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The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 20

Added 2023-10-31 02:56:46 +0000 UTC

Chapter 20

The first thing Larek noticed about his Status was that it had changed a lot… and yet, it hadn’t changed significantly in the areas where he really wanted them to change. That was, at least in part, because he hadn’t been able to sit down and create any Fusions, but it was also due to not applying any of his Aetheric Force toward increasing the maximum Level of his Skills. Granted, he’d had more than enough time to do this while he was traveling, but he never felt that it was necessary since he wasn’t going to be able to work on improving them. The thought was always, “Tomorrow I’ll do it, because I’ll have time to really think about and work on it,” but that tomorrow simply turned into the next day, and then the next.

Now, though, he was finally able to slow down and look at all of it calmly and with focus.

Larek Holsten

Combat Fusionist

Healer

Level 23

Advancement Points (AP): 6/19

Available AP to Distribute: 0

Available Aetheric Force (AF): 13,547

Stama: 1500/1500

Mana: 2340/2340

Strength: 75 [150] (+)

Body: 75 [150] (+)

Agility: 75 [150] (+)

Intellect: 117 [234] (+)

Acuity: 114 [228] (+)

Pneuma: 1,350 [2,700]

Pattern Cohesion: 27,000/27,000

Mage Abilities:

Spell – Bark Skin

Spell – Binding Roots

Spell – Fireball

Spell – Furrow

Spell – Ice Spike

Spell – Lesser Restoration

Spell – Light Bending

Spell – Light Orb

Spell – Localized Anesthesia

Spell – Minor Mending

Spell – Rapid Plant Growth

Spell – Repelling Gust

Spell – Static Illusion

Spell – Stone Fist

Spell – Wall of Thorns

Spell – Water Jet

Spell – Wind Barrier

Fusion – Acuity Boost

Fusion – Agility Boost

Fusion – Area Chill

Fusion – Binding Thorns +1

Fusion – Binding Thorns +10

Fusion – Body Boost

Fusion – Camouflage Sphere

Fusion – Extreme Heat

Fusion – Flaming Ball

Fusion – Flying Stone

Fusion – Frozen Zone +1

Fusion – Frozen Zone +10

Fusion – Graduated Illumination Strong

Fusion – Graduated Parahealing

Fusion – Healing Shelter +1

Fusion – Healing Shelter +8

Fusion – Healing Surge

Fusion – Icy Spike

Fusion – Illuminate

Fusion – Illusionary Image

Fusion – Intellect Boost

Fusion – Intellect and Acuity Boost

Fusion – Muffle Sound

Fusion – Muffling Air Deflection Barrier

Fusion – Multi-Resistance

Fusion – Paralytic Light

Fusion – Paralytic Touch

Fusion – Perceptive Misdirection +1

Fusion – Personal Air Deflection Barrier

Fusion – Pneuma Boost

Fusion – Red and White Illuminate

Fusion – Repelling Barrier

Fusion – Repelling Gust of Air

Fusion – Sharpen Edge

Fusion – Space Heater

Fusion – Spellcasting Focus Boost

Fusion – Stone Shredder Dome +1

Fusion – Stone Shredder Dome +6

Fusion – Strength Boost

Fusion – Strength and Body Boost

Fusion – Strengthen and Sharpen Edge

Fusion – Strengthen

Fusion – Temperature Regulator

Fusion – Tree Skin

Fusion – Water Stream

Martial Abilities:

Battle Art – Furious Rampage

Battle Art – Consuming Speed

Mage Skills:

Multi-effect Fusion Focus Level 20/20 (200 AF)

Pattern Recognition Level 21/21 (210 AF)

Magical Detection Level 21/21 (210 AF)

Spellcasting Focus Level 21/21 (210 AF)

Focused Division Level 31/31 (310 AF)

Mana Control Level 37/37 (370 AF)

Fusion Level 40/40 (400 AF)

Pattern Formation Level 40/40 (400 AF)

Martial Skills:

Stama Subjugation Level 1/20 (200 AF)

Blunt Weapon Expertise Level 1/20 (200 AF)

Unarmed Fighting Level 2/20 (200 AF)

Bladed Weapon Expertise Level 2/20 (200 AF)

Throwing Level 8/20 (200 AF)

Dodge Level 17/20 (200 AF)

Pain Immunity Level 20/20 (N/A)

Body Regeneration Level 30/30 (300 AF)

General Skills:

