Amanda became doom for the salamanders. Boosted by her ascended talent, the Nature Arch's plants were devastatingly powerful against them. Cactus needles flying at the speed of bullets, coated in nature essence. She even experimented adding her decay spores spell into the mix but it was useless. The sheer power of the prickly pear bombs was more than enough. Whenever possible, she used her blaze bamboo to impale the monsters with. The red grass was baptized in Robert's honor. It took Robert some time to accept that truth. Bamboo was a species of grass, that's why it grew so fast. Powered by Amanda's talent and the evolutionary plant growth spell, it was instantaneous.
The hunt was so successful that Robert decided to step back and let her reap the kills. After each fight, she would harvest the surviving seeds on the monsters' corpses and test them for useful evolutions. The plants she was using were adapted for this environment but Amanda kept each batch of seeds separate to test them for useful evolutions later.
That gave him time to work on his new spells and tempering techniques. For his defensive Void spell, he was trying to adapt insights from the void lance spell to create a plane of Void energy that would float in place. Though he didn't have any books on the Force affinity, he had studied it. A staple Force spell was the world-famous wall of force, which did exactly what Robert needed. He was trying to use it with the wrong affinity, though. Try as he might, the Void essence "wall" didn't remain in place.
One "night" during camp, he asked Noah about his problems. The teacher grinned as Robert presented his findings.
"That's because each affinity has different properties. You won't expect Earth to flow like Water, to disperse like Wind, or to consume like Fire. You can make stone flow like water but that requires more effort and active essence expenditure. I believe you are approaching the issue from the wrong side. A wall of force is a solid construct, a thing the Force affinity does very well. I've seen Force artists make lifelike renditions of people, objects, and animals that feel real to the touch. They're still transparent or translucid, though. But Freddy can make lifelike illusions that fool the sight, the hearing, and the smell but not touch. Now, tell me. Is your goal to create still constructs of solid essence that remain in place?"
That was eye-opening. Robert didn't answer immediately. Rather, he stopped to think. No. He wanted a defensive spell that would block attacks. But the nature of the Void was to nullify, to eradicate and disintegrate. He shouldn't design a dumb spell that blocked attacks going through it. If not dumb, then a smart one? Those things were usually expensive. But what if...
*
*
Robert spent the next two days in the real world and the subsequent six and a half months of liminal void time thinking about the spell. He dove into the true void to see if he could find any inspiration but beside the ominous presence of things men weren't meant to see lurking in the deep void, he...
got... nothing...
When the idea hit him, it was like Truck-Sama™ was taking him to the isekai.
Robert envisioned a point in space a few yards away from him and then focused his essence. A third of his essence was pulled as a connection to the void opened. It felt wrong, anathema to life. What was coming from the void through his calling was not meant to exist in this world. Yet, by his will, it was made manifest. A sphere of pure black, a hunger that devoured light itself. Yet it was not Dark nor Shadow. An eye opened. Dark gray sclera with purple veins and a swirling pupil that seemed to have a galaxy of dim stars inside.
It had a mind and it hungered. Robert christened the thing he brought forth a voidling. Void essence given a rudimentary consciousness. It wasn't alive. He checked. But it was moving. Robert spent a few minutes watching the thing. Sometimes, the black surface warbled. He could tell because the edges of the sphere rippled and it made a sound. No, he couldn't describe what the sound was. It was an barely perceptible and unsettling sound. It could be something psychic too.
Oddly enough, the thing was not draining essence to remain where it was. When Robert stopped to think about it, he noticed a wind blowing toward the black blob with the creepy eye. Shock struck him. The thing he created was devouring the air around it. And now that he knew where to look at, some of the fine dust and ash on the ground was slowly making its way to the black thing. Looking in the Netherecho, he saw it was sucking the wisps around it as well. It felt like the wisps were falling into the black ball.
If this was the spell at its lowest setting, Robert didn't want to see what it would do when fully powered or evolved. Not to mention it was too expensive. But with no upkeep costs? When would it vanish? In a set amount of time? After it had devoured the whole realm?
He doubted it would be that powerful. Unless that entity piggybacked onto his spell but that wasn't possible. These things had rules and while humanity hadn't figured out all of them, spell essence costs related to the effect were well understood.
He used his talent. The ball with an eye was active in the liminal void just fine, staring at him and blinking. Robert walked around, noticing how the eye tracked him. For someone who spent years believing the liminal void was a place of stillness, the blinking eye creeped him out greatly.
Robert approached the thing, half-expecting it to start devouring him. It wouldn't happen, as Archs had a certain immunity to their own spells. That's one of the reasons the thousand wet hells tempering didn't rip apart a person's internal organs though it surely felt that way.
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He stopped a foot from the black orb and nothing happened. Dreading what would happen, he reached out and touched it. Its surface was rubbery and slick, like oily latex. The eye didn't react. Robert was expecting it to preen or something. But nothing happened. Without anything else to do, he walked away and sat down to work on his void veins tempering. Lacing his blood vessels with Void essence was easier than he thought. It was because of the alchemical tempering baths he did a couple of months ago. His whole body was very attuned to the Void affinity already.
*
*
When he came back, he showed the black orb to Noah. They examined it at a distance of twenty feet. With strangers around, the floating ball of Void essence refused to show its eye.
"How did you intend for it to stop attacks?" Noah asked.
