“Waaah!” Mia jerked upright from the ground.
Still the cave, the puddles, the Erdtree sapling.
The moment she sat up, she felt her head.
Did she just jump into the Cave of Learning and fall to her death?!!
How embarrassing.
She swallowed hard in awkwardness.
I hope only I know about this…
(The ghost sitting on the chair stole a glance back at the lively girl, then quickly averted its gaze before she noticed.) Experiencing death for the first time…
surprisingly, it wasn’t painful at all.
Wait, including being hit by the car, this is the second time.
Both times resulted in instant death, with no sensation of pain whatsoever.
This left Mia feeling a bit lightheaded.
“With Marika’s grace, is death really nothing more than this?” She then walked to the edge of the Cave of Learning once more.
She couldn’t embarrass herself this time.
Looking down, she saw that there was indeed a way down into the cave.
On a corner of the cliff face, there was a protrusion; she could jump onto that ledge first, and then jump to the bottom.
That should be safer.
With that thought, Mia put her plan into action.
With a thud, the girl’s bare feet landed on the cliff’s protrusion.
“Hiss—” The vibration of the impact made her legs go numb, causing her to grimace in pain.
But that was it.
For some reason, though she used to tremble all over just walking barefoot on a pebble path, now, jumping from a height of two or three meters onto sharp-edged gravel, the pain was not unbearable.
She only realized she wasn’t wearing shoes because of the sensation.
Is this the constitution of the Tarnished?
She hooked her leg back to check the sole of her foot.
Aside from being a bit dirty and slightly red, there weren’t even any calluses or scratches; it was soft and tender.
Then, let’s keep jumping down.
“One, two—” Splash.
There was a shallow layer of standing water at the bottom of the cave, just covering the tops of her feet.
In this secluded cave, the seeping water was crystal clear.
Looking around, the skeletons peeking out from several scattered stone coffins were eerily white.
Yet, Mia didn’t find it particularly frightening.
After all, she was someone who couldn’t even die now.
She glanced up at the cave entrance; at this moment, she felt like a frog in a well.
Lifting her legs to step forward, she entered the deep, dark cave.
The golden grace was right before her eyes.
A floating, golden light.
It gave off a warm and pleasant feeling, just like the morning sun that had just risen, intertwined with the gauzy morning mist.
The moment she saw that light, Mia involuntarily reached out her hand toward it.
As her slender fingers touched the light, a strange tingling sensation spread through her entire body.
Mia couldn’t help but shiver, and immediately after, a powerful wave of dizziness rushed into her mind.
‘That feeling came from the grace.’ For some reason, Mia felt a certainty in her heart, as if the dizziness could be conducted from her arm straight to her brain.
After the trance passed, she was still touching that warm light.
Her mind gradually cleared, and she felt her entire body filled with energy.
Her once empty stomach was now filled with a sense of satiety.
The power of grace flowed through her limbs and bones, bringing Mia a familiar sense of comfort…
She shuddered.
“Alright, time to move forward!” With a stretch of her right hand, a short spear appeared in her grasp.
She spun it with a flourish, the butt of the spear tapping the ground.
She had thought about enough messy things; from now on, the official conquest of the novice tutorial begins!
Wait…
The girl suddenly looked at the spear in her right hand with a look of surprise.
This seemed to have been pulled out from some kind of space.
And those practiced movements when she swung it…
It was so natural, as if she had done it countless times.
When did these memories appear in her mind?
Was it the dizziness from that light just now?
Had it imparted such knowledge to her in that instant?
Mia opened her mouth in disbelief.
“Take it out like this…” She closed her left hand as if grasping something, then turned it over: “Right?” A pattern appeared in her palm, suspended like a hologram.
Familiar with the game, she knew this was the illusory Sacred Seal of the Erdtree.
After a brief flash, the Erdtree Sacred Seal vanished; this seal did not have a physical form.
But Mia subconsciously realized that as long as she cast a Prayer, the Sacred Seal would reappear in her hand.
Shouldn’t a Prophet’s starting equipment be the Finger Seal?
This…
Give it a try?
