The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Hovering 10 feet over the desert on a large air cushion as he initiated Magnitude 5 on his upward-lifting gust Effect, Larek felt the Air Skimmer stabilize before he tested his forward progress with a Magnitude 1 constant air gust. When that seemed just fine, he moved up to Magnitude 2 and then 3, finding that – similar to when he was only about 2 feet off the ground at Magnitude 4 lifting gust, it was right on the edge of being unbalanced from the rear-based thrust. He didn’t bother to test anything stronger, either with his lift or his forward momentum, as he was already moving at a decent enough speed at a good height that he didn’t think he needed much more than that.

As he traveled east above the sands that seemed to stretch out endlessly in every direction except the west where the Sealance Empire he had just left behind was located, Larek finally had a chance to relax. With the wind of his passage through the air doing its best to cool him off under the roof that kept most of the beating sun off him, Larek thought about all he had accomplished over the last few days while he had been waiting for the Air Skimmer to be constructed.

First, of course, was the Fusion that made it all possible, Multi-Thruster. It was a strange name that it had been given, but he supposed that it described what it did in the most general terms. By “thrusting” powerful gusts of air at the Air Skimmer, it allowed the vessel to float on an air cushion and move in different directions, all with an application of some mental phrasing to control it.

Multi-Thruster +6

Activation Method(s): Activatable

Effect: Forcefully pushes against nearby targets with a strong, continuous directional gust of air

Effect: Forcefully pushes against nearby targets with a strong, continuous directional gust of air

Effect: Forcefully pushes against nearby targets with a strong, continuous directional gust of air

Effect: Forcefully pushes against nearby targets with a strong, continuous directional gust of air

Effect: Forcefully pushes against nearby targets with a strong, continuous directional gust of air

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

Input(s): Mental phrasing

Variable(s): Mental phrasing of “Lift 1”, “Lift 2”, “Lift 3”, “Lift 4”, “Lift 5”, “Lift 6”, “Forward 1”, “Forward 2”, “Forward 3”, “Forward 4”, “Forward 5”, “Forward 6”, “Stop 1”, “Stop 2”, “Stop 3”, “Stop 4”, “Stop 5”, “Stop 6”

Variable(s): Mental phrasing of “Right Turn” and “Left Turn”

Variable(s): Directional orientations

Interval(s): 0.5 seconds, stop

Magnitude(s): 100%-600% of base gust strength, mental detection up to 60 feet

Mana Cost: 145,000

Pattern Cohesion: 500

Fusion Time: 77 hours

Surprisingly, the Multi-Thruster Fusion wasn’t too expensive in terms of Mana Cost and Pattern Cohesion compared to some that he’d created lately, though that could also be because he only needed a Magnitude 6 variation for what he needed it to do. What made it a lot more complicated was how many different components to the formation there was, in addition to the maximum number of Effects his Advanced Fusion could sustain, which was currently only six. What helped him be able to complete it was that most of the different Effects were similar in execution, being gusts of air, which made it simply a matter of ensuring each Effect was matched up with the correct Variables and the idea of directional orientation.

It was also his largest formation to date, as it was a 7-by-7 grid for a total of 49 different with 6 Effects, 6 Magnitudes, 6 Mana Costs (to help with powering so many different Effects, which were likely to be used simultaneously), 26 Variables, a pair of Intervals for the turns, an Input for mental phrasing, an Activatable Activation Method, and a single Splitter that was used to aid in the splitting of Mana feeds through the formation when the turns were being utilized.

He thought that the only reason he had been able to keep all the different components of the formation separate while still in a cohesive whole had been because of his increased Skills that aided him in the process, including Fusion and Pattern Formation which were at Level 50, along with Multi-effect Fusion Focus at Level 40. Mana Control at Level 50 had also helped him to separate his Mana flow into the formation as it was split between the 6 Mana Cost components, which was beneficial for the flow of Mana throughout the Fusion and to prevent strain in the future; with so many different Magnitudes and Effects, it was much better to use multiple sources of ambient Mana that was pulled from the environment rather than a single one where it would all flow through.

Creating the Fusion to his standards had taken a few hours that first night when he got back to Day’s End after ensuring that he had the ore and food supply situation taken care of with the Merchant, so that gave Larek time to experiment with some other things. The first was to completely redo the Fusions on his staff and apply what he’d learned over the last few months.

