The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 31

Chapter 31

The answer to that question was a bit more complicated than he liked, because he was hoping to be paid for his work and then take the ferry to the other side of the river as soon as possible so that he could resume his journey home. The issues that prevented that from happening arose almost as soon as he returned to the Swiftwater docks after spending another half-hour or so testing the limits of the ferry boat.

“I… don’t have your payment yet, but I will soon!” Mage Protector Zinnia admitted to him when he asked her about it. He had parked the new boat, and the workers quickly tied it to the stone dock, using what appeared to be leather pads along the side to prevent damage to the boat as it moved against the stone. Though based on the strength of the wood, Larek thought it was more likely that the stone would be damaged than the wood of the boat, but either way it was probably a good idea.

“What do you mean? I thought all of this was already approved?” He specifically remembered her saying that she hadn’t gotten approval yet until he told her he could actually accomplish what she wanted him to do, but then she indicated shortly afterward that she had received it. It was what led to having help from all the dock workers and the Cartwright, after all, because he remembered overhearing that they were getting paid for their assistance.

Is she screwing me over? He began to get angry at being taken advantage of yet again, and he nearly turned to the Fusions on board the boat and erased them right then and there. If they weren’t going to pay him for his work, then they simply wouldn’t enjoy the benefits of—

“It was! The mayor approved it, but the large payment coming your way has… hit a bit of a snag,” she said quickly, holding her hands out as if she could sense the frustration in Larek and his desire to strike out. “The Merchant Guild is refusing to release the funds unless you agree to help build another dozen of these ferries if this one proved to be successful, and would pay you for each and every one. This is completely unacceptable, of course, and the mayor along with the Protectors are already preparing to storm their compound and force them to pay you for—”

Some of his anger drained away as he realized that it wasn’t the Protectors – and more specifically, Zinnia – that were withholding payment, but some “Merchant Guild”. He starting planning his own crusade against them to ask for his money, which he desperately needed for supplies to continue his journey, but paused as the Mage mentioned something that caught his attention.

Cutting her off before she could say any more, he asked, “How much are we talking about for all of them?”

Zinnia paused, temporarily taken aback at his question. She hesitatingly said, “Uh, for the one you already finished, the payment was a full 15 platinum coins, and a further 15 for each additional ferry boat you completed. It’s… an absurd amount of money, of course, but I tried to convey to them that you were in a hurry to get across the river—”

“Would I have to stay for the construction, or would they be fine with just the Fusions? If they are willing to settle for just the Fusions, I’ll take 10 platinum for each set of them for the 6 boats, and then they can take their time constructing them to their specifications. I’ll leave detailed instructions on how and where they need to be installed, but almost anyone can do that part.”

She was silent for a few seconds as she stared at him, before she slowly nodded. “I’ll take that offer to them. I can’t see any reason why they’d refuse, however. I should have an answer for you by morning.”

As she and a few of the other Protectors that had been there for the test of the ferry boat quickly departed, Larek left the dry dock and returned to his temporary room inside the Protector barracks where he’d been staying since he’d been released from his cell. Since he didn’t have any money, it wasn’t like he could afford to go anywhere else, and at least the food was free.

After stopping by the mess hall to get either a very late lunch or very early dinner, he headed up to his room to think about the day – and to prepare for later. He was ecstatic that his plan for the ferry boat had succeeded, but it had also given him a lot of ideas for more Fusions, including one for a personal flight contraption, though there were still some things he needed to work out before he attempted anything like that. Aside from that, he was severely disappointed that yet again someone was trying to take advantage of him by expecting him to capitulate to their demands; it made him so frustrated when he encountered either greedy people who wanted something that wasn’t theirs or who tried to make him provide something in exchange for something else that was his due.

That was exactly what this “Merchant Guild” was doing by withholding their payment for services rendered, and if they wouldn’t negotiate or agree to simply pay him for the work already completed, he would have to find a way to make them. He had no desire to hurt anyone, of course, but he also needed the money to pay for supplies for his journey; he would find a way to acquire what he was owed in one way or another.

