Felix huffed a breath, but smiled. Finally. Someone who's got this shit figured out.
"Alright, I'll trust your judgement. At least until I can beat you in a fight," Felix half muttered the last part to himself. Harn just smirked. Again.
He's infuriating.
The man wandered off, letting Felix recover and go over his notifications. Dude's not lying. He knows what he's doing.
Long Blade Mastery is level 10!
...
Long Blade Mastery is level 12!
Small Blade Mastery is level 9!
Small Blade Mastery is level 10!
Blunt Weapon Mastery is level 4!
...
Blunt Weapon Mastery is level 7!
Staff Mastery is level 2!
...
Staff Mastery is level 5!
Parry is level 3!
Parry is level 4!
Thrown Weapon Mastery is level 11!
Physical Conditioning is level 20!
Physical Conditioning is level 21!
The list of Skill increases made Felix feel capable, in an abstract sort of way. He knew he still had a long way to go.
I wonder if Harn would let me have some of his blood..I'm sure he's got some good Skills. Felix felt a vague ache in his gut, but shook off the uncomfortable pressure. No chance that's acceptable behavior around here, though.
And yet...
His Gourmand Title and Lessons of the Past Skill were such an advantage that he'd be a fool not to make the most of them. Gotta find some more monsters, stat. Speaking of...
Felix pulled up the description of one of his newest Skills: Mantle of the Long Night.
Mantle of the Long Night (Rare), level 1!
The cold of the Long Night cannot be stopped, only delayed. Extends an aura of cold centered on yourself. Range and strength increases with Skill Level.
Haven't even tried this out yet. Got too excited about Cloudstep. Felix smiled to himself. Should I train it now?
No one was around him, and while his Stamina was very low, his Mana was completely topped off. Felix shrugged into a comfortable sitting position, and double checked where everyone was located. Magda was nowhere to be seen, but Vessilia was fighting Evie, while Atar sparred against Harn, of all people.
Good luck with that. Felix chuckled, but stopped when his ribs ached. Pain Resistance was exactly what it said on the tin, it seemed to numb or make pain more tolerable, but it didn't make it go away. If only, he sighed.
He sensed Pit was near the actual stairs. Not, of course, where Felix had descended. He still couldn't find that stairwell, and the lack annoyed him. The whole tower was a weird little mystery wrapped in the larger mystery of what the hell happened to this huge city. Harn didn't know, neither did the others, only saying it happened long ago. Evie referenced the Third Age, which sounds like a long time ago, but are Ages a hundred years? A thousand? What Age is it now?
Felix's thoughts ran in circle and he resolved to ask more pointed questions of the others, mentally adding the concept of time to his list of questions. List is getting pretty long.
Felix shook himself. He was losing focus. Might be more tired than I thought. Whatever. I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Mantle of the Long Night
A swirling gust of wind surrounded Felix, pushing outward a few feet before it terminated. The wind was chill, but not uncomfortable, and it never settled down, constantly rotating at low speed around him like a tiny, invisible hurricane.
This is cool. He rolled his eyes. Neat. It's like a personal air conditioner. No doubt it'd get stronger as it leveled, but it also didn't take up much Mana, only three or four points per second. At his current rate of regen, as long as Meditation was active, he could keep it up for a little over seven minutes. He left it on, and turned toward his other spells.
Reign of Vellus got the most use of his spells, and it had already reached Apprentice Tier. As such, he'd noticed it was harder to level than before, taking either more usage or more unique insights to move it along. Felix decided to focus on his lesser used spells, maybe amp up his firepower. Not to mention he might even complete that Apprentice Quest he had lingering.
Okay, so Acid Stream, Influence of the Wisp, and Stone Shaping are the closest to Tier, but my Sigils, Invocation, and Shadow Whip all need serious work. Cloudstep uses a lot of Mana and at least some Stamina, so I'll set that aside for now. Hmm.
Tottering to his feet, Felix made his way to the fire pile, retrieving a bundle of sticks from the remarkably large stack. He idly wondered if Harn had snuck out and chopped down a tree and the thought made him laugh. After a bit and some twine from their pack, he had produced three bundles of sticks that were his best attempt at targets.
Improvisation is level 5!
Mantle of the Long Night is level 2!
Huh, didn't expect that. Then, as he watched, the nearest bundle started to ever so slightly silver along the edges. When he touched a stick, it was frigid. Awesome.
