The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 51

Chapter 51

After explaining his new Fusion to Nedira in detail, Larek finally looked at his notifications to see what had changed.

New Fusion Learned!

Variable Elemental Destruction +12

Activation Method(s): Activatable, Reactive

Effect(s): Camouflages Fusion using a void carrier shroud

Effect(s): Creates a condensed ball of flames that explodes near target

Effect(s): Creates a stone that shatters into hundreds of sharp pieces

Effect(s): Creates multiple icy spikes that emit a freezing aura upon impact

Effect(s): Creates a high-powered jet of acid

Effect(s): Using non-invasive mental manipulation, activates or deactivates Activatable Activation Method upon detection of mental phrasing by individual in direct contact with object

Variable(s): Mental phrasing “Blast 1”, “Blast 1 Repeat”…(see entire list)

Input(s): Directional orientation in a narrow beam, identification of distant targets, mental phrasing

Interval(s): 0.5 seconds

Magnitude(s): Targets up to 250 feet away, 100% to 1200% of base elemental strength, 1 to 12 seconds of freezing aura

Mana Cost: 7,800,000

Pattern Cohesion: 30,400

Fusion Time: 1,447 hours

Fusion has reached Level 66!

Fusion has reached Level 67!

Pattern Formation has reached Level 66!

Pattern Formation has reached Level 67!

Mana Control has reached Level 66!

Mana Control has reached Level 67!

Multi-effect Fusion Focus has reached Level 63!

Multi-effect Fusion Focus has reached Level 64!

Spellcasting Focus has reached Level 44!

I guess that explains why it took me so long, he couldn’t help but think after looking at the details of his new Fusion, Variable Elemental Destruction +12. Even though his Specializations helped to reduce the final Mana Cost, the base cost was nearly 8 million Mana, with his final cost still being 5.85 million Mana – more than he’d ever funneled into anything before. Looking at it in Nedira’s hands, he realized he needed to put a Strengthen Fusion on the wooden staff; if it suddenly broke and the Fusion shattered, the impending destruction would be catastrophic, to say the least.

While he quickly did that, adding a Strengthen +12 Fusion on the opposite end of the staff, he was happy to see that he had gained a total of nine Skill Levels from the single Fusion, the biggest jump in quite a while. He was just one AP off from earning another personal Level, but he thought that he might accomplish when he created a second staff for himself – since the first one was for Nedira to help protect them.

“Try it out,” he said, pointing toward a cluster of Steel Slimes that were rolling in their direction. They were probably about 600 feet away, but it wouldn’t be long until they were in range for the new staff.

“Are you sure this will reach up to 250 feet?”

He nodded. “Yes. Remember what I told you about the mental phrases? Try something at Magnitude 4 and add ‘Repeat’ to it once they’re close enough.” While she could easily try some of the higher—and more destructive—Magnitudes, it was better that she understood what she was working with before she started with those.

It was something that Larek probably should’ve experimented with before he blasted the Flying Shappo out of the sky, but what was done was done.

Striding to the edge of their camp, Nedira waited calmly with her staff held loosely in her right hand, only bringing it up with both hands so that she could sight along its length at the approaching group of Slimes. When Larek judged them to be approximately in the 250 foot range, he watched as a cluster of icy spikes suddenly materialized around the tip of her staff and shot off with incredible speed toward the physically tough monsters. A half-second later, the process was repeated, and another tight cluster of icy spikes followed right behind. This repeated for a total of 5 seconds, until there was a line of spikes crossing the distance to the Slimes, before shattering upon contact with the lead monster.

Thousands of tiny pieces of ice flew everywhere after impact, showing very little damage to the actual Slime, but the monster was visibly slowed in comparison to the others. A large section of what appeared to be frost covered the front portion of the Slime, though it disappeared when it continued to roll forward, pushing it beneath itself. Even though Nedira hadn’t done much damage to the monster, the obvious freezing aura given off by the spikes upon contact was a good sign that it was working as intended.

Next came the creation of multiple stones that shattered essentially in direct contact with the Slimes, sheering off a few small chunks of slime from their bodies in the process.  It wasn’t too effective, even at Magnitude 4, but it wasn’t really expected to; the high physical resistance of the Steel Slimes was well known. It was more of a proof of concept, though Larek was fairly certain that a much higher Magnitude would have a greater effect.

When she used the Blast Effect, the difference was evident. Even with a higher physical resistance, the presence of magical flames and the explosive effect of the detonating balls of fire tore large chunks out of the lead slime, and it only took a few seconds of repeat Blasts at Magnitude 4 to reach its internal core. She killed a second one only a few seconds later, before cutting off the flow of Blasts.

