CC5 ~ 38!

~ 38 ~

“Why am I not surprised?” Joe shook his head wryly when he reached the caves. A bustling market dominated the foot of a sheer cliff that rose high into the sky, with large banners announcing the ‘best in getting away’ supplies. He walked past dozens of vendors offering food pills that would allow him not to eat for three days, people selling dehydrated water, and all sorts of things that, frankly… Joe had no idea if they were real or not. Magic made fact out of a myriad of things that used to be false.

It was a massive outpost, but clearly poorly defended. Not a single defensive wall in sight, and the buildings were barely above Trash-rank, if his experience building structures was anything to go by. Joe could see why the ‘Air Spirits’ were such an issue here; there was likely very little that these people could do against them if the monsters were as powerful as they sounded. He inspected the people more closely as he went past, and revised that thought. They were all at least a little battle hardened; there was no way they could be otherwise if serving in the Legion was mandatory, as he had been led to believe.

“Don’t go up there!” a bearded Dwarf shouted in Joe’s face, causing the human to flinch back and nearly topple over. “They’re blamin’ the spirits for all the deaths, but they aren’t naturally aggressive! There’s Elves in the ground, I tell ya! Let me help you; listen to me, bro!”

A few of the vendors swiftly surrounded the exceedingly filthy Dwarf and started marching him out of the area, offering soothing words and comforting thoughts, all while the bearded Dwarf was shouting that people needed to listen to him. Joe began to feel uneasy and decided that, even though it was starting to get late in the day, he should begin his climb.

Since he already had everything that he needed to survive for a solid week or so, Joe powered right past the ‘Solitude Market’ and onto a path that wound up the cliff face. The hike lasted about an hour, though there were some Dwarves zipping past him from time to time, making it obvious that higher stats would mean a faster ascent. Every time he thought he had found a cave, it turned out to be a divot with a smooth stone wall closing it off. Joe was starting to think that the caves were actually a myth, and the open air was what the Dwarves were after.

“It would make sense,” he grumbled as he found yet another switchback. “Hammer beast? Hit it with a Hammer. Air Spirit means earth elemental; it would make a perverse sense if the ‘caves’ were an open air campground.”

Just past the switchback, a large opening in the rock face loomed ahead. He stared at the opening accusingly, wondering if this world was intentionally messing with him. Joe looked around to see if he was being watched or followed, but there was no sign of anyone. The Dwarves he had seen earlier were long gone, and the sun was starting to dip below the horizon. “Sleeping in a cave, here we go.”

He braved the opening and took a few cautious steps inside. Just past the mouth of the cave, the space opened up into a large room that had clearly been worked by someone. The walls were too smooth to be natural, and the ventilation was vastly superior to what he had been expecting. One thing especially stood out: a sign with a dial below it.

Set duration of solitude.

Joe thought it over and decided that three days should be enough. He turned the dial and instantly heard a grinding of stone. Looking back at the entrance, he found that a smooth wall was sliding to block the entrance, and his eyes shone as he realized that all the ‘not-a-caves’ that he had seen before were actually just occupied caves closer to the ground! He had simply been unlucky, in that he had been too slow to get an easy-access area. Once the door finished closing, a small slot flipped open next to the dial, with another small sign.

Core rates for formation.

Trash: 10 hour expansion.

Damaged: 50 hour expansion.

Common: 100-200 hour expansion.

While he wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, he wasn’t too worried about using up a Trash-ranked Core for testing purposes. He put a small, dull Core into the slot, and it fell down a chute. A moment later, the room started to grow. Joe watched in wonder as the cave that had been maybe four hundred square feet expanded in size until it was at least two thousand square feet of open space. “Well, I like that. I wonder what the difference is between rituals, enchantments, and formations?”

He sat down on a large pillow that he pulled from the camping supplies, and tried to decide what to do next. “I need to start raising my ritual skill levels up to a respectable level. That means I need to work on my crafting skills, which will also increase my class level. What I really need to do is find ways to work on all of them as much as I can.”

Joe examined his Ritual Orbs, and thought again about how they seemed to require every part of what he could currently do as a Ritualist: Enchanting, Forging, Alchemy, Circles, and Matrices. “I suppose I could try to work on those skills…? Maybe start guiding my orbs where I want them to be? Oh… I can… yeah. How am I supposed to do any of this, though? I don’t have any specialized tools.”

