Essence Wave Book 2 Chapter 27

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

Almost done with the first draft! Expect to see a bunch of these over the next two weeks (I'm working on chapter 34 right now, hoping the draft is done in 38 or so).

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

David wasn’t sure how long he channeled his Energy, since he decided to drop into his core cave to focus on the heating Inscription. He walked into the Inscription study the System had somehow put in this strange representation of his Status or core or something. After finding a pen and paper, he drew out what he could see of the Inscription. “I’m an idiot,” he told himself, then popped back into the real world. What was supposed to be a quick use of Scholar’s Vision turned into five minutes of examining.

Scholar’s Vision let him examine the flow of Mana, and he got lost in the swirling eddies that surrounded the stone. The blue-white of Mana flowed in a tight pattern, merging in and out of the carving but never going far from it. In the corner of his vision, he saw the red-gold of Energy merging the stone into the ground, solidifying the smelter’s position in the Smelter. Man, really gotta get the System to let us rename that, he thought, breaking him from the trance.

“What was that?” Aly asked.

“What?”

“You just sat there and stared for a while,” she said.

“Oh, I was using Scholar’s Vision,” he answered.

“That’s your Skill that replaced Examine, right? What does it do?”

David read it aloud. Aly nodded along, then stopped when he read the last line. She shook her head, then reached forward and smacked him upside his head. “After this, we’re going to the arena or a training field. Why haven’t you been trying to learn new Skills?”

“Well, there’s only so many I can learn. I’m near the limit as it is,” David said.

“Yes, but we know you can combine Skills to make them stronger,” she said. “So if you learned my Stealth Skill, and then combined it with your Sneak, you would be harder to spot. You could learn Berserker’s Leap from Colin, and combine it with Vanguard’s Charge to make you move faster, or fly through the air, or something. I don’t know. What I do know is this is a way to make you stronger, and I need you to be stronger.”

“Of course,” David said. “I should have thought of that.” He stood and hugged her. “Okay, I think I have an idea for how to improve the Inscription, so I’m going to meditate for a bit. Use my Inscribing Scholar’s Focus Skill to its fullest.”

“Good,” she said, pulling me tighter to her. “We’re horribly outnumbered, and only by being as strong as we can, utilizing every advantage, will we win.”

David nodded, then sat with his hand against the stone. He started to channel Mana and Energy into the block, just enough that it would match his boosted regeneration rate when meditating. Once he was sure he’d stabilized the flow, he dropped back into his core cave. There, he checked that he was still sending out Mana and Energy, then focused on pushing that part of his thoughts to the background. Ever since he’d upgraded the Skill to Apprentice he was able to partition his brain and let part of it manage small things.

“At higher levels, maybe I’ll be able to both meditate and walk around, or even manage both areas of focus at the same time equally,” David said to himself. “Permanent meditation would make my regen even more ridiculous. Just gotta get to where I can actually use my Mana and Energy.” He shook his mental head, then walked into his imaginary study.

After a bit of searching, he found some sketch paper and a pencil. He was about to draw it, when he stopped. “This is a mental construct. Why can’t I just form the rune in the air?” He focused but couldn’t get it to appear anywhere but in his head. Which was in his head. He was confused. “I can draw on fake paper, how about I draw in the air?” A flick of his wrist turned the pencil into a fancy paintbrush.

“How’d I do that?” He stared at the brush. “No, focus. Painting the air.” He traced the front of the rune, leaving a sparkling trail of blue-white Mana that formed behind his strokes. After the paint was in the air, he discovered he could manipulate it slightly or erase it with just his thoughts. “This is cool but dumb. Why can’t I just picture it?” he grumbled to himself.

He spent the next ten subjective minutes drawing the rune and its Mana flows. After drawing it, he started to tweak, finding the spots where the Mana bunched up or slowed down. Several dozen places had stagnant Mana as it got trapped or swirled into a circle. After an hour, he had most of them smoothed out. “Okay, now to Inscribe it,” he told himself.

David stood up, mind back in the real world, then he walked out of the quickly forming building. “Got an idea, gonna practice it before putting it into the building,” he told Aly and Colin as he walked past them. Liz had left at some point, probably going to work on the Farms. They nodded, both working on putting together one of the walls with the rest of the crew. He quickly found a large chunk of stone, broken off one of the blocks Steve had brought down.

