Chapter 191: Significantly Effective!

There were quite a few people sitting in the inn at Otterbank, but everyone was generally not in much of a chatting and bantering mood, with only a few quiet conversations, and a newcomer to the door couldn’t attract any attention.

There had been an intermittent “popping” from above since he’d walked in the door earlier, and Jace hadn’t noticed it at first, but Grider had tapped him and pointed up, and Jace had looked up to find two pairs of fat, white legs resting on the stairs, with the one in the back bumping into the one in front of him.

But apart from the two of them, no one was interested in what was happening on the stairs. Probably because everyone on the snowy mountain reported understanding of any way to get warm.

Jace walked over to the counter and asked for two large beers, a pale ale and a rye returned to the table, handed the rye to Grider and said, “Here!”

“Ah, I’m surprised you didn’t need me to remind you of your agreement to buy me a drink.” Grid nodded in satisfaction and said, “Is there something you want me to do?”

“Indeed, Grid.” Jace said.

The dwarf took a sip, closed his eyes and said, “Holy shit, this is too cold.”

“I didn’t ask for ice.” Jess said.

“Nonsense ……” muttered Grider, “Say, what’s the favor.”

Jace said, “I have a new spell to learn, but I haven’t finished it once from start to finish because it’s so easy to have problems casting it, like fainting from generating overdrawn or something, so watch over me tonight, and if I faint, pour me a mana potion right away.”

With that, he took a bottle out of his bag and said, “This is it, this will help me wake up with a little less damage and recover a little faster.”

“Doesn’t sound too hard.” Grider said.

“It really isn’t that hard, but I simply can’t do it on my own.” Jace said, “I’ve been wanting to try again since I left Stormwind, I didn’t realize it took me until today to get around to making my first attempt, I actually have the spell memorized, I’m just missing a full attempt.”

“Then wait for me to finish my drink.”

“Just drink this one.”

“So that’s what you’re planning, no, this time doesn’t count, you’ll have to treat me to another pain in the ass when we get back to Stormwind.”

“All right.”

After eating and drinking the two booked a room, the city of Outlander, although it had fallen into disrepair, was inexplicably much more expensive to stay in than the town of Southsea.

Still, that was probably the cost of a kingdom’s capital, after all, Jace had never really stayed at an inn in the capital proper, either renting a house or living in a tent.

Jace looked at the small room and said, “Be fireproof, and cover our luggage with my cloak.”

“Fire?” Grid asked curiously, “Some kind of fireball or something, you’re going to start a fire in this hut? That’s too big a crime for me to do it with you.”

“It’s not an offensive magic, Grid!” Jace said, “It’s ‘Mage Armor’ a protective magic that attaches magical resistance to itself, not offensive. It requires channeling the elements so it can catch fire if something goes wrong, but don’t worry, it didn’t cause a fire the first time I practiced it, and I’m much more proficient with the spell now than I was then.”

“Your magic is at your disposal.” Grid said, “But why fireproof your luggage if you’re so skilled?”

“What if something goes wrong.” Jace said as he wrapped his cloak around his luggage, “If a little fire escapes, we’ll both be fine, what if we burn something.”

“So I’m just going to watch you from here?”

“That’s basically it, if there’s something like a small flame, help me put it out, I need to maintain concentration on the spell so I can’t help you. If it’s not focused …… enough then it will cause even worse energy drain and end up failing, and it might not cause other problems I didn’t anticipate.”

“I almost got it.” Grid nodded with his arms wrapped around him and said, “You may begin, I am ready.”

“Very good.”

Jace subconsciously took on Marin’s tone of voice as he unfolded his recorded casting of Mage Armor and laid it out on the table in front of him. He then cast an Arcane Wisdom, took a deep breath, and drank a small half bottle of mana potion.

Grider sat upright on the bed, watching Jace’s movements intently like a monk in a monastery.

“Is it over?” He asked.

“It hasn’t started yet.”

Jace said glancing at him and standing in the center, his hands mimicking Marin’s starter’s pose as a sharp pain shot through his shoulder and he frowned, feeling in his head that it might not go so well this time.

But as soon as the thought popped up, he forced it down, because every time he believed he could pull it off, the magic was done unexpectedly well, and every time he started to worry about it, it often turned out to be worse than he feared.

“Rockport Torrey ……”

Jace slowly closed his eyes, this time with Grid’s help he was going to focus all his attention on casting the spell and stop caring about everything else.

