She didn’t want to get too far from the Guild Hall. The landscape had changed drastically since it had been the city of Everett, but she needed to get far enough away that people moving in and out of the building wouldn’t see her. And so she walked, stepping around multicolored ferns and watching minute firefly-like bugs zip around the foliage. After a few minutes, Daisy took a sharp right and headed west toward the ocean. She probably hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards, but the old school building was now completely out of sight.
The little Elementalist found a perfect place to practice. Between the strange new forest with its foreign plants and a cliff top overlooking the ocean, a part of a brick building still stood. The rest of the building must have been destroyed during The Culling, Daisy reasoned, but this wall would make a great target for her spells.
Having spent a good amount of the night before navigating her MENU panels and pretending to be asleep, Daisy was now familiar with every spell she had access to. There were more than ten, yet Blast! was the only spell she’d ever tried casting. It was a fun spell and she remembered from her fishing experience that it had more uses than simply killing monsters. She was determined to find useful ways to employ all of her spells. But before she got to the other spells, Daisy was sure that Blast! could be improved with practice.
A ball of fire only the size of a golf ball appeared between Daisy’s outstretched hands as she pooled the required Mana into the one-second cast. The Mana moved up from her stomach, into her chest, through her arms and into the orb as it grew to the size of a basketball. It heated up as it moved down her arms until her fingers throbbed with hot Mana spilling into the growing orb of flame. She took aim at the brick wall and released the spell. The burning orb flew across the twenty-odd feet between the Elementalist and her target and detonated on impact, flames expanding as they splashed against the flat surface.
When the spell died a second later, Daisy was relieved to see that her target for practice was still standing, albeit a bit scorched. Her eyebrows drew together as she considered how to make the spell more versatile, then smiled with wild excitement as an idea crossed her mind. Instead of just shooting the burning orb in a straight line to connect with her target, Daisy wondered if she could send it on a curving path. She stepped to her left and pooled Mana into another casting.
She visualized the path that she wanted the fireball to take, and let it go. The result was not ideal. Instead of arching to the left and hitting the brick wall like she’d seen in her mind, the burning orb sailed straight again, passing to the right of her target and continuing on until it dissipated somewhere over the ocean. Daisy frowned as she tried to puzzle together what had gone wrong, but then furrowed her brow with determination and tried again.
This time she tried to make the orb spin left on the vertical axis as she released it, but again the fire ball just shot in a straight line, missing the target completely. Daisy wondered for a moment if it was even possible to make her Blast! move the way she wanted, but she wasn’t ready to give up.
Again, Daisy pooled Mana into the casting, but this time held the burning orb in place between her outstretched hands after the second had elapsed. She could feel her Mana swirling within it, giving it life and form. Trying to replicate the feeling of Mana moving from her core and through her arms, Daisy pushed on the Mana still within the burning orb between her hands and it moved forward an inch. Tongues of flame began to flick out from the orb in uncontrolled power. Fearing it might become unstable and blow up in her face, Daisy stopped pushing on the Mana and the orb was pulled back into place.
Daisy had another idea. With her right hand she pushed on the Mana within the fire ball again, but this time pulled on it with her left hand at the same time. The resulting spin filled the her with glee. She pushed and pulled harder and the speed of the spinning orb accelerated. Then she took aim just to the right of the brick wall and released the cast. The spinning, burning ball of fire left her hands moving in the direction it had been aimed, then, halfway between Daisy and her target, it curved to the left and detonated against the brick wall. She jumped and cheered with both hands in the air, then looked confused as she was confronted with a system prompt.
Congratulations, Daisy! You have unlocked Rank 1 of the non-Class Skill, Manual Targeting.
At Rank 1, your chance to hit your desired target with Manual Targeting is 20%. Practice your new Skill to improve its accuracy.
Daisy dismissed the prompt, silently agreeing with its suggestion to practice. And practice, she did. After she’d forged the initial mental pathway to manually target her spells, Daisy found it significantly easier to do so again. Over and over, the Elementalist pooled Mana into the spell, then pushed and pulled at it to acquire the necessary spin. More often than not, she missed her target, sending burning orbs to fizzle out over the ocean, but that didn’t discourage her. The more she practiced the easier it became to control the speed of the spinning orb. Eventually she was even able to begin the act of pushing and pulling to start the spin during the one-second cast time. Then, another idea occurred to the little girl.
At Level 10 she’d unlocked a Skill called Ice Storm. It didn’t require a specific target, but targeted an area. Daisy reasoned that using this different type of targeting may help her learn to use her new Manual Targeting non-Class Skill more effectively. She hadn’t tried casting that spell yet, but figured that then was as good a time as any.
She knew from the Skill description that casting Ice Storm would require her to pool 140 Mana into the spell over 2 seconds. Daisy looked purposefully at the brick wall and began to cast. Instead of feeling the Mana gradually heat up as it moved down her arms, Ice Storm had the opposite effect, leaving the tips of her fingers numb with cold by the time the cast time had elapsed. She released the spell and watched in curious amazement as a dark cloud appeared out of thin air above the brick wall and rained a torrent of spiked ice shards to shatter against it. For the next ten seconds, the ice shards smashed against the brick wall and stuck out of the ground in a ten-meter radius around it.
