The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 57

Chapter 57

It took Larek the rest of the evening before they left the sparring room for the night to come up with a viable Fusion that could potentially work for what he planned, but it was going to take some fine-tuning of its Effects to get it to work properly.

At first, he considered trying to adapt the Wind Barrier effect so that it would conform around their bodies and would move with them even after they were hit, but his intuition when it came to Fusions told him that it wasn’t possible. As much as he wanted to change the stationary aspect of the effect, the fundamental basis of the spell wasn’t something that he could easily change when placed into a Fusion; he was able to alter the size and shape of it, like he did with his new Muffled Air Deflection Barrier, but attaching it to a person so that it moved with each of their limbs would require too many Inputs and Variables that it wasn’t possible as an Intermediate Fusion.

Something like a dome that would move with the Fusion, similar to what he had done with the Camouflage Sphere, was possible, but that wasn’t exactly what he was looking for. His plan was to provide some sort of external shield around a person, only a few inches from their body, which would prevent anything from passing through it, thereby preventing any damage; if they couldn’t be hit, then they wouldn’t be able to be hurt. It solved the problem with the danger they were under, meaning that Larek wouldn’t be forced to heal someone rather than let them die. Even Penelope, as annoying as she was, didn’t deserve to be killed for the cause of making Larek reveal his healing Fusion.

Even if he was somehow able to adapt the Wind Barrier spell to an external personal shield that moved with the person, he couldn’t figure out a way to make it transparent. The opaque quality to the air was apparently necessary for the barrier to function in the first place, so trying to alter that would simply negate what it was designed to do. He thought he might be able to figure out a way around it in the future, but he didn’t currently have the knowledge to even know where to start.

Then he thought about the Bark Skin spell he learned from Nedira – and he was instantly sure that it could be the best spell for ensuring that someone using it wouldn’t be hurt by an attack. On its own, it provided a base damage resistance that would prevent anything from penetrating the skin; on the most basic level, it was a moderate resistance, enough to prevent minor wounds, but it wasn’t enough to block everything. If he upped the Magnitude of the Effect, he thought, then it was entirely possible that he could make someone nearly invulnerable.

He, of course, had to try it out – with highly mixed results.

New Fusion Learned!

Tree Skin +8

Activation Method(s): Activatable

Effect: Enhances the toughness of the skin which reduces damage

Magnitude: 800% damage resistance

Mana Cost: 90,000

Pattern Cohesion: 600

Fusion Time: 200 hours

His first attempt transformed the skin around his body into a substance closer to rock than bark. Larek didn’t even bother testing it after the first few seconds, because he was physically unable to move; his skin was so tight that he couldn’t even breathe, as his chest couldn’t expand enough to take in air. Thankfully, he made it activatable rather than permanent, because otherwise he might have been stuck like that and died, unless someone was able to get the Fusion away from him in time. Further experimentation showed that even with a Magnitude of 2, it was extremely uncomfortable to move with the skin transformed in the way it was through the Fusion, and while it prevented damage, it wasn’t enough to make a difference in his opinion.

He thought about making the Tree Skin Fusion Reactive rather than activatable, meaning it would only be active as long as they were being hit, but the number of Variables with what constituted being hit was so complicated that it was impossible at this stage. For instance, if it activated when something, anything, touched their skin, it might activate with simple clothing or armor touching it. If it required the touch of a certain material like wood or metal, then attempting to exempt their own weapon and armor was difficult if not impossible. Pressure? Same deal with touch, because it could activate simply by standing up and the pressure of their foot against the floor. Then there was magic to try and guard against, which just added to the variables to the extent that it wasn’t worth contemplating any more.

It was a failure, but it at least granted him another Skill increase in Mana Control, bringing it to Level 29 – and still nothing new in either Fusion or Pattern Formation.

In the end, the concept behind a Fusion that he thought might work was something that he adapted from his experiences back in Crystalview, when he was forced to compete in the arena against an Illusionist. At that time, Larek hadn’t even unlocked his ability to control Mana, so it was a frightening experience – especially when his opponent was able to manipulate his illusions so that they had a physical aspect to them. What amazed him at the time was how his opponent, Barto, had been able to combine two different effects into a single spell somehow, which was explained at the time by the other student being some sort of Illusionist prodigy, but the principle behind combining effects was similar to what he needed to do.

He wasn’t going to use Bark Skin or Wind Barrier, as they obviously weren’t going to work for anything he had in mind. Instead, he turned to two spells in his repertoire that, at first, didn’t seem compatible together. The first, Static Illusion, made the most sense to use it as an effect because he could shape it around a person and have it present whatever he wanted.  Based on what he’d experimented with creating an illusion of himself in the interrogation room, he knew that he could have a multidirectional perspective applied to the effect, so that it could react to the viewpoint of other objects, or in that case, people. Alone, of course, this wouldn’t really do much, though he was sure he could make it very confusing to others who looked upon the illusion.

But the real effect that he needed was based on a different spell, Repelling Gust. Why Repelling Gust?  Because it was essentially invisible, meaning that it wouldn’t obscure the vision of the one using the Fusion. In addition, it was directional, meaning that the effect produced could be directed outward from the Fusion user, so it wouldn’t be in their way as they moved around, and fought.

The biggest problem was that it was technically on offensive spell because it did a very minor amount of damage as it knocked back anyone it hit, but since it would only apply to objects moving toward the area that the Fusion covered at a certain speed, it shouldn’t really affect anyone directly.

