Cat With a Raygun

Joe's Horticulture went up 3 levels after his first two harvests of the fabric fibers and herbs during the weeks he helped Barney train. He wanted to build up more supply of the fibers before he started on his weaving training, so in the meantime he kept practicing with various spells he wanted to improve. First he wanted to practice with some of his new spells, namely Dimension Shift and Prevent Attack. Both spells could be used together to help him avoid damage in combat.

After 2 days he gained 2 levels in Dimension Shift and 3 levels in Prevent Attack. Prevent Attack had no outwardly visible indicator, so just like when he practiced first Elemental Shield, he would keep it active all the time. Even at higher levels it still only prevented a single attack made within 1 minute, though it would prevent more damage from stronger attacks if it wasn't able to stop an attack completely.

Kerras came to spar with him on the third day of this new training focus. He had no weapon skills, no Defense skill, or even Pain Tolerance. Instead, Kerras was training his magics against Joe's fighting skills. The elf Mage surrounded himself with a number of large rocks that would occasionally rise up and orbit around him and intercept Joe's attacks.

After training for several hours against each other, Kerras changed things up out of the blue. Joe noticed a subtle shift in the manachlorian flow of his opponent which typically indicated a skill improvement. Suddenly Kerras moved one of the large rocks to his hand and it flowed over his hand like it was liquid until it solidified as a much larger closed fist which Kerras immediately used to punch the surprised felinoid.

Joe tried to strike back with his wooden training dagger but before he could connect, more rock came to his opponent's other arm and coalesced around it, which Kerras then used to block the thrust. Impressed with this new development, Joe asked, “So was it your Focus that just got high enough to do this kind of shaping while in combat?”

The elf grinned and replied, “Yes. I had thought about this for a while since I got the level five improvement for Shape Stone, but it just wasn't feasible while concentrating on a fight. Now it is.”

Kerras once again brought his stone covered fist to strike Joe's ribs, but as his fist got closer the stone reshaped itself into a sharp point. It wasn't aimed at anything immediately fatal, but even so, Joe didn't want to have to regrow any internal organs so he quickly cast Prevent Attack. Kerras' stone weapon stopped just short of puncturing Joe's side, Joe's Intelligence being much higher than Kerras' Strength.

Joe cast Backtrack to appear behind Kerras and jabbed at his shoulder from his new position. Just before the dull wooden tip made contact with his opponent Joe felt like he was suddenly attacking through a thickness in the air. He still poked Kerras' shoulder, but it wasn't with the full strength it should have been.

Joe paused for a moment. “Wait, did you just-.” Before he could continue Kerras disappeared and then Joe felt a sharp pain in his back as he was stabbed from behind.

“Thanks for the spells, Joe,” Kerras said as he reappeared in front of him. “I guess it's only fair if I give you one in return.” Kerras waited, not doing anything for a moment until Joe realized what he was waiting for. Joe activated Read Aura and then nodded to the younger elf. A gout of flame erupted out of nowhere right in front of Joe's stomach.

Flame Burst (Level 1). This spell creates a small burst of fire at any point within 1 meter per spell level. The amount of damage it produces is the caster's Intelligence multiplied by the spell's level.

Mana cost: 10 mana per casting

“Nice. It's a much better fire-based spell than the other one I had. Are there any other spells you'd like to learn?” Joe asked.

“I already learned Speed Boost and Elemental Shield from Melanie this morning. Since I can now use stone-based melee attacks, maybe that strength boosting spell Fighters get. That time spell you got from Eleanor, of course is a must. And Harvest would be great.”

“Do you want more than that? There shouldn't be a limit to how many you can learn.”

“I know, but I don't have the shear number of skills you do, or the stats that come from them, so many spells wouldn't be as effective for me as they are for you,” Kerras explained. “I'll start slow and work them into my style.”

“Yeah, I guess that's a good starting point,” Joe concurred. The Boost Strength and Time Compression spells were easy to cast for Kerras. For Harvest Kerras used his Logging skill to fell a portion of a tree and Joe cast the spell on the tree for him. After that Joe went back to practicing his spells. By the end of the day he raised his new Flame Burst spell to level 2.

The following day Joe decided to use his new spells in real combat, so went to Mankerin to see if they had any bounties. He was in luck, they had a bounty for a group of cloud elementals. They weren't really harmful to people, they mostly just covered up a person, but when that happened to animals they would panic, so it made traveling through that area with horses or other pack animals really difficult. These wouldn't actually be useful for the new spells he had, but they were a nuisance that needed to be dealt with regardless.

