[CYA] Chapter 104: Forceful Change

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/10xYuYe2knLAUuDdRfIBowskuTcMgra3fiO3z2xGTS5g/edit?usp=drivesdk

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<Alex, Real - Endure, Outside the Base>

Alex was absolutely certain he was missing something. He had his mana circulation technique—and make no mistake, it was amazing to have so much more mana—but it felt like he had bought a nice car, and was simply spending time sitting in the driveway, admiring the interior.

He fought outside the defenses again, this time on his own, with the spear wielders spread out around him fighting on their own as well. Well, truth be told, while they weren’t in a tight formation, they were still fighting with one another in mind, holding a loose line while reaping the undead.

They were all happier to be actually reaping, as the influx of undead had increased to the point that they were actually on the edge of being overrun, if they weren’t careful, so the days of keeping the monsters alive to skill grind had passed.

As to this ‘loose formation?’ The point of this was to allow each of them to work on their ‘wider area’ spells and skills without endangering one another.

That meant that Alex’s fighting was occasionally done to the backdrop of bright flares or concussions of power. He was grateful that he almost never had to be wary of their skills and spells anymore, with only the occasionally flying chip of stone or bodypart in the offing.

He did occasionally have to go heal someone, but that was hardly a bother.

As he moved about, Alex once again missed his great coat, but he was allowing undead to get to him enough that it would have been torn to ribbons long before now, even with its toughened features. I’ll wear it again when I’m fighting ‘for real’ and not just to train.

When he was able to fight his own, he was testing his wide-area spells… or rather his singular, wide-area spell, but he was also distracted by how ambient mana was acting around him, now.

It was slowly swirling along with the vortex within him. The longer he stood in place—and the less magic he used—the more this was the case. No… if I use a bunch of power it increases it too… but just for a moment, as if it’s a stronger, but shorter term effect.

He thought that at least a part of it was the fact that, whenever his mana pool was filled, the generation no longer stopped. Instead, his body seemed to shed mana around himself, and that mana was moving as if it was within his body, thus altering the behavior of all the power around him.

When he used one of his Detect spells, the mana around his head would begin to move more rapidly, and when he used Force Burst, it would introduce general motion to all the power within a radius about three times as large as the blast affected.

Once again, though, he had no idea what it actually meant, nor what he could do with it.

For what felt like the dozenth time, he dismissed the oddity and focused on the task at hand.

Alex jumped forward, purposely landing among a group of common undead even as he added power to his Force Burst, blasting it out as soon as he was in the optimum position.

Each time, he had a direction he wanted it to focus, but it still essentially went in all directions.

As it took 10 MP per cast, he could send off a burst every five seconds or so, which was actually a bit insane when he considered it. His mana circulation technique was really helping him make magic a more integral part of his fighting.

Burst

He knew that at the basic, uncharged level it wouldn’t be very damaging to truly powerful creatures, and with his current strength he was able to do more damage simply spinning in a circle with his dadao—even if it didn’t clear his surroundings as well—but he didn’t let that discourage him.

Burst

Interestingly, because of the spin on his mana, the Force Burst seemed to come out at an angle, meaning that anything that it hit was thrown back and clockwise, around him.

Burst

Moreover, his efforts to change the form of the spherical burst seemed to be bearing fruit, because it was not really spherical anymore. Most of the ‘sphere’ seemed to have actually pulled in, only affecting enemies up to about three feet away instead of the five it used to, but these were hit much harder than before, at least fifty percent harder. That led him to think that he was somehow increasing the concentration of the power in those portions.

Burst

Balancing that out, however, in the right quadrant of the sphere—like a round-bottomed, four-sided pyramid with the tip originating at his shoulder—the attack actually extended out to six feet, and seemed to have equally increased in power to the rest of the—

Burst

It was frustrating, but he needed more data. Toward that end, he was purposely letting the concentration of undead around him grow to dangerous levels so he had more opponents to throw his magic against. He felt like he was right on the edge of understanding.

Burst

Whenever he cast the spell, the System helped him create an uncounted number of small, incredibly simple shapes that reminded him of the symbols in the Magical Symbols book, even if they were more complex. Then, his power would pulse outward from his body, and miniscule amounts entered into each little shape, using it almost as a guide. The force of his vortex was actually bending the shapes, hence the change in outward trajectory of the—

Burst

Strangely, all of the symbols seemed to be identical. So he couldn’t think of why they would be giving different results.