When a stream of greenish liquid shot out of the tip of the staff and crossed the extreme distance to the approaching slimes, Larek noticed that there was some drop-off of its acceleration and height as it passed about 150 feet. By the time it reached the Slimes, it had dropped in height about 2 feet, nearly hitting the ground at a slightly slower speed than before, but the results were still clear. As it hit the Steel Slime it literally punched a hole through its form, and even as it reformed to cover up the hole, it was obvious that the acid was doing some serious damage to it. Whatever it touched was practically melting, the strength of the acid and the pressure behind it being so incredible that the Slime couldn’t keep up.

Nedira kept in mind what he said about keeping the acid Effect going past 5 seconds, as that would start lowering the ambient Mana density significantly, so she shut it off just after that limit. He couldn’t see the smile on her face, but he could tell that it was there from her stance alone, which brought a grin of satisfaction to his own.

After having tried everything out at lower Magnitudes, as well as the repeating function, Nedira evidently decided to finish off the remaining Slimes with more Blasts – though these ones were a higher Magnitude. As the first one exploded in the midst of the monsters, enveloping them in an explosion that covered more than half of them, he thought that it was probably a Magnitude 8 or 9 – but definitely not any higher than that. The result was the absolute obliteration of all but one of them as they were ripped apart in a screeching of superheated metal, and the last was killed a few seconds later by a Magnitude 6 or so Blast that was much more modest-sized – but still equally as deadly to the physically resistant Steel Slime.

“I love it,” she said when she turned around, staring at the staff in her hands in wonder.  “It’s powerful and easy to use; but this would also be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“That’s true,” he acknowledged. “That’s why these are only for us… and anyone we think we could trust with them.” He hadn’t given up hope that he would find Verne after all, and if anyone would appreciate the destructive nature of this Fusion, it was his former roommate.

Larek had to wait for his Pattern Cohesion to refill for a little bit before he started on the next Fusion, so he practiced with Nedira on using the staff effectively; it had the potential of being extremely destructive and dangerous at close-quarters, so it required some experience with the different Magnitudes that they didn’t hurt themselves in the process.

He had to say, after using it for about an hour, that it made eliminating the Razor Locusts that continued to come after them quite easy. A single Blast at Magnitude 6 was usually enough to kill every single one of them, making them quite trivial; not that they weren’t before, but it barely took a second of thought before they were completely destroyed.

Once his Pattern Cohesion had been refilled and Nedira assured him that she would be fine against the next appearance of the Flying Shappo, Larek sat down with another staff to create another Variable Elemental Destruction +12 (VED) Fusion on it. It took perhaps a few minutes less than it did before, mainly because he knew what he was doing and what to expect, though his hyper-focused state was nearly interrupted when, at one point, he peripherally heard the sound of an enormous explosion, but he managed to keep it all together.  He knew it was Nedira taking care of the next Shappo, so he just pushed that knowledge to the back of his mind and kept going.

Fusion has reached Level 68!

You have reached Level 42 and have 28 available AP to distribute!

Pattern Formation has reached Level 68!

Mana Control has reached Level 68!

Multi-effect Fusion Focus has reached Level 65!

Spellcasting Focus has reached Level 45!

Pattern Recognition has reached Level 49!

It wasn’t quite as impressive of a Skill increase as the first time he created the Fusion, but it was still beneficial – because it gained him another personal Level and 28 AP to distribute. He nearly shoved his newly available AP into his Martial stats once again, but he held off for one particular reason.

Throughout his time creating Fusions, especially at the beginning, he hadn’t had any problems with Mana; it regenerated so quickly that it wasn’t really a concern to him. His time in the Sealance Empire and Lowenthal, as well his experience once he returned to the Kingdom, showed him that his Mana regeneration was dependent upon the current density of the Mana around him. It could only take so much at a time from the ambient Mana to replenish his Mana pool, after all.

Or so he had believed.

But after paying specific attention to the mana density as it pertained to the use of his Fusions, he began to think that this wasn’t entirely accurate. Yes, the density of the Mana around him certainly played a role in how fast his pool regenerated, but even though the ambient Mana was quite a bit denser in the Kingdom than in the Empire or Lowenthal, he didn’t think that his regeneration speed kept up with the difference. In other words, while his Mana regeneration had greatly impacted the ambient Mana density in the Empire, where sometimes he had to slow down so as not to reduce the density too much, that wasn’t even near to happening once he was back in the Kingdom.

In the end, what he thought might be the issue was his Acuity stat, which was what was supposed to govern Mana regeneration – though he hadn’t really thought about it in a long, long time. In fact, he couldn’t even remember when he had last added any AP to it; the Acuity stat had started at 100 and he’d added 40 to it, though he stopped after a while because it didn’t seem to make as much of a difference as it did when he added AP to his other stats.

Perhaps that was the problem. His other Mage stats had far outstripped his Acuity, though it was hard to compare his Pneuma because it was influenced by his Body stat; that being said, his Intellect was at 205 now, while Acuity languished 65 points behind.

