Archmage from Another World: Gaining Administrator Access [LitRPG Isekai]

29. Chain Lightning

Morgana was pleased she'd escaped her meeting with Giles while keeping suspicion to a minimum. The exam had been tricky. She'd never needed to answer questions with the intent to minimize her proficiency before. That was the opposite point of taking a test. Still, she'd done well, she thought, by how unperturbed Giles had seemed throughout the process.

She walked back to Rune's guild with a pep to her step, happy that she'd navigated the situation with such deftness. Maybe she wasn't as bad at deception as she'd feared.

Soon, perhaps in as little as a day or a few days, she would gain access to the Designers' collection of System constructions. She might not have much to learn from that organization—even for a novice's exam, those three papers of questions had been unimpressive—but they had resources she was interested in. It seemed Giles was willing to help accelerate the process, too, if need be.

Giles. She liked him. Maybe that was because he was the first and only academic she'd met since her transmigration across worlds. But he was friendly, at least.

When Morgana got back, Flint and Vesper hadn't yet returned. With dinner approaching, she took the opportunity to rectify an egregious insult to her honor, pulling out a pen and notepad and entering a familiar deep focus where minutes flew by.

During that period of experimentation, in which she created, discarded, and modified design after design as buried memories on warmagic resurfaced and were synthesized with her current understanding of spell architecture, she came to a curious realization.

The System's so-called automatic tiering of abilities was a boon in and of itself.

Upon submitting a design, the System would automatically evaluate its worth. The genius behind whatever mind—or not-mind—that ran this strange gestalt of functionalities would evaluate, upon her whim, the efficacy of a given spell. It was like having a supreme archmage standing over her shoulder, approving or disapproving theories as she postulated them.

In her excitement, she threw more and more outlandish designs into the storage space of her mind. Some [Frost Novas] downgraded to Advanced. Some evaluated as the equivalent of Expert, though were certainly better or worse in varying regards compared to the original.

But the important part was that Morgana didn't need to make the evaluation herself. She needed not run tests or submit the design for tedious review by her peers. The System judged its value, and she knew she could trust its verdict.

Advanced.

Expert.

Expert.

Advanced.

Expert.

And then finally:

***

Spell design recognized as a variation of [Frost Nova].

***

***

Saved as default.

***

***

[Frost Nova]: MASTERED. Encase a target in ice, reducing magical defenses and slowing or disabling.

***

She nodded to herself, a satisfied smile crossing her lips.

Practically speaking, it mattered little whether she upgraded the skill to its maximum. Already, [Frost Nova] could lock down anything they ran into. The improved mana efficiency and extra damage wouldn't hurt, certainly, but neither would it sway the outcome of a fight, not at the dungeon floors they were exploring.

But having it sit at 'Expert' rather than 'Mastered' had vexed her. The spell was extraordinarily simple; she was embarrassed it had taken even a handful of tries to perfect it according to the System's satisfaction.

Though she was getting the feeling that the System's preferences were very, very exacting.

As they should be.

Leaning back in her chair, she admired her success.

Of course, the System's ability to evaluate was limited. It only labeled a spell's worth in discrete tiers. Improving a design from low-Expert to high-Expert, for example, would provide no useful notification discerning the difference. Still, it was an unexpectedly useful perk, receiving instant feedback without having to expend valuable physical mana.

And that would be doubly, triply, a hundred-fold true for her specialties. More complex domains than warmagic. Spatial, much less something like temporal mana, was outrageously expensive, such that even the Ivory Institute balked at providing it for research. And generally, a spell had to be cast to determine all of its quirks—the extent of its value, so to say.

Should she receive a temporal ability and have free reign to experiment with designs, finding what worked or didn't work under the keen eyes of the System—well, Morgana wasn't embarrassed to admit the idea had her salivating slightly.

Yes, the System's automatic evaluation of ability ratings had value that couldn't be understated.

By the time she'd finished upgrading [Frost Nova], dinner was ready, and Vesper and Flint had returned from the Rogue's Association.

Eating, they caught her up on what they'd learned. As they'd hoped, they'd had a few friendly chats with others and learned about the second floor of the dungeon. Such information wasn't on lockdown: too many people had experienced the second floor, and simultaneously, not many rewards were to be found, speaking objectively. The real secrets were those of the deeper floors, which only a handful of teams inside Quarrygate were delving, and in which competition was high.

Morgana had to politely deflect her experiences at the Mage's Association, and Vesper and Flint quickly picked that up, shifting to less sensitive topics. She would explain to them later. Not that it was relevant to them; her entanglement with the Designers was a personal situation.

After eating, checking on her gathering fire mana, and settling down for the night, she woke early the next morning, stretched, and went about her business. An hour and a half later, their party of three was ready to set out for their next dungeon expedition.

Morgana had acquired a simple leather cuirass from town, having decided that some basic defense was in order, now that they had money flowing in. She would have bought a cheap metal helmet too, but she'd bound the [Visage of the Owl], and the stats, especially quicker mana regeneration, were useful on her, and she couldn't wear both the mask and a helmet at the same time. She doubted it mattered; even the cuirass was a 'just because' purchase. To prevent an important organ from being skewered should something unexpected happen.

