Chapter 70 – Spells from Combat

AG. First Chapter of two.

This is Tuesday's file (I was sick so didn't write it)

the next chapter is Thursdays file. They total up to well over 7k words. Enjoy.

Tom pushed himself up from his doubled-over position and wiped the vomit from the corners of his mouth. He was very aware of the wasps above him, and Danger Sense was screamed at him pointlessly. He wanted to tell it to shut up, but it was a passive skill, and didn’t work like that. What made it useful when the danger was unknown was frustrating when the threat was staring him in the face like this. He knew exactly how much danger he was in. April was merciless when it came to these types of situations. He only gave himself a fifty percent chance of surviving, which he considered a more than acceptable risk. If it helped him to get Heal Organs, it was worth it even if he died poorly a couple of times. The end result was going to justify his personal suffering.

Danger Sense’s tone changed, and the insects attacked. They drove at him from multiple directions. Spark crackled out from his hand, fuelled by precognition mana. It spread out seemingly randomly and struck a dozen of them. Every bug that was struck tumbled from the sky, and Tom understood instinctively that they were stunned and not fried.

The wave of suspiciously directed electricity had disabled about a third of the enemies, and the rest made it through, and, almost as one, stung him. Tom stamped down on his instincts. There was a reason why he was here, and, while usually as a first step, he would have attempted to quarantine the venom at the point of injection, doing so now was running counter to why he was here in the first place. He suppressed the itch, and focused instead on both stepping on the stunned insects and jabbing down hard with his spear butt to kill them.

Almost instantly, he realised the attempts were futile. These were not insects from Earth - these were rank-one creatures from Existentia. Their tough bodies, cushioned by the soft dirt and grass, couldn’t be crushed by any pressure that he could bring to bear.

Cursing his slow thoughts, and the lack of foresight that had led to wasting time, he switched his approach up. Instead of stamping, he stabbed them, flashes of Power Strike enhancing his spear tip to a perfect cutting edge and doing what raw physical power couldn’t. Every stab split a wasp in half and killed it. As he mechanically eliminated the stunned insects, his mind raced to consider options and strategies.

No brilliant ideas presented themselves. He lacked the resources at his current level of development. His skill, Power Strike, was already threatening him with skill exhaustion after only killing ten. There was no way he could kill forty like this. Even the half-application he was doing instead of a full strike wouldn’t let him extend the ability for long enough. His reserves were going to burn out.

Not that it mattered - the spear skill was not his only bottleneck. He was also lacking the magical reserves to stun them all in a timely manner. As an offensive strategy, Tom realised, it was doomed to failure, so he changed his approach. All he could do was to kill as many as possible until the skill became unreliable, and then, hopefully, use his healing to outlast the rest.

As he killed the creatures manually, he formed the Heal Organ spell. It was rushed because of the circumstances, but that stress was the point of being here. The precognition affinity mana, as always, worked with the released fate to deform his spell. He had long since given up fighting against it, and accepted the changes the undefinable magic wrought. The spell clicked into existence with surprisingly little pushback.

Tom examined what the interplay of his limited manual mana manipulation, knowledge, fate, and rogue precognition affinity mana had produced. The resulting framework wasn’t exactly like the wireframes he had painstakingly remembered and was attempting to mimic, but it was close. It was as sleek as expected, with additional flourishes that did not belong, but made it less like a blunt instrument and more like a piece of art.

It existed fully formed, and, when he prodded it, he discovered it was suspiciously stable.

Tom could feel the poison that April had made him ingest and the venoms pumped in by the wasps collide together in his blood stream. The potency of both was raised because of the interaction.

Internally, he groaned. He had been expecting April to have set something like this up, but it was still frustrating to have his fears confirmed. As much as undoing and reforming the spell felt like the best solution, the circumstances meant there was no time. He poured his available resources into the spell – namely, eight normal mana and more than twice that of the precognition affinity flavour. In total, it was three times what someone his age should have possessed, which was a massive advantage, but one he rarely thought about.

Fifty milliseconds later, the spell, finished and fully powered, sank into him with the slightest of nudges.

Tom could feel it working, and there was an immediate ding.

Yes, he exclaimed internally as a thrill of triumph went through him. He had the spell, and now, if the trial killed him, it was worth it. The cost would be only embarrassment and a bit of pain. They were both outcomes that Tom was happy to suffer in order to advance his spell repertoire.

Then, a moment later, he realised what he was thinking. No, he scolded himself harshly. Accepting that outcome was not okay. He buried the defeatism attitude. He didn’t want to die, and April never sent him into unwinnable situations, even if it often felt like they were.

Metaphorically, he rolled up his sleeves. He was going to survive this.

Heal Organs had a diagnostic component to it and it immediately assessed his entire body. The breakfast April had made him eat had contained devastatingly powerful poisons, all perfectly timed to go active at the moment the wasps hit. Multiple organ systems were on the verge of failure and that was only compounded by the venom injected by the wasps.

