Chapter 84 – Lightning Path

Tom slipped back into his body as his mind was mulling over what had happened, his mood thoughtful. Access to this trial changed everything. With all the new things being introduced, his life had gone from a tedious plod to being jam-packed with activities.

To his shock, he realised he was deliriously happy.

The minutiae of the way he was going to be spending his time had shifted dramatically. The only shade being cast on his mood was the question of whether the training done in the trial counted the same as that done in the real world. If it did, he was going to be over the moon. Was there a penalty to skill gain, or could he spend every waking moment there? It didn’t matter - no matter which way that calculation went, Tom was better off.

What he mentally called the bad hours, the time where life was a real chore, could now be avoided. Activities like the two hours a day spent learning primary school stuff, and the quite literal child’s play with Briana, could and would be skipped. Instead of that time being, for all intents and purposes completely wasted, he would spend it in the Divine Champions’ trial around adults, and hopefully learning real life important facts about Existentia. Not to mention, of course, crafting to earn enough to get his pick of the special rewards.

The boon of being able of being able to do both of those was not lost on Tom. The items on the curated list spoke for themselves, and the individuals in the open section represented an unparalleled pool of knowledge. They could educate him in a way that humanity, due to its collective ignorance, couldn’t manage to do. If spell work performed there counted the same as it did in the trial and Existentia proper, it was possible for Tom to live there pretty much permanently, and only emerge in the real world for April’s trial, resistance training, and fighting in the lairs.

Even if there was a penalty, all was not lost. The dodge and obstacle course sessions remained both useful and fun. The irregular sessions he spent being taught the hammer did not enthuse him the same way, but he was going to continue to willingly participate in them because he acknowledged that learning any skills on offer was important. Likewise, his regular nightly activities weren’t going to change. The exploration of the lairs to help enhance his combat abilities and his resistance training would continue at their current pace. It was like the perfect outcome. All the chaff had been cut out of his life, and replaced with stimulating activity.

He had timed everything for when the morning lessons had just finished, and they had an hour before lunch.

The three of them ran to the room to practice their dodging skills, immediately selecting the relative difficulty best suited to stretch themselves. Kang was two ahead of Briana, who was three ahead of him. Tom didn’t mind his apparent slow progress, as he was fighting through significant handicaps.

He touched the ring on his finger and channelled mana into it. Taking things easy was not an option, so he increased both the debilitating electrical pulses and the degree to which Dampen Senses acted upon him. Then he threw himself into training. His muscles were spasming constantly because of the electricity coursing through them. It made him an uncoordinated mess, and with his eyesight reduced to that of an old man with cataracts, everything rested on Danger Sense and the pseudo-Spark sensing domain that he was maintaining.

The second ability let him track the combat dummy as it entered the ring. As it circled him, he rotated to face it despite being blind. Anyone watching would have assumed that he could see it perfectly.

It attacked him, and he was able to adjust and avoid it easily, but it was only an opening feint. From experience, this particular pit took a while to get going, so he remained on guard, knowing that things were about to get more serious.

Danger Sense suddenly screamed at him and his Spark sensing cloud tagged the attack coming at him. The combat dummy appeared to be going after him with a double-handed overhead swing. He ordered his legs to jump backwards, but the left one spasmed instead. Instead of a graceful leap backwards, only one of his legs managed to push off the ground, which unbalanced him completely. If he had been able to plan for the moment, he could have compensated, but, with his feet positioning, he had needed movement from both legs to control his motion. Without that, his jump turned into a stumble backward and to the side. It was enough to avoid the blow, but, with a leg continuing to cramp, there was no way from him to regain his balance.

A fall was inevitable.

The combat dummy maintained its momentum. Its programming sensed the easy kill, and swung a roundhouse blow with its wooden club to punt his airborne body out of the ring and finish the bout. Unbalanced, his limbs not responding perfectly, there was nothing for Tom to do but accept the coming failure.

