The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 53

Chapter 53

After Larek disbursed his very few available stones with Illumination Fusions on them to light the cavern, the Combat Fusionist used Focused Division to create another 25 of the Basic Fusions with some chunks of the wall he carved from the wall. Despite the fact that he had killed the Umbral Demons that had attempted to take over their bodies, none of them wanted there to be any hint of darkness in the room; he couldn’t really blame them for wanting more light, which his additional Fusions helped to accomplish.

“What exactly was that?” Hakkin asked after watching Larek create the Fusions.

“Like I’ve said before, these are Fusions,” he explained as he handed them out to the Drekkin, instructing them in their use as they placed them all over the cavern. “They are like permanent spells on an object, though that is a bit simplistic.”

“Can you teach me how to do that?” the Mage asked excitedly, only to be shot down a moment later when Larek answered.

“Yes, but I don’t really have time to show how it’s done,” he said. “You can certainly watch while I work and I’ll try to answer any questions you have, but the ones I’ll be making will be… a bit more advanced than you’ll probably be able to understand.” He felt slightly bad at not being able to teach the obviously eager Drekkin, but he wasn’t there to teach them anything. He was there to gain a measure of revenge against the Demons for trying to possess his body, stop them from expanding out of the desert by closing their Aperture, and then escape the underground tunnels to get back to the Kingdom. As confident he was in his ability to protect himself from most weaker monsters, he was more than aware that he wouldn’t be able to do all that on his own, especially finding a way out of the underground tunnels. He was still so turned around that even if he was able to find his way to the surface, he had no idea where he might end up.

“Fair enough. We will observe,” Hakkin said, indicating himself and Pyluxa, who also seemed interested.

He nodded, before looking closer at the 6 Drekkin in the cavern. Three of the four Martials wore a heavy leather jerkin with bars of what appeared to be steel crossing it like a ribcage, as well as a pair of bracers that protected their forearms. With only the addition of a steel loop with two spikes attached near the tip of their tails, they weren’t wearing anything else – which made him realize that they weren’t wearing pants. Their scales appeared quite firm and durable, however, which was probably why they didn’t have as much armor over the rest of their bodies, only their vitals.

As for the last Martial, Gherix, he also wore a leather jerkin without the steel bars on it, and while his scales seemed durable, they didn’t appear as firm as the others. That went the same for the Mages, as they were wearing a simple leather jerkin as well, though they seemed to be more for an assortment of pouches than anything else. Neither of them had the ring and spikes on their tail similar to Gherix, but they did have weapons – a small shortsword that was easy enough for them to handle it they were unable to cast a spell in time, even if it wasn’t with the skill and strength of a Martial.

It wasn’t a lot to work with, but it would be enough.

Ever since Larek had appeared in the Sealance Empire, he had shied away from creating Fusions for anyone else, with the exception being the ferry boats – but that had ultimately been for the express purpose of getting him across the Swiftwater river and for some spending money for supplies. Otherwise, he hadn’t wanted to be bogged down by people wanting more and more from him due to their greed, which was similar to what happened back in the Kingdom with the SIC in Whittleton. He was slowly learning that his kindness and wanting to please everyone had been inadvertently getting him into trouble, and he had to put a stop to it. Of course, that didn’t mean he was immune to the needs of other people, and he had no intention of deliberately turning a blind eye to things that he could realistically do something about, especially when he was at least partly at fault.

But he also wasn’t intentionally planning on being the savior of everyone in the world by tackling the world’s problems. That sounded a little contrary to his current goals considering that he was going to try and close the massive Aperture nearby, but it was ultimately self-serving because he wanted revenge, more Aetheric Force, and a way out of the underground environment below the desert. That also meant that by using his knowledge of Fusions to make the group of Drekkins more powerful by outfitting them with powerful additions to their repertoire, he was ultimately helping himself achieve the ultimate goal of getting out of Lowenthal.

Besides, doing what he had planned would likely improve his Skills a bit, so really there was no downside here. Thinking about that, Larek opened his Status and looked to see what he could allocate and where to put it – the very thing he had been trying to do before the Drekkin had originally shown up and attacked him.

