Amid an all-consuming war, there was a lone gravedigger. He worked day and night, digging holes into the ground. The labor was endless; in the morning, there would always be a new pile of bodies to bury. After a year of tirelessly digging, his shovel broke. However, he found that he no longer needed it to move the earth. Armed with the ability to shift the ground with his mind, he abandoned his post and ended the war on his own, digging one last giant grave for the opposing army.
Accept Sub-Skill Y/N: Minor Tactile Terrakinesis Lvl 0 - (Minor)
Under your touch, shift the earth to your whims. Variable SP cost, depending on the weight and size of the affected object as well as the speed of the induced movement.
Clover grinned at his good fortune. The Path had rewarded him with a Skill, and to make matters even better, the Skill was fueled by Stamina Points, unlocking the resource for him to now more actively utilize.
He took a moment to digest the strange story the Path had generated - for some reason, the story brought forth an unplacable sense of nostalgia in his chest. He shook his head, not dwelling on it for long.
Almost jittering with excitement, Clover accepted the Skill, sparking a shift in his soul space as a new structure appeared out of the rumbling darkness. Grown over and dilapidated as if it had sat there for hundreds of years, a tombstone - a cross - sat over a shallow grave.
Words were etched on the surface, though they were so degraded by age and the elements that they were incomprehensible - they might have well been in an alien language.
Hanging over the grave like the moon, [Lesser Golem Creation]'s inner representation, the crescent of rock with phantasmal strings dangling from it, resonated with the new structure. Between the two, strands of color filtered through the darkness of his soul, slowly shaping it into something more vibrant and alive.
Clover scratched his head, wondering why [Minor Tactile Terrakinesis] had sparked such a change when his other Skills had not. The only reasonable explanation he could come up with was that perhaps he had reached a critical mass of potential in his soul space, but even that felt flimsy.
Clover watched for a moment longer, taking in the strange beauty of the slow transformation of his soul.
Unable to contain himself any longer, Clover reached out and focused his will upon the structure. It hummed in response.
An intuitive sense buzzed in his hands; he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if he wished to move a stone, he could. Energized at the possibility of finally fulfilling his fantasy of becoming an earthbender, he reached over and pressed his left hand against the factory's wall.
As he prepared to pull at the material, Clover stopped at the last second. It would be rather rude to tear a chunk out of the Safe Zone in the name of science. It would be for the best if he took his experimentation outside, where it wouldn't bother anyone.
Shaking out his hand, he let the Skill drop. He gathered his supplies, and then, with Mr. Cat and his bag in his lap, he departed, the many-handed Golem trailing him.
Whereas before, he had attracted shocked looks and whispered conversations because of his Level, now, as he wheeled down the factory towards its entrance, those who he passed recoiled away, creeped out by the strange Golem that followed him.
“Sorry,” Clover muttered, his cheeks heating up. “It’s perfectly safe.”
His assurances didn’t seem to help the matter.
After what felt like an eternity, he wheeled out of the factory and took a breath of the fresh air. Unlike the morning, people milled about in the parking lot outside the factory.
A group of workers pushed the cars that had been abandoned in the lot into a line, forming a secondary wall within the Safe Zone’s barrier. Additionally, various people practiced their Skills - an odd display of actions and glowing bursts of magic.
Clover wheeled to his left, traveling to a more sparsely populated section of the parking lot, passing a younger woman as she carved into a tall chunk of wood with a knife. She was only Level 3, but still, he made a wide arc around the totem - it emanated a creeping impression in the ambient mana that he wasn't enthusiastic about getting close to.
General creepiness aside, the fact that he could sense the wood's aura from a distance, albeit faintly, brightened his mood. All the time he had spent meditating had somewhat improved his ability to sense mana, even when he wasn't actively using the Skill.
Clover rolled to a stop in front of a concrete curb in the middle of a parking space. He didn't know its official name; he reckoned nobody respectable did. Bending over, he placed his hand on the concrete curb; then, Clover touched upon the grave in his soul with his focus.
Like last time, an energy - different than mana, more vibrant and vital - crystalized in his hands. He willed the ground to move. To his surprise, it did. As he playfully etched small designs into the curb, a pressure built in his muscles, forcing him to strain to keep up the effect. It still felt like he had to move the weight even though he hadn't lifted a finger, a strange effect of the [Minor Tactile Terrakinesis].
Congratulations! Minor Tactile Terrakinesis has reached Level 1.
Clover continued to play with the Skill, testing its limits by creating a series of small basic shapes. His SP depleted at a steady but slow rate. He could maintain the Skill for a good while.
Congratulations! Minor Tactile Terrakinesis has reached Level 2. +1 Skill Point.
Congratulations! Sculpting has reached Level 15. +1 Skill Point.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
With a pleasant burn in his muscles, Clover picked up a lumpy sphere of concrete he had formed. Then, furrowing his brow in concentration, he pressed his will upon it, trying to form a sharp spike as quickly as he could.
Clover laughed as the concrete shifted in his grasp. It was slow. Unless he was fighting a snail, he wouldn’t be able to use [Minor Tactile Terrakinesis] offensively in a fight.
Congratulations! Minor Tactile Terrakinesis has reached Level 3.
Testing his fine control, Clover attempted to hollow out the inside of the chunk of concrete. He smiled as he worked. Moments like these, where he could forget about everything: the end of the world, his illness, the doubts of whether raising his Vitality would even help him in the long term, were what made him love magic.