There was no way to address all of the problems with a single cast. He slipped into the familiar pattern of triage and focused on the most pressing issues; If I don’t stop that heart failure, I’m going to die in ten seconds-kind of problems. The heart, lungs, and brain became his sole focus. Problems that were as potentially equally as lethal but wouldn’t cause issues for longer - like kidneys, bladder, intestines and the skin - were pushed back to be addressed later.

The wasps were still stinging him, and, thankfully, April had stripped out the pain components of the venom they usually delivered – otherwise, without the ability to turn his pain off, he would have been overwhelmed by the spikes of agony. The continual introduction of new venom was an issue he had to solve, but his spear was useless unless he stunned them first, and he could tell by how close his body was to shutting down that directing magic to that purpose was not acceptable. 

He switched to using his daggers instead. With careful movements, he plucked one from where they were stinging him and then cut it in half. All those hours chasing butterflies helped, and that was why he didn’t catch a wasp every time or even every ten attempts.

He did succeed, and the numbers dropped.

Whenever over four mana had regenerated, he would recast his new spell, and had enough leeway to switch his focus onto preventing organ death beyond the big three. Whichever of them were closest to the tipping point was patched up. For a life-or-death situation, Tom realised, that he was surprisingly relaxed. Danger Sense was not even screaming at him anymore. His healing was outpacing new damage, and his effort with his knife was reducing the number of enemies he faced. He had gotten it to the point where there was less than a dozen left, and, if he understood how precognition affinity mana worked, the most deadly of the swarm had been the first to die. He was winning.

Two hours later, he finally reached the point it was clear that he was no longer in danger of dying, and then April brought him back to the café. The residual organ damage was fixed up immediately, and he felt refreshed.

Tom patted himself down and stretched luxuriously. There was not a hint of the pain he had been feeling. Then he grinned at April. “Did I get anything good?”

“Yes.”

“Awesome. Let’s see it.” he held out a hand expectantly.

“No. I want you to get Touch Heal straight away instead.”

Something about the way she said it made his brain tickle. He knew the feeling; a sense of importance and knowledge beyond what he was supposed to possess. His gaze sharpened. “Can it wait until my fate builds up?”

She shook her head. “I can give you a meal and a chance to rebuild your mana stores, but nothing more than that.”

Tom nodded. “Half an hour, then. Should I practice Instant Strike in the meantime?”

“No.”

This time, he did do a double take. There was a lot of conviction in that word. April, her face tight, only smiled. There was a mystery here, and it was clear whatever it was included a subject she was not comfortable sharing with him. Tom could think of many reasons why that might be. 

Food appeared in front of him.

“Eat, then you fight.”

“Is it poisoned?”

“Some minor stuff,” she answered evasively. “Please don’t check.”

“This is…” he started.

“Completely necessary,” she assured him and shut down further discussion at the same time.

Thirty minutes later, as prepared as he was ever going to get, he was transported once more to a familiar location.

The sightless eyes of the wador stared back at him.

Fuck you, he thought in annoyance toward April. After the wasps, he didn’t know why he was facing this. What was the point of dredging up opponents from his past? Some misguided idea of therapy was his guess, but it didn’t matter what its origins was - this was just another enemy he had to overcome. 

Then the emulator, in control of what he guessed was supposed to be a facsimile of his mortal enemy, caught sight of him. His perception of time altered immediately.

Tom’s breath hitched as he registered the sensation. The opponent April had constructed to fight him was significantly faster than him. Everything moved slower, and he could feel how sluggish his body’s reactions were.

Perception and thought were what was sped up, so he had more than enough time to study what he was about to fight. It was a big creature, even larger when he was in this body as opposed to his adult one. When once it must have weighed two or three times more than him, in this engagement, that was more like ten. Its mouth was shut, but he knew the deadly teeth that it contained, and the razor-sharp claws on all of its six legs. It looked a lot like a cat, but, with its intelligence, was probably a deadlier hunter.

Tom recognised that, despite its appearance, this was not the one that had killed him - it was only an echo of its form created by April. Nor was the landscape an authentic recreation of the place where he had died. There was no ongoing side battle against the dragon, and the wador itself was clearly significantly diminished versus the version from the trial. That one would have literally slaughtered him before he could blink.

Yet the scars on its eyes were the same, and it stalked him with the similar threatening intensity. Tom reacted by keeping his weapon positioned perfectly as it padded around him. It was waiting, assessing, calculating the best way to kill him.

Abruptly, it leapt at him.

“Shit,” he cursed at how fast it moved. He stumbled backwards in response.

Fortunately, it didn’t approach melee range. That had been a feint to test him, and, based on the way its ears perked up, it was amused by his reaction.

