Chapter 165 – Talkative Allies

Tom looked across at his assigned training partner for the evening. It was his first time with her and it had been over a minute and she was still introducing herself. Wordlessly, just to see if it would cause her to break her monologue he paid her the coin that the session cost. It didn’t even slow down her rapid fire barrage of audible dribble.

“I hate that I have to charge you for this. It’s a quaint silly system that we’re working under. It’s better in my people’s stone field. You know there I’d be happy to do this for free. Yes, I would. Someone of your age training a defensive skill is just so precious. It should be encouraged not stopped.”

“Rules.” He tried to say.

“Are the result of a continual futile attempt to balance everything. People are different and we’d be better off without restrictions like these. Forcing these ridiculous financial transactions is a stupid concept. Once you get to my age, you realise that honour and friendship is more important than material possessions”

The alien’s appearance didn’t match her high pitched squeaky voice in the slightest. Instead, she looked like a cross between a hell hound and a rock elemental and loosely speaking was around the size of a hippo, so relatively speaking small.   

“And you being able to fight up ranks what an incredibly precious ability. I just want to experience that. To think the damage I could have done if I had gotten it when I was a pebble. I’d be a dozen, no two dozen ranks higher if I had received that then. Nope, you leave me no choice.  I absolutely have to see it in action, if I can’t have it I’ll experience it vicariously and see if you can beat someone a hundred ranks higher than you.”

“I really can’t.”

“It’ll be nothing serious. Don’t stress your brain,” she continued apparently not hearing his attempt to stop her from coming to a bad conclusion. “It’ll be fun to do a little spar. Yes, yes, yes it will. Don’t worry I won’t overwhelm you with skills and spells. In fact, I won’t use them at all.”

“You can’t turn off passives.”

“That’s not technically true you know,” she continued without noticeably taking the time to draw breath. “Lots of passives have in built toggles and you can develop skills to manage other skills. Through why you’d want to is a mystery,” she chuckled. “Permanent passives are amazing. But I can see the apprehension in your eyes, so I’ll limit myself to half speed. How wonderful a duel against a pebble able to match my strength. It’s an incredible world we live in.”

The invitation to the duel came through.                                                                                                

Tom wanted to refuse it. He also wanted a bit of peace and quiet. He accepted the invite, and the countdown started.

His opponent stood across from him her figure blurry and more importantly blissfully silent for an entire eight seconds. Though he could see her lips moving so he guessed she was still talking to herself.

While he waited, he looked around the arena. It was a standard sand filled configuration with high stone walls rising a hundred metres in every direction. It was so generic that he suspected that it had been selected deliberately.

The numbers hit zero, and he braced for the attack.

“And that’s why…” the words reached him the instant the barrier came down and then a veritable tsunami of soul attacks smashed into him. The attacks came in all varieties, including ones that he would describe as mundane, blunt force trauma, piercing and slashing attacks, but there were also more exotic versions. Spinning blades like a chainsaw, sticky things that exploded when they latched onto his soul, injectors that either sucked his blood out or pushed corrosive substances in and other versions that he didn’t have words for. They were at the soul level but sort of like elemental attacks, freezing, burning electrocuting amongst others.  The power in any one of the hundred plus attacks were probably sufficient to cripple or even kill him. Combined he had no chance.

The duel finished, at least to the limits of his perception, effectively instantly, and he was expelled from the arena.

There hadn’t even been time for her to finish her sentence.

“Oh my, sorry, sorry. I must say I had forgotten how weak pebbles are. It’s why I challenged you to a duel before doing actual practise. You might not get any training benefit from it, but it allows me to judge how much I need to restrain myself.” She laughed. “It’s a lot, but it’s amazing that you are even willing to do this. Truly, you have incredible will power and when we do the training properly, it’ll be real. You must suffer for days every time you leave.”

Tom wanted to tell her to shut up, but that would require him being able to get an effective word in.

Another invitation to a duel came through. This time the same host of soul attacks swarmed him, but they were so weak that even Briana wouldn’t have been hurt by them.

