The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 40

Chapter 40

The Fusion Larek made was, of course, one that would heal him. As much as he desired to use what he’d learned from studying Intermediate Fusions to refine Healing Surge so that it didn’t cause as many problems, he would rather focus on simply healing himself rather than having to rework the Fusion. Therefore, concentrating on the stone floor underneath him, he quickly assembled the grid formation for Healing Surge and debated for a few moments on the Magnitude he should utilize. A high Magnitude, such as 5 or 6, would heal him much faster but would end up consuming a lot of the energy he had just gained from eating, possibly more than he could replenish by eating the rest of the food in the bag. On the other hand, a Magnitude of 1 would heal him slower, but would probably work better with his Body Regeneration Skill to consume less physical energy to get the job done.

In the end, Larek really didn’t want to wait any longer than necessary, especially considering that he didn’t know when the Mage and the two trainees would be back. He would rather be fully healed and hungry than only partially healed and subject to another painful interrogation. That, and he needed to find out what happened to his roommates as soon as possible and to get them the healing they required.

After that, he was going to find these people who did this and kill them.

During his abduction, interrogation, and painful subjugation, a fire had been ignited inside of him that stoked his emotions, eventually eliciting a vindictive and yet terrifying feeling that desired nothing but revenge for all the wrongs that had been aimed toward him. Once he had acknowledged that it existed inside of his body, his mind, and his very soul, Larek realized that it had always existed inside of him, but he had ignored it.  He had denied it for as long as he could, because he had been taught to ignore the slights that were sent his way, to be as polite as possible, and to treat others as he'd like to be treated.

As a result of that, he had suffered from numerous looks, angry accusations, and outright physical abuse from people whom he had done nothing to except for simply existing. Even if there was the potential that some of it had been the result of a deep-seeded hatred of tall people due to the Gergasi enslaving them a thousand years ago, that didn’t give him the right to treat him the way they did. And if some Mage and a couple of trainees thought it was fair to abduct him and break his legs so he couldn’t escape, all because they assumed he was some sort of half-breed created by a mythical “Great One” and a human from the Kingdom – and then get away with it without repercussions?

They were wrong. Dead wrong. And Larek was going to demonstrate that he wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Having done it so many times in the past, creating the Healing Surge Fusion underneath him on the floor was almost automatic by that point. The only thing that Larek had to concentrate on was the Magnitude, which he boosted up to 5 instead of his normal 3 to speed up the healing process. He looked at a portion of his Status to ensure he had plenty of Pattern Cohesion to handle the 500 or so he knew was required by the Fusion; with all that had happened to him, with the injuries, pain, and the increase in Martial stats, he wasn’t sure if it had negatively affected his Mage stats. He quickly opened it up, only to be slightly shocked by what he saw.

Larek Holsten

Fusionist

Level 15

Advancement Points (AP) : 4/15

Available AP to Distribute: 41

Mana: 760/760

Stama: 400/400

Strength: 40 (+)

Body: 40 (+)

Agility: 40 (+)

Intellect: 40 [76] (+)

Acuity: 104 [198] (+)

Pneuma: 204 [388] (+)

Pattern Cohesion: 3,880/3,880

On its own, Larek now had 204 Pneuma, which translated to over 2,000 Pattern Cohesion. He had momentarily forgotten that increasing his Body also increased his Pneuma by 1 to 5 ratio, so he ended up gaining nearly 100 base points in the Mage stat due to increasing his Body to 40. When he factored in the armlet that boosted his Pneuma by 90%, it was now at 388, giving him 3,880 Pattern Cohesion.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll have any problems with this Fusion. I think I could even make a Magnitude 9 Healing Surge, but I haven’t done the calculations for something like that yet. There shouldn’t be any need unless Magnitude 5 isn’t enough for me.

He severely doubted that would be the case, especially after experimenting with a Healing Surge +5 Fusion back at Crystalview. It would wear his body out a little during and after the healing process, but he was tired of messing around. He needed to be healthy and moving around as soon as possible.

After seeing his dramatically changed Status and noticing that he had gained another few Levels and therefore accumulated even more AP, he broke down and absorbed the Pattern Cohesion that made up the Fusion he was creating before he started the process of adding Mana. Based on what he knew of the Magnitude 5 Healing Surge, he was going to need 55,000 Mana to fill it up – which was a hefty amount. Even with his rapid Mana regeneration, it would take at least 10 minutes just to funnel that much into it, and speed was what was the most important at that point of time. If he could shave off a few more minutes, he would do so.

With that in mind, Larek began to add another Advancement Point to his Intellect every 2 seconds for the next minute, increasing his maximum Mana pool in the process. There were a few initial spikes of pain that shot through his mind when he started, which were reminiscent of when he had done this before, but his Pain Immunity Skill kicked in and dulled it to a minor ache that disappeared shortly after pumping a full 30 of his 41 AP into Intellect.

