The three spells required fewer Wisps than Sophia expected, consuming a little over two hundred Wisps between the three Spells and Ability Slots, even though they all started at Ability level two. It made her want to fill in her Spellblade Spells and Martial Abilities; with only one slot open in each, they’d be really cheap.
Wait. She’d been ignoring the new Spells and Martial Techniques Cliff copied from the Corpsevines. What did he have, again?
Spells
Level 1:
Rush
Flaming Spark
Spit Fire
Buffet
Slice
Level 2:
Eldritch Overcharge
Root Grab
Eldritch Empowerment
Offensive Illusion Field
Other:
Hydrokinesis (higher level than 2 - actual level requirement unknown)
Martial Techniques
Level 1:
Stunning Roar
Consuming Rage
Level 2:
Siphon Sap
Summon Echo
Poison Pollen Fog
Shaped Growth
Crown’s Cutting Consumption
Sophia skipped the level one Abilities she’d already dismissed to concentrate on the far more interesting Level two spells and Martial Techniques. The two Eldritch spells were Dav’s. Since she was certain to see them used again, they were the only Abilities on Cliff’s list that she could count on being able to improve. She wasn’t sure if they’d improve automatically if she picked them up or if she’d have to spend Wisps, but either way the fact that they could improve was a point in their favor if they were useful at all.
Wait, why were they at level two at all? Sophia was pretty certain that Dav hadn’t upgraded them before they went into the Challenge, which meant Cliff wasn’t exactly copying the spell he saw into his Collection. They had to be level two because Dav was level two, even though the Spell wasn’t. Sophia hoped that meant they were automatically upgraded; it would suck if she could learn things that cost more than they were worth simply because they were known by someone or something at a higher level than the Ability.
There was only one way to find out: actually use one of them. Even then, she expected that her use of it would be worse than Dav’s, since she didn’t have his Affinity. Despite that, it seemed worth trying; the Ability Slots weren’t that expensive and neither was removing Abilities she didn’t want anymore, so if it turned out to be useless she could replace it with something else when she found it.
Eldritch Overcharge didn’t seem useful for her; it specifically overcharged summoning spells. Eldritch Empowerment, however, did. It wasn’t very clear, but that just meant she’d need to treat it like an Intent-based spell that she had to completely direct as she used it. It might even be usable for something like her new Parrying Presence, but that was a spell that seemed better to have separate for reliability.
Eldritch Empowerment
Gain or grant a minor eldritch boon.
While she was at it, she wanted both Root Grab and Offensive Illusion Field. She wasn’t sure how often she’d use them, but they were both Spells that could be useful in the right circumstances.
Root Grab
Empower existing roots to grow and attempt to grab your enemies, preventing movement. May target up to Level number of creatures.
Offensive Illusion Field
Cover an area in an illusion of monsters created from the surroundings. The illusion includes visual, tactile, and olfactory senses and responds to actions taken by targets based on their expectations. Duration is based on the mana supplied, area covered, and number of targets included.
Sophia removed Rush, bought two new Spell slots, and slotted the three Spells. At 72 Wisps, adjusting her Spellblade Spells was even cheaper than she expected. Well, if she wanted Rush back she could buy another slot, but she didn’t really think it was worth it. That would cost another fifty Wisps, and while she had used the spell, she was pretty sure it wasn’t all that important.
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If she had the spare Wisps after everything, she could come back and add the additional slot. It was time to move on to the Martial Techniques. If she was lucky, some of them might fill the gaps in her Spellblade setup; there were a number of different common Martial Techniques that might work, so it wasn’t entirely unlikely that she’d found one.
Siphon Sap was still useless, since she couldn’t do anything else at the same time and it took time to work. She knew that just from watching the monster. Poison Pollen Fog was also a hard no, since it didn’t come with a way to control the fog or any personal protection from it. If she were working with a wind specialist like Revina, she might consider it possible but as it was, the Technique was likely to be worse than useless.
Crown’s Cutting Consumption was just as easy to discard as Poison Pollen Fog. While it wasn’t actively detrimental, she literally couldn’t use it because she couldn’t make cuttings of herself to consume.
Summon Echo, on the other hand, looked awesome. Now that she didn’t have to save for a telepathy ability and she really understood the benefit of having a lot of different categories, she was definitely picking that one up. It would complement her Animated Blades, effectively mirroring them since she could cast a spell through them and use a Martial Technique through the Echo. It was probably also very similar to the Martial Duplicate Technique, though she couldn’t know that for certain until she tried it out. If she was right about where it came from, it didn’t create a duplicate of the spellcaster.
It was also a Summon ability. That meant Sophia should pick up Eldritch Overcharge after all.
