The Fusionist

Magical Detection has reached Level 82!

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Magical Detection has reached Level 90!

Pattern Manipulation has reached Level 94!

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Pattern Manipulation has reached Level 98!

Mana Control has reached Level 97!

Mana Control has reached Level 98!

Dodge has reached Level 51!

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Dodge has reached Level 67!

You have reached Level 54 and have 34 available AP to distribute!

Bladed Weapon Expertise has reached Level 57!

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Bladed Weapon Expertise has reached Level 71!

Stama Subjugation has reached Level 74!

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Stama Subjugation has reached Level 89!

Body Regeneration has reached Level 54!

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Body Regeneration has reached Level 71!

You have reached Level 55 and have 69 available AP to distribute!

Energetic Transmission has reached Level 5!

Aetheric Authority has reached Level 7!

Pattern Restoration Skill has been unlocked!

Pattern Restoration has reached Level 1!

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Pattern Restoration has reached Level 20!

You have reached Level 56 and have 101 available AP to distribute!

Beast Control has reached Level 51!

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Beast Control has reached Level 65!

Leadership has reached Level 22!

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Leadership has reached Level 35!

Congratulations!

Due to your superior and instinctual application of patterns of nearly any shape or size, you have unlocked the Complete Patternal Specialization!

Requirements:

Knowledge of 4 Pattern-related Skills

Intellect of at least 20

Acuity of at least 20

Pneuma of at least 20

The Complete Patternal Specialization also provides these benefits:

Enhances the strength of all spells, Fusions, or pattern constructs by 10%

Do you wish to accept the Complete Patternal Specializ—

Congratulations!

You have unlocked the Pattern Prodigy Specialization!

Requirements:

Complete Patternal Specialization

Pattern Master Specialization

Pattern Restoration Skill of 20

Pattern Formation Skill of 20

Pattern Manipulation Skill of 20

Pattern Recognition Skill of 20

Fusion Skill of 20

Intellect of at least 50

Acuity of at least 50

Pneuma of at least 50

The Pattern Prodigy Specialization also provides these benefits:

Ability to utilize Pattern Cohesion in unique ways

Ability to manipulate up to 40% of your Pattern Cohesion outside of spell patterns and Fusion formations

Heightened ability to manipulate your internal pattern

20% reduction in Pattern Cohesion requirements for all spells and Fusions

Enhances the strength of all spells, Fusions, or pattern constructs by 15%

The Pattern Prodigy Specialization automatically replaces the Complete Patternal and Pattern Master Specializations!

Larek was glad that he was lying down, as the sudden influx of notifications nearly knocked him out. It was the greatest quanity of Skill Level-ups that he’d ever experienced, and on top of that, he not only unlocked a new Skill and Leveled-up himself three times, but he also gained a new Specialization. As for the new Skill, he instinctively understood what it would do for him, as it aided in repairing his internal pattern – as well as keeping it together; he wasn’t sure if he had unlocked the Skill in response to what he’d done to himself, as if he had triggered some sort of life-threatening threshold, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Pattern Restoration was the only reason he was up and around right now.

And it was still actively trying to restore his internal pattern. Before he looked too closely at anything else, he immediately spent just over 47,000 of his accumulated Aetheric Force into raising its maximum Skill Level, as it was maxed out right now at 20, bringing it all the way up to Level 100. Almost immediately after doing so, he got another notification letting him know that it had Leveled-up again, so he was glad to have done it as soon as he was able. In addition to restoring his internal pattern, he also had a feeling that the new Skill would allow him to do something else with it, but that feeling was a bit vague at the moment; he figured it would become more clear as it increased in Level.

Once that was done, he looked at the current status of his Skills.

