NOVEL NEXT Book Seven Chapter Twenty Nine
Confusion, anticipation, and fear vie for dominance in my Domain. No one seems to have any idea of what's happening, but there's a burgeoning sense of excitement, as though they're about to witness something miraculous.
Guess I have a reputation to uphold.
"What's wrong?" Melina asks, her brow knit in concentration. She watches me, seems to notice my eyes are fixed on Klaarson, and turns to study the former caravan worker. Temporal flows slow in a tight bubble around her, giving her more time to ponder what's happening.
Understanding lights up her eyes. She drops [In the Blink of an Eye], snaps her fingers, and laughs. "Klaarson's Class. You're gonna fix it?"
I press my lips together, wondering if it's hubris speaking to claim I can fix a Class, but I nod in response. "He's resonating with the linked controls."
"Knowing him, more like he recognizes another lunk," Trevour stage-whispers.
Klaarson doesn't reply. His gaze is locked on the Iron Lunk's control armband. When he realizes I'm right beside him, he flinches away. His entire body shivers uncontrollably, as though someone poured ice water over him, and he gulps hard.
He breaks away from staring, turning to look me right in the eyes. "Those enchantments Mikko has. Could they work on your golems, Master Nuri?"
"No, because I didn't make them."
His face falls. "Oh. I was hoping I could use something like that on delves. I might not be as strong as Club, or as magically attuned as Marta, but I can play my part. I was hoping that if I added golems, then I could enhance the team with my leftover [Caravan Assistant] Skills."
"I'm not an [Enchanter], but I am able to animate glass. You've seen how my golems respond to me. I can pass the bond to you to control one, too," I offer.
"Sure. One of them. But my idea's no good. Without you around, we can't use a squad of golems," Klaarson says. His expression crumbles, though his hands are still balled into fists. He doesn't look like a man who's ready to give up. Not yet.
"Hey, no feeling sorry for yourself!" I clap him on the shoulder and hasten to explain why I interrupted. "Let me finish. My upgraded [Arcane Domain] is practically vibrating right now, and I think I know why. Your Skill structures and Class are shifting. If you let me, I can guide them before they crystallize."
"I was hoping to win a new Class. Seems like this is too easy," he says, eyes downcast.
I shrug. "I know you wanted to claim the prize by winning, but fate seems to have other plans. You gonna turn down a gift? I know you'd be hurt if you tried to do something kind for Marta or Trevour, and they refused your help. So don't be stubborn."
He manages a weak smile. "Guess so."
"I know so," Marta says. "Just do it!"
"Do I still get to try the Iron Lunk?"
"After," I promise. "It's the perfect whetstone to hone your new Skills. But we have to hurry before you lose the moment."
He takes a deep breath. "Do it."
[Legacy of the Scalpel] ignites in a roaring firestorm of hunger. My ever-growing [Arcane Domain] may have subsumed the Skill, but there's still a glimmer of the former identity left over from the crazed researcher whose name inspired the Skill. The need to tinker, to discover, to create something new from the wreckage of the old. I call on the power surging within me and plunge my consciousness into Klaarson's inner world.
Craters and chasms meet my vision where there are still gaps from the assimilation of the new artificial core I created. He's mostly merged it into his metaphysical systems, and the abrasions on his channels have largely healed, but it's a wonder he's still functional. At least his channels aren't phasing away from my presence anymore, and he's finally using mana again without burning pain. Discomfort beats agony, though.
The sculptures of his Skills are broken towers, ending in jagged crenellations halfway up the damaged structures. His conception of self-identity, which mixes with mana and coalesces into a Class—not unlike the process of imbuing itself, now that I think about it more closely—is similarly fractured.
Instead of gleaming like polished crystal, covered with intricate patterns, his Class is dull and dingy. Muddy, as if a crowd of kids threw clods of dirt until it's covered in gunk. Barely any of the runes are legible anymore. Elegant whorls have melted into unrecognizable loops that look like a three-year-old tried drawing a circle. The formerly sharp, precise lines of the runic arrays, like the after-image of a lightning strike, are now squiggles lacking cohesion and meaning.
But a new vision flows through his core space. For a moment, I witness the dream that Klaarson imagines for himself: when monsters leap at his teammates, he interposes a golem just in time to deflect the blow; when they conquer a Rift and win piles of loot, his army of pack mule golems carry it out for them; and when he returns to the Barrens, he'll enhance Yuvaan's trade network with a swarm of golems that constantly support the caravanners and help other kids like him, all alone and without hope, find a future.
He falters for a moment, a streak of regret shooting through him when he considers his former apprenticeship to Yuvaan. Guilt over doubting the [Caravan Master] oozes through the vision like black sludge pouring into clear water. The nascent runes of his hoped-for Class collapse back into the formless ocean of mana, threatening to cut the legs out from under the process before he finishes.
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Not on my watch! I snarl.
Tendrils of mana explode from me, thousands of magical filaments that connect to his boiling sea of inner energy. Thousands more of the ethereal threads reach out to the evolving shapes of his stunted Skill structures, which glow with the unmistakable golden light of a soul on fire, burning with passion and potential.
He's fighting too hard for me to let him fail.
Heaving on my own mana, I pull on my [Arcane Domain], particularly the sub-skills from Scalpel. I come alongside Klaarson, supporting his efforts with my own strength. I shape the raw mana in his core, spinning and pinching it like glass. Forming runes that mirror my old [Glass Animation] Skill, I cut away needless formations and replace them with more enhanced versions I've learned from my studies.
