Magic Breaker Ch 64-66

Chapter 64: Ichor

Yellow pustules burst and spill more ichor on the stone. Meg watches, wincing. Elis suffers. I watch, curiously. “These are super infected,” I note. The flesh all around the wound is infected, really, the bacteria boring into it. The ants are incredibly clean, really, but they do not have ways to fully sterilize things.

My work is cut out for me, but it’s a little fun. Could I use my healing spell offensively if I used it on the bacteria? I don’t try.

Instead, I hold my breath, casting it again. The flesh writes, wriggles, getting eaten away by the poison in the ant’s veins. Hmmm, how troublesome. What will I do about that?

Gently, [Suppression] flickers out. It latches onto the troubles with almost no effort. The ant in front of me is poisoned, sick, and infected. The fact that she’s hung on for so long is a testament to her endurance.

With the suppression in place, I cast another heal, making a little more progress, but that’s just burying infected flesh in new one. I shake my head gingerly. That won’t work. Pulling out the goblin knife, I coat it in mana, cutting away the bits I just healed.

Elis writhes a little, but Meg shushes her, running her antenna over the other ant’s head. 

There are a few ways for me to get rid of the infection and the poison. On one hand, I could just cut it out, then regenerate the ant after. But, looking at her decrepit state, I don’t think she’d survive that. The same thing goes for [Deconstruction]. The bacteria are kinda too small to target.

Troublesome, troublesome. I’ll have to adjust my healing spell to drive back the sickness in her.

Mana rushes into me from the core, and I pass it off to the ants again. With the entire colony supporting me, I have more than enough mana for my needs. I pour a bit of it into healing myself, fully closing up my arm and leg. Then I focus on Elis again.

“Get her some food, she’ll need it. This’ll be unpleasant,” I say, and after a chitter from Meg, a few caretakers rush to obey.

Elis looks at me like a dull piece of steel. Unbreaking, even in the face of all this. Strong. I smile, just a hint of one, then cast my “heal”.

It’s a barely recognizable, butchered version of it, even worse than the piece of shit I usually work with, and it will hurt her. I know that much, but I cast it anyway. 

The spell crashes into the wound, eating away at the desiccated flesh. It’s barely even healing anymore, spilling tainted ichor as the flesh decays away. Not quite right, I suppose. I reconstruct the pattern in my mind, half-cast it, then [Deconstruct] and analyze it. 

Then I cast another, new, improvised and modified piece-of-shit spell. 

Some flesh regrows, some of the disease disappears, but the new flesh has a complete lack of blood vessels, and so I cut it back out. I hold the construct for my spell in my mind, [Deconstruct] it, then make a new one. My mana runs low, and I pull more from the full core, passing it back to the colony. Blood trickles down my nose.

Cast. Fail. Retry.

Cast. Fail. Retry.

Cast. Fail. Retry.

[Flesh Restoration 6 > 7]

Cast. Fa- wait a second. That one did actually disintegrate a bit of the venom. It also melted more of the ant, but well. It happens. But it gives me something to work from. 

I analyze the skill again, looking at its intricacies and finding small bits that are causing trouble. I do, however, find one structure responsible for doing a little bit of dissolving the venom. A tiny, hair thin extension outside the main rings of brilliance, almost worm like, ready to eat into existing flesh and… replace it? 

Not quite, but it has a disintegration aspect, I’m sure. I cast the spell with more power, and indeed, channels dig into the poison like little worms, eating away and leaving clean flesh behind. Problem one, solved.

After two more cores full of mana, my eyes have started bleeding a little too, and I need to occasionally cast healing on myself. That’s okay, though, it’s working. Finally, the ant is looking a little healthier, and a bunch of the venom is gone.

Now, I just need to find out how to kill the bacteria and dessicated flesh. I work off of the venom-purging bit that is already there, and find that it resonates with the essence I got from picking <Nullmage> as my class.

I hum, a tiny bit, leaning into that essence. It taught me how to break magic, but given that ants have levels, even if they’re just in the decimals, bacteria does, too. Can I just… shatter their vessels? It would be a sweeping blow that wouldn’t hurt the ant but be mighty unpleasant for the infection.

