The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Larek left his Advanced Fusions 1 class at a run yet again, racing toward the first-year classrooms as he weaved through the people moving about. Fortunately, he wasn’t stopped by Professors with a demand to convince them of his innocence, so he wasn’t delayed in the least, meaning that he made it to his Understanding Specializations class well ahead of time. As he sat in the same seat he had been in the day before, his mind was awhirl with the information that he had been overloaded with during the short session with Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai.

In reality, it hadn’t actually been that short of a session as it lasted nearly the entire class, but it sure felt that way with everything that they had gone over.

His Fusions instructor hadn’t actually taught him anything after the first stint with the additional containment barriers and the Mana Overflow Bypass, but had instead filled his head with what Larek needed to learn so as to be caught up with everyone else. In fact, the only thing that he actually discovered through the class was that any Fusions that were more advanced than the relatively simple, 2-by-2 grids that the fledgling Fusionist could make required a lot more knowledge than he possessed.

He had naïvely thought that larger grid formations were simply additional sections with more Effects and Activation Methods; these additional sections could lead to the development of Fusions that were similar to what David and Marybelle had created, which could perform various different Effects such as Strengthen, Area Chill, and Illumination. While that was, in part, what larger grid formations assisted with, that barely scratched the surface. In fact, from what he understood from his instructor’s lecture was that the Fusions those higher-year created were some of the simplest of Effects; their main purpose was to show their ability to combine different Effects and Activation Methods into the same Fusion.

But there were a lot of complicated single-Effect Fusions that they already had knowledge of, which is what Intermediate Fusions 1 and 2 was supposed to have taught him.  Larek now had a mental list of terms and concepts that he would have to start researching on his own outside of class, but only demonstrate what he learned in class with his instructor supervising. Once he was able to understand these basic and intermediate concepts, only then would he be able to really break out and take advantage of having a Grandmaster Fusionist there to help him understand more-advanced knowledge.

It made sense, and he was willing to do just about anything to gain that knowledge. This was exactly what he wanted all along, and if it required learning about it in his free time, then that was what he would do.

As a result of what he needed to learn, his instructor had given him a blue-painted clay chit with that had, “Int Fus 1&2”, carved into it in white lettering. Apparently, in order to access the books in the Academy’s library for those enrolled in Intermediate Fusion classes, he needed to show this particular chit to the librarian there. He imagined that this was similar to what was required for the library back in Crystalview, though he hadn’t seen one of these chits personally until now. Either that, or the librarian at the smaller Academy up north was more aware of who was allowed to check out what books, due to the smaller number of students.

Regardless, what it meant was that he really needed to get to the library after dinner later, as he couldn’t allow himself to get distracted again. When Larek thought about the distraction that had deflected his efforts the evening before, he realized that it had been a huge risk for him to do that, even if – in his opinion – it had been the right thing to do. Even the unexpected… reward… afterward couldn’t make up for what might have been exposed if he had been just a little less careful. It wasn’t just the revelation of the Healing Surge Fusion, but everything else about Larek that was different – such as his possessing Martial stats; after his very brief conversation with Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai regarding those with both types of stats, he was convinced more than ever to keep his current situation a secret.

Before he knew it, his Specializations class was over and lunch came and went in a blur. Conscious about what his young roommate had mentioned earlier, Larek did his best to avoid focusing on one single thing so as not to get lost in it, but the prospect of actually learning more about Fusions – even in book form – was almost too much to bear. Thankfully, his Spellcasting Fundamentals class directly after lunch helped to ground him back into the here-and-now.

“Welcome, students,” his instructor said after everyone settled in for another rather boring day of watching the same spells being cast over and over again. That didn’t seem to be plan for the day, however. “Today, we’re going to change it up a little, giving you first-years a break from the repetition of the Fireball, Ice Spike, and Stone Fist spells that we’ve been reviewing all year. I can tell that some of you are beginning to comprehend the spell structures on a basic level, which is the first step in being able to form itself and cast a spell.

“At the same time, I can see in the expressions of quite a few of you that they aren’t making as much sense or you aren’t able to see their patterns with enough clarity to eventually reproduce them.  While Fireballand the others are the most common and typically the easiest to reproduce for new Mages, if you don’t have a particular affinity for them, they could be some of the hardest to learn first.

