The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Larek took a step back from the Martial trainee after he realized she was standing a little too close to him. While he had accidentally run into her as he turned around, which wasn’t his fault but hers for standing so close, he didn’t want to give her any other reason to accuse him of touching her inappropriately; he’d already been the target of an accusation of the sort the day before, and he’d like to keep that kind of thing to a minimum.

It took a few seconds for his mind to restart working, and he realized she had asked him a question. Even as she took another step forward to put herself right in front of him, he answered as he discovered he couldn’t take another step back because his back was now up against the bookshelves. “Y-Yes, uh, of course. There’s nothing to forgive.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful to hear!” she responded, her face cracking an awkward-looking smile. “I was really worried that you were angry at me for what happened, but I want to assure you that I don’t normally do things like that. I just got caught up in the moment.” When she smiled, her teeth appeared inordinately white when contrasting to her darker skin, and it distracted him from her next question.

“I’m, uh, sorry, what was that?”  Larek was starting to feel a little trapped with the Martial trainee within an inch of touching his hands and the stack of books he held out in front of him. He took a small step to his right to see if he could get around her, but she matched him almost as soon as he moved.

“Oh, I was just curious about your interest in Fusions. Are you a Fusionist?”

He nodded, perhaps a little too enthusiastically as he looked at him in apparent amusement, at least that was the impression he got from her upturned upper lip. “Fusions.” His one word answer was all he could squeeze out, which elicited a curious laugh from the young woman.

“You sound like some of the Strength-focused trainees. They’re all like, ‘Me strong. I beat you.’ Well, not all of them, but there are a few like that who don’t have the intellect to string more than two words together without straining their brain.”

While he didn’t particularly care about the other Martial trainees, what she said made him curious about what she was doing there. “And you aren’t one of them, obviously, because I’ve heard you use complete sentences and everything.”

That elicited another round of laughter, along with a brief touch to his arm, which she dropped it after a few seconds. “Oh, yes, I like to think I can speak much better than them.”

“But what are you doing in the library?” he asked.  “I thought that this was just for the Academy.”

She shook her head, still smiling. “No, this library is shared by the Academy and the Fort, though a good half of it is dedicated to subjects only a Mage would utilize.  Another 30% is for shared subjects like monster knowledge, Scission categorization, geography, and joint battle tactics. The last 20% is for Martial subjects such as weapon techniques and Battle Arts.

“How do you not know this? Are you new here?”

Battle Arts? I wonder if I can find more information about them here….

As she stared at him, Larek belatedly realized she had asked him another question. For some reason, he couldn’t focus very well when she was standing so close to him; the faint scent of sweat and some sort of floral fragrance coming from her was almost overwhelming.

“I just transferred in from Crystalview a few days ago,” he finally answered.

“Crystalview, huh? So, you’re not a Noble?”

He shook his head.

“Well, what you did yesterday was quite noble, even if you don’t have a title behind it.” Again, she touched his upper arm, almost caressing it as she spoke.  “How exactly did you do that, by the way?”

Beginning to become nervous at the line of questioning, he took another step away from her, pulling his arm out of her surprisingly strong grip. It took a little more effort than he thought it would, and even she looked surprised when he was able to extricate himself. “It was a spell, plain and simple. I really have to go, Penelope, so if you’ll excuse me.”

Rather than attempt to block him from leaving, as he thought she might, she simply stared at him with a strange expression on her face. As he walked away without any trouble this time, she spoke to his retreating back. “Call me Penny, Larek. All my friends do.”

His steps stuttered a little at that, but he kept moving with just a nod to indicate he heard her. Making his way toward the desk where the red-robed student watched him approaching, he thought about what had just occurred. On the one hand, the Martial trainee had made him uncomfortable with her proximity and questions; on the other hand, it seemed like she wanted to be friends. While he wasn’t opposed to having more friends, Larek wasn’t sure if having someone he didn’t know very well learn about his Martial stats would be a smart idea.

Thankfully, the process of checking out the books – which involved the attending student stamping the inside cover of each book – took his mind off Penelope, and he met up with his roommates down on the first floor of the library. His entire experience up on the second floor seemed to fly by in a matter of minutes, but he was actually the last to arrive.

“There you are, roomie! Did you have trouble finding the Fusions section?”

Larek answered Verne with a shake of his head. “No, I got held up when Penelope cornered me up there and asked me some questions.”

“Penelope? Is that the Martial trainee from yesterday?”

Nedira’s voice from behind him made him realize she had arrived when he hadn’t been aware. “Uh, yes,” he said as he turned toward her, gripping the books tightly to his chest as he spoke. “She was… actually, she didn’t actually say what she was doing there.”

“Oh, I think I know.” The fourth-year student didn’t explain what she meant by that, and a tense silence descended upon the group.

“Anyway, we should probably head back and study,” Verne interrupted the silence, and Larek sighed in relief. He wasn’t sure why the atmosphere had suddenly become strained, but he suspected it had to do with Penelope.

Maybe Nedira doesn’t like her? Is it some prejudice against Penelope or her people, like the citizens of the Kingdom when they see my height?

He didn’t think so, because he hadn’t seen any sign of it in her brother, Norde, but he really didn’t know enough about the situation to discount it. Regardless, he eagerly nodded at his roommate at his suggestion, because he really did want to get back to their room so he could take a look at the books he had borrowed.