Larek Holsten

Combat Fusionist

Healer

Patternal

Level 30

Advancement Points (AP): 8/23

Available AP to Distribute: 22

Available Aetheric Force (AF): 18,129

Stama: 2000/2000

Mana: 3300/3300

Strength: 100 [200] (+)

Body: 100 [200] (+)

Agility: 100 [200] (+)

Intellect: 165 [330] (+)

Acuity: 114 [228] (+)

Pneuma: 1,800 [3,600]

Pattern Cohesion: 36,000/36,000

Mage Skills:

Pattern Manipulation Level 22/30 (300 AF)

Pattern Recognition Level 35/38 (380 AF)

Magical Detection Level 35/38 (380 AF)

Spellcasting Focus Level 35/38 (380 AF)

Multi-effect Fusion Focus Level 40/40 (400 AF)

Focused Division Level 45/45 (450 AF)

Mana Control Level 50/50 (500 AF)

Fusion Level 50/50 (500 AF)

Pattern Formation Level 50/50 (500 AF)

Martial Skills:

Stama Subjugation Level 1/20 (200 AF)

Blunt Weapon Expertise Level 1/20 (200 AF)

Bladed Weapon Expertise Level 2/20 (200 AF)

Unarmed Fighting Level 3/20 (200 AF)

Throwing Level 13/20 (200 AF)

Dodge Level 22/30 (300 AF)

Pain Immunity Level 20/20 (N/A)

Body Regeneration Level 35/40 (400 AF)

First to handle was the 22 Advancement Points he had available to distribute to his stats. As he was still getting comfortable with his relatively new Strength, Body, and Agility stats, Larek focused on his Mage stats for this round of improvements. Distributing half of it into Intellect and half into Acuity, he brought them up to 176 and 125, respectively. It had been a while since he’d increased his Acuity and wanted to see if it made any difference, especially since it seemed as though the relative Mana density in the area was much higher than in the Sealance Empire. He’d noticed a slight change already up above in the desert, but the closer they came to where he thought the Aperture might be located, the higher the density seemed to be. It wasn’t a huge improvement, but if he had to put it on a scale of 1 to 10, with his original experience in the Sealance Empire before the Apertures arrived at 1 and the Kingdom of Androthe at 10, then the underground tunnels were currently at around a 4.

Whatever it might do as far as his regeneration went, his mind immediately felt clearer after all the Advancement Points were allocated, and he could vaguely tell that his speed of thought and ability to manage multiple focuses simultaneously had marginally improved. He resolved to look into increasing Acuity more in the future to see if that helped that even more, as he could always use the additional help.

As for his Aetheric Force, even after stupidly spending over 2,000 of it during the fight with the Umbral Demons which distracted him at a crucial time, he still had a total of 18,129 AF to spend on increasing the maximum Levels of his Skills. It took him a few minutes of deliberation, but he eventually decided to continue increasing his lesser-used Mage Skills to bring them more in line with his others, but also since he was going to be making a lot of Fusions, he also increased the ones that were the most important for them. In the end, every Mage Skill got an upgrade to its maximum Level after spending 18,010 AF, which meant he had some ample opportunity for advancement.

Mage Skills:

Pattern Manipulation Level 22/40 (400 AF)

Pattern Recognition Level 35/40 (400 AF)

Magical Detection Level 35/40 (400 AF)

Spellcasting Focus Level 35/40 (400 AF)

Multi-effect Fusion Focus Level 40/45 (450 AF)

Focused Division Level 45/50 (500 AF)

Mana Control Level 50/55 (550 AF)

Fusion Level 50/55 (550 AF)

Pattern Formation Level 50/55 (550 AF)

With that all taken care of, he finally got down to business. “Can I see everyone’s weapons? I want to add some Fusions to them to make them more powerful.”

“Do you mean like your strange axe that can cut through stone?” Gharix asked.

“Yes, but also a little bit more than that. There’s some things I want to try that will make you a bit more effective in combat, I believe.”

There was a slight hesitation from the Drekkin as they understandably didn’t want to give up their only weapons, but they finally gave in and placed their bladed implements in front of where he had sat down on the floor. In total, there were two knives from Gherix, a longsword (for a Drekkin, at least), a spear, and a battleaxe for the other Martials, and a pair of shortswords from the Mages.

The shortswords he did first because they were already something he had a Fusion for. As Mages, they specialized in attacking from a distance with projectile spells, so the same one that he had on his own staff was perfect for them. There were a couple of things he changed about the Fusion while he was setting them up, however. The first, and most important in his opinion, was to ensure that the mental phrase activation only applied to the person in physical contact with the swords. The last thing he needed was the Fusion to detect the mental activation phrases from multiple people nearby, so this limited it to only the person holding the weapon. Fortunately, he had already set his own staff up with a mental phrases that were keyed to himself, so this wouldn’t be a problem with his own projectile weapon.

