“Just one thing before we spar, Becky. I just remembered something.”
“Fine, but hurry up, I wanna test these.” She swings her new scissors through the air a few times, testing the weight of each.
“I’m pretty sure I have more than enough now…” Opening up my stats menu, I apply 20 points to Attunement, bringing it up to a flat 500, leaving me with 5 points remaining.
For reaching your third stat milestone in Attunement, your Mana Regeneration factor has doubled!
The constant trickle of mana refilling my pool doubles in strength suddenly, flooding me with power. Expecting it this time doesn’t help me handle the influx of power.
“Holy shit.” Doing some quick mental math based off of my new value of 102.70 MP/minute, my pool of 8405 MP will regenerate from empty in just under 82 minutes.
“What is it?” Becky looks somewhat impatient about waiting.
“I had enough points finally so I hit the 500 Attunement milestone. My MP regen is 102.70 per minute now.”
Her eyes widen. “Holy shit, that’s so much higher than mine.”
Colt looks less shocked, his regen factors are insane in their own right.
“Yeah, it feels… almost overwhelming right now. So, let’s blow off some steam, shall we?” Unclipping Argo, he expands to full size in my hands.
“Argo armed and ready for a haircut!” He sounds excited.
“...Argo, you don’t have hair.”
“Oh, can I have some of yours then, Lucas? You have a lot!”
“We’ll… talk about this later, okay? We need to spar now.” Looking at Becky, she’s glaring and tapping her foot.
“Okay!”
Moving into a battle stance, I nod to Becky. She ducks down and leans forward, her two new scissors in hand with a few more floating in the air behind her.
“You can have the first move. I won’t use Skills.” Smiling at her, she grits her teeth.
“I’ll make you regret that. But first, take that shirt off, I don’t want you ruining another one.”
Looking at Colt, he shrugs so I unequip the shirt, storing it in my hold. “All set.”
“Good.” She smiles evilly before taking a single step and bursting forward in a straight line with flashing lights and color. “Run the Catwalk!”
Bringing Argo up, I guard against a lightning-fast Trim. The clang of metal on metal sounds out as her floating scissors fly at me as well.
Twisting Argo upward, I push her back and block the incoming projectiles, making sure to control my Strength so I don’t actually hurt her too badly.
“My turn.” Bursting forward at her, she twists out of the way as I swing diagonally downward. Hooking Argo around her from behind, I throw her across the grass.
She looks down at herself, noting the green grass stains on the pale blue dress she’s wearing. Her hair begins to float around her and extends to the ground, pushing into it. With astounding speed she dashes toward me once more.
Guarding a sequence of Trims, I kick out, knocking her backward.
She stands up, looking even angrier than before. “Meet the Deadline!” She moves so fast she begins to create afterimages of herself. Trails of cloth float around her as she speeds at me, moving to ensnare me.
Ballasting my weight, I dodge around each of the cloth snares before coming up to meet Becky’s strike head on. She moves so quickly that she scores a small cut on my arm with her essence thief shears. While the cut isn’t very deep, I feel the effects of lifesteal as my prana itself is sheared away.
Swinging again, I catch her in the side and send her tumbling once more, controlling my Strength within what I hope are the limits of her Endurance.
She’s smiling when she gets up though, making me suspicious. Stepping forward, I realize too late that I can’t as I notice my boots are magically sewn to the ground. Becky strikes out once more.
Dodging to the side by ballasting my weight, I’m too slow for her Skill-enhanced speed. She doesn’t catch me in the torso like intended, but instead, I feel blistering pain erupt from the end of my arm.
We both look down my left arm in shock to see she’s Trimmed through my wrist and my hand is laying on the ground. The magical bindings on me break and I collapse to the ground, letting out a small scream.
Ignoring the commotion around me, I focus all my efforts on using Promethean to staunch the bleeding and begin regrowing my hand. It gets easier when I feel Colt’s now-familiar Healing Meadow begin to restore my prana reserves.
Looking up once I’m past the point of pain, Becky’s face is riddled with guilt, Colt looks scared, and apparently, Adreanell and Cassandra arrived at some point as Cassandra is standing at my side, inspecting my hand as it regrows.
“Lucas! Can you hear me?” Cassandra is shaking me now, returning me to focus.
“Yes.” Saying it through gritted teeth, I meet her eyes. Argo reclips on my ear after I notice him panicking as well.
“Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it, but take this too.” She hands me a larger piece of her healing candy. Without even Inspecting it, I pop the candy in my mouth and bite down, releasing the healing qualities.
Time passes far slower than it should for me, but eventually, my hand is fully regenerated. Flexing it a few times, I shake it to get rid of the pins and needles sensation.
