Before beginning his next round of training, Dylan decided to check on the progress he’d made for the day; if he didn’t see the kind of improvement he expected, then he would make adjustments to how he planned to test the Wisps of Knowledge card.
The first thing he did was call up his stats.
[Statistics]
[Resilience: 26, Tier 1]
[Physical Power: 8.2, Tier 0]
[Magic Power: 28.82 (26.2+2.62), Tier 1]
[Mana: 136.4/136.4 (124+12.4)]
[Mana Regeneration: 1.302/minute (1.24+0.062)]
[Class Statistics: Resilience, Magic Power]
He was pleasantly surprised; without the support of the mana saturated environment of the Tutorial, he’d fully expected that the numbers would be lower than what he was seeing.
He was also intrigued by the variation in the way his stats had grown.
In the Tutorial, his basic stat increases had been fairly standardized. Whenever he’d noticed that his numbers had naturally gone up, he’d gained 0.3 points in physical power for every 1 point he’d gained in resilience and magic power. When he’d been rewarded by the System, the ratio had been a little different, becoming 1 point for every 3 instead, but now, there didn’t seem to be any standard rate of increase.
His resilience had gone up by 1, physical power by 0.4, and magic power by 1.2.
He’d known that targeted training could cause certain stats to change faster than others, but he was now looking at the clearest example he’d seen of the phenomenon in his own improvement. He’d noticed glimpses of it in the ways his mana and mana regen had increased in the Tutorial, but those stats had gone up too irregularly for him to create a baseline of what their “normal” growth rate should be in the same way he’d done for his other stats. The only thing he could really use to make a comparison to what he was seeing now was how the System had consistently rewarded him with 100 times more mana than regen.
And now, after the first part of his training, his maximum mana had grown by 3 and his mana regen by 0.02 per minute. The numbers were better than he’d hoped for after only a few hours of practice.
Dylan took a few minutes to reflect on everything he’d done so far that might have affected his progress. He felt the slight improvement to his normal increase in physical power was most likely related to exercising while holding energy and reaffirmed his decision to make it a regular feature in any of his future training plans. As for the rest of his stats, the bump in resilience was normal, but the other three were all higher than he’d expected.
It must be related to what happened when I was controlling the soldiers. It was the only anomaly he could think of.
Stats grew faster after meaningful or significant use, especially when that use was related to the purpose of the class they were attached to. The state he’d entered during the fight should be important. The current of mana he’d noticed circulating in his head had seemed to support the expansion and faster movement of his thoughts.
I need to pay more attention to trying to repeat that in the future.
Dylan doubted that it would be easy to do, and based on his mental fatigue after the battle had finished, he didn’t think the technique was something he should employ lightly outside of training; though, if he could master it, it had the potential to greatly improve his strength. And maybe, with enough time and practice, he could become skilled enough to use it without exhausting himself.
But that wouldn’t be a short effort.
The use of mana outside of classes and their skills was a vast field of study, and it was one he was only just now being exposed to. It wasn’t a subject that those who had yet to be initiated by the System could easily understand. He’d been given a brief introduction to it in school and nothing more. Exploring how to wield mana to best complement a person’s individual System blessings was a lifelong pursuit that often began in the various academies the newly awakened could join after the Tutorial.
Having unexpectedly found a window into a mana technique that complemented him, Dylan decided to talk to his father about the experience when he got home. He knew that the man had spent a lot of time learning how to channel mana through his muscles in conjunction with his Warrior skills to enhance their effects. The focus of the technique was different from what Dylan was aiming for, but he still hoped that his father might be able to offer some advice on where to start.
It’s all I can do for now.
Taking a deep breath and shifting his attention back to the card catalog in front of him, Dylan opened the book to check his mastery progress. He’d only seriously used five cards in the first part of his training, and considering that the majority of his cards’ previous advancement had come through battle and struggle, he wasn’t expecting too much of an increase after practicing in the relative calm of the training ground.
But again, he was surprised.
