The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Waking up with the morning sunlight streaming through the slats in the window was a new experience for Larek, as he was used to waking up either before dawn or just as dawn was breaking. As a result, he was momentarily confused and thought himself back in Enderflow in the Protector’s barracks, but then the last week’s journey and the night before all came flooding back into his mind and he abruptly sat up, a slight panic in his actions. There was as momentary pain in his head at his movement and he held his hands up to his temples to massage the pain away; after a few seconds, the pain faded as if it had never been there.

“What—?” he spoke out loud, his voice a little raspy and his throat dry. “What was all that?”

Pulling up his Status, he was again reminded that he had unlocked a new Specialization the night before; in fact, he didn’t just unlock one Specialization, but three. Of course, “Advanced Fusionist” and “Master Fusionist” weren’t even available anymore, as – if he remembered correctly – his new Combat Fusionist Specialization overrode the others.

Larek Holsten

Combat Fusionist

Healer

Level 23

Advancement Points (AP): 0/19

Available AP to Distribute: 19

Available Aetheric Force (AF): 341

Stama: 830/830

Mana: 1960/1960

Strength: 75 [150] (+)

Body: 75 [150] (+)

Agility: 75 [150] (+)

Intellect: 98 [196] (+)

Acuity: 114 [228] (+)

Pneuma: 1,350 [2,700]

Pattern Cohesion: 27,000/27,000

Remembering back to what the new Combat Fusionist Specialization provided as far as benefits, he had to admit that it was certainly better for most people – but the addition 10% reductions and increases to Spells and Battle Arts was completely useless to him. In effect, there was no real difference for Larek between a Master Fusionist and a Combat Fusionist, but that was fine with him. The extra 10% reduction in Mana Cost and Pattern Cohesion that it provided over his normal Fusionist Specialization was already a bonus, and he would take what he could get.

What he was more excited about was the knowledge of Advanced Fusions he had obtained in Copperleaf Academy thanks to Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai had essentially been “unlocked” and was ready to finally use. One of the biggest advantages of Advanced Fusions over the Intermediate Fusions he had been stuck with was that there was a much higher limit to the number of Effects that a Fusion could possess – all the way up to 6 different Effects. That still sounded slightly restrictive, but it was also triple the amount he could use with Intermediate Fusions, so it was a bonus.

In addition to an increase in the number Effects an Advanced Fusion could have as part of the Formation, there was also no limit to the size of the formation. It could be as simple as a 3-by-3 grid with three different Effects, or a 100-by-100 grid with hundreds of Inputs, Variables, and other components to make it as complicated as the Fusionist wanted. Of course, there were still categories that Advanced Fusions fell under, named identically to Intermediate Fusions: Simple, Lesser, Minor, Major, and Supreme. They had different thresholds, of course, as a Simple Advanced Fusion had, by necessity, a total of 3 Effects while a Supreme typically contained 6 Effects, though in reality it could contain any number between 3 and 6 Effects if it was complicated enough – such as the 100-by-100 grid mentioned before.

At the moment, his mind balked a little at having to focus enough to create any of the higher classifications of Advanced Fusions, such as Major and Supreme, at least until he had some practice with the easier ones. Unfortunately, his impromptu early bedtime the night before put him behind what he had planned for the day, so he was going to have to wait to experiment until a later time. Besides, now that he knew he could create them, he would have to parse through all of his knowledge and ensure he was familiar enough with the new components, such as the aforementioned Override, to use them correctly in a Fusion. More than that, his journey to that point had been consumed with plans of what he could still make using only Intermediate Fusions and he was now kicking himself that he hadn’t thought about what would happen once he got to this point.

Then again, it wasn’t like he didn’t have some ideas, but having an idea and planning out exactly how the Fusion formation was going to be laid out and assembled coherently were two different things. With many of the limitations now limited, there was so much more he thought he could do – but that would also require some careful planning.

More than just creating Advanced Fusions, there was a loosening of the restriction on learning new Advanced Fusions – and he had the feeling that he would be able to also learn stronger spells once he saw them used. He discovered this when he looked down at his hand and glimpsed the ring Shinpai had given him, and he almost instantly learned the Perceptive Misdirection Fusion – his first Advanced Fusion.