Out of curiosity, Daisy decided to try employing the same pushing and pulling technique on Ice Storm. The result was not exactly what she’d had in mind, but she nodded appreciatively as she watched the ice-spewing cloud move slowly from right to left over its ten-second duration. After the thirty-second cooldown period had elapsed Daisy cast another Ice Storm, this time reversing her pushes and pulls on the Mana that made up the Skill to make the cloud move from left to right. She squealed with delight when it worked as intended and received another system prompt.
Congratulations, Daisy! You have increased the Rank of your non-Class Skill, Manual Targeting to Rank 2.
At Rank 2, your chance to hit your desired target with Manual Targeting is 25%. Practice your new Skill to improve its accuracy.
Daisy whooped happily at her progress before continuing her practice with renewed determination. Over the next hour, the little Elementalist fell into a practice routine. First, she’d send an Ice Storm moving right to left over the brick wall. As soon as she released the spell and the storm started moving, she would run a few feet to her right before stopping to cast a curving Blast! at her target. After that, Daisy ran past her starting point to the left and sent another curving Blast! to smash against the brick wall. Another system prompt gave Daisy the excuse she needed to sit down for a break.
Congratulations, Daisy! You have increased the Rank of your non-Class Skill, Manual Targeting to Rank 3.
At Rank 3, your chance to hit your desired target with Manual Targeting is 30%. Practice your new Skill to improve its accuracy.
Her Mana recovered as she sat with her back to the brick wall, catching her breath. Then, Daisy had an idea. The alternating casting of Ice Storm and Blast! had been a strange sensation, Mana cooling to frigid temperatures and then heating to an inferno over and over again as it snaked down her arms. On an impulse, still seated with her back to the wall, Daisy began to funnel Mana
into casting Blast! but instead of allowing the Mana to heat up on its way down her arms as it usually did, she tried to force it to cool drastically the way it did when she cast Ice Storm. Her eyes went wide when, instead of the normal fireball, a blue orb of flame adorned with fractals of spinning ice appeared between her hands. She released her cast straight upward, sending the unexpected result of her experiment into the sky until it fizzled into nothing 30 meters up. Yet another system prompt appeared.
Congratulations, Daisy! You have unlocked Rank 1 of the non-Class Skill, Spell Design.
At Rank 1, you may create a new spell (maximum:1) by combining two currently available Skills. Practice your new Skill to increase the maximum number of new spells you can make, and decrease the casting costs of created spells.
Would you like to create the spell Frostfire Bolt?
Yes or No
Daisy giddily chose yes.
Congratulations, Daisy! You have created the spell Frostfire Bolt.
Frostfire Bolt
Active
Cost: 300 Mana (.375x Base Mana)
30 Meter Range
1.65 second cast
25 second cooldown
Effect: Send a bolt of burning ice at your target, dealing 98 (Fire/Ice) damage (.85x Wisdom Attribute).
Reduces target’s movement speed by 10%.
50% chance to grant target a burning stats, dealing an additional 17 (fire) damage (.15x Wisdom Attribute)over the following 5 seconds
Daisy couldn’t help noticing the similarities between Blast! and this new Skill. The descriptive tables were nearly identical, with only a few key differences. She didn’t like the Mana cost, 120 more than a Blast! would cost her. Daisy shrugged. She’d ask Athios what she thought when the Dimensionalist returned from her day trip to the Ice Caves with Garath. After sitting for a few more minutes, Daisy’s Mana was full, and she felt completely rested. It was time to get back to practicing.
She got into a rhythm, continuing the routine she’d been doing before. Time and again, she’d send an Ice Storm to move slowly over the brick wall before shooting Frostfire Bolts on curving trajectories from nearby locations. Her control was noticeably improving as she repeated the routine. When her Mana bottomed out a few minutes later, the dizzy Elementalist fell to her knees feeling as though she might throw up. Another system prompt appeared, and Daisy’s unfocused eyes struggled to decipher the blurry letters.
Congratulations, Daisy! You have increased the Rank of your non-Class Skill, Manual Targeting to Rank 4.
At Rank 4, your chance to hit your desired target with Manual Targeting is 35%. Practice your new Skill to improve its accuracy.
Daisy dismissed the prompt happily, then retrieved the blue decanter labeled ‘Potion of Endless Mana’ from her Items panel. She hadn’t used the item before but she’d heard others talking about the Potions and she’d gathered that the blue one would help her refill her nearly empty Mana bar. Her face scrunched up at the cloying sweetness of the blue liquid, but she forced it down and her lightheadedness immediately began to lessen. While she waited for her Mana to completely recover, Daisy thought about what she’d learned so far.
It was as clear as day that the knowledge of how to pool Mana into the casting of a spell was instilled in her when her first Skills were unlocked. Her experience with manual targeting had made it just as clear that, with concentration and practice, she could make alterations to the process of pooling Mana into a spell. That made her wonder if she could use her Mana in a similar way, but without using the system-provided structure to force it into a predesigned Skill.
Daisy shrugged. It was worth a try.
