Darius closed the gates and slid the locking bar back into place. Once that task was completed, he looked around, suddenly at a loss on what to do. Darius caught some movement out of the corner of his eye and saw it was a shadow moving swiftly across the ground. Looking up, he saw something he couldn’t quite believe for a long moment. It was a tiny dragon looking thing. His Identify triggered moments before it just disappeared.
Gold Fire Lizard
Level 5
HP: 50/50
SP: 100/100
MP: 154/182
Darius wondered where it'd disappeared to, and what a fire lizard was, if not a miniature dragon. But the sight of the creature flying around triggered his memory. There was something he'd been wanting to do since he'd learned it was possible. He wanted to make wings for his Power Armor. Not wanting to cause a fuss by activating his suit without any danger around, but wanting to use the greater Mana reserves, he made his way around to the back of the Headman's Hut. when he saw the ladder was still set up he smiled and clambered up then settled down on the flat roof, out of most people's direct line of sight. With an exertion of Will, the Power armor left its dimensional storage and wrapped itself around him.
Greetings, Darius. how may I be of service to you?
"Hey Pax. I need to use the Power Armor's Mana supply. I'm going to make us an Eidolon upgrade. I'm making us some wings."
Very good, sir. That will save you Upgrade Points in the future, though I am unable to be of any direct assistance to you.
"Nah, that's no problem. This is the kind of thing I need to do on my own. Thanks for the offer, though. I know you'd help if you could. Now, I just need to focus for a bit. Sound good?"
Yes, Darius. That does sound good. I will stand by if you need anything.
With that bit sorted and out of the way. Darius settled into his meditation while focusing on the Create Eidolon spell. when he felt the spell start to draw on his own Mana Pool, he concentrated hard, imagining the spell shifting to take its power from the suit. He maintained a firm grip on the Mana like he did before, but slowly, he felt the Mana drain from himself slow, but he could feel the Mana in the armor stir and gradually flow into the spell. He allowed most of the Mana reservoir to get sucked up quickly, but when there was only about ten percent remaining, he tightened his mental grip and slowed it down to a trickle. Once he managed to match the drain with the suit's regeneration, he just held it there.
Time slowly ticked by as he did his best to maintain the spell. Every minute added about forty Mana to the spell. For a good long while, he wasn't sure how long, everything flowed smoothly, like it took almost no effort to control the spell, but then he heard a strange chirp and opened his eyes and saw that golden flying lizard standing on the roof next to him. Before he knew it, his concentration was shattered, and the spell tried to take every Drop of Mana his suit had. he'd been keeping it at the regen rate, so there was less than forty mana in the suit's reserves. It was gone in a flash and he had to wrangle with the spell to keep it from imploding on him. With a monumental effort, and a surge of will, he managed to cut the spell off. He signed in relief when a window popped up in his vision.
You have invested 1,160 Mana into Create Eidolon.
Converting Mana to Creation points.
You have 1377 CP available. Please select a template.
The massive list of templates populated the next screen and, once again, he was impressed with all the options he had at his disposal. Not wanting to get distracted with going through the list, he focused his mind and willed the list to change. The number of options quickly dwindled, and he was left with all the options he had available for Eidolons compatible with attaching to Power Armor hard points. With the reduced list, he added another filter, this time for flight assistance. the remainder was much more manageable. His options included such things as drone blades that would work like a helicopter, fixed wings, glider wings that would extend a good ten feet to either side and even a jetpack that would add additional thrust to fly faster for short periods of time. What he wanted wasn't any of those. What he wanted came from an old movie he'd seen as a kid. While it was just a toy, he thought it would work perfectly for him, after all, who didn't want to be a space ranger? With that in mind, he scrolled past the other options until he found something that would work almost perfectly for what he had in mind.
Skyblade Booster Template
The Skyblade Booster is a state-of-the-art enhancement module designed for power armor, incorporating a powerful jetpack with advanced aerodynamics and retractable wings. When activated, the booster provides unparalleled mobility and speed, while the wings extend to six feet on either side, granting enhanced stability and maneuverability during flight. When not in use, the wings retract seamlessly, maintaining a sleek and streamlined profile.
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Template Cost: 500 CP
Mana Cost: 40 MP
Range: Self
Cast time: 4 Seconds
Duration: 5 minutes 27 seconds
Quality: Average
Durability: 120/120
Base Material: Steel
Weight: 500 lbs.
Hard point requirement: 1
Mana Pool: 200
Flight Speed Boost: +20% flight speed, 90 Mana per minute.
Mana Efficiency: -10% Mana cost for flight operations.
Flight Stability: +10%.
Altitude Limit Increase: +100' maximum flight altitude.
"Now that's what I'm talking about," Darius said, pleased with his find. "Though only a hundred feet more height aint that much. But, hell, that's what upgrades are for. Even with it costing me five hundred points, that still leaves me eight hundred and change." Darius clicked on the template and moved on to the upgrade stage.
You have 877 CP remaining.
