BTOG 154 – Barrier Art

“Level 221…?”

“That what surprised you?”

When I got surprised by her level, she looked a little sullen. Did she expect me to be surprised by something else?

“No, I mean, it was unusual to see a level over 100.”

Gold that I fought in a recent event was level 99. And when you take into account that he was a special boss that you fight at the very first, it’s only natural that his actual stat is over level 100.

Even so, I was a bit surprised when I was shown a level of over 200.

Hearing my words, Sekka made a gesture with her index fingers of both hands.

“The level is normally limited to 100. In order to exceed the limit, you need to go through trials.”

“Trials, is it different for each people?”

“No, not really. Everyone can take the trials at the Temple of Sephirah. The content of the trial changes depending on the profession, but I’ve never heard  the content of it changing for each individual.” {Sephirah or Sephiroth?, tell me your thought in the comment.}

There were many things I was curious about, like the trial and the temple, but Sekka’s words included a word I had never heard before.

“Sephirah?’

“A holy city dedicated to the God of Creation. Travelers like yourself often called it the seventh city.”

“Ah… I see.”

When I heard Sekka’s explanation, I was convinced that I have never heard of it.

The seventh city. It’s a place that no player has ever entered before.

The reason for this is simply because the area was just unlocked in a major update a few days ago.

As far as I know, players have only traveled as far as Zeronoa, the sixth city.

The dungeon leading to the seventh town, which was lifted in the last major update, is said to be a huge labyrinth, and even though it’s been a few days since the update, no one has been able to clear it yet.

I guess it would be easier after someone cleared it at least once, so we could follow the so-called route. Well, it was a far cry for me, as I had only reached Griffith.

“But, Sephirah’s Trials may be irrelevant to you, Sukuna-chan.”

“E? Why?”

“You are a Douji, aren’t you? To put it simply, gods of special professions are not worshipped in Sephirah, so I don’t know if there’s any Trial you can take there.”

“I see. ……”

Well, it’s true that Shuten Douji is not a god that can be worshipped in such a temple.

Because she is [sealed] And it’s not because of her accomplishments but rather for her sins.

I remember Kohaku said that Shuten once destroyed three countries in her rage, so perhaps she was treated as an Evil God.

And that God is also the one who placed the curse in me.

However, the fact that the gods of special professions are not worshipped in the seventh city of Sephirah does mean that there is another profession-specific race that similar to Douji?

Come to think of it, when I first met Shuten, she seemed to have said something like if she messes with the human race, she’ll get noticed by some troublesome–

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah, sorry, it’s nothing. I just thought that there is discrimination because I’m a Douji.”

“Fufu, That’s just how it is.”

That’s how it is, huh…

It’s not necessarily an exclusive case since there are other special professions too.

If Sekka, who has experienced such things in person, says so, I guess I’ll just have to accept it for now.

We’ve gone way off-topic. At first, I just wanted to buy some spell marks.

But I had no choice but to think about Sephirah, a place that I could not reach.

“Now, now, let’s get back to the point. What kind of spell mark do you want, Sukuna? Basically, I have everything, and if I don’t, I’ll make one.”

[If I don’t, I’ll make one]. What a reliable declaration.

But I guess that’s expected from the top-class sorcerer. 

“I think what I want most is a magic defense talisman.”

“Magic defense spells are around here. It’s cheaper from here and the most expensive place at the end. The effect is proportional to the price.”

Sekka then laid out a bunch of colorful talismans.

On its surface, there are worm-like letters that you often see in temples and shrines. However, the letters in the middle are clear enough to read even for me.

The white spell mark on the far left is a magic barrier. I think this was a simple non-attribute defensive magic that could always be learned if you have a magic stat. It was a typical barrier that put up a wall in front of you to prevent attacks.

Its defense value is the weakest, but it’s still able to block elementary-level magic. The cost-to-performance seems to be awful, though.

Next is the [Wall] type magic. One of its examples is the firewall. This type of magic has some resistance to physical attacks but is also strongly affected by attribute compatibility. For example, water walls are resistant to fire magic, and so on.

Next is the [Barrier] type of defensive magic. This is completely different from the first magic barrier, and it puts up a reasonably large barrier that covers the magician. Rin’s [Electric Barrier] in the Destroy, the Apostle battle, is also a barrier type.

It can withstand intermediate-level magic and physical attacks. It was always used at the edge of the field during the apostle defeat battle, so it wasn’t broken by the shockwave, but I think it’s not strong enough to withstand it at close range.

And for the next, my eyes were glued to a particular skill.

“Barrier Art – Blue?” [Kekkai Jutsu – Ao]

“Do you know about Barrier Art, Sukuna-chan?”

“…Not really, I’ve only seen it before.”

I’m sure that after Defeat the Apostle battle, when Kohaku and I were fighting, Melty used a technique called [Barrier Art – Black] to protect the city of the beginning from the collateral damage.