At first, she simply pushed the Mana that she always felt within her core up and into her chest, planning to then direct it to move through her arms and into her hands. Unfortunately, she pushed too hard and felt the Mana blow past her chest, upward into her head.
The resulting headache was agonizing, like hundreds of knives stabbing the soft tissue behind her eyes. She squinted in the early morning light, then forced the bit of Mana within her head back down to join the pool in her core. The relief was instant. Daisy frowned, but she wasn’t discouraged.
She tried again, this time pushing as softly as she could. A phrase that her Gran had frequently used came to mind, and she repeated it silently like a mantra.
Two hairs and some air. Two hairs and some air.
Slowly, Daisy felt small tendrils of the blue aura at her core move upward into her chest then splitting to move down her arms as she directed them delicately. Finally, when she could feel a tingling sensation in her fingers, Daisy pushed the Mana out of her body to form a brilliant blue orb the size of a marble between her hands. A system prompt distracted the little girl from her intense concentration, and she lost hold of the Mana ball. The tiny blue pea vanished instantly. Daisy growled in frustration as she maximized the message to see what had been so darn important.
Congratulations, Daisy! You have unlocked the non-Class Skill, Mana Manipulation.
At Rank 1, you can create a Mana Battery capable of containing up to 300 Mana (maximum: 1 battery). Mana Batteries can be stored harmlessly within your body to be activated at a later time. Funnel Mana into a Mana Battery to store Mana. Practice your new Skill to improve Mana Battery capacity and increase your maximum number of allowed Mana Batteries.
Congratulations, Daisy! For acquiring the prerequisite non-Class Skills, you have been awarded the title: Archmage.
Would you like to add the title Archmage to your moniker?
Yes or No
***Note: Each title provides a unique bonus, but you may only have one active title at any given time. The title ‘Archmage’ provides the following unique bonus:
+10% damage to all Skills and Abilities
-10% Mana cost of all Skills and Abilities
The grin spreading across Daisy’s face threatened to tear her lips as she excitedly chose ‘Yes’.
Chapter Ten – Always a Bigger Fish
Atop the roof of the old school building, Garath sat next to the Ice Drake, Aldrasyl. Stars sparkled brightly in the night sky and a light breeze gently ruffled his mop of black curls. It had been a long day and the back-to-back dungeon runs had taken a lot out of him, but he was too excited to sleep. With only several hours until he could water his egg for the final time, Garath could hardly sit still. After writing meticulous notes covering the first round of tryouts, he got bored and decided to sit on the Guild Hall’s roof until the Dragon woke up for his evening hunt.
*Hey Al, can I ask you something?* Garath asked in the silent language of the Dragons. He’d seen the Ice Drake stirring in his peripherals and was sick of waiting for him to wake up.
*Haven’t we spoken before about the shortening of my name, human?* responded Aldrasyl, his still-sleepy voice booming into Garath’s mind.
*I’ve been thinking about that, actually. If you stop calling me ‘human’, I will gladly stop calling you Al. Deal?* Garath countered.
*Your terms are agreeable,* Aldrasyl replied after considering the proposal. Then the faint hint of a draconic smile played briefly across his cobalt eyes. *Earthling.*
Garath looked at the Dragon flat-faced, then the hint of a smile crept across his own, slightly demonic features. *I’m glad you think so, Ally ol’ pally.*
Aldrasyl’s upper lip raised just enough to reveal a mouthful of traffic cone-sized teeth. Garath chose to take that as a smile and flashed in response.
*Is that a yes on asking you a question?* Garath repeated his request.
*You may ask.*
*It’s about the Dungeon south of here. Did your home world have anything like it?* Garath asked.
*Indeed, it did,* Aldrasyl replied, a look of disgust crossing his draconic features. *The introduction of Dungeons on Thylsandra is what gave the Sandrani the strength to slay Dragons.*
Garath remembered that Aldrasyl had mentioned the Sandrani hunting Dragons for sport during their little bonding experience
in the Glade of Rebirth at the culmination of The Culling. He took a moment to process what Aldrasyl had just told him, and then his mouth formed a delicate “oh” as he put it together.
*The Dragons weren’t able to claim Dungeons of their own to even the odds?* Garath asked, hoping the question wouldn’t offend the touchy Dragon.
*No,* Aldrasyl answered. He paused for a few seconds to consider his next words. *Dungeons were, and remain now unattainable to the Dragons. The Entity must believe we do not need the resources or power of a Dungeon to remain relevant.*
*I guess that’s reasonable,* Garath said, eyeballing the massive reptile sprawled out on the roof next to him. *Your species is plenty capable as it is.*
Aldrasyl nodded in sage agreement.
*Well my focus right now is on organizing a group to claim the Dungeon south of here for humanity. I know you have as many questions as I do about the Fatalistic Accord between us, but considering I might not ever make it out of there, I figured you should know,* Garath said. He paused and looked into Aldrasyl’s eyes before continuing. *Neither of us has said it directly, but I get the feeling that if one of us dies the other will as well. Did I misinterpret the information we were given about the accord, or do you get that feeling too?*
The Tree of Ascension: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Peril's Prodigy Book 2) Page 9