Crossing Serpent's Way, page 29
part #1 of Trials of the Endless Planes Series
Then, right.
[Shadow Form (Un)]: Active ability that allows you to transform into a being made of pure shadow, gaining greatly increased speed and defense.
The second ability was a part of the first Boon he’d given to Mila. “Alright, got ‘em,” he reported.
“Already?!” Markeelal blurted before he could stop himself. “Ahem…I meant…are you sure? That was awfully fast…”
Kaito allowed himself a small smirk, “I’m pretty sure I did it right…” If only the werelich knew what his Title did.
Unchained
Achieve both the Crucible Mana Core Forger and the Crucible Epic Boon Feats.
Grants +1 Boon slot, allowing you to equip higher rarity mana cores beyond your natural limits.
Increases success rate during mana core forging by 25%.
It seemed that his Title applied to all parts of the core forging process, not just the primitive procedure he cobbled together while on Earth. That plus the fact that he intimately knew all the possible abilities that these species had simplified the process.
“What’s the next step?” asked Kaito.
The werelich paused, speechless for an awkward moment, before he caught himself and answered, “You’re doing well, Kaito…Very well, in fact. Next, you need to grab hold of the first core and find its nodes again. Then, you’ll have to choose three abilities out of the four that you want on a single core. Tell me when you’ve done that.”
Kaito did as he was told, choosing [Shade Glide (Un)], [Padded Feet (Un)] and [Shadow Perception (Un)]. The glow from his Mana Molders gradually increased, radiating a bright blue that seemed to swallow his hands whole. Not wanting to lose his concentration, he gave the werelich a simple nod to indicate he had what he wanted.
“Astonishing…” the werelich muttered, before giving the next set of directions. “Alright, now I’m going to add a third uncommon mana core that you’ll need to melt down as fodder. Hold onto the three abilities you’ve chosen and just sink more mana into the process so that all the cores congeal into one solid lump.”
Without giving Kaito any more warning, Markeelal dropped another mana core atop the two already in his hands, forcing him to hastily shift his grip to keep hold of them all. He quickly sharpened his focus to latch onto the three abilities he wanted, then poured more mana through the chainmail gloves on his hands.
Their glow intensified threefold, a glaring blue light peeking through his closed eyelids like a rising azure sun. There was no visceral heat to the process, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t sweating. He’d never tried to melt three mana cores at once, though thankfully, the Mana Molders helped concentrate his energy so he was still only using about two-thirds of what he would normally when forging cores.
His thumbs suddenly sank into the increasingly malleable mana cores and he added more energy to hasten the process. Soon enough, his fingers were kneading the rapidly melting cores like molten glass.
“Excellent!” Markeelal exclaimed. “Now, hold tight to those three nodes of mana and mold all of that molten material into a rough sphere.”
Having been the requisite cook of his household back on Earth, Kaito was familiar with shaping unwieldy ingredients. This was like trying to wrangle two packs of ground meat into a single large meatball. After a few awkward moments, he formed a lumpy glob of molten mana cores into a rough globe.
Inside of it were the three ability nodes he held onto with his own energy. Somewhere in this process, the unused nodes had been sacrificed for the greater good.
“Alright, Kaito. Keep that shape and compress it down. Start to wean off the amount of mana you’re using in the gloves so you can condense it all back into a solid form as it cools down.”
Easier said than done…Kaito thought helplessly to himself as he tried to do what Markeelal wanted. It was like juggling multiple balls in the air and he was all thumbs, though that didn’t stop him from trying.
Gritting his teeth, he focused harder on the images of the ability nodes he wanted. Then, he quickly decided that the best way for him to accomplish this task was to hold the glob of molten material in one hand, while using his other hand to rapidly smooth out its surface as if he were shining an oversized bowling ball.
“That’s it, keep that motion steady and gently ease off your mana…” the werelich instructed.