“For instance, someone who is more inclined to healing-based spells may discover that most attack spells are inherently more difficult to understand, but they might take immediately to Minor Mending, a very basic healing spell with a channeling aspect to it. Or, a different Mage might better comprehend air-based spells and effects, or illusions, or nature-based growth spells; what I’m trying to get at is that not everyone learns the same way, which is why we’re going to spend the next few days observing a few other spells to further the understanding of those that may have been struggling.

“Does anyone have any suggestions of types of spells to observe for the next few days?”

Larek didn’t suggest anything despite being curious about some of them, but he found that he hadn’t needed to; the rest of the students were more than enthusiastic about calling out different spells. As a result, Larek was able to observe – and learn – a few new spells; he supposed this was a good thing, even if he couldn’t cast them.

New Spell learned!

Water Jet

Base Elemental Damage (Impact): 6

Base Elemental Effect (Bleeding): 3 per second for 5 seconds

Base Mana Cost: 5

Base Pattern Cohesion: 2

New Spell learned!

Light Bending

Magnitude: Surrounds caster

Duration: 30 seconds

Base Elemental Effect (Camouflage): Hides caster into the environment

Restrictions: Any movement, damage, or spellcasting will cancel the effect

Base Mana Cost: 25

Base Pattern Cohesion: 5

New Spell learned!

Wind Barrier

Magnitude: 8 X 8 X 1 feet

Duration: 10 seconds

Base Elemental Effect (Barrier): Prevents physical and magical effects from passing through

Base Damage Resistance: 50

Base Mana Cost: 10

Base Pattern Cohesion: 3

New Spell learned!

Static Illusion

Magnitude: 5 X 5 X .1 feet

Duration: 20 seconds

Base Elemental Effect (Visual Illusion): Creates a static visual illusion

Restrictions: Any physical object passing through will dispel the Static Illusion

Base Mana Cost: 16

Base Pattern Cohesion: 4

The first spell, Water Jet, was essentially a high-pressured jet of water that could strike a victim at a single point. The force of the pressurized water was so great that it could cut through leather and clothing in addition to flesh, causing bleeding in the process. The spell pattern for Water Jet reminded Larek of a pool of water, as it was created with blue-colored lines and flowed together with a waviness that expressed fluidity. The symbols that stood out were one that looked like a drop of water, something that looked like two wall squeezing together, and a series of lines; in order, he understood this to be “water”, “pressure”, and “stream” or “jet” – exactly what the spell was designed to create.

Water Jet was yet another attack-based spell, but it was the only one of its kind among the others that he learned.

The Light Bending spell was pure white in coloring, and it was probably one of the most impactful of the spells that Larek learned. With a pattern that had symbols that represented “light”, “bending” or “shifting”, “hide”, and “cover”, what Light Bending did was cover the caster with a layer of light that bent around their entire body, camouflaging them and effectively making them invisible. It wasn’t true invisibility, as there was a distortion where the caster was located, and any kind of exaggerated movement cancelled the spell – but it was impressive all the same.

After that was a Wind Barrier, which was the first defensive-type spell that Larek had learned. Utilizing “air”, “harden”, and “wall” as the symbols contained within the spell pattern, it simply created a semi-opaque wall of air that would withstand up to 50 points of damage for a limited time.

Lastly, Static Illusion was a very basic example of an illusion that didn’t move or make any noise. “Light”, “image”, and “recall” were included in the spell pattern, which Larek assumed meant that it recalled the images from the caster’s mind and utilized light to create the image. He still remembered the duel he had fought back at Crystalview with the Illusion specialist, which made him realize that the young man had somehow created all those illusions from his mind – they weren’t just standard creations from the spell itself.

Not only did he learn a few additional spells – for as much good as it would do him – Larek also raised two of his Skills.

Pattern Recognition has reached Level 10!

Magical Detection has reached Level 13!

He supposed that the increases came from the fact that the Light Bending spell was a little more advanced than the simpler ones he’d learned before. With that in mind, he resolved to observe some of the spells being cast in the yard at some point, and reminded himself to ask Nedira to show him some of her own spells to learn some of the nature-based ones that she specialized in.

The rest of his classes were relatively uninteresting, but he paid attention in them better than he had the day before thanks to the warning from Verne earlier about his focus and the beneficial interruption where he learned a few additional spells. However, by the time dinner was over, he was ready to head off to the library once again – and he wasn’t going to let anything distract him from arriving this time.

Book 2 Chapter 30: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-83605377