The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The effect of the slightly altered Space Heater +2 Fusion was felt almost immediately upon activating it upon a separate stone and placing it in the corner of the room.

Space Heater +2

Activation Method(s): Reactive

Effect: Heats the temperature around a designated space

Input(s): Presence of people

Variable(s): Presence of 1 or more people, presence of 0 people

Magnitude: Envelops a space up to 5,000 cubic feet, increases 20 degrees in temperature

Mana Cost: 500

Pattern Cohesion: 15

Fusion Time: 75 minutes

Originally, the Variable in the Fusion required 3 or more people, as he had designed it for use against Ricardo and the two Martial trainees back in Copperleaf, but now he only needed it to activate when he was around. While he could certainly handle the cold environment that was his underground room, as the chill didn’t affect him due to his higher Body stat, he could still feel the cold even if it wasn’t necessarily unpleasant. The 20-degree jump in temperature that the Fusion produced was a little much, though it wasn’t nearly at the same level as the sweltering heat that came from the fire in the Underworld Society’s common room.

It was just on the edge of being comfortable, and he thought that he could do better.  There was actually a Fusion he had that was perfect for this, Temperature Regulator, but it was designed for a single person and required a physical touch to activate. The one that he would likely use was the Magnitude 3 version, which regulated the temperature to a 70-degree base value, with up to a 30-degree difference.

Temperature Regulator +3

Activation Method(s): Reactive

Effect: Cools or heats the temperature around a designated space

Input(s): Physical touch, temperature measurement

Variable(s): Ambient temperature + or – 5 degrees difference of 70-degree base value

Magnitude: Envelops one person, 30-degree difference

Mana Cost: 7,500

Pattern Cohesion: 60

Fusion Time: 10 hours

He hadn’t even considered it, however, because there was no way he could add yet another Fusion to his clothes or any other accessory. It wasn’t that he didn’t have room to place it, but the area of ambience produced by the Fusion would interfere with the balance of the existing Fusions. There was a little leeway, of course, but unless he began wearing hats or helmets of some kind, there was no space left – and he wasn’t exactly a hat-wearing type of person.

But if he could combine the two Effects into one, then he could create a Space Heater that would automatically regulate the temperature in a larger area, rather than just a single person. Even that wasn’t exactly a challenge, as he thought it was pretty easy to get that working in a Fusion correctly; all it would take was altering the Magnitude to the appropriate area and to incorporate the correct Inputs and Variables. But he wanted more than that, and he thought that it was about time to start flexing his ability to create Advanced Fusions.

The problem with the Temperature Regulator was that comfort was subjective to whoever was experiencing it. For Larek, 70 degrees was the perfect temperature for relaxing because it wasn’t too hot or too cold; it was a temperature that he could sit in for hours creating Fusions and be perfectly fine. However, if he was exerting himself, such as practicing his footwork in his room – which he was planning on doing while he stayed in this underground facility, so as to keep up with the training he’d done against monsters over the last month – 70 degrees would be a little warm. He was sure that that were times when he became extensively chilly, such as testing out a new Frozen Zone Fusion or the like, and would then want to warm up with an even higher-temperature environment.

While he was technically creating this Fusion for himself while he was staying underground, he was also thinking of giving this type of Fusion to others – such as Nedira when he saw her again. He distinctly remembered that the Naturalist was constantly complaining about the cold, even when the temperature was pleasant, so 70 degrees wasn’t ideal for her; he thought that if she were to be able to pick the ideal temperature, she would say it was 80 degrees – which, to Larek before he had improved his Body stat, would’ve been a bit too hot. Not overwhelming and on the verge of wanting to melt, but it certainly wouldn’t have been comfortable to him. Based on the way the women in the Underworld Society seemed to like being roasted in the common room, he could only assume that they were similar in their preferences.

