CC5 ~ 51!

~ 51 ~

Joe walked over to a stalagmite and extended his Field Array around the metal spire. He touched the metal and let his mana inform him of the requirements.

Item: Slag Pile.

Reduction value: 739 Rare aspects, 2,149 Uncommon aspects, 3,819 Common aspects, 7,381 Damaged aspects, 10,843 Trash aspects.

Reduction cost: 125 mana per second. Estimated reduction time required: 40 seconds.

“Oh? It gave me an approximate reduction time?” Joe was extra pleased about this small change. “That means there is an estimated cost of… five thousand mana. I can foot that bill. Let’s see; just shy of eighteen hundred mana reserved by my buffs. Let’s drop the shield… okay, that gives me enough to spare. Do I just… will it? Or push on the mana?”

He tried to push the mana, but it was even easier than that; a notification appeared as he attempted to reduce the slag.

Activate area of effect? Instant cost: 5,000* mana. Estimated reduction time required: 1.5 seconds. More or less mana may be required after initial investment. Yes / No.

The asterisk opened a sliding scale on the mana which allowed him to play with the mana investment. When he added more, the reduction time increased. When he made a lower initial investment, the estimated time went higher. “I see. Pretty user friendly.”

He put in the entire amount and started reducing. As soon as it started, he dropped to the ground and his eyes rolled up into the back of his head. It felt like his spine had been pulled out through his chest, but it only lasted for just over a second.

You are unconscious! Time remaining: 5… 4…

Waking with a gasp, Joe shot to his feet and looked around, making sure that he wasn’t being attacked. Then the migraine hit. He groaned and sank back down to his knees, his normally mana-suffused body unable to bear the sudden and instant loss of his entire mana pool. Luckily, his mana was coming back steadily, and each second brought relief to his body, as if he had been starved and dehydrated, but now had a direct IV drip pouring saline into his system.

Luck +2!

When he was once more able to see through his bleary eyes, Joe inspected the remnants of the slag spike. The vast majority of it had disappeared, leaving behind a perfect slice at the base that appeared as polished as glass. He  touched it, just to see how clean the reduction had been, and smiled when he felt almost no friction at all. “This could have interesting applications… no more dropping my mana pool like that, though.”

He had expected that his mana channels—which had been widened—and the fact that his mana pool had been dispersed through his body, would help him deal with the rapid drain. Perhaps it had, actually. He hadn’t lost any health, but if he’d had an enemy near him, the test would have ended in disaster. “Let’s try over there next. This was a good source of material, but I need common stuff too, right?”

Joe walked to the edge of his active ritual, and started extending the Field Array. This time, he didn’t have a set goal in mind; the Reductionist just wanted a huge area. His mana raced out of him, worming through the garbage and extending further than he had ever managed before. Just as the first mana tendril reached past the ten meter mark, the entire thing collapsed. “That’s the limit, huh? At least for what I can’t see clearly, and only for now.”

Starting again, he made sure to guide the mana more carefully, and kept it tied to himself whenever it started to waver. Just as he approached the previous boundary, he stopped and set the mana in place. “Now, that’s good, but how do I…?”

Uncertain how he would be able to reduce what was in the area, Joe paused and tried to think logically. “This… clearly this is all disparate garbage. A touch of mana isn’t going to let me identify it. To reduce things in an area, I need to use the Field Array, so that has to tie into this process.”

Joe placed his fingers on one of the mana strands and attempted to send a mana ‘pulse’ through it. The first did nothing, so he sent a second, this time trying to tie his mana into the array.

Item: Approximately 10 cubic meters of Common and below material.

Reduction value: unknown. Total mass: 5,740 pounds of material.

Reduction cost: 5 mana per second. Estimated reduction time required: 600 seconds.

“That’s ten minutes of reducing.” Joe tapped his fingers together as he thought. “Or~r~r a total mana cost of three thousand if I do it all at once? I can handle that. My mana regen won’t even notice it. Okay… area of effect, and…!”

The pile of rubbish vanished, only a few small chunks hovering in the open air before falling to the ground. Joe bent over, clutching his chest as his body once again lost a huge pool of mana. “That’s… so unpleasant! I need to figure out—oh! I can hook mana batteries to my Field Array! I don’t need to do this directly; I can practically automate it!”

That led Joe down a rabbit hole, his excitement rooting him in one spot for almost ten minutes as he plotted out what would be needed to make an aspect generator function the way he wanted it to. “I’d need a large structure with a permanently-built Aspect Array, and it would need to be strong enough to function for a long period of time. I’d need huge jars that could store all the aspects being generated, Mana Batteries powerful enough to keep it running, and either a system or workforce that could keep them charged.”

While his mind was running through various daydreams to determine what the building should be shaped like, a zombie wandered into the area in front of him, falling into the pit that had been dug out by the reduction.

Living creature detected in Field Array! This is not allowed! The reduction of living creatures is impossible. Calculating culpability… unintentional. Administering punishment.

Joe's array shattered like spun glass, and a backlash of mana drove into his heart.

Damage taken: 115!

Even though the damage taken wasn’t all that extreme, the fact that it had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly—also bypassing his Exquisite Shell—almost caused Joe to stumble right into the pit with the zombie Dwarf. “That’s… ow… another thing I’ll need. A sorter or filter. I think I got it. A decagon, a ten-sided building with ten storage areas. A hole in the middle to drop living things out of it. A supercharged Ritual of Little Sisters Cleaning Service to sort by rarity, a ton of batteries to power everything, all of it laced with a permanent Aspect Array. Sounds good? Great, break! Go team!”

He didn’t want to waste the free experience the monster offered, so he pulled out three Ritual Orbs and set them to slamming into the trapped undead. That was slow going, so all six eventually came out, and Joe used them like a giant hammer, all moving together to hit at roughly the same time. That caused three hundred points of damage per strike, also known as too slow! On the next descent, Joe activated Cone of Cold as well, dealing a total of over five hundred on hit damage.

The creature tried to escape the pit, but every lunge upward only made the walls of garbage sink down, sending it tumbling away from Joe. This reaffirmed the human’s decision that he really liked having the high ground, and he resolved to keep it as much as possible in the future.

As the orbs started striking out of sync in their one-sided assault, Joe adjusted them slightly. The attack was as fun to watch as it was to carry out, so Joe didn’t worry too much about how long it was taking. He tossed in a Dark Lightning Strike to hurry things along whenever possible. Over the next thirty seconds, the monster’s health dropped rapidly. Joe had Corify activate on what he hoped was the last hit. It wasn’t, but he managed to deal another eight hundred damage over the next five seconds—another Cone of Cold activated—and the Zombie went from undead to dead-dead.

You have defeated a monster that was over ten levels higher than you! Bonus experience has been granted! Experience gained: 777!

Joe stared at the notification, then the defeated creature, then the notification again. “I didn’t even think about that until right now, but the only reason it would have been here is because the ritual drew it in due to the level difference between us. I… do I need to leave?”

He rushed to summit a tall slag pile and scanned around. As far as he could tell, no other monsters were currently approaching him. “Okay… that was a fluke. Everything is fine for now, but I need to remember that I’m here for a reason. Everything else can wait until I’m in a safe location. I need to bring power to the upcoming fight.”

“I can start here.” Joe looked down at the pile of slag he was standing on, and his mana pool that had refilled over the last few seconds. “But first… gotta check to see if that Zombie dropped a Core.”