With Speed Boost active Joe was making good time towards his destination, although he figured it would still be another day or two, even at this speed. He wished Speed Boost worked on others, then he could hitch a ride on Belstak in his giant hawk form and really zoom. A new thought occurred to him, so Joe decided to test it and cast Levitation on himself, rising up into the air.
Joe started soaring through the air above the roads, trees, and rocky hills. This method didn't allow him to train his Running skill, but was faster since Speed Boost worked on his Levitation just fine. By the end of the day he was more than halfway to the area Lesfo told him the bison were seen.
Back in Rust's Edge Joe told Ferric about the newest bounty he was asked to clear. Ferric gave him the same warnings that Lesfo had about how hard it is to take down golden bison. Joe went to sleep for the night and got up before dawn to do his farming chores, raising his Agriculture another level.
Joe passed a couple of herds of regular bison during the day. Finally in the late afternoon he saw the golden bison herd. They were on the road and surrounding a wagon. The horse was killed, gored by a bison or two, the wagon's occupants, a family of elves, were on top of the wagon gathered together.
As soon as Joe was close enough he cast a second Levitation to lift up the wagon, passengers, and even the dead horse from the middle of the amped up herd. He carefully pulled them away from the bison who thankfully lost interest now that they were no longer in their vicinity. After traveling a distance Joe set everyone down and asked if they were okay.
“Yes, we only lost our horse, thanks to you. Are you one of the King's Mages?” Asked the father.
“No, I'm not from Trenos, I'm from further west. I was sent to take care of the bison problem, though, so that's what I'm here to do. Where are you all headed?”
“We're going to Trenos. We were trying to avoid the problem of the golden bison, but it looks like that caused the very issue we were running from.”
“That happens sometimes. If you'd like I can get you to Trenos right now before I deal with these bison. I don't want you to get caught up in they decide to stampede after I start attacking them.”
“You can do that?” asked the mother.
“Sure thing, I'm going to create a portal and you can just walk right through and you'll be right outside Trenos. I'll even push your wagon through since your horse has been killed.”
“How can we ever repay you?” the father asked.
Joe had a hesitant look on his face as he responded, “This is going to sound like an odd request, but can I have your horse?”
The two parents exchanged a confused look and then readily agreed. Joe did as he said he would and got the whole wagon to Trenos in moments. Joe then grabbed the horse and teleported back to Rust's Edge, sending Belstak a message about it. Joe teleported back to the road near the bison and quickly used Energy Conversion to refill his mana from his stamina.
Joe cast Levitation again, which had gained a level during the constant use the last two days, and rose above the bison again. He got close enough to cast Creature Status on one of them and saw the sheer number of hit points they had. It was in excess of 10,000. While yes his Lightning Bolt could easily do more damage than that with a single hit, that damage would be mitigated by the bison's Toughness.
Still, Joe cast Lightning Bolt anyway on the same bison he had the hit points visible for, of course also letting it branch off to hit four others. The primary target lost only a couple hundred points, and they were quickly refilling. In fact, Joe could see the manachlorian flow around then into the five injured bison indicating that they could use Regeneration, too.
Joe cast Karmic Bond, creating a negative bond between himself and the bison he was tracking. With a Deflection Field in place Joe set himself down on the ground. One of the bison immediately reacted and rushed at him with its horns aimed to attack. Joe lost a quarter of his health in the move and quickly Levitated back into the air out of the reach of the herd. The bison with the bond on it had lost a lot more hit points than Joe. Between the Deflection Field, his armor, the Karmic Bond, and his own Toughness Joe only lost around 500 hit points. The linked bison, however, lost close to 2000 hit points.
With his own Regeneration, plus half of the bison's Regeneration flowing to him, Joe's hit points were rapidly being restored. Before the bison's hit points could recover fully Joe cast Karmic Bond again, this time on another bison and then the same one again. Since it looked like the negative Karmic Bond ignored at least some Toughness, Joe pulled out his raygun and fired a lightning beam at the second bison from above.
While he had no way of knowing how much the enhanced beam from his raygun hurt the initial target, the other bison lost nearly all of its remaining hit points. The one he hit with the beam was paralyzed by it, but the severely injured one was panicked and tried to get away. An actual Paralyze spell ended that attempt. To finish it off before it healed, Joe cast Hidden Blade to take out one of his new Spell Knives, cast Cold Snap into it, and then Launched it into the animal.
One down, only sixty seven to go. Joe cast Weakness Identifier from his hat on a bison and saw its brain and heart inside its body. The heart wasn't really a valid target since their hides were extremely tough, but its brain might be easier to target. Joe landed on the head of the bison and grabbed one horn while casting Hidden Blade to pull his dragon horn dagger to his hand and jammed it through the bison's eye. No sooner had he done that than the bison flipped him off its head, but rather than landing on the ground Joe used his still active Levitation spell to rise back up over them. The bison was injured, but not enough, the blade wasn't long enough to do enough damage to the brain.
A quick Paralyze on that bison made it stop moving, so Joe was able to take aim with his raygun and shoot a beam right through its now empty eye socket into its brain, killing his second bison. A new idea in his head, Joe moved in the air to the side of the herd and cast Compress Time. Before the bison had a chance to react to his new placement he started casting Hidden Blade to take out a Spell Knife, either Cold Snap or Lightning Bolt to charge it, then Launch with it aimed directly into a bison's eye. Seven of them were looking towards him so he used that many of his knives targeting that many bison.
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Due to several seconds still passing while he was in the bubble of compressed time, Joe was able to see that the first two bison he targeted were hit, and he got CWEST notifications for their deaths. While he attacked the first seven, more turned towards him, so Joe sent out his last two spell knives to kill two more. Still, more bison were coming his way. He had enough time to get one shot with his raygun into the eye of a bison, but the recharge didn't give him time to do more.
