For a few minutes, Alarion simply let himself relax.
It had been days since he’d actually done that. Or maybe weeks? It felt like there was always some new thing to learn, some new challenge to overcome. Even sleeping and eating was mere fuel for the same endless cycle. He was never allowed to just… be still.
But such a moment couldn’t last. Not with the threat of seconds, minutes, hours and days ticking away in the background. Reluctantly, Alarion straightened and turned his attention to the notifications at the edge of his vision. The first was nothing interesting, a notification that he’d dipped below 75% MP. Enchanting the mace had taken more out of him than he’d realized.
The second, though, was much more intriguing:
> Juvenile Enchanter
>
> Description: While others play with blocks and roll around in the mud, the Juvenile Enchanter has chosen to dive deep into the inner workings of arcane knowledge.
> Requirements: Craft a spellcasting Implement before the age of 16.
> Effects: Slightly increased precision when crafting, modifying or repairing any enchanted item. 10% bonus experience when crafting, modifying or repairing any enchanted item.
Alarion was not sure if it was a good bonus. Gods willing, he would never enchant another item so long as he lived, but the ability to do so with more precision, or importantly, to conduct repairs made it a feat worth having. Especially since it was free.
It was certainly better than his [Avian Bane] in any case.
Beside him, Valentina cleared her throat. She’d waited patiently while he recovered, but now she seemed… almost antsy. “When you are done reading your new feat, I will help you transfer your spell triggers to your new implement. Then you can begin the challenge.”
“How did you-?”
“Alarion.” She spoke his name as though she were insulted that he was surprised. “Feats are one of the few things in the System that are fully reproducible. The same inputs get the same outputs. Knowing that you’d get the feat was part of your reward.”
“Oh.” The young man looked as though he intended to say more, then thought better of it. Even he was smart enough to know that critiquing the feat was… unwise.
Instead, he turned his attention to his newly enchanted mace. “You said we can transfer over the spell formulas?”
“With some modification, yes.” Valentina smiled to assuage Alarion’s immediate worry at her mention of modifications and together they turned their attention to the work. True to that reassuring smile, the actual process of transferring his four known spells into the item was relatively painless. With the System based assistance of his [Unbound Spellcraft] skill it took nothing more than a thought to transfer [Quicken] and [Mend Body] into his new implement. Both were spells he knew, his spells, and the system recognized them as such.
[Solar Burst] was more difficult and required the use of his inscription tools to copy the critical marks of the spell formula onto his new implement. Once that was complete it was a simple matter to ‘grasp’ the underlying magical energy and move it from one item to the other.
With Valentina’s help, of course.
[Void Slash] was the real problem, and the one spell in need of modification.
“I hardly need to explain this to you, I imagine, but you cannot cut or slash with a mace. And since you need to channel it through the implement, we will have to make some changes.” Valentina explained as the pair reviewed the existing formula embedded onto one of Alarion’s daggers. “The key elements are still there, Void, Offensive and Projection, but if you look closely, you’ll see these small accent marks around the offensive and projection runes? Those pair together to create a cutting power that we need to get rid of.”
“Could we just remove them?” Alarion asked, ever straightforward in his solutions.
“We could. But doing so will make the energy non-specific. It would be closer to your Solar Burst spell at that point, just a general pulse of void energy, which is not all that destructive to begin with. No, we still need it to be targeted. Hmm… this may take a moment.”
Valentina touched the dagger, and the markings engraved along the blade began to glow with an inner light. Moments later they separated entirely, floating into the air until they hovered at roughly shoulder height. From there, Valentina began to experiment, adding and subtracting strokes from the existing characters with each flourish of her index finger. She paused several times throughout the process and each time she did Alarion felt a pulse of mana through his [Introverted Mana Sense].
“That should do it,” she said after several minutes of trial and error. The spell formula that hovered in the air was different to be sure, but only subtly so. A mark removed here, another added there. Alarion couldn’t begin to guess what she’d changed about the underlying spell. “Mark these onto your implement. Exactly as written.”
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Alarion did as instructed, carefully inking the letters into the haft of his weapon as Valentina supervised. When the task was finished, she assisted him in pulling the floating formula into his new weapon. Once complete a notification immediately popped up at the edge of his view.
> Void Crush
> Requirements: None
> Affinity: Void
> Type: Projectile
> Cost: 125 MP
> Range: 75 Yards
> Duration: Instant
> Effects: Creates a wave of void energy up to three feet in width and five feet in height that strikes along a predetermined path. Increase range by 50 yards and reduce MP cost by 25 if this spell is cast along a horizontal plane, such as the ground.
Strictly speaking it looked… worse? The MP cost was higher, and the range shorter. Even with the reductions mentioned in the effects it appeared to be a downgrade. But Valentina had created it, there had to be something he was missing.
