Chapter 3 – Power Up

"It's so good to meet you, Spirit Forger!"

"You honor us with you presence!"

"May your journey be a swift and rewarding one!"

Reina was introduced to many people this night. There wasn't a chance she'd remember most of them, or even half of them. She wasn't necessarily bad with names or faces, but meeting new people wasn't something she enjoyed. It was lucky she found Sean and was able to join his group.

Speaking of groups, her party has abandoned her to her fate. Sure, they were in the large dining hall of the castle, but they kept their distance. It wasn't as if they were all super close—or, more accurately, that Reina was close with any of them—but they still could have helped divert attention.

Well, some nobles were talking to a few of them, so there was that…

With a small break from greetings, Reina was able to slip away. She didn't leave the room, but she did make her way to one of the windows. The sun had started to set on the green she could see below her.

The castle was built at the top of a hill and was at the edge of the city. On this side, a cliff dropped down into an immense forest. The treeline went almost all the way up to the side of the cliff. From all the games she's played, she could imagine an army trying to attack the castle without going through the city by scaling the plateau. Whoever built the castle seemed to have the same idea, since a few layers of battlements were just below her view.

"Enjoying the festivities, Spirit Forger?" Prince Johan asked as he approached her.

"Oh, uh, yes!" Reina said automatically.

The prince gave a light laugh. "I'm beginning to suspect you don't like to have much attention on you."

"Is it that obvious?" Reina asked with a sigh. Sure, it was fun to imagine herself as a hero that was revered and looked up to. In practice, it was a lot like any other time she had to do something big in public. When her class did a play last year, she did everything in her power to not be on stage. The result? She was a tree.

"My father is similar, in a sense." Johan joined her in her viewing, hands on the base of the large open window. "He's a warrior at heart and would much rather be on the battlefield than performing diplomacy. Mother too, for that matter." He leaned a little closer to her. "Between you and me, it's a wonder any of us were ever born."

Reina blushed at his statement, the implication being quite clear. "S-So, you have siblings?" She tried to change the topic.

Evidently, that was the wrong one to switch to. Johan lowered his head slightly.

"Had." He said with a frown. "My older brother, Conrad, was killed a little over two years ago."

"Oh…" Reina didn't know what to say. She was an only child and none of her friends ever lost one of their siblings. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Johan shook his head. "He died in battle, just like he wanted. It was simply much sooner than any of us thought."

Once more, Reina had no real response. At least this time, the prince didn't look so forlorn. The idea of people dying in battle really helped keep in mind this world wasn't a game. How it functioned aside, people would still die. They just had HP to determine how close they were.

That brought to mind the Demon Lord she was summoned to fight. He or she was likely a grave threat and would kill hundreds or thousands of people if not stopped. Reina would need to do her best to defeat them.

On that matter, she learned a couple things about the spirit she could forge with her totem. It seemed like she could bring it out quickly if it was already forged, but would need to spend time to remake it if it was destroyed. It might be better to dismiss it and call it back again instead of letting it take a big hit, especially since getting destroyed also hurt her.

What's more, she discovered that the spirit's stats didn't increase automatically with her level. When she forged it again after it was destroyed earlier, its stats rose slightly. Either that, or it would get stronger every time she reforged it. That would probably be too good to be true, though, so it likely just needed to 'update'. It was kind of weird that its defense would increase or decrease depending on if she wore armor, so that was another quirk.

"If I may make a suggestion, Spirit Forger." Prince Johan began, breaking her from her thoughts. "After tonight, you may wish to start sleeping at an inn down in the city. It'll help get you accustomed to adventuring a bit more, and is a step closer to camping out."

That wasn't a bad idea. The castle was nice, but she wasn't always going to be here. Max had mentioned an adventurer's guild, so there were bound to be quests that took time to complete.

Johan gave her a smile. "It'll also help keep you away from any nobles that wish to…woo you."

"A-Ah…" Reina stuttered. Yes, there was also that. Some of the nobles here were very flattering toward her, and more than one said their house would be more than happy to accommodate her in their territories outside of the capital.

"Of course," Johan leaned in slightly, one of his hands moving closer, "if you were to be interested in such a thing…"

"I-I-I…" She couldn't even respond to that, and she was sure her face was beet red.

Prince Johan closed his eyes, a grin on his face. "My apologies again, Spirit Forger! You are simply too easy to tease."

The tension that had quickly built up suddenly dispersed with his laugh. She wasn't bothered by it, per say. It just wasn't often that someone was so direct like that with her.

"That said," he placed a hand on her shoulder. Reina nearly jumped back, but she could see his expression was more serious. "If trouble does find you, don't be afraid to call on me. I'm not exaggerating when I say our world depends on you. And personally, I would feel ashamed if I let something terrible happen to you."

