The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Larek managed the finish the Body Boost +5 Fusion on the other earring about 20 minutes later, gaining another level in his new Multi-effect Fusion Focus Skill in the process.

New Fusion Learned!

Body Boost +5

Activation Method: Permanent

Effect: Increases Body

Magnitude: 50% increase

Mana Cost: 5,000

Pattern Cohesion: 150

Fusion Time: 30 hours

Multi-effect Fusion Focus has reached Level 4!

As soon as it was finished, he held the earring in his hand and felt the Fusion suddenly impart the 50% increase in his Body stat. Unlike when he held the Agility and Strength Boost Fusions, which immediately made him feel uncomfortable as he adjusted to the changes, the effect of Body Boost started slowly, as a tingling passed through his entire body. After a few seconds, there was a great pressure on his chest where he was confident his Stama was located, until it felt like something had reached inside and squeezed his reservoir of Stama until it was nearly painful.

Thankfully, the pressure evaporated after another few seconds, and as he took a deep breath in relief, a painful internal explosion of Stama suddenly rushed through every corner of his body, causing him to collapse backward in his little alcove as he lost control of his muscles.

“Larek! What’s going on?!” Nedira shouted, but he barely heard her as he struggled to make sense of what was happening. Unable to move, he pulled up his Status to see if there was any indication of an explanation; to his surprise, he thought he might have found the reason for everything, even if it made no sense.

Stama: 205/300

Strength: 30 (+)

Body: 20 [30] (+)

Agility: 30 (+)

Intellect: 40 [76] (+)

Acuity: 104 [198] (+)

Pneuma: 104 [198] (+)

Pattern Cohesion: 2,970/2,970

His stats were where they should be – all except for his Pattern Cohesion. Rather than it being at 1,980 according to his Pneuma of 104 and the 90% boost on his armlet, it was now 50% more than that amount at 2,970.

What?  How?

Obviously, the only thing that had changed lately was his Body stat, but he couldn’t figure out how it had also affected his Pattern Cohesion because he thought they were entirely unrelated.  What was even more confusing was he hadn’t felt anything like this when his Pneuma was boosted by his armlet, even though it had increased his Pattern Cohesion by nearly the same amount.

Larek still couldn’t move, nor could he speak, as his body felt like it had no energy as his body seemed to try and cope with the changes going through it. The uncomfortable pain that came with the explosion of Stama throughout his body had lessened somewhat, which he was thankful for, but being completely helpless wasn’t a good feeling. As Nedira approached with Verne and Norde behind her, he couldn’t even move his eyes from where they stared straight ahead, and he felt them begin to dry out as blinking was also impossible. Reaching inward with his mind, he was relieved to feel his heart and other internal organs still working normally, including his lungs, though they felt sluggish.

“Larek! What is—?” Nedira asked again, before seeing him unresponsive. His vision barely caught her looking down at his lap, and he willed her to look at the earring that was lying limply in his hand. “Did this earring do this to you? Did your Fusion cause this?”

Larek couldn’t answer, of course, but he didn’t need to.

Rather than touch it herself, Nedira brought her staff in front of her and used it to knock the accessory out of his hand, where he assumed it plopped down to the floor, where he assumed the other earring with Strength Boost had ended up when he collapsed backwards, as it wasn’t in his hand anymore. It took a few seconds, but as he watched his Status and saw his Body stat and higher Pattern Cohesion disappear, the strength in his muscles flowed back into him and he took a deep breath.

“Explanation,” Nedira demanded as soon as he began to move. Larek shook his head briefly before flicking his eyes to Rheina and Crester, who were looking on in concern from behind his three friends. She seemed to understand and didn’t press him anymore, though he could see that she still wanted a better explanation later.  If I’m able to figure it out myself, then I’ll be glad to tell her.

“Thanks. I think my body reacted oddly to that Fusion, but it should be safe for anyone else,” he finally said, sitting up from where he had collapsed. Larek saw recognition flash in her eyes at his emphasis on “body”, and she just nodded.

“I can’t touch that right now, but if you would give Rheina both earrings, they should be done.” Even from where he saw the earring that had so affected him lying on the floor, he could tell that the Fusion was perfectly fine and should work perfectly for the Martial graduate.

