VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 139: Real Magic

Ten tongues of fired poured off of Valerie’s hands, one from each finger, and began to rapidly swirl together to form a singular ball of roaring fire. That ball grew and grew, until it was the size of a baseball and the fire from her hands cut off. All of this happening over the course of a single second.

The fiery baseball crackled with barely contained power before finally it launched itself. A trail of flames was left in its flight path as it illuminated the long, metallic runway wherever it passed.

After 20 metres of uninterrupted flight, the balls structure collapsed in on itself and it erupted into a roaring explosion of devastating flames. The force of the explosion caused the bunker to shudder ever so slightly, but that was all.

Once the flames dispersed, there was no smoke left behind nor did the metal around it look even remotely hot. But that did not do anything to minimise Percy’s excitement.

He shouted with childish glee and amazement, running over to Valerie and shaking her by the shoulders as he could barely contain himself.

"Holy crap Ray-gun! That was amazing! I was holding onto some doubt before but after that? Holy shit, you really can do magic! I mean... Real magic?! This is... Holy crap!"

He rambled excitedly, shaking her more as he constantly bounced with overflowing energy.

Valerie laughed weakly. Her face had slightly paled from the effort and she wanted nothing more than to go and rest on that comfy bed, but Percy’s excitement was just too infectious. She brushed him away, then took the time to cast the spells twice more.

Both times the ball flew to exactly twenty metres before exploding, just like before.

With the third fireball, Valerie slumped back in the chair, her chest heaving from the heavy excursion as sweat trickled down her pale face. Percy handed her a glass of water, that she eagerly gulped down, as he looked down the runway with a pensive face.

"Same range, same damage from all three. It’s not even that different from the one’s I’ve seen cast in the game. Still, it’s hard to actually believe that its real." Percy muttered, before turning back to Valerie.

"So, does that mean I should be congratulating you on becoming the worlds first sorcerer?"

"Magus..." She said with a pant after fully finishing the glass of water, "I am a Magus. Definitely not a sorcerer. Besides, I don’t think I’m the first. I have a feeling that there is someone out there who has me beat."

Her mind drifted to the creep that she had met with the undead. His calculation on the time frame of the headaches might have been completely off, as even Percy was starting to get small amounts never mind herself. But his confidence had to come from somewhere.

If he was willing to tell her about it, then she had no doubt that he experienced it himself. Although where he got his information, she had no idea.

In fact... It was possible that he got it from inside the company. It was a bit too much of a coincidence to believe that the company that sold D-fuel, the drink with heavy doses of magic in it, also crafted the game that trained them on how to use that magic.

So if he was a possible inside man, did that mean the company had access to magic too? If so, they would be much more advanced than herself.

Still, as Valerie left her thoughts and glanced towards the grinning idiot, she couldn’t help but smile and put on a pompous air suitable for her extravagant surroundings.

"Congratulations would be nice though, and a bit of grovelling for your new magical Queen would not be remiss."

Percy laughed before putting on a serious face of admiration. He crossed his arm across his stomach and performed a very well trained, formal bow suitable for a true prince of old. He bowed deeply, and did so for a few seconds longer than Valerie expected for a joke, before finally straightening up with a truly proud and genuine smile on his face.

"So, is that you all done?"

Valerie closed her eyes and steadied her breath, feeling the condition of her body and the mana around her. She was definitely exhausted, as she was having to use even more of her own limited, sourceless mana to make up for the lack in the air.

But she wasn’t completely spent.

"I think I have one left in me," She said with a week laugh as she looked down at her hands, which didn’t have any marks from the fire that had been dancing on them mere moments ago.

"Besides, there’s something I want to try."

Percy raised his eyebrows in curiousity, but kept his questions to himself for the moment and instead stepped to the side to give the magus room to work. Valerie smiled briefly at him before retreating back to the darkness of her mind and relying exclusively on her mana senses.

She didn’t look outwards this time, but inwards. A familiar feeling in a body that she was definitely familiar with, but mixed together they made the process feel oddly strange.

Whipping up the last wisps of mana inside of her, Valerie stirred them up and channelled them through the same pathways she had felt moments before. She had not just cast the other two fireballs for testing, but also for practice.

She infused her mana with the essence of fire as she moved it through her body, focusing on retracting the path it had flowed when she had cast the spell.

But this time she made no hand movements nor muttered a single word.

And yet, after a few seconds her hand began to glow with a faint orange light beneath the skin. The light grew in intensity until finally it pushed through her skin and her hand combusted into flames.

Those flames pushed from her hand, reaching up like tendrils that curled together until they formed the same baseball sized fireball. Then it kept growing.

Valerie’s face had turned completely white as she fed the fire more mana. Rivers of sweat dripped down her forehead and back as she focused entirely on keeping it contained as it grew to the size of a coconut.

Then finally, when she couldn’t feed it anymore, Valerie’s eyes snapped open and she threw the fireball down the runway.

It streaked through the air, flying faster and further than the last three, as it reached over 30 metres before finally exploding.