He also altered the timing slightly during the construction of the timing so that the Variable Repeating Elemental Projectile Fusion didn’t fire them quite as quickly and extending the time in between the more powerful projectiles. He didn’t do that to make the Drekkin weaker, but to ensure that they didn’t deplete the ambient Mana around them too quickly. There might be a higher Mana density in the area than what he'd been working with over the last few months, but if both of them and Larek activated the exact same Fusions simultaneously, that density would be depleted all the sooner. Still, it wasn’t as if he had handicapped them by making the Fusions unusable, as he didn’t think that 15 Flaming Balls per second at Magnitude 1 rather than 20 per second wasn’t that large of a difference.

He did them both at the same time using his Focused Division, to the astonishment of the two Mages. While the Martials could feel some of what he was doing, they couldn’t exactly observe him funneling thousands of Mana into the Fusions he was creating, nor could they observe the entire process from start to finish.

Focused Division has reached Level 46!

Multi-effect Fusion Focus has reached Level 41!

“What—? How—? That was… scary.” Hakkin had watched him closely at first, but had sat back after he saw Larek controlling so much Mana all at once.

That was a new one for the Combat Fusionist, as he usually got reactions that ranged from disbelief to astonishment. Actually, now that I think about it, there were a few that reacted with horror that I would shatter the formation by pushing so much Mana into the Fusion all at once. I guess it is a little scary to those who don’t know what I can do, isn’t it?

“It definitely can be,” Larek agreed. “If you’re not careful, you can overload a Fusion and it’ll crack, potentially exploding and killing the Fusionist,” he added absently, picking up one of the shortswords and inspecting it to try and see where the area of ambience was reaching without activating the new Fusion. After about 30 seconds of his focus on it, he finally saw a faint sphere around the Fusion’s location which he thought indicated the largest area of ambience it would produce. With a satisfied smile, he was further pleased when he got a notification.

Magical Detection has reached Level 36!

According to the faint outline of the area of ambience he saw, there was still room on the hilts of the two shortswords for another Fusion. As much as he thought he could be fancy with it, there was only one thing that they needed, which was a simple Strengthen Fusion to ensure that it didn’t break. He debated making them sharper, but decided against it because if these Mages were anything like the ones he knew back home, they weren’t exactly adept at using weapons like this and the risk of them hurting themselves more than what the monsters could do to them was a distinct possibility.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long to put a pair of Strengthen +10 Fusions on the swords, and he was only partly disappointed that he didn’t receive another Skill Level increase. He supposed that such a Basic Fusion didn’t really push him all that much, so the lack of increase made sense.

“I’ll explain what I did for you later, once I finish these others, but they are done for now,” he explained to the pair of Mages, who cautiously took the weapons back as if they might explode, and he worried for a moment that he had scared them a little too much with his talk of the Fusions potentially exploding. Wait until they learn what my Weaken stones are. Fortunately, after taking the weapons and seeing that they didn’t seem on the verge of killing everyone in the cavern, they put them back in the sheathes attached to the belt at their waists without any further trepidation.

Next up were the melee weapons of the Martials, and he thought about what he’d added to some of them in the past. For his companions back in the Kingdom, Strengthen and Sharpen Edge was the common choice to make them deadlier, but he’d also added custom Fusions for each person, ranging from a ranged projectile to being able to paralyze someone at a touch. While those would be useful to the Drekkin, he wanted something a little different for this set of weapons, as he considered all that he had learned over his time in the Empire and his unlocking of Advanced Fusions.

Having a ranged attack would certainly be useful but was unnecessary, as the two Mages would – along with Larek – have that covered. In addition, while Paralytic Touch was certainly useful, there were limitations on what the Fusion could effect and didn’t actually kill a monster, though it certainly helped. It was also limited in effective range, and all he had to do was think about one of the Drekkin going up against something like a giant scorpion to realize that paralyzing only a claw wouldn’t do much when the other one claw cut them in half. Or, at least, Paralytic Touch wasn’t as useful by itself.

Therefore, they needed a different way to enhance what they were already doing, beyond simply having a sharper edge to their weapons – which wasn’t insignificant in and of itself, of course. After perusing his list of available Fusions and thinking about the advancements he’d made in his Fusion creation over the last few months, he finally settled on a combination of Effects that he thought they’d appreciate.

Cobbling together the formation as he picked portions of different Fusions and stuck them together, he evaluated his creation as it floated in front of him, looking for any flaws. It wasn’t an overly complicated formation, but he also didn’t want it to inadvertently backfire and kill the user.  When he had finished looking at it for a few minutes, he saw a few lines here and there that needed some tweaking before he was satisfied, before he reabsorbed the Pattern Cohesion he had sent into the formation, ready to try it for real this time.