Burst

It was as if there was something different about the mana coming from different parts of him.

Burst

Oh…

Burst

I’m an idiot.

Burst

His mana circulation technique had explicitly said that spells cast from different parts of him would be getting different benefits now.

Well, that’s one problem solved. The mana is ‘different’ when it comes from different parts of me.

Burst

He didn’t know what to do about that now, but… Huh… He was pretty sure that he recognized at least parts of the symbols…

Burst

Could he alter them? He’d struggled with the Detect spells because of just how complex they were, but these were the opposite of complex.

Burst

What if he just removed the directionality from one of the little symbols?

…Burst?

A whole section of the spell twisted, the symbol sets seemingly wanting to be like one another, at least a little bit.

As such, all around the one little symbol he changed, the power of the outward burst had greatly reduced range. At that one point, force seemed to solidify, much like Natasha’s Force Shields if seemingly much weaker.

He almost whooped in elation, except that the lessening of the bursts range in that area allowed two ravagers to reach him, their positioning meaning that they weren’t close enough to have been affected by the shorter range burst on that side.

“Penguins!” Alex was taken down in a surprised heap. If he’d been holding his dadao, he likely would have dropped it. The shield he had in his Inventory and had yet to use might have helped, but he’d wanted his hands free, and his mind less burdened by new things for his testing.

He absolutely panicked, but thankfully, after using Force Burst so consistently for the last bit, his panicked reaction was to use that again, unmodified this time.

The two were torn off of him, and they were flung away along with all the other undead who had tried to close in on him and capitalize on his prone state.

Knowing that the others would have been watching, he hopped up, lifting a hand as he shouted. “I’m okay!”

He looked around and saw many of the spear wielders already part way to him, but when they saw he seemed fine, and heard him, they turned back to their own fights, shaking their heads or grumbling good-naturedly even as they struggled to get their combat momentum back.

Alex, for his part, had taken more than two hundred points of HP damage, and gained several injuries—’Jagged Rents’—that were actively painful.

He’d also had his shirt ruined, which was the greatest travesty of the event.

He growled, pulsing his Force Burst again to keep the enemy back as he thought.

What he needed was time, time to adjust the various symbols before activation.

Well, I can charge up, and hold it…

He shrugged, and did just that, priming the spell and examining the results in that state for the first time in… he honestly didn’t know how long.

He had to dodge and move around the attacking undead, but he’d been doing this so often that these common—and occasional uncommon like the ravagers—varients were fairly trivial to avoid when that was what he was trying to do.

His mind swept over the symbols around him, and in that moment he realized… they weren’t actually there.

What he was seeing was a System created guide that his mana would then fill. If that was the case, then what was the ‘priming?’

Well, his mana had risen up to his skin, and was just resting there, waiting to flood outward.

Testing the growing theory, he triggered the burst, and the result was still distorted based on his mana circulation pattern’s benefits, but it was no longer imparting a change in directionality. Seemingly, holding the mana at his skin had allowed the ‘spin’ to fade.

Okay! I can work with that.

Next, he primed the spell again, and then started modifying the symbols.

It was odd, as the whole spell seemed to work as a gradient, with each change he made affecting all the surrounding symbols to lesser extents.

That didn’t even make sense, as he wasn’t even ‘lowering the power’ or a given force symbol, he was removing the directionality, but the result on the surrounding symbols was a lessening.

Funnily enough, that actually showed him what a lessening looked like, when he otherwise wouldn’t have been easily able to parse which part of the—admittedly simple—symbol-set controlled that, and what part needed modification to change that feature of the resulting effect.

With that knowledge, he tried to go the other direction, increasing the power…

No, Alex, that’s the range. Power seemed to be a result of how much mana each symbol in the various parts of the spell got.

That in mind, he used his Basic Mana Manipulation to shift the waiting mana around—once again, seemingly only able to work in gradients—before releasing the spell to activate.

It worked.

It worked exactly as he thought it should, filling his mind with ideas.

He ignored the notification that tried to get his attention, sure that he wanted to do a couple of more things before he accepted whatever option he was going to be given. Or choose between options.

First, he removed all the directionality from the force symbol-sets around his body, save in one location, then he moved his mana around to have most of it in that location.