A modification later, putting all my practice with the mana maze into the working, I cast it. 

[Skill Mutation.]

[Flesh Restoration 7 > Biological Restoration 3]

Mana pours out of me in a sudden torrent as the skill manifests, draining my entire vessel dry. 

It pulls from my skin, scraping against the limits of what I can do, demanding more as I drain the core. The taste of iron fills my mouth, and it feels like there are claws scraping across my bones. The world rings, the sound of nails on a chalkboard. 

And I cast. 

A torrent of power spills over the ant, scouring it. The twisted modification rips and tears, shattering all in its wake. It’s ruthlessly brutal, and as it touches Elis, she screams. Her flesh bubbles and boils. I hum a little, spitting blood to the side, and [Selecting] the ongoing spell, tearing it apart with [Deconstruction].

The flesh stops bubbling. It looks… better? Miserable, but better.

My legs give out under me and I fall face first on the stone. “Ah,” I sigh. How troublesome. “Can you refill the core again?” I ask Meg. I don’t see the hive queen respond, but I do feel the cool rock being gently pulled from my hands. Eventually it comes back, full of mana, enough to refill my vessel to about halfway.

I cast another enhanced heal on myself, letting me sit up, then I drag my fingers through my hair, pulling the white strands out of my face. They’re sweaty, and cling to me like spiderwebs. A soft sigh leaves my lips, and I look Elis over. She’s healed some more, with a chunk of the infection purged, but her flesh underneath looks almost burned. 

The disjointed bits of the spell and their purpose still sits in my mind. I pull at them, analyzing and learning as I go on. It’s curious, seeing the way they interact. I’m pretty sure I achieved what I set out to do, but the pattern was too crude to properly manage the power. It did a mix of disinfection by boiling, breaking magic, and some more troublesome things.

A thin smile spreads on my lips. “Sorry about that,” I tell the stoic warrior. Then I settled down, kneeling again, tracing the carapace. “Let me give it another shot.”

Even the stalwart warrior shivers a little at my declaration.

Chapter 65: Fearsome

[Biological Restoration 3 > 4]

My mutated skill is far more versatile and open to adaptation. It’s closer to the intricate perfection that the system imposes, and each cast gives me a headache, but that’s okay. I’ll learn. The structure is even more complex, demanding a ton of mana as I form it, but it’s also a lot more universal.

It adapts to the ant’s biology with ease, and new flesh grows easily, cells multiplying rapidly under the enhancement of mana. It’s curious, and I watch closely as the spell takes effect, letting the bad bits decay at the same rate as healthy biomass is produced. It works as an antibiotic and a probiotic at once, strengthening Elis’ immune system. The venom gets disintegrated as a foreign body, and her metabolism speeds up, letting her chew on a ton of food to fuel the regrowth.

A chunk of my mana directly helps as well, but she still needs calories. Maybe with more points in vessel I could fully supply all the energy needed for the healing, but that might require an extra module. 

But. Knowing about skill mutations is an exciting notion. As I routinely cast heals, getting my mana topped up by the entire colony, I think it over. I already know I can modify my skills, so it makes sense that when I cross a threshold they’d change. 

Until now, though, that change was reflected in levels. Levels that make them stronger, better, more efficient. This biological restoration takes far more mana to restore far less flesh, but at the same time, it is more complete. Worst case, I can still cast the old version. I was unsure if I could heal bones with that one, but now I definitely can. 

Does it work on plants? Fungi? More questions, and no answers. 

I hum to myself, watching as Elis feasts on more food. She looks healthier by the minute, and the caretakers are practically swarming us, observing my magic at work. Meg looks at me, chittering gratitude and happiness and at the same time a request to teach.

“No,” I say. “I don’t think any of your kids are gonna be suitable to learn the spell. I almost killed myself a handful of times while learning it.” Especially that first time looking at the spell was a wild ride. Thinking of it still gives me a headache, but I don’t wanna lose the memory.

That really oughta be my next project. A memory palace. Right after enchanting, freeform runic inscriptions to trace in the air, figuring out if chanting and incantations of hand sigils are a thing, as well as experimenting with my healing and magic breaking and learning more runes and… 

Okay, maybe I have a lot of projects. 

