Barry’s hands shook in anticipation as he popped the latch of only his second ever platinum loot box. Smoke flowed out from within the chest and Barry quickly wafted it away with his hands. Within the box was a single, tiny white pill that emanated a strangely powerful aura for such a small item.
“What is this?” thought Barry as he scratched his head, “A drug?” Barry stopped himself, he didn’t even know why he bothered trying to decipher these things himself when he had a perfectly good race skill available that could give him all the answers he could hope for.
Soul progression pill (epic): An extremely rare and sought after pill that provides one free level to either soul magic or soul item, provided the user is below level 20. Only one epic progression pill can be consumed per individual.
If Barry read that right, then this tiny pill, barely the size of his fingernail, would automatically advance him a level in either soul magic or item. That was an incredible time saver, and was particularly useful as it would put him to level twenty in either of the stats, a level that Barry hoped may provide him with a new ability. It almost felt like illegal doping, but then again the gods had rewarded him with this so it couldn’t be too bad could it? Barry thought about it and eventually decided that he would be stupid not to consume the pill immediately, heck he’d been pumped full of so many drugs as a patient through his life that this small tablet was the least of his worries. With that, he popped the pill and swallowed it. Immediately, he felt a surging of power travelling down his throat before reaching his stomach and dispersing. As the energy flooded his system he felt a message enter his mind.
Soul progression pill (epic) detected. Do you wish to progress soul magic or soul item level?
After some thought, Barry decided to advance his soul magic level, given it was the most recent to progress, and therefore would likely take longer to move up further. So with that he mentally selected soul magic, and he felt the familiar rush of a level up enter his soul.
Soul magic has reached level 20. Magic usage has progressed from basic to novice. Combination skills now available.
Soul magic level 20 achieved – Milestone ability granted:
Ability choices:
1. Reality stone: Create a real or illusionary tower of stone from the earth. Number and size of earthen towers increases based on soul magic level.
Barry blinked as he examined the information.
“What does it mean by basic to novice? And what are combination skills?” he thought as he scratched his head.
Those thoughts were soon replaced with joy as he started examining the ability description. Despite the fact that he only had one skill set that he could choose, like back at the start of the training grounds, it sounded like a hell of a skill. If Barry read it correctly, the ability appeared to be able to swap between being a true creation of stone, or a simple illusion. And it sounded like it utilised his second affinity type to do so, earth.
“Perhaps that’s what a combination skill is, one that utilises two different affinities?” Barry thought.
Until now Barry had mostly forgotten about his earth affinity. He had speculated that his remote chain skill was in part linked to this affinity, allowing him to summon it from locations of earth, but the link was subtle at best. On the contrary, this new skills link to the affinity was about as subtle as a sledgehammer, and Barry loved every bit of the description. Without a second though he selected the skill and the moment the information entered his body he immediately activated it. Suddenly, a few metres in front of him a one foot wide column of earth shot upwards over five metres in the air.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” grinned Barry as he felt the rock solid stone creation with his hand.
Then, on instinct, he altered it to make it swap from a real column to an illusion. Less than a second after he made the mental switch he felt the stone sink down and be replaced with an identical illusion that his hand was able to pierce through with ease. With a grin that was bolted on Barry started summoning earthen columns all around himself to test the extent of his new ability.
After the fourth column rose up to the height of a metre it suddenly stopped still and refused to grow any further. Barry’s smile was transformed into a frown at the sight, and he quickly realised his mana had completely emptied. He’d been so distracted by the thrill of the new skill that he forgot to track his mana usage.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“How did my mana run out so quickly?” thought Barry, “I haven’t had mana issues for ages. Does this skill really have that high of a mana requirement compared to my other skills?” Barry pondered this as he thought back to his chats with Knob in the past.
His friend had often been surprised at how much Barry could use his abilities with such a comparatively low mana level.
“Perhaps illusion abilities are quite mana sparing,” thought Barry.
He guessed it would make sense, as useful as his skills were, they weren’t nearly as dangerous as some of the magical abilities he had seen. For example, the ice wraith was able to summon howling winds and create avalanches, whilst the best Barry could do was change positions with his clones or create pretend chains as a distraction. Hell, some of Peltra’s villagers had some strong damaging attacks even at their weak levels. Maybe it was fair enough that those more obviously powerful skills had greater requirements and costs.
“I guess I’ll just have to use the skill sparingly,” thought Barry as he turned his attention back towards the tree of life.