Kaito’s face glistened from the concentration as tiny rivulets of sweat slowly dripped out of the gloves and down his wrists and forearms. Despite this much more intense process, he had a gut feeling that this was still less mana intensive than what he’d been doing.
Gradually, the final form of the new mana core began to take shape. The more he smoothed out its surface, the firmer the entire thing became. Once he got it down to a more reasonable size, he switched over to using both of his hands to tamp it down like he was tightly packing down a snowball and the three ability nodes were the ice cubes at its center.
Pat, pat, pat — came the steady sound from between his hands. As the new mana core hardened, he was able to lessen the flow of energy into the gloves until finally, he was left with a pristine, crystalline globe of softly glowing azure. It wasn’t a perfect sphere, but it was close enough.
And when he checked its description on his screens, he finally opened his eyes and a broad smile split his face.
Core of the Umbral Feralon (Ra) - Grants the rare Boon, [Coat of the Umbral Feralon], which allows the use of the following:
- [Padded Feet (Un)]: Passive ability that allows you to move quickly and quietly through all kinds of wooded areas, enabling you to navigate difficult terrain, dodge obstacles, and maneuver around enemies with ease.
- [Shade Glide (Un)]: Active ability that allows you to defy gravity for a period of time by traveling along shadows at any angle as if they were the ground. The higher the shadow, the more mana needed. Upper limit is 10ft.
- [Shadow Perception (Un)]: Passive ability that can detect minor disturbances in the shadows, giving you a complete picture of your surroundings within a 20ft radius.
It wasn’t the most powerful mana core he’d ever forged, but its success felt practically guaranteed with the Mana Molders equipped. He glanced towards Markeelal, who was openly boring a hole into the new mana core with his red-tinged eyes as he furiously stroked his pointed chin.
“You…succeeded…”
Kaito nodded, “Yup, looks like it.”
“…On your first try…”
“Well, I’m not a complete beginner,” Kaito reminded the werelich.
“Yes, but…you admitted yourself you hadn’t even known it was possible to pick and choose abilities less than an hour ago,” Markeelal rebuked.
Kaito shrugged, “Just because I didn’t know for certain didn’t mean that I’d never thought about the idea. I just never knew how to go about accomplishing it. But now that you’ve shown it to me, I think I can get the hang of it.”
Something in Markeelal finally snapped. “The hang of it?! I’ve never seen anyone succeed on their first attempt at this before! You were supposed to struggle just finding the ability nodes!”
“What can I say, Keel? I’m a fast learner. Besides, I have…advantages that others don’t have,” Kaito replied in an ambiguous tone.
“Clearly!” the werelich exclaimed, exasperation in his voice. “By the Lady, you might as well be a prodigy at transmuting!”
Kaito quickly shook his head and held up a hand to forestall Markeelal, “No, no, no, don’t think like that because I’m definitely not a prodigy. I earned my advantages by wading through rivers of monster blood, then banging their mana cores together until my eyes bled. That was all there was to do during the Crucible — fight and core forge. And I got good at both.”
Markeelal calmed down after hearing that, wrangling his incredulity under control. “You’re right, Kaito…Of course you’re right. I’ve never actually given lessons on transmuting to a Pioneer before, so your progress just seems astounding to me. I can’t imagine what advantages you’ve earned for surviving your world’s Crucible.”
Kaito waved the apology away, “I’m not offended. Believe me. Now, what else is there that you want me to try?”
The werelich smiled a toothy grin that looked absolutely demonic coming from his cadaverous face. “We’re moving on to anchoring an ability to an object so that we can create trinkets. I hope you’re good at sculpting.”
Kaito just groaned.
* * *
Chapter 26
Kaito dashed the lump of malformed material straight at the inn room’s wall with a loud crack, breaking it into countless shards like shattering a plate. “Goddammit! I’m terrible at this!” he angrily berated himself.