Clinically, he spent a point of fate with the image of future good fortune. It was a wasteful use of the special resource because of the lack of specificity, but randomness was the strategy he was going for. The club the combat dummy was using crashed into his side. It lifted him and knocked him out of the ring. He groaned.

There was no ding. Hopefully, the sacrifice of fate would let him gain his earned skill, eventually at least, but it didn’t look like it was happening today.

“Are you okay?” Briana was next to him instantly.

He smiled up at her:

“It didn’t hurt. I’m fine.” He responded happily, that there was no need to lie. Here, out of a combat situation, he wasn’t as stingy with his mana as he would have been otherwise, and his healing magic had already completely deadened the pain.

“That sounded really, really bad.” She told him earnestly. “I was watching, and I heard the thud.”

“It wasn’t...” he sprang to his feet. He was internally wincing at the extra damage the movement had done, but keeping up appearances was important. “It wasn’t bad at all.”

As he stood up, his magic went about fixing the two broken ribs and the more general material bruising over the collision area, along with a number of damaged organs. Experimentally, he tapped the spot where he had been hit. “See, there’s no reason to worry. I’m healthy”

She didn’t look convinced, but he was making no move to go to the healing crystal, so she couldn’t exactly dispute his arguments.

“Be more careful.” She ordered. “You’re supposed to dodge them, not get hit by them.” Her piece said, she went back to her pit, and then, thirty seconds later, once his healing was completed, Tom rechallenged his own.

Once the session was over, they went to their normal isolation rooms, and Tom bantered with the two the entire time and pretended to be as reluctant as they were. However, the moment the room dinged to confirm his privacy, he rubbed his hands together in glee.

This was it. He had a purpose to guide his spell growth. Carefully he swept the room to ensure there were no hidden intruders, and then he ran over to the wire frame spell resources folders. Immediately, he plucked out the lightning domain pack and went to work.

The hierarchy of lightning affinity spells stretching from tier-zero all the way to the tier-six domain were laid out before him. Spark, of course, was the cornerstone tier zero spell, but it was not the only foundation piece at tier zero. There were five peak spells at tier-zero in this affinity, as opposed to the mere two in the Healing domain. In addition to Spark, there was a spell to enhance reflexes, another to shock anyone touching you, a defensive shield, and finally a spell to impart force with lightning instead of electricity.

It was that last one, Lightning Force, which Tom focused on.

He traced the interaction of the two of them up through their respective tiers. It was similar to what he had seen with healing. As he went up, the power and efficiency improved, but the scope of the actual abilities became more niche in their application.

Tom ignored the barrier, body augmentation and pure lightning spells to focus on the ones that relied on a construct to function. After all, he was going to need something to attach Power Strike to. There were Lightning Spears, which he was already familiar with, as well as missile, arrow, and ball versions of attack spells, and he disregarded them all until his finger came to rest on a tier three spell called Lightning Javelin. The moment he did, he checked the description to ensure it would perform the way he needed it to.

Spell: Lightning Javelin – Tier 3

Creates a physical lightning construct that will launch at its target faster than the speed of sound. On collision, it will do the target both piercing and electrical damage.

It lacked the randomness that Tom had initially been searching for, but it was fast, and should allow him to bring a ranged option against individuals significantly faster than him. None of the arcing lightning spells had a spear concept. Corrine was right in that he needed the spell to land for the stun effect of Spark to trigger, and to do that he had to include the ability to break shields - something Power Strike was uniquely positioned to do.

His fingers traced what he had to do to construct the Javelin spell. There were a dozen intermediate tier-zero spell forms to reach Lightning Force, then a further twenty-three steps to traverse the tier-one and two hierarchies, and to be in a position to evolve the spell he was after from base components.

Tom’s fingers tapped the page, and he frowned. There were almost forty steps involved in getting the spell that he wanted, and, even if he progressed as fast as he had with Touch Heal, that was a big ask. Many of the things that he was going to be playing with were tier-one and two as well, which was likely to slow him down further.

