CHAPTER 268 – COMPETITOR CONTACT
The data on the status of his Living Rock threshold ability was on the wall right there for him to read.
Unlocked Living Rock Patterns
* Default Form
* Crystalline Riebicate – Tier 0 (Specialisation: Arcane Resistance)
* Lilac Calarkite – Tier 0 (Specialisation: Magic Resistance)
* Black Kaolsgenite – Tier 3 (Specialisation: Physical Resistance)
Tom was happy to confirm that all three had been processed successfully, particularly the last one, as it had been a lucky find and he couldn’t replace it easily. He already knew the general details of both of the new entries, but he was interested in the specifics.
He focused, and the wall below the slot display changed.
Lilac Calarkite - Tier 0 - Occupying a single slot.
This rock conveys the following bonuses and negativities.
* Plus 32% resistance to all forms of magic.
* In physical performance, the rock acts like a body with a vitality of eight.
Tom was simultaneously impressed by the massive magic resistance bonus and flinched at the physical weakness that came with that bonus. When he used this rock, he was fragile. Already the stone was over thirty percent weaker than his current pathetic vitality. As he got more powerful, that deficiency would only increase.
Against higher ranked monsters, he would need to be a hundred percent sure that they weren’t going to hit him, because if they did he would explode into pieces. It made him more robust against magic, but more delicate than a glass cannon against more mundane attacks.
Once more, he focused and the description was replaced.
Black Kaosgenite - Tier 3 - Occupying four slots.
This rock is known for its strength, durability and resistance to shattering and its converse general vulnerability to all types of magic. It conveys the following bonuses and negativities relative to the default Living Rock pattern.
* 20% more vulnerability to all magic types.
* 50% increase in all physical attributes.
* An extra 50% resistance to shattering and cracking.
* At least 100% extra resistance to most environmental non magical hazards such as acid, heat and cold.
Tom smiled as he finished reading the description of what the rock could do. It was better than he had feared. He had been worried that the magic vulnerability would make it as unusable as the Lilac Calarkite when alternative forms of damage were being thrown about. However, the penalty was only 20% and that was compared to the default pattern, which was already better than his physical flesh and blood body.
It was a solid general purpose pattern than unless he was fighting exclusive magic enemies or ones specialising in arcane this is the stone that he would be using.
“Not bad at all,” he muttered to himself. He might have done nothing for nearly five days, but the absorption of rock he was doing in the background had paid dividends.
He looked down at the next item he had acquired. Thor had purchased it at his request for almost thirty thousand credits, which was a bargain, as far as Tom was concerned.
Blue Sumite Granite – Tier 5
This is a rare rock that is incredibly strong and durable and provides near magic immunity to fire, lightning and water damage with offsetting extreme vulnerability to arcane, ice and air.
It was a true magical stone and with a tier ranking five he suspected it would match or potentially even outperform the black kasogenite but it was its magic immunity properties that excited him. It would not be useable against some monsters, but against the right enemies it would be a godsend.
Of course, it would take over two weeks to absorb. Now that he had his basic options sorted it was a delay he could bear. He returned to the real world and used nearly all of his mana to shape the special granite into a collar around his neck.
“That’s good stuff.” Everlyn said. “And expensive.”
“Worth it,” he answered and bent down to gather the nearby cheap non tiered stone to create another set of armour to keep practising with. While he did so, he considered what was next.
Once everything was more settled, he was going to get people to throw rocks at him to see if he could train his throw rock skill to deflect them. He expected it to be a painful exercise, but with his healing and dodge abilities it should be fine.
He also needed to master the stone armour around him and extend it or the ability above to apply to metal.
Further development of Earth Sense was required. Most urgent of those tasks was duplicating what he had done with Spark. He hungered for the ability to track the movement of metal such as the swinging of swords near him.
