“You better be lootable…” I warned the body at my feet. It had previously housed the soul of the Storm Dragon, but during our battle the dragon had vanished. Perhaps the fight was on a timer from the start, or I managed to force the dragon into using enough power that the vessel got burned. I nudged the body with my foot and got butterflies in my stomach as a prompt appeared.
Would you like to loot the Vessel of the Storm Dragon?
Uhh, yes I would like to do that, please and thank you. A feeling I had received far too little swept through me as the gains from my victory were placed into my inventory. The entire tower had been an extension of the dragon’s power and had given Naea and I no experience, which seemed to also mean no loot. Defeating the vessel had filled me with the almost-forgotten energy, which showed me a new issue.
Naea’s level had risen, she gained a full four levels bringing her to twenty four. For a moment, I thought I had broken my mana core again somehow but I quickly ensured this wasn’t the case. The energy existed at the deepest part of my core, reaching thresholds which were translated into levels. The threshold for level thirty was met and cleared by a mile, yet the expected System prompt never appeared.
I was left with a feeling quite similar to needing to sneeze.
Frustrated at finding a bottleneck and potentially wasting some of my reward, I angrily looked at the new additions to my inventory. The first thing I noticed was the windfall of gold I had received. My Dao was nurtured slightly at the idea of pilfering from the Storm Dragon’s hoard.
Inventory
Gold Coins (Xaverion Minted) - 5442
Gold Coins (Standard Mint) - 19,249
Yo Staff
Sorehammer
Assorted Earth foods
Storm Arrows - 764
Guidance Stone of Thunder
Thunder Steppers
A guidance stone! I was excited to use it, but held off for the moment. First, I had to check out the last item.
Item - Thunder Steppers (Rare)
A titan’s stride is both loud and long. After infusing mana into the boots, your next step will be memorable.
Effect: Once infused, the wearer can activate a thunder step, teleporting a short distance and releasing a shockwave at the first location.
“Oh hell yeah, that’ll work.” I held in my hands a pair of steel-toed Doc Martens-style boots which rose just above the ankle. Wasting no time, I tossed my mostly destroyed dress shoes into my inventory to dispose of later and slipped my feet into the new shoes. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the comfort but I actually “ooh”ed as they went on.
“Fancy,” Naea quipped, “you get anything for me?”
“Not exactly, but I’ve got an idea for a surprise anyway. I did get a new guidance stone though, so you’ll probably get another skill with me.” I ignored Naea as she whooped in fake excitement. New abilities are cool, I thought to myself. I removed the small orb from my inventory and gave it a look. Unsurprisingly, it was almost identical to the Guidance Stone of Lightning I had used before entering the tower. With a mental nudge, a prompt appeared.
Use Guidance Stone of Thunder? This will consume one Guidance slot from your available Aspects.
With Mastery, Lightning and now Thunder, I would have used three of my four available guidance slots. With Naea’s help, I had worked out some basics. Most Aspects could hold two, maybe three Guidance Stones, however rarer Aspects could hold more. The reason for this is down to complexity. A sword, for example, can only become so complicated. A dragon has many more layers of potential.
I urged the System to use the Guidance Stone. Binding with the Aspect of the Dragon had created a complex pattern within my mana pathways around my heart. It was within this pattern my mana was charged with the energy of Infusion. With the Guidance Stones previously, this formation was altered seamlessly like a knot being untangled. A lecture’s worth of understanding would appear directly in my memory, and the skill appeared.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
The Aspect of Thunder disintegrated in my grip as the process started. The similarities ended there. Unlike the first two Guidance Stones, the magic froze once it reached the edge of the mana channels writ upon my soul by the Aspect of the Dragon. It wasn’t hard to understand what was happening. The System’s hand was no longer guiding the process to completion. Perhaps it couldn’t now that my Aspect had changed.
There was an icy moment of horror where I panicked. I’m wasting it! The bundle of information-filled energy was losing integrity quickly, soon it might even lose potency. Would it become the Aspect of Sparks? Not interested in finding out, I banished my panic and set to installing the energy into my pathway. Squaring my shoulders, I dove into my inner world. The issue was immediately clear and I couldn’t avoid missing another step.
It was beautiful.
Above the volcano a black, rumbling gloom filtered the energy from below and allowed me to produce the electrifying energy of Kirin Strikes. The clouds were stationary, while the rest of the world shook like a leaf in a strong breeze. The tumult I could feel within every heartbeat, every pulse of my mana, was visible everywhere. The land split, the rivers flooded outwards. The Dao pool at the centre of the planet bubbled dangerously.