After his speculation about the reason behind the extra improvement of his magic and mana related stats, maybe he should have guessed he’d see a similar improvement in his mastery of Phantom Soldier. The card’s progress had increased from 2.87% to 5.12%.
That’s a big jump for such a short time using the card.
If he could get a handle on the mana technique he was after, Dylan began to wonder just how quickly it would allow him to improve his stats and the mastery progress of any card compatible with it.
But he forced himself to stop his wistful ideas. He was still a long way from being able to use the technique on command, and even if he succeeded in learning how to control it, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to see the kind of advancement that he’d just imagined.
There were typically diminishing returns to the improvements that could be made through repeated actions and training methods. The mana technique may help him jumpstart his progress, but after finding his initial mastery over it, the additional stat growth it could provide would begin to fade to the level of an especially heavy workout. It would still be beneficial, but if he wanted to find a way to repeat the rapid progress he’d inevitably see when first learning the technique, he’d only be able to search for it in actual combat.
The System incentivized the constant pursuit of advancement and seemed to want those it had initiated to challenge their limits; staying safe in a training facility didn’t align with the goals it had set for the people under its charge. Especially those people with classes capable of fighting.
Dylan could clearly feel that philosophy reflected in the mastery progress he saw in his other cards. Although he’d been using the Lizard Ravager extensively, its mastery had only increased to 0.26%. He doubted he’d see any real improvement with the card until he either took it into battle or found a way to enter a state of resonance with the creature like he’d done with the soldiers.
His other three cards almost weren’t worth mentioning. The Phantom Archers had gone from 7.14% to 7.21% and Giant Web had changed from 0.01% to 0.02%. The only other interesting change was that Immobilize had gone up 0.03% to reach 18.74%. It was an almost insignificant amount of growth, but it was still more than Dylan had expected with having only played the card twice.
Maybe it’s because of the Unfettered skill resisting the card’s control effect? He decided to test it more in the future. Like with the mana technique he was hoping to develop, he wouldn’t be able to get too much improvement out of repeatedly using the card interaction, but any progress was better than none.
Alright, he thought, putting away the catalog, it’s time to keep practicing.
Summoning his new deck and looking over at the training mannequins, he found all the lanes occupied and frowned. He’d wanted to use one to help gauge the wisps’ strength.
Other tests first then.
Cards flashed around him while he walked to an empty area close to the dummies. He wanted to make it easier to jump in when there was an opening. There didn’t seem to be anyone else waiting, so he didn’t think it would be too long before he got a turn.
When he reached the wall he’d used in his first test with the ravager, Dylan stopped. He didn’t have quite as much free space as he’d had in the morning; another handful of his peers had trickled into the training complex, and a group of three was doing warmup exercises not too far from him. But he still felt like the room he had should be enough.
He looked at his hand and then began to do a few simple calisthenics; before activating Wisps of Knowledge, he wanted to both build up his energy reserves and get three specific cards from his deck. Draw, Immobilize, and Giant Web.
Wisps of Knowledge would summon a wisp with every card he drew, but because the creatures could only last for two turns, if he relied on drawing a card at the beginning of each turn to summon them, he would generally be limited to having two summoned at once. If he wanted more, he’d either need to channel multiple instances of the card or use cards like Draw, which was why it was one of three he was waiting for; he wanted to test his ability to control multiple wisps at once.
As for Immobilize and Giant Web, he was planning on using them for the same test he’d performed on the ravager. The wisps’ skill, Ethereal, gave any attacks directed at them a fifty percent chance to harmlessly pass through the creatures. In addition to the conventional attacks that he was planning to test, he also wanted to explore what the definition of “attack” included by using the two control cards.
Unfortunately, because he only had one copy of Giant Web, it took a full six and a half minutes before Dylan collected everything he needed for his tests. He’d already stockpiled seven energy, making his movements difficult, and in addition to Wisps of Knowledge and the three cards he’d been waiting for, his hand held another Intermediate Energy to help maintain the channel.
