Raze ~ 22!

~ Twenty-two ~

Joe stumbled out of the basement of the Grand Ritual Hall the next day, a taglock vanishing into his codpiece just as he opened a door to the town. He felt the need for coffee, but his sleep-deprivation had paid off. He had managed to create a clean spellform for the root reducing spell, and after putting it on a scroll he had learned the spell. That wasn't even the best part: after creating another scroll, he had successfully integrated it into a ritual. That ritual had been activated and assigned to the taglock he just put away. If they found an Ent or something similar that a channeled spell wasn't enough for, hopefully the ritual would be able to handle it. He had even gained a point in Ritual Magic after making it.

You have learned a spell: Wither Plant (Beginner V). Casting this spell on a plant will cause its roots to shrivel. By channeling the spell for at least ten seconds, mana from the plant will begin to flow back into the caster. Can only be cast on plants or plant-based lifeforms that have roots. Cost: 5n mana where n = skill level. Effect: Reduce the length of a plant’s roots by .1n inches. Mana returned by channeling: .5T where T = mana cost per second.

Right now, a single cast would allow Joe to cut back roots by an inch and a half, but by channeling he could quickly destroy a root system. Not to mention, after ten seconds the mana cost would be effectively halved. He was excited to try it out! He started walking around the area, and it didn't take him too long to find some bristly weeds. The kind that look like dandelion leaves, but instead of little yellow flowers, they had spikes. Joe knew from his experience getting these out of his lawn that they had deep roots, so they would make for a perfect test.

“Wither Plant!” Joe demanded, channeling his mana through his staff. A corkscrew of black water fountained from his staff, sinking into the plant and vanishing. If he didn't see the mana flowing through the air and his reserves dipping, he would think that there was no effect. About ten seconds later, the plant was showing no signs of motion or faltering and Joe was getting suspicious. There was no mana coming back into him. That either meant that he was casting the spell wrong, or the plant had no roots any longer. 

He poked the plant with his staff, and the entire thing moved. “Oh, well, there we go. No roots. Strange that there wasn't any notice… but I suppose I can always just keep an eye on the mana return.”

Joe walked around and removed four more of the small plants, only stopping when he got a notification. 

Wither Plant (Beginner VI). Woo, are you usually this fast or are just extra excited about this spell?

“That was fast.” Joe looked at his hands, then around, trying to come up with an explanation for the rapid advancement. His eyes landed on the Pathfinders Hall not far from him, and his eyes lit up. “Right! I gain skills at four times the regular speed, and the building boosts that even further! Is our guild going to get overpowered?”

Enticing visions of his guild becoming a major superpower filled his thoughts, and he had to shake them off. He kept working at his skill, but over the next few hours was only able to get it up to beginner eight. He shook his head at the thought, ‘only’ got to that after learning the spell this morning. He decided to change up his routine, and went over to where the guild had set up a small training area. “Excuse me, I’m looking for strength and endurance characteristic training. You guys have anything for that?”

The guard looked familiar to Joe, but he couldn't place the face to a name. He had very good posture though, almost as though he saw a chiropractor… regularly… “You! Are you on Jaxon’s team?”

“No idea what you mean!” Joe stammered nervously, backing away. “I’ll come back!”

“Hey! Not so fast!” The guard let a half-smile show on his face. “I’m the only person running those courses right now, so if you want em here, you gotta come to me either way!”

Joe plastered a fake smile on his face, “Great, great! Can I get your name?”

“Jay. Come with me.” Jay walked closer to a box, pointing at it with a wide grin. “Hop on in. Doing both at the same time requires two hours of effort at the first threshold. That where you are?”

“Yes, but only have me going for thirty minutes, please.” Joe was going to continue, planning to explain why he wanted that, but Jay shook his head with a snort.

“You’ll get nothing out of it.” He warned, though there was a glint in his eyes. “It is painful, and you gotta keep at it.”

“Thirty minutes.” Joe resolutely reaffirmed.

“Fine by me. Strip to your skivvies.” Jay pointed at the box. “You stand there holding this square shield up. I pour hot coals on top, and we keep slowly adding weight the entire time. What’s your strength at?”

“Twenty-three. Constitution is at twenty-eight.” Joe nervously got into the man-height box wearing only his game-equipped loincloth. One side of the box was empty, he assumed so that people could dash out if the training was too much for them.

Jay nodded, “All good. That means we use hotter coals, but less of them.”

Joe picked up a scorched metal shield and got in position. Jay had grabbed a shovel, and dumped the first load on Joe. “Time starts now!”

