I let myself have five more minutes. Five minutes to process the changes that had happened in the last thirty. Considering how little time that was, there was a lot that had been packed into it. Also considering how often that happened, I really should have been more prepared for it to happen again. Nevertheless, once those five minutes were up, so was I.

The detour to talk to Gec had already taken longer than I expected and I wanted to be ready for when the elementals stirred. I had a whole host of things I needed to work on in tandem to defending the Outpost. Continuing my testing of absorbing Dreg from the atmosphere, practicing Fievil's new abilities and even getting familiar with what effects my Air Augmented Skills would produce; I didn't build the Item just to look pretty!

Two days wasn't a whole lot of time, but I wanted to be ready to actually contribute to Sharon's fight instead of being a big bearded punching bag of a distraction. While I felt confident the Hummingbird Charm would prove useful, there was one thing that needed immediate priority testing and it was the entire point of the Shaman's lectures: Fievil. The fall from the weather tower wasn't the first time the axe-hammer had pulled my rear from the fire, but it was the first it had been able to do so on its own accord... Mostly. The spell nonsense that Sharon was capable of was at least three times as difficult as anything I could muster, but it was an important proof of concept for my Shard Weapon's potential.

"You think we are ready to ring the dinner bell on some elementals?" I asked, eyeing the storm. The mole living in my weapon just sent me an image of it clenching its oversized claws in eagerness. Considering I wanted to start slow, testing before the elementals started to congregate sounded like the best idea. Some would start to get attracted the moment I was outside of Gec's influence when Fievil used his Arcane Sink, but I felt good about handling the stragglers.

Before long, I found myself in exactly that location. The wall of the Outpost was not too far, easily within retreat range, and I waved at the Wild Guard that was keeping an eye on me. Not only did he have the Implant ready to send out a message warning the whole base, but he also had a wooden horn ready to be blown as a secondary alarm. Getting a few dozen people all in one comm-plant connection was asking for a headache even if it was technically possible.

Blobby had joined me outside, even if the slime had elected to stash his saddle with the Davis family. I didn't blame it. The saddle looked more than a little sturdy, but there was no sense in risking it when we knew we were going to be going in for a tussle. While Blobby had been with me for the entirety of the discussions, other than with Gec, I explained the goal of our time at the Outpost. In response, the slime quivered and transformed.

Not even a minute after I'd finished talking, the hulking humanoid Blobby towered over me. It seemed that Marie was still hanging out with one of its Blobites, since it had one less light twinkling within its chest and its size was marginally smaller-- Blobby had been bulking so much that even a missing mitosis body left it a comparable size to when it had anchored for us in the Tug of Brawn. In the universal sign of 'let's kick some ass' the slime slammed a stone boulder into a flattened stone disk that took the place of its arms.

"I guess I won't mess around. I'll be focusing on my magic, so just cover me if something tries to knock me out?"

The cyclops head nodded once, hovering over me like an appropriately sized bodyguard for my giant body. With my two back ups in position, I released Fievil from my back. I barely even felt Ballast anymore as it shifted the axe-hammer's weight from my mass to the head of the weapon just as I drove it into the muddy clearing. With a flex of my whole body, I shunted my mana into Fievil and then leveraged it down to a trickle of a percent every minute. It was as close as I thought I could manage while focusing on all the other things I wanted to test with the Totem.

With the practice I'd been doing over the last day, it didn't take much effort to continue feeding Fievil mana as I focused on the mental connection between us. Arcane Sink, Fievil. Sure enough, the Mana Shard released its Domain outward. While my mana continued to tick down, Fievil was the one paying the cost of the Arcane Sink even as I subsidized it. Immediately, the drizzle of rain turned heavier as particles of dust and sand filled them the moment they entered the spherical Domain.

While it was muted within Fievil's Domain, the wind picked up slowly. Blobby spun, looking up at the sky just as I noticed a pair of incandescent motes of grey energy making their way down towards us. A few others glimmered in the distance, but those two were on a mission. As soon as they separated from the huge cumulonimbus clouds overhead, their ephemeral bodies were outlined by the Implant. Their forms were still nowhere close to defined, but the golden outline shifted and changed along with the elementals and I knew that my was synergizing with whatever sensory system the Implant used to perceive creatures.

