Grubber opened his mouth in a big toothy smile, delighted at the equipment his new boss bestowed upon him. A leather poncho, a bone club, and a rope to keep themselves together.
Yes, little ‘ol Grubber finally was moving up in life!
Of course he would introduce his new boss to his lair, under his command, being the number two was but a given!
They could not drag the snake back, and the hide was just as strong as Johan’s current poncho. All he did was to absorb the magic on the snake’s belly, the slime organ being strange enough to give him some inspiration, but refused to form a card out of it, maybe once he got a better understanding of blood. He simply reached level eighteen.
Johan produced another Flame, Combustion and Compression cards. Deciding it was better to experiment with them, after failing to shoot his fulmin.
Combining three cards was the only real option, besides using traps. But Johan would be a fool, if he at the very least didnt try another method.
A new type of plant showed up as they advanced, this time a weed. Pale yellow leaves, tough, thin and hardy, sprouted from the ground in small clumps of two to five.
“At the very leas these ones are not poisonous.” Johan said when Grubber munched on them, then tried one himself. They were flavorless and leathery, but having something to chew on was a nice distraction.
A new rock formation rose in front of them. This one wide like a city block. Rocks of different sizes clumped together, creating a bumpy terrain, and on some areas bigger rocks stood, wide as a room. Imps sat atop them, and two of them had satchels with stones.
-Lesser Imp level 15.
-Lesser imp level 16.
-Lesser imp level 13.
-Lesser imp level 12.
“You guys suck so hard.” Johan told Grubber upon seeing their levels. “I have been here for so little and im already so beyond you. I refuse to believe its all due to my intellect.”
Johan took a lance, and used Absorption and Compression on its tip, charging it with mana. The bone had enough magical potential to keep the mana stable for a few moments, but it would fade over time.
It was enough. Better to be prepared in case they had to fight.
On the center of the platform there was a large bone deposit, easily two imps tall. On the near vicinity a crack in the ground expelled corrosive magic. One imp cleaned the bones of a snake, and his right arm was covered in vertebrae-like bones, forming an armguard.
“I guess those were tail bones, if they fit your arm.” Johan said to the imp, who just stared back at him and went back to his work.
There was nothing to be gained from killing these imps. Johan went on his way.
*****
An undetermined amount of time passed. Johan and Grubber made their way across the land, but the monsters barely increased in level, and they passed several imp bases like the last one. Obviously, the ecosystem had stabilized, But that meant there was no magic for Johan to study, he was stuck practicing.
As an exercise, Johan forced Grubber to demonstrate his abilities, and it was all basic attacks.
So this was it. Regular imps were stupid, and the lack of challenges and resources kept them at a slow level. So much for progressing beyond them.
The distant light on the horizon remained as far away as usual.
“This is not going to work. I must take over the next place and do something different there.”
The next base eventually showed up. The imps were battling a level sixteen frog shadowbeast, which died as they arrived. Upon seeing Johan and Grubber, the imps immediately got defensive and waved their bones at them.
A level seventeen imp stepped forward, clearly the leader. Johan threw his bone lance at him and landed a hit on the chest. The combination of Absorption and Compression gave the lance extra sturdiness, and upon connecting, the imp’s magic destabilized the lance’s magic, creating a flow of energy on the imp’s chest.
Then the lance fell to the ground.
A skilled cardcrafter could have used that magic for something. But the imps were stupid. He panicked and tried to burn the magic, setting himself on fire and scaring the other imps.
Even with fire affinity they still could be hurt, if the power exceeded their resistance. But the imp probably had half of his deck composed of flame and combustion cards. Just like Grubber.
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Johan delivered a hit on the imp’s head, then another and it died, causing the locals to cower in fear. Both newcomers simply walked unimpeded into the platform’s center, where Johan laid his hands on the local bone pile.
He had no idea what the bones were supposed to be for, but he was willing to learn. In the meantime, Johan took several of them, and charged them with magic in different ways, trying to finds new possible methods to draw insight from.
“First attempt.”
Johan injected two flame cards on the bones, they caught fire and after a while the fire winked out, and the bone lost integrity.
“That was not fire damage, that was erosion from the fire magic flowing through the bone. Lets try again.”
*****
“Eleventh attempt.”
Johan combined a Flame and Combustion card, and focused on keeping the magic contained across the bone’s volume. The bone increased in temperature, forcing Johan to hold it with other two bones, then it became ash.
True ash, not degraded bone.
“This looks promising.”
The result itself was not that valuable, the real benefit was the increased control. As those bones were the most energy-resistant. Looking around, Johan realized he had taken a fifth of the bone reserve and went to hunt for more.
*****
Time went by, maybe a couple days, maybe five. Johan had a routine, he found a shadowbeast, then made Grubber run towards it and grab its attention. Once they went back into his range, he repeated the explosive mine trap, and after the shadowbeast died, Johan commanded the other imps to drag it back to the base.
