***
Name: Jon Fuze
Level: 9
Kills: 223
Kills to Next Level: 43 / 45
Skill Proofs: 6
| Skill Claims |
Hastened Sight (Unlocks Lvl. 10)
Force (Unlocks Lvl. 10)
Aerial Lockbox (Unlocks Lvl. 15)
| Skills |
Summon Scribetool (Tier 1)
Perfect Motion (Tier 1, MAX)
***
Jon searched the alleys for easy targets. Level 10 wasn’t far away, and he needed every edge he could get to stand a chance against the two lords.
He’d already cased the general vicinity of the castle. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get very close. The Order’s checkpoints were already all over the place, but now their troops were flooding in from every corner of the city. It wasn’t something immediately obvious to random bystanders on the street; patrolling platoons, common since the past few days, would pass through and be short of five men by the time they came out, while new first-aid stations were being erected in the furthest recesses of the alleys.
From the few places where he could observe the castle, he passed the time counting how many defenders were posted and where. He even managed to spot some of the House of Wiz’s war mages, though they weren’t any more than just purple and black cloaks fluttering between the crenels of the battlements. They seemed positioned to engage in “guerrilla artillery” tactics, at least from his own understanding of it.
If they were truly capable of leveling their immediate surroundings with what amounted to recoilless howitzer shot — before disappearing off to who-knows-where — there wasn’t really any better term to describe it than “guerrilla artillery.”
Never mind the lords, Jon didn’t know whether he could go up against a war mage with nothing but Perfect Motion, Force, and Hastened Sight.
Summon Scribetool? That versus artillery at thirty feet. Right.
Of course, getting up close to a war mage and taking them out that way would be the way to go — but things rarely went ideally. What he needed was a reliable way to stay out of the sights of a war mage and their support crew, at least to an extent that he could get in close enough to engage them on even odds.
He could think of a few possibilities to use those three Skills in tandem for that purpose, but first, he needed those two extra Kills.
As he wandered the alleys, it was as if Ravena answered his prayers, because two thugs appeared. They weren’t facing him, however, but a defenseless old man.
With the two thugs’ backs against Jon, it was only a matter of him sneaking up and taking one’s head in his hands, snapping the man’s neck, while his chain whipped against the second man’s neck. With all that weight behind it, it easily dislodged something important in the man’s spine.
***
Name: Jon Fuze
Level: 9 → 10
Kills: 223 → 225
Kills to Next Level: 43 / 45 → 0 / 50
Skill Proofs: 6 → 7
| Skill Claims |
Hastened Sight (Unlocks Lvl. 10)
Force (Unlocks Lvl. 10)
Aerial Lockbox (Unlocks Lvl. 15)
| Skills |
Summon Scribetool (Tier 1)
Perfect Motion (Tier 1, MAX)
[Well, I can’t say it wasn’t an obvious choice.]
Skill Proofs: 7 (-2) → 5
| Skill Claims |
(-) Hastened Sight (Unlocks Lvl. 10)
(-) Force (Unlocks Lvl. 10)
Aerial Lockbox (Unlocks Lvl. 15)
| Skills |
Summon Scribetool (Tier 1)
Perfect Motion (Tier 1, MAX)
(+) Hastened Sight (Tier 1)
(+) Force (Components: 1)
***
Jon had extensively researched these two new Skills. To keep it brief, Hastened Sight could be activated at will, and it was upgradeable to Tier 4, whereupon its slowing effects extended — somehow — to seeing faster than light. Didn’t that imply that he’d be able to have a limited form of precognition at that point? He tried not to think about it. With an upgrade interval of 10, he’d have to hit Level 50 before that even happened.
— Level 50 implied 6,375 Kills.
Even after everything he’d been through so far, he still “only” had 225 Kills. How many more harrowing experiences like that at the harbor did he have to go through before he reached Level 50? No, 10,000 Kills? It was too difficult to imagine. It was better not to.
Force, on the other hand, was the type of Skill that expanded in capabilities rather than in raw power; instead of “Tiers,” the upgrade track of this kind of Skill was measured in “Components,” which could be chosen in any order. Still, there was an upgrade interval — for Force, it was 10 Levels — so there would be quite a wait between upgrades.