Finally, he wanted to develop Earth Manipulation to create the basis of his domain. He needed to extend its power to spread from his skin to manipulate everything close to him and, while doing it he had to partially break the spell. He needed a component of earth manipulation to become dependent on Earth Sense in the same way Living Rock was.
Tom understood that while he could articulate it as four discrete development points there were a lot of distinct steps to achieve each one and he suspected synergies between them.
The monsters disturbed by the exploding spear started to arrive. Tom watched impressed as they were eliminated with focused professionalism. A second explosive weapon was thrown. Similar distance but at a ninety-degree angle to the first.
Boom!
He glanced at Everlyn. “How are we going to find the healers? I assume you’ve already made an effort.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Of course we have. We’ve been doing killing with a grid pattern and I’ve been looking for tracks but if your memory is accurate, they aren’t exactly moving around, which makes them harder to locate. Hopefully, they’ll come find us if we get close to them. There’s another third of the zone to explore. If we don’t find them, then we’ll be relying on your True Dreaming to extract a clue. Don’t worry I won’t ask that unless we’re desperate for the information.”
The fight in front of them was clearly it the process of running down and Rahmat was making no moves to taunt more monsters to attack them. While he waited, Tom did some basic stretches to test his armour. It moved smoothly from spot to spot. Often his flesh was still getting squished when it failed to adjust in time, but the response was a lot smoother than it had been. It acted like a slightly faulty magical armour that had to be prodded occasionally to remind it to work as intended.
Once the last of the enemies died, they abandoned the position and proceeded to migrate to a new spot.
Everlyn led the way but stopped every now and again to wave at Rahmat. The other man would step up and use his exploding spear. Throwing it like you would a javelin instead of using the more powerful technique that utilised the spear launcher and had a range closer to two hundred metres.
It would travel close to sixty metres explode on impact, and monsters would rush into attack. Professionally, they deposed of them and then moved forward another hundred metres before repeating the dance.
Half a kilometre later, they settled and then Rahmat started systemically drawing all the surrounding monsters toward them. Tom practised his spear work while they worked at eliminating the fornaca. Most of his attention was focused on getting the stone armour to switch smoothly from one state to another, but he experimented with his new spear skills while doing so. The lunge ability was particularly taxing on his concentration because he had to physically move quickly during the slowed time and the armour took considerable focus to maintain when he ran that fast. It was good practice he guessed.
When they cleared an area, they did not eliminate all monsters. Instead, it was about efficiency: the exploding spears never overlapped, which left extensive areas between the generated circles untouched.
They were having another rest something they did after each clear. This was their sixth since he had woken up. Flavourless jerky was passed around.
Rahmat moved to be next to him. “Your stone armour is coming along nicely.”
Tom looked side eyed at him.
“What?” the spearman said with an easy but slightly guilty chuckle.
“What do you want?”
“I was wondering if you could do your spear katas whenever there is a break from the fighting.”
He arched an eyebrow. That was not the response he had been expecting.
“Particularly the ones where you’re using your active spear skills. I’ll return the favour. I can hit your stone armour if that will help with what you’re doing.”
“It won’t.” Tom rejected the help out of hand. “At least not yet, but I don’t need a bribe. If me practicing spear skills helps you, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“It could aid us both.”
This time, he looked at the spearman with genuine interest. “And how do you figure that?”
Rahmat licked his lips. “Your domain is stone. I know you have a plan to gather a whole host of abilities together. Living Rock is the start, but a series of separate skills and spells does not make a domain. You need to consolidate it, and that’s not easy.”
“Which is why I fail to comprehend how me practising spears will help me get a stone domain.”
“You’re going to need a catalyst. And me getting my domain…”
“Ah, I see. True Dreaming will share that epiphany with me and that will let me get a breakthrough.”
“No Tom. Stop joking around. Nothing like that. When my domain is functioning, or at least when I was in the tutorial it allowed me control all spears within a couple of metres of me. I used them kind of like how your meteorites work. I could spin them in intricate patterns and force them to do everything I imagined.”
