The Fusionist Book 3 -- Chapter 25

Chapter 25

It was at that point that Larek’s stomach tried to eat him from the inside-out. The smell of roasting meat overwhelmed his senses, and he looked around the small cave to see where it was coming from. It wasn’t until he looked slightly outside the stony entrance that he saw what appeared to be spits made from fallen tree branches set up over a campfire ringed by rocks.

“You sound like you have a monster in that belly of yours, Larek,” Nedira chuckled. Patting him on the shoulder, as he was still simply sitting up, she said, “We decided to gather and cook some of the Jumping Squirrels, since we were going to have to wait for you to wake anyway. It should be just about ready—ah, thank you, Norde.”

Nedira’s brother brought over a steaming hunk of cooked Squirrel meat on top of what appeared to be a flat piece of wood. Recognizing Verne’s handiwork in the makeshift plate, he gratefully took the food from Norde and began to shove his face full of the meat, uncaring of the temperature in his effort to get it down. In less than a minute, the plate was empty and he heard chuckling from the others when he came up for air looking for more.

“Give us a few minutes to finish cooking the rest, and I’ll get you more,” the second-year Mage student informed him. “You healed a lot earlier, so you’re going to need it.”

Larek nodded. That definitely fit with how he was feeling and with what he remembered. While he was waiting, he attempted to get up to assess if there were any lingering injuries, but the weakness in his body hit him again suddenly, and he was barely able to remain upright and scoot himself over to lean his back against the nearby wall.

“I’m exhausted. I don’t think I can leave again today, unless you all carry me,” he admitted.

“We were certainly able to get you here,” Penelope said, “but it took both myself and Bartholomew to lug your unconscious body around without it flopping all over. I wouldn’t feel safe with us having our hands full if we were attacked, so it’s probably better if we stay here through the night and leave tomorrow morning. This cave is a bit out of the way, and we’re far enough away from Thanchet that they can’t see us from there or the road, so it should be relatively safe. At least, I hope so.”

“That works for me,” Larek agreed. “I think I should be better by morning.” He wasn’t sure of that, of course, but he would be much better than he was at the moment. Especially if he got enough food; from the pile of Squirrel corpses outside, he didn’t think that was going to be too much of a problem.

As he – and everyone else – ate roasted Squirrel meat, other than Verne who feasted on a few plants he found nearby in the forest (being a vegetarian), Larek couldn’t help but look down at the robe he was wearing. “I thought I took this off. What happened?”

Nedira blushed at his question even as Bartholomew answered. “The Jumping Squirrels happened. They absolutely shredded your overalls and nearly everything else you were wearing. Your boots barely survived, but everything else was either torn off your body entirely or was hanging off you in rags. You were practically naked when we brought you here,” he added with a smirk, which caused Nedira’s blush to deepen.

“Ah. I see.” Larek was extremely disappointed to hear that his clothes had essentially been destroyed, as he’d had those clothes since he left home. Back to wearing his robe with absolutely nothing else underneath was a bit disconcerting, not to mention the fact that his outfit practically shouted untrained Mage; the same went for his roommates, as they were still in their greyish robes, also. As much as he feared visiting a nearby town or city in the worry that he would be noticed and give their pursuers a lead to his location, they were going to need both supplies and clothes now in order to blend in. The others could easily pass as members of the SIC, but a couple of non-Specialized Mages such as Larek, Verne, and Norde? They would certainly stick out.

In the meantime, who knew what was between them and civilization again? From what he understood, based on their conversations earlier when decided what to do and where to go, he knew that the nearest town to Thanchet was approximately 15 miles to the north of the city, which was situated amongst the major route leading toward the capital. There was a danger in visiting that one, however, as it would likely be the first one that someone would check if they were looking for Larek and his group. There was another town approximately 25 miles to the northwest which was a bit further but wasn’t along the main artery leading north; reaching a little further from there, there was a town almost directly east of Thanchet once you got past the mountain ranges, approximately 40 miles away.