Looking to Becky, she doesn’t meet my eyes and instead looks at the pair of scissors in her hand. What I recognize as the voracitite scissors of before are now an extremely pale silvery orange in color and the blades have lengthened by several inches.
“You, uh, made some sharp scissors, Lucas.” She stares off into the distance, clearly feeling guilty.
Turning to everyone else, I address them. “You think you guys could give Becky and me a moment?”
“Oh, uh, sure.” Colt stands up and dusts himself off, walking inside through the back door.
“Yeah, of course. Just let me know if you need anything, okay, Lucas?” Cassandra stands up, frowning at some silvery blood on her witch robes.
“Sure thing, Lucas.” Adreanell walks past Becky and squeezes her arm lightly, smiling at her. She doesn’t return the gesture.
Once everyone is inside, I equip my shirt again quickly before I approach Becky and pull her into a hug. She stiffens but slowly returns the gesture before beginning to cry.
“I didn’t- I wouldn’t-”
“It’s okay… You didn’t mean to do it. I dodged using a Perk so I was at a really odd angle for you.” She sobs as I hug her tighter as I shush her.
“Why’d you have to make such fucking sharp scissors, damnit.” She lightly pounds a fist on my shoulder before letting out a mix of sob and awkward laugh.
Chuckling myself, we both begin to fall into laughter, falling to the ground and laying on our backs next to each other. Nothing is funny, but we both need this laughter.
Level up! Slash resistance has reached (3/100)!
The Construct notification brings me back to reality.
Sitting up once more, I cringe as I pick my hand up from the ground and turn to Becky. Standing up, I hold it down at her. “Need a hand?”
She glares at me. “You would be the type to make that joke right after something like this.” She dusts herself off as she gets up on her own, ignoring my morbid joke.
Smiling at her, I stow the hand away for now. It has Palemetal in it so I don’t exactly want to just leave that laying around. Looking at the grass we’re standing in, silvery white blood covers spots of grass.
Reaching out to it with my Hydromancy to try and clean it up, I find I can’t control it. “You head inside, Becky, I’m gonna try something.”
“Okay, but first. Why do my scissors have Palemetal in their description after they absorbed your blood? I thought you have Titanium Blood.” She looks at me critically.
“Ilmarinen… told me not to tell anyone. Apparently, I can be hunted for this.” Checking around, I make sure no one is listening to the best of my ability.
“It’s that rare?”
“I guess so. When I first brought back the Palemetal scale that Argo is made from, Ilmarinen said making Palemetal is a lost art.”
“Oh. Well, I guess I understand why you kept it secret, but Adreanell and Cassandra will find out eventually if they Inspect my scissors, so you should tell them before they get mad at you for keeping secrets.”
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“...You’re right, but first, there’s something magical I want to try.”
“Can I watch?” She sounds excited.
“Uh, sure. Maybe you can learn it too.”
Explaining my game plan to her, she nods to me. “That sounds like something I’d like to know how to do. It seems useful for my new scissors.”
“Yeah, it probably would be.”
Turning to the grass, I reach out with my Hydromancy once more. It’s almost similar to controlling magical metals with Metallomancy, which also gives me an idea.
Combining the two together, I try to visualize what I know of blood. It runs through my veins, delivering oxygen to my every cell. It contains precious nutrients for me as well. And now, it probably even contains my prana to some extent.
Opening my eyes, Becky still has hers closed, performing visualization techniques as well.
Reaching out to touch my blood once more, I even focus on using Mystic Metalwork. My blood has Palemetal in it after all.
Nothing happens once again. Becky and I keep at it for about a half hour. She realizes that my blood is too magical for her to even attempt to control, so she uses her scissors to bloodlet herself and try to control that instead.
Finally, I hit a breakthrough moment and everything finally clicks together. The Palemetal Blood around me rises from the ground, leaving the grass clean in the process.
Congratulations Lucas Creo! For manipulating the lifegiving flows of blood, you have gained the Skill: Hemokinesis!
Congratulations Lucas Creo! Your perk Elemental Dominion has caused a Skill Upgrade to occur. Your Skill: Hemokinesis has become Hemomancy!
Affinity Acquired: Low Blood Affinity 1/100!
“I did it!”
Becky opens her eyes, staring at the floating orb of blood. “How? This is hard.” She pouts.
Taking the time to explain all my visualizations and showing her the mana flows of Hemomancy, she tries to mimic the same but puts her own spin on it.
About 10 minutes later with my extra coaching, her own blood finally lifts into the air. She smiles happily.