The potential for even more money was another reason why he asked about payment up front instead of having to wait while the additional boats were constructed, because he had no desire to stay in Swiftwater longer than necessary at that point – which meant leaving within the next day or two at the latest. While he primarily wished to avoid any further conflict with these people, which agreeing to their demand would accomplish, he realized that doing so would essentially take advantage of them in return.

How? Because they likely expected creating such Fusions for each boat would take him days of work, because that was how long the first one took. What they failed to realize was that it only took that long because he wasn’t entirely sure it would work and had to design the Fusion to fit its new purpose, which had, indeed, taken a while to perfect. But now that he knew what he was doing, he thought that he could probably make 6 sets of ferry boat Fusions that night.

All thanks to a Skill he’d been neglecting lately: Focused Division.

His work over the last few weeks, both with teaching and by recreating the Fusions he’d lost when the Underworld Society hideaway collapsed, had increased most of his Mage Skills to their new maximums.

Mage Skills:

Multi-effect Fusion Focus Level 25/25 (250 AF)

Pattern Recognition Level 25/25 (250 AF)

Magical Detection Level 23/25 (250 AF)

Spellcasting Focus Level 25/25 (250 AF)

Focused Division Level 31/35 (350 AF)

Mana Control Level 45/45 (450 AF)

Fusion Level 45/45 (450 AF)

Pattern Formation Level 45/45 (450 AF)

With most everything now up to the maximum it could be until he was able to accumulate more Aetheric Force, the two remaining Skills he had that weren’t at that maximum were Magical Detection and Focused Division. Magical Detection had even gone up by 2 during those few weeks along with almost everything else, giving Larek another personal Level; he was now at Level 25 with an additional 20 AP to spend, which put his total available at 39 AP. He still hadn’t figured out where to place them yet, as he was still getting accustomed to his Martial stats, so he decided to hold onto them until he discovered where they would be the most effective.

Despite all of those improvements, he hadn’t even touched Focused Divisionbecause there was never a need for him to make more than one Fusion at a time.  Even replacing the offensive Fusions that had ended up being destroyed down below the city were ones he only desired to have a single one of each of them, as having more was unnecessary at that point of time. He could barely use a pair of them simultaneously without draining all the ambient Mana around, so anyone past the first as just extraneous. Perhaps if he was in the Kingdom and didn’t have to worry about Mana density levels they would be more useful in multiplicate, but for now there was no reason to do it.

But he could certainly create multiple copies of the ferry boat Fusions. Doing so would accomplish two things at once: increasing his Focused Division Skill Level and earning an additional 60 platinum. Along with the 15 from the first boat, he thought 75 platinum coins was more than enough to see him all the way back home, so he was willing to put in a few hours of work and take advantage of the Merchant Guild’s naivete on how long it would actually take him to accomplish them all. It was easy money by that point, and he wasn’t planning on sticking around long after he received his payment. He didn’t want them to understand how relatively trivial it was now for him to make copies of already created Fusions, after all.

If the worst happened and they refused to pay anything at all, he would simply stuff some packs full of food from the mess hall in the Protector barracks and then hijack the ferry to take to the other side. He wouldn’t even erase the Fusions on it in a fit of rage like he wanted to do earlier, mainly because it wouldn’t matter even if he did. He hadn’t told anyone how they worked, after all. And until he got paid, the ferry was essentially just a floating piece of wood that was practically useless for anyone that didn’t know the correct mental phrases to use.

He, too, could extort them for payment if they wanted to play games.

Pulling the stacks of square-shaped wood panels, which he had prepared a few days ago when he was starting the process of making Fusions for the ferry boat he had just finished, over to the bed, Larek sat down and did a count. He needed a total of 5 Fusions per boat: 1 Right Gust of Air +7, 1 Left Gust of Air +7, 1 Strengthen Area +10, and a pair of Repelling Gust of Air +6 for the front to prevent submerging. In total, if he was to make Fusions for 6 ferry boats, he was going to need 30 boards. Counting them up, he found that he had a total of 40, so it was more than enough for the work he needed to get done.

