The Fusionist

The general idea was relatively simple, but actually executing that idea was a bit more complicated. Fortunately, Larek wasn’t a novice Fusionist, so he had plenty of experience with developing Fusions to do what was previously thought impossible. As a result, he was able to apply everything he’d learned over the years creating Fusions to make this work for him.

Normally, all he needed for a basic Illuminate Fusion was the illumination Effect, an Activatable Activation Method to allow it to be turned on and off, a Magnitude (which he was keeping at 1 because this was going to be simply a proof of concept), and a Mana Cost. The first three components he kept exactly the same as he would normally, but the Mana Cost section was something he altered dramatically.

In general, Mana Cost didn’t really change all that much from Fusion to Fusion (apart from some of the unique Fusions that he’d created), as it simply altered itself slightly to reflect the ambient Mana needed to power the formation. There were multiple elements that he could add to help regulate Mana flow and intake, which were important in most powerful Fusions that other Fusionists designed, but it had been a while since the strength of his own formations actually required such things. They still helped to manage Mana flows through the formation to ensure there were no bottlenecks, so he still used them, but none of them actually modified the Mana Cost section significantly.

It was about time to change that.

Normally, an area of ambience around Fusions let him visually see the range within which the Mana Cost section (or sections) would pull in ambient Mana. This area of ambience was what forced him to be a bit conservative in his Fusion placements on things such as his clothing, which had Multi-Resistance, Healing Surge, Automatic Ice Repulsion Field, Skill Boosts, and Omni Boost Fusions spread throughout the different pieces, arranged in a manner so that they wouldn’t interfere with each other. When areas of ambience crossed over with each other, at least for long periods of time, neither Fusion would get enough Mana to sustain itself, leading one or both of them to deteriorate and break after a while.

It was this reason that he didn’t have extremely strong Fusions on his clothing, even though he was capable of creating them; they were currently balanced with the highest Magnitudes he could get without their areas of ambience crossing each other. But with this new technique, he was hoping to make those limitations a thing of the past.

Focusing most of his intent on the Mana Cost section as he prepared to fill the basic formation with Mana, Larek envisioned the normal area of ambience around the Fusion shifting from directly around the stone he was placing the formation upon, to somewhere else, which would then make the Mana flow toward the Fusion. As a test, he pictured the area where the Mana Cost would be pulling energy from to be 2 feet above it, which would change depending on where its orientation was. Satisfied with his focused intent, he finished the process by adding Mana to it – or at least that was what he attempted to do.

As soon as he attempted to add Mana to it, the formation collapsed in upon itself, causing the rock to shatter into half a dozen pieces. It happened so quickly that he had only been able to see the results and not the reason for its failure. Despite there not being any Mana inside of the formation, the reaction was unexpectedly violent, so he was glad that he had decided to start small instead of a full-strength test.

Seeing that he wasn’t injured in the least from the failure, he did the exact same thing again with another stone, this time using his stats to the fullest to see what was happening when the formation collapsed. Slowing down his perception of time with his Agility and Acuity, which allowed him to both see and understand what he was seeing at higher speeds, the confused Fusionist finally saw what went wrong.

As soon as his Mana attempted to enter the Mana Cost section, it wasn’t absorbed at all; instead, it slammed into the Mana Cost section like a rock through a glass window, which somehow destabilized the formation, despite the fact that his focus was keeping it intact. Everything he knew about Fusions and the strength of not only his Pattern Cohesion but his hyper-focused ability to keep formations together was suddenly turned on its head with this strange phenomenon, as it made absolutely no sense. He’d never had his Fusions fall apart so completely before.

How could adding a small amount of Mana to the formation, even if it wasn’t being absorbed, be strong enough to make it violently collapse? That shouldn’t be possible.

Larek conducted his experiment a third time with the same exact results, followed by a fourth, fifth, and sixth attempt. It wasn’t until his tenth violently collapsed formation that he finally had a theory about what was going on…

…and he was fairly certain he knew how to fix it.

While he’d never really had this problem with his Fusions before, he knew about it from his original class on Fusions all the way back at Crystalview Academy. In short, when a Fusion formation didn’t have enough Mana to stabilize it during the creation process, it would then consume itself – usually to the unfortunate detriment of the Fusionist creating it. This typically meant that the Pattern Cohesion that came from the Fusionist would be consumed, along with the Mana that did manage to get absorbed into the formation, creating a violent explosion and potentially harming or killing its creator.

In this particular case, the formation he was trying to create was consuming itself so quickly and causing the stones to crack because there was no Mana, for want of a better word, to cushion the process. It wasn’t harming him because his Pattern Cohesion was used to being manipulated outside of his body and occasionally being lost; otherwise, what he had been doing might have been detrimental to his pool of Pattern Cohesion. His Pattern Restoration Skill also helped to mitigate any damage that was being done, to the point where no harm was done.