A bison was about to enter the time compression bubble, which would end it, so Joe prepared to cast Trip on it as soon as it the bubble came down. Momentum would not be denied, however, so Joe was still launched backward with a loss of several hundred hit points before catching himself in the air as the bison hit him anyway, just not with a horn.
While in the air Joe recalled all of his knives, used Energy Conversion to refill his mana from both his hit points and stamina, and then cast a quick Healing Burst on himself to restore the hit points he was down. Since Joe couldn't cast spells on anything outside of his bubble of time he had to do some quick preparation before he tried this trick again. He moved to another side of the herd and cast the regular version of Karmic Bond on ten pairs of bison, half of each pair was on the edge of the herd.
Lowering back down to their eye level the bison began to turn towards Joe yet again, so Compress Time was cast again with all ten spell knives going out as soon as he had a clear shot. Another beam of the raygun went out to kill another bison, making twenty one kills from this bubble. This time he got hit by two bison as the bubble collapsed, nearly stunning him as the second one hit his head while he was spinning from the first impact.
The herd was down to thirty five bison, so nearly half of where it started. Another round of recalls and moving his resource pools around and Joe was ready to go again. They kept hitting him every time he was done, but using the same strategy Joe was able to take down all the remaining bison over the next few minutes.
As Joe waited for his mana to recharge he reviewed the notifications he got during the intense fight. His level went up by two, he gained a level in Pain Tolerance and Focus, but his spells saw the most improvement. Lightning Bolt, Deflection Field, Cold Snap, Hidden Blade, Paralyze, Trip, Launch, and Compress Time all went up by one level. Karmic Bond went up by 2 levels. Many of those increases offered enhancements to the spells.
Force Field (Level 15). This spell has three different versions.
In the first version this spell acts like armor for the caster. The myth that manachlorian flow is blocked by restrictive clothing likely originated from the kind of protection this spell provides. Casters simply have no need for additional armor while this spell is active. At its current level the spell will last for 15 minutes. This spell can also be cast on a second target for an additional cost of mana.
In the second version the caster can ward an area against intrusion. Sufficient force can breach the field, but so long as it remains it will restore itself from ambient manachlorian energy. Designated creatures can pass through the perimeter without effect. A breach in the field will alert the caster in their mind, waking them if asleep. The maximum area that can be warded is the spell level multiplied by the caster's Intelligence in cubic meters. At its current level the spell will last for 15 hours.
In the third version the field is impassible in either direction, even to the caster. Instead of a volume of protected space, this version is a series of planes the caster can arrange however they wish. The maximum area of fields that can be created is the caster's Intelligence multiplied by the spell's level in square meters. At its current level the spell lasts for 15 minutes.
WARNING: The first two versions are not compatible. The personal field will immediately end if passing through the ward and cannot be cast on individuals who are inside a warded area.
Mana cost: 10 mana per casting of the personal version, or 100 mana per casting of the ward or solid planes.
Karmic Bond (Level 10). This spell allows you to link one creature to one to five other creatures within 10 meters of the first target at the time of casting. What happens to one side of the link happens to the other, and vice versa. If one gets harmed the target or targets on the other side of the link takes the same damage. If one is healed the other(s) gets the same healing. This spell lasts for ten minutes at its current level.
Instead of the neutral karma, the caster could apply negative karma to the second target(s) of the spell. Negative karma would mean half of the damage done to the first target would be done to the second target(s) instead. Half of the healing applied to the second target(s) would benefit the first target instead.
Mana cost: 75 mana for neutral karma or 200 mana for negative karma
Paralyze (Level 5). This spell can prevent the target from moving or speaking for a short period of time. The target can resist the spell with the strength of their Wisdom versus the caster's Intelligence. The current level of the spell will paralyze the target for 25 seconds.
The spell can target one creature per level of the spell.
Mana cost: 125 mana
Trip (Level 5). This spell will cause the target to fall down. It does not work on any target with a higher Agility than the caster's Strength, although additional spell levels will increase the effective Strength score of the caster for the purpose of determining success.
The spell can target one creature per level of the spell.
Stamina cost: 10 stamina
Launch (Level 5). This spell causes a small hand-held object to go flying off towards a target, the damage caused by its new velocity. Up to one object per spell level can be launched at once, each one can have its own target trajectory. The speed of the object is one-fifth of the caster's Intelligence multiplied by the spell's level.
Mana cost: 12 mana
Compress Time (Level 5). This spell creates a small pocket of accelerated time around the caster. The pocket can be up to a 1 meter radius around the caster, but if any other significant animals or monsters are in the area the spell will fail. The spell compresses 1 minute per spell level into 5 seconds of time.
Non-damaging spells can be cast on targets outside of the time compression, up to 10 meters away from the caster.
Mana cost: 250 mana
Joe's new levels gave him two new spells, and of course he put his free points into Intelligence.
Caustic Chains (Level 1). This spell traps the target in chains of solid acid, preventing it from moving. Each second the target is trapped it takes damage from the acidic chains. A target with more Strength than the caster's Intelligence is not affected. Higher spell levels increase the effective Intelligence of the caster for targeting purposes. Each second the acid damage done to the target is equal to one fourth of the caster's Intelligence, per spell level.
Mana cost: 500 mana per minute
Dimension Shift (Level 1). This spell shunts the caster to a parallel dimension of shadows out of sight from the primary dimension, but able to see shadowy remnants of creatures, objects, and buildings from the primary dimension. Only land is the same between the dimensions. The spell lasts for 10 seconds per spell level.
Mana cost: 150 mana