Nedira hesitatingly picked up both earrings from where they had fallen, but they didn’t do anything when she touched them. Because she didn’t have the Martial stats, they were essentially inactive to a Mage when handling them.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Rheina asked as Nedira held the pair of earrings out to the woman. “I saw what it did to you.”

Larek nodded. “I’m a, well, special case. Don’t worry, it should be fine.”

“Here, let me try it first—” Crester spoke up at her side, reaching out to take one of the earrings, but Rheina immediately snatched them up.

“Nope. I’m the one that wanted—whoa,” the speedy Martial said before she swayed in place where she was sitting. With everyone, other than Larek, looking at her with concern, she steadied herself and smiled. “A little uncomfortable at first, but I’m already adjusting. Probably because of my lower Strength and Body stats in comparison to my Agility.” She looked at Crester and tilted her head to the side as she studied him. “On second thought, you might need to test these out to see if they are too powerful. One at a time, though.”

Holding out one of the earrings to the armored Martial, Crester picked it up off of her palm and the woman seemed to deflate almost immediately; a second later, Crester’s entire body shuddered as he gritted his teeth in pain. Rheina made to snatch it back, but he quickly shook his head and closed his eyes as his breathing intensified, as if he was in the middle of a strenuous workout. The other Martial sat back but kept her eyes on him, ready to spring into action to pull the earring away, but after about 20 seconds the shuddering stopped and the rictus of pain that had enveloped his face faded away.

“That,” he finally panted out, “was intense. Now I know why they say not to add more than a few AP into one of our stats at a time.”

That was something that Larek had learned the hard way.

“I can handle it, but it takes some adjusting. I don’t think I could deal with anything stronger right now, though, and that was just an increase in my Strength. Perhaps with a higher Body stat to help with the pain?” he mused, staring at the accessory in his hand.

“I won’t create a Fusion stronger than that for you, then. It should still be an impressive boost to your stats.”

He nodded, even as Rheina handed the other earring to him. There was another round of pain after the Fusion started to affect him, but it didn’t appear to be as intense because it ended with a few seconds. “That was much better. Yes, I think this is my limit for now,” he agreed. After giving them back to the other Martial, he shuddered and seemed to sink in on himself for a moment as the boost to his stats left him, but instead of being disappointed, he looked excited for Fusions on his own gear.

“Alright, knives next and then I’ll get to you,” Larek said, already feeling much better after the extremely strange reaction he had to the Body Boost Fusion a few minutes before. Rheina eagerly handed them over after slipping the earrings back into the holes in her ears, where Larek could see with satisfaction that their areas of ambience didn’t interact with each other. It was close, as they nearly touched and overlapped, but they were far enough away from each other that he didn’t think they’d ever have a problem unless they were both hanging off the same ear.

With the bared blades now in his lap, Larek quickly created the Sharpen Steel Edge Fusion on the first of them, before deciding on 4 for the Magnitude – only slightly less than his axe. Any higher than that would create an area of ambience that might interfere with her bracers while they were being wielded, and in his experience, a Magnitude of 4 was still plenty sharp.

Just like Healing Surge, Larek had created this type of Fusion more than a few times before, and as he didn’t have to add additional effects to it, the entire process was done in about 10 minutes. A minute or so was all it took to rest before he finished off the second knife, as the Fusion felt quite simple by this point. In fact, it was so simple and easy that it was almost a disappointment.

Discovering how to affect multiple materials earlier had been a new height in his enjoyment of creating Fusions, and without pushing his limits like that, everything else felt too… easy. It wasn’t that it was easy, per se, as the Strengthen Steel Edge Fusion still required intense focus to create it accurately, but it wasn’t a challenge.

He suddenly understood why he hadn’t increased the level of his Skills past a certain point before, as everything he did was too easy. He needed things like multi-effect Fusions to add to his base of knowledge and accomplish more challenging projects; only by doing that would he be able to really see what he could do in the future.

Rheina was ecstatic upon gaining her knives back, and she practiced slicing off slivers of wood off some nearby crates, marveling at how easy it was and how her weapons didn’t dull in the slightest. Larek ignored her as he looked at Crester, beckoning him to start handing him pieces of his armor.