Time slowed as a much more powerful person than him locked onto him with hostile intent. His attributes soared, and he leapt away as a wall of solid rock thundered toward him. As he sought to evade her, he fashioned his counter attack. A Lightning Javelin infused with a decadent thirty points of mana with over twenty of it being from his lightning affinity stores crackled into existence.

He launched it at her with Remote Power Strike adding to its destructive potential.

She had promised him no spells or defensive artefacts, so he forwent his usual probing feints to see if overwhelming power would work.

Even as the spell left his fingers, he was leaping backwards. It hit her stone like skin and … broke? It did nothing, not even chipping it or causing electricity to dance across it. Her massive vitality had completely negated one of the most powerful attacks he could conjure.

She was limiting her attributes as promised, which meant that functionally he was faster, but she was relentless. In three moves, she had pushed him so that his back was against the smooth wall of the arena. His brain pondered what to do and tried to think of ways he could attack her. His earth magic wasn’t going to work. Her skin was clearly tougher than any stone he could mould.

Create room, then use a Lunge, he thought as he settled on a melee attack as his best option.

First, he needed space, so relying on his massive attributes he jumped intending to bound over her.

A wall of rock came at his face. A tail that he didn’t even realise she possessed lashed out of him. His vision went white as it crashed into him.

The duel ended.

They were back facing each other. Now that he knew about the tail, he focused and he thought he could detect it but his brain tried to forget it immediately. It had to be some form of powerful defensive skill.

“It’s an innate passive,” she explained cheerfully. “It makes it nearly impossible for those not of our species to see it. I love it. It has won me so many duels and fights. They think they’re doing something tricky and then wham they get smashed.”

Another invitation came through. This time, the soul attacks destroyed him but over half a second as opposed to instantly like what happened initially.. Rapid fire the invitations came and they all ended the same way. Him being soundly beaten. Over a dozen fights later, with eight of them having been finished by some part of her rocky body striking him and the other six with mind attacks her body pulsed with what he was able to read as a feeling of satisfaction.

“That’s enough of that. I’ve got your baseline. That means, drumroll, it’s very exciting we can start proper training. Isn’t that wonderful.” As she spoke, the first of the Soul attacks landed.

He fended them off.

Barely.

Each strike cracked his defences by a small amount.

“And usually no one wants to do training like this until they are at least a boulder. Most people are so  short sighted unlike you. It’s like they don’t understand that one in twenty thousand monsters you fight over rank forty have soul attacks and when you reach rank two hundred it’s one in a thousand. In my opinion you can never start building resistances early enough.”

His soul was starting to hurt, and he was never going to get her to shut up.

“I’m struggling with internal mana enhancements,” he blurted out.

He was not sure she heeded him because she kept going on about how foolish pebbles and river stones were.

“As a collective landslide they lacked the intelligence to make reasonable decisions, but you humans seem to be smart.”

“Mana,” he tried again.

“Yes, yes, internal mana enchants I heard you. I can advise you on that it’s a way to power… but… I imagine you’re not making much progress.”

He nodded hurriedly.

“Yes, having squashed you nine times I can understand the problem. You are clearly carbon based, cellular oxygen distribution with an electrical internal communication system that has evolved in an environment without any mana. My analysis of that is correct, isn’t it.”

“Um yes.”

“That combination makes internal mana enhancements difficult. Not impossible, mind you… I once knew this goat person.”

For ten minutes while his soul was being metaphorically flayed with barbed whips, she told the story of an incompetent but gifted biological who also wanted to do internal mana enhancement.

“So he failed spectacularly,” she concluded. “Well, arguably, it worked as he killed the drake, but I’m sure he didn’t intend to blow himself up at the same time. I couldn’t even consume the meat, as it had too much sapient fluid mixed over the top of it. It was a damn shame. Drake meat is wonderful but I’m not going to eat sapients. No, no, that’s completely disgusting.”

“Humans have managed it.”

“To eat sapients? Why on a barren dirt field would you want to?”

“No,” he said horrified. “To do internal mana enhancement.”

“Oh yes. Of course they have. If enough people are trying, I’m sure there were moderate successes. I’m not saying it’s impossible. The goat was just a funny story. He was just useless.”