Taking a deep breath, he felt a new turn begin. With a weighted wave of his arm, Dylan activated Wisps of Knowledge.
The card scattered into the familiar golden motes of light, only instead of dissipating into the air like had happened with most other cards he’d played, those motes recondensed into a shifting sphere the size of his palm. Expanding and contracting in a steady rhythm, the sphere reminded Dylan of a beating heart.
As he watched, the lights rose toward his forehead before merging into his skin. A cool sensation spread across his scalp, and he felt a web unfurl in his mind. Dozens of incomplete versions of the strings that connected him to his summoned creatures drifted with an invisible tide in his consciousness.
It was a novel feeling. The threads didn’t take up much of his mental capacity. They simply floated there. He was always aware of their existence and knew he could end the channel that maintained them at any time, but it was easy for Dylan to continue acting without their presence inhibiting him.
He sent his mind to touch one of the threads, exploring the sense of emptiness and anticipation its unconnected end transferred back. It was as if the thing was waiting for something to complete it.
When a new turn tugged at his mind, Dylan felt the energy pressure around him recede; Wisps of Knowledge had extracted its toll to continue its channel.
Good to know the timing of that. If he could predict exactly when he’d lose energy while channeling the card, it would be easier to avoid accidentally mismanaging his resources.
Dylan chose to draw and felt one of the strings in his head move. It stretched out to the new card as it was on its way to joining the others in his hand. The invisible thread brushed across the card’s surface, and then there was a muted flash of light. When it cleared, there was an additional ball of blue energy floating in the air next to Dylan.
A wisp.
About the size of two hands wrapped together, the creature gave off a barely audible hum as it exhibited the same expansion and contraction Dylan had seen in the golden sphere before it’d merged with his brow. As the wisp grew, it became more tangible, but when it shrank, the ball of light became more transparent.
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Maybe that’s a reflection of its Ethereal skill. He reached out to touch the creature. Does the chance for the skill to work follow the…the heartbeat?
His fingers reached the edge of the light and felt as if they’d become entangled in a gossamer net. When the wisp expanded, more substantial resistance pushed against Dylan’s hand, and when it contracted, its physicality seemed to recede along with its size. At its smallest, the only tactile sensation it gave off was a cool wave of air. When it expanded again, warmth slowly crept back along the fingers touching the creature.
Interesting.
He withdrew his arm and examined the thread of consciousness connecting him to the wisp. It felt hollow. Compared to those that Dylan had worked with before, it was already incredibly thin, but with the hollowness added on top of that, the thread almost felt as insubstantial as the creature it tethered.
He gave the wisp a command to circle around him and was surprised at how easy it felt. How natural.
The creature was like an extension of his body. It was different from the sensation of resonance he’d had while controlling the soldiers. In a way, it almost reminded him of guiding a Mana Bolt, but working with the wisp felt effortless.
There was neither the sense of misunderstanding he’d experienced with the phantoms when giving orders that were too complicated nor the sense of alienation he had yet to overcome when working with the ravager.
It was like there was nothing to get in the way of his will. The wisp, like the thread connecting it to Dylan’s mind, felt hollow.
When he stopped actively commanding it, the wisp froze for a moment and then began to drift back to where it had started. Its gentle hum only just enough to reach the ear.
Odd. Do I need to control everything it does?
Dylan estimated his current turn was just about to end; seeing the card he’d drawn was useless to his tests, he discarded it to make room in his hand to draw another, and when he felt the tug at his mind, he did just that.
The weight of the energy he carried receded once again, and a new wisp joined the first.
There was no additional burden to having two of the creatures summoned, and when Dylan began to move them with his mind, he found manipulating two just as easy as one.
Concerned with the question he’d just had, he gave the wisps an order move up and down in a figure eight pattern and not to stop until specifically instructed to do so.
Immediately, they began to follow the command, but just as soon as Dylan withdrew his will from the thread connecting him to the creatures, they froze and then returned to his side.
He frowned.