It was this town, situated far enough from the main road leading toward the capital, that they decided upon visiting for supplies despite the distance, as it was the safest of those available to them. The town of Whittleton was a bit of a trek, of course, especially considering their current lack of any supplies; regardless, they also had to think about their safety, and venturing further afield to obtain a measure of that safety was worth it.

They just had to survive getting there, crossing over the dangerous countryside; a countryside that was likely filled with Scission monsters, not unlike the Squirrels they had just fought. As Larek was now a target that they would undoubtedly want to kill if he was seen by them, they needed to be able to defend themselves.

That was where the tired Fusionist came in. After eating his fill, consuming what had to have been at least a couple Squirrels’ worth of meat, he felt a lot better as far as exhaustion went – but was still physically weak. A bit of the tiredness remained, but it wasn’t enough to affect his focus, which was something he needed to rely on if he was going to ensure everyone was properly equipped to survive the next few days on their journey toward Whittleton.

“Since we’re going to be here the rest of today and tonight, I might as well prepare us for the trip to come,” Larek told everyone once they had settled down to wait. Vivienne was scouting around outside to ensure that they were safe from any monsters or pursuers getting ready to descend upon them, but everyone else was inside or near the cave entrance.

“What do you mean?” Penelope asked. “We already have the Fusions you put on our weapons back at Copperleaf,” she added, patting her sword. Larek remembered doing that shortly after the Skirmish on their “permanent” equipment, which was different from the blunted weapons and different gear which was used in the competition.  But it was time for an upgrade now that he had a reason to do it and time to work.

“I’d like to overhaul everything, now that I’ve learned how to apply Fusions to not only leather, but cloth, without it suffering from the potential for breakage as it is bent out of shape. I had just discovered how to accomplish this shortly before… that Gergasi showed up, so no one other than Nedira knows about it yet.” Larek didn’t want to associate himself with the one that destroyed half of the Academy and was likely on their trail, so he felt better simply calling him “the Gergasi” rather than his father. As far as he was concerned, he wanted nothing to do with his male biological parent.

“You can? That’s awesome!” Verne exclaimed a little too loud, but calmed down after he was shushed. Even though they were relatively safe in a cave up in the mountains, shouting could potentially draw danger toward them.

“I can – which brings me to you,” he said, pointing at his roommate, before his gaze took in the other Mages. “But not just you – every Mage here. I need your robes so I can put a Fusion on them; it will prevent most anything from cutting through it and resist many types of magical and natural effects like fire and extreme cold. What it can’t do is prevent impact damage, though I’m still thinking about how I would go about that for the future.”

“You… want our robes?” Kimble asked, his gaze darting toward Nedira meaningfully. “I only have the barest covering underneath…” he continued.

Blushing yet again, Nedira abruptly squared her shoulders before she placed her staff to lean up against the wall. Before anyone could say anything, she reached down and pulled the hem of her robe up and over her head, pulling it off completely before throwing it to Larek – who sat there stunned. She wasn’t completely nude underneath the robe, unlike the Fusionist who even had his underdrawers shredded by Squirrels, but the narrow green bands of fabric covering her chest and lower region contrasted remarkably with her smooth, unblemished, and pale skin.

“Stop staring and get to work,” she growled, crossing her arms uncomfortably over her chest.

It took him a few seconds to tear his gaze away, his thoughts racing as he felt a stirring in his body that he stringently ignored. I never realized how attractive she is—

No, this wasn’t the time.

Distracting himself from those errant thoughts, he belatedly realized that – not to be outdone – Kimble and his roommates also pulled off their robes and tossed it to him; they, too, were wearing undergarments covering up their lower regions, which made Larek a bit envious that they had such when he was now having to go without.

Shaking his head to clear every distraction out of it, Larek arranged all 4 of the robes in front of him along the floor of the cave, with the areas around the lower hem and lower back portions were most prominent; he debated pulling off his own and adding it to the grouping, but after turning the robe around his body so that the back was in front, meaning that the that the same areas were exposed and flat enough for his purposes, he realized that he didn’t need to. He could add some Fusions to it even as he continued to wear it. Besides, he really didn’t want to sit naked on the cold stone floor of the cave if he could help it.

