“God it’s finally over.”

Roxy leaned back against the wall with a flourish.

“What are you complaining about. I did all the work.” Beside her an expressionless girl typed furiously into her computer.

“Joy-joy-joy.” Roxy watched Joy hammering into her keyboard and grinned, “I gave motivational support.”

Roxy took the time to scroll through their latest blog post. It was an article detailing yellow ranked weapons in Zodiac Online. It gave potential stats as well as ways to obtain the weapons. Given how rare these kinds of yellow ranked items were it was like they’d unleashed a goldmine onto a starved mining town. Players were commenting and debating the validity of information and after a few minutes, the entire thing was already reaching the top of the official Zodiac forums.

“The yellow ranked weapon information is big enough to tide us over for now. But if we want to be a big name in the Zodiac Online information industry we have to establish ourselves soon.” Joy typed a note into her computer and frowned, “We need a hook. Something that everybody needs but nobody knows they want to know.”

“OH.” Roxy shouted.

Joy swiveled in her chair at her friend’s exclamation and looked at her with anticipation, “You thought of something?”

“No. I just thought making a loud noise would get our creative juices flowing.” Roxy sighed, “But I guess not. Oh-oh-oh” Roxy’s eyes shone as she gazed at her monitor, “Third is online.”

“So?”

“He’s smart” Roxy stated simply, “I’m going to check with him and see if he knows anything we don’t.”

“Just make sure not to mention the blog.” Joy didn’t want anyone on their team finding out about their real lives, “But try to get his permission as well.”

“Yeah-yeah-yeah, I know the drill,” Roxy was already making her way to her capsule.

Joy sighed at her friend’s expression.

She could already tell Roxy was totally going to tell Third about the blog.

****

Third gazed calmly at the leaves floating in the air around him. He’d had to hit a few trees to get to the point where there had been enough leaves in the air to experiment with but eventually he had made it. Now he was sitting down with his hands grasping his wizard staff as he concentrated on his targets.

Each leaf was making its way slowly through the sky and circling around him as though he was surrounded by an invisible barrier. To the observer, it looked like the wind was blowing each one in wildly different directions. Left, right, up and down. Each leaf was gliding and even if they passed each other they didn’t get pulled into another direction. It was a scene of organised madness.

Third blinked and tried to concentrate. If the average observer could see leaves, all Third could see was the fifteen transparent balls that ranged from a few centimetres in front of him to five meters away in the middle of the air.

Each one was a separate focus point.

Leaves moved in an undefined sequence as Third constantly shifted the direction the focus points would shift the objects to. Sometimes he would make a mistake and instead of sending a leaf towards another focus point he would accidentally send it into the air and it would fall to the ground. But overall he seemed to have a large success rate. It was only when he tried to make more than fifteen focus points that he found it difficult to concentrate.

“The way you are now, you will never be able to reach an A rank.”

Third recalled the words stated by Lass, the attendant at the Magi Guild of Lum, that had administered his test of control. The magi NPC had seemed absolutely sure that Third wouldn’t be able to pass the B rank score of the test that he’d achieved. It had hit him hard to be told that he had reached a wall in his abilities.

Then to make matters worse for his pride, Seven had demonstrated a technique had hadn’t even thought of. Of course, it had occurred to him to use the focus points to deflect enemy attacks, but then he’d given up after he realised that arrows and swords couldn’t be deflected. He had never thought to connect them to create an infinitely looping circle.

‘If I had, would my rift attack exist as it currently does?’

His entire class revolved around his rifts and they were fired one at a time because he was used to forming focus points one at a time. The system had simply adapted to his playing style. He had never tried to form more than one for an attack. He had never even thought to send one attack through to another focus point and loop them around.

He reached up and grabbed a leaf from where it was constantly stuck in a loop. He could feel every single object that passed through his focus points and he smiled lightly. Seven could only form at most four focus points, and even then she had to make sure they were only a few centimetres away from her body. He regained some of his confidence as he released the fifteen focus points and reformed them in different areas. He would make sure that he stayed one step ahead of everyone else.

“Oh-oh, you’re online awfully early today, thinker man.”

Third was startled by a voice popping up right behind him.