"Perfect," I mumbled, focusing on Fievil. "Let's try shaping the Domain first as a weapon."

With a thumbs up from the Totem, I leaned with my intent like I'd done before to adjust the size of it or send it out in a burst. It instantly reminded me of all the reshaping shenanigans I'd done while in my whitespace, trying to reach or stabilize a place beyond me. To say it was a strange sensation would be an understatement, but I was used to being on the backfoot of a sixth sense. What was a seventh? As my desire started to turn the sphere around me into a protruding dome, Fievil's own will joined with mine. The exercise became so easy that the Domain stretched almost vertically away from the Shard Weapon for several feet. With very inexperienced hands, we worked in tandem to nudge the protruding Arcane Sink to be in the trajectory of the two incoming Elementals.

Based on how the two creatures reacted, they likely were able to sense the Domain to some extent. With both parting around me, I picked the lower Leveled one to focus on and asked Blobby to keep an eye on the Cloudburst Elemental. There was no way Fievil and I would be able to nudge the Domain to overlap with the speedy Air creature, so I eased my will and reformed it into a dome. The outline of the elemental started to coalesce into a bird-like shape and it sped forward at the 'retreat' of the Domain. Except I aimed Fievil at it and repeated the process that created the Domain column.

As if I were wielding a giant club, the Domain struck the Elemental like a truck. Instantly, the trailing edges of its body turned to sand and its more cohesive insides took on a brown sheen that muted the glow from its core of mana. I suppose it's the core of their Hemispheres, or whatever analogous structures bind magic to individuals. That's... Focus! The thought cut through my brain with the subtlety of a car crash but it was effective as the sandy Gale Elemental took me full in the chest.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I grunted, more out of surprise than anything. The impact had barely hurt. As the elemental swept away from me, I watched as Blobby's humanoid form cartwheeled right into the Cloudburst Elemental just to force it out of its original dive path even if it wasn't quite fast enough to hit it. When I took a moment to assess what had happened, I noticed a few key things. There was a sizeable chunk of my right over my navel that was little more than gravel. Radiating out from that point were thin grooves that had been carved right on the surface of my stone armor in a spiraling pattern. In addition to all that, there was mud all the way up to my knees from where Tremor Frame had splashed as the force of the impact was released.

"Keep me the hell away from tall buildings," I mumbled. "I'm a tough cookie when I have my feet planted."

Getting another burst interrupting my thoughts that I finally identified as coming from my ornery Totem, I refocused on the fight. Underestimate. The thought bubbled, not requiring an image to distract like the Totem had needed before. He wasn't able to communicate with words only, but it seemed Fievil had woken with qualitative changes. Good.

Heeding my weapon's advice, even if my subconscious had already recognized the elemental as an almost inconsequential threat that it let me get distracted, I watched the two elementals adjust their approach. The Cloudburst started vibrating, releasing a thick fog that covered the entire creature in mana-formed air held thick around its body. Obscured as it was, its core still glowed through and Blobby's cyclops eye seemed to have no trouble tracking it.

Assured that my backup wasn't hindered, I turned my eyes to the Gale Elemental. It had purged the sand its brief exposure to my Arcane Sink had caused and its speed had doubled. Just to be safe, I cast to rebuild the damaged portion of my armor while I tried to keep the creature in my sights. A futile attempt, really.

While its attacks weren't able to penetrate my armor, even less when I was actually paying attention enough to turn them into glancing blows, it was making me pay for my low Mobility Attribute. Even with a lower Quotient, it likely had more Mobility than I did. Once more, it was like trying to punch air except this time there wasn't a storm wall hemming the elemental close enough. Thankfully, I wasn't quite rock brained enough to just keep doing the same thing when it was clear it wouldn't work. Instead, I returned to a proven method Fievil and I could now refine. Bursts.

