Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6)

by Dakota Krout

  Chapter Fifty

  Joe jumped off the column of stone, exhausted from having to constantly direct his ritual orbs into the patterns that he wanted. It was good training for future battle, and he had been able to safely destroy a full score of the Hammer Beasts, but it was frustrating that he needed to constantly visualize every aspect of the attack that he wanted to use. Even with a spell, he was able to visualize the spell form and put it out into the world; he did not need to maintain the shape in his mind after the initial usage.

  “Although, now that I think about it, would that be useful?” Joe muttered to himself as he went from beast to beast, collecting their Core if they had one, and otherwise reducing the creature for aspects. “I already know that mana manipulation has leveled up a few times because I was working on controlling threads of mana outside of my body… is this an aspect of spellcasting that I have ignored?”

  A few tests casting Acid Spray at the rocks in the area showed him that no, he had not been using spells incorrectly. “At least… I suppose it shows that only doing it a few times is not enough to change anything. Another thing to practice?”

  Joe looked over his haul; three Uncommon Synthetic and five Common Cores. Shaking his head ruefully, he chuckled and murmured to himself, “Something about having an ability tied to a Ritual Orb really makes it easy to remember to use it.”

  Experience earned: 2,370 (Hammer Beast x20)

  Level up! Welcome back to level 19! Again!

  “No light show or feelings of euphoria for getting back to this level?” He shrugged, although he was slightly saddened that he didn't get to experience that rush again. Just another reason to get to level twenty-two for the first time.

  Battle Meditation (Novice VI).

  Assisted Ritual Orb Usage (Beginner 0). Congratulations on reaching the Beginner ranks for this skill!

  “Nice! That means that I can use two orbs skillfully, and another one fifty percent as easily, right?” Joe immediately pulled out a third orb and tossed it into the air alongside the other two. There was a remarkable difference in the ease of use, and he felt confident that he could control all three fairly easily in combat. As soon as he had collected all of the available loot, Joe turned and started running back toward the city. He needed aspects, lots of aspects, then even more aspects, and he needed them quickly. There was really only one place that he could go to make that happen, and luckily he had a permanent pass.

  As he rushed toward the city to hop headfirst into the sewers, he felt like his body was on autopilot. Since his mind was free, he decided to open up his character sheet and see how things were going.

  Name: Joe ‘Tatum’s Chosen Legend’ Class: Reductionist

  Profession I: Arcanologist (Max)

  Profession II: Ritualistic Alchemist (1/20)

  Profession III: None

  Character Level: 19 Exp: 190,559 Exp to next level: 19,441

  Rituarchitect Level: 10 Exp: 45,000 Exp debt: 9,590

  Reductionist Level: 0 Exp: 936 Exp to next level: 64

  Hit Points: 1,813/1,813

  Mana: 6,662/6,662

  Mana regen: 49.18/sec

  Stamina: 1,491/1,491

  Stamina regen: 6.45/sec

  Characteristic: Raw score

  Strength: 143

  Dexterity: 143

  Constitution: 139

  Intelligence: 148

  Wisdom: 129

  Dark Charisma: 100

  Perception: 132

  Luck: 72

  Karmic Luck: -1

  Joe screeched to a halt as he saw the drastic shift on his character sheet. “That's not right. None of that is right. What happened to…? Everything jumped, everything jumped way too high! Tatum, is this something you did? Dude. I just got you back, don’t mess with the system.”

  Activate Query?

  “Yes, activate query, send a message to the admins, anything so that I do not get slapped with another penalty!” The Reductionist rubbed his bald head nervously. “I just got rid of that curse; I’m not going back to it! Every basic score went up a full ten points, and all of my experience went up an additional ten as well!”

  Your concerns have been passed on! Occultatum sees your plight, and has elevated your error report! Expect a full audit shortly!

  Joe winced the word ‘audit’, but waited patiently for an answer. Five minutes passed, ten, but nothing changed. He took a few hesitant steps, expecting that he would be whisked away as soon as he started moving. Still, nothing. Trying to put it out of his mind, he started running, feeling slow for some reason. “Right… lost my shoes.”