“Roxxy?” He looked over his shoulder and sure enough, there was the awe-filled girl watching the leaves floating around him, “How- Oh, I see, you logged off here.”

His focus points couldn’t detect something that hadn’t existed in the game. If Roxxy hadn’t walked through them then it meant that she’d either teleported or logged into the game at that spot.

“So this is what Seven did?” Roxxy had heard from the excited female magi all about how Attracting’s blue light hadn’t been able to reach her.

She watched the leaves closely and quickly worked out where the focus points were situated. Each time a leaf suspiciously changed directions in mid-air it meant that there was an invisible focus point located in that spot.

“What happens if I do this?” She poked one of the focus points and watched curiously as her finger went through the air normally, then she knocked a leaf off course as it went through the focus point and brushed against her finger, “Oh. So you can’t use them on much more than leaves?”

Third kept the focus points up as she moved from one to the other like a bee discovering flowers for the first time.

“You are certainly curious today. Is this about your blog? I found the piece on yellow ranked weapons quite informative.” Third felt a smile tugging at his lips as Roxxy froze in surprise for a millisecond before continuing to act as though he hadn’t startled her.

“Blog? What blog?” Roxxy put on an innocent expression and then began swiping at the leaves as they reached the focus points, “So-so-so, can you manipulate anything bigger than a leaf? What about an arrow?”

“Too quick for me to react.” Third grimaced, “Perhaps someday. But the rifts and focus points are too small to accommodate anything larger or warp their directions.”

He had been trying to tackle that exact same problem for the last few days. Even before the Dragon’s Legacy quest had ended he’d asked Archy to fire arrow after arrow into his focus points and yet he’d had no success. If he didn’t have a focus point up already then he could forget about making one in time. He would have to do it before the arrow reached him.

“Well then. Let’s think.” Roxxy sat down next to Third and pointed to the remaining leaves that were endlessly floating through the air, “How spread out can those things be? Can you make like thirty in one spot? Can you make a wall of clumped up ‘focus points’ that act like a shield.”

Third dismissed the focus points and concentrated in one area. He formed rifts this time so that Roxxy could see them in action.

“The rifts can stack on top of each other. But they don’t do anything to enhance the other rifts and the damage does not multiple or change. It stays the same as if there was one rift present in the location.” Third continued to form rifts in the one spot but nothing changed, they didn’t grow in size or power.

It was the same for focus points. Even if he stacked them they wouldn’t gain the ability to deflect bigger objects.

“So its a waste of mana.” Roxxy concluded, “What about the wall of focus points? Not rifts, since those can be seen and dodged easily.”

“Okay, okay.” Third decided to humor her, she had come up with quite a few good ideas, “There.”

He pointed towards the area in front of them, "There are about fifteen clustered around in front of you.”

Roxxy lifted her hand and brought her buckler out. She threw the small shield straight into the spot that Third had pointed at and felt no resistance as the shield flew harmlessly through the air and smacked against a tree, causing more leaves to fall onto the ground.

“There’s nothing there is there?” She frowned as the shield returned to her, “You’re just messing with me.”

“What, me?” It was Third’s turn to act innocent, “Maybe just a little bit.”

He lifted his staff and focused intensely, “Okay.” He could see the focus points forming into a group, they couldn’t stack on top of each other so each one was about two centimetres apart from each other, “Now there is actually a wall of focus points there.”

“Great.” Roxxy brought her shield up and threw it again, “Fool me once Third…”

Then she felt the shield pull slightly down.

“Oh-my-god.” Roxxy saw the shield correct itself and then continue on a slightly different course as before, “That’s not that great.”

“Indeed.” Third had been hoping for a little bit more of an impact, “Even if the shield passes through it will not be swayed greatly. I would be better off dodging with my feet.”

The shield hadn’t actually hit that many of the focus points but even if it had hit all fifteen he doubted it would make a difference. It was simply a limitation put in place by the game that large objects or even extremely fast ones wouldn’t be greatly impacted by the focus points.

“Damn.” Roxxy was genuinely disappointed, “So how did you know about the blog?”

