CHAPTER 257 – SMALL ADVANTAGES

Tom placed his sleeping roll down. Despite the use of his various skills to keep himself perked up, he could feel the exhaustion lurking underneath the false energy provided by Caffeine Jolt.

Later, he told himself. First thing to do was eat and then he could catch up on his rest. No one was looking at him. He hid his hand from everyone and looked down at it. A single finger turned blue.

He smiled.

The stone had been incorporated successful which meant its properties would be fully visible. Once more, he glanced around the room to confirm he wasn’t needed. The place was secured and everyone, excluding Rahmat who was on watch at the entrance were happily chatting as they constructed a fire. They looked relaxed and in good spirits, but that wasn’t as important as the fact he had a window to check on his gains and to choose what to do next.

He stepped into the system room and the details of the blue rock he had successfully absorbed were shown prominently on the wall.

Crystalline Riebicate - Tier 0 - Occupying a single slot.

This rock performs at similar levels to the default pattern of the Living Rock skill across strength, durability, abrasion resistance, and brittleness. In addition, it conveys the following bonuses and negativities.

* Plus 78% resistance to arcane magic.

* Fire and lightning vulnerability. Compared to your standard human body both magical and natural sources will inflict fifty percent more damage.

* All other magic types will do 2% more damage relative to standard stone.

It was very much as he had expected, but as he looked deeper and teased out the underlying truths he frowned. There were no surprises, but the details, the fine text were concerning. If he was using the Riebicate pattern for Living Rock and a fire ball hit him, it would impact him more.

That was simple enough, but those statistics referred to him at this point in time.

The stone did not scale with the rest of his body’s development. If his vitality doubled, the injury inflicted by a flame missile would be less than what would happen now. However, the impact on the living rock would not change.

The relativities would get worse as he got stronger.

As useful as this Riebicate was now against arcane casting monsters, long term, it would need to be discarded. Eventually, as his vitality improved and skills artificially boosted his resistances fire and lightning spells instead of doing fifty percent more damage to the stone as opposed to his natural flesh, they would start doing two or three hundred percent more.

Likewise, the seventy-eight percent reduction would become less useful. If his magic resistance, which was currently zero improved to thirty percent, then the positive benefit he was receiving would only be forty-eight percent. Benefits would reduce while downsides would increase.

Tom frowned.

He was still encased by the metal walls of his system and one hand went blue and the other grey. They looked the same and felt similar when he moved them, but their fundamental properties were quite different. For now, it was a massive upgrade, but long term, its benefits would drop. He was sure there were old masters who got to this threshold benefit and were devastated by the uselessness of it. Then again, because it would be earned instead of achieved via the title shortcut, they would possess two times more slots than him. That would let them absorb the patterns of six tier ten stones.

Maybe… the benefit would maintain its usefulness. He would just need to source appropriate materials to stay ahead of his body fortification.

Next, he checked the other samples of rock that he had grabbed over the day. It was all a mental construct, but a table appeared in front of him with the different rock samples orderly laid out. The small separate pieces of the single high tiered stone they had found and the various irregular ball sized lumps he had picked up of the other types.

Tom assessed them with a clear mind. Four he abandoned because they provided no tangible benefit. They would sacrifice a bit of strength for a reduction in brittleness. Another ramped up abrasion resistance at the cost of all the other physical properties. He struggled to think of examples where they were an upgrade and the situations he found were so niche they weren’t worth considering. The useless varieties vanished from the table and only left the three samples that were worth incorporating into his repertoire.

First, he touched the small chunks of stone and the description or at least the best his own skills could create appeared on the wall.

Black Kaolsgenite – Tier 3 – requires 4 slots.

This rock is known for its strength, durability and difficulty to break. It is also resistant to most environmental hazards such as acid, heat and cold however benefits come with a general vulnerability to all types of magic.

Tom tapped the material. He had the required volume and was definitely going to absorb it. The level of usefulness would depend on the level of the positives and the size of that negative. There was no point using the pattern if the magic vulnerability was so significant that a stray spell that would normally bounce off him would kill him instead. Who was he kidding. If the defence against physical attacks was a doubling of his resistances, then he would take it. He was experienced enough to know that sometimes battles ended up being a hundred percent physical… at least if sapients were not involved. Being able to absorb blows that would otherwise cripple him was too huge of an advantage to relinquish.