He tried again, but this time, he kept a trace of his consciousness touching the threads. The wisps repeatedly wrote the simple pattern in the air with their glowing bodies until a new turn began and one of them winked out of existence.
Dylan quickly played the Intermediate Energy card and then chose to draw, causing another of the creatures to appear.
Reflecting on the little balls’ behavior so far, he tried to summarize his thoughts. They’re excellent at following precise commands for as long as I actively keep them connected to my will. Otherwise, they just float next to me. He sighed. These are more like little mobile mana turrets than real wisps. But they’re easy to use and don’t actually take up much of my focus, so I guess that’s fine. Looking at the humming lights next to him, Dylan narrowed his eyes. I just need to find the minimum input they require to function.
But before doing anything else, there were still cards waiting to be played in his hand.
First, he activated Draw, creating two new wisps, and once again, the burden they added to him was almost nonexistent. Though, he did begin to have trouble issuing individual commands to each of the energy balls. Splitting his thoughts in four directions simultaneously was a challenge.
If I can master that mana technique, it’d probably help with things like this.
He switched his method and controlled all four together as a group. It was just as easy and natural as controlling one. The balls swam quickly through the air in a little clump. Chasing his success, Dylan split them into two groups of two before shifting them into a group of one and another of three, and he found that, no matter the combination, controlling two groups felt just the same as two individual wisps.
He smiled. I can work with this.
Taking advantage of having extra targets, Dylan then pulled Giant Web into his hand and played it. He watched carefully, looking for signs of Ethereal activating as the white threads reached toward the four wisps. He took special note of the stage of their “heartbeats” in order to see if it was related to the skill.
Three of the creatures were quickly entangled, but one of them was unaffected. The web passed straight through it. One “beat” later and one of the captured wisps escaped, also passing straight through the web, and soon, the remaining two followed.
The stage of the balls’ expansion and contraction didn’t seem to affect the skill’s chance to trigger, but after watching the wisps break out of the web, Dylan guessed that each cycle allowed for another chance for the skill to activate. Whether that meant that each “heartbeat” cycle only allowed for one opportunity for the skill to trigger in total or whether it allowed for one opportunity to trigger against each attack still needed to be determined.
Based on the skill’s description, though, Dylan guessed the latter. He couldn’t be sure without more testing, but it seemed more likely that the wisps’ “heartbeats” offered them an opportunity to use their skill multiple times against ongoing attacks than the alternative.
As the two extra wisps disappeared and new turn began, Dylan drew a card and looked at the Immobilize in his hand, hoping it would work. He'd already had to discard the other three copies of the card while he'd been cycling through the deck, and he was pretty sure the card's effect could trigger Ethereal. He only had one chance to play it before reshuffling his deck and didn't think instant failure would be a very useful test.
He controlled the new wisp to move in a small circle and then activated the card. The ball froze. Even its “heartbeat” stopped.
A few seconds passed, and it was still frozen. Another five and it hadn’t escaped.
It can’t get out. I wonder if that means the skill isn’t working at all anymore…
Dylan stepped forward and threw a light punch at the wisp. He didn’t want to kill it, just to try hitting it. His fist connected. The creature was more solid now than the one he’d first felt had ever been; it was like hitting a squishy jelly. The contact sent waves of warmth and cold radiating down his arm, making his skin tingle and his hairs stand on end.
Shaking the sensation from his hand, Dylan repeated the punch. And then he did it again and again. With his fourth strike, the wisp died.
He’d controlled his power as best he could, but the creature had been incredibly fragile. More so than he felt it should have been. Maybe it has something to do with its state after being frozen?
When he repeated the punching experiment on two different free wisps, they survived much longer. In addition to half of his strikes simply passing through the creatures, he found that each could endure more blows than the first had. One died with seven hits, and the other took ten.
Maybe the “heartbeat” is also a means of defense. Dylan thought. Maybe the less physical they are, the less they can be hurt. And the one I was holding with Immobilize was the most physical I’ve seen any of them.
