Icevein Craters Hunt

The Icevein Craters Hunt turns Saffra’s apprenticeship from preparation into a dramatic test of combat and growth: with Vivi’s equipment and guidance, she begins killing monsters far above her level, then gains fourteen levels in a single hour. The hunt’s defining contrast is between the novice mage’s careful, still-imperfect casting and the overwhelming force of the spell she finally lands. Its rewards are immediate, but the speed of her advancement also unsettles her sense of what hard work and fairness should mean.

Setting and Preparation

Before the first attack, Vivi surveyed the monsters prowling the Icevein Craters and selected the weakest she could find: a level 512 Rime Crawler, a crystalline, leopard-like creature made of white-blue ice. She and Saffra began on a cliff; Vivi took Saffra’s hand and used Blink to place them within the monster’s casting range. The choice made the hunt a deliberate trial rather than an accidental encounter: Saffra would have the chance to attempt the spell herself, while Vivi remained close enough to intervene.

Saffra had just finished equipping the new armor and weapons Vivi had provided. Vivi had constructed a stone enclosure to give her privacy while changing, then dismissed it when Saffra was ready. The equipment mattered particularly in the case of her staff and rings, into which Vivi had put especially powerful sorcery boosts. Jewelry could hold enchantments well, and the gear was intended not merely to protect Saffra but to amplify what she could do with a spell.

First Scorchlance

Saffra admitted that succeeding once before did not mean she could cast the spell consistently. Vivi told her to do her best and keep trying, with no need to rush. Saffra took a breath, lowered her new staff, and advanced slowly through the snow as mana gathered and bright runes engraved themselves into the air. The Rime Crawler sensed the distant magic, turned in confusion, then saw Saffra’s red hair and gray armor and charged.

Saffra did not flinch. Vivi, watching the monster close on her apprentice, felt the tension of the moment, although she knew she could erase it with a spell before it reached Saffra. More important to the trial, Saffra kept her brow furrowed over the forming spell diagram and shaped it more cleanly than she had the previous time. Vivi could see well before the diagram was complete that the spell would take hold properly.

The Scorchlance emerged as a lance of orange fire and shot forward with enough speed to melt snow and ice along a twenty-meter trail. It struck the construct in the center, burrowed in, and exploded. The Rime Crawler was disintegrated in a shower of ice shards; after the flames cleared, a broad circle of melted snow was all that remained. Saffra stared at the empty space, staff still pointed where the monster had been. The result demonstrated the reach of Vivi’s enchantments: a silver-rank mage had killed a gold-rank monster in one shot.

A Hunt of Uneven Success

The first kill brought an immediate surprise. Saffra saw a system screen and reported that she had leveled up twice. Vivi suspected that the Grand System had treated killing a monster a hundred levels above her as roughly ten ordinary combats, with the apprenticeship boost adding to the experience. The opening success therefore combined several advantages: a difficult opponent, unusually effective equipment, and Saffra’s apprentice status.

The rest of the hour was not effortless. Saffra cast several dozen Scorchlances and instantly killed three-quarters of her targets. The remaining attempts either missed or fizzled just before casting, leaving Vivi to step in and save her. Those failures embarrassed Saffra, but they also marked the difference between a spell that could be devastating when it worked and one she had not yet learned to cast reliably. The hunt was both a rapid advancement exercise and repeated practice under pressure.

By the end, Saffra had killed twenty-five monsters. The apprenticeship status made that total equivalent to two hundred and fifty for advancement purposes. She had been level 385 when she and Vivi met, and had gained one level since then through training and the events of the Convoy; the Craters hunt carried her fourteen levels higher in a single hour. That pace far exceeded anything she had imagined, even allowing for the faster advancement common at lower ranks and the use of heirloom equipment and apprenticeship bonuses by noble families.

Crossing the Four-Hundred Barrier

Saffra’s progress did not feel like an uncomplicated triumph. She believed levels ought to go to those who worked hardest, or at least to the hardest-working talents, and the scale of her own gain seemed unfair. She had spent hundreds of nights studying and had risked herself in the forests around Prismarche, yet her progress during that hour dwarfed what those efforts had produced. She had not suddenly worked harder or become more deserving; she had happened to be in the right place when a powerful mage took an interest in her.

The frustration coexisted with excitement. Saffra could not help feeling giddy at having gained fourteen levels in one day, especially because the latest kill carried her across the four-hundred barrier. When the newest monster burst into ice shards, the level announcement appeared along with two more screens waiting behind it. The hunt thus ends at a threshold rather than with a settled account of what her new level means: Saffra has crossed a major boundary, while the additional screens leave her next revelation pending.