Domr

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 46

Forty-Six

Blood and spit smacked the stony ground as Kon cleared his mouth. This cultivator had a good jab, keeping Kon at a distance as they circled the small pit. Sneering the cultivator, Henten, stepped forward and threw a straight punch, aiming to keep Kon’s head spinning.

“This has got to be enough to sell it.” Kon decided he’d had enough being punched in the face and dropped to let the pass snap above him. He shot the gap, his legs pushing h...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 45

Forty-Five

“Are you sure about this?” Kon asked as he and Diur stood huddled together. The crush of the crowd threatened to shove them against the wall as the screams of the crowd tried to deafen them. Diur nodded as she shuffled her shoulders uncomfortably in her borrowed robes. Turja had given them ratty robes that had little of the high quality her previous robes did. She’d smeared a bit of dirt across her face and wrapped the hilt of her sword in soiled wrappi...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 44

Forty-Four

Before they could move a figure slid out of the shadows and Kon had a monet of deja vu as Turja’s envoy appeared before them. It slunk forward, shoulders slumped to hide its height as hundreds of teeth revealed themselves in the blue light of the lanterns. Its velvety red aura blended into the shadows of the cavern as it worked its way toward them, none in the room turning to look as the creature cut across the crowds to stand before them. 

“Ma...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 43

Forty-Three

“That’s a whole lot of people,” Kon said as they walked off the ship. Him and Diur were side by side, looking over the packed crowds in the large spaceport, thousands of beings shouting in native tongues, overlapping in a way that confused his translator. He caught snatches of conversations as they walked by, but nothing that stuck with him as they stepped off the Puca. Benny grunted behind them, prodding them to move faster. 

He’d abandon...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Chapter 42

Forty-Two

“Is that a human ship?” Kon asked as he leaned over Benny’s shoulder, his eyes locked on the floating ship that hovered over the planet. Benny pushed him away absent mindedly as he scrolled down a list of menus as the Puca sailed closer to the planet. 

“I’m trying to figure out who we are, give me a second,” Benny grumbled as he finally clicked on a line of text. The engine rumble changed suddenly, vibrations rattled the deckpla...

Mage Steel Alice 3

THREE

“That’s a human warship,” Alice spat as she leaned over Daniur’s shoulder to look at the sensor arrays. Humanity had taken many prizes over the long years, but they had commissioned some ships as well from worlds that paid for protection. This was one of them, an assault cruiser. It was mostly engine and guns, meant for fast pursuits and beating down enemy ship’s shields. They couldn’t stand and slug it out with true ships of the line, but they were go...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 41

Forty-One

“We’ve about drained this place. Time to move on,” Benny said a week later. Diur had just finished her second round of tempering yesterday and was resting in her room as the two of them stood on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sprawling plains of the badlands. 

“Already? I don’t feel like we’ve done that much?” Kon said. They’d cleared several rifts as Diur tried to figure out her new limits, but other than that there hadn’t ...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 40

Forty 

Kon opened the door to the retrofitted bathroom and reeled backward as the astringent smell of cleaning products struck him with the force of a physical blow. A cough bubbled up, intermixing with a sneeze to cause a burst of pain as he made a decidedly weird sound. Diur looked up from the tin bathtub and turned her head in a confused manner as she looked at him.

“I didn’t think humans could make that noise,” she said as she stared at the slow roi...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 39

Thirty-Nine 

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Diur said as Benny looked on eagerly, looking younger than he ever had as he rubbed his leathery hands together. 

“He’ll be fine. Mostly. Maybe.” Benny shrugged a shoulder but Kon was focused on the rune and overlaying it on his skin. Benny had given him some advice on that, with intent mattering more than the actual location. It’d be on his sternum, but would stretch to cover the entirety of h...

Mage Steel bk 2 Ch. 38

Thirty-Eight

“How is it I’m the one always covered in gore at the end of this?” Kon asked as he rooted around the chest cavity of the monster. His shoulder was wedged against a bone and the warm organs slithered under his hands, a hot pressure that he was sure he’d be scrubbing out from under his fingernails for days. 