Retracting his Mantle, Felix took several paces back from the impromptu targets and focused. He activated Shadow Whip and it shot forward from his left hand, smashing one of the targets down. He let the spell fade and frowned. I didn't mean to knock it over. How did I make it spread out? He cast again, this time acting on instinct and splaying his fingers out wide.
The Whip launched again, but the end of it fanned outward instead of staying a single solid whip-shape. The fanned out pieces of it easily engulfed and secured around the target. With a quick yank, the entire bundle flew back toward Felix, who caught it in delight.
Shadow Whip is level 14!
He returned the target.
Ok so I can control the shape of it. But how much? Felix cast again, this time trying to split the whip into two pieces after it had cast. There was a slight pressure behind his eyes, but then the spell did it; two wriggling tendrils of shadow writhed in time with each other, extended from the same hand. He tried to use both tendrils to simultaneously attack two targets at once...and failed spectacularly.
A sharp spike of pain lanced up his forehead. "AH shit!" He held his hand to his head before pulling it back, expecting blood. There was nothing. The pain had been inside his head. Oh that's probably not good. Maybe leave the dual targeting for higher levels.
Instead, Felix dual cast the spell, throwing two Shadow Whips at two separate targets. This time it went as expected. Both targets were ensnared as he splayed his fingers, and both were yanked back toward him with a casual tug.
Dual Casting is level 14!
And on it went. He gained two more levels in Shadow Whip, and Felix discovered two things about it in that time. One, he could split the whip into four tendrils for each casting, but no more; he also couldn't move them independently, and all four tendrils would strike the same target. The only benefit he saw there was that each tendril was a different angle of attack, so maybe it would be harder to defend against?
And two, it was definitely tacky to the touch, which must help bind it to the target. What Felix didn't understand was why this shadow spell was tacky while the passive shadow cloak skill Illia had possessed had remained stubbornly slick. It was something he kept returning to: If they're both made of shadow Mana, why are they different? What's the cause?
As he sat, recovering his Mana and pondering the nature of his spellwork, he let his mind wander to the Rockstrike from whom he'd taken the Skill. The thing was a shadow/earth elemental and used its own tendrils as partial locomotion and offense. It had definitely used its tendrils independently, as had all the others he'd fought in that cave. None had used the tendrils to bind him, though, instead focusing on whipping and blunt force trauma. Then why does mine? Did I get a variant?
Felix closed his eyes, focusing on the spell itself. Like all the rest, Shadow Whip was a lingering feeling in his core, a phantom limb that he knew would activate if he prodded it in just the right way. It was strange, really, but that was how all of his Skills worked. Felix could feel a faint network of pulsing lines throughout his flesh, his pathways, and echoed out among them were the elaborate designs he recognized as Stone Shaping and Manasight. But they all started in his center, he felt. His core, where a blue-white fire roiled and azure sparks crackled.
He homed in on Shadow Whip, teasing out the feel of its pattern. It undulated, like a wave, but it was compressed, turned in on itself in a recursive manner that was dizzying to follow. Felix lost the path quickly, despite his recall; it was less about memory and more about...something else. Something vague that he didn't have the words for. Not yet.
Opening his eyes felt like he was resurfacing from a deep sea dive, and there was a brief moment of disorientation where the world felt too loud, too bright. He could almost hear a ringing in his ears, like a feedback loop from a hot mic, which was ridiculous--
Felix stopped. He focused on the sound, a not-quite ringing that definitely did not shake the inner portions of his ear. No, the ringing was coming from inside the house. His core, specifically.
Fire Within is level 30!
What is...Felix traced it back to the undulating pattern for Shadow Whip. He knew sound had some place in the development of Skills, just as the imprint within his core channeled and defined them. Meditation worked by feeding back into itself, harmonizing with his stats to produce more of the same. So what was Shadow Whip doing?
Felix pushed again along the undulating trail of his spell, feeling that ringing become more of a buzz as he neared those ineffable lines. The patterns were drawn in Mana itself, and as he focused closer he could see pulses of blue-white light flaring along the lines of the Skill, followed closely by waves of grey-black shimmers. The buzz modulated, speeding up and slowing down as each blue-white pulse flared by, almost like a wave.
A grasping tide that surged and ebbed, each time grasping and pulling. Pushing away yet simultaneously never letting go.
Shadow Whip is level 17!
...
Shadow Whip is level 20!
Fire Within is level 31!
Fire Within is level 32!
Felix's eyes snapped open wide.
And he smiled.