The Challenger has gained seven points to his Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, and Intelligence by distributing said components to the most beneficial muscles and organs in his body.
Combined with the power gained from my last Rise, that increase put me solidly over the 500s in all my physical stats, and that wasn't including the enhancements from my magics.
Most of said enhancements, if not all, were via signature spells.
And according to my next message, my shared signature spell had received perhaps the biggest buff possible.
The Challenger has successfully used magic to experiment on both the physical and magical aspects of his body. In addition to increasing his physical Traits, the Challenger has tied his Ideals more closely with his blood, allowing for several signature spells to merge. The spells Earth Bones, Stone Skin, Quick Step, Inner Fire, Assisted Circulation, and Outer Current have all merged with the Blood magic spell Mighty Pump, creating a new signature spell: Archmage's Channels. The new spell will receive all the benefits of a signature spell at the Practitioner level, and will now receive an additional signature spell for the Ideals of Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Lightning.
Oh hell yes, I thought, as new possibilities raced through my mind.
The Challenger has taken another step on the Path of the Archmage.
The Challenger has taken an experimental approach to yet another aspect of his magic, further solidifying Magic itself as his signature Science. The Challenger will receive a bonus on uses of magic regarding theories, hypotheses, and practical applications. The Challenger has retained his signature Art as War. The Challenger's signature Craft is still undiscovered.
As I mulled over that last bit, I went ahead and glanced at my Status:
Wes Malcolm
Origin:Earthborn (Dusk Era, progressing), Avalonian (Challenger), Woadfolk (Elder), Atlantean (True). Other bloodlines unknown
Rise Level: 35th Rise (Torch)
Saga: Unconquered Hero
Act 3: Renewed Mind. +5 Int, Wis, and Wits. Personal presence helps others resist mental attacks
Strength: 501
Dexterity: 560
Constitution: 502
Intelligence: 549
Wisdom: 476
Charisma: 550
Speed: 561
Deftness: 557
Wits: 549
Will: 682
Paths: War, Kings, Archmage
Skills (averaged): Weapons (42), Ideal Magic (42), Saga Magic (42) Misc Skills (32)
Profession: Leader (Rank: Lunar Viscount)
Art: War (Newly Gained)
Science: Magic
Craft: Forming
"Hey Breena," I asked, "didn't we go over the whole Art, Science, and Craft thing a long time ago?"
"Yes, Wes," Breena sighed. "We discussed it only in passing, though, since we weren't expecting you to stumble into it so suddenly. And by the time I realized you were going to encounter it at any minute, you had already unintentionally gained your three different Paths, your Saga, your flesh and soul bonds, your anointing as a Planetary Lord, and a host of other developments, and I just can't even right now."
The tiny, winged woman took a deep breath that made her float in the air just a little higher.
"But we might as well just try and get them all out of the way. Everyone—or at least, almost everyone—has one art that is special to them, one branch of science they seem fascinated with, and one thing that they enjoy making. These usually remain on the level of 'hobby' for most people, but occasionally someone will make their Art, Science, or Craft a more defining feature. And naturally, they get small bonuses to Skills related to those fields, and other benefits that are just hard to describe.
“At any rate," the little fairy released a slightly dramatic sigh, "most people choose things like 'painting' or 'dance' as their Art, and 'geology' or 'botany' or even 'weather-watching' as their Science. And probably 'whittling' or 'cooking' as their Craft. I think Guineve actually made cooking either her Craft or her Art, but I'm getting off-track. Anyway, you have chosen War itself as your Art—somehow—and Magic itself as your Science. I thoroughly dread to find out what will one day be your Craft, and I have been privately hoping that we will finish saving the worlds and all retire before we ever have a chance to find out. But at any rate, there you go. You will receive a bonus to War-related skills whenever you approach them as an artist—which, to the Expanse, means you spend effort on honing your instinct for the field, including a lot of things that you will probably know yet have trouble explaining. You will also receive a bonus to your different magics when you approach them as a science—meaning you make an effort to remember all the things you've studied, and how they interact with natural laws, and so on. And the fact that you have apparently been putting this much thought into your use of magic and still wind up doing all the things you have done on a daily basis is frankly terrifying."
"Wait," Anahita interjected hesitantly, "are you telling me that this Challenger before us, at some point, made a conscious decision to mix his magics together with my poison, and he based it off of science?"
"That is correct, Anahita," Breena sniffed delicately, "yes."
"Science, instead of just some random, hare-brained scheme?" Anahita tried to clarify.