Mia followed the memories the light had given her, looked around, and then faced the watery clearing where she had come down.
Concentrating, the Sacred Seal in her hand reshaped itself, emitting a golden light.
The girl muttered in her heart: “Ignite!” She thrust her left hand forward—BOOM— A burst of scorching flames erupted from her hand, covering a conical area several meters in front of her.
The bright fire swept over the standing water, vanishing in an instant and sending up a large cloud of steam.
Heat rushed toward her, but instead of fear, Mia felt exceptionally excited.
What other Prayers can I cast?!
“Urgent Heal!” Although she wasn’t injured, Mia still felt her spirits lift after casting this Prayer.
These two were the starting skills carried by the Prophet class in the game.
But clearly, the memories the light had passed to her contained more than just these two Prayers; several auxiliary Prayers from the Erdtree branches were in her mind.
Filled with interest, Mia wanted to try every Prayer she knew.
Mia gripped the Sacred Seal; that was the first step.
She would cast the Prayer according to the method conveyed to her by the memories within the grace.
“Golden Vow!” This was a Prayer that could protect allies and increase attack and defense power.
She raised her hand, letting the light of the Sacred Seal be revealed to the world.
A phantom of the Erdtree symbol appeared above her head, and golden light spilled out from the phantom in all directions.
It worked!
“Blessing of the Erdtree!” A high-level Erdtree Prayer that covers all nearby allies and increases damage negation for all attributes.
This time, a massive Erdtree symbol appeared on the ground, and rising golden brilliance surrounded her.
There’s more!
Blessing of the Erdtree!
Grace of the Erdtree!
Wrath of Gold!
Just as she was about to keep trying, before the joy could even fully rise— “Guh…” Mia suddenly felt a violent twitch in her chest; her heartbeat seemed to have lost all rhythm.
“It hurts so much…” Her limbs were almost stiff.
Trembling, Mia supported herself with her short spear and knelt down, struggling to breathe.
In that instant, she felt like she was going to die.
“Huff—huff—” Is the FP bar empty?
Blessing of the Erdtree truly is a high-level Prayer.
The girl staggered to the side of the grace and reached out to touch it.
Under the nourishment of the light, Mia’s discomfort quickly faded.
“Whew,” she lay down on a flat rock near the grace.
Her body wasn’t tired, but her heart was a bit exhausted; an empty FP bar was truly miserable.
Speaking of which, she should have a flask of sacred tears, right?
She had completely forgotten about it just now.
She pulled two bottles out of her storage space.
One blue and one red, both containing liquid.
But there wasn’t much liquid inside.
If she wanted to allocate the number of uses for the blue and red flasks, she only needed to transfer the liquid from bottle to bottle.
In the game, the flasks of sacred tears had a set number of uses, one big gulp at a time.
But Mia looked at the sloshing flask of sacred tears…
Well, she didn’t know the healing effect yet, or if she could drink it sparingly.
Mia toyed with the two flasks, which were as beautiful as works of art, before stuffing them back into her storage space after a while.
This novice gift pack was quite generous.
She discovered that besides the short spear and the two flasks of sacred tears, there were other things in her storage space.
She focused her attention inside once more.
This time, she took out a necklace.
As she looked at it, a piece of information appeared in her mind.
“Marika’s Soreseal.
An eye engraved with an Elden Rune.
One of the legendary Talismans, said to be the seal of Queen Marika.” As soon as she heard the title ‘legendary Talisman’, she knew this was something usually obtained in the mid-to-late game.
The engraved eye had a jade-like texture, and the ‘festering’ color on the pupil was a bit unsettling.
The edges of the eye were wrapped in interlacing vines like a placenta.
A plain metal chain threaded through it.
“Am I Marika’s illegitimate daughter?
Giving me such a good gift.” Mia held up the accessory, tilting her head as she looked at it.
After all, the Tarnished were warriors called back by Marika, the goddess of The Lands Between.
Then, because a cold wind blew into her skirt from nowhere, Mia’s face darkened as she pressed her legs together.
“Marika, you meanie.
You brought me here, but you didn’t even give me anything to wear underneath…” “Whatever, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I’ll put it on first.”