The Land: Predators

by Aleron Kong

  “Let’s get started,” Richter exclaimed with a grin.

  Learning the subskill was actually amazingly easy. The visualization wasn’t too different from how he imbued an arrow. That required he extend his mana field around a nocked arrow and simply let mana flow from the rest of him into the shot. Stun Shot on the other hand, involved him extending what Sion called his “chi.”

  Just as his aura was a manifestation of his magical self, chi was apparently an extension of his physical self. It was strengthened by his health but, typically, stamina was used to fuel chi-related attacks. What took the most time was for Richter to start visualizing that field. It was not too difficult, however, because he had been unknowingly using his chi whenever he fought. Even walking and breathing was a function of chi to a certain extent. It took another hour, but the trick for Richter was to start thinking of the bow and arrow as part of himself. Then he was able to imagine firing a piece of “himself” at an enemy, but with a knot of chi coalesced at the tip of the arrowhead. It had required him firing arrow after arrow at a large block of marbled quartz, but it was worth it. It was with a sense of pride that he finally earned a prompt.

  Congratulations! You have learned the subskill: Stun Shot. By focusing your chi, you now have a chance to stun enemies with fired arrows. The cost for using this subskill is 30 Stamina. This is a subskill of Archery.

  “Woot!” he shouted, throwing a fist in the air.

  “Well done,” came a melodic voice reminiscent of a well-played woodwind.

  Both Richter and Sion looked over in surprise, and saw the red-headed Hearth Mother sitting on a nearby block.

  “How long have you been there, mother?” Sion asked.

  “Just long enough,” she replied enigmatically.

  Richter blinked. Had her eyes landed on him just a touch too long when she said that?

  “I would like to congratulate you on your new skill, Lord Richter,” she said, walking forward with a smile.

  “Thank you, Hearth Mother,” he replied respectfully.

  “What is this, however?” she asked gesturing to the empty soul stones he had yet to put away.

  “Oh, I’m just making some soul stones. We are going to need a great deal if I am going to outfit our people for the battle to come. Unfortunately, even at the speed I’m making these, I don’t think I’m moving fast enough.”

  “Hmmmm,” she hmmm’d thoughtfully. Then she stood in front of the block and raised both arms. The sleeves of her robes fell back, revealing strong but somehow still delicate hands. She began a casting. White light surrounded her right fingers and green light surrounded the digits on her left. Ten seconds later, she finished the incantation by slamming both hands down on the yard-long block of marbled quartz. There was a crack like the splitting of an iceberg and the rock broke into countless pieces. Even as they fell in a pile, flecks of amber began to appear in the tumult. The reaction happened faster and faster. Within five seconds, every single piece of the quartz had been turned into a soul stone!

  Richter’s mouth dropped open. Had she really just turned a ten-ton block of superhard rock into rubble? Had she actually just cast two spells simultaneously? From two different spell schools? And how many had she made? There had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of soul stones! He was blinking like an idiot, still unable to believe what he had seen. He picked up one of them and received a further shock. It was common rank. He checked more, and they were all that rank!

  “How?” he breathed out in amazement.

  “Lord Richter,” she replied in a mocking and admonishing tone. “With a sprite as a Companion, you should know how capable my people are. You never know what we can do, what we have seen, or,” she paused, glaring at him, “what we hear. My son should have proven just how capable he is… just like his mama.”

  “Ahhhh…” Richter ahhhh’d. His mind reverted to bestial guy mode, searching for whatever lie might make a woman stop being mad at him. Had she really heard him joking about her earlier? She hadn’t even been around!

  She smiled at him, “I look forward to the festivities tonight.” Then she cast another spell, green light surrounding her hands. A cloud of brown smoke shot from her hands and washed over Richter. A prompt appeared in his vision.

  You have been afflicted by an Unknown Spell.

  “What was that?” he cried out.

  “Nothing permanent,” she responded with flippant mirth. The Hearth Mother turned and started walking away. “I will see you at the feast,” she called over her shoulder.

