Mark tapped his index finger against the pane of clear crystal. The meeting room had been mostly repaired and a new solid crystal wall now looked out to the spire, following its gradual curve out of sight. The news that Chloe had abandoned the city was a heavy blow. Mark had hoped to at least be able to ask her why she’d done what she had, but he was not worried for the woman. He knew she’d survive out there no matter what.
Mark was confident they would one day find her again.
On the other hand, Mark was still at a loss as to what to do with Jonathan. After their fight, neither had been willing to say anymore. Sam had watched over them like a guard dog until Jonathan left. Mark knew she wasn’t happy with how Mark had chosen to fight Grace, but hell, both of them had done similar things before, so why was he any different?
There was a polite knock on the boardroom door, putting the thoughts from his mind Mark called Carl in. The medic, along with two dozen other healers entered the room. Even though the space was decently large it was still a snug fit to cram everyone inside, but once the door had been shut Mark launched into it right away.
“Okay, everybody, as I said, we need an answer to people's growing Corruption values. Teaching everyone [Corruption recovery] is not viable, at this stage. The Religious district is already holding out their hands, we need another method.”
Over half the people there had ideas they wanted to try and Mark was glad he’d given them time to think this over. Besides the spire, this was one of the biggest problems facing the city. That and the sudden jockeying for territory all the factions were doing. After the invasion, the board had been wiped clean so to speak. Factions were rushing to absorb their competitors, Mark had heard from Ethel that Mr. Xiaolan had more than doubled his stake in the Guild and absorbed over ten medium-sized factions into his holdings.
The walls were still being repaired, but none of that mattered if the spire suddenly stopped pushing the Corrupted back. That was why they needed a permanent solution to the Cv, right now the city could not handle another fight. The Corrupted humans were in the wind, either hiding or unable to approach like the rest.
Mark slowly went through each idea, hearing everything from quarantine zones to starting up their own passion-casting team.
One of the most promising ideas came from Carl himself. He’d been helping Mark full-time since they got back and he had taken up a decent amount of the teaching since then. Because of this, he’d gotten a skill called [Guiding hand], which allowed him to teach someone a spell or skill faster at the cost of Aura.
The interesting thing about the skill was that when it was active the person it linked to could use the spell Carl was trying to teach them.
Meaning, that while he had it active, he could potentially lend his [Corruption recovery] skill to someone. This came with several downsides, first off Carl had to supply all the resources the skill or spell used. On top of this, the effectiveness was half that of the original, depending on the person's understanding.
Carl also couldn’t use the skill to teach a spell that someone already had. So for those that already had [Corruption recovery], it was useless. However, they did a test, calling in George who was passing by on his way to the workshop. Mark already knew Joslin and the kids were okay, he had to, he’d spent a decent amount of time in the bar on those first few days.
When Carl began, Mark placed his hand on both him and George and cast [Prana pulse]. He wanted to see what was going on during this process.
Aura was not usually used for information transfer and he was curious.
As it turned out he was right, the Aura created a bridge, not unlike Mana, but instead of transferring the skill to George, it mirrored it. Creating a poor copy of the skill and superimposing it onto George. Watching as George got the hang of the skill, Mark noticed that when he activated the spell, it was as though Carl’s spell was still activating.
Luckily George did not have a very high Cv, but the little that he did have began to burn away. A round of applause went up in the room for Carl when they confirmed this.
Mark was happy, but they were still a decent way from making this widely usable. Carl had the same problem as Mark, in that the circumstances for his treatment were difficult to reproduce. It meant that someone would have had to put a decent amount of points into both Prana and Aura. They then had to learn the [Guiding hand] skill and [Corruption recovery] before they could treat someone.
For now, Mark decided they would keep searching for a solution, but any that wanted to were welcome to learn the skill. It was a start at least.
Mark had just dismissed the meeting when he spotted George still hanging around looking deep in thought.
Going over to him Mark had to wave a hand in front of the other man's face to get his attention.
“You good Georg-”
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“That felt like a conduit!”
Craning his neck back Mark blinked at the man's outburst.
“Um, George are you good?”
“Yes, I was referring to the skill your healer used on me. [Guiding hand], was it? It felt similar to the connection a weapon creates between its users. Strange to be on the other end of it though.”
This piqued Mark's interest.
“And have we managed to create conduits yet? Is that something you would be able to replicate?”
Mark's excitement was dashed a second later when George shook his head.
“Nah, I’ve got most of it down, but we a still missing something. My best bet would be runes. Rudy is convinced it needs to be an intake pattern, but we’re finding it hard to find the right one. Hard to tell what does what really.”
