063 – Device

***

Comparing Fightmaster Putrizio’s ‘Observations’ to Fownst the Alchemist’s arcane tomes, showed an extreme contrast between the works and their author’s philosophies. Putrizio meant his work as a textbook for young swordsmen. He wrote it to be factual, organized, accessible, and precise. Although it did touch on secrets, such as forbidden techniques, those were other people’s secrets, not his own. Thus he felt no need to censor or obfuscate them. His book felt almost, but not quite, scientific.

The poison drenched books I stole from Fownst’s workshop, on the other hand, were totally alien to my way of thinking. Nothing was straightforward. Everything was a puzzle to be solved. The alchemists wrote in dense jargon that only others initiated into the mysteries of their art could understand. And they further encoded their meaning through ornate metaphors and visual emblems. The books had fantastical pictures of volcanoes erupting with toads, half naked men sitting on passing comets, birds with multiple heads, lion-faced suns, eggs filled with fire and ice, multi armed babies juggling skulls and swords. How was I to interpret these visual nightmares?

The written texts were just as bad. Almost all of them were written in poorly rhyming stanzas of doggerel verse. Poetry is fine for… well, whatever it is that poetry does. But poetry is no good for a chemistry textbook. A person’s artistic interpretations should not be an important factor when handling dangerous chemicals. Although with alchemy, there was always a personal element mixed in, because the process was assisted with one’s own fire. It would be impossible to have an automated version of alchemy using machines instead of some cranky old wizard hunched over his cauldrons. That inclined them heavily toward the artistic.

I spent weeks reading the tomes, but without some professional alchemist to decode the encrypted passages for me, they remained impenetrable. Catalogs on herbology gave me hints on which unnatural plants contained aetheric essences. The others, although useless as guides, gave me some clues as to where to start my own investigations.

Especially bitter, was the fact I took part in a murder to get these stupid books. The sight of them now filled be with disgust.

Puzzling over the books had left me in a bad mood, and carving arrays into the floor had left me covered with grit. I decided to go the Hall of Discipline to use the bath.

Entering the front door of the school, I walked in on a macabre scene. Yurk sat on the floor hunched over. He was naked to the waist and had bloody streaks crisscrossing his back. Hwilla stood over him with a thin whip, which she snapped cruelly, again and again, flaying off his skin in strips.

“Did I come at a bad time?” I asked.

Fightmaster Putrizio and Zambulon stood to the side watching, unruffled by the extreme punishment visited on Yurk’s backside.

“Strythe. Where have you been? You’re late for the lesson,” Putrizio said.

“Uh. I hope you aren’t going to whip me for my tardiness.”

“This isn’t punishment,” Hwilla said. “We’re testing Yurk’s new augmentation technique. He wants to increase his healing rate, but the only way to do so after getting an injury.”

“It was thoughtful of you to help,” I said. The sight of Hwilla holding a bloody whip was made more terrifying by how pleased she looked with herself.

“Naturally I volunteered. If someone is going to whip Yurk, it should be me.”

Hwilla wiped away the blood to show the shallow gashes she had made. The Putrizio and Zambulon closely examined Yurk’s flesh as it began to bubble and sizzle. His skin began to knit itself back together before our eyes. Yurk’s style was suited for rapid recovery. Augmentation techniques could increase his toughness and healing rate, while enhancements could boost his regeneration even further in emergencies. With the right set of techniques, something like getting his throat cut in the middle of a fight wouldn’t even slow him down. Of course, getting to that level would require some brutal training.

I had been angry when the fightmaster put me in the cold prison to freeze my fire, but now I saw that those sorts of torturous lessons were commonplace. Swordsmen mutilated and poisoned themselves all the time in pursuit of greater power.

“Your new technique is coming along well, Master Yurk. Healing techniques aren’t the flashiest things one can learn, but they are never a mistake,” the fightmaster said.

The two newly minted swordsmen were no longer Putrizio’s students. Technically, they were his equals, because the Void Phantoms made no distinctions in rank between its officers. But that didn’t change the fact the two still relied on the old man for advice and guidance. Putrizio wanted his former disciples to excel, as their future glory would reflect well on him. So they had an unofficial meeting in the old Hall of Discipline to discuss their progress.

“Strythe. Everyone here has been toiling away at improving themselves. What have you been up to? Show us the results of your recent training.”

“Oh. Right. Techniques. Ha ha. Well, I have had a few things in mind…”

All four of them looked at me expectantly. “Go on then.”

“Okay. Watch this. I discovered a new use for projection.” I clenched my fists and concentrated. My invisible fire projected outward off my body. With a small amount of mana, the fire appeared visible to plain sight as a glowing vapor enveloping my body. White wisps tcoiled and stretched around me according to my will. “I can produce a visible ectoplasm.”

The others did not look impressed. “That’s not a technique, Strythe. It doesn’t do anything” said Zambulon. “Visible fire happens all the time as a side effect of high rank techniques. We even witnessed it ourselves when Lord Hrolzek performed his Negative Blade technique.”

“Yes. I know it’s a side effect. Usually. But maybe it could be developed into something useful.”

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“Like what?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

Putrizio made a wry face. “Is that all you’ve come up with?”

“Wait! No. There’s more. I’ve also been experimenting with something more practical. An offensive technique. It’s a projection to stun an opponent, delivered with an unarmed attack.”

“Alright then. Let’s see it. Make your attack.” Fightmaster Putrizio took a solid stance and bared his chest, ready to receive my attack. There was no way a disciple of my level could really injure him, so this was a safe way to measure the potency of the technique. It’s doubtful he would have trusted an experienced swordsman to deliver a free punch like this.

