B5 C18: Vitrified

When I awoke, sprawled out on the ground and with a raging headache, my first thought was that I must have drank too much moonshine the night before. Only slowly did the true details of the previous day come back to me, jolting me awake and checking to see if I was all right.

As best I could tell, most of the tonic’s bizarre side effects had been temporary. The spatial grid was no longer visible as I pulled myself from the ground, nor could I sense the boundary of the pocket dimension we were in. Much to my relief, I wouldn’t have to go about my days feeling like my head was about to explode.

Of course, not all of the tonic’s effects had expired. As a few notifications were keen to explain, it seemed that the brew had largely worked as expected.

You have consumed a spatial tonic!

Your soul gains a deeper resonance with the space around you, opening you up to the underpinnings of the universe.

You will experience accelerated leveling speeds for the next ten levels of Spatial Magic.

The whole “soul resonance” part felt a bit freaky, but I didn’t bother dwelling on it. Archmage Callis had once given me a very brief crash course on intent-altered mana and concepts, but as best I could tell, I didn’t need to worry about any of that for a while yet. 

And even if I did, I liked space. Despite being my newest mana type, it was my highest leveled magic already. While I didn’t fully understand what focusing on a concept entailed, having an easier time with spatial concepts probably could only be a plus.

The second effect was more so what I was after, and I was eminently relieved to see it. Only time would tell how large the boost was, but with the tonic’s Epic rarity, I was feeling optimistic.

Dunno if I’ll notice a difference, but might as well test it out. I didn’t know how long I’d been knocked out, and on the off chance it had been too long, I would need to run back. The others might be looking for me, or more likely, Verin might be getting hungry. Still, I figured I had enough time to cast a few spells.

It took me a second to find the Orb of Isolation, as I’d dropped it in the tall grass when I’d fallen. Once I found it, though, I quickly activated it, the space around me twisting and turning and shutting me off from the rest of the world. Activating Spatial Sight, I watched the grid for a while.

Surprisingly, I was confident there was some sort of change. Everything looked ever so slightly sharper, and the longer I stared, the more it felt as though I could detect patterns in the swirling, ever-shifting space. Perhaps that soul resonance had altered me more than I’d realized.

Hoping to pit myself against the orb and straighten things out, I shot off a Bend Space, nearly miscasting it out of shock as the spatial mana seemed to leap into the required form of its own volition. While I’d certainly cast the spell thousands of times by now, it had never felt quite so instinctive or smooth.

I didn’t have long to dwell on my new spatial affinity, though, as a new notification ripped me from my thoughts.

Spatial Magic has reached level 29!

I stared at the line for a while, squinting. Pushed to the next level with a single spell. Was I just super close to leveling it already? Or was my new boost just that powerful?

No real way of knowing until I hit 30, I guess. My recent level notwithstanding, it was an unsatisfying answer. With a grumble, I deactivated the orb and started back to the cabin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Standing high in the air, I slowly drifted downwards as I took in the wide expanse of sand below me. It was a shame I lacked a camera, as the view looked like the sort of thing you’d normally only see on National Geographic. 

Admittedly, aside from the massive scorpions, the wildlife was rather lacking, but the dips and grooves of the dune-laden desert made for a captivating sight. If I’d known some sort of force magic, I would have loved to rake the sands around, treating the desert as my own personal zen garden.

Sightseeing aside, I’d checked on Verin and discovered the noble to be much unchanged since last I’d seen her, still cooped up in her room. Cal was still out, too, which meant I was still on my own. While both forging and spatial magic were calling out to me, one task simply couldn’t be put off any longer.

Skittering scorpions dotted the landscape beneath me, and I picked one at random, letting myself drift down until I was in striking distance. 

From there, I summoned my bow.

A dash of mana was all it took for the weapon to light up in flames, and I quickly nocked one of the fiery quill-like arrows. 

I’d yet to figure out just how powerful my new bow was, which called for a field test. With the scorpions’ size and strong natural defenses, I figured they would make fine test subjects. And besides, it wasn’t as if Verin was hunting them right now.

The scorpion had yet to detect me, and even if it did, it was entirely lacking in any aerial abilities, letting me charge my attack with impunity. A firestorm of mana rushed into my weapon as I activated Overload Weapon, and the pull only intensified as I did my best to push my entire mana pool into my arrow.

For a while now, my maximally charged arrows had packed a powerful punch, and that was before I’d cleared the Overload Weapon trial or upgraded my bow. As such, I was prepared for the surge of heat as the arrow greedily sucked in every drop of mana I gave it, doing its best to ignite the very air around me.