I just happened to hear her voice when she activated it. That’s why I can say for sure that I have seen it before.

“I’ll explain it to you in detail.”

Yukika smiled happily and pulled out some of the talismans from the lineup.

“As the name implies, warding is a skill that puts upwards. There are two types of barrier a [Defensive Barrier] to prevent attacks from the outside, and [Support Barrier] to give an effect on the inside.”

“Mm-hmm”

“A simple example of a Support Barrier is a [Recovery Barrier] that keeps recovering HP when you are inside it. The amount of recovery is not as great as what healer could cast, but the effect of recovery magic is dramatically increased when you cast it inside a Recovery Barrier.”

“That sounds like a buff.”

“Yes, that’s correct. If only look at this skill, you can see that it specializes in support. And even though there is a barrier that can reflect attacks, the barrier itself can’t attack at all.”

Is it a skill that activates a barrier as a supportive effect? It’s probably one of the master rank skills since I haven’t seen any talk of it being used among players so far.

But what path should you take to learn that?

If it’s simply a combination of magic, someone should have found it. Is it possible that it has sorcery as a requirement? 

“But, the selling point is the defense effect. Even the weakest [Barrier Art – Blue] is hard enough to block all intermediate-level magic. The hardest of them all, [Black] is an absolute defense that completely blocks even the highest level of magic.”

“Oh, that’s amazing.”

“By the way, it blocks physical attack as well as magic, but unlike magic, the power of physical attacks is hard to disperse, so be careful.”

I see. Come to think of it, in the magicless battle between Kohaku and me, Melty still choose to use [Barrier Art – Black].

She probably uses it since it had the hardest defense for magic and physical attack.

“By the way, does it have a specific area of effect and duration?”

“When you use the talisman, the area of effect is a few meters in the radius of the magician, and the duration is a uniform ten seconds. It lasts for ten seconds unless it is destroyed, but you can’t attack until the ten seconds are up.”

“Hoho? So, the barrier will prevent the attack from inside as well?”

“It has the same amount of hardness inside and out.”

That is an effect that seems a little difficult to use in direct battle.

You can use it for pure defense, but you can’t use it for an instant guard. You can’t attack back even if you’ve defended yourself from an attack.

However, I can use it to protect myself from ranged magic attacks, which I don’t want to be hit by, so I guess I could consider its use.

In the first place, this game doesn’t have as much of a humanoid monster as you might think.

The only human-type opponents I’ve fought, aside from Lowe, have been NPCs and the Siren Knights. And I’m not sure if I could call that a human-type.

“By the way, The price for the Barrier Art starts at 50,000 iris for the cheapest one, [Barrier Art – Blue].”

“50.000…?”

I reflectively muttered when I heard the price.

Well, 50.000 is really a small amount of money for the current me.

I have a rotting wealth inheritance from the time I defeated Gold, and I also got about a million iris from the Giant Dragon Ars Nova.

In fact, I secretly think that [Blue] is the easiest to use.

Since it can block intermediate-level magic, then at worst, you can use it to protect yourself and then shatter it on your own for a follow-up attack.

You can’t use advanced magic and above unless you have skilled enough, and even if you do, you’ll end up getting stuck in the post-skill stun of the said skill.

“By the way, what’s the price of the top one?” 

“The green one, which can protect you from the higher classes, costs 300,000, and the black one costs over a million. There is also a variety of support barrier of magic and sorcery spells, so go ahead and splurge.”

“Hmm, how honest.”

Perhaps because she already decided that I’m someone who smells like money when we first met, she honestly asked me to loosen my wallet and splurge.

Indeed, I can buy any of these items, and I can use them at my leisure. After all, I have plenty of money thanks to Gold.

Since she made me remember Gold, I decided to ask Sekka about something that had been bothering me since that battle.

“Sekka, there’s something I’d like you to tell me.”

“What is it?”

“How much is this worth in Iris?”

What I took out of my inventory was a gold bar that had been dropped from Gold.

It made a loud thump when I placed it on the counter of the store.

This was a gold bar that I hadn’t sold because I didn’t need money, and I didn’t know its value.

“Wh-Wha-Wha….?”

Sekka’s eyes widened, and she let out a voice like a broken robot, and then she completely froze.

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7 Responses

  1. Kensei Seraph says:

    Thanks for the chapter.

  2. golden skeleton says:

    thanks for the chapter.

  3. Anonymous Fairy says:

    Trail of Sephiroth? Hehehe… I hear the music, time to watch that attack that lasts waaaay too long.

  4. Lilisionnach says:

    Well, if Sekka is sputtering just seeing them, they must be worth quite a bit!

  5. Contradictory Bystander says:

    Ah yes the allure of gold bars, it probably is either extremely dense or made out of some special type of gold worth much more than usual

  6. rooislangwtf says:

    Thanks

    I vote for Sephirah, One Winged Angel starts playing in my head when I read the name Sephiroth

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