Part of him wanted to leave the system room and start the process. He stopped himself. He needed to review everything before making decisions.

There were two rocks to go. One a pale white and the other a lilac.

Hanarenkoite – Tier 1 – Requires two slots.

This rock provides significant resistance to heat, both from magical and natural sources.

It has vulnerabilities too acid and air-based erosion spells.

Lilac Calarkite – tier 0 – Requires 1 slot.

This stone is physically weaker than Living Rock’s base stone, but conveys heightened magical resistance.

Tom agreed with that last description. If anything, it didn’t go far enough, the stone was better than chalk, but not by much. He reckoned that if his fingers nails were longer, he could have used them to carve patterns in it.

However, if the strengths and weaknesses were balanced as he expected, then he wondered what such a significant downside would mean for Carlarkite’s magical resistance bonus. What precisely did that word heightened mean?

Tom glanced over the three options and assessed them. Now that the first slot had been filled, he got an updated intuitive feel for how long each of them would take to absorb. The tier zero would require half of a day, the tier one twenty-four hours and the black Kaolsgenite a full four days, and it was only four because of his affinity to earth. For stones with magical properties, those time lines would increase.

With those timelines and the benefit of each of the rocks, it was obvious which one he should pursue. Since he had got the spell, the default pattern had been more than strong enough to deflect all the physical attacks that had landed. He did not need to enhance that component of Living Rock just yet, which meant it was safe to delay the absorption of the Black Kaolsgenite.

He returned to the real world and produced the lilac stone out of his soul storage. The faster he got it together. It felt almost soft in his hands but when he manipulate it, he could feel the resistance. It was surprisingly difficult to shape it into the loop to place around his neck.

“What are you up to, Tom?” Michael asked when he spotted what Tom was doing.

“Practising for domain control.”

“No, you’re not.” The healer said immediately.

“No really. This stone resists magic. By using it I…”

“Bullshit,” Michael interrupted gruffly. “That’s a lie.”

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“It’s not,” Everlyn confirmed. “Or at least that stone type is highly magical resistant.”

“See. This is for domain practice.” Tom stuck out a tongue.

“But that’s a lie.” Everlyn said grinning.

“What? Are you serious?” Tom bluffed. “Do you have some sort of truth telling ability.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t but one of us should definitely get it. But I know you’re lying.”

“And how’s that?”

“You’ve got a new skill and that stone collar is related to it. See.” She pointed at him. “He’s not denying it.”

“And how do you know this?” Michael asked.

Everlyn waved the question away like it was irrelevant. “It was obvious. Tom when fighting has been turning patches of his skin grey to help deflect attacks. Then earlier he turned his hand to the same shade as the blue collar he was wearing. Am I right?”

Rahmat stirred and looked at Tom with a lot more interest. “When did it happen? Is it a domain?”

Tom gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head to answer the second question.

“He had it when we entered this zone.” Everlyn answered. “I didn’t see it before then. I’m guessing he got some sort of breakthrough just before we ran into Selena’s squad.”

“Really, I’m blind?” Toni interjected. “Did he use it in every battle. And what grey was it? Metallic?”

“I bet it’s some special skin thing.” Thor suggested. “You know he already has a couple of skills specific to skin. Maybe he merged or evolved them to gain extra functionality.”

“Or he got bored on sitting on all that experience and purchased something out of left field.” Harry said with a wink in Tom’s direction to show he wasn’t serious.

“It’s clearly an evolution of partial stone skin.” Keikain interrupted, sounding annoyed. “You said grey, like stone didn’t you?”

Everlyn ignored the earth mage’s question. “Instead of us all playing a pointless guessing game maybe Tom can just tell us.”

“But that’s nowhere near as fun.” Tom argued.

“Spit it out, already. Tom.” She sighed extravagantly.

Tom smiled. He couldn’t help himself. “I managed to evolve three skills together.”

“You did what!” Michael thundered. He slapped his own leg. “That’s it. I need to invest more in fate. I’ve been tossing up options, but that’s the first trait I’m getting.”