Dylan continued to practice moving the wisps around him for another few turns, playing any energy cards he drew to extend his ability to maintain the channel. He was enjoying how fast the creatures were. Not even the ravager could compare. When he was at his most focused, the little balls of energy tore through the air almost as fast as the lizard could whip its tail.
But soon, he could no longer maintain Wisps of Knowledge. Noticing that he was almost at the end of his deck and that he didn’t have any more energy either held around him or in his hand, Dylan chose to release the channel. The floating threads in his mind disappeared, but the already summoned wisp in front of him remained, not vanishing until its full duration had expired.
Good to know.
He stretched his neck a bit and began to walk over to the training mannequins. A short boy who looked like a standard Mage was finishing up and getting ready to leave.
As he waited, Dylan drew his last few cards, Intermediate Energy, Mana Surge, and his second copy of Wisps of Knowledge. He played the first two and then reshuffled his deck. All of the cards he’d used or discarded flowed back together, and after a moment, a comfortable vibration echoed across his mind. At the same time, the Wisps of Knowledge he’d set as his Favored Card was drawn into his hand.
He checked his mana consumption.
[Wisps Summoned]
[Summoning Cost: 104 mana]
[Maintenance Cost: 5.2 mana/minute]
[Adjusted Mana Expenditure: 3.898 mana/minute]
[Total Mana: 69.069/136.4]
Dylan nodded. Even with the deck’s summoning and maintenance costs doubled, he could still last around twenty minutes before he needed to rest. If he timed things well, he could even reshuffle again and get through at least a part of a third playthrough of the deck.
After the short boy left, Dylan walked over to claim the now unoccupied lane, and as he looked around, he found the man who’d been helping channel mana into the mannequins meditating off to the side. The man needing rest was to be expected, especially after the training ground had begun to fill with more people, but it meant the dummies wouldn’t have quite the same regenerative capabilities for a while.
In order to judge the strength of his wisps, Dylan took note of what damage had already been done to his target while he adjusted its range. There was nothing particularly serious, but the front was absolutely covered with small pockmarks and abrasions.
He frowned and messed with the base of the mannequin until he found the right mechanism to turn it around. The back was still relatively free of wear and tear and would allow him to more easily see the limited damage he expected out of his wisps’ individual attacks. If the little balls of light followed the real wisps he’d read about, their advantage should be in attack speed rather than attack power.
By the time he returned to the front of the lane, a few minutes had passed, and he was almost ready to begin. He generated a point of energy at the beginning of his next turn before adding more with the cards in his hand. In another minute, he’d gathered seven energy again with two Basic Energy and two Draw cards in his hand.
“Let’s go,” he whispered to himself, activating Wisps of Knowledge.
When he drew a card at the beginning of his next turn and the first wisp appeared, he controlled it to attack the target he’d arranged fifty yards away.
With a buzzing sound, a bolt of pale blue energy struck toward the mannequin. It was like an airy thread of lightning, only instead of electricity, it was composed of pure mana.
But after about twenty yards, the energy the attack contained began to dissipate, and at forty, there was nothing left.
Dylan frowned. Shorter than I expected.
He moved the wisp forward, wanting to position the target within what seemed to be its optimal range, but he stopped short. At the same twenty-yard mark where the bolt’s energy had begun to disappear, he felt resistance from the wisp. Moving it any farther slowly required Dylan to devote more and more mental energy to controlling the creature.
Taking a breath, he pushed it forward as far as he could and found that forty yards was his limit.
It was challenging to keep the wisp there. With his current strength, Dylan didn’t think he’d be able to do it with more than two of the creatures.
He controlled it to attack while slowly pulling it back. His mental strain began to lessen as it moved, but instead of focusing on that, he paid close attention to the strength of the wisp’s bolts.
