[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 88: Experimentation

Matt cupped his hands around his mouth. “Okay, you’ve made your point. It’s not fair. Now come out!”

Sam’s voice echoed out from the smothered field. “I thought you said you would be able to hit me if I just stood here and didn’t move. Well, I haven’t moved.”

“I’m almost out of mana!” Matt countered. “Besides, even Kai has given up.”

Kai motioned with a roasted vegetable. “That is because I know when continuing is futile. I prefer to save my strength for when it will do me good.”

“Fine. Fine! I yield. You win, Sam. Now, can we please do anything else?”

“How about exploring a neighboring floating island?” Sam asked, dismissing the circular smothered area.

Sam had learned quite a lot in the last half hour of testing. All of it would be useful in any future fights, but it showed that [Smother] had one key weakness.

So long as nobody exposed their mana to the outside, the Void mana couldn’t attack it. It was still impossible to see through, so that still gave him a leg-up against physical opponents, but it meant if somebody had an imbued weapon, then his field of smothering was ineffective.

Right up until the point they decided to unleash their mana. But if somebody—and Sam was willing to bet there was at least one out there—was able to keep their mana inside themselves, only releasing it when they made physical contact with Sam… they might be able to defeat the ability.

Of course, that was a fairly specific use case. But Sam liked to work through his own weaknesses as if he’d have to fight himself.

It was less of a “think like the enemy” deal and more of a mental exercise that he oddly found enjoyable. Perhaps being the “Alloy of War” meant a little more than just a fancy title.

One of the mandys brought a plate of cut up food for him and Matt, so the pair joined Kai. Matt once more ate the poisonous spuds with great relish.

Sam watched as the poison he ingested visibly cleared up the minor damage that he had incurred from helping Sam out.

“So, when are you going to pay us back?” Matt asked.

Sam looked up. “Excuse me?”

“We helped you with training. When are you going to help us?” Matt explained. “Only seems fair. Besides, you’re stronger than either of us. Stands to reason that training with you would give us more than it would give you.”

“That’s why it’ll be two versus one,” Sam told him. “And don’t you think there are better things to be doing?”

“Such as what?”

Sam motioned to the nearly pristine surroundings. “Two Skyshards full of… well, not too much really. We have no buildings, no homes, Raiko’s Skyshard doesn’t have much either except space. Do you really want to sleep in tents? We need to make something.”

Matt gently mussed up the leaves atop the nearest mandragora’s head like he was a little kid. “Maybe the mandys can create something? No? Fine. Think about though, do any of us know how to make a house? Four walls and a roof is about as far as my knowledge goes. There’s probably some pipes and stuff in the walls?”

Both Matt and Sam looked at Kai.

The big man hunched his shoulders slightly. “Why do you both turn your gazes on me?”

“You are the only one of us who had a house,” Sam pointed out. “A rather large one, as I recall.”

“Honolulu was expensive,” Matt told him. “I wasn’t about to drop that kind of cash on a house until I was done climbing. Not when a prompt promotion would have had me stateside within a few years.”

“I… do not know,” Kai admitted. “We had people to take care of the house for us. Still, even I know that a house is more than four walls and a roof.”

“In dire times, we only need the essentials,” Sam said. “You can’t have air conditioning, electricity, plumbing, and whatever else goes into a house. We’re just looking for some basic shelter. Something better than a damn tent.”

Sam would continue to sleep in the tent but he didn’t enjoy it. It not only got incredibly cold at night, but he could hear everything. The howling of the wind, strange creatures flying by at night, the works.

Besides, there was something very human about wanting a safe, warm place to bed down at night.

Now that they were relatively safe, Sam wanted something more permanent, but Matt was right. Nobody knew the first thing about how to make a shelter.

“We need Professions,” Sam said.

Matt wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The sizzling poison of his food seemed to revitalize rather than burn, as it would have for Sam. “How do you figure?”

It had seemed pretty obvious to Sam. “There seems to be three pillars to progression here. Your Job is sort of your main strength. It’s where you get most of your combat power from. Your Path is magical or perhaps spiritual for people who, unlike myself and Raiko, have a choice. That leaves our Professions for creating things.”

“You forgot Legends,” Kai pointed out.

“That, I believe, is our identity,” he said, basing it on the description he received of Voidknight. “At the very least, it’s a tabulation of our total strength since I’m quite sure that for every three levels you get, you automatically get one Legend level.”

“So it’s basically our Profession, Path, and Job levels divided by three,” Matt said. “Or, you could call it the average of our levels.”

“That’s my best guess,” Sam told him. “So it stands to reason that if we want to make shelter, food, poisons, weapons, anything at all, then we need to find a Profession.”

“How? I haven’t seen any Ascension Gems aside from that weird nexus place. Not a damn one. I’ve been looking! So how are we meant to do this if we can’t find a Profession?”

“It could be like Paths,” Kai put in.

“Trial and error?” Matt scoffed. “I don’t think either of us want to be banging two rocks together hoping to unlock some Profession just for nothing to happen. We don’t even know if that’s how you unlock it.”

“He’s right,” Sam said. He was about to say more when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

Immediately, something felt off, but Sam couldn’t figure out what.

Birds cawed in the distance. At first, he disregarded it. Birds made noise all the time. That was normal behavior.

Except that was from his time on Earth.

Birds were small, rather insignificant creatures. On Il’dran… everything was different.

They had levels for one, and many of those he had seen flying in the distance were large enough to pick up a grown man and fly off.

Sam spotted the first dark shape in the twilit sky at the same time as he saw Raiko. Sparks ignited the gloom as Sam pulled free his [Charred Claymore] from its sheath.