"Also correct," Breena affirmed. "He was using some natural law, theory, or hypothesis, that his mind somehow tried to both test and apply to his situation. Despite the fact that it should have been in a fully unconscious state."
"You guys are both acting like you've never seen an Earthborn scientist before," I said, trying to defend myself. "Granted, we've had some safety protocols for a few centuries, but our history books say that this is really par for the course. Haven't you read how we discovered nuclear radiation?"
Both women glared at me.
“I hereby retract my apology for yelling at you earlier,” Anahita announced. “I will instead apologize to Breena, my fellow Satellite, for not appreciating her enough.”
"Ohmygosh-thankyou," the pink-haired sprite gushed. "It has been so super hard. We thought in the beginning we would have all this extra time, but then suddenly everything went wrong and he's been keeping up super well but he keeps doing it with all these crazy stunts and I can't really yell at him for it because he keeps pulling them off but since I can't yell at him that makes me want to yell at him even more and so I don't know what to do and—meep!"
Her tearful complaint ended in a happy squeak as I pulled out another cookie and hurled it to her. The tiny winged woman caught the offered treat in mid-air and began munching happily away at it.
I turned to look at Anahita, who was now looking at me with the same broad grin Stell had given me once or twice.
"Very well, my new impossible Challenger," the almond-skinned woman told me, as her eyes sparkled. "I think it is time I forgave you for handling my poison so well, and move forward with our plans." She gave my frame a look that was critical yet (hopefully) appreciative. "You have passed my tests for stealth quite well, but I still foresee difficulty in moving you throughout the city. Your appearance among my people is as exotic to them as my own likely is to you."
"If that is truly the case, then I apologize for being so distractingly drop-dead gorgeous," I said with what I hoped was a charming grin.
Teeth gagged, but Anahita's smile widened.
"Distraction is exactly the sort of thing we wish to avoid right now," the beautiful woman refuted, but her eyes still sparkled as she spoke. "We can work to conceal your red hair and lighter skin, but your large, powerful frame will still be an issue among my people. The only thing I can think to do is to keep you completely out of sight, or..." Some of the sparkle left her eyes. "...we can pass you off as one of the Malus tyrants."
I frowned.
"The Malus Men themselves would probably notice me as soon as one talked to me, and asked me something I...didn't...know..."
I trailed off, as I realized something.
&nbs
p; Yup, Teeth agreed. It's time to realize just how many of your daily problems can be solved with a little Blood magic.
Putting it that way made me incredibly uncomfortable, but he still had a point.
"I can get their memories, though," I said out loud, partly to myself, partly to Anahita's raised eyebrow. "If we can isolate a Malus agent, I can use my Blood magic to drain a number of his memories, so that I could keep my disguise..." Another realization hit me.
Teeth, you know how we can drain another's blood, organs, and memories with this magic?
If you're asking whether or not you can steal their appearance, then yeah, that's possible, the dragon confided. You probably could have done that a long time ago, too.
Well, not too long ago, the idiot continued to clarify, it wouldn't last for very long a few weeks ago, but now that you're almost a High Practitioner in this magic, and we finally have a mana pool worthy of an honest sort of dragon, then yeah. Couple of hours should be no problem at all. Might even be able to keep it up for most of the day. And heck, if we make it to the Adept level, we could look like anyone we wanted to for as long as we want.
"Breena," Anahita said to her fellow Satellite, "is this the kind of look he makes before he gets an outrageous idea?"
"It honestly varies," the pink-haired woman said as she swallowed the last bit of a cookie that had been as big as she was. "Sometimes you don't get any kind of warning at all. You've just got to deal with a giant, spiky building leaping up from the ground, and causing the current roof to fall on your head because he pulled said building out of the ground while he was already indoors. But yeah." She glanced at me. "That's a bad look. What do you have in mind, Wes?"
"I just realized I can take another guy's face if I drink enough of him."
Awkward silence.
"I mean," I sighed, "if I use my Blood magic to drain a guy, I can take more than just his blood and memories. I can take enough of his flesh to duplicate his form and features. All we have to do is pick a Malus agent that the others won't immediately miss, and I have a solid disguise. But that's depending on what your exact plans are."
"Indeed," the mysterious woman said as her eyes twinkled.
"Wait," Breena spoke up, "why did we all freeze when he talked about drinking a guy?"
"Don't worry about it," Anahita said quickly.
"The point is that we have solved the biggest problem regarding the Challenger you have brought me," Anahita announced, as if the whole thing had been a group exercise. "Very well then, Challenger. Your idea has the added benefit of killing one of our enemies, so I will pick the one who is both the most vulnerable and deserving. You may have noticed that your enemies will occasionally attempt to deceive our people by having one of their operatives impersonate you."