Tom grinned. “Does this have a point?”
“Yes. It does, but if you don’t want to hear it.” Rahmat pretended to wave him away.
“Don’t be like that. Just a bit of fun.”
“My point is it’s a spear domain. It’s not restricted to wooden weapons.” He spun his spear around. “When it’s available, I can manipulate stone spears, or mineral or metal ones.”
Suddenly, Tom understood what he was saying.
“And when you’re creating a domain,” Rahmat continued. “The best way to do so is to contest control of something under someone else’s control.”
“You’re right. When can I expect you to finish your side of the equation and get your domain.”
“Do you think that is why you had the dream?” Rahmat asked. “Because me getting mine will help train you to evolve yours?”
Tom considered his feelings for a moment. There was a sense of wrongness to Rahmat’s statement. “No.” he told the other man simply. “My guess it’s for the dragon.”
They both stopped talking. The thought of what waited for them at the end of the trial was sufficient to rob their will to participate in idle conversation.
Then it was again time to move.
“Tom,” Rahmat grabbed his elbow. “That last thing. Was that real?”
It was. He was certain of it. “Nah.” Tom lied. “I was just shooting the breeze. But it sure sounded like it. Makes you wonder.”
They kept going.
They were clearing another section and based on the last couple they were two-thirds of the way through it. Everlyn was beside him enthusiastically manifesting her magical bow and then making it disappear. Sometimes it had an arrow on it and other times it didn’t. The colour of the projectile also changed. He wasn’t sure what exotic skill she was working on, but he knew her work ethic and she was practising something.
She suddenly spun around and her bow was in full battle position. The casual posture of earlier was gone, replaced with steely determination. She was facing away from the current fight and focused on something new.
Tom immediately sprinted forward to get between her and the apparent threat. He knew the direction it was in even if he didn’t know the where or the what. The lesser elemental he currently had summoned floated a further five metres ahead of them, ready to fight any threats that materialised.
She didn’t fire the arrow, and there were no obvious sources of the enemy. Just to check he glanced back at Everlyn. She was focused on a specific spot and his eyes flicked from her to where she stared. She was looking at the base of a hill about sixty metres from them. Had something ducked behind the rocks, then after a moment he caught what she had seen. One rock appeared a lot less inanimate than the others around it. Part of his brain insisted that it was still a rock, but the more he looked at it the larger the discrepancies became. The lines were too smooth and clean cut for everything else in the landscape. It was a little too symmetrical.
Internally, Tom was impressed by what he was witnessing. It possessed great camouflage abilities and his instincts warned him that it was also using the same spell as the ferrets. It would be completely invisible to him if his title hadn’t negated the specific ability. More and more features revealed themselves. It was not stone but rather a living creature and its skin was actually wet. The skin was the same red brown of most of the other rocks and dirt in the landscape, with patches of grey to let it blend into the background. It was also large the size of a cow without any legs.
“Don’t draw any more monsters.” Everlyn called out over her shoulder. “We have company.”
“Did you find the healers.” Thor yelled even as his hammer slammed home on a crippled fornaca and finished it off.
“They found us.” Everlyn had lowered the bow, but it was still positioned to bring it up almost instantly if needed. “How do we play this Tom.”
“I guess I go up and talk to them.”
“Are you kidding me? This is a competitor race and its rank twenty four and the one over there.” Her eyes flicked to a nearby hill. “The other one is closer to thirty.”
“They’re friendly.”
“You can’t assume that, Tom.”
He glanced at Everlyn. “I can and I will.”
“Because you’re an arrogant idiot.”
“That and because I think it’s necessary. We’re not beating the dragon by ourselves.”
“And we’re not defeating it with the healers, either. You said if they are there they’ll heal the dragon when we hurt it.”
“But we might need the healers to reach the dragon. I’m going.” Tom said. “Feel free to cover me.”
His spear vanished, and he strode forward.