I sigh softly, getting up and stretching. The ant is knitting itself together, the effects of my spell apparently lingering for a longer while now. Elis chomps down on a ton of food, turning to me. A moment passes, and an antenna presses towards me, almost questioning.

Slowly, I tilt my head at it, then shrug and step forward. The antenna touches me on my forehead, and I feel that same bond as with the haughty ant that brought me to the colony spring into being. A wisp of connection that lets me feel what they think a little.

Elis is stronger, though, and catches a deeper glimpse of my emotions. 

She shivers. Afraid. Just like Dar did.

I smile, sadly. “Me too, buddy.”

But, despite the fear, she doesn’t shrink back. She looks at me and expresses gratitude and a sense of debt. I tilt my head a little. Is she asking me how to repay it? I wave my hand. “Don’t sweat it too much,” I say. “Your mom was just noisy about it.”

Elis tilts her head and clicks her mandibles in displeasure. Apparently she is still ‘sweating it’, though the expression doesn’t mean a whole lot to her. Which, reasonably, I could have expected. I sigh softly and tap her with my senses.

[Warrior Icon, lv. 32]

I hum, just a little. She’s strong. Really strong. I can tell she could’ve taken the cave crawler one on one. She has a class, probably a job, too, and a high supremacy level. Could I take her in a fight? How did she get so hurt?

She sends me images of an ambush by a great centipede and its minions. I hum again. The plan was always to take the ants into the city, right? Or to lure the paladins to them. If I can get Elis in on it… well. Let’s just say I don’t need it to be a fair fight.

Slowly, a vindictive smile creeps onto my face. 

“Alright,” I tell the warrior ant. “I got an idea…”

- - -

When Opal comes back, they find me with Bay in a room that is rather hot. Forges burn with tended fires, mushroom charcoal being fed to the flames. The ants, somehow, have industry. Most likely, a few of them even have blacksmithing jobs, giving them essence and knowledge about it.

Otherwise, I struggle to imagine how the colony managed to set up a smeltery and forging implements. The ants have tools, made to be used with their mandibles. Hammers that bend at odd angles, coatings to put over their mandibles, letting them press down into the metal like vices. 

And then, there are Bay and me, two humans, sitting around and helping. She’s made herself a couple crude tools, a hammer and a few wrenches, tinkering with smaller metal scrap, using skills to shape and form them. She’s making more bombs.

I get to work on them, too, applying some inscriptions. I draw them on with my fingers first, then manifest a stylus of solid mana, and trace them in. My runes are jagged. Big and clunky, way different from the almost-invisible work of the system. But they work.

Plates of metal turn more durable after being forged, mana coursing through them. We experiment with applying the runes first, then forging, but it kinda messes up the process. There is a small explosion or two, but none of us get too splattered with molten metal. 

Having the colony helping me is lovely, mainly because they’re like an infinite font of mana. I run through my vessel dozens of times over, enchanting and inscribing every piece of scrap they let me get my fingers on. My hands are stained black by dust and smoke, and I desperately need a bar of soap, but I [Suppress] the disgust.

Opal kneels down next to me, watching as I drag my stylus across a bomb, drawing whirls and jagged edges into the smooth sphere. “Whatcha working on?” they ask.

“Bombs,” I answer.

“Mmmh, very insightful,” they say. “I meant what you are contributing, dummy,” they tease.

I smile a little. “Mana shrapnel. I’m turning them into minor cores, making fuses obsolete. Jess helped me figure that out with her fire ability. The mana lights a small spark in the middle, then condenses into a crystalline shell. It’s gonna blow skill-dispelling shrapnel all over.”

[Inscription 6 > 7]

The echo knight gives me a low whistle at that. “Very cool,” they say. “Can you modify my sword?” 

“Probably,” I nod, “but I’d encourage you to see if there’s not some function of your skill already doing that. I’d wager there is.”

Opal nods. “Yeah. My heart makes it tougher, my power makes it sharper, and my vessel amplifies any skills cast through it. Also, it gets bigger, more malleable, as I level it. I’m pretty sure that with me being an echo knight, it’ll eventually let me manifest armor.”

“That’s awesome,” I say. “Opal, knight in shining armor, there to save all the princesses in the world.”

