This Ascent to Divinity is Lewder Than Expected

6.59 – ❤ Lightning II

6.59 – ❤ Lightning II

"If I could have anything?" Zoey asked.

"Within reason," Maddy said. "But yeah. There's a lot to pick from inside this book."

"Firepower," Zoey answered. "Anything hard-hitting, even if it takes longer to cast."

"You'd prefer that, over faster bolts? Weaker ones you could stream out in larger numbers?"

Zoey lost her conviction. She shrugged. "I dunno, you're the expert, I just feel like I'm kinda useless, when it comes to fights? Or at least, that I don't have anything big that influences the fight, personally speaking."

Maddy raised an eyebrow. "And you think you need firepower to be 'useful in a fight', huh?"

Her point was obvious. Maddy herself had extremely little when it came to offensive power. She could, however, utterly disable opponents, up to and including bosses for short amounts of times. She provided enormous benefit to any given fight, probably influencing encounters more than if she did have a damage arsenal.

"Well," Zoey said. "No, you're right, of course. I have other uses through my other runes. I just ... want to be able to do a lot of damage?" She shrugged. "You asked what I wanted. But I'll learn whatever you think would be best on me, or for the team."

Maddy hid a smile. "I guess it does make sense you'd want something big and flashy." She patted Zoey's cock underneath her robes to emphasize her point. "But no, don't get me wrong, a heavy-hitting lightning bolt isn't a bad idea. Since it's easier to land than most spells, you can beef up a lightning bolt a lot more without worrying about wasting the spell. Don't have to worry about it shattering on a wall, like an ice spear." She flipped through a few pages and tapped a finger on the book when she found what she wanted. "This is what I would start off with. It's basically what you asked for. A big bolt of lightning that originates from you, with a lot of energy poured into it. There's a smaller version you could learn once you have a handle on it, or vice-versa. Gives you versatility."

Zoey inspected the diagram on the page. She'd grown used to dealing with the language of magic, but the looping designs were still interesting, and would probably never stop being so. There were a few sentences of description at the bottom of the page, discussing the spell and how it manifested. Some of the other pages had included paragraphs and paragraphs of description, though those had been the higher-circle spells, and were by nature more complex than a two-circle.

Zoey's brief study was interrupted by a hand rubbing up and down her cock. Her eyes flicked to Maddy, but despite firmly massaging Zoey through her robe, and her thighs flexing to provide a satisfying pressure down near her base, Maddy kept her attention on the book with an innocent expression—though her cheeks were red, the easy-to-blush girl unable to stoically perform such a lewd action with a straight face.

Simply having the spell design, unfortunately, was only the first step. A major one, yes, that was barred to large swathes of the world, who had to scrounge together whatever designs they could find. But still only a first step. Actually learning to wield the spell was another matter altogether, one that would take significant practice, and increasingly so for more complex spells.

There was a reason Zoey only had a few key ice spells in her kit, rather than a whole book's worth. The creation of spells was largely an academic pursuit, but using them, a practical one. Maybe not that dissimilar from composing music to playing what she saw on a sheet, though that analogy had its flaws, as most analogies did.

"There's two others I think are good," Maddy said. "One's a second circle spell, a ball of lightning that sits there and zaps anything that gets close. Would work well for both single targets and multiple. Another is an arcing chain lightning effect. Those would be a good all-around starting point, and after you have a handle on them, you could pick up more creative ones you take an interest in."

"Uh. Sure. What is it?"

"You remember what I got for my fourth advancement? I drew something up, and wanna see if it's functional." Maddy hesitated. "But I know some people don't like illusions, so it's okay if you don't want to."

Zoey blinked. She'd seen plenty of Maddy's illusions, but she didn't use them on her. Her newest skill made it so that illusions fashioned as terrain were more potent, to the extent monsters would be nearly guaranteed to believe they were real. Since Maddy wanted to test it on her, Zoey wouldn't be classified as an ally: she wouldn't 'see through the illusion' like she normally would. They would have the same mind-altering effects as they did on monsters.

"Sure," Zoey said. "Honestly, I've been kind of curious what that's like. Probably smart to get a feel for it anyway, in case we run into someone else who can make illusions."

Maddy nodded cautiously. "It might be unpleasant."

"That's fine," Zoey said.

The following experience was extremely disorienting. The illusion was simple, merely a collection of walls brought to life in front of Zoey, but the effect was mind-bending. As soon as the slab of metal appeared in front of her, she knew with total certainty that it was real. Not an illusion. Sure, they had just been discussing experimenting with illusions, but ... something else must have happened. Because that was a real wall. A real slab of metal had sprung up in front of her, and if she were to try to run into it, she would smack into it and bounce off. So obviously she wouldn't try.

It took no small amount of internal struggle to work past those thoughts. As she walked up to the wall, every instinct in her body told her that her hand would meet solid metal. It was nearly shocking when her fingers passed through—and even when she'd proved its non-corporeality, her brain kept telling her: that is a real wall. Never mind how she had her hand inside it.

"Whoa," Zoey said. "Trippy."

She shook her head to clear it.

"And it's this strong when I already knew it was an illusion," she mumbled. "Has to be way more convincing if I didn't."

A shiver went down her spine as she examined her thought processes, the contradictions she almost hadn't been able to contend with. No wonder people disliked illusionists, or at least their skill set. Having her head messed with was ... unpleasant. As Maddy had warned.

She faced Maddy.

"Yeah, that's gonna be nice down in a shard," she said, rather than voicing her previous thoughts. "All kinds of creative things you'll be able to do with it, I'm sure."