New Fusion Learned!

Perceptive Misdirection +1

Activation Method(s): Permanent

Effect(s): Identifies the origin of observers of user using a pulsing wave of Mana

Effect(s): Conceals the pulsing wave of Mana by using a void carrier

Effect(s): Alters the perception of observers by non-invasive mental manipulation based on distance, making the observer believe user is 1 foot shorter than actual height

Input(s): Observer orientation, observer distance

Magnitude: Affects observers in a 100-foot diameter

Variable 1: Observer distance between 1 inch to 3 inches

Variable 2: Observer distance between 3.1 inches to 6 inches

Variable 3: Observer distance between 6.1 inches to 12 inches

Variable 4: Observer distance between 12.1 inches to 2 feet

Variable 5: Observer distance between 2.1 feet to 3 feet

Variable 6: Observer distance between 3.1 feet to 4 feet

Variable 7: Observer distance between 4.1 feet to 6 feet

Variable 8: Observer distance between 6.1 feet to 9 feet

Variable 9: Observer distance between 9.1 feet to 15 feet

Variable 10: Observer distance between 15.1 feet to 25 feet

Variable 11: Observer distance between 25.1 feet to 40 feet

Variable 12: Observer distance between 40.1 feet to 70 feet

Variable 13: Observer distance between 70.1 feet to 100 feet

Mana Cost: 1,500

Pattern Cohesion: 55

Fusion Time: 3 hours

Larek thought that the Perceptive Misdirection Fusion was oddly created, as it seemed to heavily feature a large amount of Variables based on detecting the distance of any observers. Since he had been focused on trying to learn the Fusion for so long, he intuitively knew that the reason for these distance Variables was because it was necessary to alter what was being seen by the observer depending on how far away they were; as they got closer or farther away, their perception of his height would have to change slightly to compensate. As a result, someone close to him would obviously need to have a different view of him than someone 100 feet away.

He thought that there should probably be a better way to do it, but he’d have to think about it – and soon. Especially since he didn’t think the current Fusion on his ring would last much longer.

There were a few other things that were interesting about the Fusion he had just learned. The first was that the Mana Cost was substantially higher for a Magnitude 1 Fusion than he’d seen before at 1,500 Mana. The only reason that Larek could think of to explain that was due to the number of Effects that were in play, and the Magnitude had less to do with how successful the mental manipulation of someone’s perception was and was instead limited to the distance at which they were affected.

Secondly, the Pattern Cohesion was also much higher at 55 for a Magnitude 1 Fusion, which meant that only those with a 56 or higher in their Pneuma stat would be able to create it – which wasn’t too many Mages, considering that most students in the Academy would only have 78 stat points to distribute by the time they hit Level 10.  Higher Level Fusionists would have no problem with this, of course, and especially those with the Advanced Fusionist Specialization which would decrease these costs by 10%.

Larek also noticed that the Fusion Time was substantially longer than normal, but he ignored that because it didn’t really matter to him. Instead, he focused on the one thing that was a lot more interesting, and it was part of one of the Effects.  It wasn’t the last Effect, which – as he understood it – was what essentially manipulated someone’s perception based upon observer distance; while he didn’t understand the underlying principles behind this like he would with a spell he had learned, he thought he understood it well enough to muddle through when it came to reproducing a similar Effect. He’d seen it in action enough that he had a front-row seat to how well it worked, after all.

Nor was it the first Effect, which used a pulse of Mana to identify observers within the area the Fusion affected. He could see how this might be done with his own Mana, as there was certainly a feeling when he controlled it outside of his body and how it interacted with other objects, though using it to identify “observers” as the Fusion called it was probably beyond his abilities if he were to try it on his own. With practice and a reason to do it, he thought he might get the hang of it, but he didn’t really have any reason to experiment right now.

That left the second Effect, which somehow hid this pulse of Mana so that it wasn’t obvious that it was being used. It apparently worked well enough that even with Larek’s new perception of the floating strands of Mana around the environment, he couldn’t detect anything coming from the ring and the Fusion set upon it. The steady influx of ambient Mana into the ring to keep it working was visible, but he saw absolutely nothing coming out to indicate that it was using pulses of Mana to essentially look around up to 100 feet away.