  Richter looked at Sion, wild-eyed. “What was that?” he repeated. “What was that?” His first question was a bit high-pitched, but the follow-up one was positively shrill. “She was joking, right? She didn’t actually curse me or anything… right?”

  “Uhhh,” Sion uhhh’d. He didn’t offer anything else as he looked at his friend. He just started chewing his lip in mild concern and wisely started edging away.

  CHAPTER 33 – Day 142 – Kuborn 32, 0 AoC

  Richter stood there for another full minute, flabbergasted. Sion beat a speedy retreat in case whatever his mother had done was contagious. The chaos seed checked himself over… all over, but everything still seemed to be in the right place. Without another option, he just went on about his day.

  It took several minutes to gather up all the soul stones. Remembering the casual but awe-inspiring demonstration of Hisako’s power, all he could do was shake his head. He hadn’t even thought it was possible to… he didn’t even know what to call it. “Double casting” he supposed. His Dual Cast skill allowed him to use both hands to augment the power of a single spell. Doing so increased the spell power of the casting, but also greatly increased the chance of spell miscasts. The amount of concentration and willpower that would be required to cast two different spells at once…

  He shook his head again. He couldn’t even conceive of how the incantation would work. Though casting a spell looked easy from the outside, that was only because spell books artificially implanted complex calculations, mental stressors and exacting nuances into one’s head when a spell was learned. It was a shortcut that let magi circumvent the years of study, research and experimentation required to create even a low-level spell for the first time. Having to combine that knowledge into something new would be like taking a cell phone and a tv and making an interactive hologram.

  One thing was clear; he had a great deal more to learn. Actually, two things were clear. Hisako had hooked him up! Richter used his Bag of Holding like a scoop. He dragged it along, letting the soul stones disappear inside of the spatial folds. The bag had a handy function of affixing a counter next to items to say how many there were. Hisako had just made him two thousand four hundred and nineteen common soul stones. Even with the 90% weight reduction, it made his back ache to carry them all. Richter carried his burden to the Forge and called for a large sac.

  What followed was an irritating thirty minutes. While he could scoop up items quickly, removing them had to be done by hand. The smiths soon had to bring over another burlap bag. Then another. He left about a hundred in his Bag of Holding. When he was done, Richter carried the bags over to the elementum chest near the back of the smithy. By the force of his will alone, the lid of the green chest opened. Again, there were perks to being the master of a Core building.

  Richter placed two of the sacks inside. Then he emptied about three hundred soul stones into a nearby bucket. He put the last half-filled bag in the chest. When he closed the lid, it merged seamlessly back into the bottom half. To anyone without access, it would just be a block of powerful, self-healing metal. He had almost no concern of a thief breaking into it. Richter couldn’t even conceive of something that was strong enough to destroy a Core building.

  Richter called Bowdin over, the dwarf who was in charge of the smithy during Krom’s absence. He told him to let hunters and sprites take a few soul stones at a time, but only with the understanding that they would need to be returned filled. The chaos seed
also made it clear that the old policy for harvesting souls was no longer in play.

  Before, he had given bonuses to any hunters who not only brought meat back to the village but also captured souls. That was mostly to encourage the few who had Life magic to take the extra effort and risk of casting Soul Trap before making a kill. With his Soul Trap enchanted arrows, that was no longer necessary. Also, he just didn’t feel like he had to beg for people to pitch in anymore. He’d been uncomfortable in his position as a leader at first, and had felt awkward about giving orders. After leading his people through a war, he no longer had those reservations. He was the lord of the Mist Village. It was time he started acting like it. The dwarf did not blink an eye at Richter’s authoritative tone. He simply nodded to his liege. Everyone in the Forge of Heavens looked at the chaos seed expectantly, waiting to see if their leader had more to say.

  Richter clapped his hands, “Let’s get back to work.”

