Cat With a Raygun

“I've never heard of a number of these spells, but many of them I've seen cataloged as belonging to other classes or professions,” Ferelda remarked after recovering from her surprise.

“Yes, that's right. I've been learning them from others around me, or from observing craftsmen making and enchanting objects.”

“And how do you go about actually learning a spell?” Thoomin asked.

“I have to use Read Aura during the entire casting time of the spell. For long spells that requires me to keep reactivating Read Aura, of course. Some spells that don't provide an effect immediately, like the Imbue spells for object enchanting, I have to keep it up until the spell is completed, so that's literally taken days before.”

“Can you show us one of your combat spells so we can try to learn it?”

Joe pondered for a moment, “Yes, I can cast Cold Snap without damaging anything. I can limit the area to right next to me. Okay, now activate Read Aura and watch me closely.”

Joe cast Cold Snap and limited it to not even half a meter of a cold blast. Both Ferelda and Thoomin took out their Guidebooks, but after checking both shook their heads.

“No, I didn't learn that,” said Ferelda. Thoomin echoed her disappointment.

“I broke into Rank 4 in Read Aura when I learned my first spell. What rank do you have?”

Ferelda was Rank 5 and Thoomin was Rank 4, so that wasn't the issue.

Joe thought for a moment, then smacked his forehead slightly. “Oh, what about your Sense Manachlorian ability? You'd of course need to be able to clearly sense the pattern of the spell's energy flow.”

Thoomin and Ferelda both looked perplexed by the question. “Are you saying you've ranked up your Sense Manachlorians ability?” Ferelda asked.

Joe once again summoned his Guidebook and showed them the page that listed his Sense Manachlorians ability at Rank 5.

“How did you do such a thing?” Thoomin asked.

“Well, ranking up to 2 was due to a rather unique situation. I honestly don't know if I can recreate it. After that the other ranks just came rather naturally and the energy flow was visible at Rank 3. Now I can clearly see energy flow patterns in nature, spells, enchantments, and can intuit what the patterns look like for other things based on feel.”

“And what do you do with the knowledge of these patterns?” Ferelda inquired.

“I craft things and incorporate the patterns into them. Here let me show you.”

Since Joe had incorporated the specific patterns of nearly every spell he knew at the time into his armor, and that was all drawn out in a schematic, Joe was able to use Illusory Rendering to show what the Cold Snap pattern looked like, but he changed the material to show as his empowered copper wire rather than magisteel.

“This right here is the pattern for Cold Snap. Try to use your Read Aura on the pattern directly.”

“Still nothing,” Thoomin said. “But didn't you say that you had to see the final result of the spell before you actually learned it?”

“Yes I did! Okay, let's try it like this.”

Joe kept the Illusory Rendering of the Cold Snap pattern active while he cast the spell in a tight circle around himself.

“No, that didn't work, either,” Ferelda informed Joe. “You said you can feel the flow of the manachlorian energy in the pattern. Our senses aren't refined enough to feel the way the energy flows. Can you show us how the energy travels through the pattern while you cast the spell?”

Joe nodded and tried to alter the illusion. They could see it changing slowly, but after a minute Joe shook his head in defeat. “I'm sorry, I just can't get it to change fast enough to show the flow in real time along with the spell's casting. Tell you what, I'm going to brainstorm this for a while and see if I can figure something out. In the meantime, if you need to reach out to me, Administrator Trilko knows how to reach me.”

“But we have so many questions for you,” interjected Thoomin.

“I'm sure you do, but I've also dropped a lot of information on you, revealed possibilities neither of you knew existed. It's going to take some time to come to terms with that. Think it over, write down your questions, send them to me through Trilko and I'll answer as best I can in return.”

Before they could object further Joe cast Backtrack to return to The Rusty Cup in Rust's Edge. He set up the communicator station and sent a quick message to Trilko to let her know it was ready. Ferric had already been briefed on how to work it, so now communication was open between Trenos and Rust's Edge.

Joe also talked with Ferric about the situation with Ferelda and Thoomin. “I want to help them become better Mages, but I'm wary about giving them access to the mana cavern. If I do and they can start learning spells, once they learn Backtrack they'll be able to get back to the cavern. I don't want people to have access to that place unless we can implicitly trust them.”

