Chapter 53: Growth |
The summoning options available in a vacuum were sadly limited. No, that wasn’t right … but there were a hell of a lot of monsters that would be killed by the vacuum in short order, resulting in the [System] withholding rewards, and making increasingly snide remarks if it happened repeatedly.
But various elemental monsters didn’t need to breathe, except for the fire ones, and even of those, a surprising portion retained sufficient combat capability to provide XP in a vacuum.
For now, he was finishing working his way through the water elementals, in this case, a Tier 5 Living Tide, the creature having started out as an immense mass of frothing water that quickly deflated in the emptiness of outer space as the air was all but sucked out by the pressure differential, something the monster itself seemed to take no notice off but drew a small giggle from Derek as he raised his hands to cast.
[Freeze] at the lower body of the creature, freezing a small portion of it solid, too small to really stop it, easily something the monster could draw into its body and carry with it … had it not been for the fact that that was the water that had already seeped into the rock underneath, anchoring the beast even as it lunged at him, stretching instead of managing to hurl the entirety of its body forward, so when Derek used his other hand to cast [Gravity Field], the ice block turned into the pivot point around which the elemental swung down into the moon’s surface.
But it was just a mass of water, being banged around a little wasn’t going to hurt it, and Derek was busy just pinnning it down, maintaining two spells putting him near the maximum of his mental abilities … and then he triggered a third spell, guided by a shadowly arm that manifested over his shoulder, his mind expanding to allow him to control it just as he did his flesh and blood limbs, though he used that mental enhancement to cast [Earth Spike] to catch the falling monster, spearing its core before the monster could shift its only vulnerable spot away.
Derek grinned as his opponent came apart, and dismissed the XP notification.
Yep, that particular [Skill] worked nicely.
Phantom Limb (legendary)
As a Chimera, you hold a multitude of monsters within yourself. Why not learn to unleash your inner beast in an entirely different way?
Phantom limbs take damage and are destroyed as though they were normal appendages, a part of your body, but damage to them won’t ever actually have consequences for you beyond (temporary) loss of the manifested limb.
Cost: 10-15 mana per limb per second
It was a [Skill] to flay an opponent in melee range with unexpectedly manifesting limbs, or by using one that had unexpected range, right in the face of the enemy. Also, it was capable of creating a series of ablative shields/barriers, throwing more and more flesh into the path of an enemy attack. A physical barrier, which wasn’t necessarily better than its magical counterparts, but sufficiently different to not fall to something that hard-countered magic shields.
But while both of those were good, as per usual, Derek had gotten himself this [Skill] to abuse the hell out of it, even if, in this case, the “exploit” really was rather low-hanging fruit, practically spelled out for him, with “spell” being the operative word … well, syllable.
Theoretically, one could cast spells from any point on one’s body, or even manifest them close to one’s body, though for the most part, that was merely an alternative use of the [Aura] he was yet to unlock.
In practice, one of the things that made casting infinitely easier was using a body part you were already used to finely controlling as a medium, using the brainpower normally used to make it do what you wanted to instead guide a spell that originated from said body part.
Some people fired their spells from their eyes, something Derek suspected was as much for style points as it was for function, but most used their hands, the body parts most designed to facilitate one’s manipulation of the world. The fingertips also held some of the highest concentrations of nerves outside of the face, spine, and the brain itself.
But in actuality, hands were much better than eyes. For starters, spells were often quite bright, not the sort of thing you wanted to set off right in front of your eyeball, and that went double for any kind of situation where it was dark, such as the void of space. Derek was just glad his [Skills] kept the local star from damaging his eyes if he looked at it without the protection of the planetary atmosphere; the last thing he needed was to add spell-based issues on top of that.
And secondly, human eyes tended to dance all over the place, zeroing in on anything the brain decided was interesting at a moment’s notice … something like twenty times a second, every second, was the baseline as far as he remembered. The sheer self-control it would take to stop that from sending one’s spells careening all over the place was not something Derek had.
