"Do not be tricked by the false ways. Skills are everything."

~The Pesian Nomads

“I guess I’ll do this later.” He sighed, going back to practicing his skills on the house, and junkyard around him while he tried to rebuild his house with the little knowledge he had on the subject.

Luckily, the Lost Libraries took in lost texts from all around the multiverse—which now included Earth. Any books that went unobserved for too long were deposited into the infinite archives of the Lost Libraries, giving Devin access to a lot of humanity’s knowledge.

Including Building Houses for Dummies.

Which didn’t make anything easier, or simpler. It was like looking at the instructions for how to build a Lego house, except instead of a pristine pile of materials, he was working with melted, chopped, broken bricks already glued together. He threw out the instructions after a while, confident he got the important parts.

Hard work and elbow grease can only get me so far. I need to focus on what I have. Magic, and a helpful mouse spirit,

It was easier than he thought it would be to put in a new section of bricks into the house. The simplicity of using [seize] to stack the bricks in the hole, and using [refine] to create stucco was astounding. He was essentially gluing the wall back to place, a pulse of arcanium solidifying the wall in place. The problem he had was that he didn’t have enough bricks to fill up the two giant holes on the side of the house, as well as the numerous pockets around the house.

This was solved by collecting mud from around the property, using his skill to rapidly turn a wide section of the ground into divided bricks before lifting it out of the ground. His newfound ability to stretch the limits of his skills was the result of his research. Skills were just a frame of action. It wasn’t the action, nor magic; specifically the frame of the action itself. Depending on comprehension, proficiency, energy, force of will, and dozens of other factors, an arcanist can learn subskills or even create skillsets.

So Devin practiced a lot, trying hard to use his skills in new ways, which wasn’t easy. He had to try to forget every preconception he had while invoking a different mental image of how the abilities worked.

Keyword: try.

He attempted again and again, but only succeeded in wasting his resources to fuel his numerous attempts. He [focus]’d on [subjugate], going through the activation process slower every time he failed to change the frame of mind the skill manifested in.

What does it mean to subjugate? Devin repeatedly asked himself, meditating on the question as he went around the property scavenging supplies and dismantling entire sections of the house—only to move on to the cars and junk outside when he finished inspecting the house, recycling any materials he could reuse.

Devin had an inkling of an idea from his few times using the skill. [Subjugate] wasn’t a clash of souls, will, or ideologies. The clash was just a byproduct of attempting to use the skill on a sentient being, a means to an end—to conquer.

To subjugate was to lay claim; to subjugate meant to dominate. It was about more than just power.

It was about control.

Once he understood, a ding rang out in his soul, telling him his skill evolved. sort of. There weren't any system notifications or any of the sort, but Devin innately felt the difference. The frame outlining the skill was slightly different, in a way he didn’t understand.

Activating the skill wouldn’t immediately send him into metaspace; Devin could still achieve that effect, but now the skill usage was more flexible, more profound. He was no longer limited to the [subjugate]’ing other sentients. Devin could now extend his skill to non-living material and elements, bending the world itself to his will.

He wasn’t able to extend the skill very far, only going as far as almost two feet from his body before faltering, yet it made Devin very excited. It was not only a tangible improvement as it nearly doubled his working speed, but it also gave a very rough outline to Devin’s personal field.

Auras were fields created from a person’s or an object’s meta-body. Devin’s sixth sense was detecting the fields generated from strong meta-bodies, allowing him to sense someone’s relative strength and general disposition. It wasn’t incredibly accurate, but it saved his life more times than he could count since this world fell to shit.

Using his aura sense and evolved skill, Devin mapped the entirety of his field, and once he was satisfied, he extended a wave of arcanium tinted with [subjugate] as far as he could while he gathered the piles of materials around the property.

I guess 26 inches is my hard limit. Rather than becoming disheartened, the metrics motivated Devin, inspiring to test the limits of all his skills. This is just the start. It won’t be long till I’m flying in the sky like Bateman was.

While trying to incorporate his skills to make the rebuilding easier, Devin noticed another interesting change in his skills.

When he [seize]’d materials of the ground, he coated the wooden boards with [subjugate] and noticed a connection between it and [seize]. While the connection didn’t do much but let [subjugate] flow over the materials easier with less strain, Devin flipped through his other skills to see what interesting combinations he could create.

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While his three other skills didn’t have that much affinity with [subjugate], the combo with [refine] gave Devin a wonderful surprise. Whereas [recycle] allowed him to make objects from other materials; the combination between the base skill and [subjugate] allowed him to fuse similar materials.

Although Devin couldn’t fuse entire brick walls with the wooden and drywall interior, he could combine the wood, grout, bricks, and sheets of drywall with other like materials. The ability was incredibly useful while he went around repairing the broken sections in his home. Which amounted to more than Devin cared to count.

After a day, all the small repairs and cleaning were done. With nothing left to do other than rebuild the roof and walls, Devin got to work, using literal magic and superhuman strength to accomplish what would take a team of men weeks or months of work in just a couple of days.

When he was finished, the house hardly looked like it did before. Not only was the general shape of the house subtly different, the building was now a hodgepodge amalgamation of several shades, colors, and materials. Where Devin ran out of wood, stone, or any of the original materials to work with, scrap metal was laid instead. Shingles, tiles, entire wall; the house was more metal than it was anything else.

The mix left the residence a little more monstrous compared to the recreation Devin was going for, but having a non-leaky roof was one less thing to worry about. He would rather seem like an evil scientist than have no house at all.

I guess that makes me Frankenstein, and this house my monster. The thought made him smile. Replace scientist with magic man, and it's almost true.