“You posted a video analysis of one of my matches against Dark Horse.” Third chuckled as he saw an expression of guilt cross over Roxxy’s face, “I don’t mind. But I was curious as to the identity of the person taking the video. I knew it couldn’t be Seven or Archy. They were in the video. That just leaves you three.”

“Three?” Roxxy tilted her head, “You’re including TidalWave?”

“I do not know him.” Third said with certainty, “So for all I know he could be one of the people helping to run a blog. But since he comes with Seven as a package I doubt he’s involved. That just leaves you and Spark Joy. Two experienced tanks with the ability to fight at a high level.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Maybe we just took a video and sent it to a blog for fun.” Roxxy rebutted.

“It also helps that you have the same name here and on your blog.” Third quickly countered her argument.

“Right.” Roxxy smiled.

She had actually gotten Dark Horse’s permission to post that video. But now that she had Third’s she was totally in the clear.

“I really do enjoy the analysis you give on the various fights. They’re all sent to you via email I suppose?”

“Yup.” Roxxy didn’t even bother to hide it at this point, “We’re pretty popular if I do say so myself,” Third could see her practically puffing up in pride, “Of course, it’s mostly a side thing. But I really like doing it.”

“It’s as important as you want it to be.” Third agreed, “Is that why you started playing Zodiac Online? To establish yourselves in a newly forming game?”

“Ab-so-lutely.” Roxxy emphasised the words and grinned, “Imagine the clout we’ll gain from being in the game from the beginning. We just need that one hook that’ll cement us as great. Video analysis is done by the dozen online and even if not everybody has yellow ranked items yet, it’s not something the general public really needs to know at the moment. Not enough people get them to make anyone except the rich and lucky curious.” She motioned a grand arc with her hands, “I want something absolutely shocking.”

At her words, Third lifted himself off the ground and grinned.

“Well then, something shocking is what we shall have to find.” Third offered Roxxy a hand and she accepted as he helped lift her off the ground, “There is, of course, one easy way to discover new and shocking facts about the game.”

“Quests?” Roxxy put out hopefully.

Third shook his head.

“Fighting.”

He grinned and Roxxy suddenly found herself doubting her eyes and ears.

It seemed like Third already had something planned for her.

****

‘God damn I love fighting against magic.’

Roxxy was having a blast as she weaved and bobbed through the rifts that Third was forming around her. She could tell that he was taking it easy as she moved through the trees and tried to stay out of his sight.

She just couldn’t work out why.

Third was never the kind of person to take it easy in duels. Against all of them, he had chosen the path of killing or being killed. He didn’t like wasting time and in fact, he was the person with the lowest duel count out of all of them.

‘So why is he suddenly taking it easy now?’ Roxxy narrowed her eyes as she viewed him with suspicion.

A strange feeling had been growing inside her from the moment he suggested the duel. He knew something she didn’t, and that made her mad.

“Well,” She called out to him, “I’m just going to have to make you show me what you’re hiding.”

She dodged as Third replied to her words with another rift. When she was fighting the wizard she had to be constantly on the move or else he would just form a rift on her body and deal massive damage. Luckily he had a small cooldown between each rift being formed and they weren’t that difficult to jump out of before they’d fully come to life.

She lifted her shield and threw it towards him. Third dodged to the side and she grinned. She watched as the shield bounced off the tree she’d sent it flying towards and then ran forward as it smashed into his back. His eyes widened as he was stunned and Roxxy took the opportunity to sprint towards him. She was already well into close range.

Roxxy had already forgotten her blog worries, she was just letting out steam and having fun now, ‘I’ve got you now you magic throwing bas-’

[You have lost the duel against player; Third.]

Roxxy’s eyes widened as she suddenly found herself flying through the air and her body slammed into a tree.

“What just happened!” She exclaimed as she revived.

She hadn’t even managed to see what had hit her as she ran towards Third. But somehow she had been instantly killed despite her caution.

“You were stunned.” She pointed accusatory towards Third, “What sneaky trick did you pull.”

Third grinned but didn’t reply. Instead, Roxxy saw another duel request come through and with gritted teeth she accepted. This time they started from a long-range distance.

She wanted to watch his every move.

‘Okay-okay-okay’ She thought to herself as they began the usual dance of firing rifts and dodging rifts, ‘This guy has to be doing something differently.’