Getting into a comfortable position, he placed the 6 of the boards arranged in front of him and prepared the Right Gust of Air +6 Fusion, but made sure to thicken it enough so that he could use his Focused Division Skill to essentially copy it into 5 additional and identical Fusions to place on the other boards. It took less than an hour to gather and infuse enough Mana into the formation, and after approximately 6,000 Pattern Cohesion consumed in the process, he was able to divide his large Fusion into 6 identical formations before directing them onto the board.

Focused Division has reached Level 32!

Excellent! That was easy enough. Larek had to pause and wait about 20 minutes for his Pattern Cohesion to recover a bit, because he spent a good chunk of it and still had more to do. Once it had nearly filled up completely again, the Combat Fusionist did the same thing for the Left Gust of Air +7 on another half-dozen wooden boards.

Focused Division has reached Level 33!

Another wait while his Pattern Cohesion regenerated, and then he was on to the Repelling Gust of Air +6 Fusions. They were Intermediate Fusions of the Simple Classification, as they only had a single Effect and very few Inputs and Variables. At Skill Level 30 in Focused Division, Larek had only been able to create 11 equal copies before they seemed to fall apart during the division process, but he had a feeling that with even the few new Levels in it, he could make at least one more.

Thankfully, he was correct. If he hadn’t, he would’ve been able to feel it as he was dividing them and would’ve settled for 11, but he didn’t feel any hesitation while he was undergoing the process. By the time he was done, he even thought that he could’ve done one more, but that might be stretching it.

Of course, once he Leveled up the Skill again, he was confident that 13 was easily within his reach.

Focused Division has reached Level 34!

He had to wait even longer before tackling the final Fusion, because creating 12 copies consumed nearly half of his Pattern Cohesion. Instead of simply waiting there on his bed, he left his room and ate a late dinner, as he was hungry from all the mental work he had been doing. The break did him good, because by the time he got back, he was essentially ready to go.

This was where his process became a little bit more complicated, because normally his Strengthen-type Fusions had Permanent Activation Methods, because it was important for them to be activated all the time. However, if he was going to store these Strengthen Area Fusions with the others, then they needed to be changed so that they could be Activatable; otherwise, they would constantly be absorbing the ambient Mana around them, which would also start decaying any nearby Fusions within its area of ambience. When a full half-dozen of them were put together, the result would be even more devastating.

Thankfully, the other Fusions he’d created were Reactive and on “standby” they didn’t require much in the way of ambient Mana, so even stacking them together wouldn’t harm them. Only if they were activated would they start consuming ambient Mana, so it was fairly safe to store them as a set.

All Larek had to do was change the Activation Method to Activatable from Permanent in the formation, which was easy enough to do, but he also made a mental note ensure that whoever was responsible for installing it on the boats protected it from anyone inadvertently deactivating the Fusion. If it happened while they were in mid-travel with the paddle wheels in motion, the result could be catastrophic, with the destruction of the boat being the least of the worries they’d have to deal with.

Focused Division has reached Level 35!

Magical Detection has reached Level 24!

Another hour later, he was finished and feeling drained, as that had used nearly half of his Pattern Cohesion once again, but the Fusions for the additional 6 ferry boats were done. More than that, he had hit the current maximum Level for his Focused Division Skill and had increased his Magical Detection Skill, which was only a Level away from hitting its maximum of 25. Those increases alone were worth the work he put into the Fusions, but if he was lucky and this “Merchant Guild” agreed to pay him upon delivery of them, then he would be set as far as supplies went for a long, long time.

After separating the stacks of Fusions into 6 distinct piles, all of them ready to go for the next day, Larek finally tucked into bed, dreaming about the Fusion possibilities for the 10 unused wooden boards he had in the room.