Summon Echo
Summon an echo of your power to fight for you. The echo is tied to and controlled by the summoner. Other Martial Techniques may be used through the echo if the form is appropriate, but the echo cannot cast spells.
Eldritch Overcharge
Channel extra mana into Summons for additional power or duration.
Shaped Growth was last because it was more difficult to decide on. It was a weird Martial Technique both because it was long term and because it was extremely freeform based on the description. Sophia wasn’t about to raise her own army of monsters to fight for her. That was both unethical and stupid, since it didn’t give any control over them. She also wasn’t about to graft bits of monsters onto herself, for all that the Technique seemed to imply that it was possible.
The only change she might make to herself was wings, and she already knew that wasn’t a good choice for a mostly humanoid form. They got in the way and were mostly used to affect the person’s orientation in the air rather than actually directly fly. Flight without magical support was simply not practical unless she also figured out how to properly shapeshift.
That made it fairly combat ineffective, except possibly as a way to recover after a particularly bad fight. Outside of combat, well, maybe she could reverse physical Warps? That seemed useful, even though it was probably more for appearance than anything else. Dav didn’t seem unhappy, but he also didn’t think he had any options. Sophia was certain that Aymini would have accepted back when she was first Warped, though she seemed used to her small stature and cat ears these days.
In the end, what made Sophia’s decision was the fact that it was incredibly cheap. After she dropped Stunning Roar, she’d only have one Martial Technique. Adding a second one only cost thirty Wisps, and if she needed to remove it to make space that would only be another four. She might as well.
Shaped Growth
Encourage the growth of nearby complex lifeforms into a desired form. May return growth capabilities to the natural maximum if the lifeform is supplied with sufficient support. May be used to combine different lifeforms.
Unfortunately, Summon Echo and Shaped Growth didn’t completely solve her problem with missing Martial Techniques. She didn’t have anything to make her spells or weapon blows hit harder as she concentrated or “moved properly,” whatever that meant. She didn’t have anything that would let her shatter armor or cause severe Shield damage or even bypass it with more of her strike than Shield normally permitted through. She didn’t have a way to move extremely quickly or hide herself from her opponents or harden her skin so that she was nearly impervious to damage even after her Shield was gone. She certainly didn’t have a way to make her weapon glow with the fires of Gehenna; she was certain she’d never get that one.
What she had instead was another way to potentially deal damage at the same time. From what she’d read, that was a known path for Spellblades, but it was usually considered inferior because it was difficult to do too many things at once. Sophia had already noticed that; she couldn’t cast different spells from her aura and her Animated Spell Blade.
She was also bumping into mana limits, which was the other thing Martial Techniques were good for: they didn’t cost mana. There was even a type of Spellblade that used a Martial Technique to cast spells. Sophia wasn’t interested in that particular specialization, even though she could see the benefit of a slightly less powerful spellcaster that never ran out of spells.
She’d have to see how bad the summoned echo was. From the description, it could range from requiring her complete attention to something more or less autonomous that she could give general commands to. The first would be useful only because it didn’t cost mana and kept her away from the fight, but the second might well change the situation entirely.
She looked forward to finding out. She really hoped it wouldn’t be a huge disappointment like the other Martial Techniques she’d found.
She could do that after she picked the rest of her Abilities. They weren’t going to change, no matter what she found out when she tried out the Ability, so she might as well pick them. Unaffiliated was easy; all she needed to do was fill in the slot she’d bought to look at her options. There were a number of useful options, but nothing that really stood out.
Rensyn’s suggestion of another spellcasting modifier sounded good, but she could already cast spells from her aura instead of a wand without moving or speaking. The other options he considered important were not available to her at her level.
No, she was going to take Amy’s suggestion. Keep Warm was a boring choice in a lot of ways, but they were headed to Amy’s homeland. If she said that the cold was as dangerous as any enemy, Sophia was going to believe her.
Keep Warm
You retain heat better in the cold and warm up more quickly. Environmental cold must deplete your Shield before it can cause permanent damage to your body.
It didn’t hurt that it was very cheap and there was little reason to improve it past the level where she bought it; a higher level would make it easier to stay warm in the cold, but Amy’s opinion was that higher levels were for people who spent their lives in the cold; for them, the benefit of having their Shields work against the environment was what they needed.
Species was a little harder since she needed to fill both her open slot and the free slot from the Major Feat, so she skipped it to look at Spellblade. Like Unaffiliated, she only had one slot to fill and was probably not going to take any more slots before she leveled.
For that slot, she had a lot of possibilities but only three real choices. Rensyn wanted her to take Spellblade’s Blades, which was the basic weaponry Ability for a Spellblade. It was on every single spellblade list. Rensyn couldn’t explain why it was important; in fact, he was absolutely shocked that she could fight without it.