There were more parts to the entire outfit than he expected. He had thought that it might only be in 3 or 4 pieces, but it turned out to be around three times that amount. First were the boots, then the legs were in two different pieces each; the torso of leather and iron plates was actually two separate pieces that fit together, and the arm guards were also in two separate pieces each. When he added in the helmet, shield, spear, and necklace, there were a total of 16 different items that needed Fusions, though some of those would need multiple Fusions because it had a few different iron bands or plates.

To save time, Larek decided on a Magnitude 3 Strengthen Iron Fusion for every band or plate on the armor and the shield. It would still make the iron 300% stronger than its original state, which wasn’t an insignificant amount, so he thought this was a perfectly fine compromise. In addition to it only taking approximately 2 minutes per Fusion, as required 875 Mana and 16 Pattern Cohesion to complete each one, their area of ambience was relatively small enough that they wouldn’t interfere with another even if they were almost directly next to each other. It was only when the Fusion was extremely powerful that such a thing became an issue.

After all of the bands and plates were done on the armor and shield, Larek created a Strengthen Wood +7 Fusion for the spear shaft, as it could be a little larger due to it being by itself; a Strengthen Wood +4 on the wooden part of the shield was next, as he didn’t want anything larger to interfere with the iron bands on it that already had Fusions. Next was Sharpen Steel Edge +5 on the tip of the spear, which was sharper than Rheina’s knives, but there was also a bit more space for a larger area of ambience there.

With all the simpler Fusions out of the way, the novice Fusionist added a Body and Agility Boost to the long wooden shaft of the spear, spaced out not to interfere with the Strengthen Wood Fusion already there. Larek was originally going to add a Strength Boost to the spear, but after seeing how greatly it had affected him as opposed to the Body Boost, he thought it would be better to keep the Strength Boost on his helmet, where it would stay in contact with his skin.

This made Larek consider whether or not it would be a good idea to move all of the Boosts to a more permanent location than the spear, especially as he had observed how much it had affected both of them as soon as the Fusions activated against their skin. For Mage stats, having Boosts on their staff didn’t seem to physically affect them as much, but it seemed to be different for Martial stats. At the moment, however, he couldn’t find any other object that was in constant contact with Crester’s body that he could use as a spot for a Fusion, as it was mostly cloth or leather underneath the armor.

With a shrug, knowing that he was already planning on spending time on figuring out softer materials for Fusions, he went ahead and added the two Boosts to the spear shaft, and then followed them up with the Body Boost on the helmet – all of them at a Magnitude of 5. The last one he created was another Healing Surge +3 on Crester’s necklace, which was as easily done as the back of the steel locket was just large enough for his Fusion without having to condense it much.

With all those done, he gave them back to the Martial graduate, who quickly equipped every piece with a huge grin on his face.  “This is amazing, Larek. Really, thank you for this; I never would’ve thought I’d own anything with Fusions on them – especially not as powerful as these are.”

Larek was glad to see that the second time Crester went through the process of adjusting to his increased stats it only took about half the time, which made him hopeful that the transition continued to decrease in time with subsequent use. Still, it immediately want to work on playing around with cloth and leather to help alleviate the need for such a transition period. “You’re very welcome. Both of you. Just remember that you have no idea who created those Fusions, as I don’t want the attention to come back on me.”

They both nodded seriously, though Larek could tell that they were extremely pleased with the work he had done. “Don’t worry; we won’t betray your trust on this.”

He just nodded before turning away, thinking about Fusions on different materials; unfortunately for Larek, Nedira and Verne convinced him to take a break after he was done with Crester’s gear, not allowing him to sink into such an enterprise at the time. As much as he wanted to refuse, he thought back on those times when he had been so absorbed in making Fusions that he ignored the world around him; remembering how he could become so focused that nothing else really mattered, he concluded that it was probably a good thing his friends were there to keep him alert to the world.

It was a good thing they did, too, because not 5 minutes after Crester re-equipped his gear, the carriage they were riding within began to slow down.

Book 2 Chapter 15: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-81982977