Mage Skills:

Pattern Restoration Level 21/100 (1,000 AF)

Pattern Recognition Level 70[80]/100 (1,000 AF)

Spellcasting Focus Level 76[86]/100 (1,000 AF)

Magical Detection Level 90[100]/100 (1,000 AF)

Multi-effect Fusion Focus Level 93/100 (1,000 AF)

Fusion Level 93[100]/100 (1,000 AF)

Pattern Formation Level 93[100]/100 (1,000 AF)

Focused Division Level 95/100 (1,000 AF)

Pattern Manipulation Level 98/100 (1,000 AF)

Mana Control Level 98[100]/100 (1,000 AF)

Martial Skills:

Ranged Weapon Expertise Level 10/70 (700 AF)

Unarmed Fighting Level 13[23]/70 (700 AF)

Blunt Weapon Expertise Level 15/70 (700 AF)

Throwing Level 29[39]/80 (800 AF)

Dodge Level 67[77]/90 (900 AF)

Pain Immunity Level 20/20 (N/A)

Body Regeneration Level 71[81]/100 (1,000 AF)

Bladed Weapon Expertise Level 71[81]/100 (1,000 AF)

Stama Subjugation Level 89/100 (1,000 AF)

General Skills:

Cooking Level 8

Writing Level 11

Bargaining Level 13

Saw Handling Level 15

Reading Level 17

Long-Distance Running Level 20

Speaking Level 25

Leadership Level 35

Listening Level 44

Beast Control Level 65

Axe Handling Level 94

Guardian Skills:

Energetic Transmission Level 5/6 (60,000 AF)

Aetheric Authority Level 7/7 (70,000 AF)

Apart from the new Skill, Larek’s other Skills related to fighting, as well as the creation of his clone Pattern constructs, had increased dramatically. He already knew that Skill development speed was greater when he was either creating something extremely complicated and difficult or facing a monster that was extremely powerful, but this was on a different level entirely. Given who Chinli was, though, it made sense that his Skills had shot up so quickly; almost dying multiple times in a matter of a few minutes would do that, he supposed.

For his new Specialization, it appeared to be centered around his new Skill. Complete Patternal seemed to acknowledge that he had four Skills related with patterns, and that his list of them was now “complete” – which he took to mean that he’d unlocked everything about patterns that he could. The fact that he didn’t have any other “complete” Specializations made him believe that there might be more Skills about Fusions that he was missing, which made him curious about what that could possibly be.

But it was the Pattern Prodigy Specialization that replaced Complete Patternal and Pattern Master that made him excited. The relatively “low” requirements for the Specialization made him confident that the Specialization could probably be upgraded as he improved Pattern Restoration, though he would have to wait and see.

As his mind came down from the sudden shock of so many Skill Level increases, as well as personal Level increases, he began looking at where to spend his newfound wealth of AP. With 101 AP to distribute between his stats, he had a lot of options.

Available AP to Distribute: 101

Strength: 247 [494] (+)

Body: 247 [494] (+)

Agility: 257 [514] (+)

Intellect: 250 [500] (+)

Acuity: 250 [500] (+)

Pneuma: 4,446 [8,892]

Pattern Cohesion: 88,920/88,920

The first thing he did was bring up both his Strength and Body to 250, inserting 3 AP into each—

Congratulations, Guardian!

Due to your unique nature, you have unlocked the Skilled Guardian Specialization!

Requirements:

Novice Guardian Specialization

Any Mage Skill at or above 40

Any Martial Skill at or above 40

Intellect of at least 250

Acuity of at least 250

Pneuma of at least 250

Strength of at least 250

Body of at least 250

Agility of at least 250

Knowledge of at least 7 spells

Knowledge of at least 7 Battle Arts

The Skilled Guardian Specialization also provides these benefits:

10% reduction in Mana Cost for all cast Spells

10% increase in the magnitude of all cast Spells

10% increase in the range of all cast Spells

10% reduction in Stama cost for all Battle Arts

10% increase in effectiveness of all Battle Arts

10% increase in duration of all Battle Arts

The Skilled Guardian Specialization automatically replaces the Novice Guardian Specialization!

A while ago, he had somewhat hoped that something significant would happen when he hit 250 in each of his stats, but he had forgotten about it; as a result, the sudden new Specialization had surprised him.

Looking it over, he saw that it basically doubled all of the benefits of the Novice Guardian Specialization, which only really affected his Battle Arts; bonuses to his spells were basically useless, given that he couldn’t cast any. Nevertheless, he supposed that it was better than nothing, as there weren’t any other notifications that came to him with his increase to 250 in each of his stats.

With 95 AP left, he thought about the fight with Chinli and what might’ve been beneficial to have so that he wouldn’t have been so outmatched. Looking back at the dangerous confrontation, he could tell that she was fairly powerful, both in Strength and in Body, but where she really outshined him was in her speed. There were multiple instances where he had barely survived an attack, and he was fairly certain that it was only his mental speed that allowed him to create a Pattern construct to block the blows she rained down on him. Boosting his own Agility and using Battle Arts had leveled the playing field a bit, but even that had barely been enough.