Tom wanted to roll his eyes and ask why she wasted ten minutes of his time with the story whose punchline was ‘he was useless’ but he restrained himself as he didn’t want her to stop talking.

“You biological mushiness types can definitely do it. But don’t be elaborate focus on it being used for a single action. Like Jumping straight up, a hammer blow or dodging to your right. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s just important to keep it as simple as you can. Being of a type of people that explodes you should be extra careful.”

“We don’t explode,” he protested.

“You kind of did when my tail caught you. Wham! Splash!” she used her arms to show an expanding cloud.

“But that was by external force. An explosion needs to come from within.” He countered kind of in disbelief that he was mounting a defence of human anatomy.

“Yes, yes. You have a point, but things that get squished so easily have to take extra precautions.”

“Being hit by a stone tail swung by something two hundred ranks higher than me doesn’t mean we get squished easily.”

She laughed. “It’s all relative. I wouldn’t expect a pebble to understand. No matter how competent and forward thinking.” Her eyes sharpened. “Speaking of that your recent record is very impressive. Yes, yes. Amazing results. You’ll be pleased to hear that you’ll be allowed to stay in the trial tomorrow.”

“I assumed…” he attempted to say that it was obvious that he would get promoted to bracket three, but failed as she continued nattering away.

“A sixty percent win rate is incredible especially in the context of your natural form’s disadvantages, but as you’re going up a bracket, your fights are going to be very different.”

“I know,” he tried to say, but once more she kept talking.

“Very different indeed. The penalty as you survive each bracket cull gets more and more draconian. Have I ever told you how much I hate dragonoids. They’re all so arrogant and they talk way too much. But anyway, usually we don’t allow people to remain for a third bracket especially one who has demonstrably gained the coins necessary to change the course of his people.”

He tried to protest, but as always she kept talking and drowned out his words.

“But you’re in the competition, so are a special case and with the ritual disks keeping you here is clearly in everyone’s best interest, apart from the diminishing species you stop from getting a representative in here. But for the greater good, it’s better you remain with us. Yes, you’re definitely staying, but your win rate is going to plummet. The applied restrictions vary by person at the GOD’s discretion and we as the gatekeepers get told what penalty has been assigned in case we want to change our mind.”

“And what’s mine?”

“Oh, yours. It’s very unfortunate, but you’re going to have a thirty percent reduction in the power of your traits.”

“That much?” he asked horrified. That meant instead of getting seventy percent of the attribute gap between him and his opponent he would only get fifty percent. That would be a full rank against most of his opponents and multiple against some.

She pulsed in a kind of apologetic way. “Unfortunately yes. Your base attributes, spells and skills will be left untouched but for you, where the majority of your fighting strength is linked to traits that doesn’t mean much. I have a feeling that one or more of the GODs don’t like you and they selected the option that would hurt you the most.”

“I do as well.”

“But we never really know. It could be chance.” She continued blabbering away.

It could have been chance, but Tom knew better. It had been deliberate. If the GODs had a say, then driven by the ones that hated him, they would have chosen the worse possible option.

The session finished with him prone on the ground barely able to move. He left, and it was a struggle to trigger his sleep skill because his concentration was shot that badly. Desperate for the promise of the recovery that it represented, he persisted. Finally, on his tenth attempt he was successful. The oblivion it bought was more than welcome. When he woke, the damage had not been fully fixed, and it felt like he had a minor migraine.

In some ways, it was a milestone day. He had just been moved to child bracket three and had turned twelve. It was pure chance that those two events had occurred on the same day, or maybe not since GODs were involved in his life. But despite the nominally large changes, he felt the same as ever. The itch to become an adult and start earning experience was still there, a pressure at the back of his mind, but it was not something he could hurry. All he could do was to prepare himself as best as he could for when the shackles of his childhood were removed.

While his body tossed and turned as it woke up slowly from deep sleep, he stepped into the Divine Champions Trial and found himself in a large room with the wall made of a spongy material that could ignore stray soul energies. It was precisely where he had wanted to be and as always, the magic of the place had taken him to exactly where he needed to be.