It accelerated again; this time, he lowered the point of his weapon to intercept it, and didn’t instinctively retreat. The fight was on now, and he couldn’t afford another mistake like the last. Something like that was too easily exploitable by an intelligent person. There was a flare of magic close to the wador, and then it rushed at him. Compressed air slammed into his shoulder before Tom could even think about evading it. While it was only air, it had a weight to it that half lifted him off the ground. He stumbled, and his spear tip drifted down and to the side.

It exploited the opportunity charging him for real. Danger Sense flared, and he followed its instructions.

He launched himself sideways instead of back. The wador struggled to adjust as it sprang past him having targeting the spot that it had expected him to retreat too. If he hadn’t listened to Danger Sense, Tom knew he would have been dead now. As it soared past him, it rotated to attack him and raked a single claw down his thigh.

Tom winced, but the wound was no more than a scratch. He dodged backwards and opened up space between them with his spear once more. This time, he set his feet wider, and leant forward slightly to prevent the wind gust from getting the better of him again.

The monster paused its incessant stalking:

“This is pointless. You know I’m going to kill you again. It’s inevitable.”

Tom deliberately didn’t respond. The wador was bullshitting. April would have left a way for him to win. He was doing this to help him evolve Touch Heal and, if he was guaranteed to die, he was never getting that opportunity.

“I was allowed to adjust my build to counter your new one. I was surprised by your status sheet. What you have is pretty bad, seems like you’ve made lots of bad choices.”

Tom cautiously flexed his leg. The wound, thanks to his blood evolution, had already stopped bleeding.

“That’s nice. I’m glad you haven’t lost your misplaced sense of superiority. If that’s the case, if you’ve reset your build, why on Existentia would you take wind gust instead of something useful?”

“Because it’s fun.” Tom saw the burst of power out of the corner of his eyes. The magic struck him with furious force, and he stumbled sideways, unable to prevent it. “I could use it alone to beat you, but I have other tricks.”

There was another flare of magic from his other side. Tom could have reacted, but doing so to every wind gust was self-defeating. Intense heat assaulted him as a firestorm washed over his position. His eyes stung as he kept them open to watch the enemy.

Not avoiding it, Tom realised, had been a mistake. Until he could tell the difference between the spells, they were all going to need to be dodged.

The wador opened its mouth, showing its teeth.

“This is how you express amusement, isn’t it?”

While there had only been the one proper encounter, the battle had progressed long enough for him to have drawn a number of conclusions. None of them were positive for his success chances. It was clear that the attribute gap was too high for this to be an easy fight. He was sure his opponent was stronger than rank-four, and a battle of attrition would not suit him. While the fire was a limited resource, as clearly shown by its lack of use, individually, the casts were powerful. It was only going to take a couple more of those infernos, and he would be in real trouble. His stomach rumbled, and he remembered the meal he had eaten. That was another ticking time bomb.

“I think you’re too scared to attack me.” Tom temporised, hoping to provoke it.

It showed more teeth, clearly amused by his blatant attempt to infuriate it. Its grin was very effective. It was like looking into the maw of a lion, and one that had already bitten his head off once before at that. He didn’t know why April had chosen this scenario, but he hated it.

“Why would I risk confrontation when I can just burn you alive from range?”

It feinted toward him, and then pulled back. Instead of a physical attack, it struck him magically with another firestorm. The runes on his orphanage clothes that had been protecting him failed. His entire front screamed out in pain. He really didn’t want to imagine how bad the burns were.

He winced, and the wador continued stalking him, showing lots of teeth.

“I’m not a monster.” It taunted him. “I have strategy, and patience, and I’m going to make certain of the kill. I think I’m a lucky wador, getting the chance to kill you twice.”

“Do you ever shut up?”

It chuffed in response, but the banter, while probably overall to the wador’s advantage, was not wasted by Tom. It gave him the opportunity to think and adjust. The firestorm had a range restriction; he was not sure how to exploit that fact, but he could make things slightly harder for it. Rather than allowing it to dictate the battle, he flipped the script. He picked his direction and basically charged its tail to force it to rotate clockwise. By forcing that direction, any future attacks would be against his current uninjured side. This time, he focused on identifying the tells inherent in the spells that were going to be used against him.

The wind gust struck him. He only staggered slightly and didn’t change his counter hunting. Its transparent attempt to encourage him to change the direction of their circling had failed.

He had no talent in reading wador emotions, but he was sure that twitch of the tail was annoyance.

Another fire wave hit him, but he had predicted it. He retreated and limited the damage and now he had a better idea of the timings of the attacks.

Multiple wind gusts struck him. They were annoying, and he allowed it to play its cat-and-mouse game. Then the cooldown of the inferno was over. It feinted, but Tom was ready to gamble and was already moving.

He sprinted straight at it into the red-hot flames.