Raiko leapt onto the brim of Sil’mara, a breeze billowing her robes with Komachi perched on her shoulder. With one bare arm covered in a sleeve of golden Glyphs, she carried a very different presence than before.

“Hello to you too,” she said, smirking and motioning towards a nearby floating island swarmed with pinkish monsters. “We’ve company, and none too friendly.”

Sam scanned the sky just in time to duck.

A screeching bird tore through the air, claws shredding nothing as they missed Sam’s head by inches.

There was just enough time to make out the bird’s name and level.

[Zuu Swarm (Level 20)].

“Damn, is everything that strong out here?” Matt cried out.

Kai dashed to the side, dragging Matt off the stone he was sitting on before another bird could swoop in and attack. “We must work together!”

Shaken, Matt nodded and began casting alongside the Shaman.

Sam got to his feet and, purely on a hunch, used a Wind exclusion [Void: Smother], centering the field at his feet. Using the knowledge he gained while training with Kai and Matt, he excluded his nearby allies.

It was significantly harder to do with so many more people, but he managed it with only a little fumbling.

As the others were excluded, their vision was restored, and the Zuu began dive bombing through the black-and-silver flames with renewed aggression.

“Stay in the flames,” Sam shouted.

A crackling slice of Lightning mana arced into an incoming bird, knocking it off course. Its feathers sparked with a lingering electrical effect.

One of the birds flapped its wings sharply, pulling to a halt and summoning spiraling green winds.

Sam couldn’t help but hold his breath. Would [Smother] still work on monsters stronger than his Job or Path level?

Raiko slid forward, grabbing her sheath and blade in two hands in a defensive-like position, preparing for the attack. She hadn’t seen what [Void: Smother] could do and was about to see just that.

The scything swirling tornado that rolled off the creature’s wings with surprising strength hit the smothered area and made it a few feet before it broke apart entirely.

As another [Zuu] dove at Sam, it found its wings no longer worked the same way. Instead of being able to magically turn about with the aid of Wind mana, it found its mana burnt away as soon as it used it.

Sam hit it so hard with his [Charred Claymore] that the [Zuu] burst into a shower of pink feathers. Three other [Zuu] tried to wheel away as soon as they saw this, but they were caught in the smothered region.

Their wings no longer working as anything other than a very powerful bird’s might, Matt and Kai attacked as one.

Roots twisted up from the ground to ensnare two, while Poison mana flew from Matt’s swiping hand in an acidic spray, burning the roots and the birds at the same time.

Komachi began to play her flute, and his ears didn’t even bleed a little bit.

A magical effect swept across his group. Even before the speed boost of [Haste Mazurka] hit him, Sam could quickly tell it was comprised of Wind mana.

Exactly what [Void: Smother] was targeting. And he had forgotten to include Komachi in the earlier exclusion.

Dammit! Sam twisted out of the way of another diving [Zuu] and focused on [Void: Smother], attenuating its Wind nullification and trying to pair that with Komachi’s mana.

It was difficult. The ability fought him like a savage beast. It didn’t like him to change anything once it was out in the wild, and here he was trying to prevent Komachi’s spells from getting destroyed.

[Haste Mazurka] began to unravel and fizzle as the Void mana ate away at it, but Sam managed to pull it back enough that the spell hit him squarely. Perhaps it was a little weaker than it would have been, but Sam had succeeded.

Komachi’s Wind mana would work now.

Blobs of poison splashed out from Matt’s extended hand while Kai’s Nature mana burst out in the form of trees, carved totems, and whipping vines.

Seeing how weak they became upon entering Sam’s Void mana, Kai focused on pulling the swarm of [Zuu] into the Void field, then bludgeoning them to death with his new club.

Matt, surprisingly, didn’t shy away from physical violence. He attacked with a small dagger that reminded Sam of the demons. It was harsh and stone-like, but it seemed to serve him well.

Clubbed, stabbed, poisoned, and devoid of their ability to manipulate Wind mana for their attacks, the birds didn’t stand a chance.

Raiko seemed to be back to the speed of the Sage, or so Sam thought. She zipped around the place, striking down one bird after the other.

Komachi seemed to be having a good time hitching a ride at those top speeds.

Burned feathers rained down whenever her lightning strikes turned—surprising more than a few of them—into sweeping swaths of fire.

Experience notifications lit up his vision, but only when a sufficiently large number of [Zuu] were killed.

That must be what the “swarm” part means.

A burst of green light twisted around Raiko’s new katana and winked out as Void devoured the magic. She looked down at her blade, then accusingly at Sam.

He stepped up, cut the bird she had aimed at in half with his greatsword, and gave her a sheepish smile. “I didn’t have enough time to exclude your mana as well. Didn’t even know you could use Wind mana.”

“It’s the quirk of Chaos mana,” Raiko explained. “It changes and rotates through different types, all to its own whims and desires.”

The birds were retreating after a failed assault, and that would have been enough for most people.

Sam, however, wanted vengeance.

Aided by his helm’s Dark Vision, he spotted the direction the [Zuu] were flying. Though he had stopped thinking of them as [Zuu] and instead thought of them as “flying pink bags of EXP that were getting away” which he definitely did not want to lose out on.

As soon as the small floating island with the shadowy outline of several nests appeared, Sam used [Source Chain].

A glassy, mana-rich spear tip appeared at the edge of the Skyshard. Remembering how slow it was and realizing that Kai and Matt looked like they needed a bit of a rest, he made the reckless decision to jump onto the faceted tip of the chain.

“This is either the stupidest or best thing I’ve ever done,” he said, kneeling down and gripping the thick chain behind the spearhead with one hand.

As Sam raised his sword, the chain launched.