As such, summoning extra hands and using them as a casting medium while drawing upon the increased brainpower the new limbs brought with them … well, it wouldn’t work with more complex spells, but for combining simple spells without needing to wait until he had gotten in absurd amounts of practice, or boosted his mental stats into the stratosphere, for that, it’d tide him over.
Derek wound up repeating that little trick several more times until he finally saw.
Spellcasting (unranked, Level 10)
This Skill represents your ability to cast magic. It will now help you mentally grasp more complex workings and cast them more easily.
Finally. His ability to use magic had hit the first threshold, something that should help him get a good [Class] when he finally reached Level 25.
Of course, with a little luck, most of the “advancement” for his Evolution would come from his deeds, not his [Skill] Levels, but that didn’t mean Derek wanted to go without advancing them, especially when the opportunity cost for it was minimal.
Also, the last thing he wanted was to have to make everyone wait as he interrupted his Evolution to try and improve his [Skills]. Again.
And now, he could start using his second new [Skill] to its fullest, getting XP quickly, rather than in a way that enhanced [Skill] Levels.
Derek’s next set of victims came from the Avian summoning category, specifically, the Phoenix, also Tier 5, creatures that he’d fought while grinding for [Chimera] but stopped because fast, flying, regenerating and occasionally partially intangible monsters were a major pain in the ass to fight on a good day, the fact that he was mostly fireproof only serving to make things survivable, rather than palatable.
Even a week ago, the Phoenix that burst from the summoning circle, tumbling briefly as it beat its wings and tried to catch the air that wasn’t there … yet, for all that it was a beast that had lived for but a bare handful of seconds, should have no understanding of what space was like, let alone how to handle the absence of an atmosphere and the lessened gravity of the moon it was floating above, it adapted in an instant, fire around its body blazing brighter, fed by magic rather than air, a blast of rearward flame hurling it straight at Derek.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Then, it was met by a mere two [Skills]. [Predator’s Force] to shock it, to briefly leave it desperately trying to claw back its focus and make a decision about what to do … and then he shot it out of the sky with [Anima Bolt].
Predator’s Force (legendary)
It is said the average person walks past thirty-six murderers in their lifetime. Typically, they don’t know who those were … might be better for their mental health. Or a hell of a lot worse, depending on how you look at it.
Now, the exact past of the holder of this Skill does not matter, but it can certainly create the impression of them being dangerous, allowing them to unleash an aura of menace that contains all the blood they have spilled up until that point, further increased by every Aspect they hold.
Sapient foes will quail in fear, monsters may even drop dead if the power difference is great enough.
The power of the effect is doubled when making eye contact.
Cost: 10-25 mana, 25-50 mana every thirty seconds of continued activation, depending on amplitude
It sounded like your basic intimidation [Skill]. Hell, it was your bitch-basic intimidation power, for all practical intents and purposes … until you got enough Aspects, at which point it turned into an honest-to-God psychic attack.
As for how many that required, Derek didn’t know, and it hardly mattered.
Why? Because the number, whatever it may be, was less than what was required to get [Chimera] in the first place, and he was honestly too busy to go find out right now.
Over a dozen more flaming birds died to the same combination of [Skills] before he hit the XP cap for them.
So, next monster. The Stormheart Gestalt. Tier 5 monster, Elemental, lightning-type, bogey-man of the early days of the [System] …
Extensive historical research had revealed that this particular kind of creature was not the first Tier 5 to ever be summoned by humanity. But was the first one to do so publicly. The others had died to collapsing buildings, fires, or just generally gone out with a comparative whimper amidst the overall chaos of the period.
And then a sizeable chunk of Los Angeles had been reduced to ash, not even a year after the [System’s] advent.
Because these things were nasty, capable of splitting up into individual minions, and then sending them out to eat electricity and growing stronger and stronger, their damage potential quickly snowballed beyond anything anyone had prepared for at the time.
There were some pretty severe limits on its growth, though. It could not gain access to an [Aura], nor could it reach Field or even Raid Boss rank, with all the resistances those came with, overall, it would stay firmly within the bounds of Tier 5 in terms of specific capabilities, in fact, experiments had revealed that regardless of how strong the creature actually got, there was a cap on how hard it could hit … but it was still a monster that could split up into minions, start growing in strength almost the monet it was summoned, and could barely be hurt by anything lacking magic.