Before he did anything else, he pulled up his Status again and looked at the 312 AF he had received from the Jumping Squirrels he had killed. With a deep breath and a hope that it worked, he mentally directed 300 of it toward his Fusions skill; at first, nothing happened, but after a few seconds he felt something inside of his shift slightly, weakening one portion of it while strengthening something else. He didn’t need the notification to tell him that it succeeded, as he intuitively knew that it had worked.

Maximum Level for Fusion Skill increased by 1!

Current Fusion Skill Level/Maximum: 30/31

Thankful that it seemed to work, he followed Nedira’s instructions and got to work. Recalling what he did to create the Multi-Resistance Leather back at Copperleaf, Larek envisioned the green, plant-based lines of the formation, but this time changed the material to cloth. Thankfully, it didn’t matter what kind of cloth it was, as he could tell by feel that the Naturalist and Pyromancer robes were different than the grey robes he and his roommates wore; all that mattered was his intent behind the Effect, which was to attach this Fusion to the material it was being placed upon. This thought made him think that he didn’t really need for it to be focused on a particular material at all, as long as he could concentrate enough on what he wanted done; it was something to think about for the future, potentially as a way to make things easier for him. At the moment, it was a distraction that he put aside as he finished building the formation, making it thick enough that he could make multiple Fusions at the same time.

Feeling a major drain on his Pattern Cohesion, he realized he probably should’ve done this one at a time rather than relying on his Focused Division Skill, but it was already too late to change things now that he started to infuse it with Mana. Using the technique of a rotating spiral to funnel the Mana inside of the grid formation with a speed that would’ve left the other Mages astonished if they hadn’t seen him do it before, it only took a little over 10 minutes to finish filling it up. With a mental focus on dividing it into 5 equal sections, he quickly directed them to inhabit the lower back area of each robe – including his own as he sat perfectly still. He’d never actually had to worry about the material he was adding a Fusion to moving before during the process, and wasn’t sure what would happen if it was shifted even slightly before it was finalized.

With the accustomed *click* that told him it worked, he let go of the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding and sagged in place because of the major drop in his Pattern Cohesion. When he had recovered a few minutes later, to the worried looks from the others as he assured them he was fine, he looked down at his handiwork.

New Fusion Learned!

Multi-Resistance Cloth +9

Activation Method: Reactive

Effect: Causes leather to resist most forms of damage

Magnitude: 700%/900% increased resistance

Mana Cost: 150,000

Pattern Cohesion: 2,125

Fusion Time: 251 hours

Fusion has reached Level 31!

His new Fusion was able to increase the resistance of the cloth robes by 900%, which would be able to stop most minor threats; the Jumping Squirrels, for instance, wouldn’t be able to pierce through it with their sharp claws.  He was sure that many of the much larger and deadlier monsters he’d learned about could probably pierce through it with their naturally sharp appendages, but at that point, the impact of being hit by something like that would probably be worse than any cuts. Regardless, he had wanted to make these robes as strong as possible against magical effects and slicing attacks, and he thought he had succeeded quite well; a quick check with his axe blade showed that it could cut through the material slowly with enough pressure, but his extremely sharp axe was a bit of an extreme case as it was.

The only thing that he hadn’t accounted for was the cost of the Fusion. It wasn’t the 150,000 Mana, which was admittedly a lot, but was instead the Pattern Cohesion of 2,125. Alone, that was less than half of his Pattern Cohesion – which was already pushing it – but when he used Focused Division, the cost increased by 20% per additional Fusion. As a result, he had 3,825 Pattern Cohesion suddenly drain from him all at once; he thought that the only reason it hadn’t made him pass out and hurt him during the process was because each Fusion was considered separate when it came to the strain his body took from the drain. If he had created a single Fusion with a Pattern Cohesion cost of that size, it was entirely possible that it might have damaged him, or potentially even killed him.