Cooking Level 7

Bargaining Level 8

Beast Control Level 9

Leadership Level 11

Writing Level 11

Long-Distance Running Level 18

Saw Handling Level 15

Speaking Level 17

Reading Level 17

Listening Level 43

Axe Handling Level 89

The biggest changes that had been wrought by his journey was an increase in his General and Martial Skills. As had been aforementioned, his Cooking Skill had increased all the way to Level 7, which made his impromptu meals of cooked meat more palatable as its Level went up. Bargaining had also increased at some point to 8 when he was negotiating for food at a village or town – but could barely remember when or where it had happened. Long-Distance Running had risen to 18 from all the running he’d been doing, which – along with his Martial stats – meant that he could run longer and farther than ever before he became extraordinarily tired. Listening rose to 43 simply by his paranoia and listening for any signs of pursuit or danger, as well as utilizing his hearing when he was confronting an Aperture and its monsters. The last of his General Skills to increase was Axe Handling, which had gone up to a whopping Level 89!

As for Martial Skills, the only two he’d increased had been Throwing to Level 8 – up 2 Levels – and Dodge, which had gone up to Level 17 from Level 13. Such an increase in Axe Handling and Dodge were due to a lot of practice using his axe and concentrating on moving around his chosen battlefield rather than simply standing still and hitting anything that got close to him. With the application of one of his offensive Fusions – and occasionally two of them simultaneously – to help watch his back, he had spent some deliberate time working on being cognizant of the monsters around him, which had been made easier when he discovered that he could detect the Corrupted Aetheric Force inside of them.

It was a faint feeling, especially in such weak monsters, but it was enough to give him forewarning if one of them was close enough to attack him. Most of the time, he wasn’t able to react fast enough to deflect an attack or kill the monster who was trying to kill him, but as the weeks went on, he was getting much better at anticipating their assaults.

That being said, he was fairly certain that he was still poorly executing his rather inept fighting style; it was better than before, but if it wasn’t for his Fusions, he would’ve been seriously hurt or possibly killed multiple times during his journey. As it was, he still suffered from numerous wounds originating from attacks that made it through his defenses, though none of them were too serious – only annoying and requiring more energy from his body to heal.

The worst of his wounds was when Larek had encountered an Aperture with Snowflake Pixies – over 150 of them, in fact. He had begun his attack on the Aperture by doing what he normally did when finding a new one: Reconnaissance. The lightly frost-covered field of grass had been relatively unassuming at first, as the area hadn’t changed much from the presence of the opening into another world like some he’d seen, as the small amount of frost present wasn’t too different from the normal space around the area. At first, he didn’t see anything through the edges of the frost-covered grass, and there was nothing flying above it; the only thing that had been a bit strange was that the air had a charged aspect to it, and it appeared as though there were snowflakes drifting along lazily everywhere.

After nearly a half-hour spent looking for whatever the monster of the Aperture was without success, prowling through the grass in almost every section of it waiting to be attacked, he decided to simply smack the Aperture and make all the monsters come out of hiding to attack him.

It worked… a little too well.

Needless to say, Larek wasn’t prepared for 150 winged figures no larger than a foot tall to suddenly appear out of the drifting snowflakes all around the area and swoop toward him with incredible speed, seeming to almost teleport with how fast they were. While he’d been in a few tight spots before this one, this particular fight nearly ended him right then and there. Why? Because his defensive Fusions didn’t work the way he hoped.

First, he didn’t even bother setting up his Frozen Zone Fusion, as while it might work against a monster that came from an environment that caused frost to cover the area around the Aperture, he wasn’t going to count on it. Secondly, the Binding Thorns he set up behind himself before smacking the Aperture was entirely useless. The reason for this was that the Snowflake Pixies flew just above the roots’ maximum reach; he had been expecting something that was hiding in the grass or underground, which he’d found Binding Thorns worked just as well underground as above. This, unfortunately, didn’t seem to be the case, hence why that particular offensive Fusion was effectively useless.

That’s when he quickly activated and threw out Healing Shelter, which missed many of them because they were close enough to attack him already – but that wouldn’t have mattered even if he had placed it out before the fight started. It turned out that the Snowflake Pixies, contrary to what he remembered about them in class, were small, winged humanoids made entirely of nearly frozen water and ice. The structure of their bodies was ice while the nearly frozen water flowed through them like blood; that particular tidbit of information didn’t matter all that much, other than the fact that they didn’t heal in the same way as a living being – so Healing Shelter was also useless.

They also didn’t necessarily attack from above, as they liked to swoop down and launch a cloud of extremely tiny, sharp-edged ice particles that looked like fluffy snowflakes in the light, but were actually quite harmful – especially when inhaled. Passing right through his Repelling Barrier because they were too small and insubstantial to be detected, the ice particles practically shredded his mouth and lungs, and even his eyes were temporarily blinded as they were pierced by the deadly cloud. He remembered collapsing on the ground as he couldn’t breathe anything but blood as he received a blast from dozens of the Pixies simultaneously; thinking about it later, he thought that he might’ve been able to handle a dozen or so at the same time, but the concentration of ice cloud attacks seemed to feed upon each other as they practically tore all of his more sensitive and vulnerable flesh apart.