“Same,” Everlyn’s said still staring at Tom. “So you evolved three skills. Which ones and what did you end up with?”

“Maybe a demonstration,” Tom suggested as he jumped to his feet. He remembered Harry’s earlier teasing. “Here, let me help you up.” He offered a hand to the ritualist who didn’t look like he wanted to move. As he did so, his magic rippled and his entire arm had converted to the very distinctive blue rock.

Harry looks slightly confounded by the offer. “I was comfortable…” he shrugged. “Fine.”

The ritualist accepted the rock hand and then gripped it tightly as Tom pulled backwards to help lift him to his feet. Halfway up, Tom switched from the static to the living version.

Harry dropped the hand like he had been burnt and fell back onto his bum. “What the hell was that!” He was staring at his own hands suspiciously. “Warning next time. That was creepy.”

Tom chuckled and held up his still blue arm and wiggled the fingers. “The outcome was called Living Rock.” With a thought, he’s entire body went blue, and he sent away his pants so they can see his legs.

It was only skin deep, but they couldn’t tell that. They would just see him turning to rock.

“You didn’t somehow cannibalize your golem spell did you?” Michael asked worriedly.

“No.” Casually, Tom’s spear appeared, and he spun it around and demonstrated that he had lost none of his dexterity. He started a kata and performed it like a dance, trying to make it look as smooth as possible.

His dodge skill abruptly activated, warning him of an incoming threat.

Via his Spark domain, he could feel a host of pebbles flying at him. They were widely scattered and too many of them to dodge… Then the damage they were going to do registered in his awareness.

Zero.

They would not hurt him. He suppressed his instinctive urge to teleport away and twist his body while spinning his spear. It would mean that only three of the stones would hit him, avoiding the dozens that would strike anyone without his dodging abilities. Instead of taking the evasive actions he stopped moving entirely.

There was a series of plinking sounds as the small pieces of rock smacked into him and bounced away.

“Seriously? Keikain.” He glared at the earth mage.

“You were the one who wanted to give us a demonstration and now we know that’s more than illusion.”

“You already knew.”

Keikain smiled. “How thick is the rock?”

“Can you tell?” Tom counter asked and stepped over to the earth mage and held out a hand for him to study.

Tom moved his fingers obligingly when Keikain tried to bend the joints.

“Fascinating.”

“And?”

“To answer the question, how thick is the rock?” The earth mage raised a single eyebrow, bit the inside of his lip and then shook his head. “No idea. To my magic senses it’s not rock instead flesh. Michael might have a better tools to be honest and we should also test what happens if the stone gets damaged and other healers try to fix you.”

“I’m happy to hit you,” Thor said to laughter while hefting the hammer.

Tom hesitated. Now was the best time… while they were out of combat.

“Scared?” Thor asked.

He shook his head and placed his hand flat on the ground. “Nope not at all. Try to break off a finger.”

“Are you serious!”

He looked the other man straight in the eye. “Yes, and you offered.”

“It was a joke.”

“But we need to find the abilities limitations and better here than elsewhere. Don’t worry it’s stone. I won’t feel any pain.”

“Maybe someone else should do it.”

“Thor, your hammer is the perfect weapon.”

“Fine.” Thor stood up and lifted his weapon. The temptation to pull back his hand was almost overwhelming. All those years of fighting had honed his instincts to such an extent that it meant willingly accepting an injury felt impossible.

He looked away.

It barely helped. Earth Sense noticed when Thor started to rotate his weight to enter into the swing. His pseudo Spark domain tracked the hammers movements and time slowed down as dodge activated.

He was pulling the hand clear before he fully registered the movement, and then he cursed his own cowardliness.

A short range teleport moved him closer. Then, with a supreme effort of will, he carefully placed the finger under the descending hammer. After another moment of thought in the slowed time, he bent the joint to amplify the destructive nature of a blow and slid his little finger under the ring finger, to enable the hammer to impart extra sheering force. If the hand was flat… the force transfer would be straight to the floor… the weapon might bounce away with his fingers only acting as a conduit and not being truly subjected to the blow… this way, the rock would break.

His threshold spell screamed out damage warnings. He did a subtle repositioning, and the internal alarm escalated.