Its attack power doesn’t appear to be affected by its distance from me. That’s good. Dylan had been worried that if the strength of its bolts began to fade when they traveled more than twenty yards from the wisp, and if the wisp itself had trouble moving more than twenty yards away from his body, then the starting power of those bolts may also be less if the wisp fired them from beyond that twenty-yard boundary. But that didn’t seem to be the case. That means I can use the wisps’ full power to strike at any target within sixty yards of myself.
Even if the range was a bit limited, he felt that it should work well enough. He also speculated that the range may improve with his stats or after having a chance to upgrade the card.
It wasn’t perfect, but Dylan was satisfied. Even more pleasing, though, was the attack speed. As he’d anticipated, the summoned creature mirrored what he’d read about its real counterpart. Each strike came less than a second after the last, and with its rate of fire working in combination with the length of the bolts of mana it shot, energy rushed toward the mannequin in an almost continuous stream of delicate lightning.
When he added another wisp to the mix, he positioned the pair around the thirty-yard marker, and then he controlled them to move in seemingly random patterns while trying to hit the same point on the target with both. It was a little strenuous at first. The glowing balls were ten yards beyond what Dylan had started to call the comfortable control zone, but he slowly got used to the required effort.
After more than a minute of practice, and cycling through a few different wisps, he decided it was time to up the challenge and pushed himself by playing a Draw card.
He split the four wisps into two groups and tried to repeat his earlier exercise. It was significantly harder. Just like he didn’t think he could control more than two wisps at forty-yards, four felt like his limit at thirty. But he pushed through. Slowly getting used to the stress on his mind. Slowly getting better at maneuvering and attacking with the creatures.
After thirty seconds, he played the second Draw, and repeated the process.
In the end, Dylan was able to practice for a full three minutes before he ran out of energy and was about to lose his ability to channel Wisps of Knowledge. When his final new turn tugged at his mind and took away his last point of energy, however, he didn’t choose to draw a new card. Instead, he chose to generate. When the next turn came, he did the same.
All of his wisps were gone, but he realized that he could keep the channel going almost indefinitely off of the energy he generated at the beginning of his turn. The channel would deduct a point and then he’d add one back.
It wasn’t a useful tactic for him in the moment, but he could see a future where it would be. Once he was capable of creating a deck that could fully support the card, he’d be able to skim the energy he could generate each turn to keep the channel active but dormant in times when drawing cards and summoning wisps would be wasteful. If he kept a few energy cards in his hand while letting his held energy drop to one point, he could retain more cards in his deck for moments when he actually needed to draw them to create fighting power. Ultimately, he’d be able to save mana by limiting the number of times he’d need to reshuffle his deck, extending the total amount of time he could keep it active.
It would be useful for when he needed to participate in prolonged battles with sporadic fighting and no chance to meditate. He could draw cards to power up when he was in direct combat and then let the deck essentially be idle when he wasn’t.
When Dylan finally let go of his channel, he didn’t move. He took a series of deep breaths while working his way through his deck. There was still the second copy of Wisps of Knowledge to play.
Once he’d found it, he began another round of target practice, but it was shorter than the first because he wasn’t as lucky with drawing extra energy.
After reshuffling, he was able to play the card one last time, and for this final attempt, he pushed himself to keep the two wisps at their maximum distance of forty yards.
When he stopped just over two minutes later, out of energy and running low on mana, he was tired.
Physically, he was still fine, but after continuously pushing the limits of his control over the wisps, he was mentally drained. It wasn’t to the point of mana exhaustion, or even so bad as he'd felt after his experience with the soldiers early in the day, but he was more than looking forward to a rest.
Before he went to find a place to meditate, though, he needed to check the results of his tests, and after walking up to the mannequin, he wasn’t disappointed.
Scorch marks painted their way across most of the dummy, and in the places where Dylan had practiced focused targeting with the wisps, the tough material the mannequin was made of had been melted out of shape.
No single attack had left much of a mark to announce its presence, but three rounds of continuous bombardment was more than enough to demonstrate the wisps’ potential.
So far, the day was going well. When Dylan left the lane to search for somewhere to sit down and meditate, he couldn’t help but smile.