NOVEL NEXT Chapter 30 - The Quartermaster
Despite taking another piece of stargrass before bed, the next morning he woke feeling like his body had been run through an old-fashioned farm plough. He attempted to move through a basic series of shadow strikes in his cell, pretending he was holding a staff, but it quickly became clear he wasn't up to battling fades today. That was deeply frustrating. It was time he couldn't afford to lose.
But then again, he couldn't afford to be dead either.
He felt bad enough that he couldn't even bring himself to train, but that didn't mean he had to waste the day. First, he called up his System display. [Force Hammer] had ranked up the previous day, and he'd yet to investigate what that actually meant.
[Force Hammer (Cost: 30 mana): Grip your staff at one end and bring the other down with the weight of gravity behind it.
Mid Rank: The impact is stronger and resonates through solid surfaces, sending force tremors that can unbalance foes.]
A grin split Rix's face. More damage was obviously always useful. Would the technique now be strong enough to punch through the armour plating of the behemoth he'd fought the previous day?
But he didn't just get more power; he got a new effect as well. The tremors were interesting. On the surface, they seemed relatively niche, but it depended on their magnitude and duration. At the very least, it was another tool in his toolbox.
He had a brief desire to ignore his injuries and head to the training yard to test it, but the tiny, often-ignored, sensible voice in his head actually managed to talk him out of it. He wasn't going to go anywhere he could use it today. Testing it could wait a day.
Next on the agenda, something he'd put off for far too long: he needed information.
After a brief breakfast in his cell, and a visit to the Commissar to replenish his supply of herbs, he was soon knocking on the Quartermaster's door. They hadn't spoken since she'd given him his techniques, but he still felt like if anyone was going to offer guidance for free it was her. Conveniently, he'd found a schedule posted in the mess hall that showed the availability of key prison staff and today was one of her on days.
"Ah, 503 yes?" she said, turning to greet him with a smile as he stepped into the room. She was unpacking a crate of new weapons and stacking them on the rack at the back of the room.
"That's right, mistress."
She looked him up and down. "Tough dive?"
He chuckled. "You could say that. Took on a group of three of the jumping ones. You never said they could shoot bleeding spines from their stomachs."
"I didn't know they could. That realm you dive is exclusively for prisoners. I did my Whisper time in another realm entirely with completely different fades that evolve in their own ways." Her eyes narrowed, though it was more playful than anything else. "But I do distinctly remember warning you against complacency."
Rix felt his cheeks flush. "That you did, mistress."
She studied him for a few moments, one side of her mouth quirking up. "Well, you're far from the first to need a practical demonstration. The important thing is that you're still standing." Her expression dimmed a little. "It's been a rough few weeks in there."
"It hasn't been easy, but I'm holding my own. Ranked up once already."
"That's good! Those first few dives are the toughest, but I had a good feeling about you and 421 from the moment I saw you in your fade trial."
She must have been referring to Luna.
"I think she was considerably more impressive than me, mistress, but I appreciate the kind words."
The Quartermaster drummed her fingers on the side of the crate. "As charming as I am, I assume you didn't come here to just have a chat. What can I help you with?"
Rix cleared his throat. "How do I beat someone who is much stronger than me?"
She laughed. "Already picking fights you can't win?"
"Not exactly. Let's just say I have…goals, and now that I've got my feet under me, I need to start thinking about how to work towards them."
Seeing Han fight had crystallised something in his mind. Growing stronger wasn't going to be enough. There were plenty of other Whispers who had grown stronger in here, and still he toyed with them like they were children. No trickle of prison resources or mastery of common techniques would help Rix overcome a man who had seemingly suckled at the teat of the heavens themselves. His only hope for success was to focus his approach completely on Han.
But he also needed to be careful here. The Quartermaster was clearly friendlier than most Spiritlock staff, but he still couldn't just come out and ask her, "How can I kill Xu Han?" He doubted her goodwill extended to cold-blooded murder.
The Quartermaster chewed her lip for a few moments. "Are we talking about someone specific here?"