At least, I’d thought I was prepared. Well before my class skill got its fill, the flames grew past anything I’d experienced. The quill, up till now a familiar red-orange, abruptly shifted its hue. Just as the boss’s own spines had done, the tip of the arrow began to glow blue-white, promising nothing but ashes and pain to whatever it hit.

Much like I had with the forge heart, I was soon forced to summon a layer of frost armor just to handle the backlash. While the sight wasn’t entirely out of place in a desert, the air visibly warped around me, my vision going blurry as I found myself in the center of a heat haze. Even the scorpion seemed to take note by now, its movements growing erratic as it dashed about, unable to understand the origin of whatever it was sensing.

Fire Mouth soon joined my host of skills as the air grew too hot to safely breathe, and for the first time in ages, I spared a glance at my rapidly depleting mana pool.

Mana: 202/625

I was about to call it quits and release the arrow before it was done charging, but right about when my mana hit the 100 mark, the flow of my mana tapered off, the skill having accepted all it could.

Which was probably for the best. The arrow in my hand vibrated and hummed with all the mana I’d stuffed into it, eager to fly forth and unleash its wrath. Having no need to hold it back any longer, I obliged.

One moment, the flaming quill was in my hand. The next, it had already burrowed through the scorpion’s carapace. Having utterly annihilated both flesh and chitin alike, the attack had only created the smallest of wounds, not at all worth all the mana I’d pumped into it.

Naturally, that would not do. 

With a roar that would shame the greatest of beasts, the projectile exploded, swallowing the surroundings sands with a writhing cloud of smoke and fire and chitin. Even as high as I was, I wasn’t able to fully avoid the blast, the force staggering me mid-air as my vision went red.

When the worst of the flames subsided and my ears stopped ringing, the sight that greeted me left me speechless. The scorpion sat at the bottom of a deep crater, the remainder of its exoskeleton warped and cracked from the force and heat alike. Despite the brevity of the blast, parts of its flesh had fully carbonized, while I spotted some that were merely flash fried, emitting a pungent scent of smoke and meat.

Drifting down to the crater to get a closer look, I winced as I spotted a twitch of movement from what I’d assumed to be a corpse. The distance and the intensity of the mana had partially fouled my aim, what should have been a kill shot instead having sunk into the scorpion’s tail. While I wasn’t too hung up on arbitrary measures of power, it slightly stung my pride as I hit the twitching arachnid with God’s Eye, confirming it wasn’t fully dead yet.

Sand-encrusted Scorpion, Level 22, 113/1600hp

Its health continued to plummet as I watched, and it was clear that the scorpion wasn’t long for this world, even if I didn’t touch it. That didn’t stop it from trying to cling onto life, flaring its mana to activate its signature ability. A small trickle of sand flowed into the air, trying and failing to repair the countless cracks in the scorpion’s carapace.

Initially, I thought the scorpion’s damage was preventing its skill from properly working, but as I touched down onto the desert sand, a crunch beneath my feet made me rethink.

Right. Heat plus sand. The entire crater had been vitrified, the sand turned into a thin layer of glass, preventing the scorpion from accessing any of it. Is that something I can do back at the cabin? If I could figure it out, maybe glassblowing would be my next hobby. I’d have to throw some sand into my storage.

After a quick arrow to put the scorpion out of its misery, I simply stood there for a time, taking in the utter devastation I’d created. More than anything else, it was a clear, visible sign of how far I’d come in the past year. What had once been a terrifying foe that I would have been hard pressed to damage with my bow had now fallen to a single arrow.

Makes sense, though. If I thought back to what had changed since I’d fought my first scorpion, the list was pretty long. I raised Overload Weapon a full two ranks. Finished its class trial. Upgraded my bow. Grabbed extra levels in Archery and Fire Magic. And that wasn’t even counting my increase in stats. I’d gone up three levels, the resulting five extra points of Intelligence greatly strengthening my magical attacks. 

The end effect was the crater before me.

Guess I can understand why the emperor created this place. It really was a godsend for leveling my skills, even if I wasn’t supposed to be its recipient.

And speaking of skill leveling, despite my own disappointment from failing to kill the scorpion in a single hit, it appeared that the system was much more impressed with my work. A moderately long list of notifications was attempting to grab my attention, and done with my reflections, I finally focused on them.

Fire Magic has reached level 23!

Archery has reached level 20!

My brows rose as I spotted the archery level. Hit the Ore Muncher with all sorts of fire arrows, doused the demonic hedgehog with a bunch of frost arrows, and it’s a simple scorpion that I finally get the level from. Not like I was complaining -- I’d take what I could get.