Before, when I'd used the Arcane Sink as a dissuader it had been like I exploded with the Domain in order to throw off whoever was within range. With my heightened awareness of mana and Fievil's growth as a Totem, we could work things with much more finesse. Ranging from a column to a cone as wide as a quarter-sphere we peppered not only the Gale Elemental, but the Cloudburst one when they weren't expecting it. The effects were neutralizing at best, but the creatures were still not very high Quotient and their speed dropped precipitously with the loss of air under their command.

"Gotcha," I growled, dodging a pass from the elemental completely. Without bothering to turn my body, I swung Fievil's haft onto my shoulder with as much force as my 2.43 Strength could manage-- enough to crack my armor and elicit a wince. Thanks to being connected, the Totem knew what he needed to do. A burst specifically aimed at the Gale Elemental struck dead center and was quickly followed up by a wide-cone Arcane Sink that kept it in range.

Like a squeaking whistle, the elemental dropped to the ground and Fievil followed it down. The tortoise shell hammered the core of the creature into the earth and burst it instantly. The crystal spikes that sprouted from it were just insult to injury. The Pith flowed out of the crater I'd formed, flowing unilaterally in my direction. Remembering how the unwelcomed guests at the Embassy had behaved, I cast into the air. Waiting for that, Fievil's mole head-and-claws appeared from the center of the spell chain as it imploded. The floating manifestation plowed right into the Pith cloud like a fish into a fresh grown algae pond down in the hydroponic floor. Where the glimmering energy stuck, the creature's definition grew deeper and more solid by a shade. Nowhere close to where Sharon's Totems were, but considering the relative age of the Totems Fievil was doing gangbusters.

Knowing the by-product of the defeated elemental was pure Pith I didn't even bother calling out and let the warming sensation from the cloud reach my skin. It had been small to begin with, even more after my Totem frolicked through it, but I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to need every bit of energy I could. The dying screech of the elemental had rung the warning bell and the sky was responding. I knew they weren't limitless, but it would be tough.

"Maybe... just one test for today," I said to myself, eyeing the Cloudburst Elemental as it released more of its obscuring mist. Three other Q2 elementals were almost in range for the Implant to identify them.

My mind turned to the Hummingbird Charm around my neck. With a flow of mana, I activated the Item and felt the acceleration of my thoughts acutely as my Refinement jumped. It reinforced my decision to be cautious as I was able to better process the mass of clouds overhead as the beginnings of a storm funnel. It was subtle, but when you could compare things more than 15% faster the little things stood out. Like the fact that I'd run that math in a second. Shaking my head to focus on my intent, I fed into the Aeration Amplitude Item and crossed my fingers.

The punch to the gut of using a totally new variation of my Skill hurt as the side effects radiated out through my body. The Augmented Skill, however, did not disappoint.

Further sand poured off the surface of my , encasing that in a layer of light brown armor that complemented the blocky build of my original armor. If that had been all, I would have been pleased. Instead, the beige plates ejected off the surface of my body like a spaceship shedding rockets. As if that effect wasn't impressive enough, they started to cover about an inch off my skin. Trails of floating sand seemed to be what kept them connected to the surface of my and when I poked at one of them they had give, rather than a solid disposition.

"Oh, yes. Now we are talking." I grinned wide, already liking the sheer tanking possibilities that more layers of protection gave me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Blobby looking at my new mana-formed armor and poking at its side as if comparing them. Unfortunately, I didn't get time to discuss further with the slime what it was thinking. The Cloudburst had joined up with its buddies and I was fairly sure it wasn't happy. The other three elementals dove into its obscuring mist and started up a funnel in truth. One of them must have been lightning Refined, because the whole thing started to spark angrily.

"It's going to be a busy day," I said, once more eyeing the stray elementals starting to work together before the Cloudburst manifested its namesake and divebombed with the whole funnel of air and lightning trailing behind it.

Thankfully, it wasn't the only one with buddies. Now manifested, Fievil swam within the Arcane Sink with ease. Even if the cost of using the Amplitude Item couldn't be covered by the Mana Shard Weapon, it was more than capable of sustaining itself now that I opened the door for it. In response to the head-on collision, I aimed the Domain right in its path along with a very hungry mole eager to play in the material world.