CC5 ~ 34!

~ 34 ~

Joe left the forge while studiously ignoring the too-wide smiles on the faces of all the other apprentices that were trying to draw the Grandmaster’s attention. He hurried back to Havoc, straining under the weight of the six silver orbs. He cheerfully grumbled, “These things are like… fifty pounds each. Do they do a point of blunt damage per pound or something?”

Had it not been for his newly enhanced strength, Joe would have been stumbling along at best, or needing a cart at worst. He felt like the protagonist of an infomercial as he said, “There must be a better way!”

All at once, he realized that his excitement had completely gotten the better of him. Joe stored the orbs in his Codpiece of Holding, then put his hands on his lower back and forced himself into a better standing position. His spine crackled like a glow-stick being activated, and for a long moment, he missed Jaxon. He continued walking… then paused once more and put on the Control Cuff. One orb came out, and Joe stared at it even as his pace slowed considerably.

“Float.” Joe ordered the orb. It didn’t move. How dare. “Spin. Something. Do something.”

He continued on like that for a few minutes, yet nothing worked. It took a force of will for him to not chuck the orb at the ground, but he was almost to the point that he wanted to-

*Wham*. The orb launched from his hands and left a divot in the ground. Joe stared at the dent for a long moment. “I can’t tell if it was listening to me, or if I slipped and dropped the stupid thing.”

“Orb… float?” He tried to pick it up, but it was wedged in the earth pretty good. No good. He tried to think through what had changed, but the obvious difference was that he had wanted the orb to slam itself on the ground. “This is another thing that goes by mental visualization, isn’t it? Okay, then… let’s go full mystic on this thing.”

Joe pictured the orb floating up and hovering at eye level, and really wanted it to happen. He strained, pushed, and pulled, but the orb didn’t move. Calming himself, he took a deep breath, letting go of his grumpiness. He focused on the space right behind his nose and left the subconscious part of his mind—what he called the ‘monkey brain’, since it was always chattering. Joe focused on breathing while he allowed his higher-order reasoning try to comprehend why this wasn’t working. Did these orbs run on emotion? That would be a bad match-up for him, and he knew it. Joe wasn’t overrun by his emotions; he tried to be calm and logical whenever he could. Breathe in, breathe out. Good monkey brain. “Orb, move to eye level and remain there.”

Skill gained: Battle Meditation (Passive breathing pattern) (Novice V). Battle Meditation is practically a requirement for combatants that use exotic weapons. This skill allows for rapid understanding of exotic weapons, increasing skill growth by 2n%; where n = skill level!

Joe read over the skill he had just gained with a massive grin on his face. He really needed to try out more of his real-world coping mechanisms. This exercise had already increased his skill gain for exotic weapons by ten percent. That was a massive increase for just starting out. He refocused his eyes, but didn’t see the orb. He looked down with a frown, noting that it hadn’t moved from it’s divot. “I’m starting to have serious concerns over the usability of this weapon. Wait… wait.”

Looking at the cuff on his wrist, Joe focused his will and sent a trickle of mana to the cuff. Then he visualized the orb lifting of the ground and hovering in front of him. Nothing. “Drat! I thought that might do it-”

Just before he released the cuff, the orb *cracked* and lifted off the ground, hovering in front of him. Joe stared at the weapon suspiciously. “Were you… stuck? If that was the reason you weren’t…”

He let go of the mana but continued to picture the orb staying where it was. It remained in place. Joe saw it at knee-height, swirling around him, and then balancing on the tip of his finger. It smoothly followed his mental images, and Joe groaned half in exasperation and half in delight over the ease of use. “The cuff lets me control it pretty easily, but I can also supply mana to move it harder or faster? For instance, if it gets stuck?”

Skill gained: Assisted Ritual Orb Usage (Exotic) (Upgradeable) (Novice VII). This skill dictates the ease of use for the weapon ‘Ritual Orbs’, as it is assisted by the armor ‘Control Cuff’. This is determined to be an exotic weapon. This skill is upgradeable. When you no longer require the Control Cuff to manage the orbs, a portion of this skill’s levels will be allocated to the newly upgraded skill. Each rank allows for skillful control of a single orb, with each additional orb making the orbs 50% more difficult to skillfully control.

“That’s a lot of modifiers…” Joe looked more closely at the skill, and more information appeared as he stared at the only thing he didn’t understand, the ‘exotic’ tag.

Exotic Weapons are powerful pieces of equipment that feature unique abilities. Please note that due to their singular benefits, only one Exotic Weapon may be equipped at any given time.

“Oh. Well, that’s pretty straightforward. Let’s try this out.” Joe pulled out a second orb, tossing it into the air next to the first. “That’s not harder to control? What was this skill going on about?”

“Boom. I got this in the bag.” He made the orbs dance around each other, spin, tap lightly. Joe repeated the commands he had done the first time, knee-height, swirling around him-

*Wump*.

Joe’s Exquisite Shell shimmered violently, and he was shoved a foot to the right as one orb hit his knee and the other thudded into the wall of a building. He grimaced at them in confusion as both spheres dropped to the ground and stayed there. “What happened? Did I poorly visualize what I needed to do there? No… they become erratic after leaving line of sight?”

“Hey!” Joe’s head whipped to the side as a furious Dwarf appeared, her mustache quivering. “Who’s slammin’ things into my wall? Thank you for this opportunity to teach you the rules of hospitality and personal conduct, Bro!”

The Dwarf scowled at the divot and stated a number. A single point of Reputation with the Dwarven Council vanished from Joe’s status sheet. The mustachioed Dwarf nodded at Joe and put a hand on his elbow. “Thank you for being so kind and understanding, as well as avoiding a larger fine by paying up right away, Bro. With this kind of reputation as payment? Feel free to play with your balls here anytime you like.”

Joe sighed as the Dwarf went back inside, then moved to a small window where she peeked out at him hopefully. He had no intention of damaging her walls again, much to her dismay. He pulled out his orbs, one by one, until all six were in front of him. When he could see them up close, all six were fairly easy to control and use. However, as soon as he needed them to take individual action or move out of his visual range, they would scatter and practically try to cause property damage. He ordered them to stay right next to his body, then swirled them around and stopped them as hard as he could. Joe stepped away, and studied their positions.

One was right by the window, almost touching it. The Dwarf was gaping at it in shock, but luckily Joe had stopped all of them in time. The others? All over the place. One had even gone straight up. Only one of the orbs remained where he had thought it should be, and even that… he couldn’t remember if this was the one that should be there.

“Whoo, boy. This is gonna take some doing.” Joe called all the orbs to him and stored them in his codpiece for easy access. “I’d ask Havoc for some help training this skill, but I want to learn, not get tortured into figuring it out.”

He started back toward Havoc’s estate in order to get back to work, but as if thinking about Havoc had triggered something, the training golem stretched out over his limbs between steps and wrestled him to the ground. It took almost five minutes just to get back on his feet, and Joe resigned himself to a slow, painful journey back.

Even so, he was grinning like a maniac. He had a weapon that would grow with him for the rest of his life. It was difficult to use right now, but Joe had all the time in the world to train his skill. He couldn’t wait to get started. To that end, even as he fought his limbs for movement, Joe pulled out two orbs and set them to spinning just at the edge of his vision.

“I’m gonna grind the abyss out of this skill.”