Crown of Pestilence [Training/Solo]

As soon as he got back from his excursion with Yakuroro, Altair headed straight for the library. His subject today, magic. He looked for hours for an acceptable book on life magic, but here in the public library, there were none extensive enough for his liking. So instead, Altair took multiple smaller books and spent the entire day, and most of that night reading them. He was still learning the basics, so while these books didn’t show him what he necessarily wanted to know, he still learned quite a bit. He learned about what different types of commands could make Rukh spring to life, and in turn cause life to spring from anything. Altair also took a particular interest in the section about creating life from seemingly thin air. Turns out, it was possible, thanks to microscopic organisms called bacteria. Now, Altair was no doctor, at least not yet. But he knew he would have to learn all about physiology in order to make his magic work more effectively. Altair perused the books some more and found that the simplest of these life forms to make, were insects. It even included a simple spell to turn a single bacterium into a beetle. Altair tried it out, and was excited to see that the spell had indeed worked, and that a rather large stag beetle was now standing on the table in front of him.

Altair then began to look for a book on insects. Of course, after letting the stag beetle go outside. He took a particular interest in an insect he knew all too well. The Locust. Altair studied their physiology and behavior patterns, and noticed a few things about them. First, that they travel in swarms large enough to block out the sky in some areas, and were louder than an elephant’s trumpet when close by. Altair went and got an open glass jar. He then concocted a simple spell to create a single Locust inside the jar. Almost instantly the spell worked, albeit a little too well. Instead of one locust, Altair got three. He quickly capped the jar to keep them from escaping. Altair took time to refine his spell, giving very specific commands to the Rukh. In time, he had it. He could create a perfect clone of a locust. But that in itself wasn’t very useful. Altair grabbed another book and started reading. This one was specifically about controlling summoned creatures. After perusing this book for some time, Altair began to incorporate elements of it into his locust creating spell. Soon, he had a neat trick. A perfectly controlled locust. But this wasn’t useful really. Instead, he would need hundreds. After a week of working on his spell, Altair was finally ready to test it. He went out into the dessert and began his spell. Immediately, hundreds of locusts sprang into existence, and swarmed around him in a perfectly controlled area. Altair had concocted the spell so that he would be able to see and hear clearly inside the area, but made it dense enough that others would be blinded by the swarm. It was complete. His Second life spell was finished and ready to help him take on the dungeon.

~537/500~