She knew all of his skills by heart, just like she knew the skills of her entire team. Third could form rifts wherever he wanted but he also had the ability to turn invisible and summon a spear that fired at enemies.

‘Could he have turned invisible?’ Roxxy dismissed the thought immediately, even if he had been invisible he couldn’t kill her in one hit like that, ‘Could he had hit me with the spear?’

She hadn’t felt or seen it.

“You’re getting sloppy.” She called out the Third, “Your rifts are hardly brushing me.”

Roxxy wasn’t just taunting him. His rifts were actually a lot less precise than usual and far easier to dodge. Normally it was like trying to walk on pins and needles. One wrong move would get you skewered by a rift. But during these last two fights, he was clearly not putting his all into it. It was like he wanted her to get near him.

Again Third just grinned and continued to fire off rifts.

He moved back as Roxxy got closer and as soon as she was in the original area he’d been in she threw her shield at him to try and force him to make a wrong move.

[You have lost the duel against player; Third.]

Roxxy blinked as she suddenly found herself pushed onto the ground.

She hadn’t even seen what had hit her.

“Oh good. It worked.” Third leaned over her avatar and Roxxy stuck her tongue out at him, “I was a little worried this time.”

Roxxy grunted and lifted herself up, “Okay, what’s going on here?”

“I’m not so loose-lipped that I’d spoil the surprise.” Third’s eyes were twinkling as he teased the increasingly curious Roxxy, “Let’s duel again.”

“Alright-alright-alright.” Roxxy agreed with ferocity.

‘Time to see what this guy is hiding.’

****

As Roxxy weaved through the trees Third remembered how angry he’d been when he was taken out of the Corruptor fight.

It didn’t matter that he had total trust in Seven or that he’d lost an item. He hadn’t even felt placated by the fact that he’d been given more gold than he would need. It was enough to tide him over for quite a while in this game.

He was pissed off because he hadn’t been able to contribute anything meaningful to the fight.

He’d taken out two enemies of course. But when push came to shove he had done the least to impact the fight compared to his other ranged allies. Seven had ended the battle, but in the end, it was Archy that saved more lives than even the Nimble Magi.

The archer had shot arrows that not only damaged the boss but also allowed him to easily pop its eyes, and the speed at which he fired meant that his arrows almost overlapped as they had taken out vital area after vital area. The archer had popped far more eyes than Seven had. This had caused the entire fight to shift in their favour as the tentacles had stopped smashing down against their allies.

Third grasped his weapon tightly. He hadn’t been able to help at all because his rifts would deal damage but not pierce the enemy. He couldn’t damage the boss’s eyes at all. But he still had a supporting class instead of one that deals tons of damage.

‘I got you.’ Third grinned as he shifted his staff and watched Roxxy blast forward with a yell.

This attack was his answer to the concerns he had.

Then he summoned a rift and finished her off. He watched the tank do a dance of irritation as she tried to figure out what he was doing to kill her. It was going to be difficult for her to figure out unless one of the others decided to tell her.

He’d spent hours trying to figure out what he’d done wrong. He was clearly skilled enough in terms of control and versatility to deal damage but he didn’t have the creativity Seven seemed to have with her abilities. More importantly, he didn’t have the sheer explosive power that the other wizard, Glacier, had.

She’d somehow managed to gain an area of effect ability that dealt damage and possessed crowd control.

He decided after the Corruptor battle that he would start from there.

It stood to reason that he should have a way to obtain such a skill himself. But unfortunately, he was stuck with the three skills he had obtained when he chose the class. Sure, he had seen NPCs giving out skills unrelated to the class, but attack skills weren’t something that could just be created. And that was where Third had hesitated.

That was where he’d begun to change his way of thinking.

Third lifted his staff as Roxxy charged at him again. She still chose the furthest range possible for the start of the duel so that she could try and see what exactly he was doing that she was missing. Third obliged her by not even hiding his movements.

In his eyes, the field in front of him lit up with transparent balls; focus points.

“Rift Destruction.”

Third didn’t have to say the name of the attack out loud, but he wanted to give Roxxy a chance.