As for the function of the Skill itself:
— Project an invisible force through space as an extension of one’s own physical strength.
That’s what the Small Book of Skills said. Jon had been on the receiving end of the Skill, and it was very much similar to being pinned by an ordinary amount of force, even if there wasn’t any physical object pinning him. It seemed to be an incredibly common Skill among the knights of the Order, and it was obvious to him why: it was as useful in making non-lethal arrests as it was in “force-punching” someone enough times to kill them.
He could definitely make do with it.
“Excuse me, good sir,” the old man said. Oh, Jon didn’t forget he was there — rather, he was on guard against him. The old man hadn’t so much as flinched when Jon had killed those two men.
“You alright?” Jon asked, the meaning of his words conveying: I’m not here to fight.
“More than fine,” the old man said. In fact, Lord Wiz was elated.
Just a while ago, he hadn’t been sure about this expedition into the outside world. A little bit of magic was all it took to stay invisible for long enough to get outside the walls, and a lot less magic to make his face appear just differently enough once he was able to mingle with the townsfolk.
It had been worth the effort.
This good sir in front of him had shown him something quite admirable, what with his skill with that magic chain. Those fun items were the ones with the simplest design and intent, but also the most difficult to master; the user had to control each and every link in the chain. If they didn’t, the mana flow would be disrupted; at best, the chain would fall flat, and at worst, the pressure spike from the mana backflow would burn the user’s body.
However, the man in front of him could successfully control a magic chain to the extent of being able to wield it as an extension of himself; what was widely considered a party challenge toy was being used as a true weapon by this man! Even Wiz, who prided himself as a man of exceptional focus — the most critical resource when using magic — couldn’t control a magic chain for longer than a few seconds.
Essentially … the good sir in front of him was the best candidate he had ever come across to inherit the legacy of his magical arts and wisdom.
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The House of Wiz could die, but to have his magical sagacity just evaporate — as a true mage and scholar at heart, that would be a true pity. Nothing, not even his own life, was worth more than preserving the knowledge he’d painstakingly crystallized to perfection.
“I’m a purveyor of magic items, of sorts,” Wiz continued, disguising the chipper in his vibe behind throwaway words. “Your chain is quite splendid.”
This old man sounded like he was just another shady ‘collector.’ In that case, Jon could probably negotiate his way out of this conversation. “You seem like you can handle yourself,” he said, by which he meant: You don’t need me here, so I’m just going to go now.
Unfortunately, Wiz interpreted this differently … hearing it as a challenge being issued. “Oh? I didn’t think you were so hot-blooded.”
“I’m not,” Jon said, shooting down anything strange before it spiraled out of control.
“Oh?” — Wiz was just a tad disappointment — “Shame. Here I thought I’d be able to see the full extent of your ability.”
Jon thought he finally had the leeway to make a hasty retreat. He thought wrong.
Wiz dispelled the fake face he wore — and Jon knew the faces of his targets.
Jon’s hand went for his pistols. There were ten feet between him and the R.E.D. war mage, but his brain couldn’t keep up; it couldn’t figure out whether ten goddamn feet was too far or too close. He’d speculated Wiz to have some sort of close range defense — but how close was close? Couldn’t he actually be ten feet from a nuke primed to go off in a split second?
Nuke scenario? Didn’t matter. If the nuke went off, he’d be dead, but he wasn’t, so he didn’t have an excuse not to press on. However, fighting magic with magic was his go-to solution in these situations — and he was facing someone who knew far more about magic than he did. Going that route would also put him six feet under.
All his mental calculations were going towards “how not to die.” Killing this old man, after all, was unrealistic at this point … and he would rather not have to trigger Amani’s death card.
“That’s a good look you have, sir,” Wiz said. My, he was absolutely elated. He’d finally found his last disciple —
Jon whipped out a pistol and shot him in good order. Not that that would actually kill him, of course.
The bullet hung in mid-air in front of Wiz. His countermeasure was some kind of omni-directional projectile suspension field.