After all, the last time was the first time he had had the curiosity about the phenomena that occurred when those arcane arts manipulated elemental energies, and now there was no need for him to be curious, he didn’t need to think about anything other than completing the casting of the spell.

“Inguruku ……”

Jace continued the gesture, concentrating on the arcane energy surrounding him as he skillfully recited the incantation. Soon, however, he heard Grid begin to softly “Ow, ah, ah, ouch, hee-ya”.

What’s going on here?

Jace didn’t dare open his eyes, all this commotion was already disturbing his concentration’s focus a bit, and he didn’t have any intention of abandoning the spell until it was complete, or until Grid actually called for help.

It has to be done this time!

“…… Itakshi, Bediinkatu, Nazarzoon!”

Jace’s eyes snapped open, and in that instant, all the arcane energies intermingled with the various colors of the elements wrapped around him crashed into him as if they had suddenly gathered in a seven-colored prism of light.

Instead of the impact doing any damage, Jace felt like he was being pelted with a cloud of cold and hot breath, the prisms randomly shattering into shimmering crystals that covered his clothes, his neck, and even his chin, and gradually began to spread to his face ……

At that moment, Jace felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, and he covered his arm, which he had just forgotten to cast without swinging it, even forgetting the pain.

But the pain wasn’t so torturous after seeing the magical effect obtained after the spell was completed.

On his body, the crystal dazzle didn’t disperse, but gradually dimmed, little by little forming a swimming colored light floating on his clothes and skin.

Just as he was surprised, he noticed that Grid had somehow managed to hide in the corner.

“What’s going on with you ……?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Grider said, holding up his hands.

“I’m asking what you’re hiding for ……”

Grid gestured his hands and said, “Just now I suddenly saw some Ao energy, like stars, flying from everywhere, and with red, yellow, green …… fire like things, I can’t say what those things are, around you, spinning in circles with your hands. Some of them fell on me, not embers, I do not know what! It hurt me! The pyroclastic glowing was like lightning released from a knight’s hammer, and all I could do was hide from it ……”

Could it be natural energy? Perhaps Jace’s unskillfulness in casting the spell had caused some of the natural energy to leak out, but that was normal.

“So does that count as a start?” Grid asked again.

“It’s over.” Jess said.

“Finally …… finally!” Grid exclaimed, “I was really scared to death just now, I thought the whole house was going to be burned down by you, there’s just this little bit of space here, it’s just too narrow for those energies you released, there’s no place for me to hide!”

“Then …… find a more spacious place next time.”

Jace had not yet mastered the ability to reduce the strength of the spell casting to reach a weaker version of Mage Armor, as Marin had said. He just wanted to complete one at his best first, and whether or not he could reduce the strength to make the spell Mage Armor more practical for him could be optimized later in his coursework for the School of Protection ……

But I didn’t expect it to be so successful!

Jace didn’t feel any fatigue at all during the spell, and it was only after it was done that he felt a sense of relief that he had managed to get it done.

In fact, this is also a sign of excessive mana consumption, just not to the point of exhaustion, Jace cast more and more magic has begun to familiarize himself with the different sensations of mental energy, which can help him control his “blue bar”.

Jace knew that the reason why this was done so well must have been that the water from the Sunwell in that water bottle had helped boost his energy enough.

However, in the mana source related texts rummaged through in the library before, the elves did not mention this tiny bit of water from the Well of the Sun’s increase in energy, or mana ceiling, but only mentioned that carrying the water bottle on one’s body would be of great benefit to the recovery of energy, so why would it have such an effect in his case?

In fact, Jace had guessed a possibility in his heart that the elves were originally born in the arcane arts and had lived under the light of the Well of the Sun for a long time, so both the nobles and the rangers possessed mana that far exceeded that of most other races.

There might also be some sort of marginal effect on the growth of mana, so even if they drank the well water from the Well of the Sun, they could not feel any significant improvement, and could only experience its amazing recovery effect. After all, the Well of the Sun was just a bottle of well water from the Well of Eternity dumped into a spring to form it, and today’s Quel’dorei enjoyed far less magical power than their ancient ancestors who resided on the shores of the Well of Eternity, Sin’aisali.

In any case …… this bottle of water did give him, a human whose blue bar was on the short side, a rather obvious boost, that is, before the mage armor cast halfway to start feeling fatigue, now after finishing it all still feel that there is no chance of spamming it and still be able to do it again!

But he rationalized that he knew he wouldn’t be able to come to the full one, but it had been quite a surprise.