The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith

by Justin Miller

  After Kroa returned, she sat between Denise and I, and we started talking about whatever topics came to mind until our food arrived. She seemed quite happy to be one of the first demons that we had a real conversation with, and was open about anything we wanted to know. Of course, my first question was about the seven Sin Districts.

  “Oh, that? When we heard what humans were calling the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, it gave Queen Lilith an idea. Each district represents one of the sins. You have the brothels in Lust, restaurants in Gluttony, resorts in Sloth, academies in Pride, mock battles in Wrath, shopping in Envy, and gambling in Greed. At first people weren’t sure about dividing everything up like that, but it turned out to work wonders!”

  “But, I came here today to train a demon in magic, and Lilith had me do so in the District of Wrath. Wouldn’t that be better in Pride, from what you said?”

  “Hmm.. maybe she’s expecting there to be some property damage if your student’s growth gets to be too much? The residents of Pride would throw a royal fit, but the people living in Wrath actually enjoy the excitement, as long as you pay for the damages.”

  “I see, that would make a bit of sense. There were other classrooms there as well, so I guess it’s not uncommon for advanced magic lessons to take place there. Alright, this has been bugging me for a while. I’ve been in Hell twice now, and I haven’t seen any children. What’s up with that?”

  Denise smirked a bit, but Kroa giggled lightly. “Oh, we age differently from other races. All demons are born as an imp, and as they gain strength and experience in life they evolve into other forms.”

  “So… all demons are originally male..”

  “Yup! Our genders aren’t set until the first evolution, and then it’s whatever we identify ourselves as.”

  “But wait.. first evolution? That means that if you get stronger you’ll evolve again. Wouldn’t that put you on the same rank of evolutions as Lilith?”

  That made our waitress laugh brightly. “Oh, good hells no. Queen Lilith’s actual species is Succubus Queen. It’s an extremely rare variant with incredible power. Though we are both in our final stage, you can’t compare a regular succubus with that.”

  “Alright, well how many evolutions does a demon tend to have?”

  “Normally between three and five, depending on the path they take. I had four; Imp, Mephit, Reborn, and finally Succubus.”

  “What’s a Reborn?” This time it was Denise’s time to ask a question. Which was good, because I was running out of them.

  “A Reborn is actually only about as strong as an Imp, so it’s usually seen as taking a step backwards in evolution. They look almost exactly like humans, with only two or three demon traits. I, for instance, kept my horns and claws. But Reborn also have the greatest potential for a final evolution. I might not be on the Queen’s level, but I’m no pushover, either~.” She smiled to us at that.

  “That’s actually pretty interesting. So, maybe the real test of this training is to see if I can get Levy to evolve. And if so, what she becomes.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t expect too much from an imp’s first evolution. Their type may change, but they don’t gain all that much power.”

  “I see..” I nodded to myself, and then the food arrived. As if that was her cue, Kroa bid us goodbye and asked us to visit again if we had the chance. I definitely planned to come back, because the spaghetti--and I found out it really was a massive helping a spaghetti with meatballs-- was amazing!

  Chapter 24

  The next day, I opted to simply teleport straight to the classroom, and was back in my normal robes. Though, I had colored them red instead of blue to match the setting. What I found waiting for me there nearly made my heart break. Levy was sitting at his desk, almost in tears. In front of him were both books that I had handed to him last night, and they were undamaged, so I couldn’t understand why he was so sad. His black shirt and pants looked crumpled as if he was grabbing them again and again out of some nervous habit.

  “What’s the matter..?”

  “I… I’m sorry… I.. couldn’t finish your assignment. When I got home… the books were suddenly so hard to read! I was only able to make a little progress… I couldn’t get to the advanced book at all…”

  I see.. so that’s the problem. “No, don’t worry. This isn’t your fault. You honestly don’t have anything to be upset about. I forgot that the increased learning rate would only work when you were in my presence, and gave you such a difficult task. For that, I’m the one that’s sorry.”

  “You… you mean it?” He looked up at me with wet eyes, and I had the distinct feeling I knew what gender Levy was going to grow into.

  “Yeah. Now that I’m here, try reading the advanced book again. Don’t worry if you can’t understand it, just give it a shot.” Levy nodded, picking up the thicker book and opening it up. He must have thought I’d beat him as an unworthy student or something with that reaction he had given.

  “I.. I can read it!” He suddenly smiled brightly, and I received messages indicating his level was steadily rising again. It was almost scary how fast he was learning. Once his Magical Knowledge had hit 12, I decided to have him stop.

  “Okay, now like I said yesterday, today we will practice actual magic usage. You should have figured out quite a lot of it on your own already, just from reading these two books. But first, I’ll have you do the same spell I practiced on my first try.” I brought my hand out and cast the Light spell, forming a simple ball of light in my hand. “Do you need help with the incantation?”