Thankfully, the Snowflake Pixies weren’t very smart and began to bodily attack him one at a time while he quickly recovered through the use of his Healing Surge. He wasn’t sure what they were trying accomplish, perhaps to try and stab him with their sharp, icicle-like arms, but they essentially shattered once they got to close to him; while their attacks might have passed through his Barrier, the Pixies themselves certainly didn’t – and they turned out to be quite fragile when blasted by a gust of wind.

For those that weren’t able to attack him by the time he recovered, Larek took his Stone Shredder Dome and held it out in front of him as he got to his feet, which helped not only to block further ice particle clouds by dispersing them within the maelstrom of death inside the dome, but he was able to rip them physically apart as he spun in a circle. He ended up draining a bit of the ambient Mana in the area after the use of so many powerful Fusions and had to flee as soon as he finished closing the Aperture – but he survived, which was the important part.

Barely survived, because it had been a close thing when he genuinely thought he was going to die; when he couldn’t breathe or see and his insides felt like they were on fire, he thought that was the end. Fortunately, his Pain Immunity kicked in and allowed him to think about how to get himself out of the situation he was in as he activated his healing. If it hadn’t been for a combination of his Skills and his healing, defensive, and offensive Fusions, he wouldn’t have made it. He didn’t even want to think about if the ambient Mana had been depleted before he had healed himself.

Apart from that grievous injury, everything else had been fairly superficial – and beneficial to slowly teach him how to move to avoid anything worse. He’d even taken to turning off his Repelling Barrier when he felt he was in a situation where it was beneficial to have the threat of being hurt to spur on his efforts to improve, which he thought was working at least a little bit. The fact that his Dodge Skill increased by 4 Levels was proof enough that he was getting better at avoiding the hits that he normally would’ve had to suffer; not all of them, of course, but his adapted movements had improved his fighting ability more than he thought it would. Larek was sure that he was missing something vital that he probably would’ve learned had he gone to Fort Ironwall, because he didn’t think he matched the smooth prowess of the Martial trainees he’d observed.

Either that, or it could be that they were somehow utilizing their Stama to aid in their movements, which meant that he was out of luck because he hadn’t been able to even touch it quite yet, so the Stama Subjugation Skill had been stuck at Level 1. There also hadn’t been any hint of his Battle Arts taking over at any time, which he thought might be because he had a tight rein on his emotions – so he’d call that a win, as he wanted to avoid that as much as possible.

Apart from those changes, he also had 13,547 Aetheric Force available to use to increase his maximum Skill levels – which was such an incredible number that he was at a loss of where to use it at first. Doing some mental calculations, he eventually worked out how he wanted to distribute them. At first, he thought about going all-in on Fusion and Pattern Formation, but then he realized that every single Mage Skill he had was important to the Fusion process – even Spellcasting Focus, as it helped to focus his knowledge of the spells he knew to different Fusion Effects.

With that in mind, he more evenly distributed them throughout his Mage Skills, bringing Multi-effect Fusion Focus, Pattern Recognition, Magical Detection, and Spellcasting Focus to a maximum of Level 25, while Focused Division – his recently acquired Skill he discovered back at Copperleaf Academy – was brought to a maximum of Level 35. As for Fusion and Pattern Formation, they were increased 5 times to a maximum of Level 45 – along with Mana Control, which had lagged behind at Level 37 previously.

In addition to his Mage Skills, Larek also turned his attention to one of his Martial Skills: Body Regeneration. Having used it frequently on his travels, he thought that it would be beneficial to be able to increase its Level further; he was fairly sure it would increase the speed at which his body healed from wounds, which would only improve the effects of his Healing Surge Fusion.

Over the next few minutes, he started feeding the Aetheric Force he had accumulated into his Skills, feeling as each of them had their maximum Level increased. No more than 15 minutes later, he was done and ready to begin making a few Fusions before he went to sleep for the night.

Available Aetheric Force (AF): 77

Mage Skills:

Multi-effect Fusion Focus Level 20/25 (250 AF)

Pattern Recognition Level 21/25 (250 AF)

Magical Detection Level 21/25 (250 AF)

Spellcasting Focus Level 21/25 (250 AF)

Focused Division Level 31/35 (350 AF)

Mana Control Level 37/45 (450 AF)

Fusion Level 40/45 (450 AF)

Pattern Formation Level 40/45 (450 AF)