They’d been working for hours at this point. After his initial success, he’d failed again and again much to Markeelal’s relief. The werelich could rest easy now that Kaito wasn’t some once in a lifetime savant of transmuting.
“Maybe we should call it a day, Kaito. You’ve made great strides into learning the basics of transmuting. Now, you just need to put in the time to perfect them. This is a craft. Something that I’ve spent decades honing. You can’t expect to be proficient within a day. By the Lady, you shouldn’t even expect that within a week or a month,” Markeelal said in a calming manner.
Kaito forced himself to get a grip and steady his breathing. This was not a new feeling of frustration. He knew this feeling well. Too well.
How often had he struggled with forging mana cores on Earth? And now that he was in a new reality, why shouldn’t he struggle again when learning the proper way of doing things?
He took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh as he slumped his shoulders to release the tension he carried. “You’re right, Keel. I’ve wasted enough of your time. You didn’t have to spend so much of it with me…thanks for that by the way.”
Markeelal gave an amused scoff, “Tche, did you think I decided to teach you solely out of the goodness of my heart? Ha! You’re paying me, Kaito!”
Kaito chuckled at that, quickly agreeing that he truly did owe the old werelich something for his time. “That’s fair, Keel. How much?”
“Well, for one, I’ll take that rare mana core you first made. I didn’t know you had cores from the Forest of the First and Last on you. Do you have any nightflier cores by any chance?”
Taking a moment to flick through his void locker, Kaito eventually nodded slowly, “I do, but I don’t have many of them left. I have more umbral fang, feralon and bonecrawler cores though, if that helps.”
“Well, do you have any cores that have sensory abilities? I know that you’re comfortable opposing the Ashen Flame guild, but I am not. Lowvar and his group will eventually find me and unless I want to flee the city, I need to have a peace offering ready and waiting.”
Kaito thought about that for a moment, not liking the sound of giving future enemies potential tools that could bite him in the ass. But ultimately, he decided he’d rather stay in Markeelal’s good graces than concern himself with the Ashen Flame guild for now.
“I have a decent amount, but you’ll have to offer me more than just these last few hours, Keel. I know where these cores will end up going. And I know that I’ll have to fight the Ashen Flame eventually, which means I could very well be signing my own death warrant.”
“Fair enough, Kaito. How about this? I have a runic tablet that has more basic and intermediate guides to transmuting that I usually give apprentices. I’ll trade you the tablet and a pair of Mana Molders for the cores. Do we have a deal?”
“Hmm…” Kaito rubbed his chin, “These are only uncommon Mana Molders, do you happen to have maybe a rare pair?”
“I…do. But they’re my spare set for my own personal use. I can’t just get those anywhere. I would need to eventually recommission a new spare if I give them to you…”
For the next few minutes, they went back and forth on the price, but in the end, Kaito offered a pair of rare cores from a couple of scaledstalkers that sealed the deal. When the dust settled, he’d traded away two scaledstalker cores, five nightflier and 10 umbral fang cores — all with sensory abilities. That was plenty to outfit those eight fools and then some.
Kaito walked away with the hours of training he already received along with a new informative runic tablet and a shining pair of rare Mana Molders. All in all, he was happy with the trade.
“Good doing business with you, Keel,” Kaito said, offering his hand for a shake. Markeelal tilted his large, angled head to the side curiously and asked, “What’s this for?”
“Where I come from, we shake hands to finish a trade.”
Markeelal shrugged and shook Kaito’s hand. Then, the werelich finally unfurled himself from his seated position on the floor cushion. “If that’s all, I think it’s time to head home and do some of my own transmuting. I don’t know when the Ashen Flame will come calling, but I know they will at some point. I need to be ready,” he explained in a resolute tone.
“Thank you again, Keel. I hope we can meet up again before I leave Nimbusgarde,” Kaito offered while escorting the towering werelich to the door of the inn room.
After the transmuter left, Kaito immediately sat back down to practice. He’d rented the room for a single night and there was still plenty of light outside to burn.
