Chapter 219 Racial Gifts
The image sent from the magic spider was of a voluptuous woman in a white dress sitting in a hidden chamber.
The chamber wasn’t large, but it was well-furnished, with bright lights made of magic crystals, a large bed, a table and chairs, and a wardrobe.
And there were many fruits on the table, as well as golden cups and goblets thoroughly embedded with various gemstones.
The few things on the large bed were all made of silk, and the woman looked extremely well, not at all haggard, and had evidently lived comfortably without any abuse.
Antis, on the other hand, was down on one knee in front of the woman.
Although he couldn’t hear their voices, looking at the several images streaming into his mind continuously, it became clear to Roland that this woman must be the queen.
Just as Roland was thinking about this, a system message suddenly popped up.
He opened it and was slightly surprised.
Quest failed: Find the Next Clue.
He then watched the quest font turn black and finally fade away from the quest list.
So a quest interfered with by an NPC will result in quest failure?
Roland found himself knowing a little more about quests.
The failure and disappearance of the quest was not a big deal to Roland. It was just a quest. It wasn’t a huge loss of character experience or equipment, so obtaining useful information from the failure was a profit.
It seemed that in all future quests, he would have to avoid too much interference from NPCs.
When Kaka saw him lost in thought, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just some small matter.” Roland stood up. “I was expecting to be here for a long time, but something went wrong. Now it seems that in two or three days, I’ll be leaving after you’ve successfully turned in your derivative magic.”
“So soon?”
Roland shrugged. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been back, and without a Magic Tower, I haven’t even had time to test and learn magic, so it’s time to return.”
Kaka laughed. “Then at least for the next two or three days, you can stay at the manor and help me keep the situation under control.”
“Sure.” Roland was indifferent.
Roland then stayed in the manor for a while, and using this time, he started flipping through the magic book given to him by Princess Veronica.
There were two types of magic noted in it, Stone to Mud and Mud to Stone.
In reality, this was the reverse application of the same magic. This was a level-two spell, and although there were quite a few nodes, it was much less difficult compared to Language Proficiency. Besides, now that he was at a higher level than before, and had the experience from learning several spells and creating several derivative spells, he quickly got started with it.
It took Roland three hours and about seven failed attempts to successfully cast Stone to Mud and with a wave of his hand, he directly turned the large grassy area of Kaka’s backyard into a swamp, which was over 900 square meters, and that was with less than a fifth of his mana. If he had cast it with all his mana, Roland reckoned that the area would be much larger.
Using this against cavalry indeed could work wonders.
Not to mention cavalry, the heavy infantry squads would also be instantly annihilated.
There were a few guards who happened to be patrolling the area at this time, and when they saw such a large swamp, they gulped in fear.
Roland then began to learn Mud to Stone, which was easier to learn since it was just a reversal of the previous magic.
It only took an hour to successfully cast it.
With a wave of his hand, he turned the swamp in front of him back into a rocky ground, which was originally just grass and mud-it was now a fairly flat square of stone slabs.
Well… I used a little too much force.
Roland repeated casting Stone to Mud and Mud to Stone several more times before finding the right level of force to turn stone back into normal mud.
Mud to Stone was simple to learn but somewhat difficult to master. Whether it was turning a swamp into mud or stone, it was all up to the Mage’s control.
He practiced these two spells several more times, and feeling almost finished, he was about to leave and return to his room to rest and recover his magic power when a sudden light flashed in his mind.
Roland once again used Mud to Stone. This time he deliberately made the area of the swamp small, then using his mental power, he forced the mud of the swamp to mold into the shape of a ball, and then unleashed Mud to Stone on it.
In the earthen pit ahead, there was a large, round stone with a rather shiny surface.
Roland walked over to the large round stone and stepped on it with his foot, finding it very, very hard.
Then he froze for a moment, then slowly smiled in a Crayon Shin-chan[1] way.
Hehehe!
When Kaka returned from the Association headquarters, he hopped off the wagon and walked at a brisk pace to the backyard of the manor before his eyes widened. The space in the backyard was filled with all sorts of strange things.
A statue of a naked man in a contemplative pose, a cherub showing its bird peeing, a giant octopus, a big round ball with a quirky, squinty-eyed, wacky grin on it, and so on.
All were stone statues, some very crude, but others were clearly quite exquisite.
Then he realized that, looking from left to right, it just happened to be a process of crudeness slowly becoming exquisiteness.
“What the… What the hell!” What’s going on here? Kaka gulped. Didn’t he just go out for a few hours? How did his own backyard become like this?
Roland saw Kaka and smiled somewhat proudly. He said, “I’ve found the correct use of Stone to Mud.”
He snapped his fingers and all the statues before him turned to mud and fell to the ground, which was rapidly turning into a vast swamp.
Kaka instinctively stepped back.
Then the swamp moved strangely, first bulging out with four walls about two meters high, then synthesizing into a square shape, then the walls continued to rise and synthesized into another two-meter high square shape.
Then a hole began to appear in the square shape on both the upper and lower levels. A larger vertical rectangle appeared on the mud wall facing them on the first level.
At first, Kaka didn’t know what Roland was doing, but seeing this rectangular shape, he suddenly realized that it seemed to be… a door.
At this moment, Roland snapped his fingers again, and this mud hardened at a very fast rate, then turned into a very good quality stone.
In the blink of an eye, a small, square, two-story building with a door and windows appeared in front of Kaka.
“Oh my god!” Kaka felt like his worldview had been refreshed. “You used this magic to build a stone building?”
Roland nodded proudly. “Yeah, I just thought of it while making the statues. With this spell, we Mages will be able to go anywhere in the future—even in the middle of nowhere. As long as we can build this kind of stone building, we won’t have to be afraid of wild animals and poisonous insects, nor of storms.”
“No one has ever thought that this spell could be used like this.” Kaka stared blankly at Roland with a frightened expression, as if he had seen a demon. “How does that head of yours work?”
[1] Japanese anime and manga