The handles were already hot. Not enough to burn him, but they were getting close. Hot ash drifted down with each shovelful that was added, as well as each time the wind blew even a little. In just a few minutes, he had painful welts popping up on his skin. If he couldn't heal himself at the end of this, he could tell that he would have already jumped out and away. Joe’s perception was fifty-three, which was almost double the raw score of constitution as well as being an entire threshold higher. He. felt. Everything. 

“Keep going!” Jay called down, helping Joe. He hadn’t been expecting that. “It’s only a little pain, and you look like someone who is getting unbalanced as a character! Only way to numb that pain again is to get expensive, otherwise impractical items… or boost your constitution! You keep running at perception, you won't be able to handle walking through grass too quickly!”

That took Joe right out of what he was doing and made him think about the repercussions for becoming too unbalanced. Where else was this going to play out? He knew that a higher constitution made people denser and heavier; would they get to a point that they couldn’t lift themselves if they didn't also work on their strength? If people worked on strength and constitution, but not dexterity, would they become like bodybuilders that had so much mass that they couldn't move properly? Joe shuddered as he thought about them hiring someone to wipe their butt for them because their arms couldn't bend that far. 

“That’s time! Move away!” Jay called to him, pulling Joe out of the spiral that his mind had gone down. Joe stepped out and angled the shield to let the coals fall into the box. Then he healed and Cleansed himself, reading the notification that had popped up.

Characteristic point training completed! +1 to Strength and Constitution! These stats cannot be increased further by any means other than system rewards for twenty-four hours game time.

“Now you see why I recommend staying.” Jay shook his head at Joe. “That was a waste for you. You only had to keep at it for another hour and a half, and you would have gotten two points.”

“Thanks, Jay. I appreciate you looking out for me.” Joe grinned and started putting his clothes back on. “I’ll keep at it!”

“Do that!” Jay called back as Joe waved over his shoulder. “Joe, I meant now!

“See you tomorrow!” Joe ignored the follow-up grumbles, choosing instead to focus on his current skill. Thanks to his spell efficiency, he could cast the spell for a total of eighteen seconds if he got no mana returned, or twenty-six seconds at maximum mana return. That meant he could only cause a tree to lose about forty-six inches - or just under four feet - of roots. A quick search of the internet at the coffee shop - one of the only places to get internet without respawning - told him that roots can get twenty feet deep and thirty-five across. That was for standard, non-magical trees. He had a feeling that he would need to get this skill a lot higher.

“Then again, all I really need to do is reduce them far enough that the tree can't support itself.” Joe mused as he cast his spell at a patch of brambles while sipping his coffee. “If the tree is attacking, swinging back and forth… hmm. Maybe I don't need to reduce the root to zero to win.”

He kept at it, sipping his coffee and using his spell, until he ran out of coffee. Then he just cast the spell until it started getting too dark to clearly see what he was aiming at. He went over to have dinner, then found a bed and crashed. When he got up, he looked at his skill gain with a cheerful expression.

Wither Plant (Apprentice V). Just how much do you hate plants to have gained nearly ten levels in this skill overnight?

“That’s… thirteen seconds of casting, well, sixteen. And that makes… forty inches. Wait. Did the spell get weaker?” Joe looked at his mental math, and it had indeed gotten weaker. “What in the…? Did I make the spell wrong?”

Joe looked over the spell, but it was correctly made, he knew it was. “Huh. I guess… I need to get it to the student ranks to see what happens? At that point, if there is no change… I’ll stop using the spell?”

Discouraged, he got up and took a few hours to tackle all of his characteristic training, starting with strength and constitution and moving on to his standard four-aspect training. Gaining a point in six characteristics was a heady feeling, and he decided he liked it.

“Oh nice, intelligence got to seventy-five!” Joe hopped up and went to find his team. They had anticipated him… no. Jess. He looked to the side, and there she was. She glanced away when their eyes met, but he could see the smirk on her face. “Ah… you guys?”

“Yup, ready to go.” Alexis seemed to realize that he was caught off-guard, and couldn't hide a smile either. “Jess told us that you were about done with your training for the day, and that you were gonna want to go out again really soon.”

“So, we got ready!” Jaxon chimed in.

Joe blew air out of his nose, a disgruntled chuckle. “Let’s go kill some tree people. Jess! Give yourself a small raise, and if you say ‘done’, we are going to go have a talk!”

Jess’s mouth closed with an audible *click*. Joe glared at her suspiciously until he was through the door to the Pathfinders Hall.