Essence Wave Chapter 13

***AUTHOR’S NOTE ****

Here’s a Wednesday chapter on Wednesday!

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE***

Soon thereafter, Ben was able to successfully Imbue the trigger. Ben and Jamie spent the next hour working their way up to Beginner Fireball Traps. Ben’s first creation worked successfully and had a level of seventeen, showing how effective he was at creating it, while Jamie managed to blow only one up.

David blew up seven, but he was trying to figure out exactly how much Mana they could hold. So, two hundred worked, two fifty didn’t. Let’s do a simple binary search algorithm. So two twenty five next. He winced as he Imbued it with Mana, but it worked, with a level six instead of three. Nice! So, halfway between two fifty and two twenty five, two hundred thirty seven and a half. Uh, let’s go to thirty eight since I’m going up and I’m not good enough with Mana to get a half a point. If I ever can.

That one blew up, leaving his hands tingling and his Mana Shield cracked. Jamie gave him an odd look. “Experimenting,” David answered. She just shook her head. Okay, so two-twenty-five works and two-thirty-eight didn’t. So halfway is two-thirty-one and a half. Keep rounding up, I guess. Two-thirty-two it is. The bang was slightly quieter this time, with not quite as many cracks in his Mana Shield. “At least Mana Shield is getting a workout.”

“What are you trying to figure out?” Jamie asked.

“Exactly how much Mana these things can take,” he answered. “So far, I know it is higher than two-hundred-and-twenty-five but less than two-hundred-and-thirty-two. Next is two-twenty-nine, since I’ve been rounding up each time.” Five minutes of carving and two and a half of Imbuing left him with a stable Trap. “Alright!”

“What number is next to try? And why those?” Jamie asked.

“It ih, is a binary search, ri, right, sir?” Ben said.

“Yup. Basically pick the middle and compare. If it is too high, pick the middle below it, and if it is too low, pick the middle above it. In simple terms,” David answered. “It only works on an ordered list, but the set of integers is ordered.”

“You lost me there,” Jamie said.

“That’s okay. It’s not important,” David said. “So, if we divide the remaining delta in half, what do we get?”

Jamie thought for a second, “two-hundred-and-thirty-one, since you round up?”

“Got it,” David said. Seven minutes later, boom. “Well, now we get to do thirty.” Another seven minutes, success. “So, two-hundred-and-thirty Mana is stable, but two-thirty-one is not. Weird, but okay. That should give us the best bang for the buck, or stone plate anyway.”

Of course, the next one he did exploded. “What!” he exclaimed, flinging the shards of stone out of his hand. “Why did that one break?”

“Di, different size?” Ben asked. “They ar, aren’t all the same size.”

“Damn, why didn’t I think of that. Crap,” David said. “Uh, do we have a ruler or tape measure?”

“Nope,” Jamie said. “I’m sure they’ve got one out there somewhere.” She gestured at the door.

He looked at the stack. They all looked just about the same to his eyes. “I think I’ll just stick with two-twenty-five and hope that’s enough. I don’t really want to do that experiment right now.”

“Wha, what experiment?” Ben asked.

“Figuring out how much Mana each cubic meter of stone can hold, or centimeter in the case of these,” he gestured. “Let’s just stay safe for now, and do the full calculations later.”

“Sure. I’ll add it to the list,” Jamie said. She turned around and wrote it on a board that David hadn’t noticed yet. It included several items they’d talked about, along with ‘Aspecting Mana,’ ‘Reusable Skill Inscriptions,’ and more. The top was labeled ‘To-Do’.

“Heh, you have a literal To-Do list,” David laughed.

“Yup. I’ll forget if it’s not written down,” Jamie said. “But we’re going to finish it, and we’re going to kick the Daemon’s ass.”

“Yup, boot right up their butt,” David said. Ben gave them both a smile, then turned back to his work. David grinned at him, then nodded to Jamie. “Alright, back to work,” he said in a fake harsh boss accent.