"It will attack the attacks. Parry them, if you prefer," Robert answered.
Noah drew an Ice rune. As he pressed his hand to it, he said, "Natural Disaster: Hailstorm."
Hail formed above the black orb and rained down on it. Hundreds of tentacles of black matter darted from the orb to strike at the hail. The change from total stillness to bedlam was so sudden it surprised everyone. The tentacles whipped around, striking all the hailstones that entered a sphere ten feet around the orb.
"Interesting," Noah said. "The orb is devouring the essence infused in the hail. It's not a creature, it's an Ether construct. Though it is not autonomous like vestiges or remnants. It is in a lower category."
The hailstorm ended. Puddles or rapidly evaporating water formed a circle around the orb. The tentacles withdrew back into the orb as soon as they slapped the last hailstones coming its way.
"It's smaller," Amanda noticed.
"Yes, you are right," Noah agreed. "It seems that my previous observation was incorrect. The orb is not devouring the essence of the attacks, it is canceling it with its own Void essence."
"Can I attack it with one of my cacti?" She asked.
"Sure, go ahead," Noah replied.
Amanda grew one of her prickly pear cacti and had it shoot some pears into the orb. Once again, the tentacles shot out and consumed the pears before they could explode. Amanda growled and shot a set of five pears, timing the explosions just as they reached the ten-foot radius. More tentacles shot out and struck the needles. Before it could consume everything, the black ball popped out and vanished, tentacles and all, in the blink of an eye.
"It got saturated by the cactus needles and ran out of essence," Noah said, then turned to Robert. "You said it has no upkeep costs?"
"No. It consumes the environment to sustain itself. That includes the wisps."
"That's intriguing. It can consume aspected Ether to pay for its upkeep but attacks drain its internal essence stores. Why do you think this happen?" Noah asked Robert.
It was expected at this point that Noah would pop these questions to test his students' knowledge.
"I am not sure," Robert said. He was a bit overwhelmed by what he created.
"Is it because the essence invested into the attacks has the intent of causing damage?" Amanda guessed.
Professor Actus nodded. "Yes, exactly that. To cause damage, the essence gains what scholars call an aspect, an intent, or a concept of doing harm. The basic affinities do that mostly through physical concepts but for concepts like Shadow and Darkness, for example. They were understood before the rift cataclysm as the absence of light. Nowadays, we believe that both Shadow and Darkness is its own thing and doesn't require Light to exist. Robert, you passed. I think this spell will serve you well if it can differentiate enemy from friend. Next salamander fight, you are going to cast it in front of you, and Amanda will try to shoot her cacti at the monsters but passing through the spell's area of effect. This has no effect on the assignment. Several defensive spells do not let friendly attacks go through, like the wall of Force."
They agreed to perform the test and went to find the next lava pool to draw monsters from.
*
*
Robert cast his shield voidling spell and placed it thirty feet away from the lava pool. Already the three salamanders were crawling out of the lava, the molten rock dripping slowly off their bodies.
Amanda grew two prickly pear cacti, letting the pears grow to a deep red before she launched them. The projectiles sailed into the shield voidling's area of effect and Robert focused on instructing the voidling to ignore the pears. it didn't work, however. The tentacles sprang into life and slapped the pears away. They exploded, causing even more tentacles to lash out and tackle the spines. The three salamanders took a few spines but suffered no considerable damage.
"It's no good," Robert said. "It can't tell friend from foe, though it won't attack me."
"That's okay," Amanda said. "Let's see how it reacts against the salamanders."
They waited. Amanda grew more pears on her cacti so she was ready to attack the moment the shield voidling failed. The salamanders came closer to the now still black orb. Once the smallest part of their bodies entered the range of attack, they got slapped in the snout with dozens of tentacles each. Each attack from the shield voidling erased a thin layer of skin and scales where they struck.
Enraged, the salamanders charged forward. The lumbering beasts drew energy from their cores and burst into action, barreling through the squirming tentacles, and rapidly draining the shield voidling's reserves.
With only a faint pop, the construct ceased to be. Angry welts could be seen in the salamanders' heads, shoulders, and front paws but they kept going forward, unfazed.
Amanda's cacti shot an alpha strike, firing every available pear. Boosted by her talent and the spell, the pears were more dangerous than an explosive mine or a high-blast grenade. She grunted and convulsed momentarily as the octopus amulet chose that moment to zap her with its lingering grudges.
The pears exploded as they came into contact with the charging salamanders. The spines were launched point-blank into the wounds caused by the shield voidling. Without the upper layers of integument intact, the open wounds allowed the spines to penetrate deeply into their rocky flesh, delivering a charge of nature's rot.
Two of the salamanders fell to the side, their eyes losing focus as the spines reached their brains. The third wobbled in place, stunned by the sudden assault.
"Finish it!" Amanda shouted.
Robert rushed forward and jousted his boar spear into the last salamander's eye socket.
Noah clapped. He approached Robert and tapped his shoulder. "Good job with the spell. I didn't expect it to have the autonomy to tell friend from foe. That would be too much but maybe we can work on it later. Now, I want you to write an essay with at least ten different tactics to use the shield voidling in combat. The essay must also include an essence cost analysis using Dinniman’s theorem to measure the spell’s efficiency."
Robert groaned. The reward for a good job apparently was more homework.