“I completely agree,” Ferric began, “but they are supposed to be a premier force in the kingdom as the official Mages of Trenos. We need them to be stronger, because if their status as Mages is just a bluff against our enemies, eventually that bluff will be called.”

“I'm going to see if I can find another way to teach them spells, or another way to rank up their Sense Manachlorian ability. In the meantime, though, I need some Toughness training. Do you have time to be my sparring partner? I need someone to hit me a lot.”

- - - - -

Joe spent the next week being cut and bruised during the day. He would be a practice dummy for someone to fight, taking their hits as best he could. For these sparring sessions he wouldn't wear his armor or even a shirt, just a pair of pants. He also didn't use Levitation to maintain his balance on the one foot. His opponent would know when he was at his limit because their weapon would turn into rubber, preventing him from taking as much damage from their next hit. Joe would then conjure a big block of ice and meditate while sitting on it to recover.

As a result of this training his Pain Tolerance, Defense, and Cold Tolerance skills all went up by 3 levels. He used a wooden practice dagger to deflect his opponents attacks and that helped him level his Quick Weapons 2 levels to 4. He also gained a level in Energy Conversion and 2 levels in Regeneration.

Most importantly he got his Healing Touch spell up to level 15. Unfortunately its new function didn't provide a way to restore lost body parts.

Healing Burst (Level 15). This spell channels health restoration energy into a target by touch, or it can be directed towards the caster. At its current level this spell restores missing hit points and closes wounds, can cure diseases and neutralize poisons and other toxins, and can mend broken bones and fix other internal injuries. Hit points restored equal to Intelligence of caster multiplied by the level of the spell.

Alternatively the spell can be used to target a group of targets not hostile towards the caster with a burst of healing energy. The total healing is the same as provided by the touch version of the spell, but it is split among all the targets, being divided according to the severity of the targets' injuries. The area affected is 5 meters across, up to 20 meters away from the caster.

Mana cost: 6 per casting for the touch spell or 100 per casting for the burst spell

During the same week Joe of course continued his wheat and Thessal Leaf farming in the pre-dawn mornings followed by his secret reading sessions in Trenos before their dawn. His Agriculture and Reading skills both went up another level. His Speed Plant Growth and Move Water spells also both went up by 1 level.

Speed Plant Growth (Level 10). This spell allows the caster to bolster the growing rate of the affected plants. One type of plant can be affected by each casting, affecting all plants of that type growing in an area up to one square meter per ten points in the caster's Vitality.

A single plant can be targeted instead with even faster growth for four times the stamina cost.

Cumulative castings on the same plant(s) results in faster growth.

Stamina cost: 50 stamina per casting for the crop version or 200 per casting for the single target version

Since he wasn't holding out hope for getting Healing Burst up to level 20 soon, Joe decided to focus more on his Regeneration skill, hoping it could live up to its name. Joe spent another week of intense, focused training, mostly by still being a punching bag for people to improve their weapon skills. He even let Belstak attack him in different forms. Joe's Defense went up another 2 levels, and his Pain Tolerance one more level. His Energy Conversion went up 2 more levels as Joe constantly drained his hit points away to keep training his Regeneration when he wasn't actively fighting, even though even without his armor it was hard for people to hurt him now.

Joe's Regeneration had risen another 2 points to 24 and his Cold Tolerance up 2 more levels from still meditating on top of a block of ice in thin pants. He was training his Regeneration again and got a notification that it was now level 25 when suddenly he felt a really intense pain from his right leg. The pain was so bad, even with a Pain Tolerance skill of 14 that Joe immediately lost his Meditation feeding energy into his hit point pool. Joe looked at his hit points and was shocked.

Hit Points: 1913/2012

That was slightly more than 95% of his hit points. The pain must have been from his foot starting to regrow. It looks like level 25 was the magic number. Joe smiled. He teleported back home and put his armor back on, then went to The Rusty Cup to speak with Ferric.

“Ferric, great news! With my level 25 in Regeneration it looks like my foot is starting to regrow. The pain is so very intense, though. I'm going to pop to the cavern to try to get it done faster with all the extra energy there. If you don't see me again before you close, can you come check on me? I might be passed out from the pain. I'll be close to the portal to make it easy.”

“Uh, sure?” Ferric said, rather confused.

Joe teleported away immediately, grabbed a scrap piece of leather from his pockets to bite down on, and then began the process again.