Chapter 51

Hot sweat soaked through the robe. The robe, heavy with absorbed sweat, and my thin shoulders and legs couldn’t bear its weight.

“Haa… Enough with the drivel. Just give me what you promised.”

Catching my breath, I told Dajin to hand over the reward. My tone was sharp, but with my physical limits pushed so far, it couldn’t be helped.

Courtesy and pretending to be refined were things possible only when I could at least breathe properly, wouldn’t you say?

I was utterly exhausted from dragging my muscle-aching body from the barracks to this place. I don’t remember it well, but I think I crossed the line between life and death twice on the way here.

No, was it three times?

I can’t even remember properly anymore. I just want to quickly finish my business and return to the barracks.

“Ah, um…”

Lire, seeing me speak to Dajin with such a sharp tongue, wore a slightly flustered expression.

It wasn’t as though her attitude was incomprehensible. The Lightning Spirit, Dajin, was, for Electromancers, a being worthy of worship.

The entity who brought the concept of magic into this world, guiding them along their path. An observable god.

Every magic-related tome I’d read thus far portrayed spirits precisely in that manner.

“I’m so damn exhausted…”

So what of it?

If I stood here any longer, I might go meet an unobservable god myself.

“Ha! I do not dislike a brazen child. You have guts; I find myself growing more fond!”

Brazen this and brazen that; I’m merely demanding my reward for the quest.

Did requesting fair compensation for one’s labor require such nerve in the medieval era?

I confirm anew, even today, that the term ‘Dark Ages’ was not coined in jest.

When will labor laws finally be enacted?

“Very well! I shall bestow upon you both a reward. First, I shall grant you my blessing.”

Calling it a reward made it sound like some act of charity.

Did this deer-spawn possess no conscience? We nearly died performing the task *he* requested.

Only after arriving in the medieval era do I viscerally understand why those who championed the labor movement were even called martyrs.

“Extend your hands, and you too, Lir.”

Without complaint, Lir and I followed his instruction, placing our palms toward Dajin’s horns. In that instant, faint, warm lightning sparked at our fingertips, before burrowing into the backs of our hands.

A faint scar remained on the skin where the lightning had pierced through. It wasn’t particularly hot or painful, but in my case, and Lir’s, our skin was quite pale, so the scar was rather noticeable.

Meanwhile, the lightning that had entered through our hands was spreading throughout our bodies. For a fleeting moment, a strange sensation of omnipotence, as if floating in mid-air, enveloped me.

“Children, I shall aid you in advancing to higher realms.”

It felt like every blood vessel, once hopelessly clogged, had been cleared in an instant. A potential I never knew existed seemed to detonate within my mind, a sensation like a rising tide of explosions.

My brain, instinctually, began to churn, desperately trying to decipher the nature of this lightning that had pierced my skin.

“This is…”

“Enlightenment, magic, and simultaneously, my blessing.”

A spirit’s blessing.

A passive magic achievable only when a mage communes with a spirit aligned with their magical essence, a skill burdened with specific prerequisites.

Magic gained through such specific conditions, like a spirit’s blessing, couldn’t even be locked during character creation.

Which meant, even with a character created unable to use any magic besides ‘Bloom’, I could still use it without issue.

“…Phew, at least I’ve met the minimum requirements.”

I muttered to myself, my gaze fixed on the lightning bolt-shaped scar etched on the back of my hand.

According to my research, two prerequisites were absolutely necessary for my ‘One-Shot Mage’ to be remotely viable.

One was acquiring the artifact, the ‘Crimson Crystal,’ to compensate for my non-existent normal attack. The other was obtaining a ‘Spirit’s Blessing’ to secure a bare minimum of survivability.

The key effect of a spirit’s blessing, more than anything, was its automatically deployed barrier.

Unlike barriers conjured with one’s own mana, this one was powered by the blessing implanted by the spirit, meaning it didn’t drain my mana reserves upon activation.

Thanks to this, my firstborn son, the magic-less orc mage ‘Fisty,’ found it an invaluable passive magic.

For mages with low survivability, the spirit’s blessing was like rain in a drought.

Even among players who didn’t pursue extreme and bizarre builds like orc strength mages or one-shot mages, it was recognized as a top-tier magic.

There was even a meme in the community, answering newbie questions like, “I’ve leveled my mage to around 40, what should I do next?” with “Get a Tier 1 Spirit’s Blessing.” It was that popular for a while.

Furthermore, the best aspect of the spirit’s blessing spell was that the barrier deployed automatically in response to threats.

Lacking both the reaction speed to evade monster attacks and the ability to deploy a barrier at the right moment, I could hardly find magic better suited to me.

Beyond that, this blessing of the spirits skill isn’t limited to a single ability.

Well… the second function isn’t really as versatile as the first one, the barrier.

Most mages just shrug it off, thinking, “Oh, it has that too,” a function not even worth calling a burden.

A burden at least leaves you with a slight feeling of regret, doesn’t it? If you put up with the trouble and put it in your mouth, it has a certain flavor, too.

But this function, if it disappeared, you’d only feel a fleeting “Oh, it’s gone~” and nothing more.

It’s the ability to lift the limit on the amount of magical energy you can store within your body.

Typical mages constantly use magic every day through battles, experiments, and training, regularly expending the magical energy within them. Because of this, in most cases, they rarely accumulate magical energy in their bodies for more than a week.

Therefore, those who hear about this second function, which naturally unlocks the limit on maximum storable mana, often react in the following ways:

‘So what?’

‘That function was even there?’

‘Hold on, gonna check the wiki real quick.’

‘Oh, it’s actually real lol.’

‘Totally useless.’

Well, that’s its standing, to most people…

But for me, the story is quite different.

Because I’m a half-baked mage who only knows how to use ‘Bloom’.