Way back when, it had been a borderline-apocalyptic threat. And while it was “merely” a Tier 5 monster nowadays, dangerous but not overwhelmingly so, the scars of the past were deep, and it was rarely summoned on Earth, or anywhere within sight of the older folk.
Once again, it being an airless moon made this fight far easier, hurling lightning through vacuum took much more energy that if it had a medium to transmit through, and while [Predator’s Force] did nothing, the monster being largely mindless, [Anima Bolt] tore huge chunks out of it with each hit, and things quickly came to an end, which he repeated a few times until he was finally able to hit the threshold he’d been working towards this whole time, with the last 10 Stat points he’d earn as a part of the 1st Evolution went into Fortitude.
Name: Derek Ambrosius Thoma
Class: Chimera
Species: High Human
Level: 19 -> 25
XP: 11/7,800
Health Status: Healthy
Mana: 27/2,000
Fortitude 90 -> 100
Perception 65
Strength 60
Agility 80
Magic Power 175 -> 200
Magic Regeneration 175 -> 200
Free Points: 0 Stat, 3 Skill
Central Skills
Aspect Hunter 2 -> 4
Aspect Integration 4 -> 7
Skills
Lightspeed Learning 9
Skill Fusion 7
Knowledge Conversion 1
Branching Capabilities 3
Anima Bolt 3
Lifesurge 1
Predator’s Force 1
Phantom Limb 1
General Skills
Bloodline of the Hellborne Survivor
Stellar Mental Maths 12
Spellcasting 9 -> 10 (143 spells known)
Variable Weapon Empowerment 6
Phantom Armor 3
Knightly Discipline 1
Starship Upkeep 3
Scholar of War 7
Alcubierre Bubble 11
Inspect -> Eyes of the Predator 1
Acrobatic Adapatability 2
Aspect
Aspect Skills
Hydra
Regeneration, Redundant Organs
Poltergeist
Ephemeral Form, Spectral Flight
Least Demon Lord
Grand Hellflame, Moment of Immortality
Lord of Time and Space
True Spatial Warp, Cosmos Soul, True Spatial Affinity, And I Shall Not Be Moved
Caladrius
Healing Light, Inner Light
Fata Morgana
Hologram, Perception Block
Cosmic Leviathan
Charging to Infinity, Cosmic Gaze, Stellar Travel, Omnidimensional Maneuvering
Void Dragon
Wings of the Void, Scales of the Void, Star’s Heart, Infinite Mind
Magebreaker Specter
Internal Grimoire, Spellbreaker
Oh, and he’d also gotten [Chimera’s] version of [Inspect].
Eyes of the Predator (legendary)
There are many possible upgrades to the basic Inspect Skill. Some allow for improved examination of details, others are far better at piercing information protection Skills.
The Eyes of the Predator are not conducive to the careful and measured examination of a civilized man.
Instead, they tell you what you need to know: what can this guy do (general build, specific information on Aspects), what kinds of creatures does he normally hunt (see specializations against specific foes), and is he too dangerous for me (overall Level and Class rarities)?
These insights can be obtained practically irrespective of any infosec abilities the target may have, but by the same metric, more precise information will be beyond your ability to obtain.
Rumor had it that Isaac had something similar, an absolute analysis ability that was absolutely imprecise, and as annoying as it got when other people compared Derek to his older brother, he did have to admit that this kind of [Skill] was pretty perfect. Being able to get extra info on people weak enough for you to breach their defenses made a far smaller difference than being able to breach the information defenses of those who were actually on your level.
All in all, it was probably the best version of [Inspect] he could possibly get, even if he were to entirely walk the path of the mage. Mostly because magic was very flexible when it came to avenues of attack, and [Eyes of the Predator] was near-guaranteed to show him which of them would be the most effective.
Something he’d been practicing with since he’d gotten it, though it had quickly become clear that it would take a bit to perfect.
But now, it was time to evolve.