“You are best suited for it. Longer arms,” Diur said from her perch on top of one of the beasts. She cut a striking figure with th...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 37

Thirty-Seven

“Think it’ll blow up?” Kon asked as he settled himself down against the hard packed earth. Diur hummed in debate with herself for a second before not responding. Kon suppressed a sigh as he couldn’t get her to bet against him. The cool stock of the rifle pressed against his cheek as he sighted down the scope. Two kilometers down range, a bag of flesh and gas floated against the air. 

“If you miss, you have to do extra laps,” Benny sai...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 36

Thirty-Six

A/N: Bit of a short one, sorry.

“I’ve already identified which runes in your holopad we knew about and transferred them over to your grimoire. The rest will be up to you. I doubt that you’ll be much interested in trying to figure them out, but we can raid some of the rune libraries on the World-Ship’s when we finish this up,” Benny said after a moment of silence between them. It was an effective way of changing the topic. 

Kon open...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 35

Thirty-Five

“Yes.” The word was so easy to say, it came instantly and without hesitation as Kon stared up at the leathery old man who had hope filled eyes that gleamed with fire. Benny smiled widely as he nodded before turning to look into the distance, across the barren windswept grounds. 

“Then there is much that you need to know. These last few weeks I’ve been paying attention to you, more than you probably think. You are truly ignorant, but you se...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 34

Thirty-Four

“Wow. This place is a shithole,” Benny said as he walked down the ramp of the Puca, holding the package over his shoulder. Kon followed right behind, his favorite shotgun in his hands while his mace hung from his hip. He had to suppress a groan as gritty sand flew around, scouring his exposed skin within moments. 

“It’s a desert. Why would you remember it fondly?” Kon asked as they stood on the edge of the ramp. The hardbaked st...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 33

Thirty-Three

A/N: That's the End of ARC 1. ARC 2 starts tomorrow.

“Wild Bunch have successfully finished their evac. Full rescue on all prisoners, minimal casualties,” Jurgen reported, his face distorting as the Puca pulled ahead of the rest of the rag tag battle group. Benny was pushing the ship hard as they left the system, her engines were screaming as he cranked the old girl to her full extent. 

Kon glanced away from the table and its holographi...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 32

Thirty-Two

Kon had never run with mag boots on, each step slapping hard to the ground, sending reverberations through his knees. Holding himself vertically was a strain on his body, but the lighter than average gravity and his own growing strength kept him moving forward with ease. Benny ranged ahead of them, acting for all the world like it was a normal hall they were traversing and not a sheer lift shaft. 

“This exit here,” Benny said, stopping suddenly...

Mage Steel Alice Ch. 2

TWO

Alice slipped to the side, allowing the Lupine’s axe to pass by her to embed itself in the metal floor of the space station. A howl of frustration assaulted her ears as the pup voiced his frustration. Alice’s second axe ended the yowling before it could truly grate on her nerves. Blood sprayed to coat the ceiling as the head slammed to the ground at her feet. 

With a grunt she kicked the headless torso, sending it flying down the hall toward two charg...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 31

Thirty-One

They ran over the charred remnants of the defenders, the crunch of their carbonized bones felt through his boots. Kon focused on keeping up with Benny, the old man running in a zig zag, low to the ground, as fewer and fewer defensive positions fired on them. The remaining Knights fired with lethal purpose, each shot destroying one more gun installation. Small pockets of goblin defenders had been split apart and the Squires over ran them, leaving none alive.&n...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 30

Thirty 

“Entering engagement zone,” Knight Jurgen’s voice came through the speaker in Kon’s ear. The other man sounded nearly bored, not seconds from breaching a goblin point defense kill zone. Jurgen’s squad had the unenviable task of taking out the AA guns on the asteroid. Their ship, a fast corvette that had been heavily modified with drop chutes, would fly parallel to the asteroid and fire the Knights like they were missiles and then drop the shuttles...

Mage Steel Bk 2 CH. 29

Twenty-Nine 

“Exiting,” Benny said quietly. The constant thrum of the engines dying was the first change, followed by the many screens lighting up as they came free of the lane. Diur’s hands danced over the controls, shielding them and then bringing up the stealth capabilities. Kon was only a split second behind her, activating the long range sensors as Benny carefully piloted the ship away from the edge of the lane. 

