I began studying lust magic. Contrast to what I was expecting, most of my study involved reading books and tomes and whatnot. After several months of laborious study, Ivala came to my house.
"Well, well, how have your studies gone?" the succubus asked as I finished reading the final tome in my study room.
"Thrilling," I said flatly. "Though I do expect to throw around some lust bombs by now."
"You're in luck, buddy. It seems you have delved deep enough," Ivala said with a smirk. "Come here."
I stood up. Ivala lunged at me with tremendous speed, her finger striking deep into my heart. "Agh!" I moaned in pain as I was nearly knocked down. "What the hell was that?"
"I was opening your third eye. Faster this way," she said with a smirk. "Now you should be able to begin learning lust spells."
"... huh, okay."
"Nah, just fucking with you. A gentle touch could also open your third eye. It's more fun for me that way."
"Evidently the fun doesn't go both ways."
"Yup. Eh, whatever. Let's begin," she said. "Close your eyes and concentrate. Imagine a jar."
I did so. A jar came up to my mind, half-full with some sort of pinkish goo. "That's your lust energy reserves," Ivala explained. "Same as mana, really."
"But replenished via sexual contact and stimulus instead of being naturally recovered, I see," I said. "Huh. That seems rather onerous. Isn't arcane magic more reliable?"
"Maybe, but emotional spells are stronger than their arcane counterparts," Ivala said. "But yeah, that's why only some branches of emotional magic are used even back in my demon realm. Envy magic, for example, requires you to be jealous all the time, which is kinda shit."
"But they're powerful?"
"Very. Lust magic is actually one of the weaker branches," she said. "But definitely more managable. Anyway, the first spell I want to teach you is called the Eye of Ardor. It's easier to show." She flicked her fingers and Miranda arrived.
"Miranda? What are you doing here?"
"Practical demonstration," Ivala claimed. "Prostitutes are exposed to so much lust that they tend to be slightly more resistant to lust magic. So they make excellent dummies for us to train on."
"Err, yeah, if Miranda is fine with this, it's alright."
"Don't worry, Boss. You've done so much for us, I'm glad to repay," Miranda said. "Er, anything that doesn't involve me being blasted to smithereens."
"Okay, stand still."
Ivala's eyes glowed red. Miranda was completely petrified. Ivala had filled her with lust and making her brain relaxed. So relaxed, in fact, that her body couldn't move at all. "I see ... you're manipulating the brain into extreme sereneness."
"Yes. It should serve as a good disabling spell. Your summoned birds look cool and whatnot, but any mage worth their salt can destroy them pretty easily. Here, you try." Ivala released Miranda from the spell.
"Oh wow," Miranda commented. "That was ... weird. Like I was put in a trance."
I focused my lust energy. My eyes flashed red. Miranda was petrified again for a moment. Yet my control slipped quickly.
"Three seconds. Which translates to fuckall when concerning the enemies you're expected to fight," Ivala noted. "Still, a better start than I expected. Let's continue!"
For months I trained under Ivala. She was ... not very professional, I had to say, but damn was she good at lust magic. I practiced the Eye of Ardor first on Miranda, then on Eliza, and finally on Ivala herself.
"Alright, let's give it another go," Ivala said as we practiced just outside my house.
I closed my eyes, gathered all my lust energy, and focused on Ivala. With a low grunt, I cast the Eye of Ardor. Ivala flinched, but she soon shook my spell off. "That took some effort," she noted with a satisfied grin. "Good. I think you've graduated already."
"Really? It didn't feel like it did anything to you."
"Yeah, but I'm the best lust magic user around," she said. "So unless you fuck up and we end up on opposing sides, you're good. I'm off now. Gotta tell your boss or some shit."
"No need."
"Caitlyn!" I said. The vampire nodded.
"With lust magic in hand, you should be ready to truly venture into the Eldritch Realm," Caitlyn told me. "Come with me. My Master awaits."
We headed for the Tower of Mist. Quickly we breached the bluish portal at the core of the Tower, which brought us to the Eldritch Realm itself. Karl was waiting on some sort of silvery flying disk in front of the fortress. He nudged me to hop on another disk right next to him. I did so.
"Last time, you only glimpsed the Eldritch Realm," he said. "Let's see if this time we can get anything more substantial."
We traversed through the Eldritch Realm. Though the disk provided some shielding (and my half-demonic nature apparently should withstand it better), I still felt a strange chill down my spine. The Eldritch Realm was dark and cold and as we journeyed I saw ruins and peculiar caves and dwellings.
"So, what is this place exactly?" I asked.
"Everything," he replied. "Think of our own world and the demonic world as ships. Then the Eldritch Realm is the ocean. And there are many strange things in the ocean. Many helpful. Many more harmful."
"Those ruins and others ... what are they?"