What surprised Devin was the fact his claim of control persisted throughout the house. Usually, [subjugate]’s aura would last until he stopped channeling arcanium into his target. On sentients, the field would disappear as soon as he stopped, whereas non-living elements would hold onto the aura for a few seconds before dissipating.

His house seemingly ignored the rule of thumb, generating a presence that complemented his own, essentially clinging to his own aura while Devin was around the area. It transformed the building from a chimeric hut into a home that truly felt like it belonged to him, and only him.

Devin thought the reconstruction would take much longer, at least a week.

It had only taken three days.

Completing his tasks so quickly left him feeling restless. He felt bad for not visiting Ben and Ken, but he wasn’t ready to face them yet. So, he made himself busy with other stuff to do.

It had been a while since he looked inside of electronics—since before the fall when he was still in college—yet a flex of his skills made it simple to remember the components of a radio and fix one of the boomboxes downstairs, especially with his skills. Luckily, his dad’s book of CDs were left untouched in the fire. He slammed a disc of his dad’s favorite artist—good ole’ Bobby Caldwell—and moved on to the next training.

One he hasn’t been looking forward to since he got back.

A spear made of solid white ebony was stabbed into the ground, producing a dreadful aura that blasted in every direction for hundreds, if not thousands of feet. It was one of the cards Devin looted off the boss monsters he faced a few days ago, and it was the sole reason Devin was able to relax so far out of the protection the town gave.

He didn’t know why, but it was absolutely too painful to keep the spear in his vault, so he left it in the middle of the house the first chance he got, which made every monster avoid his house like the plague, including the nightly hordes.

It had taken a while to get used to it, but he couldn’t deny the benefits it provided, so until now he had let it be. That was until now.

Devin manifested his skills, attempting to breach the field of fear around the weapon, yet the spear struck down his skills one at a time with cracks of lightning. “This is going to be harder than I thought.” He said to himself.

Dewey huffed a puff of air from her perch on the half-couch.

“You do it since it’s so easy.” Devin yelled back at Dewey, who didn’t bother replying and returned to her nap.

Devin’s stamina drained as he activated [focus] and relentlessly drove his head into the wall of crackling fear around the spear. The number of attempts and the time it took for each was meaningless to Devin as he drove arcanium filaments of [seize] tinted with [subjugate] into the field of fear. Even [destroy] was useless, unable to get past the lightning the spear conjured.

The field surrounding it crackled in response to his attempts, beating back his will-infused energy without pause or diminishment of power. A headache started to wedge itself between Devin’s eyes, yet he kept going, concentrating all his attention on conquering this weapon.

What am I doing wrong? He thought in between attempts. I don't know how, but the weapon is maintaining its power, while I’m just exhausting myself. Devin paused, trying to figure out a different method. He needed to bend the weapon to his will, yet [subjugate] wasn’t up to the task. It was too weak, too broad. He needed something sharper to penetrate the crackling field surrounding the spear, so Devin mentally dove into his deckspace, attempting to get a better picture and feel for what he was trying to accomplish.

It was easier to discern the relation between [seize] and his other skills, barring the abstract [focus]. The main aspect of the skill was a pulling force, yet when he used it to create filaments of arcanium, Devin was able to use it as a medium to channel his other skills.

Relying on this technique, Devin once more created more filaments than he could count, using [refine] to condense and strengthen them, while his wrath gave them the weight he needed to stab them directly into the field of fear.

Crackling sparks welled up to meet his arcanium, but a surge of [destroy] disintegrated the sparks into nothingness. The lightning redoubled, its intensity increasing the more Devin [destroy]’d. After a tense stalemate, Devin succeeded in pushing deeper into the field than he ever had before. The curtain of fear slid away, exposing the glowing card at the heart of the spear.

Devin reached a mental hand out to the spear, but it was zapped away by a flash of black lightning thicker than any of the sparks it conjured before. You fucker. Stop playing hard to get. He growled, pushing his filaments of arcanium to the card.

The black lightning protecting the card erupted in a primal fury. It beat back his energy no matter which angle Devin approached it from, stabbing more pain between his eyes with every strike.

Alright. Alright. A battle of endurance is just a losing game. Devin rubbed his avatar’s head. I need something more than power. He halted his efforts, attempting to conjure another filament of arcanium. Instead of dragging his arcanium through the filter of [seize] to conjure thousands of strings, Devin stacked [focus] on top of it, imbuing the concept of intensity to concentrate it to extreme levels. He [refine]’d his creation further, not only condensing the arcanium even further, but improving the arcanium itself on a molecular level.

If I don’t have enough power, I’ll just stack everything on top of one another until I do. The stream of energy was incredibly difficult to control; Devin elected to just direct its flow instead of directly controlling every speck of it, yet it was still hard to guide it, let alone move it.

He didn’t give up though, he slammed every bit of willpower he had to get the ball rolling. It barely moved at first, but every time he slammed his mental avatar into the river of arcanium, it sent it reeling, slightly. Luckily, the momentum was preserved, so Devin’s efforts added up. The stream rolled along slowly, but then as fast as a river after a while.

The river of arcanium rushed past the crackling fear without losing any energy, and it slammed into the meta-manifestation of the item card. Black lightning welled up to meet the flood and succeeded in pushing back a little bit. That was until Devin added his last two skills into the mix, [subjugate] and [destroy]. The river exploded forth, disintegrating the last wall of defense around the card, and slamming a river full of conquering arcanium into its nucleus.

Trial Passed

Affinity Raised

Focus + Seize + Subjugate + Destroy

(Refined Aether)(Overcharge)(Wrath)

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Grip of the Inevitable