"That, I have," I said flatly. "It's been a rather upsetting bit of information for me."
"I would imagine so. At any rate, one such imposter is inside this very city. Once it became clear that we refused to believe their lies, they settled for simply discrediting you, so that in case you did arrive in our world one day, our minds would associate your face with atrocity and deceit."
"I have noticed that as well," I said, hoping I had managed to keep the growl out of my voice. "But it hasn't seemed to come up as much here as it had in the Woadlands."
"You are welcome," Anahita said with a small smile. "The impersonators were among the first to test the boundaries I had been forced to negotiate. Their deaths would always go on to help with future negotiations."
She flashed another small smile.
Sooo hot, Teeth said again. He was right, but I ignored him to focus on work.
"Okay, there are three potential problems with this plan," I said, thinking out loud. "Assuming we can both isolate the operative and take him down."
"That will be quite simple," Anahita said in her quiet voice. "They often operate alone, both to continue the lie we all refuse to believe and because the other operatives associate them with my poison and knives. So one of them will be alone, both in his daily routine and where he lies down to rest. He has a habit of harassing the women and merchants on a certain market street, getting as close to the boundaries as he thinks he can get away with without provoking retaliation from me. We will intercept him when the time is right, deal with him in a fashion that I have been wishing to do for quite some time, and then you will take his form and memories, and use them for our next endeavor."
"I will be very happy to help you deal with this man," I assured the beautiful woman, "but I have two more concerns regarding the disguise. The next one is whether the Malus Order has made any headway in piercing a person's disguise by examining one's Deeds and Renown, much like your own people do."
Anahita shook her head.
"I have found no evidence of that," she said confidently. "In fact, they still do not seem to understand the concept, and do not seem to care. They have made far too many gains on other fronts to bother with this one matter."
"Alright," I said, deciding that was good enough. "Last issue: even if we kill this man, he will return to his other body, one probably back on Earth. As soon as he recovers from the trauma of his death, he will likely report as to what's happened. I think I can come up with a solution to that, but I need to make sure you're going to be okay with it, because you may not like it."
"I'm listening," the dusk-skinned woman said as she crossed her arms.
"First, we need to leave him alive..." I began, and Anahita's expression immediately darkened.
"I am now listening unhappily," she warned. "All of the Malus Men have earned death, but this one has earned it first."
"He's probably going to get it last," I insisted firmly, meeting the unhappiness in her eyes. "Hear me out. We need to keep both him and his other body from sounding the alarm. Now I can actually do that, thanks to experimenting with the poison I assimilated into my Blood magic. I can paralyze him, shut most of his body down, but leave just enough of him alive to avoid triggering anything in his other body. I can also shut down the part of his brain that will prevent him from returning to his original body."
"So he will be largely free from pain?" Anahita asked as she watched me carefully.
"Not remotely," I said flatly. "Most of his nerve endings will be screaming at him. Unless you've managed to kill him in an even more painful way than I saw you do to the others back in Tajam, he'll likely be in the most pain he ever experienced in his life. And I have to do that," I added. "It's not even about vengeance. It's about dealing with the fact that these murderers, rapists, and child-slavers are not stopped by death—not permanently—and impossible to lock up. If I want to protect our people, I literally have no option except to break as much and as many as their minds as possible. So yes, he will die eventually, in extreme pain, probably a day or two after we've done our other business here. He cannot die immediately, and he cannot get a clean death. Do you have a problem with any of that?"
I watched her eyes carefully, but I could tell they were now sparkling with a dark satisfaction.
"That will do nicely, my Challenger," the short woman announced. "And I think we will get along quite well together. I hereby forgive you for all the times you have angered me. Again."
I chuckled.
"In that case, it sounds like we have a plan, then," I said confidently. "Or at least, the first phase of one. How strong is this fellow we will be jumping and then pounding into the ground?"
"Strong." Anahita announced calmly. "The Malus Men have been creating stronger and stronger imposters to make up for the embarrassment of the original ones dying so quickly and easily. This one's strength is one of the main reasons I have not simply given into my anger and executed him. But with the power you and my sister Satellite displayed yesterday, I am confident that the three of us can—"
"Wes can probably take him," Breena interrupted. "I just looked at his status page. Even without using any magic, his body is as powerful as we try to get a Challenger to become
right before a Tumult, when the Challenger is on their own, or has to fight a Dark Icon in single combat—an advanced Dark Icon," she amended, rolling her eyes at me. "Is this guy we're jumping anywhere near that level?"
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