Aether Weaving

It's been three days since the Crown incident, and all I've done is train—train, and train some more.

It's been exhausting. I miss my phone so much, and it's been so boring. There's no TV here, and it's painful not being able to look at a screen to relax.

I've been training so hard that I even moved a mattress from a spare room into the basement training room so I could sleep and wake up to train again.

I hate this training, but damn, the results are starting to show. I've been able to shorten my casting time from 4 seconds to 2 seconds, and I can even use two spells at once now.

The spells I bought from the Mage's Guild are also coming along nicely.

The five skills I bought were: [Aether Sight], [Construct Sword], [Reinforcement], [Flight], and [Shield].

[Aether Sight] was something to help with my aether control. It allowed me to see aether and how it interacts with the world and my own body. When I activated it, impossible colors appeared all around me—those colors being the aether present in the air.

The [Construct Sword] spell has been my main focus lately. It constructs a sword out of pure aether that functions just like a normal sword—though a bit weaker.

I've been working on gaining the [Construction] skill, which would allow me to make anything out of aether—like armor, weapons, and if I get good enough, even a full-on gun! I've been trying to weave a sword without relying on the [Construct] spell to build it for me.

I haven't made much progress, but I think I'm getting closer. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll have it ready in time for the invasion.

[Flight] is self-explanatory, though it's extremely aether-intensive. I can barely fly for 30 seconds. Instead of flying for long periods, I've settled on using it to boost my momentum in the air to conserve aether.

[Reinforcement] lets me strengthen my muscles with aether, making them more durable and stronger. And [Shield] is similar to the [Construct Sword] spell, and I'm pretty sure that if I learn the [Construct] skill, I could make it too.

The spell creates an aether dome around me. I haven't been able to test its durability, but I've been experimenting with making the shield skin-tight. I only managed to condense it slightly around my body, though.

I also finally figured out how to use one of my innate skills: [Overcharge].

I activated it after hours of trying and failing. When it activated, I felt an immediate boost in my overall combat power. I could feel my body growing stronger, my magic becoming more powerful—and the best part? I could push it even further! But when I continued to push it, my thinking started to change. My mind became jumbled.

I started to feel more violent, and my thoughts became erratic. I was thinking about the weirdest things—like a ToketTok video I watched a month ago, the number of bricks in the wall, or whether I should hurt myself. I even wondered if I should kill all the NPCs in the town for experience. It was utterly psychotic!

The worst part was that I didn't even realize how messed up my thoughts were. I only turned the skill off because I ran out of mana—not because I noticed anything wrong with my mindset. I even wanted to push the skill further.

It's a great skill, but it's dangerous. If I were close to anyone who wasn't my enemy, I could end up hurting them, and I wouldn't stop until they were dead.

It scared me. I decided not to activate it unless I'm alone. But the thought that something that could drive me insane is just a mental activation away still bugs me.

Speaking of things that could drive me insane, the crown floating above my head started hovering there yesterday. No amount of force could pull it off.

I also suspect it's messing with my mind. Each time I try to remove it, I feel an extreme sense of wrongness and my mind urges me to forget about the crown altogether.

It took me until the twelfth time to even realize that my mind was being messed with.

I'm genuinely scared of this thing. I mean, what kind of artifact manipulates the mind of its user?

It must be cursed. Curses exist in the game, but they're usually just debuffs. I've never heard of a cursed artifact before.

This fake world keeps throwing things at me, but I'll face it head-on. I will win—hopefully.

I focused back on my training, I was currently trying to make a sword without the help of my spell.

Instead of trying to create the sword the exact same way the spell did, I decided to try weaving it.

I moved five threads of aether, pulling them together looping them together and forcing them to fuse into a solid piece of the sword. It was very tedious. If I messed up just one thread, it could all unravel. But slowly, bit by bit, a sword began to take shape.

I kept weaving, using my [Aether Sight] to ensure I didn't make any mistakes. Finally, I fused the last thread, and in my hands was a sword—not made from the [Construct Sword] spell.

It definitely sucked compared to the spell. It took a lot more mana to maintain, and if I didn't focus on it, the sword would slowly begin to unravel. But it was a step in the right direction.

[New Skill Learned: Aether Weaving]

I smiled. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was good enough for now.

I hadn't seen the [Aether Weaving] skill in the game, but I was sure it was some variation of [Aether Manipulation]—a skill that the blind genius mage of the academy, Alexandria Xott, possessed.

I tried weaving another sword. This time, I could tell it was easier to control the strings. I could even bring out 12 threads now, more than double what I could do before!

I was able to do it quicker this time, and soon, a second sword appeared in my hands. The sword was still worse than the [Construct Sword] spell, but it wasn't as inefficient with aether as before.

It wasn't the skill I wanted, but it helped with my overall aether control, and that was a welcome addition. But I wasn't done training I'm gonna train until those bombs are ready and i can prepare kill all these fucking mobs Zelks and leave this shitty town!