I didn’t have time to stare in wonder or distress, I had to fix the broken physics of my world. I had already visualised the storm, and the facsimile was occupying the area the lightning wanted to go. The two powers were too similar, magnets with the same polarity. If I hadn’t just rebuilt this imaginary universe from the ground up like a god, I would have been completely unable to, I would never have been able to fix this.
A new base truth was attempting to write itself into the laws of my personal universe but there was an issue. My world already had storm clouds from the earlier Guidance Stone of Lightning. Its influence had been a large part of the formation of my Dao pool, which is why the System wouldn’t just do the work for me. Like my soul, my Dao was only changeable by my own choices.
I had unconsciously rewritten the pathways of my previous skills upon upgrading from Aspect to Dao pool but the capacity was comfortably within range. This time, I needed to do it myself. I grasped the new, unruly energy and began to bring it to heel. Though the complexity was magnitudes larger, I was reminded of the first time I tried to control my mana. In a lot of ways, this was the same principle. Through sheer force of will, I wrested control of my world back from the invasive Guidance Stone.
Once the world had stilled, I ripped the sound from the clouds in the sky. On the outside, Naea jumped out of her skin as I seemed to randomly shriek for no reason. She had no way of knowing I was mutilating my soul, a novice surgeon performing surgery on themself. Kirin Strikes was crippled and the pain was mind blowing. I felt the skill die. A few days ago, the explosion of acute agony throughout my mana pathways would have killed me.
But I was not the same man who accidentally entered a Dungeon a week before.
In a real sense, I was breaking the bone so it would heal stronger. Pretty sure that’s actually an old wives’ tale. Maybe more like chopping off an infected finger? I ignored my unhelpful errant thoughts, my concentration stretched to the limit. Without my high Mental and Will attributes, the fragile balance of my inner world would have shattered already. Like each step before, I could feel how a fraction less power and I would fail.
It was a knife’s edge which was starting to feel uncomfortably natural.
Despite my rush, in defiance of the indescribably pain of a rotting mana pathway, I slowly and carefully pressed the two bundles of energy in my grasp together. The magical electromagnetic force of the two was gargantuan but in here, I was stronger. It felt a little closer to my Dao as I concentrated on dominating the chaotic magics of thunder and lightning.
With a snap, sound, life and motion returned to my inner world. The river returned to their natural flow, the ground healed its rifts. The change was instant, but as a representation of my mana, the land had never truly been under assault. The real difference was, obviously, in the sky. The night sky was calm, the stars and moons exactly where they were meant to be. With the new change, they were more easily
No longer confined to the space above the volcano, I laughed as rain began to fall on the land. The downpour was immense, nourishing the entirety of my inner world as the clouds floated all over. The place took on a new level of realism as actual weather systems began to form. Satisfied I was no longer dying, I returned to my body. Before opening my eyes, I checked the System prompts I had felt appear during my work.
Guidance Stone of Lightning and Guidance Stone of Thunder fused to create Guidance Stone of the Storm. Guidance Stone of the Storm, replacing Guidance Stone of Lightning and Guidance Stone of Thunder, bound to Dao Pool of the Dragon.
Skill Unlocked - Harmony of the Storm
Though dispersed, the power of a hurricane can be apocalyptic. Within you, it is concentrated. The storm runs through your veins and pathways, as it always has.
Effect: Wielder may infuse their mana with Storm affinities.
It was strange not receiving a batch of new information with the prompts, but it made sense. I knew how Harmony of the Storm worked as well as the System did. Taking facets from the ruined Kirin Strikes, Infusion and even some of the designs from Weapon Mastery, I had created something just for me. My understanding of storms had taken something of a leap in the last day or so, and it had allowed me to do something special.
Feeling on top of the world, I opened my eyes and saw Naea. She was hovering close, her hands ready to slap me with healing. She was pouting. “You went all silent there for a minute, and I don’t mean with your mouth. You’re not much of a talker to start with, but when the soul goes numb like that, it’s a little spooky.” Worry creased her small face. “Are you okay?”
I smiled warmly and inclined my head. “You tell me.” While the magic had run rampant in my soul, the pain had locked Naea out. The lock was thrown off and my smile only grew as her eyes widened. The new power was not mine alone, after all. The storm would nourish Naea’s connection within my soul, too. “It’s okay, you can tell me how amazing I am.”
“Tell ya what a bloody monster you are, more like. That’s a Dao pool an evolution too early, a dragon defeated and now that very same dragon’s power seeded in your own. All in one afternoon. What’s next?” Naea pretended to be exasperated, but she couldn’t hide her excitement from me. We both grinned at each other like idiots before turning to the vault on top of the trial tower. The gains we had just received were only the scraps from looting a training dummy.
“Let’s go get the real reward, then smash the rest of this dungeon to pieces.”