A Mana Artifact stylus formed in his hand, and he quickly carved the Inscription he’d modified. With a puff of Mana, it activated. Quickly, the stone heated up, the temperature rocketing upward until the stone turned molten. The rune broke, and the newly created lava exploded around it, showering him and his truck. “AH!” he exclaimed, scraping off the stuff from his vehicle, then pouted at the damage to the surface.

“Fine,” he grumbled, then looked over at a couple of people who were staring at him. “Sorry!” One man laughed, then they all turned back to what they had been doing. Okay, why did that fail? He thought to himself. Back to the Skill.

A few seconds later, he was staring at the Inscription he’d painted with Mana above his mental desk. It took him a few minutes, but he was able to move it to the side and then paint the original next to it. Another half hour of time, comparing each piece, followed. “I think I need this part here,” he mumbled, changing a few swirls back, creating choke points in the Mana flow. “The turbulence was bad, but the slowdown here probably makes it not overheat. There’s got to be a way of controlling it though.”

The books on the bookshelves contained every rune he knew, and he quickly found examples with on-off switches, but nothing that really worked as a sliding scale. “Wait, what if I choked down the Mana input here, but then duplicated it, and put a switch on each input?” He nodded, grinning, then proceeded to modify the rune. It now had four inputs that were each half as big as the original.

“Time to try it again,” he said. This time, he walked farther away from everyone else, and especially from his truck. The carving proceeded smoothly, though he did notice that a couple people moved even farther from him. The stone absorbed the Inscription easily. With only one input open, it got hot, but nowhere near as bad as the first one. He flipped the second switch, and heat waves started to be visible over the top. At the third switch, a piece of wood placed on top burst into flame, then with all four open the rock started to glow brighter. He quickly flipped all the switches off, and the heat dissipated slowly.

“I think that worked,” he said to himself.

“It going to explode?” Alexander asked, waving from about fifteen meters away.

“No,” David yelled back, then he picked it up. He hefted it, easily able to hold it but it was awkward with one hand. “Not really useful, though. It’ll hopefully work for the smelter, make it more efficient. Eh, might as well keep it around. Use it as a heater or to start fires.” He hauled it back towards the Smelter.

“What did you do?” Alexander asked, so David explained.

“So I’m hoping that we can run at a higher temperature,” he finished. “The block should be big enough for all four to be active without damage.”

“Well, if it doesn’t work, we can make another smelter,” Alexander said. They reached the building, so David ducked inside and scooted past Steve. Steve was holding a beam over his head that was fifty centimeters thick, while two others were connecting it to the walls. The inside was a hive of activity, but David was able to get to the front of the two uninscribed smelters. It took him twenty minutes to Inscribe them. Once finished, he activated the first two inputs, and watched with Scholar’s Vision active.

The Mana flowed effectively and the stone quickly heated up. The metal on top heated as well, and soon the inside of the building started to get hotter. Once it reached equilibrium, he activated the third, then the fourth. The smelter started to get uncomfortable, so he turned them off. “Looks like it works,” Colin said.

“Yup,” David grinned. “You going to get your blacksmith on?”

“Of course,” Colin said with a smile. “Everyone’s gotta have a hobby.”

“You’re coming with me,” Aly said, grabbing David’s arm. “You’re going to learn Stealth, then merge it and Sneak.”

“Anything else?” he asked his wife while letting her drag him out.

“We’ll see how long it takes you to learn Stealth first,” she said with a wink. “Might need to reward you too.”

“Hubba hubba,” David joked, and she shook her head.

She kept pulling him along, and they raced across the city to a stand of trees. “Okay, how does this work?” she asked him.

“No idea,” he said. “I’ll activate the Skill and watch as you engage yours, I guess?” He shrugged.

“Well, might as well try,” she said.

“Is Stealth really the best option for this?” he asked. “Or should I try to learn a different Skill first?”

“How many more Skills can you learn?” Aly asked him back.

He held up one finger, then checked his notifications while diving into his core cave. Oh, wow, I leveled Mana-Inscription all the way to Apprentice one! Scholar’s True Focus went to Apprentice seven! Holy crap, that’s my second highest Skill now. That’s crazy awesome. He grinned, then looked over his core cave. With his hands, he approximated how much space was between each of the Skills, and then estimated, “Five Skills, I think, before I run out of space completely. Might be more, might be less. Not super sure about it. I’m tempted to try adding stats to my Intelligence and see if it affects that.”

