Chapter 61: The Abuse of Physics
Nara desperately wanted to perform her familiar ritual, but she did not have the components needed to perform it. Familiar summoning rituals needed specific components, and those components were often the most expensive cost of the required materials, and most people did not have it on hand. Adventurers often kept an extra set of the material requirements to resummon a familiar if they were destroyed (if they could afford it), but they wouldn’t have the materials needed for someone else’s familiar.
Nara bid John, Raja, and Hangsu a brief goodbye and joined the scout-slash-strike team that would clear out as many iron rank and bronze rank monsters as possible before nightfall.
Due to her high evasiveness and escalating afflictions, Nara was tasked to locate as many bronze rank monsters as she could and get the ball rolling on her escalation. It wasn’t a tactic she had many chances to employ, but this was her once in a blue moon chance. In any other situation, it was time inefficient. Neither she, her teammates, nor the civilians scrambling and fleeing from violent monsters wanted to wait around while Entropy increased damage until a monster died in one hit.
If a bronze rank monster followed her back to the South tower, even better. The concentrated firepower of fifty plus adventurers would make short work of the bronze rank monster. Better it was killed now so they could recover then mana, then later within a swarm.
Although her role was mainly solo, she was assigned a partner for safety. Her partner was Mirabelle, a celestine with shimmering pale blue hair and eyes and pale skin. She was not a Sanshi local, but hailed from Kallid, the Kingdom of Snow and Frost. It was located in the far North, roughly the latitude of Norway.
Mirabelle’s combination was Moon, Wind, and Swift for the Mystic Confluence. Mystic was one of the most common confluences—Nara shared it too. While common, it was useful; Mystic was flexible, able to awaken the abilities needed to support and round out an essence user’s ability set. For Nara, she awakened conjurations and abilities that provided easy use without much need for active management, unlike her Dimension Essence abilities, which clamored for her focus like a nest of screaming hungry chicks who wouldn’t shut up to save their lives.
Thanatos share that aspect of her mystic confluence essence: In battle, he was independent, able to act without much directive on Nara’s behalf, while also providing the Vulnerable affliction that made inflicting Nara’s dimensional affliction duo easier in the first place.
The Moon Essence was known for its stealth and mana regeneration effects, which Mirabelle certainly provided. Laius had Nara use an Awakening Stone of the Moon for that reason; She hadn’t awakened a mana regeneration or cost reduction ability, although her armor conjuration provided that for her. She was more of a support based scout, buffing Nara with both movement speed and mana regen, which allowed her to abuse her node teleportation.
Not all bronze rank monsters were large. The jungle was populated with a wide variety of monster types, ranging from ones more or less found in nature like panthers and snakes to impossible oddities that could not have existed without the aid of magic—the same warped reflection of how she lived without lungs and a heart. Nara did as directed, tag-teaming a bronze rank monster with Thanatos just long enough to secure her afflictions, then casting Entropy and getting out. Nara’s continuous expenditure of resources meant that her instances of Integrity and her triple Invigorating boons had already reached their instance limits, and she had reached peak resource efficiency. For the fight ahead, it would sustain her. Nara experienced another utility of Boon Conversion—with her boons at their maximum, the effect of Overture was wasted. With Boon Conversion, she could continuously consume stacks of boons and then regenerate them, fluctuating just below her instance limit.
In between tagging bronze rank monsters, she and Mirabelle took out small groups of iron rank monsters. While she was a support essence user, all ability sets had damage. Healers were the most specialized type of essence user, with the strictest essence and ability stone requirements. Even they, as John proved, had damage-oriented abilities. Eventually, a damage ability would have been forced upon John, regardless of the awakening stones he used.
Mirabelle unleashed blades of wind that ripped monsters apart, and moon-faced disks that slowly destroyed anything in front with an annihilating light. It was a useful ability that doubly served as a distraction, blinding monsters in front of the disk and letting the other two slip away as needed.
Qingxi had told Nara and Osal, the leader of the scout team, to return an hour before sunset. In that last few hours, they would eat and rest, making their final preparations for the assault ahead. Their tower ended up with a magical cook, not Nolan but someone else from a foreign land. He had transformed one of the rooms mid-tower into an impromptu kitchen, manning multiple conjured stoves with the prowess of a rush hour line cook. Unlike normal iron rank food which had no bonuses, magic food provided long lasting and moderate buffs. Compared to normal food, it required significant additional training; It was a skill hard to come by.
If Laius’ food was a perfect 10 out of 10, this cook’s food was a fantastic 8. Compared to Laius he was still young and had plenty of time to improve.
Nara impromptu food evaluation was met with odd looks from Raja and Hangsu.
“Is now really the time for a food critique?”
Nara had realized something in her hit-and-run journey with Mirabelle. The objective of the trial was survival, and high mobility or stealth essence users had a massive advantage. There was no need to encamp at a tower and slay the impending horde of monsters. They towers had actually fixed their minds on a single solution—bunker down and slay the horde.