This wasn’t the first time Jon had dealth with a lord who could block single attacks, however. He retreated back, firing another round at Wiz as the old man walked at a leisurely pace. Although the bullets weren’t reaching him, the sound and smoke of the pistols surely were; any bit of disorientation that Jon could induce in him was a tiny bit of advantage he could honestly earn.
Those weren’t Jon’s actual attacks. Once he managed to put some distance between himself and Wiz, the lord started to skate across the ground; each step he took seemed to extend four paces, and it was all so unnatural and unsettling to Jon’s eyes. On the other hand, he’d expected Wiz to use some kind of movement augmentation to catch up to him … giving him an opening to chuck a lit grenade in Wiz’s path and shoot it with a pistol.
The flames ate up Wiz’s figure, and yet, he skated out of it unscathed. It was as if he was encased in an invisible sphere that kept both fire and smoke from reaching him.
“Nice and quick thinking” — Wiz praised him — “and good planning around your opponent’s capabilities, too! You surely thought about this old man that deeply, did you? Now, let’s give you a more basic test.”
Fireballs grew in Wiz’s hands — and all around him, behind him, creating a halo of fireballs that vibrated in angry, high-energy excitation, waiting to be unleashed at anything, anything at all!
It was only thanks to Hastened Sight that Jon even tracked the fireball that shot at him. It wasn’t as fast as a bullet — thank goodness — but it was still fast enough that without magical slow-motion augmentations for his Mk. I eyeballs, he wouldn’t have been able to evade it.
He rolled aside, and the fireball zipped by, exploding behind him in a great roar — more like a Molotov cocktail than a high explosive charge. The fire it laid continued to burn for a long time, far longer than what fuel an actual Molotov cocktail would have carried.
“Just about the limit of your eyes, hm?” Wiz muttered. In truth, he slightly regretted being overzealous on this one; had he shot the fireball any faster, Jon might not have been able to evade it, and he would’ve accidentally killed his supposed “last” disciple.
Amusement and play it may have been for Lord Wiz, but to Jon, this was undeniable proof that he was outclassed in nearly every way. Wiz was even smiling; wasn’t it obvious that he was just being toyed with at this point?
He was already apologizing to Amani in his mind. Only magic could fight magic, and anywhere and everywhere was within range for a war mage. If that was the case, then he could only unsheathe Lastifer’s dagger, coil his chain, and bend his knees to make ready for his final sprint.
With wild abandon, he charged. Wiz could only raise an eyebrow, though he also admired Jon’s sprinting form; had the man been running over water, with just a little bit of magic, he could have actually been running on water.
The fact that Wiz just stood there and waited while he charged set off all the danger bells in his head … but he had long understood that there was nothing else he could really do. He slashed with the knife with some magic behind it, but that bounced off an invisible bubble — like bouncing off jelly — miles before it even reached Wiz. The chain didn’t fare better; it erratically flew around, veering off course and shaking like crazy. Even if Jon had masterful control over it, it was exactly because it needed delicacy that it was trivial for Wiz to scramble its naked circuits with fluctuating mana fields.
“Marvelous,” Wiz muttered, and Jon heard it, but he didn’t let the incongruency of Wiz’s words and this situation stop him. He was about to make a follow-up attack, both his knife and the chain already poised to make a second pass at Wiz, hoping that he could discover some kind of chink in his defense —
A wave of pure fear exploded with Wiz at its center. It was a strange sensation for Jon: his mind wasn’t actually afraid, but his body wasn’t responding. He was paralyzed, and even shaking, no matter how focused and unshaken his mind and spirit were.
“Well, good sir,” Wiz started, flashing a smile to try and calm Jon’s nerves. “I sure hope we don’t let this event erode our fledgling relationship as master and apprentice.”
While sweat and tears ran down Jon’s face … his eyebrows furrowed. Such emotions of sheer bafflement were so strong that they not only resisted, but broke through Wiz’s paralytic magic.
The old man found it amusing … and perhaps a little cute. Ah, he might have been getting a tad too excited. He hadn’t had a proper apprentice in a long time, after all, and this one spelled ‘potential’ all so fluently like butter. He saw Jon’s furrowing brows after not too long, however, causing him to take pause. It was such a contrasting reaction to his own, after all.