Jamie laughed, but they all turned back to their carving projects. Over the next hour, David managed to churn out another eleven Beginner Fireball Traps. He stacked ten of them up and stood. “Alright, I need to get going. Thank you for your help, both of you,” he told the others. “I’m going to check how much these sell for. Do you have a spot you’re storing the ones we don’t sell?”

“Yeah, Josiah asked us to set them up in the last room on the left,” Jamie said. “As long as they’re stable and won’t damage anything else around.”

“Thanks again,” David said. He picked up the other four and left, following the hallway another ten meters down to find the storage room. Some empty shelves found themselves graced with his work, and he shook his head. “How big is this building?”

From there, he hurried over to the Market, finding only one person he didn’t know browsing at a kiosk. He walked to another and swiftly navigated the menus to pull up the option of selling. “All right, insert items to be sold,” he mumbled to himself. He looked down at the pillar to find a ten centimeter hole lit up with light, then glanced at the stack of stone tiles in his hands. “Eh, I’ve seen crazier stuff this past week.” He shoved the entire bundle at the pillar, only for it to be enveloped in a glowing green aura and shrink to fit in the hole. “Neat!”

“So, for all ten I’ll make. Really, only sixty five? Upgrading to Beginner is only worth one-and-a-half credits each. Blarg,” he continued to grumble to himself before selecting yes to sell them. “Huh, not sure it’s worth the upgrade without a lot more practice. Well, let’s go tell Jamie and Ben the good news.”

Before leaving, he checked his balance, and was surprised. “Six thousand, nine hundred, and twelve? What, I thought I only had two thousand-ish. Oh, taxes, fees, and a bonus payment from the creation of the Outpost. Huh. Neat. I’ll have to do some browsing later. And Hope’s Refuge is up to thirteen thousand. Always good to have money, but never enough of it.”

David just shook his head, stepped away from the kiosk, and left the building. He quickly found his way back to the Inscription section of the workshop. He told Jamie and Ben about the change in sale price. “So, if your main goal is money, it’d probably be better to focus on the Novice level traps,” he finished saying.

“Staying at the novice level saves about two minutes per item,” Jamie said. “I’m not sure that’s worth it.”

“If wa, we get better, it wi, will be less,” Ben said. “Bet, better to work at a hi, higher level. Le, level our Skill too.”

“Sounds like a plan,” David said, then laughed at himself. “And I haven’t bothered to check what if any Skill gains I got this morning. I’m off, good luck and have fun. I’ll come by again tomorrow.”

Jamie waved and David left. He went back to his home and found Blake carving away at a table. He nodded to the man, who didn’t notice him. David grabbed the book on Essence Cultivation then sat in the rocking chair. At some point, someone had brought in cushions for all the chairs, except the throne. I love this chair, David thought.

Skills check first. Ooh, Mana Shield went up two, guess blowing myself up multiple times is decent training for it. I’ll have to get someone to whack me or something. Didn’t I read a webnovel where the protagonist did that to train their shield? Eh, it’ll work anyway. Scholar’s Vision is up three levels, probably from looking at the Inscriptions and trying to see what Jamie was doing. Mana-Inscription went all the way up to Beginner one! Wow. I guess pushing the boundaries of what I can do and investigating a bit into the limits really knocked that up. Almost to fifteen hundred Essence. Not sure what I want to spend it on this time. Eh, let’s see if I can use this cultivation thingy to get up there today.

He opened the book and began to read. “The System was created to assist the sapient beings of this universe in the use of Essence. Through it, Essence is split into Mana and Energy, allowing all beings to survive the initial influx of Essence and to grow in power to defeat the Daemon incursions. Through this book, I will show you the very first steps to growing with and beyond the System. Though the System is for us, it is also a limiter, and only by reaching the next stage of your existence can you move past it,” David read aloud. He kept reading, flipping through to find diagrams of the initial motions, each step getting more complex.

“Yeah boss,’ Blake said, “neat stuff. That last diagram, man, I can’t even figure out what it’s trying to show.”