That was…rather nice to hear. The blush on Reina's face was at a completely acceptable level for such words.

"Thank you, Prince Johan." Reina said without a stutter, a smile on her face. Johan returned the look.

"Now then, I should return to my guests." Johan said, removing his hand. Reina wouldn't admit that she somewhat missed the contact. "I'll see what I can do about keeping them at bay."

With that, the prince returned to the festivities, leaving Reina to enjoy her view.

The night went on, thankfully with fewer chats with the nobles present. Johan really did help with that. As the feast began to die down, Reina and her party were shown to their rooms. Reina and Celia shared one while the men had the room next to theirs. It wasn't extravagant, in that it wasn't filled to the brim with gold-themed decorations. Still, it was rather nice.

Saying their goodnights, the two women retired to bed. Only, Reina wasn't quite ready for sleep yet. She hadn't really gone through her help menu that much, so she decided to go over a few areas she skimmed through.

"Let's see…equip bonuses become permanent after using a weapon form long enough, but equip effects are specific to that weapon. I already unlocked my Novice Totem, so I'll keep the Doll Totem equipped during the night." She read the pages she briefly saw before moving on to new ones. "Hmmm. 'Forge Options'? Oh, that was the screen that pops up whenever I make a new spirit. I guess that lets me do things to the spirit? But it was blank. I'll have to check that out again later. Now then…'Power Up Methods'…"

Reina turned in her bed. She was starting to regret not reading through this earlier. If she could make herself stronger, she could have defeated so many more dolls than she did!

She had four methods available to her. As she read through the first one, she didn't quite understand. Her spells and skills would get more powerful the more spirits she formed a contract with. Did that mean if she could forge more spirits, she'd be stronger? Being able to summon more warriors to fight for her sounded awesome! Another thing to look into later.

"What else do we have here…" She read over the three remaining methods.

Monster Tokens: equip monster tokens gained from absorbed monsters to weapon forms for bonuses.

Monster Gacha: spend monster remains for a chance at moveable bonuses.

Power Up Enhancement: points accrue over time, spendable to improve power up methods.

Those three seemed much more straightforward. Deciding to check them in order, Reina first opened up the tab for Monster Tokens.

"Aaaand it's empty…" Reina groaned internally. Why was it empty? She absorbed all those doll before. Was it…did she need to know about this before absorbing them? If so, she was going to be quite cross with herself come tomorrow when she checked.

The Monster Gacha tab was much more accommodating. In fact, it was pretty cool to look at. Next to a menu that had all the monster remains from the day was what looked like a gacha machine combined with a slot machine. Instead of a coin slot was a box she assumed she could put monster remains in. She moved one of the doll bodies over and activated it.

Bzzt!

With the noise that played in her head, it was pretty obvious she didn't get anything. She tried again.

Bzzt!

Reina grumbled under her breath. It was starting to look like three of her power up methods were going to be less than useful at the moment. Not wanting to give up, she tried once more.

Bzzt!

And again.

Bzzt!

And again.

Bzzt!

And again!

Ding-ding-ding!

"Yes!" She congratulated herself on her minor victory. She looked to see what it was she won…

Bonus: +0.1 defense

"…"

Reina said nothing, but she did give her status screen a mean glare. Of course, the monsters were only beginner monsters, so there was no reason to think she'd get something super amazing.

"Wait." She thought. "It said 'remains'…Maybe I can put in more than one at a time."

With her plan settled on, she attempted just that. One body went into the slot. Then, she selected another and it joined it.

"Heh, heh, heh. There we go." Triumphant, she added a few more and gave it a spin.

Ding-ding-ding!

Bonus: +0.3% defense

It still wasn't anything crazy, but it was better. A percentage defense bonus would be much better later on when her stats and armor improved.

Before sinking too far into the game, she looked for the final power up tab. Though, she didn't need to look hard. Instead of an actual tab, there was a small box near the gacha-slot machine. The number inside…was not large at all.

"Well, I can play around with this a bit. Maybe I'll win something great!" She thought to herself, giving the power up method a few more 'spins'.

~Forging Legends~

After a restful night's sleep, Reina was up and ready to adventure once more. The castle chefs prepared a large and delicious breakfast for them. Like the feast from last night, the food was a bit strange, but still good. Once they had their fill, Reina and her party departed the castle.

They went down the slope, through the noble district and into the city, with two destinations in mind. The first was a general store commonly used by adventurers. They had all manner of things, a lot of which Reina would see in her game books when she played with her group. Her party picked out most of her supplies for her, explaining what some of it was for. A lot of it was familiar, like a bedroll, rations, waterskin, and—very important—soap.