"No," he lied. "But I'd like to do well in the arena next season, and to do that, I'm going to have to beat people a lot stronger than me."
The woman nodded. "That's true. Fades and other Martial Souls are two very different things, though." Her expression slipped a fraction, and she took a moment to formulate her response. "What do you know about Potential?"
Rix hesitated. "Just what they say, I guess? The higher your Potential, the stronger you'll become and the easier you'll climb."
"That's true, but there's a specific reason for that. When you ranked up recently, you got 8 attribute points. I know this because when you came and got your techniques a few weeks ago, I saw your Potential. Every Whisper with Low Potential earns 8 points per rank up, at least until they hit Spark."
Rix could already see where this was going. "But people with higher Potential get more?"
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She nodded. "That's the main impact of Potential. Each martial tier has what we call a base earn rate. Basically, the amount of essence, measured in attribute points, that the average Martial Soul is capable of absorbing at each tier. For Whispers, the number is 10, though it goes up as you progress along the Martial Path. At Nova, I get 25. But not every person is created equal. Some can absorb more or less essence."
Rix recoiled a little. "So, Low Potential is effectively a negative modifier on how many attribute points you earn?"
She nodded. "Exactly. Martial Souls with Low Potential get 80% of the base rate. You can think of Mid Potential as the baseline; they just get the rate itself. Then High and Peak are positive modifiers, 120% and 140% respectively."
Rix exhaled slowly. The math painted a grim picture. At Whisper, someone with Peak Potential would be getting 14 points per rank up to his 8, which was almost double. Assuming Tolson was right about Han's potential, that would mean he'd have earned 42 points, not including whatever extras he'd gained through alchemy. At the same rank, Rix would have earned 24.
"I didn't realise that was how it worked."
She gave a heavy nod. "Unfortunately, it gets worse. You understand that there is a big difference between the tiers?"
Rix nodded.
"Well, that's not just because they've got more points to distribute. When you tier up, you get an extra boost. It uses the same number, but this time, the System applies that to all your attributes. So when you go from Whisper to Spark, you'll get 8 points automatically added to everything."
Rix's eyes grew wide. That really was worse. He wasn't really focused on anything beyond Han at the moment, but all these effects would only compound as he got stronger. The ramifications for his future targets were immense.
"That's…brutal." There was no other way to describe it.
"I know," the Quartermaster replied. "I'm not telling you any of this to discourage you from your Path. Like I told you, we need every Martial Soul we can get." She hesitated, as if there was something more she wanted to say. "When diving, you can pick and choose your battles to some extent to make sure you're always fighting fades at a level you can beat, the odd surprise notwithstanding. But Soul on Soul combat is a different proposition. A lot of the best fighters in the arena are both talented and impeccably trained. I just want you to understand how difficult it can truly be to fight other Martial Souls who are further along the Path, particularly those born more fortunate than you."
Rix closed his eyes momentarily, doing his best to banish the creeping dread. This wasn't anything he didn't know. People had always told him Low Potential meant weakness. All this talk did was quantify that. If anything, it made what he'd come here to ask all the more important. He needed specific strategies for Xu Han.
"I appreciate you explaining all that, but let's pretend I'm a maniac and still want to fight. I assume there are approaches people take to prepare for stronger opponents."
A hint of amusement reappeared on her face. "I figured you might say that. Well, there are no hard and fast rules, but there are some things you can think about. First, you could just get stronger yourself."
Rix gave her a flat stare.
The woman raised an eyebrow. "I'm serious. Most Martial Souls in here aren't optimising their growth. They're too busy showboating for their sponsors or squabbling over territory. If you keep your head down and focus on essence at all costs, push yourself where others can't, or won't, you can get a lot done."
"Okay, point taken," he said. He wasn't sure if he could actually do any better than he already was on that front, but it was worth considering.