I’m still floating my own orb of blood around, practicing new Skill ideas with it. Becky turns to me. “Hey, Lucas. Think I could… power up my scissors more?” She indicates to my orb of Palemetal Blood.
“Oh, sure.” Floating it over to her, she pokes the scissors into the orb. Their color shifts even paler, only the slightest hints of orange indicating its original color now. We both watch in amazement as the scissor blades grow even longer. They’re about 8 inches long now.
“Oh. That’s sad. I just got a message, I think my scissors are sick of your blood. They want something else now.” She frowns, looking at the small remainder of blood still suspended in the air.
“That’s somewhat creepy. Maybe I’ll avoid making voracitite stuff in the future, wouldn’t want any unknowns catching on that I’m such a big source of Palemetal.” Taking a bottle out of my hold, I store the small excess of my blood in it. I’ll use it in potions or something.
She shrugs. “Maybe I can convince Colt to give me some of his blood. Hey, if your blood is so valuable, what happens if you use Hemomancy to make more?”
“I haven’t tried yet. Let me just…” Focusing on creating more of my Palemetal Blood, nothing happens. Activating the Skill normally, a small orb of normal red blood forms in the air. Becky pokes it with her scissors, but nothing absorbs.
“Damnit, my scissors are picky now.” She looks upset at that prospect.
“I’m just confused why I can’t create more Palemetal Blood. My health regen restores it normally, I think.”
“Maybe because it’s magical. Have you ever tried making Palemetal with Metallomancy?”
“Huh, I don’t remember if I have.” Trying quickly, I find I’m unable to, even with my fairly innate understanding of the metal at this point. Attempting the same with other magic metals I’ve made, I find that I can’t.
“Hm. I guess magical metals can’t be created with Skills. There must be some missing aspect to the Skill and it can’t mimic the magical qualities. My Palemetal Blood is way harder to control than the regular blood Hemomancy can create too. I think my Mystic Metalwork Perk is the only reason I can control it at all.”
“Try controlling my blood.” Becky gestures to herself.
“Uh. You sure?”
“Mhm.”
“Well, okay…” Reaching out, I hit a barrier when I try to touch her blood with my Hemomancy. “Damn. That would have been powerful if I could do that. It’s like there’s a wall there and I can’t touch it. Wait, what if you have a cut?”
She frowns at me but makes a quick cut in her arm with a regular pair of scissors. Reaching out, it’s far tougher to do anything with but I can control the blood that’s outside her body.
Focusing on it with my magical senses, her prana pervades the blood, which must be the reason I have such a tough time controlling it. This gives me an idea, however.
Focusing my own prana towards my hand, I make a cut in my palm using Hydromancy and pull out some of my own blood.
“Wait, what are you doing?” She backs up slightly as I bring my hand towards the cut in her arm.
“Just trust me, okay? I think I’m on to something.”
Pressing it on to her cut, I focus the prana through my blood. A dull red glow emanates from my silver-white blood and her cut seals up instantly.
Congratulations Lucas Creo! For pulling on the force of your own prana to enhance the healing of another with blood as the conduit, you have gained the Skill: Transfusion!
Level up! For developing your first healing Skill using a technique that employs a prana cost instead of a mana cost, your Talent: Adept Mage has reached (4/50)!
“Okay, that was super gross but it worked! ...You don’t have any bloodborne diseases, do you, Lucas?” She glares at me.
“I’m not sure that’s even a concern anymore with The Construct. Have you even seen a single sick person?”
“Hm. I guess not now that you mention it, but it’s still gross.” She uses some Hydromancy to clean my blood off of her. Not taking any chances, I store away any traces of my blood leftover in the same bottle as before.
“Prana really doesn’t like to leave the body, I have to use blood as the medium. It’s a Skill now though, so the process is probably easier.”
“What a messy way to heal someone… Try the Skill on me.” She makes another cut in her arm.
My eyes widen. ‘This crazy bitch.’ The cut in my hand has already sealed up with my health regen, but I ignore that to see what the Skill does. Touching my palm to her cut, I activate it. “Transfusion.”
A small pinch in my hand tells me that my blood cut through the skin on its own, likely a function of the Skill. A steady flow of prana comes out of me.
This time, once I detect that the cut is sealed I pull my blood back into me with Hemomancy, focusing the same healing force on closing my own wound.
“Wow, this is fairly effective for spot-treatment healing. Not sure of everything I can do with it, but it’s certainly nice to have a healing Skill.”
“Can you teach it to me?” She goes to make a cut in her own hand but I stop her.
“Jesus woman, stop mutilating yourself. I have a Perk called Promethean that lets me control prana. You can probably control it anyway with enough practice, but I wouldn’t even know where to start on educating you there. It just comes naturally to me since having the Perk.”