Bloom is a magic that releases all the magical energy remaining within a mage’s body. Naturally, the power of this magic is proportional to the amount of mana stored within the mage’s body.

‘Until now, the maximum output of my Bloom has only been the equivalent of a week’s worth of mana.’

However, ever since receiving the blessing of the spirits, the story has completely changed.

I am now in a state where I can store magic within my body beyond a week, a month, a year, even longer.

The ceiling that magic, called Enlightenment, had possessed simply vanished.

In theory, from now on, without a single instance of training, merely by passing the time, I would become a mage capable of blasting even the Demon Lord into oblivion with a single flick of a finger.

I even had experience realizing this, albeit from beyond a monitor.

The video of a level 40-something mage obliterating the Demon Lord with a single finger flick must still be saved on my computer’s hard drive.

That video… when I uploaded it to the community, the response was reasonably good.

…Of course, that was only possible because I had accumulated mana within the character’s body for roughly 50 years of in-game time, without using magic even once.

I think my experimental character was around 70 years old back then…?

It was quite a difficult experiment, since I had to diligently push through quests to prevent a bad ending, all the while never using magic and simultaneously not leveling up.

“And one more thing, you promised something.”

However, I couldn’t be satisfied with merely learning the magic of the spirit’s blessing. Originally, this magic could be obtained simply by touching a runestone.

Yet that deer b*stard presented us with a quest I’d never even heard of before, and my companions and I nearly lost our lives several times in the process.

Additional hardship followed one after another, so a commensurate reward should be given.

“A special gift, you say? You are rather impatient, not even savoring my blessing.”

Dajin, his eyes closed, alternatingly looked at Lir and me as we were engrossed in analyzing the lightning that had entered our bodies and making it our own, and clicked his tongue.

“Well, I suppose. At this level of blessing, considering the domain you will create and pioneer in the future… it’s probably not a very impressive magic.”

Dajin turned around and slowly walked towards the tree where his runestone was buried.

The lightning spirit, in the form of a deer, began to insert several strands of lightning composing its body into the thick, sturdy roots of the tree, and soon pulled out a small twig buried deep within the ground.

It was an impressive twig, with a sharp and jagged shape as if it had been sculpted from lightning. Dajin held it out to me.

So, the special gift that Dajin gave me was, on the surface, nothing more than a twig, about two or three hand spans long, with a slightly unique shape.

‘…A staff, perhaps?’

The tree limbs, struck by Dajin’s lightning, remained unscathed, refusing to ignite. If anything, they seemed to subtly absorb the electricity.

This heated the surrounding air, creating an updraft. Cumulonimbus clouds, born from the rising air, slowly blanketed the sky, gradually dimming the sunlight.

“Grasp it,” Dajin said, forming the lightning into a bowl-like shape. He then presented the dirt-stained staff before my eyes.

Even I, who had spent countless hours immersed in games, meticulously examining every easter egg and item, had never encountered a staff like this.

Most staves were crafted with a readily grippable handle for the user to wield. But this one lacked anything that could be called a handle.

Staring at the handleless staff, akin to a blade without a hilt, I hesitated for a long moment, before gingerly placing my fingertip on its lower end.

My finger was pricked by a sharp thorn, drawing blood. How was one supposed to carry this around?

“Ah.”

Yet, the staff cradled within the lightning bowl shattered the instant my hand touched it. The sensation, like the first time I handled a crimson crystal, started in my fingertip and radiated through my entire being.

The staff, now molecular, began to burrow into the skin beneath my palm.

Watching the brown particles sink beneath my skin, I stared at Dajin with an expression of disbelief.

“…An Artifact?”

“Eh?! W-What… Artifact, you say?”

Rire’s flustered voice echoed from behind me, breaking the calm I had while observing my palm.

“…Ugh, couldn’t you have mentioned it was an artifact beforehand?”

I sighed, directing a blatantly displeased look towards Dajin.

“Ah… are you displeased?”

Dajin asked, his voice laced with confusion, as if he had not anticipated such a reaction.

Rire wore a puzzled expression as well, bewildered that I was troubled rather than delighted by acquiring an artifact.

Artifacts.

Weapons hidden throughout the world, their origins and creators lost to time. Each one possessed a singular and powerful nature.

Many among them held immense power, yet were burdened with crippling restrictions.

The ‘Necklace of the Mortal’ would be a prime example.

This artifact granted its wielder a devastating boost, increasing experience gain twenty-fold. The price, however, was steep: upon acquiring the necklace, the character’s lifespan was reduced to a mere two years.

Not reduced by two years, but *to* two years.

You ingest it, and you only have two years to live.

“…Thinking about it again, what an absolutely insane artifact.”

Furthermore, one could not simply discard an artifact if its effects proved undesirable. Bound by a special restriction called ‘Affinity,’ it became stored within the body.

Therefore, the absorption of a flawed artifact could introduce a crippling disadvantage to a character’s development.

“…Explain its effects. Are there any drawbacks? Issues with lifespan or health?”

Though the world within this game differed from reality, I intended to continue my growth along the path of my ‘One-Shot Mage,’ honed over hundreds of hours in my one-room apartment in front of my monitor.

The artifacts and spells of this world were, without exception, identical to those I had known in the game.

And yet, suddenly, I was being forced to absorb an artifact I’d never even heard of before…

If things went awry, the growth route and build I had meticulously planned could become utterly meaningless.

“Quickly. Explain.”

I desperately hoped that the build wouldn’t be irrevocably ruined as I demanded an explanation from Da-jin.

“Ahem, ahem! First, please calm yourself…”

Da-jin coughed, seemingly trying to conceal his own unease, then cleared his throat and continued.

“…Calm myself?”

Is he…is he really saying that right now?