Headmaster of Shadowfrost Part 8

Mist idly kicked his feet in the water as he looked through the collection of 'upgrades' that he could buy for his noodle monster, trying to find something that would improve its chances of winning or at least speed up the fights without turning it into a potential hazard if someone attacked it. 'What if I give it an elemental attack that I can dodge or that I'm resistant to? It's worth a shot.'

He looked over the available elemental attacks that he could buy, quickly dismissing fire and acid from his available choices as he didn't want his pet burning the school down or leaving slime trails. "I don't need it flooding the school which leaves wind, cold and electricity or something more esoteric. Would rubber soles be enough to stop the electricity? Would gloves and a coat stop the cold?'

"The main problem is that the doppelganger is always more skilled," he mused as he selected the Electricity Attack option, hoping that he could get a better description. He started chuckling when his window changed, showing a page filled with sliders, toggles and options that would let him customize the attack. "That's better than I was expecting."

"A lot better," Mist muttered as he looked over his options. He smirked when he noticed that one of the drawbacks that reduced the cost of the attack added a failure chance for the attack. "It's always nice when someone pays me for a feature I want."

He played around with the design for the attack for a couple of minutes as he waited for his pet to finish purifying the well. 'That should give it the ability to toss a baseball sized sphere of electricity that it doesn't have to pay for. I doubt it's going to run into anyone with a pacemaker and the damage shouldn't be a huge concern for anyone other than the doppelganger.'

Mist added the drawback to the attack that would give it a 50% failure chance, dropping the cost to purchase the attack by a decent amount. "Okay, if it fails to work half the time, that should mean that my minion wins a fourth of the time or dies a fourth of the time with the rest being some type of draw, either them killing each other or having to try again. Unless it misses, which probably leaves things in the doppelganger's favor since they're more skilled."

"This is a horrible idea," Mist muttered as he added the Explosion quality, figuring it would remove the advantage the doppelgangers would have because of skill. He played with the sliders on the new quality, curious how much the size changed the mana cost. 'That gets expensive quickly, probably because it doesn't have to pay for the attacks.'

He picked a twenty foot radius on the explosion then added the Bane quality to the blast, curious if the quality did what it sounded like. "Increases the damage to specific types of creatures," he muttered, reading the description of the quality. "That makes it easier."

He glanced at the kobold option then selected Spirit Beasts on the rather short list of creature types that appeared, not seeing a point in increasing the damage to humans, animals or inanimate objects which were the other choices. He pushed the damage up and frowned slightly when the cost quickly increased to the point where he'd be making mana stones for a couple of weeks without sleeping if he wanted to afford it. 'So much for making a monster that can't hurt me.' He dropped the amount of extra damage back down to something more reasonable. 'I can always upgrade it later.'

Mist added another Bane quality to the Explosion quality and selected kobolds. He increased the damage to match the boost against spirit beasts. "Okay, let's see if I can drop the cost a bit," he muttered as he added the Decreased Damage(Type) drawback to the Explosion quality and decreased the damage the explosion would do to inanimate objects and people to nothing.

"Huh, that almost pays for one of the boosts," he mused as he checked to see if he could reduce the damage to people on the sphere part of the attack. "Warning, the damage reduction doesn't apply to the summoner. Eh, at least it needs a direct shot."

He reduced the damage of the sphere to people and inanimate objects then pushed the button to finish the attack, figuring he could upgrade it later. 'Please name the attack.' Mist considered the question for a couple of seconds then typed in "Static Clinger."

Mist glanced at the message asking him to pay at least ten percent of the cost of the new ability within the next twenty seconds to bind it to his research list. 'That's probably so you can't make something completely broken and pay for it in bits and pieces or maybe it costs that much to design the schematic?' he mused as he used a handful of mana stones and the rest of the mana in his pool to pay the minimum.

Mist took a few seconds to try to get a better idea of how much mana he had left in his pool. "I don't think it's regenerating which means the well is probably clean enough for government work," he mused as he grabbed his towel, twisted around so that his legs weren't in the water and stood up. He took a minute to dry his legs off as best he could then walked over and grabbed his pants. 'I should probably talk to the cultists about ways to increase my mana regeneration so I'm not stuck in the mine.'

0o0o0

The cultist behind the table in the courtyard smiled as Mist walked over. "Let me guess, you're back for more honey?" she teased.

"I wasn't but I could probably be tempted to buy another jar," Mist replied with a grin. "I was actually curious about mana regeneration and if there are ways to improve it."

"Your mana regeneration naturally increases as your mana pool grows, which happens when you use mana. The growth eventually slows down but it never really stops which means your mana pool will eventually be large enough that you're not going to have to worry about running out of mana," she explained.

One of the male cultists spoke up, "If you're looking for some quick mana, I've got some mana potions that I'll sell."