‘Anchoring,’ as Markeelal had called it, was the process of picking a single ability node while molding the molten mana core into a specific shape that would eventually be attached to an external object. That was the basis for how the runic tablets and compass worked.
It wasn’t the symbols themselves that conjured the screens. The runes just allowed access to the mana cores that had been anchored to the various tablets and compass. That’s what the flat, crystalline pieces were in the backs of the tablets — a molded mana core with a specific ability.
When he asked Markeelal about them, the werelich said that a passive memory ability had been used. Meanwhile, the compass relied on a passive sensory ability. It made sense to Kaito once it was explained. He’d had a number of different sensory Boons in his time and they all gave him a fairly detailed perception of his surroundings. But he never would have thought they could be harnessed in such a way.
However, not all transmuted and anchored items required runes to work. One of the simplest creations was actually a storage trinket formed in the shape of a ring, necklace, earring or some other piece of jewelry. This required a storage ability that was anchored to a piece of metal. No runes necessary unless someone wanted some form of security placed on the item. The hardest part of the process was actually hunting down a creature that could produce a storage ability in their mana cores.
From first hand experience, Kaito knew that only truly colossal monsters had them. His own void locker had come from a vicious mutation of a killer whale. Kaito had spent weeks hunting them and had been pleasantly surprised to find they had storage abilities. Honestly, it was why they were so rare on Earth.
Apparently, it was the same in the Endless Planes too. Only the giant monsters could grant storage abilities, so they were prized hunts. Markeelal said that there were always open bounties for hunters willing to take down a welkinwhal or three.
Kaito needed to get one of those storage items so that he could free up his last Boon slot. He didn’t need the cold resistance anymore, not with his epic Boons. [Gorger (Un)] was still useful for those times he ingested weird substances, but he was certain he could get that ability on a new Boon. For now though, he shelved that idea for the future.
Instead, he took out one of the many nimbus nautilus cores he had in his void locker for his next attempt at anchoring a core to an object. In this case, Kaito hoped to craft the [Aerosphere (Un)] ability onto a ring or something.
Spending time with Teras, Zenser and the deceased Halder had made him jealous of their hovering beach balls made of wind. Markeelal assured him that this type of trinket was simple as well, only requiring a couple of control runes for piloting, which the werelich was happy to inscribe once Kaito was actually able to anchor the ability onto something.
He slid on his new rare Mana Molders and started to handle the mana core. A soft blue glow engulfed his hands as he quickly used his energy to latch onto the ability node he wanted.
[Aerosphere (Un)]: Active ability that allows you to summon a powerful gust of wind in the shape of a sphere that you can ride on. The sphere moves quickly and can be steered with your movements, allowing you to zip around the battlefield and avoid attacks. Maximum height is 10ft.
Anchoring an ability to an object was a fundamentally different process than combining cores that granted Boons. Mana cores that were slotted into a person’s body granted whatever abilities they held, but a core outside of someone’s body could only ever grant the use of a single ability and even then, there were restrictions.
First of all, for an ability to be used externally, its mana core had to be anchored to an object. By doing this, the ability was no longer affected by a person’s attributes, which made any anchored ability inherently weaker than if it were a part of a Boon.
Secondly, not all abilities were capable of being anchored. For example, some forms of sensory or active empowering abilities were completely incompatible because of how they were meant to interact with a person’s body.
Lastly, the abilities that could be anchored were split between utility, offense and defense.
Utility abilities like alternate storages, the information tablets or the compass had a small cooldown between uses and usually required runes to use them properly, which meant he would need to learn how to runescribe eventually.
As for offensive and defensive abilities, they gained large cooldowns as well as increased mana costs to activate them somewhere in the range of double or triple the original. At least they were easier to activate and didn’t necessarily need runes, though the presence of runes did help to manipulate how the ability manifested like when they were anchored to armors or weapons.