Stripping the staff bare other than the Strengthen Fusion that was still operating just fine, he placed a new variation of the different offensive Fusions he’d used before on it that took advantage of mental phrasing, multiple Magnitudes, multiple Effects, and multiple Interval components used in the formation. What he was able to put together was an offensive Fusion similar to what it did before, but was able to become weaker or more powerful at a thought by switching the Magnitude of the icy projectile it created.

Why would he need different Magnitudes when something more powerful – when used against monsters – was almost always the better option? The answer to that was in two parts, and it had to do with the current Mana density of the area and the multiple Intervals he used. First, activating his previous staff Fusion – which had a Magnitude of 7 – was fine for the Mana density around the areas he fought in the Sealance Empire, but constant use after about 10 minutes would reduce the density quite quickly. If he happened to use one of his other offensive Fusions, such as Frozen Zone, he could only activate something like Icy Spike on his staff for a minute or two before it began to deplete the density too quickly to sustain his attacks.

Which naturally led to wanting to use an Effect that used much less Mana, hence a lower Magnitude. An Icy Spike at Magnitude 1 was obviously weaker and did less damage to a target, as well as flying through the air as a projectile much slower than a higher Magnitude, but it was also a bare fraction of the Mana required to form and launch it when compared to those higher Magnitudes. Larek used a baseline of about 6 ambient Mana used per Magnitude 1 Icy Spike, which was only 1 Mana higher than a Mage would use to cast an Ice Spike spell. Each subsequent increase in Magnitude increased the amount of ambient Mana needed, generally doubling in cost – though it was more an estimated range than anything set in stone. So, at Magnitude 7, it would cost somewhere between 360 and 400 mana per use of the offensive Fusion, which was substantially higher than the Magnitude 1 Effect.

What that meant was that, even on the low end of that range, the Fusion could produce around 60 Magnitude 1 Icy Spikes for the same cost as a single Magnitude 7 projectile. Previously, this wasn’t really something he could do, since even if he had a staff with a Magnitude 1 Icy Spike Fusion on it, activating it more than once a second was difficult because he’d had to activate it each time with a mental thought; in addition, while his formations were strong, they couldn’t handle the stress of the constant activations without being damaged over a length of time, even at Magnitude 1. Thankfully, his Fusions were stronger than they were back in the Kingdom, and by ensuring that the lines in his formation were as perfect as possible, it lessened the risk that they would get stressed and therefore damaged.

Now, along with being able to use the Interval component, he was able to find a way to increase the speed at which the Effect would activate. It turned out that he could make the interval between activations very short, so with a wait of only 0.05 seconds between each activation, that meant he could launch 20 icy projectiles per second; when activated, they came out of the end of the staff essentially as a constant stream of ice. Granted, they didn’t do a lot of damage and were generally weaker with less impact than a Mage would get out of an equivalent spell, but when there were 20 of them per second… well, quantity occasionally had a quality of its own.

With each increase in Magnitude, there was a separate interval set up that reduced the speed of activation, with Magnitude 2 being 10 per second, Mag 3 at 5 per second, and so on. He added Magnitudes all the way up to 8 into the Fusion, so that if he needed something a little more powerful he would have access to it, but Mag 8 would require almost 10 seconds between each projectile to reduce the chance of depleting the ambient Mana too quickly.

Needless to say, the increase in the effectiveness of his staff made it even more formidable and versatile than it used to be. Not only that, but because he had the ability to add additional Effects like never before, his Fusion wasn’t limited to just shooting out sharp ice projectiles. Using mental phrasing made it easy to switch between what was essentially Icy Spike, Flaming Ball, Flying Stone, and Water Stream. They couldn’t be used at the same time, because that wasn’t something he was able to figure out without completely destroying the formation during use as multiple streams of Mana pulsing through the grid would tear it apart, but switching between types of elemental projectiles was as easy as a thought.

It also helped that he only needed to add the new Variable Repeating Elemental Projectile Fusion, or what he was calling in his head as VREP for short, to one end of the staff, as it meant he didn’t have to flip it around to launch a different type of projectile. He almost added a Repelling Gust Effect as well, but left it off because the Fusion was already complicated enough without adding an additional complication; with 4 different elemental Effects, it was already significantly better than anything he’d had before.

