VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 29: In-fusion, Ha!

The Demon considered her words for a moment, weighing it against his innate sense of justice, his involuntary need to follow rules and law and his absolute love of murder and torture, before a wide smile spread across his face.

Yes... He liked the sound of this. Punishing rule breakers was good, it was suitable and completely justified. But she was right, what good are rules if no one knows them?

Rules should be clear, they should be ingrained into everyone’s minds so that no one could ever use ignorance as an excuse. Then, those who break them... it would be the truly worthless rodents, the worst of the worst... Like those who chewed with their mouth open or the wretched scum that talked on Scrying Skulls during theatre performances!

All of them deserved the most painful of deaths imaginable, and all would be perfectly justified under these conditions! It would be just like home! Yes, this was fantastic!

Zul’ra was absolutely giddy with excitement and hurried off to find something to squeeze the blood out of, so he could make a good tapestry of the rules to hang somewhere, however he was quickly stopped by his master clearing his throat.

He looked over his shoulder, giving his master pleading puppy dog eyes as if he was not a massive, terrifying torturer from the depths of hell, or whatever they had in place of hell.

Strangely enough, it didn’t work, and after a mental back and forth that might have been performed with actual telepathy, Zul’ra let out a frustrated sigh. He stood up straight, puffed out his chest and faced Belladonna as he spoke in a deep, booming voice.

"As my master wishes, I vow that I will train you in combat arts until I am satisfied by your killing skills. When I am done with you, you will be a worthy soldier suitable for the Death Pit."

Belladonna blinked softly at the proud declaration, the seriousness of it completely going over her head. She glanced between the Wizard and the strange demon, before giving him an awkward thumbs up and a smile.

"Uh.. Thanks, I guess. I’ll do my best to learn but I think I’ll give the Death Pits a pass for now."

"Hmph, Bah. Never mind. Come, We go train now."

He clamped his meaty hands around her shoulders, spun her around and practically shoved her outside of the tower, while the Wizard followed close behind.

They exited the tower, crossed to the other side of the glistening moonlight lake and began their first lesson, Belladonna’s first true foray into the world of magic.

What the Wizard taught her was not a spell, but a skill. It was a very basic skill, according to him, one that crafters and enchanters used often in the creation of their work. It was perfect for her as, once again according to him, she would have a difficult time learning to project spells outwards unless she used Somatic spells.

Difficult, but not impossible. But this was supposed to be a lesson on fundamentals, so thus it landed on this skill.

The skill in question was called Infusion.

In essence, it involved binding the elements into an object and fusing them together. For example, infusing the fire element into a sword’s blade to make it glow red hot and carve through armour better.

She also assumed there would be some kind of fire damage effects in there too, as being cut with a red hot blade was bound to have some burning effect.

In her case, it was her body she was Infusing. Lightning, Fire and Earth. Those were the elements she was told to practice for now. There were others that she could learn eventually, such as air and water amongst others, but those were left for later.

She was given a quick lesson on it, learning how to command and control the mana in her body, make it flow through her being in the way she willed it, before learning how to change it. However, before she was let loose, he gave her a very strict and deadly serious warning regarding Infusing the nature element. A warning that was summed up as simply, ’Don’t. Ever.’

The lesson itself was quick, but it took her nearly an hour before she really learned how to do it and was starting to see results. Concentrating on her mana flow, Belladonna focused on the essence of fire.

It was more than just heat, it was raw, primal energy. The fuel of life and of progress. Images of the sun and of combustion engines filled her mind, of huddling next to the campfire on a cold, starry night. But there was also it’s destructive nature.

Forest fires and flamethrowers filled her mind next, mixing and clashing with the gentle and warm images of reassuring candle lights illuminating the darkness. A soothing fire place burning within your house contrasted starkly against the image of the same fire overflowing from the fireplace and burning your house to the ground.

Fire was life and death, progress and destruction. It could be wielded for good and for evil. But at its core it was energy. Two sides of the same coin.

Starting from her chest, as she concentrated on these conflicting images, a warm started to spread from her chest. It filled her torso and slowly spread out into her arms and legs, feeling just like the comforting warmth of being underneath a heated blanket.

But the more she thought of it, the warmer she became. Beads of sweat formed along her skin until the heat inside was getting dangerously warm, close to burning her alive. It wanted to rage, to be set free and destroy.

She focused more, reining it in and forcing it to stay under her control. It could destroy, when she willed it to. Until then, it supplied her body with a font of energy and revitalised any exhaustion she had accumulated in her mind.

Once she was comfortable with the flames power infused into her body, she let out a deep sigh and released the infusion. Her mana returning back to its usual state as the heat dissipated into the air.

The crystal on the back of her hand flashed softly, projecting an image in front of her eyes with a jovial Ding!

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[Congratulations! You have learned the Skill, Infusion]

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Next came the practical lesson. Rising to her feet, Belladonna faced down the towering demon as it stood across from her, a few metres away. Taking a deep breathe, she closed her eyes and concentrated on her mana once again. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

But before she could feel the heat rising in her chest, she instead felt a hot stinging pain in her cheek as she was slapped to the ground.