  He burst into the city, running past a confused guard, who had expected him to be gone for several days, before he ran into his first real issue. “Where is the entrance to the landfill? I came out of it… I think it was… no, I died in there. Never got out by walking.”

  He knew another way to get into the sewers, but there was only one way to do it fast. This time, however, he wasn’t going to be jumping into the outskirts of the pile. No, he was going right for the expensive stuff. That meant that there would be a hard landing and monsters to contend with. That was fine. This time, he knew what he was getting into, and he had an oversized mana pool so that he could be his own backup. “Already have food packed, and I don’t need water. Let’s go.”

  With that, he raced toward the only high-end shop in the city that he knew would let him use their garbage chute: McPoundy’s forge. Joe ran in, barely sparing a glance for the many exasperated stares he started to collect as soon as the door opened. “Pardon me; where do you all dump failures? Your access point into the landfill?”

  “Center of the room,” one of the Journeymen stated, getting ‘cheerful’ grins from his contemporaries. “What? What’s he gonna do with that information? Get more training and cheat into a higher rank?”

  Joe saw an opportunity and decided to run with it. “Hey, listen up, everyone. I know you don’t really like the fact that I’ve been able to get special treatment. Let me make it up to you.”

  “I’ll leave here like all other failures.” He walked over to the chute and threw it open, getting a few laughs as he reeled back from the sudden wash of foulness that wafted out. He waved at them, double-checked his buffs, and jumped in headfirst. “Goodbye, cruel forge!”

  The shouts of alarm that followed him in were more than enough to make up for the awkward entry.

  “He’s lost it!”

  “Throw a rope in! That nutter bro is gonna get us all banned from the forge!”

  “Stop him! McPoundy’s gonna eat us for lunch if Candidate bro’s death is traced back here!”

  Joe chuckled the whole way down the slimy tube, his breath catching as he entered the open air above the landfill. The sight was magnificent, since he was approaching from far above and much nearer the center of the hollow mountain. “Oh, right; that’s why Havoc dropped me at the edge. To get a soft landing.”

  The human was dropping directly toward a massive hillock of weapons and metals that had been deemed ‘not good enough to distribute’. He twisted and got his feet under him, landing almost gently among the stalagmites of slag and shambles of rusting steel.

  Exquisite Shell: 8,657/9,260

  “Six hundred and three damage?” Joe looked at the treasure trove that he had literally fallen into, then back at the small dent in his protections. “Totally worth it.”

  A rope slapped into the side of his head, startling him. He looked up just in time to see it get cut in half as the protective shielding of the landfill recognized it as something attempting to ‘climb up and out’. “Well, feces. Good thing I wanted to be here… nice of them to try, at least. First thing; set a perimeter.”

  He hadn’t forgotten that the entire place was infested by zombie Dwarves stumbling around, and Joe didn’t want to stay focused all the way up to getting munched on. Luckily, he had something perfectly suited for this sort of situation. “Quarantine area should almost guarantee me some peace and qui
et.”

  Since the ritual was so simple and easy to set up, in less than twenty minutes, he was able to activate the two circles.

  Class experience gained: 50 (Reductionist).

  The soft sound of materials rotting was covered by a sudden rush of clawed feet skittering away from him, and Joe shuddered as he realized that he was hearing literally thousands of small things moving. Rodents? Perhaps, but what level did they need to be to survive in an area like this? “Well… at least I know they are all under level twenty-nine, or they’d be all over me right now.”

  “Oh… I’m at only fourteen experience from the first level as a Reductionist.” Joe looked around, then at his status screen, then around again. “Alright. It can only help me to have a higher class level, right?”

  He found a tower shield that was almost perfectly flat, and decided to use it as a base for an Apprentice-ranked Ritual of Acid Spray. That would let him get the level up in an instant, wouldn’t take too long or cost too much, and would still be useful in getting through the muck that filled the area. Barring usefulness for unearthing high aspect-rarity goods, he could always toss it in a space beneath residential areas and use it to clear food and trash waste.