Greatly increasing his Agility to better be able to survive another attack by a Gergasi might be the way to go… if every Gergasi was like Chinli, of course. While he hadn’t seen anyone else other than his father from their race, he had to believe that not every Gergasi was the same, just as not all Mages or Martials were the same. Chinli had prioritized Agility without seeming to specialize in anything in particular, as she used some Battle Arts and spells equally; his father had seemed like he had been more inclined to focusing on Strength based on what little Larek saw, but he could be wrong.

Regardless, there had to be Gergasi who would fight with weapons if they were forced to, while being expert spellcasters with devastating spells that could devastate a massive area – and the opposite was likely true. If they Leveled-up just as he had, at least as far as distributing AP toward stats, then they would tend to be better suited toward one thing or another, or else they would be average at everything. His worry was that Chinli had been more “average” than most, with just a focus on her speed more than anything else, and that every other Gergasi he would see in the future would be much more dangerous as they specialized in one thing or another.

Taking that into consideration, he knew that there wasn’t much he could do to protect himself against everything they might dish out. Given how many years they’d been alive, the amount of AP they’d been able to accumulate, and their fighting experience, he was never going to match up to them, even one-on-one – because he couldn’t expect to get lucky in every fight. While it might seem the right play to keep his stats fairly even so that he wasn’t deficient in one thing or another, which was what he’d been trying to accomplish lately, he realized that he was going to have to play to his own strengths and personal advantages.

What were those strengths and personal advantages? As always, it was his Fusions and his ability to manipulate patterns that had seen him through, time and time again. Sure, learning how to really fight and defend himself against monsters and people had been important, and increasing his Martial stats made him able to take on even the toughest opponents, but it was all thanks to Fusions that made it all possible.

He was a Fusionist, after all, so he was going to lean into that going forward. That didn’t mean he was going to completely neglect his Martial side, of course, but it wasn’t going to be as much of a priority as it had been lately. Why? Because he had no illusions that he’d be able to take on all of the Gergasi by himself, especially after his near-disastrous confrontation with Chinli. He might personally be able to grow strong enough to go toe-to-toe with another Gergasi, but that wasn’t his strength; it had ultimately been his Fusions and Pattern Manipulation that had seen him through the fight alive, not his physical speed and strength – though they certainly helped him survive long enough to take her out.

Therefore, after some consideration, he distributed another 10 AP to Strength, 30 AP to Body, and 3 AP to Agility, bringing them to 260, 280, and 260, respectively – a moderate increase in two of those stats. The reason Body got more than the others was because it also increased his Pneuma, which was important toward his Pattern Cohesion total. The remaining 52 points he split between Intellect and Acuity, adding 26 to each of them, bringing them to a total of 276. The increase in his Pneuma shot his Pattern Cohesion to over 100,000, which he was sure would be extremely helpful when it came time to design some new, powerful Fusions.

Because that was what it was going to take to win against the Gergasi. If the Fusions he’d made already had allowed him to survive so far, then he’d have to make even stronger ones to not just survive if they came looking for him, but actually to take the initiative and go after them. Granted, he didn’t expect to be able to do that until he was a little stronger and had developed some Fusions that could succeed in such an objective, but he was determined to see it through.

And a large part of that success would be getting help from others, just as the Volunteers had helped to close the Calamity. He was only one person, after all, and if his Fusions were going to be the most effective, he needed them in the hands of as many people as possible. The Gergasi might be powerful, but they were limited in number; the people in the Kingdom might be relatively weak in comparison, but there were many, many more of them. If his Fusions could help them even marginally mitigate the strength differences between them, then there was nothing that could stop them.

Now all he had to do was make sure that nothing got in the way of that plan. There wasn’t much he could do to stop the Gergasi from coming after him again if they chose to do so, but there was another organization that Nedira had mentioned just before she went back to sleep. If they were going to fight against the people that had formerly enslaved the population and had caused the world to be in the danger it was right now, then they would have to be united against them.

In other words, the SIC had to go.

As he settled back down to sleep, finally adjusting to his increased stats, Larek brainstormed ways to go about that.