INFO:

“Thank you, I’ll see you later,” Rania said and waved the innkeeper goodbye as she left through the door. Today hadn’t been very eventful, and the Paladin had spent most of the daytime hours sleeping and resting to prepare for night time. Oddly enough, Rania found that training after nightfall somehow made her spells feel more potent and that, without the support of the sunlight, she was forced to focus her energy and push it into every single spell she was casting. The last training session was a few days ago and had gone rather well. Rania enjoyed some time alone after being with her guild mate for so long and spending time with Kenzo made her realize that she had a lot of things to work on as well.

The Paladin was already capable, but there was a lot of space filled with potential, space that remained unused up until now. Rania knew that her magic could dive even deeper and grow much stronger if only she knew how to channel it properly, and she made it her goal to train this in particular tonight. Whether it would only take her one night or several she couldn’t tell, but Rania had plans on using specific effects to boost her skills and in order to make sure that they were as good as she wanted them to be, she’d have to try them out. Now, Rania was very much a healer and a support-type, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to deal out some damage. The Paladin decided that eventually she would have to go on missions alone, and in order to do that she needed to be ready and equipped.

Preferably with spells, because her trusty Hierophant Staff wasn’t going to knock anyone out. Well, sometimes it did but that wasn’t her intention for the weapon. Rania was a spell caster and decided not to focus on her physical abilities for now. As long as she was sturdy enough and could heal herself, the Paladin knew she would be fine!

It was a beautiful night and even though the hours were already headed towards midnight, there were still people on the streets and everything appeared lively. This was just like Hosenka, a city that never slept. Because of this, Rania decided to move to the outskirts, where the locals lived and fewer people were still awake. Of course the Paladin wasn’t going to train her spells in the middle of the street, and Rania was headed for the same forest clearing that she had been in the previous night. It was the perfect place to meditate and think up some spells and while Rania already had some vague ideas, she had to put her mind into the right place before she could actually summon something and see how it went. The woman snuck through the thicket and listened carefully to her surroundings, but it seemed that no one else was around.

As a light mage, Rania wasn’t afraid of the dark whatsoever, because darkness was always a choice of hers – but paying attention to who was around probably wasn’t a bad idea, because you never knew what kind of people crept around in the woods preying on young girls who were out and alone. But those weren’t the right thoughts for the situation and Rania felt perfectly at ease, even though she was alone out at night. The Paladin headed for the most comfortable spot she could find and took a seat in the warm meadow. It was night and the sun had gone down, but the temperatures were still mild and quite enjoyable. She had always liked this about summer. Everything became so easy to work with and she didn’t have to worry about freezing her toes off during meditation. In the winter months, this was an entirely different and more difficult situation and she wanted to get things done before the temperatures fell again.

Once she was seated with her legs crossed, the mage gently placed her Hierophant Staff into her lap and put her hands onto the weapons. Casting her spells through the staff made the casting itself a lot easier, burning less mana and making them more effective. Well, perhaps not more effective but somehow it felt as though Rania always had an easier time when she used the weapon, so she took it with her everywhere she went. But now for the meditation: the woman closed her eyes, inhaled and exhaled deeply and let her mind flow freely through the night.

The spells Rania had in mind were, again, healing spells. Well, perhaps some healing and some sort of defense options in case things became rough. The Paladin believed that as long as her kit was evenly spread out and she had an option for everything, she would be just fine. She wanted her spells to be versatile as well however, and because of this she had to think of something else. Perhaps eventually she should start working on some debuffs as opposed to buffs as well, but that was for another time. For now, Rania let her thoughts go wild and eventually she came up with a rough idea for all the spells she wanted to create.

It was really quite the process, but meditating was perfect for it and it always worked out. At the end of it all, the woman slowly opened her eyes and took a look around. About two hours had passed, and now seemed a good time to get started on the training. Surely she would be exhausted by tomorrow morning, but it was going to be worth it. And Rania couldn’t wait to try out all of her new spells anyways. Rania uttered a sigh and took a sip of water from the bottle she had brought. She didn’t feel exhausted or anything, but somehow her body always got a bit tired even after meditating. Still, with a fresh mind the woman stood up, took her staff and began the spell practice.

The first spell Rania decided to practice was more or less on the same level that her previous spells had been. Not necessarily super strong, not costly on mana either but quite potent when it came to actual healing. The idea was that, in a moment of need, she could swiftly wave her hand at a target, or swing it into their direction, and from her magic a wave would be created that would fly into a direction and once it came into contact with another person it would heal or damage them to an extent. The damage wasn’t too important, but it was the healing that was relevant here. Rania needed more ways to quickly dissolve dangerous situations by healing damage, and a quick spell like that, that could be cast without having to think about it much, was a good idea.