“No idea either. It’ll probably become easier to understand as we work through the rest,” David laughed, looking at a drawing with thousands of intersecting lines. He just shook his head and turned back to the first diagram. “Gather fifty Mana and Energy into two strings, then intertwine them. Move the strings through the six major channels, starting with the left arm. Okay, then I make a pentagram, left arm, right leg, head, left leg, right arm, before wrapping around and through the major organs, and back to the center. I can do that.”

“It’s not as easy as it looks, boss,” Blake said. “And it hurts, so be prepared.”

“Hurts?” David asked.

“Like you’re burning up from the inside,” Blake answered with a grimace. “The more resources you use, the more it hurts, but the faster you’ll make Essence.”

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll start with the book’s description of fifty, and go from there,” David said.

“Well, yeah, anything less than that didn’t seem to do anything,” Blake shook his head. “But one hundred of each gave me slightly more than twice as much as fifty did. It hurt more than twice as much too.”

“Did the pain get any better?” David asked thoughtfully.

“No, but it’s only been a day, so who knows!” Blake shrugged. “But I’m going to get back to work on the furniture. Most of the stuff we got from Nathrop that was made of MDF and other crappy materials, and they are degrading quickly, so I’m trying to make some replacements.”

“Are you training anyone?” David asked.

“Yeah, they’re in the Workshop. I needed a break from them. Well, have fun,” Blake grinned at him, then turned back to the table he was working on.

David laughed, then sank into himself, letting his consciousness fall into his core cave. He carefully pulled out fifty Mana, stringing it into a helix. Fifty Energy was next, and he gently guided it to create a double helix, then he tried to pull it tighter together. The two types of energy didn’t want to get too close to each other, but he forced them anyway. The Mana and Energy repelled each other like similar polarity magnets, until he managed to half the distance they had initially floated at.

The two resources suddenly shot together. They didn’t touch, still separated by a tiny amount, but it was close enough for the technique to work. Okay, that worked, David panted, his mental energy diminished. Now, time to circulate it. The spiral of Mana and Energy moved easily under the direction of his will, and he slowly sent it up the channel in his left arm.

The instant the technique entered the channel, a very light burning feeling started in his left pectoral muscle. At first, it was similar to the burn you get after a good workout, but the pain grew quickly the farther into the channel the double helix went. Once the entire thing was inside, the pain stopped growing, at least, but it was at the point of sticking your hand in water that was too hot coming out of your faucet.

He grimaced but resisted moving the technique faster. After a few seconds, his Pain Resistance Skill kicked it. It helped, but only a little. Training that Skill will be nice too, not that I really want to, David thought as he moved the technique out of his arm towards his right leg. Huh, the spiral is shorter now. Maybe a tenth, so five Mana and Energy. I wonder what it’s doing?

The pain in his arm faded slightly as the agony in his leg ramped up. I will not stop, and I will not give up, David thought. When he finished the leg, the double helix had shortened again. With a thought, he pulled another ten Mana and Energy out of his cores and stuck it on the end. Adding to the helices was much easier than making them in the first place, and he was able to keep them moving throughout the process.

At least, until the technique moved into his head, and it was all he could do just to continue it moving. His mental vision grew blurry, his will weakening quickly, and then the technique shattered. “Damn it,” David cussed to himself, then took a calming breath. “Time to try again.”

This time he didn’t extend the structure again after the start. Knowing what was coming, he braced himself when the energy reached his brain, throwing it forward as quickly as he could and focusing his thoughts upon keeping the structure moving. His vision blurred again, pain spiking through him, but he refused to lose it again. An indeterminate amount of time later, the spiral had passed beyond his brain, and he was able to concentrate again.

Ow, ow, ow, he chanted as he sent the energy into his left leg. His muscles cramped, making him doubly glad he was seated. After the leg completed, the spirals were down to half the size they had started with. I’ll need to see what the book says about extending it, but I’m not going to this time. After his last arm, there were still about twenty of each resource left in the technique, and he pushed it into the last channel.