But that wasn’t the only Fusion he had worked on while he was waiting for the Air Skimmer to be constructed. Pulling out one of the stones he had in a specific belt pocket, he held it up in front of him to take a closer look. It was a relatively easy Fusion to make, as it was only a Simple Intermediate Fusion in complexity – but he hoped that it was nevertheless effective.

After his experiences he’d had both in the Kingdom of Androthe and in the Sealance Empire, there were a couple of things that Larek had learned about himself. First and foremost, he couldn’t cast spells because his ability to create strong patterns made it impossible for them to disperse after the spell’s effect was cast, resulting in it detonating after pulling in too much Mana. Secondly, it was this strong quality to his patterns that allowed him to pump so much Mana into a Fusion formation without it exploding, because it was designed to hold a certain amount of Mana safely. The problem, of course, was he had to make sure that the Fusion wasn’t damaged, or else it would also detonate due to the Mana being violently released from the pattern. He’d seen this with the Healing Surge Fusions back at Crystalview and just recently with the Fusion he’d created on a board of wood, when it smashed at full speed into a pile of sharp rocks.

But what if he could take advantage of this unfortunate tendency to explode when damaged instead of it being something that he sought to avoid? It was the answer to that question that led him to create his newest Fusion: Weaken.

Being very familiar with the Strengthen Effect by this point, he began to wonder if he could do the opposite. It turned out to be extremely easy, as he simply took the symbol that normally defined the Strengthen Effect of a Fusion and inverted it inside its space in the formation. Accompanying that was the idea that instead of making something stronger, it would instead make it a lot weaker, to the point where even a thick bar of steel could be bent and even torn apart with something as simple as someone’s fingers – if the Magnitude was higher enough, of course.

When he applied this to something like the stone in his hand, the normally hard rock would break apart and even shatter when enough force was applied to it.  This sounded counterintuitive to use on any type of material, but that was precisely what he wanted it to do – and to do it quickly.

Using a mental phrase that was able to reach up to 150 feet away, Larek could activate the Fusion on the stone, causing it to be weakened considerably. His idea behind this was very simple; throw one of these rocks at a monster, mentally activate it while it was in flight, and then when it hit something with enough force, the stone would shatter and release the Mana contained in the Fusion formation all at once, creating an explosion. In order to ensure it shattered, he raised the Magnitude to 10, meaning that it would be extremely weak and would be affected by just about anything it impacted afterwards, unless it landed on a cloud or a pile of feathers.

Because it was a simple, relatively uncomplicated Effect, it was inexpensive to create. At Magnitude 1, it only cost a total of 15 Mana, 1 Pattern Cohesion, and would take a normal person 10 minutes to fully form the Fusion. At Magnitude 10, it required a total of 37,500 Mana, 575 Pattern Cohesion, and would’ve taken about 68 hours for a normal Fusionist to create.

Even that was expensive for a one-time use Fusion like the one he was designing, but that didn’t take into effect his Focused Division Skill. At Level 45 in the Skill, he discovered that he could create a full 20 copies of the Fusion simultaneously, and although the Pattern Cohesion cost increased with each copy, it was still under 3,000 Pattern Cohesion to create them all at the same time. As a result, he now had 40 copies of the Weaken Fusion on a bunch of rocks in his belt pockets, and he was ready to test one of them.

Slowing down the Air Skimmer so that he was only moving at the speed of a fast walk, he chucked the stone in his hand to his right, where it soared through the air in an arc that would take it at least a few hundred feet away. As soon as he saw that it was going generally where he wanted it, he mentally activated the Weaken Fusion and watched it as it landed. Within a second of impact, an explosive detonation that created a large eruption of sand occurred, and even at about 300 feet away, he felt a very small shockwave pass through him.

Throwing has reached Level 11!

The unexpected increase in a Skill aside, he was more surprised at how well his idea had worked. His Weaken Fusion had been highly effective, obviously, but now he was wondering if it was too effective. He’d have to take caution not to make it explode too close to him or he could end up hurting himself as much or more than whatever he was aiming at.

Shrugging with a thought that it was probably a good problem to have, Larek smiled as he imagined his Weaken bombs killing monsters from hundreds of feet away. He was still thinking about his success as he increased the speed of his Skimmer’s movement again as he flew over the seemingly unending desert.

Unfortunately, he was so distracted that he didn’t notice the disturbance in the dunes he had caused, as something underneath the sand stirred at the sudden interference in its domain.