And because of this, Rania simply went with it. She swung her hand gracefully into one direction, making sure to have gathered plenty of light magic that she could release into that same direction and once she did, with a *swoosh* a bright wave of light magic was released and traveled a noticeable distance before dispersing into a thousand tiny sparkles of golden light. This was plenty, but Rania decided to repeat the motion a few times just to be sure that it was working properly. In the end, she was even able to cast the spell through the staff and after giving it a simple name so she had something relating to it in her mind, the Paladin moved on to the next spell of interest.

The next spell in line, at least for now, would be another defensive spell. The healing wave had worked out fine, but sometimes it was best to save those precious spells for later and simply defend yourself from direct damage for now. Besides, Rania wanted to reach more than just one person with her magic and in order to protect many at once she had to expand the size of her spell across several meters to cover as many people as possible. Rania wasn’t used to covering larger areas yet, but for sure with some practice this wouldn’t be a problem. The Paladin focused her magic and energy on the area, as opposed to one spot and one person and this turned out to be much more difficult than she’d initially thought.

It was actually really hard to cover a larger area than initially suspected, but Rania figured that she simply needed some practice and then things would be fine. Soon enough, after giving it a few attempts the mage managed to create a dome of light around herself. The dome of light was shaped in a way that people could stand beneath it and grew larger and larger until it eventually covered an area of 4 meters, which was honestly quite a lot. Very satisfied with this result, Rania repeated the action a few times, realizing that this spell in particular would cost a lot of mana and energy should many people be involved, but she was fine with that.

Anyhow, time to move on to the next spell. So far she had practiced two spells, but Rania wanted to learn a few more on top of everything. The Spellward had been a success and Rania hoped that in the future, when she was doing things with the guild, this spell in particular would come in handy. Ever since Rania had joined Blue Pegasus she had thought about how to make her spells come in handy for larger groups of people. Apparently with guilds almost everything was a team effort and the Paladin wanted to make sure to be useful in these types of situations, which is why she wanted to do the same thing she had done with the spellward, or at least something similar, but with healing. Healing people, especially several people at once surely would be super useful.

But it would also drain a lot of mana. Because of this, Rania thought about how she had to drink lots of mana potions in the future, and save up money for them so she could actually maintain and sustain all the spells that she was training, but I digress. The Paladin looked around herself and after taking another sip from her water bottle to stay hydrated, she once again gathered her magical power, poured it into the palms of her hands and aimed them at the sky. Frankly, this was a tricky one and needed a lot of focus to be actually good. Eventually a bright golden light radiated from Rania’s fingertips and slowly spread into the surrounding area. A golden magic circle appeared on the floor beneath her feet, and everything within the area was dipped into her magical aura. Rania, who stood in the center of said magical circle, felt that she would now be able to heal everything and everyone within the area.

This was once again one of those spells that sucked a lot of energy and mana out of the young girl the more people were affected, but in that case she simply had to get better. Rania repeated the action a few times to make sure that the magic circle appeared easily and everyone within it was properly healed. The light magic came out pouring and eventually, once she was satisfied with the result, she stopped to take a small break. So far she had practiced three spells, and she named the last one ‘Tranquility’. It was a bit of a melodramatic name, but this was only for herself anyways and Rania quite liked it. The last two spells Rania wanted to practice were even more special.

They were healing spells, but because the Paladin was already so experienced in those types of spells she wanted to try something different, something new. On top of the healing portion, she wanted to be able to apply a buff to her comrades, one that would allow them to last longer. She knew her magic was efficient enough to accomplish this, it was Rania herself who had to manage meeting exactly the right points. The first one would be small in size, and simple: a bullet. A bullet of light to be fired at her comrade and once they got hit, a wave of relief would wash over them, they would feel refreshed and renewed and on top of everything more durable than ever.

Rania figured the best thing to buff (at least for now) was her target’s constitution. She wanted to make them last longer, give them more health so that in case she ever fell off, needed to rest or simply couldn’t cast any more spells, they had the energy to keep going. Rania aimed her hand towards the empty night sky and on her fingertips a small bullet of light formed. She shot it towards the sky and watched as it dispelled after reaching a certain distance. That was honestly good enough for her, and soon she would try it out in person. On a test object.

The last spell was similar, but meant to buff the endurance of the user. Endurance meant resistance to pain, and Rania was sure that everyone could use higher pain tolerance. Instead of a bullet, she would create a long, beautiful swirl of golden light magic that would seek out her target and explode into glitter dust, filling them with energy and healing their injuries. Rania practiced this several times until she decided to call it a night. She was positive that those new spells worked fine, but she couldn’t wait to try them out on another person during combat, to test their effectiveness. After this, the Paladin walked back home and went to sleep. The sun was already starting to rise on the horizon.