Starlight Necromancer

Chapter 123 - Code-Like Magic

"By the time you're back... so that means, when? I know the dungeon gets pretty deep, but I have no idea how deep, really." Foster pointed out, and Sam smiled back at him, "The record is 49, currently. We're hoping to beat the mid-boss this time around. So that would be... a month, maybe 6 or 7 weeks at most." 

"Holy shit, that long? Seriously?" Foster let out surprised. He didn't expect that dungeon dives could last this long.

"Yeah... It is pretty long, but that's nothing yet. It's assumed this dungeon has 100 floors, if not more. But going by the 100 floor assumption, we're guessing it would take a whole year to get to the bottom floor if you were a group that could just barely clear the dungeon. Considering the increase of difficulty of the floors up until now." Sam explained, scratching his cheek, slowly looking around toward the direction where the rest of his group were waiting for him, "I don't know if I can talk for too much longer, so I'll just briefly wrap up my story real quick, if that's cool." 

Immediately, Foster nodded his head. Of course he was fine with hearing the rest of what happened to Sam after he got to this world, "So, anyway, I continued learning magic and Argian itself of course, and I found that I have a talent for non-elemental magic. Elemental magic is often based around the reference of something tangible that exists in the world around you, but non-elemental magic is something more abstract. And for me, it was like... information as a concept itself, I guess. I have spells that let me gather, compile or send information itself, but I can also make barriers like this that work with specific rules and patterns. I think my casting-method helped me out a lot with this, too." He explained, although Foster was a little confused, "What do you mean, your casting-method?"

"Hm? Oh, I mean the way that I construct and cast spells. The people that were born and grew up in this world can grasp the concept of magic more easily, but we can't, right? It's just a completely foreign concept to us. So, I filled in the gaps with something that I did understand, and that was code! I looked at the things that made up magic circles as their own coding language with its own unique syntax. I learned that language, and it's as if I'm writing code bit by bit. I actually managed to make some spells more efficient by mixing in some algorithms from earth." He said quickly, trying to show the step-by-step construction of a magic circle right above his palm. From what Foster could tell, after seeing magic circles a few times before, it did seem like this one was being constructed in a completely different way. But he couldn't pin-point how exactly.

"How do you cast spells?" Sam asked, and Foster simply shrugged, "I don't know, really. In the first place, the spells I use are different to the ones you use. Mine are just energy-based right now. Chilling-Touch, Siphoning Touch, and Dead Sight. I just concentrate on the affected spots, and think about death, or something?" 

"Oh, alright... Interesting... I mean, most energy-based spells can be improved through magic circle construction as well, it will just take a bit longer to activate them. It can make them more mana-efficient as well, so it might be useful in some situations." Sam pointed out, as a simple side-note, "But well, if you want to figure out a way to create magic circles, you just need to try and think about it in a way that makes sense to you. Anything to help you grasp the mystery or magic a little better. I brought order and logic into it for myself, but for you it could be really different." 

"I see..." Foster replied, thinking about what could help him cast spells. But since he obviously wouldn't be able to figure anything out all too soon, he looked back at Sam, "So anyway, what did you do after that?" 

"Ah, right. I kept traveling around the Argian Empire, and then at some point heard about Arcadum. It's one of the biggest cities of the continent, and it just seemed like the kind of place that otherworlders flock to. I came here, did a few random jobs for a while, and then joined the adventurer's guild. At some point, I met Cain and Arcia, we joined a party together, and then, five years ago, we gathered a bunch of high-class parties and smaller guilds, and founded Grandosia."

"You created the largest guild in the city just five years ago? That sounds... impressive."

"Well... if it was any other sort of organization, maybe. But for adventurers, the most important thing is to be strong. And, well... we're strong. We pushed the exploration of the dungeon further and further, so we became more renown quickly, and a lot of people wanted to join us. It was easy to grow, really. For the past five years, we did nothing but adventurer-work at a large scale." Sam explained, before turning his head to the side. He could see Cain standing nearby, as if waiting for him to finally finish, "It seems like I have to go now. I'm sure you'll at least hear about it when we're back, so at that point, just come to the Grandosia headquarters so that we can talk some more. And to pick up your hopefully repaired phone." Sam said, waving his hand just once, seemingly making the invisible barrier around the two of them disappear, "You should get back to your party as well." 

"Right, of course." Placing his hand onto his hips, Foster looked down the cave. First right, and then left, "Erm... do you maybe have a map on that?" he asked, pointing at Sam's phone. With a quick nod, he replied, "Yeah, of course. There's actually a pretty simple way for you to get back to the entrance." He explained. Quickly, Sam showed Foster the route on one of the apps on his phone. He tried to remember it as well as he could, and then thanked his fellow otherworlder, "Well, see you in a month or so, then."

"See you in a month." Sam replied with a smile, quickly making his way over to Cain. And then, Foster started to make his way back to the entrance so that he could try and catch up to the others. While on his way, he pulled Aster out of his hair, and looked at the small spirit, "Guess we found a good new contact, huh? He'll definitely be good to have around."

The finger-sized spirit tilted its head, the round white mask practically shining at him. Foster tried to keep it clean, since, for some reason, it got really dirty incredibly fast, "You know, after meeting him, I feel like using magic some more... and a familiar is supposed to help with that, right? How about we both try our best to get better at using magic, huh?" Foster suggested. Aster looked up at him, and slowly nodded his head, excited to do this together.