The girl turned and glared at her fellow cultist. "Save that shit for the assholes."

Mist turned to look at the young man with black hair that was pulled up into a topknot.

"There's nothing wrong with using the blue stuff now and then," he argued.

"Except the fact that foreign mana reduces the growth of your mana pool," she argued.

"Only for the mana from the potion. I use them all the time, I'm fine," he argued.

"Have you looked in a mirror?" one of the other male cultists asked 'innocently'. "I regret to inform you that someone lied."

The potions guy glanced at his friend's nose. "I might be ugly but at least I've got mad skills and you can't use my nose for a landmark, what's your excuse?"

"Family curse," the other guy replied with amusement, well aware that his nose was a bit on the large side.

"There are conflicting schools of thought on potions," one of the other female cultists spoke up, trying to avoid the discussion spiraling into another argument. "You're better off not using outside sources when you're starting if you can avoid it, that way you avoid tainting your mana and slowing down your growth."

"My potions are pure, I don't cut them with shit," he complained, a bit offended.

She shook her head. "Don't get twisted, just because your potions are high quality doesn't mean every potion he can get his hands on is going to be the same quality." She turned to look at Mist. "It's not a race, you'll get there eventually."

"I'll take your advice," Mist replied.

"This is because she has tits, isn't it?" the guy that was trying to sell the potions grumbled good naturedly.

The young woman rolled her eyes. "Just because I always start an argument with two good points, doesn't mean that the rest of my points aren't valid. There's nothing wrong with using mana potions once you have the experience to deal with the potential problems but he doesn't have the experience."

"You could always buy them for later, five spirit stones per potion is a good price," he suggested.

"Maybe for the potions Morgana makes," the girl behind the counter cut in.

"They're good and he'd probably explode if he drank one of her potions," he argued, a bit annoyed that she was screwing with his sales pitch. "The ingredients aren't cheap."

"Then you're doing it wrong," the other guy cut in.

"Fine," he grumbled, willing to admit that she had a point about the ingredients. "Is it wrong that I want to get paid for my amazing skill?"

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to get paid for your skills," Mist assured him. "Of course, there's nothing wrong with walking away from a 'deal' because you can't afford it or you think someone is trying to cheat you. Maybe I'll change my mind once I pick up some combat spells and I need the boost while I'm hunting monsters or something."

"I'm sure I can find someone that will buy my potions," the cultist replied with a shrug.

"Most of the students are poor, if I find out you're trying to sell them shit that won't actually help with their cultivation, I'm going to be annoyed," Mist warned him.

"I meant magic users in other places, I don't sell stuff that doesn't work and I don't lie about my products," he argued.

"What about the stones that were supposed to unlock your third eye?" the girl behind the table asked.

He winced as he remembered having to sneak out of that particular town because the idiot sect's young master hadn't paid attention to the warning he'd given him. "The stones worked fine, it wasn't my fault the guy used it to look at a demon nest and went insane. I told him to let the magic settle for at least a couple of months and to take it slow."

"Do you have any of the stones left?" Mist asked, curious how they worked.

"No, Morgana stole the rest of the stones for testing," he grumbled.

"She was concerned about their connection to one of the far realms," the other girl spoke up.

The alchemist rolled his eyes. "That's why I added an explicit disclaimer."

"Probably for the best," Mist replied, making a mental note to talk to one of the teachers about giving the students a lecture on ways to avoid getting cheated by merchants. "Best of luck and I'll catch you next time when you have more spells and I have more stones."

"Sounds good," the girl behind the counter replied cheerfully, always happy to help.

Mist gave the girls a smile then walked back into the sect and headed for the sealed door that would take him to the tainted meditation chambers that held the corrupted dragon veins. 'Relax, the girl's right, it's not a race. You're not facing a demon lord or a horde of monsters, you're merely running a school and trying to make sure that it doesn't collapse,' he reminded himself as he walked down the hallway.

'That's ignoring the fact that the school has to win the tournament if I ever want to see my family again, assuming time is still moving back home,' Mist mused. 'Do you have a better plan than tossing monsters into the mirror and handing out the treasures like Halloween candy?'

He spent the next couple of minutes as he made his way to the sealed meditation chamber trying to come up with a way to 'steal' a win from a bunch of sects that had been around since the middle ages or longer. 'One day at a time,' he told himself as he walked through the illusion of the average looking statue and over to the sealed door.

He examined the seven tarnished seals that looked like they'd been left out in the weather for years but still looked sturdy enough to last a couple more. 'Sealed by order of Richard Blackheart, Headmaster of Shadowfrost.'

Mist reached up and touched one of the seals with his fingers, causing the metal to crumble to dust. 'Is that because my quirk ate the qi or because it was about to fail anyway?' he mused as he tapped his tattoo, causing the interface to appear. He pulled up the partially paid for technique and dumped his available mana into it, wanting to make sure it was as easy as he thought it would be before he cracked the door and his mana regeneration jumped into overdrive.