But the biggest question he had was: Why was it collapsing immediately when he attempted to add Mana to it? The answer to that was a fault in his original intent when he focused on the Mana Cost section. He had originally envisioned the ambient Mana being absorbed from further away from the Fusion, but at the same time, he had inadvertently made a mistake.

Larek had focused so hard on no Mana entering the Mana Cost section from directly around it that when he attempted to do just that, the formation immediately broke as he tried to ram it home. If he thought of the formation as a small house, normally the Mana Cost section acted as an open “window” that would let in fresh air, i.e. Mana, which would cool off the inside of the house, allowing everything to work properly; but in his formation, he closed off the window by essentially boarding it up. When his Mana impacted the previously open window with the strength of a sledgehammer, as his Mana Control was that strong, it immediately shattered not only the boarded-up window, but the entire house in the process. Normally, the Mana strengthened the formation, keeping it from coming apart, but without that Mana there, even his powerful Pattern Cohesion invested into the Fusion couldn’t stand up to that kind of force being blasted against it. It wasn’t a Pattern construct, after all, despite being made of his Pattern Cohesion.

But it wasn’t necessarily the strength of his Mana flowing toward it that was the problem, nor was it the boarded-up window, nor even the entire “house” in general. No, the problem was that he hadn’t opened any other access points for the Mana to enter the Fusion. The way the Mana Cost section was being altered, it could pull ambient Mana toward it from a distance away, but if there wasn’t a way to get that Mana inside of the formation, then it was useless. What he needed was a way to get Mana inside without it having to be in physical proximity.

And it was the way he stated that problem in his mind that led him to the solution.

Why am I thinking of Mana being physical? Mana, Stama, Pattern Cohesion, and even Aetheric Force aren’t physical, they are energies. What we ultimately do with them can produce physical effects, such as spells, Pattern constructs, and even Fusions, but they are ultimately energies and don’t exactly conform to the same limitations of physical objects. As such, it should be simple enough to…

As this revelation flowed through his mind, Larek wasted no time in altering what he had previously created. The Mana Cost section now had a new focus, one which copied what was there previously, but there was one crucial difference: Instead of the Mana being simply absorbed in an area of ambience 2 feet above the Fusion, which would then flow toward the formation so that it could be absorbed by the actual Mana Cost section when it came into close proximity, he envisioned that there was an invisible connection between the area of ambience and the Mana Cost section. It sounded simple enough in hindsight, but he wouldn’t have thought to do it this way until he ran into the problems that he had.

In essence, he wasn’t opening up another window or even a door into the “house”; he was pumping cool air into the closed house directly. There was no need for Mana to be absorbed from outside of its formation, as it could pull from the area of ambience with a direct, connected line. In other words, he was able to power the Fusion from afar, without having to funnel or transfer Mana between the formation and the area of ambience; the connection was so complete that they were essentially one and the same.

It was when he came to actually infusing the formation with his Mana during the creation process that it all *clicked* in his head. The same principle in connecting the Fusion’s area of ambience and the formation could be applied to his own Mana – but not just Mana. Larek already saw the principle in action when he controlled his Pattern constructs and gave orders to his animated constructs from afar, so he knew that it also likely meant that he could control energy such as Aetheric Force from afar.

But he was getting ahead of himself. Using the principle he’d just discovered, he was able to let the Mana flow out of his body and connect with the area of ambience he had designated to be 2 feet above the formation, where it would instantly be transferred without having to physically funnel it up there. A little experimenting showed that he could make his Mana appear wherever he wanted it with a thought – even underground or in other places he could at least visualize, if not actually see, such as in the middle of a tree.

Finishing off the Fusion successfully this time, he held it in his hand as he activated and deactivated it over and over, watching the Mana 2 feet above it be slowly absorbed in a defined area of ambience. There was no visible connection between it and the Fusion formation below, but the energy was transferred between them without any issues that he could see. In the end, it simply looked like he’d plucked the area of ambience that would normally be around the Fusion and stuck it somewhere else.

So, of course, he had to test some of the limitations of this new technique. The first thing that he learned was that it was nearly impossible to remove the Fusion from the stone without breaking it completely. Normally, he’d be able to “starve” the Fusion by blocking the Mana Cost section from absorbing any Mana, where it would then cannibalize itself by eating all the Mana infused into it; that proved to be a challenge when the Mana flowing into it was coming from somewhere else and not directly absorbed by the Mana Cost section. Theoretically, it was possible to cut off its new area of ambience from any Mana getting to it, but it wasn’t easy or practical; it was easier to modify the formation itself to break it, though with stronger Fusions, this could prove to be problematic when large amounts of Mana would be suddenly released.

