“It really does make Leveling a pain, but Briggs and I always have someplace to put Karma,” she smirked. “So, this has been nice. If we go to the Pole with you, that sounds like good fun, too.”

“I’m thinking of having Sir Pellier take over and organize a troop to start clearing a Shroudzone officially. We need a major revenue source for the Amulets and to make appropriate Weapons, but we secured that with the gemstones.” I could literally make a goldweight in gemstones a minute, if that’s all I wanted to do, turning crap stones into wonderfully cut, scintillating examples of the gemcutter’s art.

Of course, I was a bit more limited in how fast I could Energize them, but it was a good thing to spend Valences on before Meditation. Energize I capped at 100 gp, II at 250, III at 500, IV at 1000, and V at 5000... as long as I had gemstones of the appropriate quality, which I definitely did.

Needless to say, I was going to have to invest in some Meditation Feats here pretty quick, given how I could potentially burn through over twelvescore Valences now...

“How long do you think before you can Commune with Nature, and start pulling tons out of the ground?” Sama asked, definitely interested. The Commune would lead me right where I needed to go, and then I could Stone Shape or use Elementals to pull the stuff out.

“Elemental Theurgy/5...” I had to sigh. I flipped up a Holo listing Class Levels out for her to follow. She did so with narrowed eyes... it was not short. Sixes went by, Sevens, Eights... it wasn’t until Nine that a normal Secondary Class could get to that Nine Caster Level needed for my Blighter Caster Level to reach 9th so I could take the last Level of the Theurgy.

“Ouch!” she said with feeling, and I kind of looked at her. “Oh, that’s the face of more bad news...”

“The only reason it's doing this is trying to make my Karmic allocation more efficient, right?”

“That’s right, its only logical, along with whatever build your Shroudborn link is trying to do to you,” she agreed, and then pursed her lips. “Huh. You’ve been taking a Level a day, haven't you?”

“Oh, I most certainly have.”

“So... you’re over eighty Levels in arrears for maxing out your Masteries...”

“At one Mastery a day!” I threw my hands up. “I’m just waiting for that dry, droll message that I can only max out a Mastery Slot today, and nothing else!”

“That’s... half a year of doing nothing but raising Masteries. You’re going to be doing nothing but raising Skill Masteries for half that time...” She wasn’t dumb, and could see the pattern. I was in arrears on a lot of Masteries!

“I can only hope that whatever it is building me towards can carry me forward, or this is going to take a while.” I sighed and looked out over the wildly desolate, burning beauty of the cinderstorm, ignoring it rasping against Master Fred’s Ward Wall, which was glowing with the black-red flames of hellfire and fitting into the landscape perfectly. Streaks of fire were falling like threads of flame, culminating in bursting fireballs here and there.

“Do you have an idea what it’s planning?” Sama asked, interested.

“Yes.” I looked up at the churning Haze, now being lit up from within with hate lightning, and could hear the dim screams of the damned souls caught within being tortured by the rampant, burning power. “I’m pretty sure it’s a vampiric loop of Casting power.”

“An endless mana loop? From killing stuff?” She considered that. “That is a Temptation with a capital T. What Caster in their right mind could turn that down?”

“Yes. And the shadiness of it is apparent from some of the abilities it has foisted off on me. Ur-Priest, Blighter, Jinx Witch... and at least one ability which I’m sure has some ties to... what were vampiric ki attacks called? Death-Eating Ki, or something?”

“Ghost-Eating Ki,” she corrected me mildly. “It only operates if you’ve an established Ki Pool. It’s a faux vampiric ability in that it operates off killing or critting things with weapons, on the principle that there’s enough spiritual energy lost on devastating wounds like that to recharge your own ki.”

“So, fight and kill stuff to recharge your batteries, instead of by Meditation. But... it doesn’t actually drain anyone, right?”

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“No,” she confirmed. “You’re not actually draining ki... but the principle of hurting or harming someone to regain ki is a slippery slope. Happily, using the technique doesn’t lock you into the mode of ONLY being able to regain ki that way, or it would be an outright evil technique.” She eyed me strangely. “How does that help you?”

“You know ki can affect magic, right?”

She inclined her head. “It’s a part of the Wu Jen Tradition, I believe? Favored Spell and Taboos and all that.”

“Yes, but there’s actually an Arcane Fist tradition that dovetails with ki being used to manipulate mana, instead of being purely transpsionic. There are several Ki Techniques designed to be used with magic directly.”

“Interesting. Such as?”

“The two primary ones are Spirit Captures Mana, and Metamagic Ki. The first allows you to spend ki points equal to half the level of a spell to regain a spent Slot or Spell Engram.”

