Fanfic (Azarinth Healer)

Chapter 4 - Frostbite

I tracked down Adicus and asked about caravans to Calys which was a city state at the base of a big-ass mountain. He found me one heading there on its way to dawntree and I signed up for a bunch of copper.

I got stuck in a rickety wagon with a few other adventurers. One was level forty another sixty-two and the last was question marks.

The level sixty-two fire mage kept trying to ask me about my magic but I shut that down. I was never much of a people person, and this guy was not the sort I could comfortably talk with.

The first few days were rather peaceful but on the third day of the five day journey we got raided by bandits. The other adventurers sprung to action joining the fray. I was hesitant to fight other people, and mostly hid. I teleported people out of harm's way and that greatly confused the bandits until one of them spotted me. I barely teleported out of the way of the ball of fire that flew at me. I was put on the back pedal, and could no longer protect others. As it turns out my experience cheesing eldritch horrors doesn't translate well to fighting intelligent people. After my third dodge I got hit square in the chest with a torrent of flame. My robe endured but it burned the flesh underneath.

I screamed in pain as my health had also dipped below half. Another blast came at me and I threw up a portal as a shield sending the blast to some random part of the forest. Getting low on mana I was going to have to attack back.

Is sucked up the pain of having the skin on my torso melted, and struck back. I formed several spear like void fragments and sent them hurling around the portal at my target. They struck fast as lightning and the man only managed to dodge a few. Unlike the void monster's I had trained against this guy had no defense or durability against my strikes which silently left perfect holes in his torso.

'ding' 'Your group has defeated [Cain - Rogue of Flame - lvl 74 / Cutpurse - lvl 30]'

'ding' 'You have defeated an enemy twenty levels or more above your own. Additional experience is granted.'

I felt sick as I watched his lifeless body fall to the ground. The sounds of battle faded as I reeled over my actions. I felt a hand on my shoulder. "First time taking a life?" I nodded shakily. "Take your time, the first few kills are always the worst." I looked up and say the highest level person from our group a youngish woman with emerald eyes, and blonde hair. I had seen that she was a Hunter and her blood covered swords confirmed such.

With the bandits dealt with the caravan took stock of its losses before continuing on. I didn't say a word the rest of the day. Other than some low level goblins I didn't help with, there were no other troubles with getting to Calys. Behind the modest city a massive mountain scraped the sky

I drifted into town with the rest and grabbed a bunch of food, a warm coat and a water skin. With my provisions I set off for the snow part of the mountain. I really didn't feel like hanging out with people for a while. I used my portals to make the trip in record time.

So focusing on the second class I knew from the descriptions that my options were dictated by the things I'd accomplished. So I should probably work on gaining cold resistance and killing some cold monsters. The air up here was thin, So ended up having to take time to acclimate to the height. I was dizzy.

It took a day in the cold before I felt ready to explore. The first creatures I ran into were level 40 spirits of frost. In the efforts of gaining resistance to the cold I let them hit me while preparing to teleport out.

I teleported away with my prize, and meditated to heal properly. Thanks to my void sight I had a constant drain on my mana to trigger my health regen, so I just needed to keep my mana up. The frostbite from the attack hurt but not nearly as much as fire did, I was already thankful for the null forged body upgrade to pain tolerance.

I spent the next day and a half carefully getting wailed on by the spirits. My frost resistance hit level 5. I also tried manipulating ice with my mana the same way I practiced with void magic. It was strange but they had vaguely similar vibes despite being very different. In a way they were both an absence of something, and the emptiness of space was known to be cold.

It took a week before I got my first shard of ice formed with magic but I stopped immediately. I wanted to do some fancy stuff in the cold before I progressed enough to get the class. More accomplishments mean better class. Maybe there was a yeti I could kill. I could probably use my portal to drop a land locked creature from up high. The spirits could float so it wouldn't work on them. So I searched the frozen mountainside for something to kill with gravity. Like the old saying goes: "work smarter not harder"

I didn't find a yeti but I did find a winter wolf whose level I could not see. It was kinda cool looking but alas it was a monster and I was a power hungry gremlin. The poor thing had just spotted me before a portal opened up beneath it. I watched the speck in the sky fall. It got caught in the wind and ended up landing much further down the mountain.

'ding' 'Your group has defeated [Winter wolf - lvl 134]'

'ding' 'You have defeated an enemy eighty levels or more above your own. Additional experience is granted.'

'ding' 'Void Sorceress has reached level 51. 5 Stat points awarded.'

'ding' 'Cosmic Rift reaches - 2nd lvl 5'

That worked perfectly. I was a deadly genius. The next few days involved a plummeting, heh pun, population of winter wolves. I also worked in more cold resistance training now with multiple frost spirits.

I had to stop when winter wolves started getting rare. I didn't want to commit genocide. I guess there was no dungeon to spawn the poor pups. For my next trick I was going to use my portals to kill a spirit with its own ice magic. I was up to 3 sets of portals at a time. I'd just place one in front of a spirit when it sent its attack at me and it'd strike the stupid critter in the bum. Took some practice and an hour, because they probably had really high natural ice resistance. But I killed a level 35 frost spirit with its own ice magic.

By the time I got my cold resistance to level 10 I decided it was time to slay a bunch of the spirts rather than let them hang for resistance, then unlock the class. The spirits were easy to shred with void magic, and I spent another day perfecting my mana to ice technique.

Not the super amazing advanced version of an ice mage I wanted but it's better than getting 'Ice mage'. I accepted the spoils of my labor.

I could immediately feel the change, and took off my winter weather gear. Touching the snow on the ground with my hand barely felt cold at all. I used my new manipulation to make a snowball and chuck it.

I checked out my current stats.

It was time to find a dungeon, I needed an endless supply of enemies.