39

Following his new motto, “break free and use system things as basis to form his own thingamajig”, True Lightning Proficiency was naturally slotted for round two. Vander had a great pile of things to feed into it. All the skills he’d received from his training montage with Tobias, all eight, together with Throw and… Torture became the materials he’d use to transcend his True Lighting Proficiency to greater heights than before.

All of those abilities were truly useful, but as he shred away their form and threw their energy towards True Lightning Proficiency, like a sponge, it absorbed the energy and grew vastly. He breathed in as his body buzzed, electrified from the raw, heady rush of static coursing through his lungs, heart, and veins.

He could feel all of the skills he’d used do exactly what he wanted them to, increasing the potency of his lightning’s raw, primal, destructive force, growing and expanding the repertoire of his freedom of usage and its versatility, enhancing and shaping the molds into form, function, and freedom.

Skill created: Vander’s Lightning Manipulation

The skill grew, becoming both more defined and intense yet versatile. He loved it, felt warm from its familiarity as he breathed and relished in the comfort of what he once knew. Sure, he still had a long path to go, but he had only used a smidgen of his current Coins.

He had a lot of plans, and he’d fulfill them. Rather than end the upgrade and augmentation effects, he threw Running, Climbing, and Quiet Steps in with the rest. More than feeling and knowing concretely what he might’ve created of the messy soup, he intuitively sensed what he could do and all the ways he’d changed all of himself each time.

It was exhilarating, refreshing, and sparked joy in him in a way he hadn’t felt since—no, let’s not go there right now. Just enjoy the moment. Work everything out later.

Shoving away the thoughts with brute force, he continued down his list of spectral spacey energy things, which upon prompting would have a reaction with its intended effect but also could be determined just with an omniscience he was uncertain of trusting. A strange and uncanny thing, that, but one he grew to appreciate.

Then he finished with augmenting and upgrading his core skill, his own form of Lightning Manipulation, and grinned from ear to ear like a kid with a new toy. Humming in his veins, he could feel the power, the life, the radiant energy so akin to the depths of his soul.

He wanted to sing, to dance, to shout the heady rush of absolute power to the nine heavens and hells. He didn’t let go of that feeling and used the buzzing in his chest to keep his momentum pushing forward, grabbing ahold of the similarly yet different abilities sequestered over there and threw them in with each other. They were Tracking, Herbology, and Trap Making.

But that wasn’t all.

He pulled out the plethora of books Madeline had given him and offered the knowledge, the book, the existence and wealth of her skills she’d imparted to him into his own, new thingamajig. And he didn’t stop. All the materials, all the books, all the tools and the like she’d given to him—they went in a new stew, one less exciting but still tasty. They combined and merged, resisting as the edges clashed and snapped at him for trying to do things with it when he “wasn’t worthy”. Or at least, that’s the feeling he got when he regarded the information within those books, the skill and spirit of what he tried to do.

The very concept of whatever the ability he tried to form, the idea of it fought against him, something hardy and healthy and not at all fond of the buzzing in his chest and body. No, it was something more peaceful, something far less furious and destructive. Rather, it felt natural. Like a blowing wind with spices upon the breeze, the smell of lilac and honey or the feeling of a soft, furry pelt, everything felt earthy.

A soft, motherly voice called out to him from within that formation of natural energy—a spirit greater than the entirety of his being yet so kindhearted, he could sense. “Child, you know not the power you seek.”

“Strange, disembodied voice, I think I’ll be alright. I’m a little tired of people telling me what I should or shouldn’t do and thinking they know what’s best for me. I’m kind of done with all of that, so if that’s all you wanted to tell me, thanks for your concern, but I’ll be continuing now,” Vander responded, not paying much attention to all the hesitance and subtle frustrations of the strange energy-voice. Not my problem.

“You misunderstand, Child. I am Mother Primordial, the World’s Spirit, Gaia,” she breathed, thinking he’d care about such a thing.

“Okay? What’s that supposed to mean?” he wondered, trying to push past the resistance he felt.

“The things you try to do… Are you sure you wish to bear this burden?” There was hope in her words, hesitance in her tone that he couldn’t understand. “I can help you receive a boon that will be greatly beneficial to you, or I will let you continue down a path you do not understand.”

“I’ll walk my path, regardless of the consequences. So if you could, leave me be, please.” He couldn’t bring himself to be blatantly rude to her, her kind and motherly voice soothed a part of him that had been empty for a long time.

“Then you have my blessing to proceed. Carry it well, Child.”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Skill received: Gaia’s Gift

“Not sure what that’s supposed to do, but thanks anyway. Gonna… go back to doing my thing now, so feel free to show yourself the door—which is polite speak for get out of my head and stay out, if you’d be so kind,” Vander muttered, going about his business as he had before.

Skill created: Embrace of the Mother

“Huh, not sure what that’s good for,” he muttered, trying to feel out the skill and get an understanding. His semi-omniscience seemed to be failing and threw back a bunch of question marks in response. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes, I guess.”