She lifted an eyebrow at that. “Ki becomes a mana pool, if you can take the time to do that? I think I saw you using that a couple times after you spent Slots.”

“Yes, I’m using it to help my rep counts. The second allows you to spend ki instead of Valences for Metamagic.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Okay, that is... less efficient then the Spirit Capturing Technique, probably because it’s more flexible. Does it relate to Wu Jen?”

“The Wu Jen innate ability on their Favored Spells effectively gives them a cost break on the Technique.”

Sama nodded slowly. “Okay, a technique to ‘make a spell’ out of residual mana, and a direct substitution of ki for magic...”

“Are you familiar with the Magus Class?”

“That Blademage, well, Gunmage, usually, hybrid Class? Not overly. Minstrel-level Casting, Medium Attack Bonus... haven’t found them very impressive. They are definitely a burst-style Class, but they shoot their load quick.”

I flicked up a holo for her to read of the standard Magus Progression that I had derived from everything I’d read and which had been recorded by those following the Class.

Her eyes settled on the Level Four ability, Spell Recall. Spend Arcane Pool points equal to a Spell’s Level to regain it; a swift action, just took a second, unlike Spirit Capturing... but Spirit Capturing was half the price.

Add them together...

“Did you happen to get something that conflates Ki and this Arcane Pool?” she asked quickly.

“Arcane Pool Mastery/2.”

“What’s the primary bad effect of the Blighter Class?”

“You’re sucking power out of the land for your own use. Getting Druidic spells involves ripping the life out of greenery and turning the area around you into a cursed, barren patch.”

She made the appropriate face. “So... taking vivus as it comes to the Land from the dead.”

“Yes.”

“Ur-priest, something about stealing Faith?”

“Yes. You are supposed to be stealing the active Faith of people and treating it just like mana to empower your own Divine spells that you choose yourself.”

“Stealing directly from the gods! How wise!”

“More to the point, all the prayers and Faith that are supposed to go to the gods are instead caught under the Shroud... or in the Shroud,” I pointed out.

She shook her head slowly. “So... you can pull out all that unused Faith.”

“Yes, pulling energy in from other sources...”

“And this Jinx Witch effect?”

“Spell Eating. If I make a save against a Fortitude or Will save spell, I can eat the spell, and turn it into metamagic or a Caster Level bonus on my next spell.”

“So it’s establishing a paradigm of you feeding or draining all these alternate energy sources, and it just needs a catalyst to bring them all together without actively draining someone... or draining the undead without a care, and the Shroud, without a care, and if you feed the Land, the Land, without a care...”

“Yes. I think the Ghost Eating technique will turn it all on. On top of that... the power of the Theurgic Classes is merging different types of magic into one. So, as long as the right Theurgy is in place, all the different magic can be subbed with ki, without a problem.”

“And all you have to do to keep the engine going is keep killing massive numbers of creatures... like all those undead under the Shrouds.”

“Horribly convenient, no?”

“And that works with Shards?”

“If you fully Weaponize them, yes.”

Sama reached up to massage her temples. “That Perpetual Spell sounds much less convoluted.”

“Well, the big thing there is the Soul Limit boosting. Ah, and one more thing.”

“Do I really want to know?” Sama smirked.

“Ring of Mystic Ki.” Sama shook her head, unsurprising since nobody learned about magic Rings when you couldn’t make them in the game, or around here. “Invest two Ki. Ki costs of any techniques are reduced by one, to a minimum of one.”

Her eyes narrowed sharply. “So, you’re telling me you can get a Valence IV back... for one ki?”

“Not yet... but eventually. Or I could eventually Twin and Quicken something for one ki each...”

“As long as you’ve your rep counts in.”

“Yes.”

“And with an endless spell engine, you could get six hundred rep counts an hour... if you have the targets.”

“Yes. It’s how Aelryinth and Flechette used Perpetual Spell.”

“Can you blow the metacap?”

“No.”

“I don’t know whether to be relieved, or irritated for you.” I had to smile wryly at that. “Does the metacap stretch?”

“Yes, it grows past Ten, when our Valences form an additional Spell Pool, and we burn the Sixth Ring.”

“That’s right, you said he was a Fifteen. So, he could Raise the Metacap by three... owwww, were there even enough Metas to keep his Shards maxed out at that point?”

“It was getting difficult, but remember he was starting with Shards at IV, not I like me, and they got down to III once Perpetual was Efficient.”

“How many reps on that?” she had to ask.

“A million twenty-four thou.”