“How much Essence do you have available?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

David gave a nervous smile. “Uh, thirty five hundred or so.”

“THIRTY FIVE HUNDRED!” Aly exclaimed, incredulous. “Spend it now. Probably on a Way or two.”

“I do need another twenty five hundred for Ways this level,” David said, “but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to spend it on.”

“Well, what are your options?” Aly asked. David laid them out for her. “Really, it all comes down to your Journeyman Ways, so City Knight, Artificer, or Omnicaster two.”

“Yeah, probably, though that will delay my leveling to ten by five hundred Essence. I kinda want to wait on City Knight, since it came from City Lord, until I’ve trained up the Leader’s Gift and Leader’s Due Skills. I just feel that the results will be better that way,” David said.

“Delaying is fine,” Aly said. “It’s not like we won’t have many chances to earn that Essence soon. Josiah is planning the assault on Buena Vista.”

“True,” David said with a frown. “Though I would like to level before then. Going to be hard, though. So, with that, I’m taking Omnicaster, since it has a higher combat value quicker. Plus, maybe it’ll bring Int up enough that I can get another Skill.”

“Maybe,” she said.

David winked, then pulled up his status. He pushed the Essence into the Way, and it sucked it up greedily. Through the process, he gained five Intelligence, four Wisdom, and one Presence. At fifteen hundred, he received a new Skill.

Congratulations! You have received the Skill: Overcharge

Level: Novice 1

Description: Channel additional Mana and/or Energy into a Skill to increase its effectiveness by a miniscule amount. Increased usage increases bonus. Mana and Energy efficiency increased per level. Reduced chance of destabilization per level.

Huh, I can already do that? Maybe this will just make it easier or more efficient? Or maybe it’ll just level very quickly. The bonus at completion was yet another Skill.

Congratulations! You have walked the Way of the Omnicaster for a second time! You truly stand tall in front of your people. You are the first to walk a Way for an Epic Skill twice in your quadrant! Significantly Increased bonuses! You have received the Skill: Precast [Rare]

Level: Novice 1

Description: Stores a single three Skill usages inside the runic matrix of this Skill. May unleash all stored Skill usages instantly. Reduces Mana and/or Energy regeneration by a moderate tiny amount. Increased number of Skill usages stored upon each tier up. Each Skill stored will have its effectiveness increased by a miniscule tiny amount after a certain amount of time stored has passed.

NOTE: Only instantaneous Skills may be stored in this manner.

“Well, two new Skills, but I did get five Intelligence,” David said. He popped into his core cave, estimated again, and popped back out. “Looks like maybe three more Skills. As they tier up they take different amounts of space, so not really sure. Novice Skills are among the smallest, so I could learn four of those, I think?”

“Okay,” she said. “Well, Stealth will help us survive, but might not be super useful if we are attacking. Though, getting into position without being caught could help the plan.”

“Maybe,” David said. “I’d kinda like to try to learn Mana Grenade. See if I can combine Mana Bolt and Mana Grenade to get explosive bolts. Other than that, uh, that Skill you used to coat your blade in Shadow Mana.”

“Shadow Strike,” Aly said helpfully. “Does extra damage if the opponent is unaware or unable to react to the attack.”

“Yeah. I’m hoping that I can combine it, Power Attack, Vanguard’s Strike and Colin’s Berzerker Bash. Maybe Protector has an attack too? I want to combine all of the warrior type attacks into one, see if it gets ultimate power!” David hammed up the last part of the sentence, both hands in the air.

“Goof,” Aly said. “I also have Uncanny Dodge, which might combine with your Combat Reflexes.”

“Let’s start with Mana Grenade,” David said. “As much as everything else would be fun, it’s probably the simplest.”

“Sure thing, babe,” Aly said. “Ready?”

David engaged Scholar’s Vision, looking closely at Aly. Her name, level, and highest stat popped up, but he moved the window out of his sight. He nodded, and then Aly formed a Mana Grenade and tossed it off. The tree it hit shook slightly, but only had a tiny scorch mark.  “Good tree,” David said. “Can you cast slower?”

Aly nodded, then formed another Grenade. This time it took her two seconds, and David noticed that it wobbled, unstable for a second. She tossed it off, and David nodded at her. Over and over, she created the Grenades as slowly as she could. David watched, trying to understand the movement of Mana inside her, and the shape of the Skill rune.