Forty steps meant it was going to be over half a year of training before he would gain it. Tom recognised what that duration implied. Until he got the spell, his chance of winning any deathmatches was low. It would be six months before his victory percentage could improve beyond its currently measly predicted two-to-five percent. It was a long time to wait, even if he would acquire a couple of spells in the meantime. Some of them were nice additions, but, unless he got a particularly rich sideways evolution, they weren’t going to make a difference in the Divine Champions’ trial. Some of them, however, had the potential to be useful for a significant span in the wider world.

He flicked the pages and re-read the relevant descriptions.

Spell: Electrify Weapon – Tier 1

Sheath your weapon in electricity to deliver extra damage and the chance to stun upon impact.

It would be forever minor, but once he had more mana, it was going to be a nice semi-permanent boost that could be added to any of his weapon blows. Then there were the ranged options. Once more, there was nothing outstanding there, but he could see them being useful for some time, though not forever, like the Electrified Weapon spell.

Spell: Lightning Bolt – Tier 1

A basic self-contained lightning missile that travels at the speed of a thrown rock and has a range of fifteen metres before degradation sets in.

Spell: Lightning Arc – Tier 2.

An instantaneous strike with a range of up to ten metres. It is difficult to aim, and may ground before striking the target.

Finally, there was the same Lightning Spears ability he had gained during his first life in Existentia. It was tier-two and allowed him to form phantom spears on the trajectory of his own weapon. With the right timing, it could land a powerful blow. However, it was expensive to use, but, in a fight requiring burst damage, it was a useful tool to have available.

That was what he would get out of the thirty-five intermediate steps: four spells of dubious utility, and the Javelin spell he was targeting. 

Once more he looked over the hierarchy list, hoping to find a better option. However, the other potential choices contained nothing impressive until he reached the tier-five level, and he wasn’t willing to wait that long to get something capable of influencing the death matches.

Lightning Javelin was the only choice available, unless he was willing to wait over a year and maybe two to gain something better.

The rest of the session was devoted to reviewing his spear moves and practicing the dynamic wire frame of the latest trash form he had to master.  

Tom realised he was grinning. This was exciting. Even if he never got the Divine Affinity Fruit, just participating would be fun. The whole thing had completely reinvigorated him.

After his isolation room session ended, Briana, Kang and him ran to the obstacle course. Together, they threw themselves into training. Tom had always considered himself to be approaching their physical play with peak intensity, but the energy of the new situation pushed his performance up a notch.  He got personal bests on two different routes, and he mentally made a note to make sure complacency did not set in again. He had obviously thought he had been doing his best, but he clearly hadn’t been.

They reached the dining hall; it had a barbecue theme - sausages, chops, bread and basic salads. It was like the kitchen had phoned it in. He had been planning on enjoying his meal, but, given the look of what was being served, he decided to skip it. His body would get sustenance, and he would spend time doing something more fun.

A moment later, he was standing on blue grass. He had set up an internal alarm for an hour’s time, and he could feel it ticking away.

He breathed in deeply, appreciating the change of scenery. The air did not remind him of crisp nature. Instead, there was a slight floral scent to it that seemed to hide a more unpleasant smell, and the air felt heavier than he was comfortable breathing. While the biome was almost certainly the one most suitable for him, it was not perfect for a human. If it had been set up for them, it would be less fragrant, and the grass would have been green.

He glanced around.

The level of activity he could see was not huge, but it was more than last time, when, for a while, it had just been him, Baptiste, and Amkhael. Instead, now the main area was a hive of activity, with over twenty different natives present. They were either locked in and staring at a screen, or chatting in small groups.

He searched for anyone he knew, but none of them were around.

“Um, attendant. Are you available to help?” He asked the air.

“Yes?” the question behind him almost made him jump. He turned to find a familiar-looking weathered stone statue.

“Is Corrine here?”

“Yes.”

“Can you take me to her?”

“Follow.” It said simply, and took off toward the central area.