Carefully thickening it to the point where he could divide it into 5 separate Fusions using his Focused Division Skill, which he thought was pushing the boundary on how many of this particular Advanced Fusion he could create simultaneously, he started funneling Mana into formation. After only 45 minutes of adding Mana, as his Mana regeneration had improved substantially in the denser environment, he felt the strain as he divided the Fusion up and placed them delicately upon the different weapons. As almost all of them were different in size and shape, it took him longer to get them individually placed than he expected, and he nearly lost control of them; fortunately, he was able to hold onto his focus long enough for him to hear the *click* of their correct placement.

After they were in place, he smiled as he sagged from the loss of Pattern Cohesion, even as he was hit with a few notifications.

New Fusion Learned!

Variable Elemental Gust Sphere +7

Activation Method(s): Activatable

Effect(s): Creates a contained sphere of rapidly moving gusts of air in an independent sphere shape a certain variable distance away from Fusion location

Effect(s): Forms icy chunks that are moved around by the rapidly moving gusts of air

Effect(s): Forms flaming balls that are moved around by the rapidly moving gusts of air

Effect(s): Forms sharp stones that are moved around by the rapidly moving gusts of air

Effect(s): Forms orbs of light that are moved around by the rapidly moving gusts of air

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 of “Ice 1”, “Ice 2”, “Ice 3”, “Ice 4”, “Ice 5”, “Ice 6”, “Ice 7”, “Fire 1”, “Fire 2”, “Fire 3”, “Fire 4”, “Fire 5”, “Fire 6”, “Fire 7”, “Stone 1”, “Stone 2”, “Stone 3”, “Stone 4”, “Stone 5”, “Stone 6”, “Stone 7”, “Light 1”, “Light 2”, “Light 3”, “Light 4”, “Light 5”, “Light 6”, “Light 7”,

Input(s): Directional orientation, mental phrasing, physical touch

Interval(s): 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 4 seconds, 5 seconds, 6 seconds, 7 seconds

Magnitude(s): 100% to 700% of base elemental strength, 5 to 35 inches in sphere diameter, 1 to 7 seconds of duration

Mana Cost: 660,000

Pattern Cohesion: 2,400

Fusion Time: 396 hours

Fusion has reached Level 51!

Pattern Formation has reached Level 51!

Mana Control has reached Level 51!

Focused Division has reached Level 47!

Multi-effect Fusion Focus has reached Level 42!

Using the idea behind his Stone Shredder Dome that he had developed to help defend himself from attacks coming from above, Larek had the idea of weaponizing that idea for the Drekkin’s melee weapons. Going even further with the ability to change Magnitudes using mental commands like he did with his staff and the VREP Fusion, he constructed the new Variable Elemental Gust Sphere +7 Fusion with the idea that they would be able to customize the strength and type of elemental effect they wanted for each use.

And if it worked like he hoped it would, almost all of the different Effects would be quite effective.

After he rested for a moment and then added a Strengthen and Sharpen Edge +6 Fusion to each of the weapons, he looked up at the expectant faces of the Martial members of the Drekkin group and smiled at them. Whatever they saw in his face made a few of them shrink backward slightly, but that quickly passed as he gestured to their weapons. “All done. Be careful – they are extremely sharp.”

“What… what did you do?” Gharix asked as he only hesitated a few seconds before picking up his knives, inspecting them closely as if looking for any visible change. Other than the Fusion on them, which they couldn’t actually make out as they were Martials and not Mages, there wasn’t too much visibly different. He gently tested one of the edges against the scales of his arm, however, and discovered that Larek hadn’t lied when he was able to cut through them with just the lightest of touches. Thankfully, he wasn’t ignorant enough to go deep and didn’t even draw any blood, but he did hiss in pleasure at how sharp it was.

As the others picked up their weapons, Larek paused for a moment before he realized that he had better be careful with them initially testing their newest Fusion, as he didn’t want an accident. “I added something that can be highly dangerous, both to your target and to you if you aren’t careful. With a specific phrase – which I will tell you in a moment, so that you don’t activate it prematurely – you will be able to produce a sphere of rapidly gusting air that is filled with an elemental effect, either flames, chunks of ice, sharp stones, or even balls of light. I added the latter for use against Umbral Demons and to see if it might be useful against the monsters we’ll be fighting, as they are created from solidified shadows, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

“The sphere is produced a certain distance away from the tip of your weapons, or in the case of the battleaxe, from the center of the blade. What this essentially means is that it will form inside of your target, as long as there is room for movement; trying to form one inside of solid stone or something hard enough to prevent air movement entirely will likely not be affected quite as much. In all other cases, however, it should be effective to essentially tear up their insides, so even if they have a tough exterior, you’ll be able to penetrate it with this Fusion.