  Ten minutes for the first circle, fifteen for the next, and twenty-five for the third. Almost an hour used, but hopefully not wasted. Joe lugged the shield to the edge of the area defined by the Quarantine Area, then swung it around in a wide arc, releasing it like a discus just after activating it. The shield flew like a frisbee, its weight ensuring that it was going slow enough not to activate the boundary shields.

  A rain of acid fell from it as it travelled, but Joe wasn’t following it. He was staring gleefully at the message waiting for him. A shock of silvery energy pulsed through him, not as potent as a character level increase, but still very welcome. His fatigue vanished in a haze of delight, and he sighed happily as he read the notification.

  Class experience gained: 100.

  You have reached Reductionist class level 1! Congratulations! Your understanding of reduction has increased. Bonus: you are now able to expend mana with a greater throughput so as to reduce within an area of effect. The area must be within an Aspect Array. (i.e. Field Array).

  “Level one, just like that.” Joe stretched his neck, rolling his head from side to side. “Sure, I need to figure out what that bonus means, but I have plenty of things to test it on.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Joe walked over to a stalagmite and extended his Field Array around the metal spire. He touched the metal and let his mana inform him of the requirements.

  Item: Slag Pile.

  Reduction value: 739 Rare aspects, 2,149 Uncommon aspects, 3,819 Common aspects, 7,381 Damaged aspects, 10,843 Trash aspects.

  Reduction cost: 125 mana per second. Estimated reduction time required: 40 seconds.

  “Oh? It gave me an approximate reduction time?” Joe was extra pleased about this small change. “That means there is an estimated cost of… five thousand mana. I can foot that bill. Let’s see; just shy of eighteen hundred mana reserved by my buffs. Let’s drop the shield… okay, that gives me enough to spare. Do I just… will it? Or push on the mana?”

  He tried to push the mana, but it was even easier than that; a notification appeared as he attempted to reduce the slag.

  Activate area of effect? Instant cost: 5,000* mana. Estimated reduction time required: 1.5 seconds. More or less mana may be required after initial investment. Yes / No.

  The asterisk opened a sliding scale on the mana which allowed him to play with the mana investment. When he added more, the reduction time increased. When he made a lower initial investment, the estimated time went higher. “I see. Pretty user friendly.”

  He put in the entire amount and started reducing. As soon as it started, he dropped to the ground and his eyes rolled up into the back of his head. It felt like his spine had been pulled out through his chest, but it only lasted for just over a second.

  You are unconscious! Time remaining: 5… 4…

  Waking with a gasp, Joe shot to his feet and looked around, making sure that he wasn’t being attacked. Then the migraine hit. He groaned and sank back down to his knees, his normally mana-suffused body unable to bear the sudden and instant loss of his entire mana pool. Luckily, his mana was coming back steadily, and each second brought relief to his body, as if he had been starved and dehydrated, but now had a direct IV drip pouring saline into his system.

  Luck +2!

  When he was once more able to see through his bleary eyes, Joe inspected the remnants of the slag spike. The vast majority of it had disappeared, leaving behind a perfect slice at the base that appeared as polished as glass. He touched it, just to see how clean the reduction had been, and smiled when he felt almost no friction at all. “This could have interesting applications… no more dropping my mana pool like that, though.”

  He had expected that his mana channels—which had been widened—and the fact that his mana pool had been dispersed through his body, would help him deal with the rapid drain. Perhaps it had, actually. He hadn’t lost any health, but if he’d had an enemy near him, the test would have ended in disaster. “Let’s try over there next. This was a good source of material, but I need common stuff too, right?”

  Joe walked to the edge of his active ritual, and started extending the Field Array. This time, he didn’t have a set goal in mind; the Reductionist just wanted a huge area. His mana raced out of him, worming through the garbage and extending further than he had ever managed before. Just as the first mana tendril reached past the ten meter mark, the entire thing collapsed. “That’s the limit, huh? At least for what I can’t see clearly, and only for now.”