  Levy nodded, so I repeated the incantation from memory. “Northern stars, grant this traveler safety in the darkness. While saying this incantation, focus on the rune of Light in your mind, and then let that image flow into your mana. Give it a try.”

  He nodded again, holding his small clawed hands out. “Okay.. Northern stars… uh… grant this traveler safety.. in the darkness.” His eyes closed tight, likely focusing on the rune. With his level of Magical Knowledge, though, the rune should come to him by pure instinct. And sure enough, a small glowing orb appeared above his outstretched hand. When he opened his eyes to check his progress, he let out a happy smile. “I did it! I did-- where’d it go?” With his concentration broken, the light flickered out of existence.

  “Don’t worry, that’s normal. Once you stop focusing on a spell like Light, it will stop working. Try it again, this time without the chant. Same procedure as before.” When Levy listened to my words, he immediately followed, and I received a message showing that his Magical Talent leveled up.

  “Okay, good. Now for my personally most used spell, Message. This will let you talk with people even if they are far away. Also, this is a two-rune spell. You have to picture both in your mind at the same time to get it to work. The runes associated with it are Speak and Friend. The incantation is ‘wings of light, signs of beginning, may my voice reach the farthest corner.’ Now you try.”

  Levy nodded again, happy to be learning spells so quickly. “Wings of light, signs of beginning, may my voice reach the farthest corner! Message.. uh… Queen Lilith!” He lowered his head a bit as he chose the target for his spell, but soon perked up. “It’s me, Your Highness! Yes, he’s already teaching me spells! I know!” He laughed a bit as they held a brief conversation. “You’re welcome. I’ll let you get back to work now!”

  When the spell ended, his smile radiated in the room. It was clear he was eager to keep learning. “Okay, next is… hmm.. Ah! How about a spell to let you see everything at once, down to the smallest detail? After that, we should be able to skip straight into infernal magic.” Given that his talents were raising nearly every time he cast a spell so far, he’d hit at least level fifty by the end of the day.

  “Okay!” Levy didn’t really seem to care what spell he learned, as long as he was learning something.

  “Alright, the runes for this are Awareness and Area. While using those, focus your mana into your eyes. The chant for this one is really e
asy. In my eyes, all things are as one.” Levy nodded to me, repeating the incantation I told him. Once he was done, his black eyes lit up green, glowing with a faint light. Huh, so that’s how it looks from the outside. Wonder why Denise never commented on it.

  “Wow.. I really can see everything!” Since this was a maintained spell, his Magical Talent was leveling up just by keeping the spell on. This was way too scary. Compared to this, I really can’t be called a cheat at all! Then, I noticed that both his Mana Pool and Mana Recovery talents both increased a level as well.

  “Alright. Now, let’s move on to the demon specialty, infernal magic. These spells are infinitely more complicated to utilize than the three you’ve just learned. With infernal magic, the simplest spell I know is Hellfire Bolt, a four rune spell. After that, you can’t count the spells by their runes, because they use a different focus method.”

  “A different method?” He looked to me, suddenly confused as his eyes went back to black.

  “That’s right. When spells reach a certain degree of difficulty, you stop simply visualizing runes. Each of these spells have a pattern, like a diagram, associated with them. This diagram’s formation is what issues the instructions to your mana to perform the necessary spell. If it’s your current growth, no doubt you’ll be able to cast these spells by the end of the day.”

  “Is that true? Am I really growing that fast?” He looked down to himself, and seemed to notice for the first time that his shirt was actually stretched somewhat as he had gained another few inches in height in just over an hour. His face registered pure awe at his own results, and I figured he must be approaching his evolution. Levy was already one of the biggest imps I had seen in Hell, compared to being among the smallest just twenty-four hours ago.

  “Yeah, you are. Now, for the Hellfire Bolt spell, we’ll need to go outside. It’d suck royally if we set fire to all of these teaching materials.” Hence being why we were in this district in the first place.

  Once we were outside, I sat down on the ground, cross legged. Oddly enough, this put me eye to eye with Levy. Raising one hand, I manifested a sheet of paper with my creation skill. Then, using the fine tuning I had practiced when making my gun that I am still peeved about never getting the chance to use, I formed four runes on the sheet of paper.

  “Hellfire is a somewhat difficult concept for magic, as there is not currently a single rune to define it. It is a combination of Darkness, Flame, and Soul. These runes together and in the proper order form the foundation of hellfire. When you add on the Blast rune at the end, it becomes a Hellfire Blast spell. The chant is also a bit longer. Spirits of the pit, fires from the world beyond, fuel my wrath and sever the living.” As I spoke, in smaller letters I had the chant written on the paper as well.