After paying the store owner, they made their way to their next stop. Given what it was, they didn't have to go far.

"This is the Adventurer's guild." Max showed off the building. It was three stories tall and looked the size of the castle's dining hall. He led them inside, where they came up to a receptionist's booth.

"Hello. How can I help you today?" She asked pleasantly.

"Hi." Reina greeted her with a smile. "I'm here to sign up, I think." She gave Max a quick look and he responded with a nod.

"Wonderful! If you would, please fill out this card and we can get you set up." The receptionist slid a sheet of paper to her.

Reina looked it over to see what was needed. It was then that she realized something important. Something she would have noticed if most of the signs for shops had words instead of pictures on them.

"Um, I can't read this…" Reina sheepishly admitted. "Sorry. I was summoned here yesterday, and—"

"Oh!" The receptionist held a hand to her lips. "You're the Spirit Forger!"

That got the attention of the other people mingling in the guildhall. All eyes were immediately on her.

"Ah, yes…" Reina replied, quieter than before. She wasn't too concerned. She survived yesterday's banquet, so she would survive this.

"Then allow me to help you!" The receptionist enthused.

There wasn't much to fill out. Name, age, and class, really. The guild would help aspiring adventurers to form groups, if only temporarily, hence the class. Once she was set up, Reina asked about potential jobs or quests.

"We do have one that was posted late yesterday evening that you might be interested in." The woman said, pulling a copy of the quest from behind the counter. "A merchant is looking for an abundance and variety of doll corpses for a project. The pay starts at 5 soldi per corpse and going up to 1 simoleon for more rare ones."

"Oh…" Reina drawled out her word.

"That's great, Spirit Forger!" Celia happily said. "With how many you slew yesterday, this will be a great way to start!"

"Yeah…" With absolutely nothing to be ashamed about, Reina scratched the back of her head.

"Is something wrong?" Dalton asked.

"I…may have already used them…" She answered.

She'd admit to nothing, but she had it on good authority that the 'winning' sound from getting any sort of bonus was pleasing to hear. Totally unrelated, the best bonus she had at the moment came in the form of a +2 bonus to her spirit's attack.

"You used all of them?" Martin asked, though thankfully in a more curious tone than angry.

"Except for the Thunderstruck Doll." Reina said. "I can't pull that one out."

Truth be told, she couldn't find it in her drops anywhere. Although, there was something that caught her eye.

"Actually, that reminds me." Reina looked to the party healer. "My help menu says to pull out something absorbed to reveal a weapon form, I need something called a Dragon Hourglass. It mentioned—"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that!" Max quickly said.

"I don't?" Reina looked to the swordsman.

"They're for adjusting the stat growth of normal adventurers, but a hero like yourself wouldn't benefit from it. Your stats are already optimized, or so I've heard." Max explained.

"Huh. Alright." Reina gave him a nod. Her help menu also said something about teleporting to the Wave of Destruction, and that they were supposed to be filled with monsters. Well, if no one was worried about them, she wouldn't be either.

"Actually—"

"We should start working on that job." Celia quickly spoke, pulling the copy of the quest from the confused looking receptionist. "There are a few other types of dolls you'll want to absorb. They might give you different weapon forms."

"Oh, yeah, that sounds great!" Reina agreed with the archer's idea. The only two forms she had were already unlocked, so it'd be good to reveal more.

With that, the party set out to begin their quest. Max and Celia knew where a few different types of doll were usually found, so they started going to the closest one. She was thankful they weren't upset about her using up all of yesterday's dolls. Sure, they weren't worth that much, but they were the party's spoils. She'd have to do better in the future.

To keep things from being too boring, Reina spoke up once more.

"Hey, do any of you have any ideas what monsters might give me a weapon to create more spirits?" She asked.

"More spirits?" Martin returned.

Reina looked behind her to the healer. "Yeah. One of the power up methods for my totem says my skills and spells will get stronger the more spirits I have a contract with."

"Oh. I believe that's referring to magic." Martin said.

"Magic? You mean casting spells?"

"That's right." Martin quickened his pace for a moment to walk next to her. "To cast spells, you have to form a contract with a spirit. The more contracts you have, the more spells you'll be able to cast. Though, it can be difficult to form many contracts."

"Huh." Reina had played online games like that, but it was mostly setting flavor. Unless a spell would always do the same thing no matter who cast it, the spellcaster would determine how powerful their magic was.

"So, how would I form a contract?" She asked him.

"Well, many magic users go through one of the churches to form a contract with the spirits there, but…"

"That's not a good idea." Dalton finished Martin's sentence. "All the different sects tend not to get along with one another that well. It usually isn't violent, but I imagine it'd be different if the Spirit Forger was involved."