So, obviously he needed a Fusion that could be altered to whatever temperature was deemed ideal. Larek thought that this might be possible with different spoken phrase Inputs used in Variables attached to other temperature measurement Inputs, which would then trigger different Magnitudes of the heating or cooling Effect. It would be fairly easy to add a dozen Variables dictating specific temperature ranges, which could then be activated with a spoken phrase such as, “Temperature 70”, “Temperature 75”, and so on.

But even that would only be conceptually considered an Advanced Fusion, due to how many Variables and Inputs he would need; it was technically only an Intermediate Fusion because there were only two Effects instead of the required three. There was also the problem that if more than one person was near the heating and cooling Effects of the Fusion, such as if Nedira had it in a room and someone came to visit, then the visitor would have to put up with suffering from an oppressive heat that the Naturalist considered comfortable.

Sure, it was fairly customizable by having different ranges of temperature, but how often did people agree on things like comfortable temperatures? Then there was the added complication that anyone using it would need direction on the correct phrases to use to change the temperature, so if Nedira forgot what she needed to say to alter the temperature, then she’d be stuck with whatever it was on at the time.

If Larek wanted to create Advanced Fusions, then he had to figure out how to solve this problem while also adding another Effect to qualify. Only in this way would he advance his Skills, because even though he had raised their maximum Level, he had to challenge himself with something appropriate.

Thinking about a solution, he finally stumbled upon the Perceptive Misdirection Fusion he’d learned from the ring that Shinpai had created for him. The Fusion had disappeared some time ago from the accessory, of course, and one of his goals that night was to replace and improve upon it so that he could move about Swiftwater with a bit more impunity than he currently enjoyed. It was what he was planning on working on next, but there was something about the Fusion that he thought he could utilize in his new creation. In short, he was intrigued by the Effect that stated that it “alters the perception of observers by non-invasive mental manipulation”.

Larek had studied the formation for the Fusion for a while before he actually learned it, and during that time he had gotten a feel for what the Effect – which looked like the side view of a head – actually did. Each Effect in a Fusion had a sense of purpose fused into it, which was what made it accomplish what was intended; as Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai had told him at one point, it wasn’t the symbol that mattered, but the intent. It was what made Fusions more difficult to create than spells, or so he understood, because that intent had to be focused upon during its formation so that the Effect was what was intended; spells simply followed the spell pattern and accomplished its task immediately, though through Spellcasting Focus it could be altered before and during its execution.

All that was to say that the Combat Fusionist had studied that particular intent of the Effect and discovered that the description of it didn’t exactly explain what he felt from it. Yes, it altered the perception of observers by non-invasive mental manipulation as described, but the method behind that wasn’t exactly explained until he delved deeper into it. What it actually did was constantly assess the mental image of Larek – or whoever was wearing the Fusion – coming from any observers and then initiated a feedback loop where it altered that mental image to what it was designed to show. In other words, it somehow read and interpreted the thoughts of any observers and then produced the appropriate image alterations based upon the listed Variables focused on subjective distance.

The more he evaluated the Fusion, the more he determined that the Variables were simply unnecessary as long as the intent behind the mental image alteration Effect was comprehensive enough to cover all of those Variables. He wondered why it had been done that way in the first place, as it made the entire thing overly complicated, but after considering it for a while, he realized that by including all of the distances into separate Variables, it actually made it easier for the Fusionist creating the Fusion.

That sounded counterintuitive on the surface, because wouldn’t more segments in the formation cause it to become more difficult? One would think so, but by having every single component clearly separated out, the Fusionist would be able to mentally group them together as a comprehensive whole, as each one only took a small amount of focus to keep them from falling apart during Fusion creation.  On the other hand, the focus required to juggle every single distance extrapolation into the Effect was impossible for a Fusionist to handle… or at least every Fusionist other than Larek. He thought it would certainly be a challenge, but one that the hyper-focused state he fell into during Fusion creation was more than capable of handling.