“Nah, just princes. And nonbinary children of monarchs. Princexes?” They think it over, then nod. “That works.”

“Of course, of course. Leave the princesses to fend for themselves, and…”

“And romance the dragon,” they nod, smiling. “Think there’s some kinda jewelwork profession?”

I nod. “For sure. Magic and gems always go hand in hand. I’d love to try inscribing something like an Opal,” I tease.

“Ohhhh, biological inscriptions. Like when you traced stuff on Sylves to heal her better. But permanent. Think we could do tattoos, rather than dragging that…” they point at my stylus, “thing through my skin.”

Maintaining a deadpan expression, I make grabbing motions towards them. “Nope,” I hum. “C’mere Opal, let me give you some scars. They’ll be magic. Trust me.”

My friend scrabbles back across the cavern floor. “Oh, nonono. Absolutely fucking not. You get that thing away from me.”

I laugh out loud, putting the grenade and stylus aside, and pull them into a quick, tiny hug. “We’ll figure out something cool for you, don’t worry,” I say. “I’m already working on making inscriptions just from mana. Amelie has been showing me her threads, and I’ve been trying to copy something similar.” I let them go, pulling back, having filled my need for touch for the next week. “Did your mission go well?”

Opal smiles, arrogantly. “Yeah. I caused trouble and we stole stuff. Thatch and Jess made it back?” 

“They did,” I confirm.

“Then all’s well. I got an invitation to some noble party. Think the paladin will be there?” they ask.

A smile spreads on my face, and widens. “Oh that’s devious. Yeah, they’ll be there alright. Churches never miss a chance to spread the good word. Let me fill you in on what the ants have planned.”

When I’m done, Opal grins, wide. “Oh hells yes. I love it. Let’s have Sylves make us some clothes so we’re ready to party, eh, Ion?”

I grin in return. “Let’s do just that.”

Chapter 66: Planning and Preparing

Eventually, after some talking, the entire party is filled in on the plan. Not everyone will be going to the party. I will be, despite everything. Bay stays behind at the colony, trying to fix my headphones, but her job in the fight is already done. She’ll be earning plenty of supremacy if we just use the weapons she made.

Jess is staying behind in the tunnels with Dar and Richard. Elis and the warrior-ants, now decked out in plates of metal, are preparing a few… welcome gifts. Amelie seems rather intrigued by the possibility of snapping a trap, and with her puppets, she can ideally bait other insects in. 

Over the next few days, as far as we can tell them passing by the changing glow of the mushrooms, we prepare everything. Sylves and Amelie spin clothes, Opal sharpens their sword, Inu and Bay work on a set of better fitting armor that can be reasonably hidden under a nice cloak.

Norman… well, he does whatever it is that he does. Anxiously pacing is a chunk of it. He is also so proficient at nagging I’m almost sure he has a skill for it. Maybe. Probably. Still, I would’ve thought that having Jess yell at him might’ve done away with the complaining for a while longer.

Old habits die hard. Maybe I oughta kill him.

Inu looks at me, and I quickly discard the thought. “Please stop considering murdering my parents,” she says.”

“It’s mostly your dad,” I say.

“Please stop considering murdering my dad,” she rolls her eyes.

“I can try,” I reply easily.

“Will you succeed?” she asks.

“Almost certainly not,” I say.

Inu gives me a sigh and shakes her head. “Dummy,” she says. Then she shakes her head some more, giving a soft snicker. “Seriously. You’re such a weirdo.”

I smile, just a little. “And yet you choose to stick with me.”

At that, she beams a smile at me. “I do!” I wait a few moments for her to add anything, but apparently, she has no desire to do so. Instead of boring into the topic, I just roll my eyes, and tussle her hair a little.

She protests, but that’s okay. We banter a little bit more, but there’s not too much to talk over. Inu tells me more about her skills and how she’s been using them. [Resistance] is especially interesting, since it has a somewhat passive effect, and kinda “sticks” a bit. Anything she gets hurt by hurts her just a little less the next time around.

So, logically, she asks me to heal her when she stabs herself. Classic, entirely sane behaviour.