"No clue. Could be monsters' lairs. Could be treasure vaults. Could be secret laboratories with hidden spells. Could be nothing. The Eldritch Realm is fickle like that," he answered.
"So, you claimed exploring the Eldritch Realm could lead to a lot of benefits," I said.
"Yes. Personal strength, raw and exotic materials, new magical knowledge, and others. There's a reason Phantasma is ahead of other nations in terms of magical advancement."
"Why doesn't anyone else exploit it then?"
"What? You think it's easy?" he asked.
"No, of course not," I said. "But surely other nations have powerful mages who can withstand the Eldritch Realm."
"Sure. If only they could find it and create a portal to breach the veil that separates the world and the Eldritch Realm," he said with a smirk. "Magna is one of the most skilled spatial magic users around, and even she only stumbled upon it as an accident."
"So only Phantasma can exploit the Eldritch Realm?"
"No. A couple years after we first began exploring, it became a pretty open secret, at least among mage guilds," he said. "Thing is that they either deem exploring the Eldritch Realm pointless, have too little resources to do so, or can't breach the veil."
"Still," he continued. "There are some who do. Phantasma's most elite mage guilds cooperate with us sometimes, sending their mages here, and we do exchange our findings. A couple Inquisitors in the Baroque States do, but they have meager resources thanks to lack of support from their superiors. A number of mage guilds in Acacia used to try, but after several prominent members died they halted their explorations. That's all I know."
As we explored more of the Eldritch Realm, I took notice of strange white lights. "Don't touch them," Karl warned. "They're dormant holy energy. We have an implicit pact with the Baroque States' Inquisitors not to harvest them."
"Holy energy?" As far as I understood, holy magic was just another branch of arcane magic. "How could there be, you know, random energy pools here?"
"You think I'm some kind of omniscient god?" he asked jokingly. "No idea. Anyway, enough with the chit-chat. We're going to harvest some power ... Phantasma-style." He steered his disk near some kind of cave.
"There's a large drake there," he said. "With its offspring. I'm going to handle the drake; you take care of the small one."
He sent a small fireball at the cave. The drake roared. It showed its purplish hide quickly as it came out to do battle. A purplish stream of flame was expelled from its throat, fought against with a jet of Karl's black fire. Its flightless offspring crawled outside.
"Heah!" I sent a flurry of arcane daggers, but this fazed the creature little. It leaped at me, its jaws filled with terrible and sharp teeth. I cast the Eye of Ardor, stunning the young drake long enough for me to drive my sword into one of its yellow eyes. The drake trembled and shrieked in pain. I jumped, gathering much mana in my hand before forming them into a large orb. I hurled the orb into the drake's throat as it attempted to devour me; the orb exploded and the drake fell dead. Strangely enough, the body vanished.
"Done?" Karl asked. The large drake was nowhere to be seen, but he held a small black crystal on his hands.
"Yeah. Phew, that wasn't easy. What is that?"
"Powerful monsters drop shards when they're killed. It's a small portion of its power. It can be consumed to boost your own power," he said. "This is how we get stronger in terms of raw power."
"That sounds too good to be true. I'm sensing a 'but' here."
Karl laughed. "Well, consuming a shard takes quite some time, depending on the power of the shard and the consumer. For me, consuming this one will take a fortnight or so. For you, perhaps half a year. Furthermore, if the consumer is too weak, they may be overwhelmed and killed instead."
"And that's considered a large shard?"
"Eh, there are larger ones, but this one is pretty big. Come on, let's return."
Once we return to the Tower of Mist, Karl gave me a small shard, perhaps a third of the shard he just obtained from slaying the dragon. Caitlyn performed some flashy magic, implanting the shard inside me. My chest immediately felt heavier.
"You'll need that raw power," Karl said. "Because we have another mission for you."
"What is it?" I asked confidently.
"It's an escort mission. A long one. Caitlyn, handle the details."
"Yes, Master. In light of, you know, a damn goddess hell-bent on destroying us, we've decided to step up diplomacy with foreign nations to exchange technology. Specifically, we've been communicating with the Kingdom of Seres," Caitlyn explained.
"Seres? Where is that?"
"Very, very far to the east, separated by the ocean. Phantasma and Seres have interest in each other; most importantly, their airship tech is far ahead of us, much less any other nation in the continent. But we do have excellent agricultural magic and they covet them as much as we want their airship tech," Caitlyn continued. "We've exchanged ambassadors and theirs just arrived three days ago."
"I suppose I'm escorting this ambassador?"
"No. You'll be escorting his daughter," Caitlyn replied. "We're doing a cultural exchange. We send some of our nobles and mages abroad and vice versa. She is one of them. Her name is Nana and she has pale yellow-ish skin, slightly slanted eyes, and straight, brown hair. The ambassador requested that she be brought on a tour around our continent."
"I see," I said. "Well, compared to fighting cults, that sounds much easier."
