It was with a savage grin that I watched Sonja send yet another arrow into the distance, striking down one of the Undead in the city. Her bow remained crap, nothing more than a branch, slightly bent and strung with a bit of simple string, but the combination of archery and magic made it work. And gravity, our perch on the roof added quite a bit of height to her shots, drastically increasing her range and, amusingly, the impact of her attacks.

Amusingly, creating a better bow would be both simple and difficult, it depended on the scope of improvement desired, a slight improvement was fairly trivial, a large improvement, not so much. The biggest problem was the body of the bow, making the wooden parts, or horn, metal or whatever material was desired, required quite a bit of tech and skill, neither of which was readily available. We had visited the local library and found a few books, though it was a case of needing the right tools and a lack of resources in general, to proceed with the described steps, to say nothing of the know-how. It was one thing to read about carving a bow and a whole different story to put the knife to the wood.

Alas, I doubted I’d remain in the area long enough for anyone to learn how to make bows. A few of the locals had started to experiment, but it would take time, at least for the wooden part.

The easier part was the string. Interestingly, here I could leverage some of my personal advantages, namely my Magical Hair trait. I wasn’t about to use my hair to craft a bowstring for anyone, but with a bit of experimentation, I was able to work something out for Sonja. It took multiple long strands of her hair, twisted together to make one solid string, quite a bit of blood and similar amounts of her magic, all brought together by my Blood Magic.

Using Blood Magic to infuse Sonja’s own magic into her hair wasn’t easy but by comparing it to the way my own hair stored my magic, I was able to make do. I doubted it would last forever, but it would last for a while, especially if she repeatedly channelled magic into the string. If things worked as I thought they would, it should raise the initial speed of her arrows, without increasing the amount of physical force needed to launch them. Instead, Wind Magic would be used, adding a small Astral Power cost to each shot but I thought it would be worth it. And if not, she’d be able to shoot normally, too, the magically infused hair served just fine as a string.

“This is just bullshit,” a voice behind me stated, making me turn around to inspect the new arrival. I had to close my eyes for a moment and think back to our arrival, trying to dredge up the name from memory.

“What do you mean, Paul?” I asked in response, once the name came to me.

“She’s been doing this for a little over a week and is steadily working towards level twenty, same for Lars over there,” he nodded towards the area where Lia was helping Lars with his curious application of Earth Magic. While the two had vastly different fighting styles, one well on his way to becoming a regenerating force of nature, unstoppable but cumbersome, the other an agile slasher, moving in and out of combat at will, there were some things Lia could impart on the teen.

“Well, I’d say it’s magic, but I get your point,” I nodded a grin on my face, “You’ve essentially been swinging in the dark, trying to get somewhere without a real plan of action or understanding. Without a tutorial, so to speak, wasting a great deal of time and effort in the process,” I explained, thinking back on the lessons Lia had started to teach these people. Lessons, like the one around companionships and the limited numbers the system supported. For some reason, if more than five people worked together, things got a little dicey with EXP, which is to say, if more than five worked together on anything other than larger-scale conflicts, the individual EXP was drastically reduced. There were some curious exceptions to that, Spirit Companions like Lenore and Ylva for example, but generally, five was the number. And by having fifteen people hunt Shattered and Undead, the EXP they managed to generate was pitiful, reduced to the point that they barely levelled at all.

On the other hand, Sonja and Lars were mostly working as a team, maybe with either Lia or myself counted as overwatch while the other was working with Luna, allowing them to get a fairly decent amount of EXP, especially since we were capable enough to hide from them. Thus, they knew we were out there, somewhere, but outside of the direct lessons like the one I was giving Sonja right now, the one about night warfare and how to find targets in the dark, they didn’t know we actively watched over them. Thus, they felt like they were in actual danger, even if they weren’t. I had no idea whether that worked to convince the system or if penalties applied, it wasn’t something I had studied on Mundus, but judging by the way they gained levels the penalties weren’t too onerous.

“There is a reason why I had Lia give some lessons to you, those lessons weren’t just learned here, not just in the last few months,” I shook my head, trying to find the right words to explain Road to Purgatory and what it had been. It just sounded so insane, that a video game, even one that was revolutionary to the point that people had initially been sceptical if it was real or not, could transfer the souls of people into another world to prepare them for the apocalypse. “A group of people, a fairly large one distributed across the globe, was given access to a different world for two years. While they didn’t know what was going on, their actions in that other world allowed them to learn and forge a legacy, and what Lia told you is informed by that experience,” I shrugged once more, somewhat amused by the look of utter confusion on his face. Even now, and with so many of the impossible parts removed, it sounded insane.

“Why didn’t they tell anyone what was coming?” he asked, now a little angry. I could only raise an eyebrow, realising that he was speaking driven by emotion, not rational thought.

“If, two years ago, somebody had told you ‘The end is nigh, civilisation is coming to an end in blue fire as the space-gods approach’, would you have believed them?” I asked in response, chuckling to myself. It was utterly implausible but, sadly, the implausible wasn’t impossible.

His only response to my question was a nod, realising that without utterly undeniable proof, nobody would have believed the claim. And even with proof, a lot of people would have rejected it, simply because such proof would instantly be suspect. It was just too implausible.

Mentally dismissing Paul, I focused on my students once more. The way Lars used his earthen armour, or gauntlets at the moment, reminded me of the Ice Armour I had used in the battle on my tower. Sure, there I had mostly used it as a perfectly regenerating shield, but there was no reason why I couldn’t try something similar to what he was doing. I’d have to be somewhat more careful, and it would take a lot of effort to shift my fighting instincts in close combat from a physical response to a magical one, but if I managed, the upside was undeniable.

Cladding myself in ice would allow me to use my magical attributes, my Intelligence and Intuition, instead of my physical ones. While I wasn’t as unbalanced in that regard as I had been on Mundus, my Intelligence would always be a lot higher than my strength, just as a matter of fact. Using it would give me advantages, and it would even provide me with defensive advantages. The only downside was that it would constantly drain Astral Power, something I could hopefully afford. Maybe not as well as Lars could, I was fairly certain that his class was directly linked with his fighting style and gave him a sizable boost in that regard, but I was magically a lot more powerful.

With Paul still watching, I stretched my hand and casually conjured some Ice, keeping it directly linked with my power while letting it flow over my hand. It wasn’t cold, at least not unpleasantly so, but there was a degree of inflexibility, reminding me that Ice wasn’t a dynamic element. It sought to stagnate, to freeze the world in stillness, especially the extremities of Ice I was chasing.

Flexing my hand, using my strength and magical control in conjunction, worked, but I would have to use a lot of time to train this, especially if I wanted to make it useful in battle.

Noticing that Sonja needed some extra instruction, I shook off the Ice around my hand and walked over, making a note in the back of my mind to investigate this idea in the future. Maybe I could make actual armour, with multiple solid, interlocking pieces, instead of keeping the entire thing in a flexible state using magic. For now, I had a student to torture.