  Levy studied it for a couple minutes, mouthing the words while staring at the rune. “Okay.. I think I got it.”

  “Not yet, there’s one other thing. This won’t be as severe to you most likely, since you’re a demon, but special schools of magic like Infernal require one last step.” I laid the piece of paper down in front of me as I began my explanation.

  “When I was learning earth magic, I had to learn to understand the stone. When I was learning nature magic, I had to understand the world around me. Likewise, to use infernal magic, I had to come to understand Hell itself. Before you can cast an infernal spell, think carefully. What is Hell? What are demons? If you can answer those questions, the magic will come naturally to you.”

  Though saying all of this to a demon may seem ridiculous, Levy nodded patiently, taking in every bit of information I was willing to give him. “Okay, I’ll give it a try.” When he turned around, he aimed his hand at one of the stone fences around the houses of the nearby street. “Spirits of the pit, fires from the world beyond, fuel my wrath and sever the living.”

  Black and red flame rose up from Levy’s shoulder, traveling along his arm to form a small orb in front of his hand. At the spell’s completion, the orb launched out, impacting the fence and creating a large scorch mark. Even after the spell ended, the black flames clung to the fence for several long moments before finally dissipating. Happy that it worked, Levy fired another two blasts in rapid succession at the same spot, until a small hole was formed in the stone fence.

  So that’s the power of Hellfire… Since I had been holding back my demon magic, I had never gotten the chance to use most of my infernal spells. However, with Levy’s limited mana pool, after the third shot he was breathing heavily. “Alright, rest here for a bit until your magic recovers. Otherwise you’ll just pass out and lessons will end here for the day.”

  He nodded to my suggestion, sitting down as his mana slowly restored itself. Just recovering from being so depleted, his Mana Pool and Mana Recovery levels each went up by two. Once his breathing had evened out, I began the explanation for the next step. “Okay, your progress is great so far. I think we can safely move on to the next spell, Hellfire Aura.”

  Figuring that he had until my explanation was over to finish recovering magic, I manifested another piece of paper. “After explaining the spell, I’m going to demonstrate it for you.” A runed circle, more complicated than the one I used for enchanting, appeared on the now blank piece of paper in front of me. “Study this carefully. Getting the pattern wrong could cause the spell to fail, or even worse to backfire.”

  He began moving to pick up the paper, but I stopped him with a motion of my hand. “Sorry, but anything I manifest by my magic can’t be directly used by anyone else. You’ll have to look at it where it is.” He nodded to me as I stood up, stepping by and closing my eyes. Though I went through all of this explanation about runes and diagrams, there appeared to be an auto-assist feature that helped foreigners perform their known spells. All I personally needed at this point was the chant and the spell’s name.

  “Spirits of the pit, fires from the world beyond, become the shield that holds your fury.” Starting from my feet, I could feel a heat rising. When I opened my eyes, my legs were already shrouded in black and red flames. Those flames kept traveling up my body, covering my torso, arms, and finally my head. Holding out my hand, I opened my palm and noticed that the aura formed claw-like shapes from my fingers. I’m sure that if I saw myself from an outside perspective there would be other changes as well.

  Levy was watching with wide-eyed amazement as the spell activated. Surprisingly, its mana drain was actually higher than my natural recovery, though not by much. I’d have to keep the spell on for nearly a half hour to deplete my reserves. After several minutes of studying the diagram, and with it his Magical Knowledge rising two more levels, Levy backed away from the paper and began his own chant.

  When Levy finished, I saw the change from an outside perspective. Though, it likely was different between a beginner casting it and me, since my spell was technically Advanced rank. Starting from his feet, he was covered in the same black and red aura as I was. When it reached his tail, the tail seemed to become longer. When it reached his horns or wings, they seemed to grow slightly as well. By the time it was finished, he looked like a splendid demon, really quite menacing.

  “Did it.. did it work?” He asked hesitantly, looking over himself while his levels continued to rise again.

  “It did. Go ahead and cancel the spell.” I did so at the same time I said it, and when Levy cancelled the spell a message appeared in front of me.

  Student Levy has reached level 50

  First evolution has been unlocked.

  Please choose the evolved form of Levy(imp).

  Restrictions: Gender locked to female. Magic races only.

  Special Conditions [Otherworldly Mentor] and [Extraordinary Growth] have unlocked hidden race Bonded Acolyte.

  “I feel strange..” I could hear Levy say from in front of me, wobbling slightly side to side before falling to the floor.

  Oh, unholy shity! “Message, Lilith! Drop what you’re doing and get down here. Sha
re sight with me as soon as you can!” This was enough to be considered an emergency, and she didn’t hesitate to agree. In under ten seconds I felt the same irritation on my eye as before, Lilith sharing my vision and seeing both the pop up and Levy’s condition.