Unseen by the tank the fifteen focus points Third had made began to warp and change until they formed purple and black rifts floating in mid-air. The entire process took less than a second. He activated the detonation the moment Roxxy was in the middle of the focus point field and before she could react the rifts exploded simultaneously, causing a shockwave that buffeted her with damage and killed her.

If he wanted to he could detonate one, or he could cause all fifteen to self-destruct. It was versatile and had a wide and varied range.

This was his area of effect attack.

“Ha.” Third let out a breath.

It was extremely taxing to constantly create focus points without much rest between battles.

He grinned as Roxxy sunk into a pensive state. She wasn’t able to see the attack happening because it was so quick and Third made sure to activate the focus points changing into rifts once the focus points were out of her sight. But she had probably already worked out that running straight towards him wasn’t a good tactic.

Sure enough Third soon saw Roxxy dart off to the side and become lost in the trees. She was trying to launch a sneak attack on him.

‘Nice try. But it won’t get you very far.’

Third smiled as he re-created the focus points until the were surrounding him in a sphere. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t deal as much damage as they would clumped together when they exploded, due to their distance from each other. But he didn’t know which direction Roxxy would come from so it was a risk he’d have to take.

He watched the focus points carefully. If he accidentally used it too much then he’d run out of mana. It used up far more than his other abilities. But could be deadly when put to proper use.

‘I guess that'll help you a lot.’ He thought to himself as Roxxy’s shield suddenly passed one of his focus points.

He jumped back with a smile.

He had wanted to reveal this after he’d perfected it so that his team wouldn’t go and accidentally cripple their future potential. But when Roxxy turned up he suddenly found himself okay with revealing his find a little early. Especially if it could help her in some way.

He grasped his weapon and detonated the focus points the moment Roxxy stepped into his field of attack.

He felt like showing off a bit.

****

Roxxy was feeling pretty pissed off.

She knew Third was just toying with her now but she still couldn’t work out how. From the back, the side, the front and even below and above he seemed to be able to send her flying in any direction. She was having a hard time figuring out what she was missing. Clearly it was something to do with invisibility.

‘Is he making his rifts invisible? But he can only summon one at a time.’ Roxxy shook her head.

She had to get to the bottom of this.

‘First. I have to get the feel of his range.’

Roxxy smashed her shield against Third as she ran up to him.

‘Second. I have to trick him into activating whatever it is.’

Then she saw him shift his weapon and a smile tugged at her lips.

‘Third. I’ll have you show me what you’re hiding you bastard.’

Roxxy jumped back just as she saw Third move his staff and she finally caught a glimpse of something. There were rifts forming all around the spot she’d just been in and before she could react they exploded, sending her face down into the ground. She grunted as she lifted herself up. Luckily she had moved out of the way so she was actually mostly unharmed.

‘That wasn’t one of his skills. He doesn’t have anything like that.’

She quickly brought her shield up and realised that Third wasn’t attacking.

He was just standing there with a smile on his face.

Then she realised what she’d been missing. No, what she’d been blocking herself off from. That one piece of information that she had never known she needed but suddenly realised was something everyone in the game would want to know. Skills didn’t just have to be given by a class advancement.

They could be created.

‘Third… You goddamn monster.’

Roxxy watched as suddenly more rifts formed around her and exploded...

-Blocked

-Blocked

But instead of flying back or being damaged Roxxy was standing in the same spot, perfectly fine. Roxxy’s shield blocked the attack as it hovered above her head. It had moved to intercept the exploding rifts just as they’d been detonated.

“So you just have to use your imagination.” Roxxy grinned, “It was so simple this entire time.”

She hadn’t intended for it to happen, but somehow she’d brought the shield up to block the attack. In fact, she’d done it completely by accident.

The moment she’d seen the rifts exploding and discovered what Third was trying to show her, she’d felt something click.

The shield wasn’t even being held by her. It was hovering in the air right above her head as though it was possessed. She had let go of it the moment she felt that Third’s attack was coming.

No. The shield had moved on its own to defend her.

It was as if it had a will of its own.

[Skill created; Shield Spirit.]

[1/4 Skill creations used.]

Roxxy punched the air in excitement.

Soon the forums would be on fire.