Anything ~ 9!

“So what you’re telling me is that I don’t need anywhere near the amount of Potentia that I thought I needed, that when I do upgrade my abilities I lose access to them for a certain amount of time… and you deactivated two really important Abilities.” Andre added on the last part when he saw Luke stumble and barely catch himself in the edge of the bookcase he was moving along. “Seriously, Luke, what’s happening?”

Zed’s head bounced off the wooden section of wall, and he grunted at yet another blow. Luke growled and stomped along, finally turning to the Druid to speak and bonking Zed’s forehead once more. “I have Skills, not ‘Abilities’. One of those skills gives me perfect balance all the time. In any situation. Without ever needing to think about it, my body is perfectly balanced. I’ve gotten used to that, and right now it feels like I’m walking with three horses tied to my feet that all want to go different directions.”

Finishing his explanation, Luke calmly turned and began following Taylor once more. Zed pulled himself close to Luke and narrowly avoided yet another injury, then began excitedly chattering. “See that, Andre? It’s working! We’re getting through to him! The stories were right, the power of friendship wins out no matter the situation!”

Andre poked him with his Livingwood Staff, the symbol of his connection to plants being used as a mere walking stick in this land that lacked all greenery. “You should focus on moving the mana through you so that you don’t burn out before we get you in a safer environment.”

“It’s not that I don’t like you.” Luke offered unprompted, and the others stiffened as if a butterfly had just landed on their nose and they were afraid to scare it away. “You’re just… insubstantial. I’m still waiting for you to fade away like a dream.”

When no more words were forthcoming, Taylor slowly turned around with understanding shining in her eyes. “Luke… who seems the most real among us?”

“Andre. Then you. Zed might as well be a soap bubble waiting to pop.” Luke lifted Zed above his head a few times to showcase the exact same effort a leaf would take to lift, getting whining curses in return for his effort.

“Did anything change after he leveled up?” Taylor’s line of questioning had Zed and Andre confused, but they could feel that she was building up to something big.

Luke shook his head firmly. “Nothing.”

“It’s mana density.” A smile spread across the potent Mage’s face. “His world is so utterly mana dense that things are actually more real, filled with the energy that suffuses higher planes. It’s not that he doesn’t want to care about what happens here… in his mind it just literally doesn’t matter. We’re the sketches of images that have yet to be filled in with color.”

“Speaking of sketchy,” Zed started frantically thrashing around in an attempt to escape Luke’s grip, “random people running at us. They’re casting spells at us! Guys! Fireballs!”

“Shatter Shot!” Taylor barked her spell, instantly sending out shards of force and ice that impacted the fireballs and prematurely detonated them. Seeing the weaker version of her own spell caused a hint of contempt to appear in her eyes, and she retaliated in kind. “Flame Lance!”

The hyper-condensed bolt of explosive energy appeared in front of her for a bare instant before tearing through the air and arriving in the midst of the charging group and detonating. A series of screaming and wailing came from the ambushers, and Luke dropped Zed and started running.

“Bum Rush!” He kept running as hard as he could, only realizing after a short moment that nothing had changed in terms of his speed. He uttered a unique curse as he closed in. “Goat eyes.”

An arrow whizzed past him, taking one of the masked attackers in the throat just as he began a chant. His abnormal Ascender physiology allowed him to pull out the arrow, toss it to the side, and continue fighting. Zed’s voice floated to Luke’s ear as if the Bard was standing next to him, “That guy is a Battle Chanter, that arrow was really effective at keeping him out of the majority of the fight. Nice shot, he’s down thirty health and is bleeding heavily.”

Luke’s attention shifted when he heard that the battle capabilities of his original target had been cut down. He charged at a robed attacker, hearing the others begin to panic as he did so.

“Protect the Mage, he goes down and we’re all trapped here!” A Knight in lightly rusted steel plate armor bellowed at his compatriots. The Battle Chanter and Knight moved to intercept the Murderhobo, while the others circled around the heavily charred Mage. “Essence of Iron!”

A metal plate appeared between Luke and the remainder of the group, reminding him of his most recent escapades in Murder World. He refused to admit that learning to use a ranged weapon to fight like Andre was a good idea, but he could definitely come around to the idea of being able to kill as he closed in on a group. Luke needed to know that his enemies were dead for sure, and he could only guarantee that by using his fists to triple check.

Using his left hand, Luke punched into that magical metal plate. The mana-image of the Simple Metal Sword directly penetrated, causing those defended to gasp, but the remainder of the plate remained. Luke comically bounced off the wall, having expected it to shatter like the barriers of the witches in Murder World. By the time he got to his feet, a crescent of condensed air was flying at him, aimed to take off his head. He lifted his arms and took the blow on his mana-made gauntlets, the force of the cutting gale sending him bouncing backward and toward his team.