It was time to change that. Ultimately, he wasn’t sure if it would even do anything, but he supposed that it couldn’t hurt to try. Some might believe that it was a waste, especially when the AP he spent could be used to make him physically stronger and faster; for Larek, though, he might have been working on his Martial side lately, improving his physical prowess over his poor or nonexistent training, but that wasn’t all that he was.

He was a Fusionist at heart, and if there was a way to improve his ability to create Fusions, he would take that opportunity. If he had still been horribly inept or weak, he would keep bolstering his Martial stats, but he’d already made great strides to improve himself that way; now it was time to improve his Mage side once again. The sheer amount of Mana that he had to funnel into his latest creation was proof that what he was making—or would make in the future—had incredible demands on his resources, and if he didn’t improve himself now, then he would soon find himself trying to create something that required more than he could give.

With that thought in mind, he threw all 28 of his newly acquired AP into Acuity, bringing it to a total of 168. While that might not seem like a huge improvement, when it was doubled due to his Omniboost Fusion, a total of 56 added to his Acuity certainly was.

Or so he hoped. The Fusionist couldn’t feel anything different immediately, as it largely had to do with Mana regeneration; but once his Pattern Cohesion filled back up, he would be able to see if it had made a difference… or if it had been a waste.

After about an hour upon finishing his own staff with the VED +12 Fusion on it, Larek sat down once again and began planning out his next Fusion where he would be able to test out his new Acuity. This one wasn’t going to be designed for Larek or Nedira to use, but to replace the old offensive Fusions he’d been using to kill most of the reinforcements that came from the Apertures they passed. The weaknesses of them were already known, as their high ongoing ambient Mana cost and subsequent limitations on how many he could place around the Apertures’ openings were obvious, so he aimed to fix those weaknesses. He might not be able to fully stop every single reinforcement from venturing out, but he would do his darnedest to get as many as possible. If he was successful, then they wouldn’t have to worry about a monster like the Flying Shappo from attacking them every few hours as they made their way to the northeast.

With that determination firmly in his mind, he began creating a brand-new Fusion formation that would take everything he’d learned over the last few years and put it all together in a powerful Fusion that would solve a lot of their current problems. Approximately 30 minutes later, after many different revisions and tweaks, he glanced up at Nedira.

“I’m ready,” he said in a monotone voice, his focus almost fully on his newest creation as he kept the formation together. “Starting now.”

As the Mana flowed out of him and into the Fusion on the steel plate he had designated as the material to hold it, the difference in his Mana regeneration was incredible. While it wasn’t necessarily a direct linear improvement with his increased Acuity, he could feel his Mana filling up much faster; it was very similar to what he used to experience in the Kingdom years ago, and there was very little downtime as he funneled in millions of Mana into the formation. It was hard to quantify exactly what had changed, but in the end he decided that it didn’t ultimately matter; his brief checks of the local Mana density using his Magical Detection Skill was enough to tell him that his new Mana regeneration speed wasn’t affecting it to the point where it began to drop in density. It wasn’t exactly even, but he suspected that if Nedira began using large quantities of Mana with her staff while he was working it would start to suffer; for now, though, it wasn’t harming anything.

After only an hour, he could feel the Mana being funneled into the Fusion slow down until it finally stopped.  He was fairly certain that he used just as much if not more Mana in this particular formation compared to the Variable Elemental Destruction +12 Fusion, but it had taken less than half the time.

If that didn’t prove that increasing his Acuity made a difference, then he didn’t know what would.

As it clicked into place, he sagged a little from the expenditure of Pattern Cohesion and constant funneling of Mana, but he smiled when he looked down at his completed creation.

Looking up at Nedira, who looked questioningly at him after it appeared as though he was finished, he asked, “Shall we go try it out?”

Nodding emphatically, she joined him as they packed up their camp and Larek made a Pattern box for them to journey toward the center of the Shappo Aperture. Once they arrived, Larek deactivated the previous Fusions they had set up earlier to stop the River Shappos from getting out, and the almost-giddy Fusionist carefully placed the steel plate down in a precise location.  The two of them then stepped away, got back in his Pattern box, and floated 100 feet away.

Just then, another Flying Shappo started to emerge from the Aperture, and Larek mentally activated the Fusion he had just placed moments ago.

“Alright, let’s see if it works,” he said.

“You don’t know?”

Larek chuckled. “Not at all. It should, but let’s prepare just in case.” So saying, he took his new VED staff out of his Void Pocket sack and held it at the ready. Nedira did the same next to him.

The both of them watched with bated breath as the Flying Shappo walked out of the Aperture before flapping its wings to get airborne. This was the reason why his previous Fusions couldn’t stop the monsters from reaching them, because they immediately flew over any of his defenses.

But if his new creation worked as intended, that concern was a thing of the past.