There were two guards at the Quarrygate Dungeon entrance, as there always were. Morgana had learned their names; the same two men worked the same shift every morning. Tomas and Finn. The first was tall with a mustache he really ought to get rid of, the other shorter, older, and bored. Since the two had learned to recognize their group in turn, Morgana and her teammates were waved in without needing to be verified.

And thus, they were descending into the depths of that supernatural space again.

"So the dungeon will just…make us a passage down?" Morgana asked. "To the second floor?"

"Long as we're thinking about it," Vesper said. "And it might not happen right away. Might take a fight or two."

"I think the higher your level, the quicker it guides you," Flint grunted. "Keeps things moving for the folks heading to the deeper floors."

Sure enough, a few encounters passed before they ran into a staircase descending into the darkness. Not a hatch and a ladder like the first time. Steadier footing. Two dozen shallow steps downward, and the air grew humid, grass sprouting and plant life taking over the environment.

"Alright," Flint said. "Remember what we talked about. There's more traps here, apparently, and they're harder to spot. But to make up for that, they're not as dangerous, either. Will just bruise you up."

"Like I found out," Vesper said dryly. "I'll be keeping an eye out for roots." She obviously didn't want a repeat of yesterday.

Flint and Vesper hadn't only learned about how traps manifested in this underground cave jungle; their socialization at the Rogue's Guild had provided insight into combat encounters, too. Fortunately or unfortunately, they didn't end up needing that insight. Morgana tore through their opponents with typical ease. An hour and a half of pulverizing forest monsters with explosive bursts of arcane energy later, an announcement echoed in her head.

***

You have leveled up.

***

She could tell by Vesper's body language that the [Thief] had also leveled. They confirmed that with each other, then confirmed Flint had yet to receive his own class. That prompted some serious frowns from his sister, and for good reason. They were outpacing him.

There was technically no guarantee he would ever get a class. Was he one of those unfortunate people? Or did he just have to spend more time in the easier first floor, taking direct involvement with each kill? They would have to confront that possibility, eventually. Not quite yet, though.

She checked on her newest ability.

***

[Chain Lightning]: CLUMSY. Blast a target with a concentrated bolt of lightning. A small portion of the damage is reflected onto the nearest enemy. This bouncing effect occurs up to three times.

***

"Ah," Morgana said. "Perfect. It's a multi-target spell."

"Really?" Vesper asked, immediately interested. "What is it?"

"Chain lightning. Bounces between targets." She frowned. "But only enemies. Interesting. I wonder whether the spell defines 'enemy,' or if that's some baked-in aspect of the System." If the former, the design would have to be monstrously complex.

Pulling up the design in her head, she found, to her great disappointment, that it was the latter. She found no complex arrays of runes inside the awkward spell construction that somehow identified friend from foe. Nonetheless, she ran her mental eye across the System's most recently granted spell, excited to take in the details.

"Oh, yes," Morgana murmured. "There's a lot I can do, here. Raise how much damage is reflected. Increase the number of bounces. Perhaps even make the bounces variable to maximize the efficiency of its mana cost. That would be convenient."

She trailed off, already sketching designs in her head.

"Well," Flint said dryly. "Think we lost her. What'd you get?"

"[Backstab]," Vesper answered. "Looks like my class is pretty on rails. People were saying I'd get something like that."

"Goes well with [Inconspicuous]," Flint said. "Not that we're doing much fighting of our own," he added with a snort.

"Maybe someday we'll catch up. Even if we don't, sure as hell don't mind playing bodyguard to an [Archmage]."

"Sure. But I won't be able to play bodyguard much longer, 'less I get my own class."

"Yeah." Vesper grimaced. "Give it a bit more time. It'll happen."

Stroking the last few lines and runes into place for her rough first sketch, Morgana slotted the design into the database inside her head.

***

Spell design recognized as a variation of [Chain Lightning].

***

***

Saved as default.

***

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[Chain Lightning]: EXPERT. Blast a target with a concentrated bolt of lightning. A large portion of the damage is reflected onto the nearest enemy. This bouncing effect occurs up to twenty-seven times.

***

"Mm," Morgana said. "It's…acceptable." Expert, but not Mastered, again.

"What'd it change to?"

"Large portion reflected, up to twenty-seven bounces."

"Twenty-seven!"

"And each bounce is an instant kill, probably." Flint shook his head. "Well. There goes your biggest weakness—being limited to single target damage."

After a second of silence, Vesper said, "Speaking of…if we're no longer scared of a swarming boss, how'd'you feel about tackling the next boss we see?"

Flint frowned. Morgana almost expected that same argument from before to break out. But it didn't. Flint just shrugged.

"Guess we might as well." He leveled a stern look at his sister. "We sure as hell aren't going down to the next floor, but a boss? Whatever. That's where the good loot is, and if she can blow up entire swarms of monsters now, we're in way better shape." He glanced at Morgana. "We're still gonna need to test out the skill, though. See how it works."

"Of course," Morgana said smoothly. "Let's go do that now."