While he wanted to try recreating the Perceptive Misdirection Fusion with those changes later, Larek wanted to see if he could adapt it to his current problem. Having a fairly good idea of how the mind-reading and feedback aspects of that particular Effect worked, it wasn’t long until he thought he had a solution – and it was one that he thought was a good way to experiment with Advanced Fusions like he hadn’t been able to before.

In essence, what he needed was some way to change the temperature in a space that was dependent upon what those within range mentally considered to be the most comfortable temperature. This mind-reading Effect helped to determine that, giving Feedback to the Fusion to raise or lower the temperature – but he also needed it to affect each person individually. By combining the single-person focus of Temperature Regulator and the broader area of Space Heater, the Fusion should be able to determine the correct temperatures of everyone within a certain area and change it to whatever they thought was the best temperature for them at that time.

Creating different temperatures within an area would likely be an extreme draw on the nearby ambient Mana, but he thought he solved that by only heating or cooling each person rather than the entire space. The wild fluctuations of Mana flowing through the formation would also stress the Fusion’s formation, and while Larek’s formations were abnormally strong, even they would be worn down by constantly changing temperatures of those being affected. To solve this, he had to utilize a number of Amplifiers to compensate for a larger draw of Mana moving through the formation, Diverters to handle a number of different Magnitude components, and brand-new Regulators, which did what the name implied: They regulated the amount of Mana flowing through the heating and cooling Effects based on fluctuations of extreme Mana draw.

The Regulators didn’t prevent the Effects from triggering, only slowed it down if it was necessary. What that meant was that if there was one or two people inside the space, the amount of ambient Mana drawn in was fairly stable, especially if their temperature fluctuations weren’t wild; in this case the temperature changes would be almost instant for those experiencing the Effects.  Add another dozen people, however, all with different ideal temperatures, and the Regulators stepped in to regulate the flow of Mana moving through the formation to prevent strain; in a practical sense, the people would experience the change in temperature at a slower rate until it eventually stabilized on what they desired.

He also had to put a new Limiter in the Fusion, which put a limit on the amount of ambient Mana the Fusion could draw from the environment to power itself. While most Fusions did this automatically because they could only draw Mana dependent on Magnitude, this particular Fusion could use large amounts of ambient Mana to power multiple Magnitudes and Effects, and if he didn’t have a Limiter, it could collapse upon itself if too much was suddenly drawn in. He didn’t want to imagine the destruction it could cause if it were to fall apart and explode with millions of Mana inside of it if 100 or more people suddenly entered its field of effect and there was no Limiter on the Mana Cost components. With the Limiter, the changes in temperature would be limited to what he thought the ambient Mana in the Sealance Empire could handle on a constant basis without depleting it all; he was making it for his room, after all, and depleting all the ambient Mana around him would be a poor idea if he wanted his other Fusions to keep functioning.  The Limiter could be mentally adjusted to different limits during the actual Fusion creation, at least, so he could change it later once he made one for Nedira.

As for what the Limiter would actually do if 100 or more people entered its area of effect? With a reduced load of Ambient Mana coming in, the result would be that each person would experience a weaker temperature change than would be normal, so if someone was practically freezing, they would become warmer but might not reach the ideal temperature for them. It was a trade-off, but he thought it would work well enough – and would prevent anyone from dying because it wouldn’t overload and fall apart.

It took him another half-hour to completely form the mental image of the formation in his mind, taking extra special care to focus on the mind-reading and feedback Effect. Once he thought he had it ready, he began to assemble the formation and centered it over yet another rock he’d pulled out of his pack earlier, this one approximately the size of his hand and mostly flat and generally square-shaped. It took him over an hour of concentration to fully complete the Fusion, pushing his regenerating Mana into it as quickly as he could while using his hyper-focused state to hold everything together. There were a few moments when he felt his concentration starting to slip because there was so much that needed to be held together, but when he finally let it go to *click* into place on the stone, he breathed a sigh of satisfied relief before he was inundated with notifications.