He clapped his hands together. “Oh! Good sir, worry not! I’m not here to kill you, of all things, no!”
He canceled the paralysis magic, but not before shooting out an exhaustion field. He couldn’t let someone here jump to conclusions, after all, and especially no jumping at himself!
Jon dropped to his knees. Although his body had been freed, it still wasn’t willing. Strength leaked out of it worse than a perforated gas tank. He couldn’t even raise his arms, and it took whatever strength he did have to keep his head up just to keep his eyes trained on Wiz.
Honestly, Wiz’s words were unbelievable. After narrowly dodging a fireball thrown at him faster than some of the best baseball pitchers, Wiz could still say he wasn’t here to kill him?
“Really?” Jon said, a dirty gruffness coming out with his words. It was the best he could do to convey all his disappointment with the least effort possible.
Wiz bent his knees — slowly and with the typical complaints of an old man — stopping at a crouch to meet Jon at the same eye level. He flashed a smile; it was all his best to try and calm down Jon. “Verily,” Wiz said. “I haven’t gone senile, sir. It takes no genius to guess who you work for, but … ah, that’s right. No one but myself knows why I do what I do, of course, of course.”
He shook his head, shaking away his disappointment in himself. “My father was a mage. His father was a mage, and his father — was a carpenter.” He pointed at Jon, showing him a smile. “My house has long passed its glory days. In all truth, I couldn’t care less for being a lord. Magic, however — ah, don’t you find it splendid?”
Jon’s initial suspicions weren’t off the mark — rather, he’d underestimated him. Wiz was absolutely one of those personas whose personality had veered off course at some point, putting him in the same category as Damian and Alyssa: they weren’t unreasonable, but they were certainly inscrutable at times, and even borderline overly dramatic.
It was as if they were always just stuck in their head most of the time — talking to only themselves most of the time. They’d always correct themselves with ’ah’s and ’oh’s, like they were just trying to find even a small amount of entertainment in a life that should’ve otherwise been monotone. All things considered, that might’ve actually been the case.
With that assessment, Jon finally came up with a new game plan. He had spent many days with Alyssa, and thus, he was confident in his manner of handling people just like her — by forcing them into his own flow, instead.
Although the things that Wiz had said clued him in rather strongly, he still wasn’t confident with his hypothesis. Giving a “vague but knowing reply” would be the best option here.
“Why me?” Jon said, eliciting a smile from Wiz.
“I’m an old man, my sir,” he said. “I have things I know which I must pass on, and you are, frankly, the perfect disciple, the only one who could possibly boast the crystallization of my knowledge to its fullest extent.”
Wiz’s words confirmed Jon’s theory. He really is grasping at straws. The man’s wants never lined up with his reality, and he thinks this is his last chance. “Is this really it for you?”
Wiz felt as if his heart had been pried open. He never thought anyone would understand, much less suspect that this was the case. “It very much is.” Wiz frowned. “This lordship business was a mistake.”
Wiz stood up, taking it easy as he did. No amount of healing magic would heal his goddamn knees, that was for certain.
He sighed. Being old was a pain. After his House, he’d like to go next.
“Well, let’s talk about it again tonight, dear sir,” Wiz said, bowing slightly. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again by then. Let’s go through the details at that time.”
It was only after Wiz had left the alley that Jon’s strength started to come back to him. He was lucky, in a lot of ways, to have met Wiz the way he did.
He had been thoroughly outclassed, so much that he couldn’t even touch the man — and yet, by sheer dumb luck, it turned out that the lord was intent on setting up his own demise. If it weren’t for that, he should’ve been dead within seconds. There might not even have been anything left for Amani’s death card to reinsert his soul into, and her own lifespan would’ve been cut for nothing.
On the other hand, this defeat was a godsend for him. Now he knew with absolute certainty just where he stood in power and skill relative to the lords. The gulf was miles wide, but this wouldn’t faze him; after concrete data came concrete planning, and after concrete planning came no-nonsense tactical superiority.