She gave an approving nod. "In terms of the arena fights themselves, preparation is underrated. Studying an opponent can yield all sorts of surprising edges. This cuts both ways, of course, but you typically find the more powerful someone is, the less attention they pay to those below them. I'd be shocked if most of the Sparks in this place even knew the Whisper fighters' names.
"One of the first things to look at is people's techniques," she continued. "While there are no absolute aspect counters on the Martial Path, generally, the basic functions of reality are applicable to System techniques as well. Water techniques are typically more effective against fire techniques, for example. Power is still a factor, of course. A Whisper's [Water Beam] is going to be turned to a cloud of steam by an Omen's [Fire Wall]. But it's still worth paying attention to."
"Is there any way to get more techniques in here?" He knew in theory they could come from sponsors down the road, but that didn't help him now.
She smiled. "It just so happens you get another one at High Whisper."
Rix's eyes widened slightly. "Nobody told me that."
"The options aren't as combat oriented as your first batch, but they're still useful. Think of it as a reward for not dying," she replied. "Though it'll be the last one Spiritlock gives you for free. Everything else needs to be earned."
Rix nodded. "I'll try to make it count."
"Good. There are also other vectors for improvement. Attribute gaps are a real handicap, but martial tier alone doesn't dictate the outcome of a fight. Things like embodiments and classes can play a role. Some of those won't apply to you until you get stronger, but one area you can focus on now is training. A lot of Martial Souls eventually get lazy when they hit a bottleneck they can't pass. That's particularly true in here where people might not have a corp to go home to. Having your style and techniques at higher mastery can go some way to bridging the gap against people who have decided it's all too much work."
Remembering the fight between Han and Li, Rix wasn't sure training would do much, but it was foolish to discard it. It was something he could control, so he should do as much of it as possible.
"I'm happy to work hard," he said.
She gave an approving nod. "That will likely be the bare minimum required for you if you want to compete. If you really are targeting specific opponents, you can also try to train against people with similar styles and weapons. It's one thing to be a master of your style physically and another to know how to best apply it to certain kinds of fights."
Given how little Han actually seemed to use his style, Rix wasn't sure how much that would help, but he'd consider it.
"The other thing you can think about is the psychological side of duelling. People are emotional creatures. If you can find out what makes them tick, you might be able to manipulate them into making a mistake." A grin spread across her face. "Us non-sword-wielders have a certain innate advantage there. You'd be surprised by how quickly some martial purists get flustered when we don't simply crumble beneath the supremacy of their weapon choice alone."
Rix laughed. "I'll keep that in mind."
He spent a moment considering everything he'd been told. It was a start, but study, training, those weren't revelations. Those were things he was planning on doing anyway. And deep in the pit of his stomach, he knew that it wouldn't be enough. "Is there anything else?"
The Quartermaster snorted. "What else do you think there is?"
Rix glanced down at the floor. "I mean…I don't know. I was just hoping there was something more I could do. I don't have a lot of advantages, but one thing I do have going for me is that I don't have much to lose. I thought that might give me options."
She considered him for what felt like an eternity before eventually letting out a sharp breath. "Before I say this, I want to make it clear I'm not endorsing this behaviour. This is purely a hypothetical discussion of what is possible." She grimaced. "There are certain products that one might be able to take, or procedures that can be undergone that actually do give you a temporary boost in martial power." Rix's eyes lit up, but she raised her hand. "But they all have consequences. The Martial Path can't be cheated. Every debt must be paid. I've never used any of these things myself, but it's said they can take days to recover from. And overuse can lead to permanent damage."
"What sort of damage?" Rix asked.
"Soul haemorrhage sort of damage," she replied.
Rix gave a nervous chuckle. "So, not ideal."
"Not ideal," she agreed. She looked him dead in the eyes. "It goes without saying that such things are not readily available in the prison. And anybody that does manage to get their hands on them, well…they should be reserved for truly desperate situations."
Rix gave a slow nod. "I understand."
And he really did. He didn't want to flame out. Han was simply the first on a long list.
But when he thought about the man, he couldn't see how their fight could be anything other than desperate.