Two hours later, he reached his hand out and focused inward. He directed his Mana to flow just like Aly did, and over the next five seconds a Mana Grenade slowly formed. “HA!” He exclaimed, and a pop-up appeared.

Congratulations! Through careful study, you have learned the Skill: Mana Grenade

Level: Novice 1

Description: (add)

“Got it,” he said, sharing the pop up.

“Great job honey,” Aly said, pulling him into a hug.

“Now I need to pull it into Mana Bolt,” David said.

“How about you learn Sneak first, then combine both Skills?” Aly asked.

“Sure,” David said.

Four hours later, David was still unable to replicate the Skill. “Okay, we can try it again tomorrow,” he said finally.

Aly shimmered back into view, “I’ll talk to the other Scouts that are around, and see if someone has Sneak as a Beginner Skill instead of Apprentice.”

“Yeah, might be easier to figure out if my assistant was visible. You’re just too good at hiding now,” David teased her.

“Well, come on, let’s combine some Skills,” she said. “Then we should celebrate making it as far as we have.”

David threw his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. After a few seconds, they both Sprinted up towards their home. David stopped at the tax pillar and dropped two thousand Mana and Energy into the pillar. Aly copied him, adding still more City Essence. Even if only a couple.

Aly moved to the bookshelf and pulled out a book on hunting. David noticed that the bookshelf which used to have only a couple books was now mostly full. Blake was there, reading through the Essence Cultivation book again. Two other people he didn’t recognize were also reading something, sitting in chairs that hadn’t been there only that morning.

David shook his head, smiling broadly, then he walked up the stairs to their room. Inside he found that they now had two chairs, including his favorite rocking chair from the first floor, and a nice writing desk. He laughed, then frowned. It’s nice to be taken care of, but there are many who don’t have anything. I’d rather they got stuff than I got more. However, I know that a bunch of them want to do stuff for us, to thank us for helping them out and prove that they aren’t powerless. It’s a giant mess.

He shook his head, then sank into his chair and rocked a few times. The motion soothed his nerves. He took a few deep breaths, releasing the stress fro failing to learn Stealth, then sank into his core cave. His mental body formed on the floor, the hemispherical area extending above him. The area at the top was crowded with Skill runes. The two he wanted, Mana Bolt and Mana Grenade, were almost as far apart as they could be.

His projection flew up, and he started to juggle the runes around, before slapping his forehead and pulling it straight down. Something resisted him, but he powered through it. The pressure pushing the rune back upward vanished once it crossed an invisible plane, but a sense of instability made him move quickly, he mentally shoved every other rune away from a spot right next to Mana Bolt, then shoved Mana Grenade into it.

The weird, unstable feeling vanished, and he took a deep breath. “Okay, that sucked,” he told himself. “Maybe next time, just juggle the runes for a couple minutes instead. Now, squish them together!” He willed the two runes together, forcing Mana Grenade into Mana Bolt while holding the idea of exploding arrows in his head. He wanted them to explode a second after impact, giving time for them to penetrate through armor or shields.

The Mana Grenade rune shrank and distorted under a rush of Mana and Energy as my will and mental strength slammed into it. Mana Bolt’s rune stretched, and a spot in the center opened up where he could fit the shrunken Grenade. More Mana and Energy, mixing together and surrounding the runes, guided the runic piece to its spot, and then yet more welded them together.

David had no idea how much time was passing as he shoved the Skills together, only his prodigious regeneration letting him combine them  as quickly as he did. Finally, a click seemed to resound through his soul, and he gasped as the pressure that had pervaded his core cave vanished. His mental projection dropped to its knees, and he panted for air. “Wow, that sucked,” he said, then pulled up the flashing pop up.

Congratulations! You have fused the Skills Mana Bolt and Mana Grenade to create Unstable Mana Bolt [Uncommon]! Skill level retained.

Level: Beginner 17

Description: (add Mana Bolt). Half of a second after impact, the Bolt will detonate, dealing a moderate fraction of the original damage to everything in a microscopic range. Range and damage increased with Skill level.

He opened his eyes to see Aly meditating on her chair. With a grin, he stood, and she looked up at him. Her eyes smoldered as she said, “Come to bed.”

He grinned then picked her up. With a thought, his armor vanished beneath his skin, and the clothing he was wearing was absorbed into his belt. “Yes dear,” he told her softly before putting her down onto the bed.