When he allowed the spell to trigger, the fodder variant which happened to be in the direction he’d chosen was turned to mist, the red cloud—and surviving bone-fragments—were sent speeding back into the other undead behind them, the result acting a bit like a shotgun or claymore.

Alex let out a mad cackle. He almost looked at the notification when he noticed it refresh, but he wanted to try one more thing.

He ignored the symbols for the most part, save changing the directionality of the ones right around the palm of his right hand.

Then, he strained his mana manipulation skill to the point that he felt a spike of pain through his left temple, dragging all the mana that the System helped his body to prep to that point.

Then, he triggered the spell as he thrust his hand at a Ravager.

The uncommon variant was thrown backward as if it had been hit with a wrecking ball… and only a few other symbols got enough mana to activate, and those were all on his right arm.

Another notification appeared, fighting for his attention, and his headache wasn’t fading, so he withdrew, calling out that he was taking a short break.

The others acknowledged even as they shifted to cover the area he’d been fighting in, continuing their own training.

Oh? Two options? It seemed like his Force Burst spell was ready to change, and he was being offered two options.

He saw them and groaned. With his current headache, the prose-based impartation of information was actually somewhat difficult to parse, and he just wished that…

He blinked. Clearly in response to his wishes, the format of the notices changed, and he suddenly had a much better idea of what was being offered.

Notice:
Your spell Force Burst (Uncommon) has been stretched beyond its current capacities. Please choose in which direction you would like to grow your spell.

Force Riposte (Common)
Defend and attack in one. The caster creates a brief force shield around his entire body, while striking out through his right arm. The attack is amplified by the damage absorbed or deflected by the active shield, so long as the shield is not overwhelmed.

Cost: 20MP
Duration: Instantaneous
Cool Down: 5 sec

Note:
Synergy Detected with Mana Cycling Technique. This spell will be more powerful than usual due to this synergy.

Alex sat, open mouthed, on top of the wall, staring at Force Riposte. It was a full body defense, combined with a single directional attack. The wording made it sound like at least some of the effects were a lesser version of what Grant had done to the flesh golem, taking a hit in order to hit it harder. But in this case, Alex’s spell would block the hit, then make his attack stronger… assuming the defense held.

And it synergized with his cycling technique? Yes, please.

Oh, he almost just said ‘yes’ to this one right out of the gate, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Such would be foolish, when he had literally no idea what the other option was, and he lost nothing by reading it to see.

With a sigh of delayed gratification, Alex pulled up the second option for at least a quick look.

Shaped Force Burst (Common)
Defend or attack as you choose. The caster creates a series of directional force vectors close around himself as he so chooses, the direction and intensity of each—or each grouping—is variable at the discretion of the caster.

Cost: Variable, 1MP - ?
Duration: Variable, Instantaneous - ?
Cool Down: Variable, None - ?

Alex… had been wrong. “Thank you for not choosing to fast, Alex.”

Shaped Force Burst was so much more versatile, and could be much more powerful, if used properly. And that was without direct synergy. Sure, if he was understanding correctly, he couldn’t use it to create static force effects directly, but everything else was an option… Well, not everything else, but so much was.

Still, he didn’t instantly choose. He went back and re-read Force Riposte.

Then Shaped Force Burst.

Then Force Riposte.

Honestly, he wanted both.

Can I have both? If he was able to find another source for ‘Force Burst,’ he could once again manipulate it in this way and pick the other option… maybe.

But he couldn’t count on that.

He grimaced. There was a large possibility that this was a one-and-done situation, and he’d never have a crack at the other.

If that was the case, the second option was the obvious choice. Assuming he could get good with it, he could already think of hundreds of uses for it. A wide variety of possibilities—from creating localized, perfectly calibrated pulses of force to directly counter incoming strikes to knocking attacks toward his sword to make blocks easier—should be possible with enough power and practice.

With a nod of affirmation, and a thrill of excitement, Alex chose Shaped Force Burst, feeling the System work within his mind to alter the spell.

He shuddered as it finished, feeling a bit of disjointment around the spell.

“Huh… I feel like I shouldn’t use it for a bit… Maybe because I was using the previous version so much recently?” That was the sense he got. “I need to let my magic settle before playing with the new version…” He shrugged, coming back to his feet.

That was fine. He also wanted to improve Multi-Strike, and like Force Burst had been, that felt like it was right on the cusp.

“On! To more progression!”

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