The journey was slow. Despite having a cart and horses they took their time. Not because Will wanted to, but because the others insisted. And Will had to admit they were right. Beasts didn’t typically attack people on the roads, as they were well patrolled. But one of the followers managed to track one down every few hours, which led to a small hunting session every time. It was annoying at first, all the beasts seemed so weak it wasn’t worth their time. But when Will was promptly taken down by a dire rat and had to be saved by one of the followers, he realized that maybe he needed some real training. Dire Rats were the size of your average terrier, which meant big for a rat, but not Madracora big.
In the guild, part of Will had wanted to dismiss what others had said about his current weakness. Now, being taken down by a rat a quarter his size made him fully realize the situation he was in. When they came across another spirit moose they didn’t even let him fight as it would have been far too much for him. Instead, he spent his time on the concept control exercises. It was rather humiliating.
When they stopped for the night, Will was approached by one of the followers who offered to show him how to use a sword. Will agreed, needing some time away from his concept exercises. Will quickly learned that the dash and slash movement he had been using were far from a valid fighting style, and that his fighting was closer to barbarian than swordsman. He went to bed that night quite discouraged until he looked at his notifications.
Sword of Desolation is now level 10
Concept Manipulation is now level 15
Swordsmanship is now level 11
He brushed past the first notification to look at the other two. Apparently his training was doing something. He had gained 8 levels in concept manipulation and four in swordsmanship. When he told Emerys he got congratulations, but was also told that his skills would get harder to level as time went on. That was entirely within expectations for Will, and it didn’t reduce his excitement one bit. He woke the next morning and got straight to working on his concept manipulation. By the time they stopped for the evening and Will was able to train his swordplay, Will was able to get a hold of his physical concepts most of the time. It took him a couple seconds of concentration to access them properly, and he still occasionally failed, but he could do it.
His sword practice went better the second day, as a good part of Will’s reticence had fallen away. He still ended up bruised and sore, but being able to access his concepts again, at least his physical ones, made sure he could heal far more quickly. The third day, though he wanted to continue with his concept training, he decided to spend some time looking at his gates. It was odd to Will. He could perceive the gates in his body, and he could feel the energy flowing from them. It felt in an odd way like they had always been there, but that Will had not been able to perceive them until he got his physical concepts.
Amalise had been kind enough to give him a short lecture about how the gates functioned. The gates regulated the flow of energy throughout the body. This energy, known as stamina, was what fueled all of your bodily functions. Due to his stats, his body produced far more than normal, but his body had also adapted to the higher amount of stamina it was allowed. Stamina training was more like stamina deprivation training. He had to learn to open and close the gates at will, and then to close off the supply of stamina to show the body how little it actually needs. Only when using skills did the body need more stamina.
Even normal humans were horribly wasteful with their stamina. If they can learn to sense their gates, which Will was surprised to learn was possible even without a concept, they could learn to regulate their stamina. Most humans needed only a quarter of the stamina their souls produced, but their bodies were used to the full amount which made them greedy.
And so Will spent most of that day learning to close his gates. There were a lot of them, and while Will learned to close one or two with concentration, he found it nearly impossible to close them all. He didn’t get a skill for it either. Part of the problem was his concept gates. He had mostly been learning to control his concepts from the spirit map where they were far more readily apparent. But each concept had its own gate like it had its own star on the spirit map. Every one of these were harder to close, and the energy emitted by these gates were changed by the concept.
It was all still stamina, but his Unbroken Stone concept emitted stamina that was slower than the rest. Will discovered that it caused his body to become tougher in the areas that stamina reached. But without control over the gate or the stamina, the hardness aspected stamina was diluted by the other stamina very quickly. The same happened with the stamina from the Feathered Winds gate, which allowed his body to become lighter and quicker. The effects of the Desolate Heart of the Frozen North and Inferno of the Tumultuous Mind were far harder to pinpoint, and Will wouldn’t be able to determine their effects until he was able to control his stamina.
Will ended the day a little discouraged again. He needed to get the Stamina Control skill, which he was assured was a real thing. It was to fighters what Mana Control was to mages. It was absolutely indispensable for anyone who wanted to fight well. It would not allow him to move stamina out of the body, but would allow him to move his concept aspected stamina where it was needed. Will ended the day by looking over his notifications.
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Concept Manipulation is level 19.
Will looked over the notification dumbfounded until he realized that trying to close the concept gates must have been what leveled up his concept manipulation. It made him realize that there must be far more to concept manipulation than he thought. It also meant that he could kill two birds with one stone and learn how to manage his gates while leveling his concept manipulation.
And so Will spent most of the next day working on his gates, as well as most of the day after that. He still did his swordsmanship lessons, as well as fought approved beasts they found along the way, but now he was required to keep strict control of his gates as he fought. He wasn’t able to get full control over his gates until day four. He found that as his control increased, and he was able to hold more and more closed, the mana gushed faster out of the remaining open gates. However, when he finally managed to close the final gate something odd happened. He suddenly fell to the ground as if boneless, and all of his gates burst open at once. After a round of laughter from the group Emerys and Amalise explained that the body needed stamina at all times. The gates could never be completely closed, though you could get close. He would have to learn not just how to close his gates, but how to regulate how far open each one is. Coincidentally, this was also a necessary skill to master the dimensional locking technique that Emerys had shown Will several days ago.
