Essence Wave Book 2 Chapter 9

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

I hope everyone had a great new year! I was asleep by 2300, but it was good nonetheless. Two chapters this week, and for a couple weeks past that, since I have a good backlog again. I hope you enjoy!

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

David sat in the new rocking recliner chair that’d been left in his room before sinking into his core cave using Inspiring Scholar’s Focus. “Okay,” he told himself. “I really need to get eight Apprentice Skills, so while I would get a bunch of benefits from focusing on my lower level ones, I want to push up my Beginner Skills first.” With a thought, he pulled up a list of his Skills only.

Mana-Weapon Creation (Beg 12), Hiking (Beg 1), Running (Beg 2), Scholar's Vision[U](Init 8), Sneak (Init 3), Sword Mastery (Beg 5), Shield Mastery (Beg 5) Power Attack (Init 13), Mana Bolt (Beg 5), Vanguard's Charge [R](Beg 5), Pain Resistance (Beg 4), Mana-Inscription [U](Init 4), Vanguard's Strike (Init 12), Strenghten (Init 10), Sprint (Init 10), Multiple Usage [R](Beg 4), Swordsman's Step (Init 11), Earthen Bulwark (Init 5), Mana Shield (Init 5), Shield Bash (Init 7), Inscribing Scholar’s Focus [R] (Init 11), Drawing Beg 3), Invigorating Shout[U] (Init 11), A Lord's Presence[R] (Beg 2), Lead from the Front(U) (Init 10), Combat Reflexes (Beg 2), A Leader's Gift (Nov 5), A Leader's Due (Nov 3), Spike Field (Nov 3), Advanced Bodily Repair [S] (Beg 1), Earth's Unrelenting Motion [A] (Beg 2), Minor Muscle Efficiency (Nov 8)

“Let’s focus on Mana-Weapon Creation, since it’s the closest,” he mumbled to himself, engaging the ability of Inscribing Scholar’s Focus, what his Meditation Skill had evolved into, to pull up mental images of his Skill usage over the last few hours. He seemed to look in on his body from the outside as he summoned his sword and shield. Huh, that’s a bunch of Mana that seems to leak out along the channels in my arm, he thought. I wonder if I can reduce that?

He made a sword in his core cave, the Skill letting him replicate effects that he knew or suspected would happen. Slowing down the process, he focused on manually directing the Mana from his blue-white core through the runic representation of his Skill and then down the channels in his arm, keeping it contained as best he could. Some still seeped out, his channels not Mana-tight and his control lacking, but it was a significant improvement anyway. The resulting blade was slightly thicker and a deeper blue color. It felt sturdier as well, but he didn’t have a way of testing it yet.

“Okay, that worked out, but let’s try something else,” he said with a grin on his mental avatar. He dismissed the sword, and this time pulled a strand of Metal Mana and one of Earth Mana out, rather than the pure Mana that filled most of his core. They were harder to direct, the Earth wanting to absorb into him and strengthen his body while the Metal kept trying to divert away. David missed one push back on the Metal, hitting it at an angle rather than straight into the center, and it began to spiral around the Earth Mana. This kept the Earth Mana contained, and the Metal Mana just kept spinning along, making it significantly easier to move through his channels.

Huh, he thought, that works very well. I wonder if that spiral works for all uses of Mana, or just Metal? Experiment after this one! The Mana he was channeling reached his hand, and he pictured what he wanted. Metal formed the edges of the blade and a straight spine up the middle, while Earth made the handle and the area between the two Metal sections. It formed exactly as he wanted it to, which made him wary about the results in the real world.

With a thought, he created a test dummy and slashed at it. The new blade was stronger and sharper, cutting through the target with ease. “Ooh, I like it,” he said aloud, then did it again. Each slice reduced the amount of Metal Mana in the edge by a tiny fraction. “That’ll add up, I wonder if I can set up a stream to refill it?” He pulled on his core, and the little bit of Metal Mana that’d recharged in the intervening time came out. With a thought, he replicated the spiral, and it flowed well, only minute amounts leaking off at the top and bottom of every rotation. Still not perfect, but better than pure Mana, he thought.