Congratulations! Archery has reached the Apprentice rank.

For reaching a new skill rank, you have been offered a skill augment.

Augment of Stability

Your arrows are more efficient at containing enhancements and empowerments, letting less mana leak out and create backlash effects.

A weirder augment, and not one I’d been expecting. Experimentally, I placed another quill arrow onto my bowstring and began to charge it. Even after I dumped a good hundred mana into the quill, the heat it radiated was pretty bearable, nothing like the inferno I’d had to endure previously.

Honestly didn’t realize increasing the stability was an option. Now that I could see the difference, I wondered if I could enhance the effect. Unlike spells, which I could alter at will with my Spell Alteration skill, I hadn’t really tried to mess with skill activations. Mostly, the system just handled everything for me, but did that have to be the case? 

I tried to guide the mana rushing into my arrow, surprised to find that it reacted, even if barely. I could feel both my Wisdom and my mana manipulation flaring up, helping me to subtly nudge how the preordained skill activation worked.

Wild. And hopefully something I can practice with. It was nice to know that I wouldn’t always have to fight against burning myself to death whenever I went all out with a fire attack.

One last notification awaited me, even sweeter than the others.

Class Quest Completed: Raise a weapon skill to level 20 (Repeatable).

+2 Class Points

+5000xp

I was still a long way off from hitting level 18, but the extra class points brought me up to a total of four. Perhaps I’d finally unlock a few new class trials for myself.

All in all, it was a resounding success of a field test. Once my mana recovered, I’d fire off a few more arrows just to test out the new augment, but I knew I’d be returning home fully satisfied with my new bow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few days later, a shadow fell over the cabin as a great winged form passed over our humble home, marking the return of Cal atop Tal’Ket. 

The very first thing she did was rush into the cabin and demand an update on Verin. While she was visibly relieved to hear that the noble was alive and well and in possession of all her extremities, she was much less so when I explained that Verin had effectively locked herself away. 

I could tell that Cal was considering busting down Verin’s door -- or perhaps using her Apex Shroud to check on Verin without her knowing -- but we settled on a whispered exchange instead.

“She might be training. Sounds like her, honestly. Maybe she doesn’t want to leave her room until she’s reached the next rank in Frost Magic or something like that.” Cal cast a glance towards Verin’s door, as if applying enough willpower would grant her x-ray vision.

“Maybe. That doesn’t really sound healthy, though.” Given my own history with Trauma Suppression, I wasn’t one to talk, but even so.

“Who said anything about ‘healthy’? We’ve been trapped in a dungeon for over a year now. If you haven’t noticed, all three of us have gone a little mad by now. Verin’s just better at hiding it behind her Etiquette.” Cal notably did not expound upon how she was hiding her own madness, although I suspected she’d always been a bit mad. “I’m also, like, 90% sure that her birthday must have passed in the last month or two. Probably in the spatial region. It’s been about a year since her last one, right? Bet she’s thinking that she’ll be spending her next birthday here, too, complete with another year of potential limb loss. I’d be depressed, too.”

I found myself blinking at the unexpected analysis. When had Cal become so observant? Hell, maybe she should have been the therapist. Gods knew I’d only grown worse at it since becoming a Protagonist.

Unaware of my inner monologue, Cal continued.

“She’s stubborn. I doubt we can convince her to come out if she doesn’t want to. Let’s check up on her and make sure she knows we’re here if she needs us and hope she figures her shit out soon. Otherwise, I’ll give her two weeks to rot in bed. If she hasn’t stopped being moody by then, we can yank her out of there and fix her with the power of friendship and moonshine.”

While it didn’t thrill me, it was as good a plan as any. An extra two weeks would also hopefully give me enough time to make Verin’s ring, which would hopefully cheer her up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following days were filled largely with forging, spatial magic training, and cooking meals that got placed on the floor outside Verin’s door. Rarely, I took some breaks to tend to the garden, and some initial experiments with making glass had all gone very poorly, but both of those could wait.

For once, I swore I could actually feel it as I neared the next rank of Spatial Magic. As far as I was aware, there wasn’t actually any way to know how close a skill was to leveling up. Whether it was wishful thinking or a strange side effect of the spatial tonic, I couldn’t say, but the sensation only pushed me forward all the more, chasing that final level.

It would be quite the milestone for me, too. 

After a full two years of being a Protagonist, I was so close to grabbing my first Journeyman-ranked skill that I could taste it.