He breathed in deeply and started building the incredibly complex weave of a tier four spell. The four input tier three spells formed perfectly, but he didn’t trigger them. Instead, he began pruning the branches and merging them into a singular whole. While tier three spells had around three hundred separate lines, the tier four spell pushed that up to just under two thousand. He refused to think how complicated a tier eight spell would be.

Three agonising minutes later, the spell was ready to be cast.

He licked his lips and hesitated, reluctant to pump more mana into the construct and risk an explosion.

You’;e being silly, he thought to himself and firmed up his will and started.  

His senses blared warnings, and he froze the mana just before it entered the spell form. There was a vague impression of his body crumpling to the ground and clutching his head. A potential vision of a possible future.

With a wry smile and supported by significant prior experience, he broke six critical structural lines of the spell and watched as it collapsed into ethereal curls of mist.

He wiped his forehead and shut his eyes, before breathing deeply three times to still his racing brainwaves. He didn’t mind the failure as it was expected, but building the spell strained his concentration and he needed to reset himself before trying again.

On the completion of his little centreing ritual, he spent another five fate and prepared to go again. Three and a half minutes later he finished and he once more moved to empower it.

Dread froze him.

Images of death.

He winced and broke it apart with a vengeance.

“Thank you, April,” he whispered. His previous danger sense probably would have protected against that outcome, but it had definitely saved him against the dozens of other material backlashes the missed cast spell would have caused.

Trying to learn tier four spells from scratch was dangerous or possibly he lacked the genius that was required and could only cross the divide necessary by channelling his sheer pigheaded perseverance.

He calmed his mind once more.

Another five points of fate was invested, and he tried again. Once again he built the structure from the lesser spells he had mastered and then started adding in the extra lines to create the spell that he was after. This time, he utilised precognition mana in the hope that it would help smooth over any mistakes he made.

The spell snapped into being, vibrating and pulsing in a way that a perfect spell wouldn’t but it was stable, a jenga tower that was threatening to collapse but didn’t. His instincts told him to scrap it but Expert Danger Sense wasn’t generating any warnings even as he started to push mana into it.

The vibrations in the spell increased, but it was nothing fatal.

He invested another point of mana, then a third, fourth… seventh. 

Dread choked his throat as he went to invest an eighth point. It was a blunt warning and without hesitation he cast the spell, knowing delay or an attempt to put more energy into it would have it explode.

A cone of energy shot out from his hand and swept past the special combat dummy. The dummy glowed red to show some of the spell had latched onto it but only for a moment and the majority of the spell’s energy instead of concentrating itself on the target like the spell called for had flown on pass and been absorbed by the walls.

Tom didn’t care. He exhaled sharply in relief. There had been no backlash and no critical failures.

Then the he remembered the red glow and realised that instead of the near fatal failure he had briefly feared the attempt had been a success.

The spell had done something, and he had got out unhurt.

Curiously, he went over to the dummy to check the readout.

Pseudo Rank 10 warrior has had its Soul Weakened by 20 soulgrams. 

He smiled at the result.

It was ten times less impact that the spell with eight mana invested was supposed to achieve, but it was also his personal best and given how little of it had actually struck the target it was a great result.

His jubilation was tempered by realism. He sighed. It was a small step forward but he still had a long way to go before this would be able to be cast perfectly. Even then, once he had that success it just meant he would have to throw everything into learning Combat Transpose and Fractured Visions, which were the other two tier four spells he had to create himself. Combat Transpose was kind of like a traditional blink spell but better in that in addition to the eight metres of instant teleport it was also designed to allow him to magnify momentum of his entire body or body part.  Once mastered, it could triple the power behind a basic spear thrust and allow him to attack from an unexpected angle, potentially opening up opportunities to strike at weak points. Fractured Visions on the other hand were a method of seeing the future, but he wasn’t sure if that was the precognition spell that he was going to master as he seemed to change his mind every few days. There were spells to help find trials, powerful treasures or hidden routes that begged for his attention and he was oscillating between eight different options.

“Who cares?” he whispered to himself. What his precognition spell ended up being didn’t matter, as it would be a couple of years before he had to choose. He glanced around the room and nodded. He was done here for now, it was time to see if food could lift his migraine. Based on past experience he wasn’t hopeful, but at a minimum it would distract him.