He was stumped. While he did have aspects, he had no way of making anything other than ritual circles with the gear that he had with him. “At the most basic level, I need fire and an anvil. That would let me control the cauldron, as well as use an aspect hammer to forge tools. Ugh. I need to make tools, so I can make the tools that I have to use to craft the tools I actually need. I have some kind of an affinity to fire thanks to Hansel, but… no fire spells.”

“Okay, I think I was woefully unprepared for this trip.” Joe stood and walked over to the dial, trying to figure out how to get the door open. However, nothing he did could make the time go down, and he accidentally twisted it and moved the dial to four days! “That… wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

Sitting back down, he started going over his spells and skills, hoping for an epiphany. On that note, he also remembered to use Knowledge, which brought Alchemical Lore to Beginner six, and the Knowledge skill itself up to Beginner four. “It’s funny, I have so much theoretical knowledge right now, but no way to implement it.”

“Maybe I could summon something that has a fiery body, and use it as the basis for a small forge?” Joe wondered aloud as he considered the Planar Shift spell that he had yet to try out. “It’s doubtful that I could get it right on the first try, but I have this book… is it worth a try? Who am I kidding? Of course it is! Worst that happens is I blow myself up, but at least that would get me out of the cave.”

“To do this normally, I need all of these?” Joe ran a finger down all the various components on the book, and shuddered at the thought of having to figure out how to acquire them while trapped in a cave. “Tatum… this is a divine skill, right? Is there any way you could… update this so I can actually use it?”

There was no reply, but Joe felt the book shift under his hands. When he looked again, the recipes had been translated into ‘Aspect Requirements’. “Yes! You rock, Tatum. Hope you get free soon, deity bro… I can’t believe those words just left my mouth.”

He completely forgot to look at the quest to see how it was progressing, so excited was Joe to try out a Planar Shift. “This looks like what I need… Extraplanar Forge Entities. Looks like the basic Novice version is a Coal Demon… not a huge fan of summoning evil things. Let’s see… Beginner is a Flame Imp, still evil. Apprentice is a Slag Elemental? Seems like a neutral creature at least. Let’s go with that.”

The preparations seemed slightly odd, as he didn’t need to lay anything out. The Reductionist just needed to form an Inscription tool out of Uncommon Aspects and start drawing out the modified ritual diagram that worked as the summoning target. Before he began, he looked over his aspects to make sure he would have everything he needed.

Aspects gathered

Trash: 11,314

Damaged: 10,431

Common: 8,850

Uncommon: 6,789

Rare: 1,909

Special: 100 (Zombified). 100 (Anima).

Unique: 570

Artifact: 112

Legendary: 0

Mythical: 0

He bound a Common Core to the beautiful silver quill that formed, and started drawing. An hour passed, and Joe felt pleased with the brilliant silver circle that formed the largest outer ring. He checked his aspects again, and his smile faltered as he realized that he had used nearly twenty percent more Uncommon aspects than he should have. There was nothing he could do about it, so he simply started working on the inner diagrams. They were easier to create, both the innermost dark-and-light gray and second bright white ring taking a combined total of thirty-eight minutes to finish.

Aspects gathered

Trash: 10,879

Damaged: 10,383

Common: 8,760

Uncommon: 6,789

Rare: 1,909

Special: 100 (Zombified). 100 (Anima).

Unique: 570

Artifact: 112

Legendary: 0

Mythical: 0

Core energy: 1,755.5/1,958 (Common)

Once more, he read through the aspects. This time, there was a wastage ranging from fifteen to thirty percent. “Enough of that, what in the abyss is going on here? I know I didn’t make that many mistakes. Even the Core lost thirty percent more than the recipe says it should!”

A new tutorial has become available: Proper Aspect Storage Containment Creation! Would you like to experience this tutorial? Cost: 3,000 reputation with a deity of your choice!

“Sorry, Tatum. Hope this doesn’t hurt our relationship in the long term.” Joe slapped ‘yes’, and was instantly submerged in a world of fog.

Reputation with Occultatum: -3,000. Current reputation: 2,042. Current Reputation Rank: Friendly.

Joe chuckled nervously when nothing appeared right away. “I really hope this was worth it.”