As he waited for his Pattern Cohesion to recover, he told those waiting on him to finish, “One done. Give me a few minutes to recover the Cohesion used in that, then I’ll complete the rest.”

Since he had time to spare, Larek looked at his Status again. While there was very little AF for him to spend now that he used it on his Fusion Skill, which he was ecstatic to have finally increased past the threshold he had been stuck at, he had actually increased a personal Level, as well.

Larek Holsten

Fusionist

Healer

Level 21

Advancement Points (AP) : 0/18

Available AP to Distribute: 47

Available Aetheric Force (AF): 12

With 47 AP to spend, he knew exactly where he wanted it. The strain on his body, both from the healing and the use of large amounts of Pattern Cohesion, made him look at his Body stat once again. Through painful trial and error when he was trying to escape from Ricardo, he knew that he needed to keep his Martial stats even lest he become unbalanced, so he started adding another point to Strength, Body, and Agility every few seconds until he reached 75 – an extra 15 in each. That left him with 2 AP to spend, but he kept it in reserve in case he needed it later.

Almost immediately after finishing the AP distribution, Larek felt his body actively recovering from the healing he had done earlier that day and the strain on his Pattern Cohesion. It wasn’t a dramatic increase in his recovery, but it was noticeable enough that he was sure he’d been just fine the next day to travel along with everyone else.

Strength: 75 (+)

Body: 75 (+)

Agility: 75 (+)

Intellect: 70 [133] (+)

Acuity: 104 [198] (+)

Pneuma: 379 [720] (+)

Pattern Cohesion: 4,578/7,200

With a Pattern Cohesion now over 7,000, Larek felt like he could create just about any Fusion he could think of. There was still a limitation of how much he could spend on a single Fusion without straining his body, but as long as he kept improving his Body stat, the more he could do without hurting or killing himself.

Satisfied with his progress, he waited until his Pattern Cohesion completely filled up a few minutes later and added a Graduated Parahealing +7 Fusion to every robe but his own along the front bottom hem; since he could handle something suited for Martials, he added Healing Surge +3, instead.

Since this was something that would be touching their skin most of the time, he thought it made more sense to be on the robe than something that could be easily removed, such as an armlet, anklet, or necklace. Since this didn’t take much Pattern Cohesion, at least not nearly as much as the first Fusion, he quickly moved onto the stat boosts. On the upper left sleeve of each robe he added a dual Intellect and Acuity Boost +10, a step up from anything they’d had before, and on the upper right sleeve was a Pneuma Boost +10; he did it this way because it was more likely that they would be holding a staff or stick of some sort in their right, and he didn’t want the area of ambience to interfere with the weapon.

It was the same reason he had directed the Multi-Resistance Cloth Fusion to the lower back, because he added a Repelling Barrier +10 Fusion to the chest, replacing the need for a medallion around their neck. They would still keep the medallions, of course, because they could be slipped on when they needed to take a bath, for instance. It wouldn’t stop an assassin slowly creeping up on them, similar to when Vivienne ambushed him in the bath, but it was better than nothing.

When he was all done, less than 45 minutes after he started, he gave them back to the others who were starting to shiver from the cold. Gratefully, they redressed and grinned enthusiastically when Larek explained what he had done.

“Ouch! What was that for?” Kimble exclaimed, taking a step away from Bartholomew. It turned out that the young Martial trainee had wanted to see if the Pyromancer’s robe was indeed more resistant and had poked him in the side with his spear; while it didn’t pierce through the cloth or the Mage’s skin, the impact was hard enough to leave a bruise.

“Just checking,” Bartholomew said cheekily, even while Kimble quickly healed the bruise using the robe’s Graduated Parahealing Fusion. “It looks like it works. Nice job, Larek,” he continued, ignoring the Pyromancer’s grumbles.

Tiredness weighed down his eyelids, but Larek pushed through, knowing that it was better if he got this all done now rather than wait until later.  I’ll sleep tonight when everyone is safe.

“Alright, who’s next?”