It was the phrase, “void carrier”, that intrigued – and if Larek was being honest with himself – frightened him. Having been swallowed by some sort of void ball back in the Kingdom when Chinli had been fighting Warped Void Hunters, which transported him not only across the continent but supposedly a few years into the future, anything to do with “the void” or voids in general was a bit unsettling.  Yet, despite the way his logical mind wanted nothing to do with anything related to voids, there was a part of him that was connected to the idea somehow.

This was made even stranger when he mentally dug into the Effect mentioning the void carriers and he intuitively understood more about the obscure subject than he did both of the other Effects combined. In simplest terms, what the void carrier was designed to do was create a tiny pocket of mass-less void space that enveloped each of the Mana pulses as they spread out from the Fusion. They acted like an extremely thin bubble that completely camouflaged the presence of the Mana inside, while still allowing the Mana to fully observe the world around it.

As for what exactly “void” meant? Well, it was an invisible, endless, empty expanse that was adjacent to his current reality, but normally interacted with that reality in no visible way; only by opening up a connection to it, such as the Effect that wrapped the Mana pulses, was it even tangentially observable in the simplest terms.  It was also, at least he suspected, connected to what the Gergasi had done in opening the breach, though he couldn’t tell for certain what exactly was done without seeing it himself. That was an eventuality that he didn’t want to consider, however, as it would mean getting a little too close to the so-called Great Ones for his comfort.

Regardless of what he thought he knew about it, the void wasn’t something he wanted to deal with right now considering that he had other things to do. His priority that day was to create some higher-Magnitude versions of the Fusions he had created the day before, along with some Paralyzing Light Fusions to go along with them, and he figured that would take a few hours of work at the minimum – mainly due to waiting for his Mana to regenerate. After that was done, he needed to load up on more supplies and potentially change out more of his Kingdom coinage for Sealance Empire coinage while he had the chance.

Then, if he was lucky, he would be on the road again in the early afternoon, which would allow him to make at least a little progress before he had to stop for the night. He was cognizant of the need to keep moving no matter what, as he still had a long distance to travel before he got back to the Kingdom; while he knew that he shouldn’t feel that way, he had a sense that he had abandoned his friends and family in their time of need and was driven to get back to them as soon as possible.

Rather than get up out of bed since he was already comfortable, Larke spent the next six hours creating stronger offensive Fusions of his new creations. For Binding Thorns and Frozen Zone, he created versions that had a Magnitude of 10 – which ended up costing him a little over 190,000 Mana (which he was able to regenerate in about 50 minutes) and approximately 4,400 Pattern Cohesion each. Healing Shelter was one that he was unable to create a Magnitude 10 version of, as it would’ve cost him 1.7 million Mana – far too expensive and time-consuming at the moment. He compromised with a Magnitude 8 version for 680,000 Mana, which took him under 3 hours of mind-numbingly boring focus to be able to afford the Mana cost, and the Pattern Cohesion was just under 5,000 – still leaving him more than 13,000 Pattern Cohesion for his last Fusion: the Stone Shredder Dome.

The Stone Shredder Dome was even more expensive in terms of Mana than the Healing Shelter, at 950 Mana as the Dome’s base in comparison to 800 for the Shelter’s, so he had to made another compromise so that he wasn’t creating one all day. At Magnitude 6, he was able to create the +6 Fusion in just under an hour with his regeneration rate, and while it wasn’t exactly ideal, it would be a good enough test to see if it even worked like he expected. If it passed the test, he could always make as stronger one in the future if he could find a place safe enough to craft the Fusion for a few hours.

With the sun outside indicating that it was just after noon and with his stomach rumbling for food, Larek packed his new Fusions away and headed out, grabbing lunch from the Innkeeper along the way. From there, it was just a matter of finishing up his restock of food supplies for the next leg of his journey, which went much swifter than he hoped. With bulging packs of supplies and the new Fusions in his pocket in anticipation of the Apertures he would test them on in the future, he set off down the road leading out of Lakebellow toward the east.