Would you like to:
Enhance Quality: 25 CP
Upgrade Base Material: 50 CP
Enhance Flight Speed Bonus: 10 CP per 5% increase
Enhance Durability: 5 CP per 2 points of Durability
Enhance Mana Efficiency: 5 CP per 1 percent
Increase Maximum Altitude: 10 CP per 100'
Increase Flight Stability: 5 CP per 1 percent
Increase Duration: 10 CP per minute
Increase Mana Pool: 1 CP per 2 points.
Reduce Mana Cost: 20 CP per 5% (Max 50%)
Reduce Cast time: 10 CP per 5% (Max 50%)
Reduce Weight: 20 CP per 10% (Max 50%)
Add Magic effect: 100 CP
Enhance Magic Effect: Varied
"First, five hundred pounds is way too heavy. Definitely going to need to reduce that, but let’s see what the weight would be if I upgraded the base materials. Wow, that's a big difference. upgrading once to titanium reduced the weight to three hundred pounds, not bad for only fifty points, durability went up too." Darius went ahead and upgraded the material once more, matching the material his Power Armor was made out of. the Orichalcum increased the durability again, increased the Mana pool, and reduced the weight again, this time bringing it down to two hundred forty pounds.
"Hey Pax, how badly would a two hundred forty-pound winged booster pack affect the operation of the Power Armor?"
Darius, I would be happy to assist you.
Assessing…
Projections indicate that adding two hundred forty pounds to the back of the Power Armor will increase Power consumption by 10% to maintain normal operations. However, the potential bonuses to the flight system should negate this additional Power consumption.
"Thanks Pax."
Deciding to leave the pack's weight as it was, since he wouldn't have it activated when he was staying on the ground anyway, he moved on to the next upgrades with his remaining seven hundred fifty-two upgrade points.
The main reason for getting the booster wings was to increase how high he could fly, so he focused on that next. At only ten points for the first upgrade, he bought it. When he saw the price had only increased by five points, he upgraded it again. He ended up upgrading the maximum altitude five times, costing him one hundred creation points. Six hundred thirty feet was close to a sixty-story building. Satisfied with that height, he left it there.
"Hey, what if I add some magic weapons to this baby? Then I can be all top gun and smoke some fuckers in a dogfight." Darius dove into the Add Magic Effect options, and looked over what he could get. He found an option that would allow the wings to launch kinetic force blasts that could reach five hundred feet in one second, it dealt fifty damage per shot, but cost two hundred fifty Mana per shot and one hundred seventy-five Creation points to add onto the booster. Shaking his head at the expense, he decided it would be better to just make a separate, weapon focused Eidolon later. after all, the booster pack only used one of his two Conjuration hard points.
He went ahead and increased the quality twice, using seventy-five of his points, but it gave a twenty percent bonus across the board. Next, he increased the Mana Efficiency for the speed boost by an extra ten percent, costing fifty points. That reduced the Mana cost per minute the speed boost was active to seventy-eight Mana. with his increased Mana Pool, that would let him boost for up to three minutes, longer if he added his own or the Power Armor's Mana. his after burners, as he thought of them would boost his speed from one hundred miles per hour to one hundred twenty-four. it wasn't a huge amount, but it would cost him an extra fifty mana per minute of use if he added another ten percent to the speed. "But what if I just increased the Mana Pool? then I could get a higher speed out of it…"
Darius checked and saw he had six hundred and two points left, so just shrugged and added an extra twenty percent to the boost for forty points, then added an extra two hundred Mana to the Mana pool for one hundred points. With all the bonuses from materials, quality and everything, he was sitting at five hundred seventy-six Mana and a per minute cost of one hundred fifty-six, giving him just over three and a half minutes of traveling at one hundred forty-eight miles per hour at up to seven hundred fifty feet off of the ground.
It was when he was looking over all the modified stats that he saw the cost of such speed. It would cost him one hundred eighty-three Mana to conjure it, and every five and a half minutes. His Power Armor would barely regenerate enough Mana to recoup the cost before it was drawn out again. Then he saw the cast time. It would also take him eighteen seconds to cast the spell. If he needed the extra speed quickly, then those eighteen seconds would be an absolute eternity. With four hundred forty-two points left, he set about reducing those costs.
After maxing out the reduced Cast time, Mana cost, and adding ten minutes to the Duration, Darius was left with only forty-two CP left. Not wanting it to go to waste, he spent it on the booster's Mana Pool, increasing it by another eighty-four points before bonuses. after doing the best he could to get the most out of the Eidolon, he looked over the final results, more or less satisfied. Then he finalized the Eidolon and received the new Conjuration spell.
Skyblade Booster Template
Template Cost: 500 CP
Mana Cost: 138 MP
Range: Self
Cast time: 14 Seconds
Duration: 16 minutes 21 seconds
Quality: Well Crafted
Durability: 240/240
Base Material: Orichalcum
Weight: 192 lbs.
Mana Pool: 678/678
Flight Speed Boost: +48% flight speed, 156 Mana per minute.
Mana Efficiency: -22% Mana cost for flight operations.
Flight Stability: +12%.
Altitude Limit Increase: +720' maximum flight altitude.