I concentrated for a moment and slammed my fist into his sternum. The physical attack was mostly meaningless. The real test was the blast of fire I projected into him.

“Hmm…” The fightmaster had a look of obvious disappointment.

“It could use some work, admittedly.”

“Strythe. You wish to specialize exclusively in projection, which is method good for range and improving weapon strikes. Close quarters fighting with unarmed attacks is the last thing you want to do. Someone like Yurk is the cold water to your fire.” The fightmaster rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Furthermore, a stunning attack like this is too weak to affect an enemy. It would have to be raised to a very high rank before it becomes useful, and it will do you no good in the meantime.”

“I know that. But even a low rank technique will affect normal people. There’s no profit chopping up people who can barely fight back when a knock out punch would be just as good. And there are times, such as in an abduction, where we might need to capture someone alive and unharmed. It could be very handy on missions requiring subterfuge.”

“So your only offensive technique is a way to avoid fights? It’s true knocking people out might be useful in corner cases, but it won’t save your life or defeat an enemy. You have to learn to fight before you can choose to be merciful.”

I nodded in understanding at the fightmaster’s advice and bowed my head.

“That can’t be the best you have.” Zambulon said. “Those ideas are far too plain for you. There must be something weird you have at that toy shop you’re not telling us.”

Zambulon had suffered so many times due to my novel ideas that he could see right through me. He knew I was bluffing. Those were pathetic excuses to distract from my real endeavors at the workshop.

“Toys?” Putrizio asked me. “What toys is he talking about?”

“Oh. This and that. Just playing around with some ideas. On our mission, the enemy swordsman surprised us with his trick sword. So I thought something similar could be useful. Little equipment upgrades here and there.”

“Show us an example of these toys, if you will.”

“Right. Here’s a device I’ve been working on. A levitation rod. This one is a functioning prototype.” I removed from my cloak a copper rod studded with quartz crystals and iron disks. Three bent prongs stuck from one end, making it look like a mechanical claw. “I’ll demonstrate.”

I pointed the device at one of Yurk’s inflatable rubber balls in the corner of the room. It wobbled and then floated upward. As I whirled around the rod, the ball swooped through the air over our heads.

In my past life, we commonly used levitation rods for manual labor. A single worker could lift a ton of material without strain. Those Ancient artifacts used ambient mana and had many knobs and buttons for controls. My new device was much simpler. Instead of controls, the user projected their own fire into it, which made it easier to operate. However, with no controls and no ambient mana as a power source, only magi could use my current prototype.

“What in the name of hell is that?” Putrizio asked in horror.

“It’s a magical device that extends a tendril of fire for grabbing things at a distance. It’s not too different from the trick you showed me for picking up a dropped sword, or what Logrev did when he sprayed gravel from the road at us. It’s a telekinetic grabber-pusher-puller-thrower.”

Yurk held out his hands for for the lev rod and made excited gestues. I passed it over to him, and he used it as a telekinetic tennis racket, swatting the ball in mid air and bouncing it off the walls. Had I made two of them, he would have invented a whole new sport.

“And why would you waste time making a thing like that instead of actually learning a technique for yourself? An item can be lost or destroyed. A power is yours forever.”

“True, but there are some advantages for machines. For one, anyone can use them, just like a lumestone or a healing elixir. It doesn’t matter what techniques they know or methods they practice. Yurk here is weak in projection, but he can use the lev rod as easily as anybody else.”

Putrizio didn’t seem impressed with my new invention. “While things like trick swords might give you a slight advantage here and there, you can’t base a whole fighting style on toys and gimmicks. A swordsman’s only tool is their sword. And their only power is what they hold within themselves. These silly devices are distracting from your training.

“I had hoped your first battle with another swordsman would inspire you to train more assiduously. Keep in mind, that you fought against a mediocre opponent on that mission. As an officer in the Void Phantoms, you will not be facing common swordsmen like him, but exceptional ones. The civil war in Sandgrave will attract many veterans and heroes to fight under the banners of the three heirs. The four of you don’t have much time to improve yourselves before the coming conflict.”

The fightmaster sighed and placed his sword next to the compendium on the desk. “In the past, for my earliest students, I took a severe approach to their training. Harsh discipline. Grueling drills. Demanding tests. Brutal sparring. I squeezed them into a mold. They entered as malleable children and came out hardened warriors. The results were excellent – at first. It wasn’t until looking at their later performance I realized my mistake. Once my students became independent, free from the rigid structure of the school, they floundered. Many of them lost their motivation entirely, because their only goals had been to follow the rules, avoid punishment, please their teacher, and pass the next test. In the field, they were lost.

“After those failures, I decided to adopt a more liberal approach to teaching. I’ve encouraged my students to rely on their own instincts and develop their own styles. A swordsman must have their own passion. It can’t be given. They must motivate themselves.

“Strythe, I can see that you do have a passion for magic. And it’s possible that your bizarre ideas might someday lead to you powerful techniques. But you must survive long enough for that to happen. And to survive you must acquire a basic competency in a fight. Set aside your toys and nonsense for now. The next time we meet, I expect you to have decided on a real technique and devised a training plan on how to master it.”

“Yes, fightmaster,” I said. “I’ll do as you say.”

As much as I hated the idea of wasting time with combat skills, Putrizio was right. It was a matter of survival. I had seen with Fownst the Alchemist that living as a pacifist wizard was impossible in this world. Some maniac would kill me for my secrets. In the best case, a bully like Malisent would enslave me and steal all my inventions for themselves. That was almost as bad.

I needed a technique for murder.