The journey back was quick and silent with no distractions, made easier for his roommates when he volunteered to carry all their books for them. He offered to carry Nedira’s, as well, but she just mumbled something and refused. Shrugging, he let her carry them, even if they appeared to be quite heavy.

Soon enough, the fourth-year student broke off from them to head to her own room without another word, and he was finally able to sit down and really peruse his new acquisitions.

“You look at your new Fusion texts tonight, Larek; I know you won’t be able to concentrate on anything else unless you start with them,” Verne said as soon they were settled. “We’ll look at our other subjects tonight,” he continued, indicating himself and Norde, “but you’ll have to look at them tomorrow night so you’re not behind.” Larek nodded, agreeing with that idea wholeheartedly, as he got comfortable sitting cross-legged on his bed as he grabbed the first book off the stack.

Understanding Intermediate Fusion Concepts was the book that Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai had told him to study first, and almost immediately he was lost. It wasn’t necessarily the subject matter, because he was fairly confident in understanding whatever he read, but the writing itself was unnecessarily complicated and long-winded. It took almost an hour before his Reading Skill advanced after struggling through the first few pages, and it finally made at least a little more sense.

Reading has reached Level 9!

Reading has reached Level 10!

It wasn’t perfect, but the flow of the text became easier to understand and he was able to read through what appeared to be fluff about the importance of knowing the basics of Fusions, even going so far as to review the different components of a basic Fusion – all of which was familiar to him without anything new that he noticed. After that was a lengthy lecture on the illustrious capabilities of a Fusionist who progresses to being able to create Intermediate Fusions, which he dutifully read but ignored for the most part.

It was only when the text got to a point where it described what an Intermediate Fusion actually was that he started really paying attention.

“…brings us to the structures of an Intermediate Fusion. What constitutes the difference between a Basic Fusion and an Intermediate Fusion? The answer is simple: any Fusion that uses a larger grid formation than what was taught during Basic Fusions, i.e. a 2-by-2 formation, is classified as an Intermediate Fusion. This isn’t to say that all Fusions that have a larger formation are simply Intermediate in classification, because it only applies to Fusions that have 2 or fewer Effects with a single Activation Method. Anything more advanced than that is, as would be obvious, covered in Advanced Fusions; as they become more complicated and intricate, Fusions will progress from Advanced to Master-level Fusions, the epitome of Fusioncraft that a Fusionist can aspire to create one day.”

From what Larek understood by the text, the larger and more complicated the Fusions became, the higher classification of Fusion it would be. Without anything but some brief looks at some of the Advanced Fusions that David and Marybelle had created in class, he couldn’t tell exactly what made the difference yet, but he was sure he soon would.

The night wore on as he kept reading, as the next sections of the book began to explain some new concepts that were completely new and unfamiliar. Larek soaked them up like a dry sponge, the new knowledge slotting into his mind as if filling in spaces that had already been present, simply waiting for the correct information to fit where it belonged.

It was uncanny how well he immediately understood it, and all he wanted was to keep reading all night to finish the book.  A few hours later, as he was engrossed in a section halfway through the text, he felt a tap on his forehead that startled him. He looked up to see Verne sleepily rubbing his eyes as he stood next to Larek’s bed.

“Larek? You in there?”

“Huh? What?”

“It’s late, roomie; you’ve been reading that for hours already, and we all need to get some sleep.”

Looking around, he saw that Norde had already turned off his light and was curled up in bed, and a grittiness in his own eyes indicated that it was as Verne said: It was late. Quietly closing his book, glad that his roommate had stopped him from reading all night, which would’ve made him exhausted the next day, he nodded at the boy and turned off his own light. As much as he wanted to continue, he was thankful for Verne interrupting what could’ve been a hyper-focused session again.

As he laid down to sleep, he found that it was becoming easier and easier to overcome the impulse to fixate on a particular subject to the detriment of everything else. Whether it was simply practice and experience that helped him, or the fact that his roommate was getting good at recognizing it happening withing Larek, the reason didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he felt like he was getting better, thanks to the help of those he hadn’t even known a few months ago.

Thinking back on his life in Rushwood, Larek realized that he didn’t miss the trees and the work as much as he used to. In fact, he hadn’t even thought about it at all that day, a first for him since he had left home. He missed his family, of course, but he could only hope that they were doing well; he knew that the best thing that he could do for him was to stick out his tenure through the Academy, which would keep them safe. As much as he still wanted to go back to check on them, that desire was becoming more and more a distant wish as he learned more about Fusions and adjusted to life in the Academy.

In short, the more he embraced the thought of what good he might be able to do with his newfound abilities, the more he realized that his life before as a simple Logger was wasting his potential. Despite the hardships he had gone through to get to that point, from being taken prisoner to having his face ripped off to the vitriol poured on him by those who saw his height and expressed their anger toward him, everything was starting to come together for the better. He had friends who cared about him, an instructor that wasn’t afraid of teaching him about Fusions, and he had been kissed by someone that wasn’t part of his family; those things alone were worlds better than his life had been a few months ago.

Thinking about it all, he fell asleep with a smile on his face.

Book 2 Chapter 32: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-83727949