It was difficult.

His eyes were helplessly squeezed shut in a futile effort to boost his courage. The slowed time was working against him. His threshold bonus was telling him in no uncertain terms that he was about to be injured. Its yelling compounded the strain.

He forced himself to hold his position.

Crash.

Tom flinched.

There was no pain, but his mind registered damage and a desire to immediately heal it. He suppressed that too and instead lifted his hand up and left two fingers behind.

“Jesus.” Everlyn said in shock.

“We should graft them back on,” Michael stated. “Immediately!”

“We’re testing,” Tom reminded them flatly. “Nice hit.” He said into the sudden silence to Thor. Then looked at the healers. “Can I get a heal. Not a limb rebuilding one.”

A spark of light shot from Clare’s finger. The distorted and cracked stone near where the fingers had crumbled off noticeably firmed. Tom grinned at the evidence that normal healing worked on living rock. He watched the process. The energy Clare had included was significant, and once he was fully healed, the spell fell apart with nothing extra to do.

“Your fingers,” she said. “I can fix them quickly. Is it possible to turn the ones that fell off back to flesh?”

Tom glanced at them. They were no longer connected to him. “No. They’re just stone now.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She smiled brightly at him. “I can still fix it. Having the original part only makes it easier.”

“It won’t be necessary.” Tom assured her and with his good hand he bent down and scooped up some rock from the cave floor and slapped it down on the palm of his damaged. “Another heal, please.”

Clare glanced at Michael and this time Michael shrugged and cast the spell. Healing magic washed over him, but there was nowhere for it to go and it dissipated unused. Both healers had probably known that the spell was pointless, but Tom knew he had to test it.

“External healing doesn’t restore lost limbs.” Tom concluded out loud. “How about your limb restoration spell.”

Clare shook her head. “It won’t work.” She said, but cast the magic, anyway. Everyone watched the finger stumps.

Nothing happened.

“Expected.” Tom told them non-plussed. Then flexed his mind. The lump of stone in his hand liquified and ran to fill the space his fingers had been. After a moment, the grey stone changed to blue.

Clare whistled. “That’s…”

“Efficient healing.” Tom agreed with a smile. “One of the perks of the skill.”

“And you’re hundred percent stone?” Michael asked curiously.

“No, I max out just over fifty percent, but I can convert any part of me.”

“And when you convert the skin. Physically, it’s like its stone, but it still moves like your skin usually does, right?” Michael sounded confused.

“Touch Heal for medical knowledge and the connection of stone to flesh, Earth Manipulation to allow the transformed stone to move and Partial Stone Skin as the base of the evolution were the inputs.”

Michael nodded, looking impressed. “And no movement penalties?”

“None.”

“I need more fate. You’ve literally become harder to kill and presumably almost for free.”

Tom agreed with a thumbs up.

“That’s ridiculous. There has to be downsides?” Keikain stated.

Tom frowned at the question. “When I’m using the stone form my mana regeneration is halved. But it scales based on what percentage of me is converted.”

“And it’s efficient,” with a thought, he was flesh again. “Transforming small parts of me.” Patches of his skin all over his body turned blue. “Is so cheap it’s almost free.”

“And that stupid collar?” Michael asked. “That’s to help expand the new skill?”

“It obviously allows him to upgrade the stone that he can transform into,” Keikain answered for him. “He’ll probably be able to switch between different forms.”

“Mate,” Michael faced the earth mage and looked annoyed. “I sort of knew all that. I was giving Tom a chance to confirm.”

“I’ve got limited slots, but that’s the idea.” Tom said hurriedly to stop the argument expanding.

“And the pretty lilac colour stone?” Michael asked. “What does it do?”

“It should give improved magical resistance at the cost of structural integrity.” Tom said, answering the healer’s question.

“And this new form is why you were so embarrassingly keen to get all of that tier three rock. I’m presuming you needed a set volume.”

“Weight,” Tom agreed. For the next half an hour until the food finished, they chatted amicably together.

Then he went to bed and prayed as he fell asleep that True Dreaming was not going to trigger. It would be great to have a few days without any more emerging crises.

He wasn’t hopeful.