The flow of Metal recoated the outer edge of the sword, and he made dozens of dummies to cut through, trying to figure out how quickly the Mana was being spent. After an hour of subjective time, he paused, breathing heavily even though he was only a mental projection. “Okay,” he said, getting his thoughts in order. “I think the Metal and Earth blade is stronger and cuts better, but I’m fairly certain it uses Mana almost three times as fast. That’s not a lot still, compared to my capacity, but it does mean I won’t be able to use as many of my Mana Skills in a fight. Just Metal was worse, the blade almost feeling brittle, but a pure Mana with a Metal edge works pretty well. Now, what’re my Skill gains?’

He pulled up his notifications, and nodded happily. “Mana-Weapon Creation to Apprentice 2! I did it!” He danced around the table in his brain, or chest, something like that. “Ooh, Multiple Usage increased to Beginner six. I wonder why. I was only using one Skill. Let’s try to summon the sword again, and see if I can figure it out.” He pulled on his core, pure Mana flowing out. Then he used Metal and pure Mana, and didn’t feel any different from the pure Mana. Finally, Metal and Earth Mana came rushing out, and when he moved the spiral of Metal around the blob of Earth, a slight easing of the movements was the only signal that he could figure out that meant Multiple Usage was triggering.

“That kinda makes sense,” he told himself. “If we look at using each type of Mana as a separate activation of the Skill. Which is weird, but okay. I can make use of that to train both Skills!” He spent the next hour working on different ways of forming his shield, always using both types of elemental Mana that he had access to. His regeneration was more than sufficient to keep his Mana core full throughout the experimentation period. Slowly, David noticed that a larger percentage of his core was the brown of Earth or the silver of Metal, rather than the blue-white color of pure Mana. Still only about a quarter was typed, but that was better than the eighth it had been prior to his experimentation. “I wonder if it’ll ever be fully elemental Mana. Not sure I want that, to be honest. I haven’t tried with three types yet.”

He went back to messing with his sword, this time trying to move every Mana type he had access to. Attempting to spiral the Metal around both of the others failed spectacularly. The Earth and pure Mana seemed to act like similar polarities of magnets, pushing against each other and causing the Metal to run into the sides of his channels and dissipate. After a bunch of different experiments, he found that he could spiral the Metal around a sine wave of Earth and a cosine wave of pure Mana. It was stable, but still bled more Mana than he wanted to lose from the technique.

The sword was formed with a tang of pure Mana, replacing the Metal in the center of the blade, and he thought it made the blade more flexible without compromising sturdiness. “It’ll do, pig,” he told himself before dismissing the blade.

The next two hours David focused on reviewing his Sword and Shield Mastery Skills, looking over every move he made in the fight and analyzing how he could have done better. I’m still hesitating too much when I get blocked. I need to practice fighting someone else with a shield and how to move the sword after it is deflected so I don’t lose so much momentum or time. I got hurt several times because I was too slow to move my shield. It’s almost weightless, I should be able to move it much faster than I do. I think that’s actually a problem with the Skill, since it’s probably designed to work with normal shields, not ones made of Mana.

Finally, he roused himself from the trance he’d fallen into, quickly checking his gains before reengaging with the outside world. Mana-Weapon Creation got another two levels, as did Multiple Usage. Both Masteries gained four! Nice. Nothing else though. Guess it shows the benefit of focus. That’s still twenty Beginner Skill levels, and four Apprentice ones. Oh, wait, Inscribing Scholar’s Focus leveled four times too, almost to Beginner!.

David opened his eyes to find only Blake and Dan around, both of them reading a book on one of the other chairs. He sat up, and they snapped the books shut, almost in unison. Dan nodded to Blake, who turned to David. “We’ve been waiting for you,” Blake said. “We, and Josiah, wanted to give you a quick overview of what we’ve learned.”