And so Will got back to work.
On day five, Will got a great notification.
Concept Manipulation is level 25
Congratulations! Concept manipulation has reached the first threshold.
Please choose an upgrade path.
Fine Control- Allows you to use aspected energies with more finesse, reducing cost of abilities while increasing their effect.
Vast Power- Allows you to manage large quantities of power with ease, with less chance of concept corruption.
Will was excited, and at first was about to choose Vast Power. It seemed to be exactly what he needed. However, something was pressing at the back of his mind and so he went and asked Amalise about the choice. She confirmed his fear. The rage and emotional instability was not concept corruption. Concept corruption was the physical and mental changes that a concept enforced on the individual. Things like Will’s now white hair, and the emotional dampening he had been using so much when he arrived in this world. The conflict between his concepts could only be alleviated by greater control. And so Will chose Fine Control.
While this was somewhat disappointing, Will saw an immediate increase in his ability to control his gates and access the power of his concepts. Part of him was tempted to take off the suppression bracelet to see what he could do, but he resisted the temptation. Will immediately noted his ability to control how far open his gates were was greatly increased. After a few more fights both training with swords and fights with beasts, he found the control quickly becoming instinctual. It meant that he could start to focus on getting stamina manipulation.
It was on day seven that Will finally got the notification that he had received the Stamina Manipulation skill. He was able to quickly train it up to level 7. While it wasn’t great, it would allow him to use stamina effectively for his level of fighting ability, and allow him to move on to other more important things. Like Koma.
Will had leveled up his companion bond into a permanent bond back during the fight with the Curseforged Abomination. Since then he had been able to feel Koma’s emotions faintly. He had not given Koma much attention since the incident at Bramble for obvious reasons, and Koma had been feeling kinda alone and abandoned. Now however, with another week left on the trail, Will spent the time to refamiliarize himself with his bond. Koma enjoyed playing all of the games you would normally play with a dog. The problem was that Koma was as large as a horse, and a large one at that. Tug was simply not on the table. That was until Will was able to rig up the rope so that While Koma thought he was playing against Will, he was actually playing against a tree. It worked quite well for about thirty seconds. Until Koma pulled the tree up by its roots.
Will instead took to throwing pieces of meat as far as he could manage. He would need to make a ball that could hold up to Koma’s impressive might. Koma was as large as his mother had been now, and was still growing. And so Will made the decision that they were going to learn how to ride. Koma didn’t know what to make of Will climbing on top of him. At first he thought they were wrestling and nearly crushed will under his gargantuan weight. The only thing that saved Will was Koma’s fur, which evened out the pressure enough to keep him from dying. A few broken ribs were an easy price to pay for that mistake.
Still, Will was not deterred, and Koma was quite intelligent. Koma soon understood that he couldn’t roll over Will, and that he should hold still while Will climbed aboard. When Will was finally atop Koma, they started moving. Of course, Will was quickly thrown off the moment Koma leaped over a small tree. Not a log, a tree. When Will finally woke from his unconsciousness, he decided that they needed a saddle before he could learn to ride Koma.
The rest of the trip he played with Koma, worked on his concept manipulation, and learned swordsmanship. Over the last few days he managed to level up Swordsmanship to 15, Concept Manipulation to level 26, and Stamina Manipulation to level 12. The best part however was the last level he managed before they made it to Martel.
Animal Companion is now Level 25
Congratulations! Animal Companion has reached the first threshold.
Please choose an upgrade path.
Ferocious - Heightens your bond’s natural instincts and grants you the benefit of those instincts. Allows you to undergo minor transformations, giving you the natural weapons of your bond.
Bond Transformation - Grants your bond the transformation ability. At low levels it will allow your bond to increase or decrease its size, while allowing more significant changes at higher levels
Intellect - grants your bond the Intelligence Stat. Increasing this stat will increase your bond’s actual intelligence until it reaches human levels.
Will was rather shocked by the options. They seemed more powerful than the ones he got for concept manipulation. He wondered if upon reaching the second threshold he would be shown the same options. Ferocious seemed to be the one most offensively oriented. However, he doubted it would play well with his current condition. He didn’t need Koma to be more wolf-like at this juncture. Bond transformation and Intellect were both interesting, and Will wanted both. He didn’t think either was incredibly useful without the other. But thinking of the issue, Koma’s size would become a problem sooner than later. If Intellect came up later, he would choose it. But for now, Koma needed the transformation skill.
Will chose Bond Transformation, and was able to coax Koma through its use until he had managed to shrink to the size of a large dog. That had scared Koma at first, but when he realized he could now play with all the people far more easily, he got excited.