When they passed through the barrier into the communal space that unpleasant scent that he hadn’t noticed the first time in the freshness of the experience thankfully vanished. The construct led him around the large stone in the middle and on the other side he spotted Corrine sitting in what, looking from his original position, had been a blind spot.

She was talking animatedly to an armoured octopus-like creature that was a similar height to Corrine, but must have weighed twice as much.

When she saw him, she broke off the conversation with a huge grin and waved him over. “Tom, you’re fucking early, and that’s great. I’m so excited that you’re here.”

“You’re missing dinner too.” He pointed out. “Didn’t you want to eat?”

“Nah, I was too excited.” She grabbed one of the tentacles of the person she was talking to. Tom wasn’t sure if it had been offered to her to do so, or if it had been randomly waving and Corrine had taken advantage. “I want you to meet Vturalta. She’s fucking awesome and is about a thousand fucking years old.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tom. Corrine has told me a lot about you.”

“Oh, really? Have you been gossiping?”

“No fucking way. I just mentioned your skills, like I said I would, and how they might end up being fucking useful to all of us. But now is not the time to talk about that. I robbed you of your chance to hear from Amkhael, and I still have basic stuff that I need to finish explaining to you.”

“I would like to chat further.” Vturalta told him politely. “Maybe at a time that is convenient for both of us, but for now, I’ll give you space.”

There was a flash of light, and the octopus-like creature disappeared.

Corrine immediately waved at the barrel-like seat and the pool of dirty water within it. That liquid was still sloshing as it stabilised from Vturalta teleporting away. “Join me, Tom. I’ve got so fucking much to share with you.”

As Tom watched, the water vanished, and the rock changed until what was left was a soft, leather-covered seat.

Corrine noticed where he was looking. “Sections of this place are just like the system room. These are always locked into the functionality of being seats. They are the most fucking comfortable ones you’ll ever find, and, as you’ve seen, they automatically adapt for whoever’s using them. And they are literally fucking divine.” She grinned at him cheekily. Her seat, he noted, was wider and taller than the one he had been offered, as the magic clearly customised itself to the individual and not the species.

He sat down.

“What do you want to talk about first?” she asked.

Tom immediately told her all about the wooden disk he had created, and the subsequent conversation with the constructs.

When he finished, she whistled in appreciation. “That could be a fucking game-changer. That is, if they work.” She corrected herself after a moment of thought.

“They’ll do the job, or else the sales would be blocked.”

“Maybe. The GODs countered the trick the first four humans used, so who knows about this one. DEUS was clear from the start that Existentia was not necessarily fair. Out of interest, are you here for the rest of the evening, or do you have plans?”

“Plans. I’ve got the dinner hour, and then have to go, because there is a hammer class that I should attend in person.”

She pouted in response:

“Are you really going to abandon me for a fucking secondary weapon?”

Tom sighed. “I need the second weapon for my cover story.”

She laughed at him. “Lighten up. I was just fucking with you. Will you come back after, or are you done for the night?”

“I’m definitely returning, because if I don’t, I’ll probably be made to play figurines.”

Corrine shuddered:

“Are they really still doing that?”

“They definitely are.”

“Poor you. I’m glad my cohort are beyond that. My friends like to gossip and talk about which boys are the hottest and all the scandals going on.” Corrine rolled her eyes. “There’s a reason I come here so often.”

“Does being here affect training rates?” Tom blurted out before he could help himself.

Corrine sighed. “Yeah, that’s the only downside. I suggest you talk to a construct to confirm the personal level of your penalty. Progression rates vary by person and activity, so you need to keep checking with them when you train something new. Some of my spells receive seventy percent of outside improvement, but other activities only grant two percent of external progress. The rules are fucking indecipherable.”

“I’ll ask before committing to training, then.”

“Good. Let’s get going. I’ll use the time you’re not here to chat with the open contestants about your disk idea. I’ll see if there is any precedent or research to let us confirm your idea’s viability. For now, I wanted to talk about GOD shields.”

Everyone who had gone through the tutorial understood exactly how they worked.

“I think I understand the concept.” He said dryly.