  Starting again, he made sure to guide the mana more carefully, and kept it tied to himself whenever it started to waver. Just as he approached the previous boundary, he stopped and set the mana in place. “Now, that’s good, but how do I…?”

  Uncertain how he would be able to reduce what was in the area, Joe paused and tried to think logically. “This… clearly this is all disparate garbage. A touch of mana isn’t going to let me identify it. To reduce things in an area, I need to use the Field Array, so that has to tie into this process.”

  Joe placed his fingers on one of the mana strands and attempted to send a mana ‘pulse’ through it. The first did nothing, so he sent a second, this time trying to tie his mana into the array.

  Item: Approximately 10 cubic meters of Common and below material.

  Reduction value: unknown. Total mass: 5,740 pounds of material.

  Reduction cost: 5 mana per second. Estimated reduction time required: 600 seconds.

  “That’s ten minutes of reducing.” Joe tapped his fingers together as he thought. “Or~r~r a total mana cost of three thousand if I do it all at once? I can handle that. My mana regen won’t even notice it. Okay… area of effect, and…!”

  The pile of rubbish vanished, only a few small chunks hovering in the open air before falling to the ground. Joe bent over, clutching his chest as his body once again lost a huge pool of mana. “That’s… so unpleasant! I need to figure out—oh! I can hook mana batteries to my Field Array! I don’t need to do this directly; I can practically automate it!”

  That led Joe down a rabbit hole, his excitement rooting him in one spot for almost ten minutes as he plotted out what would be needed to make an aspect generator function the way he wanted it to. “I’d need a large structure with a permanently-built Aspect Array, and it would need to be strong enough to function for a long period of time. I’d need huge jars that could store all the aspects being generated, Mana Batteries powerful enough to keep it running, and either a system or workforce that could keep them charged.”

  While his mind was running through various daydreams to determine what the building should be shaped like, a zombie wandered into the area in front of him, falling into the pit that had been dug out by the reduction.

  Living creature detected in Field Array! This
is not allowed! The reduction of living creatures is impossible. Calculating culpability… unintentional. Administering punishment.

  Joe's array shattered like spun glass, and a backlash of mana drove into his heart.

  Damage taken: 115!

  Even though the damage taken wasn’t all that extreme, the fact that it had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly—also bypassing his Exquisite Shell—almost caused Joe to stumble right into the pit with the zombie Dwarf. “That’s… ow… another thing I’ll need. A sorter or filter. I think I got it. A decagon, a ten-sided building with ten storage areas. A hole in the middle to drop living things out of it. A supercharged Ritual of Little Sisters Cleaning Service to sort by rarity, a ton of batteries to power everything, all of it laced with a permanent Aspect Array. Sounds good? Great, break! Go team!”

  He didn’t want to waste the free experience the monster offered, so he pulled out three Ritual Orbs and set them to slamming into the trapped undead. That was slow going, so all six eventually came out, and Joe used them like a giant hammer, all moving together to hit at roughly the same time. That caused three hundred points of damage per strike, also known as too slow! On the next descent, Joe activated Cone of Cold as well, dealing a total of over five hundred on hit damage.

  The creature tried to escape the pit, but every lunge upward only made the walls of garbage sink down, sending it tumbling away from Joe. This reaffirmed the human’s decision that he really liked having the high ground, and he resolved to keep it as much as possible in the future.

  As the orbs started striking out of sync in their one-sided assault, Joe adjusted them slightly. The attack was as fun to watch as it was to carry out, so Joe didn’t worry too much about how long it was taking. He tossed in a Dark Lightning Strike to hurry things along whenever possible. Over the next thirty seconds, the monster’s health dropped rapidly. Joe had Corify activate on what he hoped was the last hit. It wasn’t, but he managed to deal another eight hundred damage over the next five seconds—another Cone of Cold activated—and the Zombie went from undead to dead-dead.