

Revel was looking at him, waiting for his answer.

“I don’t have one.”

“You don’t?” she said, tilting her head. “Then we need to get you one soon. I’ll check with you later.” She started walking toward Lira. “Good job,” she added without turning back.

It was a decent fight. Aside from the mistakes his party made at the beginning. Even the guards were far stronger than regular guards in his old world. Far stronger.

The blessing made regular humans stronger. But he still didn’t know what the high ceiling was. His party was similar in strength to apprentice mages, maybe even mages. Clay was around the level of a squire as well.

The casting was far quicker in this world. In his old one, spells needed to be imagined, calculated, and made into reality. There were multiple steps one needed to go through before casting a spell. With training, the cast time became faster, but the steps were never skipped.

At his current level, Adolin didn’t need to go through the steps manually. It was easier than breathing.

Here, chanting handled most of the process. He would have to learn to cast the same way if he wanted to understand it.

Chanting would be faster in the early stages compared to mages from his old world. But experienced mages would cast far faster than chanting.

Glancing around, there were no more screams. The goblins were already executed. Most of the guards were sitting on the ground, resting. Clay was talking to Master Eldritch. Blaise was still sprawled on the ground, exhaustion clear on his face. Revel was talking with Lira, who was also on the ground, drained of mana.

Adolin clicked his tongue.

He would need to teach Lira a lot about spells and casting. And positioning. Among other things.

It was time to check his status again. It had been a while since he last did, and he had cast a lot of spells. “Status.”

The translucent window appeared, showing the notifications he got from the blessing.

[New Skill Detected: Ice Spikes.]
[Skill Tier: 4]
[Level Increased.]
[Attribute Points Available: 5]

[New Skill Detected: Freeze.]
[Skill Tier: 3]
[Attribute Points Available: 5]

[New Skill Detected: Ice Spear.]
[Skill Tier: 6]
[Attribute Points Available: 6]

From the three new spells he used, he only gained two levels. It was the first time he gained less than a level per spell. It seemed it wouldn’t be as easy as he thought to progress through the levels.

He was probably wrong about that. He still hadn’t used high-tier spells. And there were two he could use with the low mana he had, but he wasn’t in a hurry. He didn’t want to be left without mana. It was a terrible feeling. He finally felt better about the mana he had.

[Status:]
Name: Dareth Wood
Race: Human
Mana: 56/190
Level: 15
Class: /

[Attributes:]
Strength: 16
Agility: 17
Endurance: 18
Intelligence: 19
Constitution: 16
Attribute Points Available: 6

He was beginning to feel the improvements. He wasn’t getting tired as fast as when he first came to this world. He was faster on his feet and felt better about his abilities. Increasing his level felt addictive. Improvement he could feel after every level, and more mana for more advanced spells every few levels.

He was beginning to like the system.

He spat on the ground, but it didn’t remove the bitterness from his tongue.

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He had six attribute points. Even using all of them wouldn’t give him enough mana for the mind spells he needed to remove Lira’s addiction. He preferred round numbers, so he put one point into Intelligence. That left him with five points for emergencies.

He looked around again. This time, a few of the guards were cutting the ears off the goblins and putting them into bags. There were probably several uses for them, from alchemy to bounties. He would ask Revel.

Revel and Lira were still in the same spot, so he walked over.

“What’s that for?”

Revel and Lira glanced toward the guards.

“Bounties. Fifty bronze per kill.”

He nodded.

“How are you holding up?”

Lira smiled. “Better. Thanks.”

He felt like he needed to remind them of their mistakes during the battle. But he quickly caught himself. He was in no position to do it. He had just joined the party. Starting to lecture them now would be a bad choice. He could probably tell Lira, but that would require them to be away from the rest of the party.

“Not your first fight,” Revel said.

“No. There were a few.”

She chuckled. “They must have been quite a few. You didn’t waste a single spell, and every one fit the situation.”