Spending my own mana as rapidly as I can force it through my Skills, I strengthen the runic arrays that are forming his new Class. His grade isn't advanced enough to replicate the full effects of [Glass Animation], not to mention that he has no glassblowing training, but I copy the basic enchantments on the linked controller for the Iron Lunk and supplement them with the odd patterns from the domination the Oletheros used.
It's still not enough.
His ramshackle, pieced-together Class groans under the strain, and I can't repurpose unnecessary elements quickly enough to keep up with the degradation. So I do what I do best: I cheat.
The few Skills that Klaarson has partially regained access to have been helpful over the last few weeks, improving team cohesion and enhancing anything he does as an assistant. We may not be a caravan, but he's finding unusual ways to apply the Skills anyway.
That reminds me of myself. I'm a crafter, but constantly pushing the boundaries of what my Skills are meant to do earned me a [Mage] evolution. He's not ready for that, but with me on his side, he'll end up with something spectacular. I'll make sure of it.
Building buttresses alongside his Class and Skills, I borrow from the empowering arrays in Mikko's [Strength of the Forge Gods] to enable higher mana throughput. I can't give him my Skills, like the [Metaphysical Mender] Shiphrah could facilitate, but I can donate mana and use a form of imbuing and principles learned from forming [Vitrification] to crystalize my own mana into runic shapes and creating an enhancement overlay.
Energy rushes out from me, overcharging my Domain and amping up the effects of the legacy Skill, strengthening my connection to synthetic Skills we're co-creating. Each incision with my slender mana blade, each hot join of two crystalline structures together, is guided by a lifetime of Scalpel's research into grafting Skills together—expertise I gained by fire and blood.
Slowly, inexorably, I bend the crystalizing mana to my will, recreating the intricate fractals Klaarson will need to not only create bonds with multiple golems, but also potentially summon his own in time. It's a pale imitation of my own Skills, and he won't understand how any of the glass-making works, but it should give him a fallback if all the golems I give him are destroyed.
Racing against the clock to complete the shape before the mana hardens, I call out for Melina to give us more time. A bubble pops into existence around us, though I only sense it vaguely through my Domain. I don't dare split my focus by popping out of Klaarson's soul space.
Even so, I'm too slow.
With an ear-splitting shriek, part of the structure I'm creating bends at an ugly angle. The lower half of the Skill structure solidifies and no longer moves under the force of my will, but the upper half continues rotating. Klaarson screams as an array twists and shears away from the tower completely, collapsing back into the liquid potential of his core.
Calculations flash through my mind. No matter how quickly I shape the molten mana, I can't keep up. Drawing on innovation, I consider my options. Think like a [Glassblower], I tell myself, not just like a [Mage].
In the studio, when an apprentice needs to create a large-scale pattern but doesn't yet have any [Heat Manipulation] Skills, we provide metal molds and stamps to press into the hot glass. Maybe I can do something similar here.
Impossible geometries threaten to overload my mind when I try to create a mana framework. A two-dimensional stamp can get complicated enough, but working in three dimensions all while racing against solidifying material is enough to tie my brain into knots. Just as I am about to give up, I realize with a twinge of embarrassment that I haven't reached for my most powerful shaping Skill.
[The Glassmith Masters All] ignites in a colossal rush of power. My mind no longer drowns in details. My path forward is clear now, although pushing my will and intent into the Skill feels like trying to roll a boulder uphill. I dig deep, refusing to give up, and ignore the blinding white lights at the edge of my vision and the pulse of pain at the base of my skull that promises to blossom into a full-fledged migraine.
Under the force of my will, a vast thunderstorm of power spins and whirls, forming into a spiraling vortex. Radiant and resplendent furious crackles of pure white that discharge like lightning, mana rushes into the Skill. Ten thousand upon ten thousand threads reach out, weaving into a mind-numbingly complex lattice work.
All at once, the endlessly intricate runic patterns I've been struggling with snap into place. An enormous stamp, if the shockingly complicated scaffolding hovering in front of me can really be called a stamp, springs into existence fully formed.
I push on without hesitation, impressing the entire shape borrowed from my own Skills on the semi-solid potential energy. I have to work quickly, before the new structure completely hardens. The raw mana sizzles like meat on a grill on contact, and Klaarson lets out another agonized scream, but we're committed now. I can't leave the work half finished.
Moving swiftly, I finish stamping his new Class, and create additional shapes for his remaining Skills, draining my entire capacity to keep up with the ravenous energy requirements of [The Glassmith Masters All] and leaving myself feeling hollowed out and miserable.
Ugh. Iridium Skills are no joke!
Moments later, it's done. I fall out of the soul space and drop to one knee with a groan. As dizzy as I feel, a quick glance confirms Klaarson is worse. He's on his hands and knees, dry heaving as his body convulses.
Viewing brings a rush of relief. The work succeeded. He's just dealing with the physical backlash, and should be fine in a few minutes.
Marta crouches down next to him, stabbing her imbued glass knife into a tuft of tall grass and setting it on fire. She pulls on her Hearthfire Skill, accelerating his recovery and checking for further damage.
Klaarson coughs one last time, wipes off the phlegm from his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and flops over on his side.
"Klaar? Everything all right?"
"Unnh," he replies eloquently, holding his head. "I can't believe this keeps happening to me. If Nuri ever offers to help you, run. He's crazy!"
"Yeah, but did it work?" Trevour cuts in.
Klaarson reaches out of hand, and Trevour helps him to his feet. He offers his friends a lopsided grin. "Guess there's only one way to find out. Let's take a look at what I got."