  As per his instructions, a handful of the smiths had prepared arrowheads. Over the next ten minutes, he made one hundred Soul Trap arrows. It only required ten weak souls. He could enchant ten arrowheads for the same amount of Enchantment Points that it took to enchant one larger weapon or piece of armor. Enspelling the arrows didn’t even earn him 1% progression to his next skill level in Enchanting, but he did progress in his new enchantment.

  Congratulations! You have unlocked Rank 2 of the enchantment: Soul Trap.

  Richter enchanted several more arrowheads and then walked over to a smith finishing a leather cuirass. Taking a basic soul from his bag, he enchanted it with Life Defense. The magic took hold, and the description of the item changed.

  You have enchanted: Leather Cuirass of Life Defense

  Defense: +10

  Durability: 26/26

  Item Class: Uncommon

  Quality: Well Crafted

  Weight: 2.4 kg

  Traits:

  +1 Life Defense*

  +2% Resistance to Air creatures, magic and attacks

  *+100% Defense vs Death

  The second trait came from one of the Forge of Heavens’ inherent abilities. Each weapon forged was given a +10% bonus to attack vs spell barriers. Each piece of armor created gained 2% resistance to a random spell school. The smith stored the armor and started on a new one.

  They kept enchanting. Richter was able to enchant several daggers with Life Attack, a few shields with Life Defense and several dozen more Soul Trap arrows. None of the items were of high enough quality for him to try placing two enchantments upon until he came to Bowdin’s work.

  “I have been working very hard on this here sword, yer lordship,” the dwarf said in an almost pleading voice. “I used me Dense Forging subskill and just added the last ingot.” He paused, not wanting to offend his lord, but still added, “It would be a shame if it were to explode… for any reason.”

  Richter rolled his eyes. Apparently being lord of the village was enough to keep Bowdin from saying, “Don’t fuck up again, ya donger!” but wasn’t quite enough to keep the dwarf from implying that “something” bad could happen to his sword now that Richter was involved.

  “It will be fine,” the chaos seed assured him. “I know what went wrong last time. I’m positive I can handle it.” Bowdin nodded, looking a bit relieved. Richter just couldn’t resist adding, “I mean… almost positive.” A faint look of horror appeared on the smith’s face, but Richter had already started.

  You have found:

  Dense Moonstone Longsword Blade

  Attack: 23-31

  Durability: 104/104

  Item Class: Uncommon

  Quality: Superb

  Weight: 5.2 kg

  Traits: +10% Damage vs Spell Barriers

  Richter could see why Bowdin was so touchy about this blade. The dwarf was only an apprentice in Smithing. That meant he pretty much had a 99% chance to make arms and armor that were either above average, well crafted, exceptional or superb. The probability of each quality occurring followed a bell curve that skewed right as a person became more skilled. At the lower end of Bowdin’s apprentice rank, it had been more likely he’d make an above average or well crafted quality weapon. Now that he was just one skill level shy of being a journeyman it was much easier for him to produce higher quality arms, but he still had to work diligently to produce a superb weapon.

  The weapon was even more valuable because Bowdin had used his Dense Forging subskill. Once a blade was nearly finished, he could add extra ingots of metal to increase its damage and durability. The downside was that each ingot also increased the weight and the base requirements of the weapon. Every time the smith added another amount of metal to what he was forging, it required more Strength, Agility, Dexterity or whatever else the base requirement of a weapon or piece of armor was to wield or wear. Thankfully for Richter, his stats were respectable across the board.

  Despite the dwarf’s concern, it worked out well for Richter. The higher quality meant that this blade would have a greater enchanting potential. It also meant that he would be using more soul stuff, which increased the chance of the enchantment failing. Go big or go home, he thought. Taking a deep breath, he began. Reaching into his bag, he withdrew a small pouch. Inside was a sparkling crystal powder. It was white, but when it caught the light in certain way, it turned a deep blue. Richter took a handful out and sprinkled it along the length of the weapon.

  Do you wish to enchant Dense Moonstone Longsword Blade? Yes or No?