But if I turn up the Magnitude enough to stop practically any attacks, it might react violently enough to rip someone’s arm off. The thought of that happening made him hesitate a few moments as he developed his idea, but he pushed through anyway. But then he thought about an arrow or other projectile fired at the effective area; would they be sent flying, where they might end up in the audience?

That, and other concerns rose up while he was putting everything together, but first he needed to ensure that his idea would actually work. Taking the basic structure of his Illusionary Image Fusion, he replaced the lumen-level Variables with additional perspectives, so that it covered overlapping sections to the front, back, left side, right side, and above.

For the Inputs, he also took out the Input measuring the light in the area and changed it to detect the speed of objects entering its field, which was defined in the Effect as being a foot away from the area being covered by the “illusion”; the existing directional perspective was already what he needed for this new Fusion. He also added a Variable that measured the speed of the object, which he set at 10 miles per hour, which was similar to his Personal Air Deflection Barrier Fusion; different from that, he didn’t need to detect anything faster than that, because the same Effect would be used for anything entering the directional field.

Once that was settled into his new 4 by 4 grid formation, which consumed most of the spaces, he added another Effect, where placed the Repelling Gust effect. Combining this effect with the illusion was easier than he thought it would be, mainly because he repurposed the Equalizer symbol to link the two together so that they would occur at the same time and toward the same directional perspective. At least, he hoped that would work, because Equalizer wasn’t necessarily meant for that type of work, but once he slotted it into place it seemed to make sense.

For a Magnitude, he initially only chose a Magnitude of 1 because he wasn’t sure how much it would ultimately cost to create a Fusion like this. He’d learned his lesson back when he was experimenting with his Healing Surge creation, and when it was an unknown combination of two spell effects mashed into one like this was, he thought it would be better to be safe than sorry.

Lastly, since he was only going to technically have a single combined effect, he only put in one Mana Cost for the entire thing, as the loop Mana of the entire Fusion fed through both the activatable and reactive Activation Methods, the Inputs, the Variables, and the Effects.

The only thing to do after that was to create the Fusion and to focus on combining the Effects while holding everything else related to the different Inputs and Variables in his mind. Again, there was a little bit of strain on his mind for the first minute or so as he slowly fed in Mana this time, as he wanted it all locked in before he completed it. Once he felt the strain ease, he then funneled the last little bit left needed to finish it off, and once it *snapped* into place on the steel plate he had brought with him, he breathed a sigh of relief when it seemed intact.

Getting up from his sitting position, he walked out of his area after mentally turning off the Muffling Air Deflection Barrier, looked at his notifications, and smiled.

New Fusion Learned!

Repelling Barrier +1

Activation Method(s): Activatable, Reactive

Effect(s): Forcefully repels objects passing within range of directional space

Input(s): Directional perspective, external object at speed

Variable(s): 5 different directional perspectives, speed detection over 10 miles per hour

Magnitude: 10% knockback effect, 1 base impact damage

Mana Cost: 350

Pattern Cohesion: 4

Fusion Time: 30 minutes

Spellcasting Focus has reached Level 17!

Multi-effect Fusion Focus has reached Level 8!

“Hey, Vivienne! Can you shoot me in my right hand—” he said to the Ranger who was still on the stone block at the end, holding his hand with the new Fusion on it out to the side of his body. Almost immediately, a blunted arrow shot across the space and missed hitting his hand as he saw and felt the Fusion activate once the projectile passed within a foot of his skin. A quick gust of air shot out toward the arrow, originating from the exact spot it had interacted with the space; the burst of air barely deflected the projectile from its original target and it passed over the top of his hand by a hair’s breadth, shattering on the wall behind him when it impacted. He was suddenly glad that he didn’t ask the trainee to shoot him in the chest, otherwise he might be sporting a nasty bruise afterwards. Or maybe not; I’m actually not sure how strong my skin is after raising my Body stat.

“Thank you and sorry about the arrow!” he called out, seeing the rest of the team had stopped to watch what was happening. Rather than get back to practicing, they called it for the night, which was when Larek realized he had been working on Fusions for hours.

“Everyone come back tomorrow for another round of practice!” Penelope called out. All she got back were a bunch of grunts as the entire team looked exhausted, including Nedira.

“You’re lucky you’re not running around out there,” she complained once she arrived next to Larek. “I haven’t exercised like that in a long time. I think I need to take a bath when I get back.”

He was looking down at his Fusion, wondering what else he could do to improve it, but he looked up to see that she was covered in sweat. He chuckled, glad that he wasn’t forced to run around, either; he could probably handle it much better than she did because of his overall fitness and his stats, but he had no desire to do it.

“Sure, laugh it up. This is all your fault, you know.”

He nodded as he stopped chuckling. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. You can always quit if you want; I’m sure we can find someone else who might want to join.”

“No, I’m not leaving you alone with that woman if I can help it,” she replied. “Anyway, enough of that; were you able to come up with something by the end there?”

Holding out the Repelling Barrier he had created, he said, “I think so. It needs some tweaking and experimentation in actual combat, but I think it will work. This is a very weak version, created more as a test than anything, but I believe it can be scaled up to do what I’m hoping it will do.”

There was still a lot of testing to do that he didn’t mention, like finding out if it would work against projectiles, melee weapons, and spells, but fortunately they still had some time before the Skirmish. Not a lot of time, of course, but he was already making progress.

Not only that, but getting back to designing Fusions to solve different problems had left him with a fulfilled feeling that he hadn’t experienced in a few weeks. It was good to be doing what he loved again, and he resolved to keep doing it for as long as possible.

Book 2 Chapter 58: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-84580014