Survival for those like John with low mobility would be a challenge; The bunker strategy was the best option to pass the most people. If push came to shove and defensive lines fell and adventurers started to use their escape tokens, Nara could escape and hide out in her door domain. As long as John had safely retreated, she could adopt this tactic. She wasn’t so heroic nor spectacular that she thought she could protect the lives of everyone here, or even that she would make a great difference. Nara felt that John was her responsibility. He was a father with close ties back at home. Nara had family of course…but his motivation was magnitudes above her. Her family didn’t even know she was missing—although John didn’t know what his family knew of his fate either. According to Aliyah, John’s original body had been annihilated in his crossing. They may think he was dead.
Nara wondered by what method the monster swarm would be produced. She didn’t think it was possible to create monsters, but she had seen little of magic. To her, anything was possible.
She sensed it first, before anyone else, thanks to her unusual perception power. The dimensional membrane of the astral space became stronger and more flexible—like leather transforming into rubber. With a stronger boundary to withstand the burden, more magic began to pour into the astral space.
Nara learned about and heard about the cyclical phenomena of monster surges on Erras. Every ten years plus or minus three, the dimension membrane of the world would flex, increasing the magic quantity around the world. This was a monster surge, where the number of monster manifestations increased precipitously worldwide. It was also the time where the dimensional barrier was easiest to cross, which may factor into their own dimensional crossing in the future.
The purpose of the Adventure Society was to combat the monster waves. It was the only time when members of the society were required to participate, else lose their memberships.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Either defend society, or give up your privileges and reputation.
After a few hours after sunset, the magic saturation reached its peak. The unmistakable swirling rainbow light across the jungle was indicative of the manifestations of monsters. Thankfully, monsters tended not to manifest directly around essence users since essence users disturbed the local magic with their abilities. They also wouldn’t manifest directly into dense material, so the tower remained clean of monsters, although some ground dwelling monsters did manifest into the dirt, slain as their heads popped into open air.
It was the calm before the storm. Light beamed from the tower; various illuminations had been set up for those without dark vision to see. As for Nara, she was granted a night-sight boon by her current partner Mirabelle.
It was unlike Earth’s night-vision goggles. The night scene looked clear, although colors were slightly muted, as if the color saturation slider of reality had been moved down by reality’s graphic designer.
Beside her, a recording crystal floated silently. She wasn’t going to miss out on recording perhaps the closest thing she’d get to video-game style mass monster waves—a literal tower defense.
“Don’t be a hero, John.”
“Since when was that a concern for me?”
“I have a feeling you’re pretty heroic.”
Nara looked at him, delicately touching upon his aura to read it. John thought her evaluating stare was something she had picked up from Encio or Sen.
“Your aura is influenced by your essence and awakening stone, yes…but they say the aura, of all your abilities, is the closest reflection of who you are. You have a nice aura, John.”
The Strength of Life…his aura was warm and comforting. He wasn’t just a father, he felt like everyone’s father. The strangers on the street that offered hugs and companionship to those struggling, holding signs that said, “free hugs”. The people that paid for the groceries of those who couldn’t to afford them. John’s aura embodied the quiet strength of those that understood how little actions improved the lives of those around them.
This genuine reflection of who they were also meant many essence users felt embarrassed to fully reveal their auras. John’s aura was currently uncontrolled, but it was pleasant stuff, like the warm afternoon sun in a park. Nobody minded it.
“That’s quite the compliment, although I’m not sure what this aura stuff all means.”
“Weren’t you just taught?”
“In this situation? It went in one ear and out the other.”
The first searing crackles of chain lightning marked the beginning of the fight. Raja hurled a spear of lightning like Zeus’ thunderbolt, where it stuck a monster at the jungle tree line. A bright chain propagated, briefly revealing the swarm that had covered the jungle floor like self-replicating moss.
“Oh shit.”
Mirabelle wouldn’t go with Nara. Her mana regeneration effects were best used with as many people as possible, and Nara was more mobile without her.
Nara hung at the jungle canopy, looking back at the tower lit up like the Burj Khalifa at New Years Eve. Melee fighters stood at the ground level, where they would hold for as long as possible before retreating up each floor.
Nara felt a bit like a ninja, creeping in the darkness at night. She was increasingly convinced that she must get herself some night-sight powers or equipment.
The first bronze rank monster was marked on her map. It was a darkvenom centipede, a prehistoric sized centipede with a glistening black carapace, contrasting orange legs, and corrosive body fluids. She transformed Nirvana into a bow. Each magically conjured arrow took off large chunks of the monster at a time, spraying out corrosive green blood which landed on the monsters around them like acid rain. These would probably be the easiest rank disparity fights she’d ever face in her life. Time had made up for what she lacked in rank.
The corrosive blood worked out nicely for her. Bronze rank damage against iron rank monsters quickly killed anything unlucky enough to get caught in the carnage. Rending damage wasn’t exactly clean—at least her rending damage was not. When Dimensional Rupture triggered, it was like an implosion grenade had gone off beneath the monsters’ skin, tearing spherical chunks away from the location of impact. Encio’s damage was considerably cleaner, although bisecting a monster and spilling its guts wasn’t PG either. According to American standards, neither was it R rated.