“Fissure!” Taylor finished incanting her spell and released it in the same instant, the fifth-tier spell causing the ground around the attackers to shatter into hundreds of stone spikes that flew at the group from all directions. Each spike that entered its target dealt ninety damage: only the Knight with his powerful defense remained, and even he was breathing raggedly.

A weak hand reached up and pulled the helmet off the Knight’s head. His words were barely audible, but a hint of arrogance still somehow managed to suffuse his voice, “I am Vanguard Kestral, by the authority of Captain Edmond of the Third Royal Knights, I order you to heal me and see me safely to an outpost.”

Luke had started to walk over to the man as soon as he was able to get on his feet, and arrived next to him just as Kestral finished his statement. The Murderhobo’s Sigil flared with a bright light, and a smile appeared on the Knight’s face just as his head was gripped and his neck was snapped.

“I don’t let people talk to me like that.” Pulling on the man, Luke rapidly stripped away his armor and weapons. Then he went through the remaining carcasses and pulled out anything that could be used by his Walking Arsenal Skill. “Someone else carry Zed while I work on this stuff.”

The abrupt shift from conversation to battle and back was something that most of them were used to dealing with. Yet for Zed, the shock was still enough for him to lose his proper focus, and he suddenly began choking in the dense air once more. Taylor calculated the chances of his survival over the next few days and shook her head sorrowfully, leaving Andre to pick the Bard up. “Don’t you worry, little buddy! I’ll figure something out, you just go ahead and take big, slow breaths!”

Andre watched as Zed’s eyes closed and the Bard drifted into a meditative state. Then the Druid used his exceptionally long legs to easily catch up to the others. “I have something I want to discuss with you both. I have my new Potentia, and… well, this is hard to describe. I really trust the both of you and hope this knowledge will never be shared to hurt me. Even though I reached the Third Circle… I actually only have two Abilities. Everything else I’m doing is Circle magic, and isn’t something inherent to me.”

“Is there a reason you’re saying this out loud when someone might be listening from a distance?” Taylor sharply reprimanded him. “How are you so powerful if you only have two things that are actually attributed to you?”

“Right, that’s Circle magic, like I was saying.” Andre griped at her. “It allows me to essentially use brute force and lots of mana to control nature in various ways. There aren’t really levels associated with Circle magic, just control, mana, and willpower. If you remember, I managed to reach the Third Circle thanks to Luke, and transfer that mana into saving us and such, but my Ability to do more than that hasn’t yet manifested. It only will when I manage to do a service for nature that allows me to bond at a more fundamental level. That’s why most Druids manage to get an Ability before reaching the next Druidic Circle. I’m… well, I don’t even have an Ability from the Second Circle. Never did anything grand that allowed me to commune with fauna.”

“The point.” Luke didn’t bother to get too invested in the long-winded back and forth between the two intellectuals.

“Yes!” Andre took a deep breath to calm his nerves. “The point is, I have enough Potentia to take the two Abilities I have to the next tier, or even higher. Should I do that? I’ll be essentially useless, unable even to grow arrows for my bow or connect to anything.”

“You’re practically already useless here.” Luke told him bluntly as he tramped along, mana particles slowly moving between himself and the gear he was carrying. “Only plants you got are the ones you’re growing. Just make sure there’s nothing growing in you that you’ll lose control of, grow a crapload of arrows that you’ll carry, and make sure your bow isn’t going to need your magic to use it.”

The logical, if rankling, statement got a slow nod from Andre. “You have a point, and I like it a lot. I’m doing it. Devote Potentia to Bind by Blood to break the Tier limit. Then Bloodthistle.”

A shockwave emanated from his body, followed by a steady throbbing that battered the minds of his companions. When they looked at Andre, the triumph they had been expecting to see failed to appear. The shamefaced Druid looked at Taylor with watery eyes, “Did… did you drink all your vials? I’m four thousand and seventy short.”

Taylor’s left eye twitched, and she reached into a hidden pocket of her pack. She grit her teeth into a smile and handed over her last five vials, a total of five thousand Potentia. “I didn’t want to Tier up right now anyway. Someone should keep all their firepower as we’re running for our lives.”

“Perfect! Thanks!” Andre tossed back the liquid, grew a huge quiver of arrows, and prepared himself. “Now break that limit!”

An out of sync energy reverberated from his body, and the Druid gave the others an excited thumbs-up as he temporarily became practically powerless.