“The first book was overly optimistic,” Dan said. “I spent eight hours last night following the patterns it showed, and I only received point four Essence. Based upon that, it looks like it’ll take around ninety thousand Mana and ninety thousand Energy to make a single Essence. There is not a Skill for it, unless it takes more than what I did to get it.”

“I found another book on cultivation that we could afford in the Market, and Michelle gave me the funds to purchase it,” Blake held up the book he was holding. David saw the title was Essencial Cultivation Introductory Guide for Mages. “It’s got instructions on increasing the size of your Mana core, but it’s just as slow as gaining Essence the other way. One benefit, though, is that my Meditation Skill has increased quickly and that seems to help.”

“I think it’s also been helping me develop my other Skills a bit faster,” Dan said. “After eight hours of directing my Energy around, moving it to use in a Skill was just easier. So, it’s definitely worth it, but it will take a long time to get really good at the motions.”

“You should read through the books, though,” Blake said. “With your higher level, I’m sure you could work through it faster. I mean, how much Mana or Energy do you have now?”

David quickly looked at his Status. “Uh, twenty-six hundred Mana and twenty-seven hundred Energy.”

“Yeah, you’ve got three times more of both resources as I do,” Blake laughed.

“Well, we’re definitely looking at how to get everyone some more levels, at least to five so you can all get a Path,” David said. “I’ll definitely make some time soon to read through it. Can you give me a quick rundown of both types?”

“Sure thing, bossman,” Blake said, standing up from his meticulously carved chair. David and Dan followed him into the classroom with chalkboards. “So, for Mana Cultivation, you need to get a big chunk of Mana, the book recommended about one hundred units, and move it along what it called pathways like this.” Blake drew a rough outline of a person on the board, then started a very intricate pattern through the body that started off with the right arm, through three fingers, the pinky, ring, and middle, on the right hand, then back up to the shoulder and through the core before heading down the left leg. Again it went into three toes, the equivalents of the hand, before returning to the core.

Right leg was followed by left arm, and then Blake paused. “The next part is tricky. It said it is different for everyone, so you should test out which channels you send it into. There are aparently one for every major organ in the torso. I found that I get better results going through the spleen and appendix, followed by the heart and lungs. The last ring you make is through your head, rounding through your brain and back to the core. By that point, you should be down to only a single Mana, but when you add it back to your Mana core, it makes it stretch ever so slightly.” He thought for a second. “Also, it hurts like the dickens, the worst heartburn you’ll ever have, and I’m old so I know what I’m talking about. The first time I completed it, my Status changed to show a decimal value of Mana, and my total went up by zero point zero five. The book said that was a good result, but not the best. The best I had was a zero point zero nine, but each run through takes nearly an hour. So, get used to sitting still for that long.”

“Thanks Blake,” David said.

“Essence cultivation is similar, but with a different pattern,” Dan said, and described something similar, though you started at your brain and then made a loop around the body clockwise before you had to hit your heart, lungs, stomach, and intestines. “See, not too difficult, but getting every bit to move together can be challenging. You also need to use both Mana and Energy in equal amounts.”

“So, which one are you going to start with?” Blake asked.

“None,” Michelle said, stepping into the room. “I need him for a bit first.”

“Thanks, guys,” David said, “but duty calls. Keep working on it, and teach as many others as you can. Let’s see if we can get everyone able to a basic proficiency with the cultivation techniques.”

“Got it, bossman,” Blake said, and Dan nodded.

“But please keep working on the furniture and helping us plan,” Michelle said. “Come on.” She turned and walked out.

“So, what do you need?” David asked as he hurried after her.

“When we upgraded the Researcher’s Hut into the Researcher’s Hall, a number of new topics showed up. Additionally, it now has eight normal stations instead of four, and a special one that only you can use. It cost a bit more to put that in, but you’ll make it up now. With your bonuses and time compression, you can finish the research project I have two of the stations working on in the next four hours, giving us time to build it.”

