D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2140 Poor Quality Ice

Chapter 2140: Chapter 2140 Poor Quality Ice

— Kat —

The group had split up… as much as they could while remaining on the property anyway. Tanisha, Hedera, and Furen were inside playing games with a deck of cards. Kat wasn’t sure where the cards had come from, because she didn’t remember seeing any in the house, but it was something to occupy them at least. The three were hopefully having a good time. Kat wasn’t actively keeping an eye on them though.

Instead, she was outside with Lily. They both had plans to practice things, though Kat was more interested in her own practice while Lily was uncertain if she’d do the same or hang out with Tweedle and Appoline who had grabbed a spot in a different corner of the yard to brew more potions. The main reason Lily wasn’t sure what to do was that Appoline was just making basic potions, starting with more healing potions.

Technically Lily wouldn’t be learning anything new… but she needed practice if she wanted to get better at alchemy, or heck, even get up to a passable level. Of course on the other side of things they only had two cauldrons and one of them wasn’t really a cauldron so much as it was an old pot Appoline had found in the cupboards that was thick enough to be acceptable for something simple and non-toxic like healing potions. So if Lily did join in she’d be taking the chance away from someone else.

[What do you think Kat? I’ve got plenty of spells to practice… but I’m not going to have this sort of chance too often… but I did already make use of it somewhat and I don’t want to get in Tweedle’s way… unless I take Appoline’s spot… but then I’d be making potions so much slower then her and perhaps with less success… blegh…]

I’d say do what you want. I know alchemy wasn’t originally going to be the first craft you jumped into… but it seems like you’re interested and Appoline is pretty close to perfect as a teacher for you. She cares about her students, is extremely knowledgeable about it all and isn’t a higher Rank so won’t have forgotten the basics or use techniques you are completely incapable of. If you want to do this? Just go over.

[Dammit you’re correct. It feels awkward but you are correct. Though I should read those notes first. So I’ll say hello, explain I’d be interested in joining, but only after reading those notes from Appoline. Give her some time to get some potions made before I slow things down.]

If you think that’s the best way to go about it I support you. Kat reached over and kissed Lily lightly on the lips before shooing her away. Lily blushed, from the kiss and the instant dismissal, but was laughing along with Kat not long afterwards. Soon she practically skipped over to the other side of the backyard.

Kat kept an ear on the conversation as she started her practice. The first idea was to see if she even could freeze her own water. So turning her hand into water, and then into ice was the current plan. “Hello Lily, are you thinking of watching?” asked Appoline.

“Um… if it’s alright with you I was hoping to participate. Oh, um, after I read through these notes,” Lily revealed the notes from her bag. “I haven’t looked them over properly yet, I just took a glance at them and I already know a bunch of places I can improve. Plus the terminology is fascinating.”

“That’s fine. I mostly doing this to kill time, keep my skills sharp and to perhaps make a bit of money for things. If you want to brew you can either use my setup… or perhaps Tweedle’s. No offence Tweedle, but you’re likely to run out of mana before I do,” offered Appoline.

Tweedle just nodded with slight embarrassment. She wasn’t anywhere near as efficient with her mana as Appoline was, and so the idea that she’d run out and need to swap with Lily wasn’t a surprise. Though she also didn’t want to ask what would happen later on once her mana had regenerated enough to get back to work.

Kat however, knew nothing of those worries Tweedle had. She was just listening to ensure Lily was fine. With that confirmed she went back to her tests… it was going… well it was going. Somewhat. It turns out that while it’s possible for her water to freeze, using her own demonic fire to make the attempt caused it to fail. Kat supposed that made SOME sense. After all, it was water saturated with her demonic energy.

It was probably a self-defence mechanism. Perhaps entirely subconscious, perhaps just the way of things. It was impossible to hurt yourself with your own demonic fire. Your clothes… less so, and destroying everything else around you could cause problems as things spread, but simply holding the flames to her arms didn’t drop the temperature on them even a single degree.

It was the same with the water. Simply shoving demonic fire into it didn’t actually do anything but eventually snuff out the demonic fire, and even that only happened if Kat focused on ensuring that it wasn’t allowed to take in any more demonic energy, either from the fire itself or from the water…

Except that was what she’d done before wasn’t it? Kat focused once again, turned her hand to water and then doubled the amount of water she’d created. Kat then pushed her demonic fire around the edges, forming something like a glove… and just allowed the demonic fire to suck away what demonic energy it needed to keep burning.

It took a bit of mental gymnastics. The fire was naturally drawing from her normal reserves… but a bit of effort meant she could redirect it to the stuff in the water and soon it started to freeze over. Once that was done, Kat could in fact launch the icicles at things. They were just terribly useless.

The ice was thin and lacking power, the water didn’t have enough force in it and the demonic fire was honestly the strongest part of the attack. Which was a problem because Kat could just throw demonic fire at someone if she wanted to risk killing them. The whole point of this was to have something less lethal then demonic fire, but good at range and an acceptable trick when fighting in a melee.

This? This was probably useless. Kat had no idea how to ensure her ice froze in such a way that it would be super strong, and the way she had to freeze it meant that it was easier to just let the demonic energy stick around ’burning’ on top of the ice. Then here was the lack of force behind it… and just… Kat could THROW the icicles with more speed then her water launcher idea.

*Honestly I feel like I’d be better off with like… a bag of ball bearings to flick at people.*

[It’s not the first time you’ve thought that. Perhaps you should just go for it.]

*Yeah probably. I can look into it after this is done. My fans are nice in melee but their ’ranged attacks’ are exceptionally weak. Plus, hurling ball bearings at people probably gives me more range then even my demonic fire. I guess the only potential ’wrinkle’ is that I might be better off with a slingshot if I can find one made of good enough materials.*

[Counterpoint… shouldn’t you be able to do some sort of rapid fire with the ballbearings? Like if you had a bunch in your fist, you could push them upwards so that your thumb could flick them away, and then keep the motion going to ’load’ more of them? And if you need power you can just hurl them with your full arm AND if you need to take out a bunch of people you can throw them like grapeshot.]

*So… that’s all well and good, and definitely sounds like it’s useful in enough situations to justify picking up some… but wouldn’t I still want a slingshot for the really long ranged things?*

[Honestly? Yeah probably. I was just saying you don’t JUST need to use them with one. Plus… I might be able to turn my shadows into an acceptable slingshot? It could be cool as a combination attack!]

*That does sound cool. I wonder if any of the workshops around town will have some? It’s not really something I’d expect pre-industrial revolution but they have PENS here so it’s not impossible…*

[Kat they have FOUNTAIN pens which are very different from ball-point pens. I’m not saying that nobody would have something equivalent to ball-bearings, I mean, the used that sort of things in guns for a while and I’m sure you could get a blacksmith to make them if you didn’t need them to be perfectly spherical… but I wouldn’t expect it.]

*Fine I won’t get any ball-bearings of mass destruction… YET.*