The moment ended as a sharp series of coughs ripped out of his mouth. The concrete ball cracked and then crumbled, falling out of his grasp in a rain of smaller pieces.
He rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth.
In a perfect world, he’d play with [Minor Tactile Terrakinesis] for the rest of the day, but he had things to do, pressing matters eating at the edges of his attention. He still needed to make a Golem to replace his electric wheelchair before he departed for the Monster Nest tomorrow.
Clover refocused and inwardly debated what Golem prototype he should make next. Ideas of what he could do now that he had [Minor Tactile Terrakinesis] practically spilled out of his mind, but he decided to not act on them immediately.
While the sun was high in the sky, he needed to make a trip back to the hospital to retrieve another wheelchair. Of course, he could attempt to turn his electric wheelchair into a Golem, but he’d much rather make his first attempt on something more disposable to feel out the waters before committing himself.
Briefly, Clover wondered how he was supposed to find Claire and Ron for their team dinner. Their phones didn't work, so they couldn't text, and they hadn't set an exact time to meet back up. He pondered the question for a moment longer, then shrugged his shoulders. It would work out one way or another. He could worry about it once he got back from the hospital.
Clover set off, venturing past the Safe Zone's blue barrier. On the short trip to the hospital, he didn't encounter any monsters. However, he repeatedly glanced down at his wheelchair as its charge inched lower and lower. He could do nothing other than hope that the display was accurate.
Entering the building for the second time that day, Clover wheeled up and down its halls, searching for a spare wheelchair. Luckily, he didn't have to climb the stairs again. His arms wouldn't have been able to handle that. In a supply room, among other equipment of which he didn't know the name, Clover found two wheelchairs, not of the motorized variety.
After sweeping the room for monsters, he closed the door, giving him some measure of safety.
He looked at the pair of wheelchairs nostalgically, reminiscing about the time his aunt had bought him a motorized wheelchair as a birthday present after he had complained about how tiring wheeling around manually was.
She had hoped the chair would help him get out more. It didn’t.
Swallowing a lump in his throat, he hoped that she was alright. Though, once again, he couldn’t do anything other than hope. He didn’t have the time or the capability to search for her with how jumbled and dangerous the world had become. For that, he felt guilty. Maybe he was a bad person.
His nose twitched upward.
It was funny; when he looked back, he couldn't see anything other than a long list of mistakes that he wished he could change. Despite his aunt being the one to take care of him after his parents died, they weren't very close - there was a distance between them filled by grief and loss that they had never been brave enough to cross. He regretted it.
He hoped that he would have a chance to fix that one day.
Clover wheeled forward, leaving his bittersweet emotions behind, and placed his hand on one of the wheelchairs.
“[Lesser Golem Creation],” he said after he temporarily detached the many-handed Golem from his control.
He closed his eyes and focused upon his soul space as mana surged through the phantasmal thread, building a sphere of magic and potential at its base.
Clover sat back, content to watch as the System did its work. He wanted to see how it insulated the image against outside forces one more time. On the edge of a breakthrough, he knew he was missing something about the process.
The System painted with strands of color, constructing a hazy image of a horse mid-gallop. Like with many things the System did, he had no clue why it had chosen that particular animal. Maybe it was random?
In any case, he paid a particular attention to how it folded the edges of a scene, creating a protective barrier against the crushing force that would soon crash against it.
No. It didn't just build a barrier. It did more than that. The System cut the image off from contacting the rest of the canvas, encapsulating it, and in the process, compressing it. With so many moving parts, that aspect of the process had completely eluded his attention earlier.
Clover’s mouth formed an “O” as he began to understand what the System had done.
Shortly after that realization, a crushing force pressed against the edges of the image, seeking to destroy the Golem's core before it could grow past the mere seed of an idea it was now.
Clover flexed his mental muscles, fighting back the corrosive energy. In the time since his previous attempts, his ability had improved - he fought off the force without much difficulty. He suspected that this time, possibly due to the relatively simple nature of the image, it had been weaker than before.
After perhaps fifteen seconds, the sphere of magic stopped rumbling, and then, shortly after, its exterior fell away like flakes of snow, some landing on the gravestone below. Out of the sphere, a misformed and bent wheelchair was revealed. It looked similar to a five-year-old's crayon drawings, except it was made out of a metal frame.
For the foreseeable future, this would be the last time he would let the System fully take the reins in the Golem creation process. He had learned what he needed to; now, it was just down to execution. Even as he was now, he could one-up such a poor product.
Uncaring of his thoughts, mana surged within the wheelchair, animating it.
The System lightly prompted him, giving him the option of whether to allow broader sweeping changes to take place in the chair. Clover nodded, letting the magic work its well, magic.
With a rattle, the chair's metal frame bent, thickening along its four corners, and its wheels jittered something invisible about them changing.
Congratulations! Lesser Golem Creation has reached Level 8. +1 Skill Point.
As the changes came to an end, Clover poked at the Golem.
It was just a prototype. It didn't have to be perfect. As long as the concept was sound, he could work with it. Though, staring at his newest Golem, doubt began to rise up from the pit of his stomach.
“[Appraisal],” Clover said.
Congratulations! Appraisal has reached Level 8. +1 Skill Point.
Lesser Golem
Durability: 45/45
Mana: 25/25
Traits: [A Rolling Golem Gathers No Rust I]