He pulled his compact flashlight out of his pocket with his left hand then grabbed the metal handle on the door with his right and twisted, a touch surprised that the door wasn't locked before he realized that you'd have to be insane to sneak into a meditation room when the elders could sense the corrupted qi.

He pulled the solid metal door open, causing the rest of the seals to break as the door opened with a rather loud creak. He quickly stepped into the center of the doorway and shined the light around the room, wanting to make sure the corrupted qi couldn't get past him without being absorbed and that there wasn't anything in the room that was going to try to rip his face off. 

He stared at the three foot tall purple crystal that was sticking up out of the sand in the middle of the room for a second then quickly checked the vaulted ceiling just to make sure that nothing was hiding. 'Good enough,' he decided as he dumped his mana into his noodle monster's technique, his mana refilling almost before he could push the button again.

Mist spent the next twenty seconds paying for the rest of the technique then cast his Foxfire spell, creating a floating ball of blue fire in the middle of the room that revealed the large black sludge covered hole in the sand that he'd missed when he'd looked around with his flashlight. 'Yeah, I'm not going down there.'

He glanced around the room again, less than happy with the way the shadows seemed to move in ways they shouldn't when he wasn't paying attention. 'Is that because of the spell or because this feels like the start of a horror movie and I'm just being paranoid?'

'Fuck it.' He quickly summoned another six glowing balls of flame around the room, making sure everything was decently illuminated. 'Good enough,' he decided as he put his flashlight back in his pocket. He spent a couple of minutes filling up the bag with magic stones then switched to the other bag as he tried to figure out the best way to deal with a suspicious and dangerous looking hole in the ground.

Mist set the second bag down and summoned his minion when he noticed that the rate his mana pool was filling had slowed down a little bit. 'Is that because I'm running out of qi or did my mana pool just grow enough that it's taking longer?' He focused on his pet and activated his sense link. "Down in the hole."

The noodle monster looked at the hole for a couple of seconds then turned and stared balefully at him, clearly getting ready to attack as its noodles coiled into attack position.

Mist took a couple of steps forward and kicked his pet, sending it into the hole. "I've seen more dangerous plates of spaghetti at Olive Garden," he muttered as he moved back over to the doorway, trying to limit the amount of corrupted qi that escaped.

Mist conjured another ball of foxfire over the hole trying to illuminate the path. He 'watched' though his pet's eyes as it looked up at the circle of light. "You're not getting back up, you might as well explore," he told his pet, knowing it would hear him. He smiled as his pet turned to look at the pitch black tunnel that led down at a forty degree angle. 'At least it has the attention span of a goldfish.'

'This isn't going to work,' he admitted when his pet merely stopped before it reached the darkness, demonstrating that it was more intelligent than most horror movie protagonists or maybe it was just being stubborn.

Mist scanned through the various types of extra senses that he could purchase. 'Why would it need the ability to smell children’s flesh from a distance? Search and rescue or Hansel and Gretel shit? Probably the latter, considering the source of the spell. Dark vision is cheap but the See In Darkness ability isn't that expensive, ooh, mana sight.' He quickly bought both types of vision for his minion and shivered as the darkness faded away revealing a sludge covered tunnel in the sand. "Go down the tunnel and scout."

Mist absently looked through the menu of abilities he could purchase as he 'watched' as his pet moved down the tunnel, happy that he didn't need his eyes to borrow his pet's senses. 'I don't remember seeing these the last time I looked at the list, maybe it's random?'

'Or maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention,' Mist mused as he read the description for the Spider Climb ability. 'Ten seconds of the ability to walk on vertical surfaces and it comes with a mana pool large enough to use it four times or adds that amount to their mana pool if they already have a mana pool. That would probably help with some of the special abilities.'

Mist jumped when his pet moved around the last curve in the tunnel and he saw a sludge covered chamber with a mutated dragon wrapped around the bottom part of the crystal. It took him a couple of seconds to get his breathing back under control when he realized that the dragon was dead and that it was only about the size of a pony. 

He frowned slightly when he realized that the sludge covering the bottom of the chamber looked like it was concealing a treasure chest and at least one blade. He focused on the glass ceiling that looked like it was built around the purple crystal in the middle of the chamber. 'I doubt the dragon built the chamber ceiling, maybe they needed access to the bottom of the crystal?'

"Would it have killed them to leave notes?" Mist wondered as he bought the Spider Climb ability for his pet, making a mental note to look through everything in the Headmaster's office in case they actually left notes. 

"Start cleaning the sludge," he ordered his pet as he went back to creating mana stones so he wasn't wasting mana. 'This could take awhile but at least my pool is getting larger.'