Immediately, his heart beat became erratic, and his vision narrowed. Then the energy had passed the heart to reach his lungs, making him struggle to breathe for a second. A few seconds later, his breathing returned to normal, but heartburn and nausea nearly derailed the process as he fought to not vomit. Burning pain throughout his torso was almost as bad as the head pain, but he pushed through.

Finally, the last tiny bit of the technique returned to his core. Maybe one Mana and energy were left, and they dissolved into nothing as soon as they made it. Only, a minuscule dot of a pure white color formed from their remnants. The dot shot upwards, vanishing from his core.

David tried to follow it, but lost it fairly quickly. “Huh, I wonder if that would have led me to wherever the Essence is stored in me? I’ll try again next time. Does my Status show any difference?” He pulled it up. “Hey, I got point oh one Essence from that. Not too shabby for,” he came out of his center and looked around. “How long was I working on this?”

“An hour or so,” Blake said, still carving away at the table. It was starting to look awesome, with Celtic knots carved throughout the sides and the legs shaped like a lion’s legs. “How’d it go?”

“One hundredth of an Essence,” David said.

“Not too shabby!” Blake exclaimed, looking over at him. “It took me nearly three hours to get the first cycle done.”

“Yeah, it sucked,” David said, “but not as much as being impaled, so eh.” Blake just laughed at that. David glared at him jokingly, then shook his head. “Fine, I’ll just read this a bit more.” He waved the book at Blake threateningly, then laughed and opened it up. Okay, so adding Mana and Energy is fine, and let’s the user keep going, basically. Each round should give the same amount of Essence, but by adding to the helices I can make it go straight through, rather than have to stop and collect another fifty Energy and Mana. The book recommends to refill the technique after every channel. Let’s try it, and see how it goes.

It sucked, and he lost control at the head channel again. The third time trying, though, he managed a full cycle and kept moving through it. The second cycle seemed to hurt more, but he forced himself to finish, letting the structure decrease over time. “Yeah, that sucked,” David said.

“It’s only been another hour and a half,” Blake said, admiring his finished table.

“Well, I got two cycles done in that time, so I guess keeping it flowing saved a bunch of time,” David said. “Even with the two failures I had. I wonder why?”

“No idea, but good job!” Blake said.

“Yeah, I just wish it would go faster. Right now, we’re looking at several days to get a single Essence! That’s ridiculous,” David said. “It’s got to be easier than that.”

“Probably. It’s gotten easier over time,” Blake said. “So the time drops. I think it’ll be around ten minutes per cycle once you’ve got it mastered.”

“That’ll still be too slow,” David said. “But the book says to master this one before trying the next cycle, so I guess I’ll spend another couple of hours on it.”

“I’ll join you,” Blake said. “Misery loves company anyway.”

“Thanks,” David laughed, standing and grasping Blake’s wrist before plopping back into the chair. They spent another three hours cultivating together. In that time, David got another nine-hundredths of an Essence.

“I hope this stops hurting as much,” Blake grumbled. “I’d rather just buy something. You know, if I could figure out a way of making money.”

“Have you tried to sell a chair or table you carved? The Market should be able to sell whatever you want,” David said.

“Huh, I’ll try that soon,” Blake nodded.

“Just, you know, help the city first,” David said. “Your Skill is going to be desperately needed when the stuff we’ve looted decays.”

“No problem, boss,” Blake said. “I’d rather be money poor and living in a great city than rich in a slum. I’ll only sell every fourth carving, or only dedicate a few hours a day to carving items to sell.”

“Sounds like a plan,” David said. “Sometime, we’ll have to figure out how to set up an economy in the city.”

“Yes sir, but it’s too early for that,” Blake said. “We’re barely on this side of surviving. Money, trade, normalcy, is going to take a while. You just keep us staying alive, and we’ll keep on keeping on.”

“Thanks, Blake. I’m going to find Colin or Aly. Thanks for your help,” David said.

“No problem, boss,” Blake stood as well. “I’m going to hit the rack. I’m exhausted.”

“Night,” David said, holding the door open for him.