“So if I learn to control prana you’ll teach me?”
“Uh, I guess so. I’m sure there are easier healing Skills out there. This one costs prana instead of mana too.”
“I need my mana for fighting, sealing up a wound instantly like that with prana sounds way more useful.”
“Well, the red blade on your scissors is called pranasteel. Maybe you can learn something about prana by experimenting with that blade. For now, let’s just go inside. Everyone’s gonna start to get concerned otherwise.”
“I’ll practice inside then. Oh, and Lucas?”
“Yeah?”
“...Thanks for not freaking out at me for… cutting your hand off.” She looks awkwardly to the side, twirling a lock of hair in her fingers.
“This is unfortunately not the first time I’ve lost a limb. I didn’t realize how sharp your Trim is though.”
“Trim amplifies the sharpness of the weapon I use. You made really sharp scissors, so the Trim had way more cutting power. Besides, I think I got right in your wrist joint, so there were only a few tiny carpal bones to cut through.”
“I had my entire leg cut off by a giant star reaper mole once. Oh, and a tempestwing bat cut me in half. So, just my hand isn’t that huge to me. We’re good, don’t worry.”
She breathes a sigh of relief before her face turns to shock. “Cut in half?”
“Oh, yeah. Funny story, that one.” As we walk inside I tell her both about when the star reaper mole cut my leg off and when the tempestwing bat shot a wind blade that sliced me in two.
“Lucas, your Echinowhatever Flesh is fucking OP. Normal people don’t survive being cut in half.”
“Who knows, you might at this point. Not that I’d recommend trying, it’s not a very pleasant experience.” Shrugging, I cringe at the memory.
“Well, whatever. Being cut in half isn’t fashionable at all, so I’ll just make sure it doesn’t happen to me.” She flips her hair over one shoulder as if to indicate the topic is over.
“Sure sure. Let’s hope that’s the case.” I knock on wood as we enter the house through the back door, just in case she jinxed herself.
Adreanell and Cassandra are standing around while Colt begins to set up what I assume are the beginnings of shelves for our shop in the main room.
We approach them, assuring everyone that we’re both fine now, and tell them about gaining Hemomancy.
Colt chuckles slightly. “Only you would turn losing a hand into a new Skill opportunity.”
“True. Oh, and I have something to tell Adreanell and Cassandra.”
“Oh?” Cassandra adjusts her hat slightly. Her witch outfit is clean of my blood somehow already.
Explaining my Palemetal Blood Perk to them, they nod along.
“I get why you had to hide it, but I doubt knowing you have it is that dangerous of information for us to have.” Adreanell smiles, assuring me she’s not mad.
“Yeah, I just worried after Ilmarinen told me that I could be hunted down for it.”
“That’s a fair worry. Your secret is safe with us.” Cassandra winks, eliciting a slightly jealous expression from Colt who moves imperceptibly closer to me.
“Well, the day isn’t over yet, and I still have some blacksmithing I wanted to do. Did you guys need anything?”
“Well, actually, speaking of blacksmithing, I did some asking around. I’ve compiled this list of commonly used weapons, replacement rates, and wishes for aspects. I’m not sure you can fulfill all these demands, but it should give you some ideas on what to work on for our stock.” Cassandra offers me a few sheets of paper, cleanly detailed in her neat script.
Taking the papers from her, I glance through some of them quickly. Fire aspects are unsurprisingly popular, and there’s a pretty heavy emphasis on swords in general too. A large notation for spears makes me think Mary will be wanting our services often for her dojo.
“Got it, this will help me a lot. Thanks, Cassandra!”
“No problem. I have some candy to make, so I’m gonna head home. You staying here or going, Adreanell?”
“I’ll stay for a bit. I bought some gems from the Shop and Ilmarinen said he’d teach me how to cut them.” She pulls a small red gemstone chunk from her vault, showing it to us.
“I wonder if you can cut aspect crystals.” Pulling one out of my hold at random, I offer her the pale blue crystal, an ice aspect.
“Hm, I can certainly try. I wonder if there’s a technique to keeping the aspect while I cut off pieces.” She considers while she walks towards my forge.
“No way of knowing until you try, or ask Ilmarinen I guess but where’s the fun in that?”
She nods in agreeance. Becky decides to join us and work on her clothes in the forge room once more. Colt decides to continue setting up his outdoor patio seeing as Becky and I interrupted that process with our spar.
Waving bye to Cassandra, she heads back home.
Cracking my knuckles, I look to the list Cassandra gave me to figure out what to make next. Noticing one that looks fun to make, I smile. “Let’s get to it then.”