  Wasting no time, he chose “Yes.” He couldn’t afford hesitation or distraction.

  This weapon has 42 enchantment slots (base 20 from weapon quality + 15 from Journeyman rank in Enchanting + 20% for Increase Enchantment Potential).

  A list of Richter’s enchantments appeared in his vision. He made the same choice as before.

  The enchantment cost of Sonic Damage, Level II is 4. You can reach the 3rd rank of this enchantment (Base +1 Advance in Rank). What rank would you like to enchant this item to? 1, 2 or 3?

  Richter chose “3,” for the second time that day.

  Final Yields from maximizing this enchantment are as follows:

  9-10 Earth Damage* (base 6 + 48% for Enchanting skill + 5% for Increase Enchantment Strength + 10% for Increase Weapon Enchantment)

  7-8% chance to unleash the secondary enchantment, Disarm (base 6 + 25% for Increase Additional Effect Chance)

  3% chance to unleash tertiary effect, Shatter (base 3 + 10% for Increase Additional Effect Chance)

  * +200% vs Air, +300% vs Crystalline

  The cost to maximize this enchantment is 28 Enchantment Points.

  Do you wish to power this enchantment? Yes or No?

  As he got closer to finishing the enchantment, Richter was starting to feel nervous. He gritted his teeth though, and yelled at the worried part of himself. There was no time for doubt. He went on to the next prompt.

  If you wish to add an additional enchantment it must be empowered simultaneously. Be warned this greatly increases the chances of enchantment failure. Do you wish to add a second enchantment? Yes or No?

  Richter chose “Yes.” Then his list of enchantments appeared again. He had fourteen enchantment slots to fill this time thanks to the superb quality of the white blade. If he chose Life Attack again there would be six enchantment slots left unfilled, even if he enchanted up to the third rank. He had thought about that before he started. Instead of Life Attack, this time he chose Freeze. He still would only be able to enchant up to the third rank, but the enchantment didn’t just do damage, it also gave the possibility of freezing enemies solid for a short time. Besides, Richter wanted to test himself with as much soul stuff as possible. He hated hesitant people, and he despised self-doubt. The chaos seed was about to make this enchantment call him daddy!

  The enchantment cost of Freeze, Level I is 3. You can reach the 7th rank of this enchantment (Base +1 Advance in Rank), but there is only room in your item to reach the 3rd rank. What rank would you like to enchant this item to? 1, 2 or 3?


  Richter chose “3.”

  Final Yields from maximizing this enchantment are as follows:

  9-10 Earth Damage* (base 6 + 48% for Enchanting skill + 5% for Increase Enchantment Strength + 10% for Increase Weapon Enchantment)

  7-8% chance to unleash the secondary enchantment, Disarm (base 6 + 25% for Increase Additional Effect Chance)

  3% chance to unleash tertiary effect, Shatter (base 3 + 10% for Increase Additional Effect Chance)

  * +200% vs Air, +300% vs Crystalline

  4-5 Water Damage* (base 3 + 48% for Enchanting skill + 5% for Increase Enchantment Strength + 10% for Increase Weapon Enchantment)

  4% chance to unleash the secondary enchantment, Freeze (base 3 + 25% for Increase Additional Effect Chance)

  * +100% vs Fire

  You have elected to enchant Dense Moonstone Longsword Blade with Sonic Damage, Level II, Rank III and Freeze, Level I, Rank III. Do you wish to power this enchantment? Yes or No?

  Mentally bracing himself, Richter chose “Yes.”

  40 Soul Stone Points are required to create this enchantment. To finalize, expend the appropriate souls.

  He withdrew three soul stones from his Bag of Holding. One of them held a basic soul, but to fuel this enchantment, he needed a stronger soul as well. A luminous and a common soul stone came to lay next to the smaller gem. Luminous souls only came from stronger monsters like an adult bull skath. They were basically mini-bosses, and as such were much harder to come by. The stakes of successfully enspelling the blade rose even higher.