His theory, considering that Gaia was the world spirit and whatever vast, white expanse he existed within in the current moment lacked anything moderately identifiable as “a world” or “nature” or “please get me out of here, for the love of the gods”...

Right, no nature for the spirit of nature to do anything with. Though it made him wonder.

“One more question before you go, Gaia. Did you influence the skill creation process?”

“I warned you this would happen. The ingredients you used are—”

“I don’t really care about that, but now I’m wondering if I was a bit too hasty in throwing everything in there without actually looking into its true value.” He pondered his actions, shrugged in disinterest after a few seconds, and went back to testing himself as a mixologist.

Putting aside the two new skills, he took the remaining energy he couldn’t absorb from Meditation and the leftover, excess energy from the Braxton Breathing Technique and threw them together into another pot. This whole augment and upgrade thing was a life saver he could no longer fathom not having.

On top of the leftovers from his Storm Arts establishment, he played around with what he should use next. A lot of the energy he sensed resounded with a loud “I’m magicky and willful!”, so he rolled with that as the core. He had three abilities that kind of matched up.

Fighting Spirit, Killing Intent, and… the remnants of Torture he’d used on his Lightning Manipulation. Those all fell into one of the two categories of “magicky willfulness”, and they meshed well. One more skill, a freshly created one, called to him from its corner where the essence-of-space-kitty resided—Bind.

“If it looks like a shoe and smells like a shoe, I should wear it—or something like that,” he muttered, creating Bind as the basis for the willful magicky-ness in the boiling pot of energy. “Yikes, that’s hot.”

True to his words, the boiling energy was caustic, violent, and not at all subtle. Yet they fell in together, their energies swirling and forming something similar and new. He remembered the painter class from before.

“Huh. Maybe I’d be better at it than I first thought,” he said, grinning as he pulled one last tug and clicked all the energy into a new thing. With a hint of bzzt to spice things up, he got…

Skill created: Thunderlord’s Will

With that, he only had one more thing to do in terms of augmentations and upgrades: the Braxton Family Sword. He didn’t know if he was supposed to give it back or not, but… He’d told Gaia, the literal world spirit, to sod off… The Braxtons? He’d be okay.

So without any shame or hesitation, he threw it into a pot with Weapon Manifestation. He ripped apart all the anchors, tearing up the entire family’s pride and used it as fuel. The strange energy of… something old, like cobwebs and cigarettes, ew. He let that go.

When he did, he thought he heard the sound of a thousand angry voices screaming, but the sound faded into the white expanse. He looked around. Nothing there. I’ll keep going then.

The “I’m a sword” ego took some ironing out, but with Thunderlord’s Will, just like Zara, it acquiesced in good time. Record time, even.

“Maybe I’m getting better at this whole thing?” he muttered, grabbing the manifestation of strange glowing steel in his hand, watching as it shifted form under his touch to whatever his heart desired. “Awesome.”

Weapon created: Shapeless

Shapeless

Once a sword used by generations of magical warriors of the Braxton family’s house, an heirloom passed down across centuries from one successor to another, forged and enchanted by a legendary runesmith whose name has been lost to time, nothing of that remains. All that remains is its affinity as a lightning conduit.

Now, it is just a formless energy medium, shapeable to the needs and desires of its bonded.

Bonded: Vander Braxton

Good job, you bastardized an heirloom weapon to make a fancy lightning rod. Clap. Clap. I hear your ancestors crying from here. I hope you’re proud of yourself.

“Huh, that turned out better than I thought it would.” He formed the once-blade into a lasso and hung it from his belt, sifting through the contents of the pouch to find— “Ah-ha ha!”

This Core is very afraid of this place, your face, and… Please don’t eat me. I’m valuable, trust me! Mother Primordial, tell him! I’m useful, right?

“Ahem.” The disembodied head-voice was back. Just great.

“You’ve been nice, so I’ll hear you out. What?” he asked, eyeing the Core hungrily. He knew what kind of energy it had inside and wanted to crack it open and use it to fuel his growth. “Make it fast.”

“The value you would gain from absorbing that child is far less than if you nurture it—”

“One, I don’t want to. Two, it’s annoying. Three, nurturing it requires too much effort. I’ve lost interest,” he said, getting ready to throw the Core into the mixer and looking for things that needed a large stimulus of energy. He leaned towards his Lightning Manipulation, but hey, maybe there’d be enough energy to give himself a substantial boost overall.

“Please, do not. Within, you will find something of great importance,” Gaia begged.

“Fine,” he grumbled, throwing the Core back into the pouch after dumping the rest of its contents out—which was admittedly very little after all Madeline’s stuff became the Embrace of the Mother. “Three silver crystals full of a strange milky substance that looks an awful lot like—gross. That can’t be what I think this is… Right?” He threw them back in the pouch, not wanting to find out for sure. “Now, I get to play with the expensive things.”

He rubbed his hands together excitedly. To play or not to play with the customization options for equipment requests. Thoughts…?

Methinks yes.