With 70 points now in Intellect giving him a base Mana pool of 700, his other armlet with the Intellect Boost on it brought it all the way up to 1,330, nearly doubling his accessible Mana when it was all said and done.

Once all of the dulled pain disappeared in his head, which didn’t take long, Larek got to work on his Healing Surge +5 Fusion under his body. With his increased Mana Pool, the process went amazingly fast, and with the added Mana Overflow Bypass and strengthened containment barriers, they were able to handle the massive influx of Mana without breaking down. He thought a silent “thank you” to Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai for teaching him how to do that, because otherwise he was fairly certain he would’ve broken at least the Mana Cost section with the amount of Mana flowing into it at this time.

That was just about the only thing he was thankful about where it concerned his Fusions instructor; the fact that the Grandmaster Fusionist knew about Larek and his potential for being a “half-breed” or whatever was undeniable at this point. The former Logger could well understand the reluctance to tell Larek about that fact, given how secret the whole “Great One”-Noble situation clearly was, but that didn’t mean he appreciated being deliberately kept in the dark – and it didn’t make what his instructor did right. The Grandmaster Fusionist had sent him away than being accused of being associated with his “half-breed” student, as if Larek was some sort of plague victim.

He didn’t deserve to die for that action, obviously, but Larek wasn’t going to let his instructor get out of detailing what he knew about the situation.

In less than 5 minutes, approximately half the time of what it would’ve likely been before, the Fusion was complete. As soon as it snapped into place in the stone beneath him, Larek gingerly lifted his robe up from where it covered his lower legs, used his arms to maneuver the bare skin of his mangled left leg over the Healing Surge +5 formation – even as he refused to look closely at the physical damage itself – and then mentally activated Fusion.

Immediately, his lower body and torso locked up as healing energy flowed through him. The numb feeling he had been previously experiencing disappeared for half a second, momentarily slamming his mind with an onslaught of pain, before it somewhat numbed again as the Fusion went to work. Nearly unbearable tingling and itching throughout his legs as they were repaired was almost as bad as the pain, but now that things were in progress, Larek elected to finally look at the healing process in his legs.

Bones reshaped themselves into their proper place, muscles were repaired and put back into place, and blood was restored to its proper channels as his legs were literally rebuilt from the mess they had been in. What would’ve normally taken hours for his Body Regeneration to completely fix was finished in less than 30 seconds – a remarkable transformation from literally one minute to the next.

As soon as he felt that it had done all that it could, he deactivated the Fusion and sagged in place, a hunger and weariness gnawing at him. Even as he shifted his legs around to confirm that they were now fixed, with him still in his sitting position, he grabbed the bag of food and quickly consumed all that was left, leaving him satisfied as far as hunger went, but he was thirsty and still slightly tired from the whole ordeal.

That was a price he was gladly to pay for the sake of being able to scramble to his feet and have his now-fixed legs support him. Now, he just had to figure out how to get out of there and check on his friends.

Moving slowly to the door, his healed legs slightly weak at first as he put weight on them but normalizing after a few steps, he found that the stone the door was composed of was reinforced by a few Strengthen Stone +4 Fusions, which made breaking through it with anything less than his axe a very tough proposition. Whoever made these must have at least 41 Pneuma, given that they would require at least 40 Pattern Cohesion, unless they were a Fusionist specialization. I doubt they were Fusionists, however, given how crude the formations are.

Pushing on the door, he realized that something was keeping it held in place without even a semblance of give. Looking closer at the door and the areas of ambience around each of the Fusions he saw, he realized that there was the hint of something on the opposite side of the stone door which was acting as a lock of sorts. He couldn’t actually see the Fusion, but he could see a hint of the ambient Mana being absorbed into it.

Unfortunately for whoever made the door, they were smart enough to put the lock on the other side – but not smart enough to place the Fusions strengthening the stone out of his reach, as well. As a result, it only took about a minute for each of the Strengthen Stone +4 Fusions to disappear after Larek blocked their Mana Cost with his own Pattern Cohesion, starving them of ambient Mana.

While stone wasn’t exactly soft even without any Fusions strengthening it, Larek’s Strength of 40 was more than enough to start cracking it with a few powerful kicks. It took another few dozen kicks over the next few minutes to finally shatter a portion of the door near its hinge, causing it to fall askew, ripping out the other hinge in the process. A moment later, it fell backwards, ripping off chunks of stone where a metal bar had been stuck through small cavity, keeping it closed and locked. The moment the relatively still whole door hit the floor, it cracked in half, the sound of it echoing through the dark hallway he found himself in.

Where am I?

Taking both metal cubes that had Illuminate Iron Fusions on them that were somehow even more crudely created than the Strengthen Stone formations, Larek escaped his interrogation room on a mission to save his friends and punish those that hurt them.

Book 2 Chapter 41: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-84081263