She also tells me about her new skill, [Reservoir], where she chucks all the pain that comes from training her resistance to be unleashed on unsuspecting victims. It’s devious, because while [Resistance] makes her more resistant to pain, it takes up less space in the reservoir, letting her store it in an almost compressed form.

So, we add resistance training to our routine.

Luckily, I have the great idea of practicing biological inscriptions on Inu since she wants to get hurt anyway, so the minor explosions aren’t really a bother. Between [Resistance], [Reservoir] and [Suppression], she barely feels the sting of it, even when one of the runes goes out of control since her body fights my mana.

With all that practice, I do catch another level.

[Inscription 7 > 8]

[Job up! Enchanter 9 > 10]

With that, my job is capped and I need to earn my advancement. Via tithe, tribulation, or simple skill. I think I’ll aim for the proof of ability, though, since I can feel more essence flood into me now that I’ve reached level ten.

It’s a scrambled packet of knowledge, consisting of common runes for durability, a horribly complex package on how to repair something, and a hundred tiny scraps of information about biological enchanting.

A smile spreads on my lips. I see how it is, dear tower. It must’ve seen my efforts and the direction I wanted to develop in, so I was given a package that helps me move that way. Were the Eyes on me involved in this? Nah, surely one of them would have sabotaged the package.

Maybe they can’t. Maybe some old crafter sent me this? The essence is still so low tier that there aren’t any flashes of memory. The magic breaking essence from my <Nullmage> class is a little different in that way. It’s stronger, vibrant, and concentrated.

All it does is wanna destroy things.

It meshes well with [Deconstruction], but it’s just not quite the same. That’s okay, though, I don’t need it to be. I can mix the two as the situation arises. There are still skills I wanna steal, after all. First and foremost among them, Bay’s [Pulse], since it can create electricity and I am really missing my music.

Soon. I know Bay’s working on it. She’ll get there. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

I sigh, just a little, letting the days drift by. I chat with Sylves and Thatch, the former more than the latter. Me, her and Amelie work together quite a bit for the clothing. A few ants, interested in the ordeal, help out too, so Richard is there to communicate. And, by the end of it, I’ve got rather dashing clothing.

“You’re looking gorgeous,” Sylves assures me. “We could use more stitching and stuff but…”

“But I’m a whiny creature who cannot stand the scratching of the embroidery on my skin. So your only options is to add it to overcoats, where there’s only so much you can do without it being gaudy,” I complete for her.

The girl gives me an awkward smile, spinning in the air until she hangs upside down. “Yep, that’s it. You got me~”

I shoot her a smile. “You’re looking rather pretty yourself,” I say. Her leaf-dress is more fleshed out than ever, and she’s woven literal light into it. Moonlight, specifically. It pulses ever so faintly in tune with the general vibe of the floor, casting pale shadows onto the grey walls. 

She spins, the dress flares, and the shadows of the leaves dance like bony fingers. It’s magical and sinister. I tell her as much.

Sylves beams at me. “Perfect! A fairy has to have some terror to the allure, right? Oh, I can’t wait. This’ll be so fun!”

I give her a smile, fidgeting with my clothes a little more. They’re soft, and comfortable, and the inside is lined with wide strips of the softest thing Amelie could make. The shoulders and waist are a little tight, so it’s not everyday-wear, but I’ll live. I’m still wearing the same boots, and they look a little rugged compared to the refined and elegant vibe of the rest of the fit, but that’s alright, too. They’re comfy. 

And, of course, the last thing I do with Jess and Bay and Amelie and the ants is trap the tunnels to hell and back. Bombs, secret tunnels, pitfall traps, puppets tucked away in dark corners… Everything. We map things out with the help of the colony, and once things are ready, we group up.

Norman wears a dark suit, Opal an even darker one, Thatch a somewhat pale one, and Inu sticks with a pale grey cloak-blazer hybrid thing that nicely hides the dull steel of her armor underneath. Sylves’ moonlight dress really rounds out the fantasy aesthetic. And, of course, they’ve styled my hair to cover half my face, as well as adding a half-cowl to my outfit. No more skull sticking out… for now. I blow against my hair, sending a strand or two flying.

I  smile, just a little. Parties suck. I’m excited to go and ruin one.