“Your teacher chose a dagger for a reason.” Valentina explained without preamble, sensing his dismay from the look upon his face. “Most non-elemental affinities are fairly weak offensively at an early rank, but they all have their specialties that let them hit harder than they should. Void’s offensive specialty is ‘cutting’ magic.”
“Then why are we-”
“Because orthodoxy is boring and unimaginative.” She waved a hand dismissively. “It is also predictable. If you have void magic roiling about your aura, or a giant void rune on your weapon, people will expect you to cast thin, quick slashing attacks not heavy, high damage crushing attacks further boosted by the sympathetic link involved in wielding that monstrous weapon in the first place. In life I was never much of a warrior, but one lesson Mother imparted to me was that the best attacks are not the ones with the highest numbers, they are the ones that suit you and the ones that actually land.”
Alarion looked to his mace and thought back to his stubborn battle against the dragon, about his refusal to trade his preference for what was ‘best’.
As far as he was concerned Mother had a damn good point.
“Mm.” Alarion nodded in agreement as he stood and lifted his mace. With the spell formula stored within his [Unbound Spellcraft] skill, the precise motions required for casting had been burned into his brain.
He lifted the weapon, about to swing when Valentina caught him by the wrist. Her skin was soft, her touch light but he knew instinctively that he couldn’t go through with the swing if he tried.
“Maybe not in my chambers?”
“Ah.” He blushed a little. With all the furniture gone in favor of the chalk markings, he’d sort of forgotten he wasn’t in a challenge. “Right.”
“You’ll get plenty of practice soon enough,” Valentina said. “Before you go, you might wish to customize your spells.”
Alarion frowned at that. Binding his first spell to his implement had created a new option in his menu, named [Spellcraft]. An option he had explored while Valentina had spent her time creating [Void Crush].
The [Spellcraft] menu contained a list of his known and prepared spells, of which he currently had four. Mentally ‘clicking’ on any of them brought him to an even deeper menu composed of a triangle with a dot in the center and three corners labeled: Power, Speed, Cost.
It had been weeks since Sierra had gone into detail on the particular sub-system when talking about her own magic, but it was intuitive enough that he could have figured it out even without his memories of that conversation. With a mental command he was able to move that dot anywhere within the triangle, resulting in corresponding changes in power, speed and cost for the spell he’d selected.
The problem was that he had no idea what to do with it.
He understood the system well enough, but not how to optimize within it. Was it better to make a spell faster and cheaper? Or stronger but slow? So much would depend on the type of enemy he faced and the situation in which he faced him, which made it all the more frustrating that the System warned him that any selections he made would be locked in place for a week’s time.
“I do not suppose you could tell me what I am expected to be facing in there?” When his words were met by Valentina’s deadpan stare, Alarion sighed. It was probably for the best. Even if he tailored his abilities to this upcoming fight, to the limited amount that he could, there was no guarantee that this would be his only fight in the coming weeks. “Any advice about my spells you can give more generally?”
“I-” Valentina started before stopping abruptly. She looked off to the side and scowled. “No, I’m not trying to circumvent… we both know I am allowed…. ugh, fine. Alarion, max out the duration of your Quicken spell using the speed column. The rest are up to you.”
Watching Valentina argue with ‘herself’ was never something that inspired confidence, but Alarion did as he was instructed. She had not steered him wrong so far. Which was why he also maxed out the power attribute on his new [Void Crush] spell.
She’d told him to focus on what he was best at, after all.
“Are you prepared?”
Alarion looked to the door, then checked his Status. His MP had fully regenerated while they’d finished moving the last of the spell formulas. He was as ready as he’d ever be.
“Yes,” Alarion said.
“Then off with you.” Valentina gestured to the jewel encrusted door. “And Alarion?”
He glanced back over a shoulder. “Hmm?”
“Don’t die.”
With that helpful bit of advice Alarion stepped through the door and found himself amidst a lush jungle oasis.
It was a place positively brimming with life, and unlike anything he’d ever seen or experienced. Ashad was temperate in nature, and he’d lived far enough south in Imuria that his childhood home had been much the same. Cold in the winter, warm in the summer, his home was a place of evergreen forests and fertile farmlands.
This was something else entirely. The air felt damp, and not just because of the babbling stream or the running waterfall nearby. It was hot and clammy, the air so thick with moisture that he felt as though he could swim in it. Nature was everywhere he turned in a thousand different variations. Unfamiliar trees, bugs, birds and small animals skittered about amidst the overgrowth; the foliage so thick that he was forced to shoulder his way through toward the creek in order to get his bearings.
It was strange, but undeniably beautiful in a way that Alarion could not describe. He had no taste for art, no understanding of aesthetics. But this place… it was pretty.
And dangerous, if the beast that leapt down from the canopy above was any indication.