Something Goes Wrong

[Form: Mana Conducting Rock] [Lv. 15]

[EXP: 348/1400]

[System Points] [41]

[Stat Points] [3]

[HP: 20/20]

[MP: 200/200]

[Def] [11] +

[Mana] [30] +

[Skills]

[Spirit Sense Lv.7] [Basic Mind Magic Lv.6] [Pure Mana Lv. 9] [Wind Blade Lv.8] [Appraisal Lv. 1] [Ice Blade Lv.1 [Basic Language Understanding Lv. N/A] [Thunder Beam Lv. 1] [Raincloud Lv. 1] [Water Orb Lv. 1]

After a moment's hesitation over his choice, Roland decided that he would buy both water orb and Raincloud. The first would be for him to actively participate and help put out the fires, while the second would slowly help put out the fires without him needing to do anything.

Since both skills didn't cost much, that still left him with 41 system points after he bought the two skills.

'System, can you silence the notifications?' Roland asked. He didn't want them to distract him while he was doing the quest.

[Sure]

Once the system gave confirmation, Roland closed the status page.

When he was done, he quickly fiddled with the two skills for a bit, so he could see exactly how they worked. The downside of the shop was that it didn't tell him the exact effects of a skill, so he had to find out by himself.

'Raincloud.'

Roland watched as small strands of mist came out of his body forming a small ball in the air. Slowly, the ball expanded, and started rising into the air.

Eventually, the mist turned into fog, and the fog turned into a cloud, from which rain started pouring out. Not a lot of rain, just a small drizzle, but Roland was satisfied with its effects. Following his will, the cloud moved around in the air. He discovered that he could also change it's shape. Roland stopped playing with it after a few seconds of fun and moved it above a fire while he focused on the other skill.

'Water orb!' When he used the skill, mist, similar to the one that appeared when he used Raincloud, came from the surroundings, and started gathering together. Rather than growing in size, the mist started to compress, forming an unstable, rotating ball of water, suspended in the air.

'Wow!' he thought in slight wonder. The water reflected the light in the air and seemed to shine with an ethereal glow.

'Not now.' Roland quickly shook his head. Although it would make a good light show, he didn't have the time to admire it. He moved the ball over another fire, which was currently burning a large tree, and released his control over it.

"Splash!"

"Sizzle!"

"Hiss!"

As the water fell on top of it, the fire hissed in anger, and steam rose into the air. Moments later, the water had all evaporated due to the heat. It was then that Roland realized the fire made by the system was a lot hotter than he thought it was. After surviving the onslaught of water, the fire had diminished in size, but started to get bigger again within seconds.

Seeing that one was not sufficient; Roland created another water orb. In the meantime, he also moved the Raincloud over, to prevent the fire from getting any larger. Unfortunately, it was spreading faster and faster, and the tree was almost completely hidden from view behind the raging inferno.

"Hiss!" More steam suddenly came off of the fire. The cloud had appeared above the fire, and the droplets of rain were falling on it.

As expected due to the higher price of the skill, the rain did its job better than the water orb. Albeit slowly, the fire started to shrink, and the water orbs Roland threw sped up the process. After a minute the fire was nearly gone.

With a final hiss, the fire disappeared, and Roland looked around again. The once small fire caused by the system had turned into this disaster. The fires were still burning in his surroundings. He silently decided not to anger the system around wildlife again, or it would create another similar situation. Plus, he hated to think of all the animals in this forest that were forced to move or those that had died.

Still, the fire wasn't gone yet, not by a long shot.

Before he got back to work, he looked at the progress he had made, to see how many more fires he would need to put out.

[Quest: Put out the fire]

[Completion Rate: 0/100% ]

[Contribution: 0.1%]

[Minimum requirements for completion:]

[Contribution reaches at least 15%]

[Forest fire is put out]

[Rewards:]

[200 SP]

[Any choice of water element skill from the shop with a price below 1000 SP]

Roland could see that his contribution changed, but the completion rate hadn't increased at all.

'What happened?' he asked the system, 'Is this a glitch?'

The system offered no explanation, just leaving him with a cryptic massage.

[Turn around]

Fearing the worst, Roland hurriedly turned around.

He didn't see anything though, just a wall of fire.

'Wait...' Roland gasped in surprise. The fire he had put out was gone, but another fire had spread onto it, and the tree disappeared again.

'Then why didn't the contribution change?' he wondered. When he posed this question to the system, it gave him an answer.

[Completion Rate shows how much of the job is done. You put out the fire, so your contribution went up, but another fire spread to it. It doesn't erase what you did though, so the contribution is still there. However, the completion still went down since the number of fires put out didn't change in the end.]

Roland understood the first part, but the second explanation was still eluding him.

'Simpler explanation please,' he asked while working to put the fire back out.

[Let's use a similar example. There are 100 fires, and you just put one of them out. This makes both the contribution and completion rate 1%. However, another fire appeared. That makes the total back to 100 fires. You still put out a fire, so the contribution is still 1%, but since there were 100 fires at the start, and now there is 100 again, the completion rate goes back to 0%.]

'That kind of makes sense,' he thought.

"Hiss!" The fire went out again, and Roland started to put the fires in the surroundings. As long as there were no fires nearby, the areas he had cleared would be safe.

...

"Everybody in position?"

"Ready!"

"We're almost there! Just give us a few more minutes!"

"Hurry up, team C! The entire forest is covered in fire now!"

"We know!"

Groaning, Catherine closed the connection and put the communication jade away.

"Is everyone ready?" Someone asked.

"No," she answered, "team C needs a few more minutes."

Another person complained from a few meters away. "Really? The entire forest will be gone by the time they get here."

"Then I suggest you get back to work!" Catherine snapped. Her temper had never been good, and this situation only made it worse.

"Yes Ma'am!" They hurriedly said, dashing over to a nearby fire. They mumbled something under their breath, and a stream of water started to come out of their finger. They stopped mumbling, and started to put out the fire. Similar scenes could be seen nearby. One person created balls of water in the air, another created small waves that put out the fires, and one person created a shield made of water around themselves, just walking around and letting the water on the shield put out the fires nearby.

Catherine nodded in satisfaction before reviewing the plan. Since any areas where the fires were put could start burning again, the plan was to start on one side of the forest and work their way to the other side. They had split into three teams, so that the group they moved in weren't too big.

She looked around to see if there was any way she could help, but she wasn't suited to put out fires. She didn't have any affinity to the water element, instead, she used ice element spells. The only reason she was here is to find and fight the cause of this fire. People had reported seeing a giant bolt of lightning hitting the forest, so when the team members were chosen, a few powerful adventurers were chosen to come along with them to protect the other members of the team.

Catherine just knew something bad would happe-,

"Boom!"