Johan was pretty sure someone or something would eventually show up to collect the bones, thus he only wore his equipment when hunting. As not to draw the attention of the hypothetical collector, whenever they felt like arriving.
His concession to fashion, was the same type of arm armor made of snake bones he saw on that one imp, and a thick leather helmet. Making him look more like a regular imp boss.
Instead of eating into the bone reserves, Johan had gathered a pile as big as the ones he had seen before, and added an extra third. Then used that third for experimentation, and went back to hunting when it ran out. Making sure he always had enough bones to meet the quota.
By gathering his fulmin across the bone lances, and striking at rocks repeatedly, he finally managed to reach level nineteen.
-Reinforced Lance 1.
*Increases the durability of a lance.
*Decreased effect on non-bone, non-lance objects.
Johan made a duplicate of that card.
-Imp Level 30.
In the distance, Johan detected a new arrival, and abandoned his experimental post. He hid behind a faraway boulder on the edge of the platform, and observed.
An imp showed up, one head taller than a lesser imp. Which probably would be around a human’s waist. He had a leather skirt and belt, loaded with bone knives, and a leather vest pierced with some vertical bones as a crude armor. His most notorious feature had to be his left hand, much bigger and thicker than the right one. With long claws.
Behind him ten imps walked in to rows of five. They dragged a sled, two imps wide and five imps long, it was made of large, thin bones, and carried more bones on top.
However, the sled was not loaded with the same kind of femur-like bones Johan had collected. Instead, they were rectangular bone blobs.
The sled stopped at the edge of the rock base, as it could not climb the rocks. The imp walked towards the bone pile, not paying any attention to the lesser imps, and grabbed the bones.
Magical cards activated, and the pile became a smaller, rectangular bone blob. The imp carried it back to the sled and loaded it with the others.
The regular imps stood away, except for one.
Grubber ran towards the imp brandishing his club, uttering angry nonsensical sounds. Vexed by the theft.
The imp threw one of his knives at Grubber, and upon making contact, it burst into a larger knife, piercing Grubber’s chest. The lesser imp died immediately.
“Come here bastards!” The imp yelled, startling Johan.
Only then he realized there were more lesser imps trailing behind the sled. Fifty? Sixty? It was hard to tell from a distance. Five of them detached from the group and walked towards the center of the rocks. Then the imp and the sled went away, the other lesser imps trailing behind.
Once they were beyond Johan’s sight, he recovered Grubber’s equipment, and called a level fourteen lesser imp from among his “original” group. Then outfitted him.
“Congratulations my friend, you are the new Grubber.”
Neo Grubber had seen the preferential treatment Vintage Grubber received, and he paraded around the other imps, his chest puffed and his head high. Until Johan yanked the rope and took him to hunt.
Now, Johan had a new objective, to duplicate whatever that bone shaping magic was. And make equipment with it.
*****
Several weeks went by, with the imp and his posse arriving once a week to collect the quota. Every time, Johan observed him closely with his golden eye, and little by little, managed to copy the magical flows he saw.
Johan sat on the ground cross legged, a small pile of ten bones in front of him. He injected his fulmin on it.
Back in the other world, Johan had only practiced a regular method of shaving materials, or burning away impurities in order to refine them. But the imp method consisted on making the fulmin flow on the bone, in the same way as it did inside his own body.
Actually, his own bones stretched out from his fingers, peeling back the skin, and touched the monster’s bones. That was the only way to establish a proper fulmin flow, in order to displace the bone’s original mana.
Once all the mana had been replaced by fulmin, it could be felt as if it was his own bone. Maybe if Johan ever got a big wound that exposed his bones, it would feel the same way.
It was said body and soul affected each other. They said souls were originally blank, and imprinted on the shape of the body’s original form. Some kinds of magic, like healing or curses, worked by using the soul or the body to affect the other, this was a similar thing.
Johan realized his Soul Affinity could reshape the bones’ fulmin flow, and then... well, more testing was required.
*****
A couple more weeks, and Johan finally got it right. His regenerative magic was the missing ingredient.
After his fulmin affected the bones, and his soul reshaped that energy flow, he had to use regenerative magic to reshape them.
In a sense, the bones had to be “healed” into a stronger, sturdier form.
The problem was, Johan had no regenerative magic, and had to rely on his natural healing abilities.
All he managed to do, was to graft a bone into his finger, growing a longer claw.
“This is probably why his hand was so big, i can imagine regenerative abilities being obtained after becoming an imp. But as the lesser imps suck so much, it wouldn't be strange if they are already capable. I may be able to obtain some level of mastery sooner.”
Johan wanted to explore the power of the blood after gaining a decent power source, but he would need to accelerate that part of the plan.