Mark's shoulders drooped but he then froze. Runes?
“George let's head to the workshop, I’ve something I need to show you.”
Having just been heading back there himself, George shrugged and they made the trip.
The workshop wasn’t far, a trip down into the lobby and out into the main street saw a large building buttressed up against a set of apartments. While it was only one story it was decently tall, similar to a factory building of sorts.
When they entered the building Mark was first hit with heat. The sound of a large forge roaring away to itself, issued from one of the corners. A glance around saw that the space was cluttered with all manner of tools lying on tables, alongside half-worked weapons. Men and women hammered away at metal, while others filled molds with molten lead. The same busy energy one would find at a mechanic's shop was present here.
“Alright, what you got for me,” George asked as he looked around the place.
Mark was still looking around when he saw Jude hunched over a small desk and indicated they should go there. When they got the Mark saw the man was working on assembling a pump-action shotgun from scratch. When they cast a shadow over his work Jude's head shot up, eyes wide. Then he recognized Mark and smiled uncomfortably.
“Ah, hello Mr, Young.”
Mark frowned at how quickly the guy trembled, which caused him to look even more nervous.
“Hi Jude, relax, I come bearing gifts, I hope can help.”
Both men blinked in a confused manner as they watched Mark take out a stack of pages from his inventory.
Using up his daily quota to get these out of his inventory was annoying but he though thought it would be worth it. The rolled pages were transfers of his staff that was now gone, destroyed in the First Rite.
When Mark had met Rupert Daning, he had resolved to learn more about these runes on his own. Seeing as he didn’t know what was to come, Mark had taken the time to make copies of them. He was glad he had because he’d been right in the end. The real thing would have been better, but perhaps they could get started with these.
“So I’m not really sure what any of these mean yet, but I can tell when I channeled power into the staff, this rune always lit up first.”
Mark tapped on a circular shape with three triangles overlapping inside it, meeting at a single point.
The both of them fell completely silent as they scoured the pages. When George looked up he wore that intense expression he had whenever he got talking about weapons.
“Holy shit, what are we even looking at here?”
Make explained, but this only got him more questions as they wanted to know every rune he could point out.
Now, Mark had not had any real time to dedicate to decyphering the inscriptions, but he could help them by explaining the staff's functions. As well as give them a rough estimate of when each rune would glow when he used it.
By the time Mark managed to escape, the two of them had him redraw every rune onto a fresh stack of pages to make sure they got them ‘directly from the source’. Pocketing the notes again, Mark left as Jude began scribbling on a large chalkboard. Both of them were already familiar with runes, having seen them on several items so far, but the staff was a treasure trove in its own right.
Mark hoped they were on the verge of a breakthrough because right now Mark was working without a conduit at all, and he had learned through experience how much those things could affect one's magic.
Finding another one might be too hard, but there was always a possibility of him being able to buy one.
There were rumors that the system shop had upgraded, and with it, a whole new plethora of system items had become available. Mark hadn’t bothered because his marketplace had remained greyed out, but apparently, there were iron rank system items for sale on the system. Maybe he could find a conduit on there, though he was certain those types of items only showed up after silver rank. Worst case scenario he could check with the Guild to see if anyone had a Prana conduit for sale.
Mark was just walking out of the workshop when he saw Davis approaching him.
“Afternoon Mark. I’m here to collect you. Something has come up that required the attention of all our pillars.”
Greeting the man, Mark indicated for him to lead the way. Sargent Davis had been Karter’s go-to man for so long now that Mark didn’t even question it. However, he did worry about what could make Karter send him looking for Mark.
Instead of heading towards the main building, Davis led Mark to one of the other skyscrapers. Before the fall this building had some sort of high-caliber restaurant on its upper floors. Probably only accessible to its tenants and those who could afford a fifty-dollar appetizer. Now though, it was in shambles, the fancy decor had been pushed into one corner to make fighting room for their defenders. The glass atrium was left a shattered network of metal where the panes had once been.
Mark spotted Karter and Ethel discussing something with Sam while standing around a small two-person table. Jonathan had found a chair and seemed to be inspecting something on the table with a bland expression.
As Mark got closer he saw they were vials containing glowing viscous liquids. Davis left the room and shut the door behind them. There was one other person in the room that Mark had not noticed until he entered, Joslin stood off to the side, holding what seemed like a case containing a whole set of the vials Mark had seen on the table. Mark was surprised, having just come from seeing George, he couldn’t help wondering what she was doing here.
However if the presence of all their pillars was required then she clearly had something important to share.