So, therefore, his Fusions would essentially be permanent. Other than deliberately destroying them, anything he created would have to stay that way. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it would limit a little bit of experimentation in the future when he messed with different Magnitudes.

The second thing he pushed the limit on, after selecting a few more stones, was distance. How far could he send the area of ambience out from the Fusion and still have it work? After a few more experiments, which stressed his awareness to the limit, he couldn’t reliably say that there was a limit to the distance between the area of ambience and the formation. The connection was there, no matter how far away it was, it seemed, with the only limitation being his own, as he couldn’t visualize having his Mana enter the area of ambience past approximately a mile or so.

Lastly, he wondered if he was restricted to only having a single area of ambience. Since he was already moving it, why couldn’t he split it into two or more smaller areas of ambience? This was a little more difficult to test with the smaller Magnitude Fusion he was using, as the area of ambience for a Magnitude 1 Illuminate Fusion was already fairly small; and while he was able to split it into three equal parts, they were so small that Larek had difficulty finding where they were to insert Mana into them to complete the Fusion. Fortunately, a Magnitude 6 Illuminate Fusion was much easier to work with, and he found that he could easily split up the areas of ambience into 20 different areas of ambience that were perhaps the same size as the Magnitude 1 version. He could also spread them out in all directions, with some underground, some high in the sky, and others only a few dozen feet ahead of him.

The whole technique was amazingly versatile – and would become more important as he used it on stronger Fusions that required a lot of ambient Mana to keep running properly.

As much as he wanted to start replacing the current Fusions on his clothes with new, stronger ones using this Mana Cost alteration, he had more important things to work on; namely, trying to hide his presence from those who could track him down, such as the Gergasi. He still wasn’t sure how the Unspoken Response had managed to know where he was and get to him so fast, but at least he could deal with one issue, now that he had some new knowledge to work with.

Closing his eyes and sensing the Pure Aetheric Force that his body automatically produced and leaked into the environment, which gave his Gergasi pursuers a way to track his location, he could sense his magical signature practically permeating the area around him. He found that it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reach out and gather what had already leaked out of him, as it was essentially part of the environment now; but the newly produced Pure Aetheric Force was something else entirely.

He couldn’t stop the production of this Pure AF with his magical signature, as it was a necessary byproduct of his internal core, and instinct told him that messing with the release of it would cause major problems. But just like he could direct his Mana and Pattern Cohesion somewhere else, he could do the same with this. It took a conscious thought to take hold of the newly produced Pure AF, while it was still in his body and therefore a part of him, and then transport it somewhere else. At first, he thought about simply dispersing it out into the air around him at different distances, but figured he might as well go with something a little more hard to trace: underground. Spreading it approximately a mile beneath his feet and over a distance of a half-mile, he reached out with his senses to see if he could detect it.

It took him a little bit to cut through the interference around him, but when he was able to get past it, he was satisfied with the way he could barely sense his magical signature anywhere. Of course, since he knew where he put it, he could find it by looking in specific places, but he was fairly certain that no one else would be able to.

He thought about changing the way he absorbed Mana, similar to how the assassins had done it, but he decided against it for now. Simply moving his Pure AF away from him required a bit of conscious thought at the moment, and while he figured it would eventually become something he could keep doing automatically, right now that wasn’t the case; he didn’t want to add in something else and not be able to reliably count on them both working when he was under pressure. Besides, it wasn’t really needed, as he wasn’t attempting to hide in plain sight by making it seem like he was just an ordinary person.

With the tracking by the Gergasi problem at least somewhat resolved, Larek got up and went back to the camp, seeing that most of those within were waking up, though he could see the tragic expressions on their faces when they fully realized that the horror of the day before hadn’t been a dream. While he could sympathize with them and knew that they had gone through a traumatic experience, they really needed to get moving before the Gergasi tracked down their campsite; there was no camouflaging his magical signature there, after all.

While Larek waited for them to get ready, he checked his notifications to see if anything had changed. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not when there were only two, though both of them were significant.

Mana Control has reached Level 99!

Aetheric Authority has reached Level 8!

It wasn’t too long after the sun was up that they were airborne again, traveling toward Thanesh with all the speed he could muster from his Pattern box, hoping that everyone in the city was safe. More than that, though, he was eager to get back home so he could continue his work with everything he’d recently learned, from the Apertures to this new area of ambience technique.

It was about time to start putting their plans into place, and to do that, he was going to have to stretch the limits of what a Fusionist could do.