“Shielded. Stealth active,�...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 28

Twenty-Eight 

Knight Draconis Jurgen’s face snapped into being on the small holograph emitter, floating above the table as he looked them over. The man’s strong jawline was bunched as he gritted his teeth as he looked over at Benny, but it quickly relaxed as a mask of professionalism drowned out his personal distaste. Seconds later another two faces appeared next to Jurgen’s. 

One was a young man with long blond hair that fell to his shoulders, a r...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 27

Twenty-Seven

“A battle aura already?” Benny asked with a single raised eyebrow as Diur and Kon sat in front of him. The E-Grade rift treasure sat to the side like an abandoned toy, a lumpy geode of glimmering stone, light passing through it to cast a rainbow across the table. Kon sipped on his drink as he stared at the blob of food in front of him, exhaustion dragging him down as he looked between the two of them.

“A battle aura is how one can weaponize the ...

Mage Steel bk 2 Ch. 26

Twenty-Six

Thick, sloughing pale skin rolled off the creature as it came shambling free of the cave, wobbling with every step as its skin dragged across the ground. A bulbous eye sat in the middle of its head, segmented into dozens of glistening pupils that spun around wildly. A curved beak jutted out from its head, pitted and scarred; it was nearly four feet long and only its prodigious height kept it from dragging as it shuffled toward them. 

Even as he wat...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 25

Twenty-Five

The E-Grade rift rippled in front of them as they stood shoulder to shoulder, ready to finish their time on the station. The last week had been spent with Diur in meditation in her room, using an array that Benny had stored to burn through the E-Grade cores from the slimes they’d acquired. As the trip neared its end, the old man had roused them and sent them through the two F-Grade rifts with their mission to clear them and retrieve the treasures that anch...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 24

Twenty-Four

Kon sat on the floor of his room with a pile of F-Grade cores around him, everything they’d acquired from the harvested monsters in the facility. He’d also managed to snag several of the E-Grade cores, keeping them slightly off to the side as he started to breathe as he had been taught, slipping into a meditative state. Visualizing his metaphysical body was easier and easier as his body absorbed more energy, coming to mind within moments. 

His...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 23

Twenty-Three

All three of them sat around the small table as Benny tapped a bare finger on the cover of his own notebook. His brow was crinkled even further than normal as he thought through what he wanted to say. Kon kept his tongue still, waiting for Benny to finish thinking. Diur had her own head buried in a holopad, scrolling through thick amounts of tiny script that Kon didn’t recognize. 

“As much as I hate to say it, you’re a melee fighter at hear...

Mage Steel bk 2 Ch. 22

Twenty-Two 

A/N: Space, at least in Earth's position, is roughly Negative 455 degrees Fahrenheit

The explosion ripped through the hall, pulverizing them in a concussive blast that threatened to throw them to the ground before the screaming wind slammed them back against the bulkhead. A howling gale that snatched everything out as it raced out of the shuttle as if it was searching for freedom. 

Then it was gone, nearly as fast as it had started, si...

Mage Steel bk 2 Ch. 21

Twenty-One

“I hate being right,” Kon said drily as they stared at the monsters crawling along the edge of the facility. Oozing masses of gelatinous slime, everywhere they moved they left a trail of corrosive slime behind, slowly sizzling as it ate through the metal of the facility. 

“You thought we’d be fighting oozes?” Diur asked. 

“I mean…I knew they’d be corrosive,” Kon said. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the meandering me...

Mage Steel Cheat Sheet Non-Spoiler

Since we're dipping our toes back into cultivation here is a set of terms/levels and whatnot that Kon already has been introduced too or been explained to him by someone at sometime. There are NO spoilers here, this information is in the text either directly or indirectly.

Knights

Rift Energy F-A scale. The higher the letter, the denser the energy is. 

Node: Rune Fragment that has been absorbed/realized into a Knight’s body. 

Full Rune: The Complete Idea o...

Mage Steel Bk 2 Ch. 20

Twenty

They stared down at the hole that Kon had been dragged into. The last hour had been spent harvesting the insects they had killed and retreating to the Puca to replenish their supplies. They’d spent only a few minutes replacing the small air canisters in their helmets before venturing back out into the dead station. 

Benny hadn’t contacted them yet, but neither of them worried about the old man. If there was anything strong enough to troubl...