“Build what?” He asked as they left the building.

“A Bathhouse!” Michelle exclaimed. “Oh Lordy, I need a bath so bad.”

“I thought people were using the river to bathe?” David asked.

“Some, but its flipping cold,” she said. “So most of us do a rushed scrub that is not enough. A good, looong, soak will make all my worries go away for a bit, and help just about everyone else. So, start researching, Lord Black sir.” She grinned as she said that last part.

“You know, I could have you imprisoned,” he said. She just laughed as he pushed into the building. The large room had expanded, with four desks on either side of a walkway leading to a set of stairs. Each desk was separated from the others by a meter wide chalkboard, where the assigned scientist could plot and scratch out ideas. Stacks of paper, purchased through the Market, sat on each desk, though they weren’t supposed to use them until a final design had been made. Paper was somewhat expensive and currently available only through the Market.

“You’re up the stairs in an office with a lot of blackboards,” Michelle said. “I think the next upgrade, or maybe a researched one, will let us put more people in similar offices. It even gives you a tiny boost to research speed. We only got the option for this one because you did research here already.”

“What other tasks are we researching?” David asked.

“Two of them are working on an upgrade to the Loghouses to put a self-cleaning latrine in the back, so people can stop using the ditch that empties into the river,” Michelle said. “Two are working on the Bathhouse. The rest are singletons, working on an upgrade to the Watchtowers to increase the range of the ballista you got us, an upgrade to the Farms to produce better quality food, an upgrade to the Stonecutter’s Hut to reduce waste, and to open the option for a Library. Being a Town has almost ten times as many research projects as the Outpost did.”

“What will the Library do?” David asked, looking over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs.

“No idea,” Michelle said. “But Christine thinks it’ll help us research faster, so Josiah and I felt we could put one person on it. After the Bathhouse, we’re going to put a couple of people into upgrading the Researcher’s Hall. I can already see it being a bottleneck for our expansion.”

“Well, let me get started. I think I can spare four hours a day to work here,” David said. “At least until it is time to head north.”

“Thanks, David,” Michelle said. “I know it can’t be easy being the City Lord.”

“Easier than it should be, since I’ve got you and Josiah and everyone else helping out,” David laughed. He put his hands on the desk in the middle of the three meter by three meter office, and got a pop up.

Welcome City Lord Black. You may assist any of the current research projects or start your own. Additionally, you may select one person to be a research assistant, adding their Research Point generation to your own.

“I can select an assistant,” David said.

“Austin Hoogeboom is the next person on the list for researchers,” Michelle said. “I’ll go grab him.”

“Thanks,” David nodded, going into the menu. He looked through some of the options, but there were too many to delve into right away. “Bathhouse. Ah, here it is. I wish it’d tell us a bit more about the options,” he mused to himself out loud.

“I think that is what the Library will give us,” an older man’s voice said. David looked up to a see an older black gentleman with short-cropped curly hair that was a salt-and-pepper color. “Good morning, sir, I am Austin Hoogeboom and Ms. Michelle said you need a research assistant. I was an engineering technician before all this,” he waved his hands around. “So I’m used to being the go-for for others.”

“Well, here I’m David,” David said, holding his hand out for a handshake. Austin’s grip was strong and sure without trying to crush his hand. David tapped the desk, bringing up the menu, and added Austin as his assistant. “So, we’re supposed to be working on designing a Bathhouse. It looks like,” he looked over to the board next to the door where a schematic of a building appeared, “we get to share boards with the others working on it. I think we should look into a Fire Inscription to heat the water at the intake here.” He pointed.

“Need to make sure we don’t heat it too hot. So we’ll need a temperature limiting one just after it,” Austin said.

They began to bounce ideas off each other before Austin moved to a board and started to sketch runes. Basic ones appeared as they questioned the System, while more advanced runes required their direct input. Library might give us more runes too, David thought while he and Austin tried to adapt a rune set to heat to a certain temperature and then stop.