Since he had no intention of repeating the problems he had when fighting the magma lion, he had done reading about different elementals. From what he had read, cloud elementals were made up of mostly air with some water mixed in. They were notoriously tough to fight merely because physical weapons pass through them. Fortunately cloud elementals were slower than their cousins the wind elementals, so Joe should be able to attack them with fire or cold spells, or his raygun.

Joe used his previously discovered combination of Levitation and Speed Boost to fly off to the area where the elementals had been reported. His Telescopic Sight spell leveled up to 2 as he used it to scout the area for the living clouds. No innocent bystanders in the area, at least. Joe finally spotted the clouds 2 hours after he left Mankerin.

It was a really unfair fight. The raygun's cold beam combined with his new Channel Frost froze the clouds solid as their water vapor seized up. All four of them died without ever getting close to Joe. Oddly enough, even discounting the way they froze to death, they became more solid when they died. Almost as if their bodies became physical in death.

Joe Harvested them to collect the elemental cores, as well as cloud, air, and water essences from each of them, twice as many air available as water. Last of all they all had an usual product simply called Cloud Fluff, like it was the “flesh” they left behind.

Since it was a nice day and Joe hadn't explored this region yet, instead of teleporting back to Mankerin right away, he took another route to fly back. On the way his Levitation spell got up to level 20.

Levitation (Level 20). This spell allows the caster to mentally move up to twenty non-living objects each up to one-half the weight the caster can lift physically. The maximum distance an object can be controlled is up to half a meter for every point of Intelligence. Alternatively up to 20 living targets can be targeted, with an additional mana cost paid for each one. Each target cannot weigh more than the maximum weight allowed by the spell normally. Creatures targeted can resist the spell, with their Wisdom opposed by the caster's Intelligence.

Anything affected by this spell counts as being held or touched by the caster.

Mana Cost: 10 mana per minute

The new enhancement to the spell didn't seem like much at first glance, but it was actually quite the boon for a caster like Joe. Joe landed on the ground to test it out. He cast Levitation and picked up more than a dozen different rocks of varying sizes, none bigger than his fist. Next he cast Launch and chose different directions for five different rocks in his magical grasp, then cast it two more times to move the remaining nine rocks in various directions.

The enhancement he got for Launch at level five had seemed limited in use, but now, it was quite good indeed. If he continued to raise the level of Launch he could take on large groups of enemies at once, very quickly. What Ferric had told him about level 25 spells being the stuff that win wars was very clear as his level 20 spell could provide this much benefit at once.

Joe flew the remaining distance to Mankerin and showed the elemental cores to collect on the bounty. It wasn't a large bounty because the cloud elementals were a nuisance rather than a danger, but it was still something. More than that, the materials he gained from his Harvest would make the effort worth it, once he learned what the essences actually did.

The book he had received from the Mages in Trenos had a lot of theories, but nothing that could be proved. Well, nothing that could be proved before Joe came along. Of the different options, the one that seemed most promising was one that postulated that the essences were used like transformers, changing manachlorian energy into specifically attuned varieties. Joe knew that his spells did that, and some of his arcane gadgets used that attuned energy more efficiently. He leaned towards this one mostly because if it was true it would be the most useful for him.

After returning to Rust's Edge Joe had to figure out how to actually work with these essences. The fact that they were Harvested into jars implied that they needed to be contained and couldn't just be handled with his bare hands. He decided to use earth essences in two different experiments. The first one he added to an ingot of magisteel as he was smelting it. The essence didn't bond with the metal but rather broke down with sparkling yellow flecks floating away.

The second experiment was with mana glass. After melting down a mana crystal Joe added an earth essence to the glowing semi-liquid mass of molten glass before shaping it. Instead of breaking down and floating away in pieces, this essence sank into the molten glass and the yellow flecks could be seen interspersed throughout it, even through the glow of the hot glass. Thinking about the size of the circuits he typically makes with magisteel or empowered copper, Joe formed the mana glass into 2000 BB-sized glass beads, with Levitation helping immensely. Joe gained a level in Glassblowing for his efforts.

Based on what his Inspect said, these little beads should work exactly as he hoped. Joe didn't really have a plan to make anything with earth attuned magic, so he stored the beads away in a leather pouch for the time being in one of his armor's Extra Storage compartments. Those little beads were probably worth a good amount of money, but due to the extremely specialized requirement for Joe's unique crafting methods, they wouldn't really be useful to anyone else.

Joe did have an ambitious plan for the air essences, but it required more empowered copper, like most of his creations, and despite increasing the manachlorian draw into the last batch, they still weren't ready. Joe would have to be content with more training of his skills and spells instead.