"Even if it isn't, they'd still want the Spirit Forger to join them." Celia added. "I know the guards can receive contracts without joining some churches, but with someone as renowned as the Spirit Forger…"

Martin let his shoulders slump down. "Sad, but true. My brothers and sisters in my own faith are no different."

Reina really didn't want to get in the middle of any religious battles. Aside from any game settings that had those sorts of things played out in them, she knew enough world history to get an idea how things might end up.

"What should I do then?" Reina asked. Being able to summon something to fight with her was awesome as is, but being able to throw fireballs at monsters would make it even better!

"Do what the mages do." Max offered. "Find spirits on your own and make a contract with them."

"Huh." Reina thought about what he just said. "Is that the difference between mages and priests? What spirits you make a contract with?"

Martin made a face at that. "I suppose so…from one perspective, at least."

A tap on her shoulder made Reina turn the other way. Celia walked next to her and whispered. "Mages tend to be viewed negatively, since they don't have a set of rules for conduct. People have an idea what different churches value, but mages are an unknown."

"I see." Reina gave her a nod. Old wizards living in their spooky towers, she supposed.

"Since we shouldn't go through a church, I can at least show you how to form a contract." Martin offered. "It takes time and practice to be able to commune with a spirit properly, so we'd have to do that anyway."

"Great!" Reina beamed at him. "When should we start?"

"We can start tonight." Martin offered. "This type of training works better when you mind focuses on nothing, so hunting monsters should be a good way to prepare."

"I can't wait!" Reina shouted, throwing a fist in the air. Magic would be such a cool thing to be able to use. It would definitely help her out in fighting. Probably.

So far, the only spell she saw Martin cast was that healing spell. Now, she didn't know there was a fireball spell, but she didn't not know either. There could be all manner of spells in this world. Support, summoning, transformation, explosion, defensive, and so on. The list was endless. She didn't want to appear too excited about it, since she was supposed to be the hero. There was plenty of time to ask later.

…Or, since they were traveling to their destination, she could ask now. As the party leader, it was important to make use of time available. That was especially true of travel time.

Yes, a very good idea.

"Hey Martin!" She called out with an appropriate amount of enthusiasm. "About the spells in this world…"

~Forging Legends~

"In Savia?"

"Yes, Sire."

Floating orbs of light illuminated the room, showing a number of magical reagents and research documents atop a long table. In front of it stood a man, inspecting one of the reagents as he looked over some notes. Behind him was a short brown creature. It stood at less than half the man's height, though the tall staff it had in its grip made it seem taller.

The man set the husk of a small dead creature down. "That was sooner than expected. Perhaps…" He said, trailing off.

"Sire?" The brown creature asked, stroking its white beard with its gnarled hand.

"It's nothing." He tapped his finger against the table. It was louder than what would be expected, though his hand was not normal. Black scales ran down his forearms, ending in claws.

That wasn't the only odd feature on this man. From his back sprouted a pair of leathery wings, the same shade as his claws. A little lower was a tail, much like a lizard's, but much smoother and covered in glistening black scales.

He turned his head to look at the smaller creature, the last of his unique features being shown to it. A pair of off-white horns protruded from his forehead and curved up.

"I suppose we should do a little investigating." The man told the creature.

"I shall make preparations at once, Sire." The brown thing bowed and made its way out of the room. The bottom of the staff clacked on the stone floor as the carved wooden skull on the top gazed forward.

Of all his creations, the imps were the most flexible in their design. True, they could never hope to match the strength of any of the monsters or people in his service, but he could adapt them to a wide variety of situations. The wise Krell there had served as a decent brainstorming tool for many years, at least until he had others to bounce ideas off of. Now, it oversaw a number of functions.

The winged man turned to his side. "Did you hear?" He asked, his tone unchanging. "Savia summoned the Spirit Forger."

The only other occupant in the room didn't respond. His head was hung low, his arms shackled above his head to the stone wall. Metal bars embedded in the floor and ceiling of the cut out area separated the two of them.

"Nothing to say about that?" The winged man asked. "Do you not question why it is your son had the summoning performed?"

Again, there was no response.

"Well, I suppose it won't matter soon." He turned back to the table. "Besides, you have more pressing concerns."

Author's Notes:

Anyone want to take a guess what the goblin-like creature is based off of? It's kind of loose and not a widely known thing (I think).

For anyone wondering how she unlocked 2 forms so quickly, she did call forth her forged spirit a lot yesterday and used it to fight. Then she slept with the Doll Totem equipped. Might be a little fast, but eh. They're some of the weakest and earliest forms.

So yeah, it took about a month to get this chapter out. Once my main story is done, I'll be getting these out weekly. I'm thinking a few more weeks before that one's finished, so look forward to that.