“There are different Magnitudes to the Effects, as well, ranging from 1 to 7, and the higher the Magnitude, the stronger and larger diameter sphere it produces. Before you ask why you would choose anything less than the strongest, there is what you could call a ‘cooldown’ between uses of the stronger Magnitude, up to 7 seconds, whereas at Magnitude 1 the cooldown is only a single second. In addition, the spheres will stay locked where they are formed, and will persist even if you move away, for up to 7 seconds for the lowest Magnitude, and only a single second for the highest.

“Why?  It’s all because of ambient Mana density. Just like you use Stama for your Battle Arts and it regenerates over time,” he nodded toward the Martials, before waving around himself, “so too can the Mana density of the environment be used and used up before it can regenerate. Fusions tend to consume a larger amount of ambient Mana than normal, so it is necessary to balance out usage and availability so that it doesn’t run out prematurely.

“Any questions before we test them out?”

There was a strained silence as they all stared at him. Finally, Gharix asked, “Test? You haven’t used this… Fusion before?”

Larek shook his head. “No, I just created it right now by combining a few other Effects from other Fusions. Should be fine, though,” he added, smiling innocently. He was fairly certain that they would work as intended, though it was always hard to say with something assembled together like what he had just created.

After a few seconds, Gharix took a step away from the others, as if to put some distance from them in case something went wrong, before nodding at Larek.

“Good. Alright, before I tell you this, I would advise everyone else to take your hands off your weapons for a moment, as they will only activate if you are in physical contact with them. I don’t want you hearing this phrase and accidentally activating it by repeating it in your head when you aren’t ready.” As the others set their weapons on the floor and backed away as if they were snakes ready to bite them, Larek turned to the Drekkin group leader. “I just realized that you have the same Fusion on both knives, so if you’re holding both, they will activate simultaneously. Keep that in mind so you don’t hurt yourself. Ready?” As Gharix’s now-nervous nod after sheathing his left knife, Larek said, “Ice 1”.

A second after he said it, the Drekkin must have thought the phrase, because a swirling sphere of air and sharp ice chunks appeared 6 inches in front of the tip of his knife. The 5-inch-wide sphere hung in the air exactly where it had been created even when Gharix stumbled backward in shock, and it continued to violently swirl around even as a second one was created a moment later where the Drekkin group leader had moved to.

“Clear your mind of the phrase, so you don’t activate it again accidentally – or drop the knife if you have to,” Larek informed him when the Martial lizard seemed on the verge of panic. “Though make sure not to chop off your toes,” he warned.

Rather than dropping his weapon, Gharix seemed to gather himself up as he watched the two swirling spheres of ice disappear after 7 seconds, and no other sphere appeared during that time. “Very good. Now, as you might be able to guess, the other mental phrases are ‘Fire 1’, ‘Stone 1’, and ‘Light 1’. When you are fighting a monster, all you have to do is stab them – and your weapons should easily penetrate most defenses now – and think one of these phrases; if you do it right, then that,” he said, waving toward where the spheres had been moments ago, “is what will appear inside of them.  Does everyone understand?”

When they nodded, he added, “Excellent! I also mentioned that they go up in strength, all the way to 7, and they are easily created by changing something such as ‘Light 1’ to ‘Light 3’ or ‘Light 5’, all the way up to ‘Light 7’. Why don’t you practice with the ‘Light’ mental phrases, which should theoretically be a little safer?”

With visible hesitation, the other Martial members of the group picked their weapons up and started practicing. As flares of light orbs moving around like fireflies in the night filled the cavern, Larek was surprised at gaining another Skill increase.

Leadership has reached Level 13!

“What about usss?” Pyluxa asked.

Larek waved them over, before explaining how to use their own weapons. As they had seen his staff work before, they weren’t anywhere as hesitant to use the shortswords as they aimed at one of the cavern walls and began launching projectiles.

He sat there watching them all and answering any questions they had, waiting for his Pattern Cohesion to fill back up after creating multiple Fusions. It only took about 15 minutes before the Martial members began to feel a little more comfortable with their new Fusions, and he even caught a few of them grinning, showing a large amount of sharp teeth inside their mouths in the process.

When he had largely refilled his Pattern Cohesion, Larek got everyone’s attention and announced, “Alright, now I just need everyone to strip.”

He somehow managed to keep the smile off his face as he watched them react to the sudden order.