She looted the monster when something she looted caught her eye.
“Vials of darkvenom?”
She removed one of the vials from her inventory, pouring it over sword form Nirvana.
“Now, this is how a Witcher fights.”
Thanatos barked at her.
“Let me LARP. This is like the perfect world for it where I won’t get made fun of for wearing something close to cosplay to fight. High quality, highly defensive, flexible, and genuinely magical cosplay, but I digress.”
Getting caught in the swarm of monsters wasn’t a concern for Nara when she had mana regeneration fed to her like beer on tap. With weight-reduction powers granted to her from her Cosmic Path, she jumped on the heads of monsters like parkour from Dying Light, taking the heads of whatever monster she could with a blade enhanced with bronze rank venom.
She had worried her Nirvana would suffer from the venom after she had already drenched her blade with it, but either it was a venom that affected biological material and not whatever material Nirvana was made of, or magic weapons had properties she didn’t understand.
No matter how much she used Nirvana with wild abandon and beginner’s carelessness, the blade remained sharp and unscathed. It was a transforming weapon, so perhaps a dull edge may have been a pointless worry. What was she going to sharpen when it made itself sharp?
“Hup.”
She swung Nirvana through the neck of an oversized praying mantis. Thanatos was causing his own havoc, lighting bug-type monsters aflame with his underworld black and blue flames.
To her delight, monsters weren’t immune to the stench of rainbow smoke. She looted them on death, causing surrounding ones to recoil, giving her the opportunity to slay a few more while they were distracted.
She reached her second target, a barkskin troll. It lumbered through the jungle, crushing folding trees beneath its weight, although it still struggled to make headway through the dense foliage. It looked oddly like a 20 foot tall humanoid chocolate pudding attempting to squeeze itself through prison bars.
“Not delicious in the slightest…or is it? Are trolls delicious? I should ask Nolan.”
The troll had sandwiched itself between two massive trees, dumbly forcing itself through instead of trying to go around them. It was the perfect opportunity for Nara to get in and do some damage.
She went in with her sword, feeling like Mikasa from Attack on Titan. She even went for the nape of the neck. Her sword enhanced with Boon Conversion split through its bark skin, creating a far larger cut on its neck that should have been possible thanks to the damage bonus of her afflictions. It was like some grotesque watermelon, rotted bark skin revealing red flesh.
She slashed again, this time pushing through troll fat to bone. Trolls had high regeneration, but it couldn’t stack up against her massively stacked rending damage bonuses. Another slash—her sword scratched bone as the bone tore itself apart, shattering.
“Watermelon seeds…I guess. Gross.”
The troll was still alive. It’s head bowed forward, dragged down by gravity with no muscles nor bone to support it. It had tried to retaliate, but Nara had seized the perfect moment. It’s fat and muscular body strained against the trees before it finally broke through, stumbling forwards and slamming into another tree, crushing monsters underfoot with its clumsy uncontrolled steps.
Her sword lit aglow with a corona of dark red and gold, and she slay the monster with World’s End. The troll was annihilated, the silver-blue and gold light of transcendent damage contrasting the blow that had felled it.
She let herself fall, then transformed that vertical velocity into horizontal velocity with a node jump.
“Wait a damn moment.”
She stopped, jumping to a high up and thick branch. She definitely wasn’t crouching like a ninja.
“I’m something like an engineer. I can abuse gravity more. I can do better.”
She stacked her nodes into the air, and she teleported to the top of the stack. It wasn’t the maximum height she could reach thanks to her large aura range, but this was enough. She hung for a moment in air, sweeping her eyes across the dark jungle, the three marble white towers glowing with their own battles against their miniature monster surge.
She dropped at full speed, her weight manipulation turned completely off. She tried to pencil dive, but it was harder than she thought to control. She wasn’t high enough up to reach terminal velocity, but this was good enough for a first try.
She plunged towards the forest, then node jumped with her feet pointed forward, shooting though the air like she was on a luge. Her trajectory made small arcs, teleporting to a node placed above and forward to maintain speed, continually abusing the amazing power of gravity.
“Speaking of, where does the energy of gravity come from in an astral space?”
Magic, probably, which explained why the people of Erras had not yet identified gravity as it’s own physical force. If Newton had to reconcile the gravity of astral spaces with his theory of gravity, could he still have discovered it?
It was hard to see, but she was above the trees. As long as she didn’t attempt this in the jungle, she’d probably be fine. But more importantly, this was her fastest mode of transportation. Combined with node teleports, her actual movement speed surpassed her physical velocity.
“Next time, I have to drop head down,” she muttered, wind flapping causing drool to snail trail up her face like a dog with their head stuck out the window.
She reached her next target in record time. She used her weight-manipulation, which was actually local gravity manipulation power to slow herself. She could only gravity manipulate in one way—to make herself lighter and slower. If she could manipulate her weight to be higher…That’s when the true abuse of physics begins.