The tree had continued to grow for the past couple of minutes whilst Barry had been distracted by his level up, and by now it was unfathomably massive. Its trunk had started to extend out past the platform that had once dwarfed its miniscule sprout. The width of the base of the tree was broadening by the second, and Barry soon had to take a couple of steps back to avoid being pushed aside. Having seemingly completed the dungeon, Barry decided now was the time to exit before was crushed between the tree and the large stone walls. The tree continued to grow outwards as he started climbing. Each branch was now so far apart from the next that it was impossible for Barry to reach, so instead he was forced to climb up the large, thick slabs of bark that covered the outside of the trunk. Before long Barry had managed to clamber up over thirty metres, but worryingly the speed at which the trunk expanded was faster than he was, and he was being pushed closer and closer to the solid wall. Barry doubled his movements and started launching his chain up and around bits of bark to pull himself up even quicker. But still the wall drew closer. He created a number of small barrier footholds to be used as floating stepping stones. But it wasn’t as simple as he would’ve liked, as the tree kept pushing out and breaking his barriers.
As he started to sweat, Barry popped a couple of mana berries and some moss out of desperation to allow him to utilise his duplication and clone transfer skills to jump up once before his mana depleted again. Finally, Barry could see the top of the rock wall not too far ahead of him. But the wall itself was now so close that Barry could nearly reach out and touch it. With a frantic last effort, Barry unravelled the maximum length of chain that he could muster and he launched it up, aiming to hook it onto a protruding piece of bark just above the height of the wall. Ever since he had first started using his chains he had been able to feel a growing connection to them. He felt a presence within them, like a power that was just waiting to be tapped into. The more he used them, the stronger this feeling grew. As the chain ascended he drew upon this feeling and he willed the chain to move of its own accord. Suddenly, the chain responded. It felt like a subtle drum beat was vibrating down the length of the chain and back into Barry’s hand.
“Not a drum beat... A pulse!” thought Barry as the end of the chain moved of its own accord, shooting up with greater velocity and looping itself around the bark that Barry had aimed for, before immediately retracting itself back into his hand.
Barry got a shock from the sudden movement, but he didn’t feel any I’ll intent, so he let it do it’s thing. The rapid retraction dragged Barry upwards at speed, allowing him to easily clear the quickly approaching wall. As his feet passed over the top of the wall, the chain moved to extend horizontally, whilst still connected to him through his palm, before gently lowering him onto the top of the wall. At the same time the trunk of the tree crashed into the side of the stone surface of the wall with an earth shattering rumble, forever blocking all access to the four corridors below. He had recently traversed.
“Phew,” sighed Barry with relief, before he looked down at his hands with a frown, “But what the hell just happened with my chain?”
As if on cue, his chain flooded with energy and he received a series of messages in his mind.
Soul item has reached level 20. Item usage has progressed from basic to novice. Item ‘Aura chain’ has awakened.
Soul item level 20 achieved – Milestone ability granted:
Ability choices:
1. Chain multiplication: Upon activation the item aura chain will multiply from the users palm, creating a group of identical, powerful chains. Number and size of chains increases with soul item level. 1 hour cool down.
Again there was a lot to take in with all the messages. But the line that truly caught his eye was the line about his chain ‘awakening’. “Did have something to do with that strange pulse feeling he’d felt as the chain seemed to make some movements of its own accord. Out of curiosity he summoned a metre of chain between his two hands and brought it to his face for closer inspection. At first it seemed like there was nothing interesting to be seen, but as he kept watching he spotted a change. The chain pulsed suddenly, yet subtly. As it did so a small wave of movement stretched across from one link to another, like someone shaking the dust from a towel.
“What was that?” exclaimed Barry with surprise.
As he kept watching, the chain intermittently repeated this same small movement at intervals of about ten seconds.
“Its like it’s alive, like it’s breathing,” thought Barry with a small amount of concern.
After a while he decided to swing the chain to the side towards the tree, in a lax attempt to hook onto the protruding bark again. As he did so he felt a connection between his thoughts and the chain, and the chain responded by altering it’s trajectory mid air and smoothly looping around the bark. Although he was still extremely confused, Barry was thoroughly pleased with the results of his items awakening.
“Its like its got a mind of its own,” he thought as he retracted it back to a metre in length and decided to activate his new ability.
The moment he activated ‘chain multiplication’ he saw the chain separate into six separate versions of itself and spread outwards into the air. With his new control he found he could direct each version of the chain individually, as if striking multiple enemies, or as a group, as if using the chains to loop around a foe and completely entrap them. Instantly recognising the usefulness of the skill. After testing out the new control he had over his chain for a few minutes Barry retracted it back into his hand and made his way back towards the tree. With a look up and a shrug of his shoulders he started his climb the hundreds of metres up to the top of the tree. Strangely the high climb didn’t bother Barry in the slightest, with everything he’d been through a possible fall was the least of his worries. And with his new chain control he felt confident that if he slipped he would easily be able to regain his control. After over half an hour of near vertical climbing Barry had finally made it to the floating horizontal exit door and he pushed upwards and through, back into the training grounds.