Evolution: A Warlock's Rise To Power

Chapter 8: Shadowsweep

Brax took off the helmet and began his daily routine. The hours seemed to tick by incredibly slowly. Time itself was determined to stand in his way, stopping him from getting back to the game.

"Stupid clock, what do you know?" He said while cursing at the minute hand that refused to budge.

After finally defeating the clock. Brax was let back into Evolution once his minimum 8 hour wait time was over.

Lucan stretched and stood up from bed. He used his new ability to summon his enhanced familiar. Yet another thing Raze had given him to slow his leveling, just like the soul stone. Both were great. An enhanced familiar is more like a pet. It can level and gain extra abilities, of course that would take a lot of experience, the plus side was that a familiar didn't lose experience when it died, it just unsummoned. The soul stone would protect him when he died. He would be able to resurrect himself without losing experience or dropping an item. But if he died without his soul's stone, he would have to pay for both deaths in a loss of experience. Of course, Raze would let him pay off the cost ahead of time after each use of the soul stone.

To start he had to be careful and a bit selfish. The small crow sized shadow drake wouldn't be getting any experience for a while and Lucan would do his best not to die. The black leather skinned mini drake landed on his shoulder and rubbed it's face against Lucan's cheek. The beast started purring. Lucan carefully used a finger to softly rub the back of its head.

"Good girl. Let's take a look around this place, I need somewhere to practice magic."

Lucan lead the way while the shadow drake circled each room they entered. The house was much bigger than the apartment Brax currently lived in. He had a decent sized kitchen, an office, a dining room, parlor, guest room, he had the works. When he made his way to the basement, he found a fortified training area.

"Ha, this will be perfect." Lucan proclaimed. The shadow drake chirped from excitement before landing on his shoulder.

"Okay, lets see. I take shadow mana and we swirl it around and boom."

A small piece of shadow energy clung to the tip of his wand. Lucan tried to cast the spell shadowbolt but the energy just deflated and disappeared.

"Hmm."

It took over an hour to have his first success. Even then, it took 5 second to cast the ugliest shadow bolt Lucan had ever cast. The energy clumped in a lopsided glob and veered hard to the left when it was launched, but it was something.

As evening fell Lucan was making progress, what had once been a half second spell now took a full second to cast and 1 out of 4 would veer in a random direction. Lucan had learned a great deal about his new mana situation. He now had four bars in his interface. A blue bar for pure mana, a black bar for shadow mana, a clear blue bar for mental mana, and lastly was a clear green bar for ethereal mana.

Even though his pure mana bar had been reduced, his new classes and titles made it so he only lost 10% of his pure mana, instead of half. The pure mana could be given an essence. Lucan had already been practicing transforming it into shadow mana. This skill was a necessity since mana potions only restored pure mana.

When Lucan's shadow mana ran dry, he found that it did regenerate twice as fast as pure mana, and when converting from pure to shadow, 80% of the pure mana was used. He now had a tremendous amount of mana, most of it was already dedicated to a single essence but his pockets were deep.

As night set, Lucan sat in the basement resting and drinking water. The shadow drake was nibbling at some bread Lucan had thrown on the ground. When Lucan had seen the miniature drake in the options to chose from, he couldn't shake it from his mind. The drake was only a foot long from tail to snout with over 4 inches being a thin tail. Its front arms connected to leather like wings that stretched to its side.

Currently the shadow drake was level 0 with a scratch attack that did 1 damage and only had 5 health. Lucan had high hopes that she would grow stronger with him.

"From now on you will be named Adrestia, after a goddess of another realm. It is said that she is a goddess who can't be escaped from. What do you think?"

Lucan didn't know if the drake could understand him, but she happily chirped. Lucan determined she liked the name, or it could have been because he put out a small dab of honey out for her. Either way, they were both happy.

Lucan slept for a few hours before getting off the cellar floor and starting his practice again. His stats were practically nothing, causing him to run out of mana after only 4 shadow bolts. That was still more than any other level 0 could cast.

After Shadow bolt, Lucan turned his attention to telekinetic slash. Another day passed. Lucan spent his efforts trying to use both shadow mana and mental mana at the same time. His illusions were made out of shadow mana, but a mental link was needed to be maintained if he wanted to give motion to his creations.

When he was forced out of the game due to his time limit, Brax tried to pass the time as quick as possible.

Lucan stretched as he climbed out of his bed. His spell casting was still slower than it used to be but it was to hard to train right now. The level 0 beginner wand was a piece of garbage that wasn't making things anything easier. If there were any redeeming qualities to the wand it wouldn't be level 0.

"Adrestia, lets go take a look outside." Lucan said to the Shadow drake he had just summoned.

Lucan was shocked as he walked out the front door. The sky was a pale lavender while a blue sun was starting its journey upward. The village was centered around Lucan's house. It was the biggest building in the place.

[Shadowsweep population: 2,024.]

Crimson fields of crops spread around the village in the center of a large plain. Far in the distance were several mountain tops poking over the horizon.

Lucan was so giddy he could barely contain himself. Lucan remembered his new passive, Warlock's insanity, and did his best to steady his mind. It was hard though; the villagers were several different species. It wasn't like the pure human cities and towns he had seen so far. He saw cat people talking with elves. A gnome buying bread from a half orc baker. It was amazing.

As Lucan stood gawking at the people from his front steps, several citizens began to notice him. A half elf man stepped forward.

"Lord Quilldrake, I am Alasan Swift, the former mayor's aide. The Supreme ruler asked we not disturbed you till you recovered. Otherwise I would have introduced myself sooner." The man who looked to be the same age as Lucan said while stopping at the bottom of the steps."

"Mr. Swift, Alasan?"

"You may address my however you like."

"Great, Alasan, you can call me Lucan."

"Ah, umm, that wouldn't be proper. You see-."

"Do whatever causes you the least anxiety." Lucan said cutting him off. "I recently had a large, suddenly jarring, shift in my life. Pretend like I am an idiot and tell me about this place."

"Well, okay." Alasan said giving Lucan a strange look for a moment. None of the villagers were looking at them but the area had already become congested as everyone who neared, stayed. "This is the village of Shadowsweep. We are in an unincorporated territory of the supreme ruler. To the north, the crimson plains stretch for 2 weeks on horse back and stop at the Cliffspire Mountains. To the south is the Forest of the Lost. Shadowsweep has agriculture and dispatches hunting parties to the lost forest. We are self-sufficient since all aggressive monsters and beasts stick to the forest or mountains. You may have noticed that our village is very diverse. That is because there are no true natives here. We all had nowhere else to go and emerged from the Forest of the Lost. The Supreme Ruler gave us permission to build a village on these plains, that was 50 years ago, we have always taken in those who come from the forest and have slowly grown, and this place is now a home we are proud of."

"Wonderful, I hope I didn't take someone's home, I will gladly move out if that is the case."

"No need, our Mayor was embezzling the tax to be paid to the Supreme Ruler. Your residence was originally his."

"Ah, I see." Lucan motioned for Adrestia to fly into the sky. Cleared his throat and solidified his connection with Aldrestia before speaking through her as loud as he could.

"My name is Lucan Quilldrake, Hand of Raze. I am new to Shadowsweep, but I ask for your help in the next few days. I am not aware of your customs or beliefs, if I cause you distress or offend you, please tell me so I can realize what I have done. I plan to make this my home now and I believe we can have a bright future together."

Lucan waved to Adrestia causing her to fly down to his shoulder.

Several people gathered around the front of his home giving short greetings before dispersing back to their normal lives.

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