“Right on schedule.” Matt observed. He didn’t move, just sitting and waiting for the creature to approach him and make its move. He could feel the anticipation from Van and Echo who watched at a distance, ready to intervene if needed.
The energy vampire was closing in on him at its usual creeping pace. Its density was variable, and Matt had noted that it moves slower as its density decreased. He was using his detection field from his upgraded helmet to monitor its progress and wait for the perfect time to spring a trap.
He continued sitting, back against a rock, as the creature approached. He could feel the first pulls on his mana reserves as it began to form itself around him. It began to condense into a sort of doughnut shape, surrounding him as he continued to do nothing.
Slowly, the creature brought its mass together and formed the ring as it began to spin. It rotated slowly at first before picking up more and more speed. The faster it spun, the faster its body coalesced and the greater focus it took for Matt to resist the pull.
Finally, Matt couldn’t see or sense anything outside the ring. It surprised him that the ring was a sort of green color, looking similar to an aurora back on Earth. Holding back his rapidly building anger at the creature that had been a constant annoyance since they entered the mountain range, Matt cast his spell.
The domain spell was cast at its maximum level, taking more concentration and energy but also having the greatest effect, despite the limited area. The next thing he did was make a box. A very big and very harmful box.
The attack or rather the defense consisted of two parts. The domain spell would start to cause damage and then feed resources back to Matt. It also limited the abilities of the energy vampire enough that he could get his mana construct shaped. The box literally sealed them inside and the vampiric mist was not getting out unless it wanted to get severely burned.
This was the critical juncture since, if the creature was smart, it would just call it quits and bolt, pushing through the mana barrier before it became dense enough to stop it. Luckily for Matt, the creature was pretty damn stupid.
He felt the pull on his resources increase as his attack began, trying to pull mana from him to fuel its own recovery. His will was still strong enough to prevent this but that was failing as the creature pulled harder and his other spells went on.
He could see the edges of the cloud starting to shrink and, unlike when it grew denser, this time it was losing mass. The far edges began to get thinner and thinner until they were completely gone, burned away by his domain. Then he brought the walls of his box in.
When the box shrank, it became stronger, less permeable. It also became easier to manage since it was closer to him and a smaller area. Matt brought the box right up to the edge of the swirling cloud, pressing against it a little and seeing the dull plasma barrier glow from the contact.
The creature tried to push against the walls, only to find anything that touched it was burned away. The few scraps that did make it through dissipated and burned from the residual mana and no longer being a part of the original ‘body’.
Suddenly, there was a lurching sensation, and the creature shifted its shape to be more of an egg shape. Almost but not quite a sphere as the ring all started flowing into the single point. It was from this egg that a tendril of energy lashed out.
Before, the tendrils that had touched and probed at Matt were very faint and nearly impossible to detect, but this one was different, and he felt it slap against him. It wrapped around his torso and began to pull at his mana in a much more intense fashion that he couldn’t begin to resist. The fight had just entered the attrition phase.
Matt, thankfully, had a plan for this. Well, a plan was a bit of a stretch, but he at least had an idea since he considered the possibility. He condensed his box even further, bringing the walls in so it was just him and the, now sphere like, monster inside. While he had pretty much trapped himself inside a box with the thing, he also controlled the box.
Suddenly a wall was created that moved from the floor of the box to the ceiling, cutting through the tendril in its slow path upward. The vampiric tendril tried to shift and move as the wall rose, but it eventually ran out of places to go and was severed as it became caught between the roof and a blade of plasma based mana.
Gasping as the tendril squeezed and thrashed, causing physical pain, Matt focused on his domain spell and began condensing it in on himself. The tendril was slowly burned away, fading as the ghostly fires consumed it and returned the energy to Matt.
“Right, time to finish this.” Matt said to himself as he stood up and rubbed at where the tendril had tried to wrap around his neck. “Should have fucked off when you had the chance.” He said to the ball that was trapped in a slowly shrinking box.
He was slightly disturbed that it made no noise, not even a rustle or vibration as it interacted with the environment. Stepping forward, he focused his domain spell into the boxes interior as he began to push new walls through the box, sectioning off parts of the creature that slowly burned away in his area spell.
Nearly half an hour later, Matt was done, and he got a notification that he immediately checked.
You have killed Clouded Mana Vampire. Level 52
Class: Pilot - Gunfighter is now level 60
Stat points awarded.
Class: Pilot – Gunfighter Skill selection is available
Matt heaved a sigh and promptly sat down. Thinking better of sitting on his butt, he laid down instead. “Ugh, that sucked.”
“Are you OK?” Ash asked a moment later as she stood at a warry distance. She had watched the whole thing with Van and Echo, keeping a respectful distance away.
While she had been warry of Matt and his power, Ash now had no doubts about his ability. Watching how he planned and then executed on that was truly unlike anything she had seen since coming into the System. Her previous worries of her trouble following wherever she went were greatly mollified.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little tuckered out.” Matt replied while stretching out on the gentle slope of the hill. “That took a lot of will.” It was his first time actually using will power to actually fight rather than his other resources.
“What do you mean?” Asked Ash.
“That spell takes mana to cast but uses willpower afterward. It’s kind of self-sustaining to a certain degree but I lose some benefits if I just let it run on its own.” Matt answered and sat back up. “It’s one of those hidden resources. I think Tori called them the back pages of something.”
Ash looked at him like her annoyance should be obvious. “Umm, Matt. I still don’t have a reference to what you are saying. Back pages? Tori? None of it makes sense.”
“Ah, right. Well, how about we get moving and I will tell you about the time I met a god?”
They reboarded the mech and set off. Matt answered Ash’s questions as best he could. She was surprised he had a patron, but he also knew she would be getting a taste of divine influence soon based on the message Tori had sent. He also had to skip over some of her follow-up questions on how things worked with a patron.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
The encounter with the mana vampire had taken place in a valley that was sparsely populated by trees but was otherwise wide open. This openness allowed Matt to get up to some rather incredible speeds when factoring in the normal gait of the mech along with his travel ability.
As predicted, Ash had gotten a little uncomfortable with the skill being used but she was able to adjust after an hour of travel over the hills and valleys. Matt couldn’t use the skill when climbing the ridgelines, which had given her little breaks between its uses to adjust. She had unfortunately not done so well with the first teleport.
He forewarned her about the skill and made sure that she had the plastic bag in hand before he used the skill. It wasn’t just for kicks either since this route took him over some swampy areas that he didn’t want to test his luck with. Needless to say, they took a break after the first one for her to jump out and stumble behind a rock.
Matt pointedly ignored the sounds that followed since it reminded him of his own first experience with the teleport and he had a sympathetic stomach. Also, since they barely had to eat, it was mostly the stomach going through the routine without the satisfaction of actually getting much of anything up.
“All better?” Matt asked and handed her a canteen from his ring.
“That was awful.” Ash moaned and took the water from him with a nod of thanks.
“If it makes you feel any better, the first time I used the skill was just as bad and I still had my helmet sealed.” He laughed. “Talk about a race against the clock.”
It was at that point that Van decided to weigh in. “He also fell to all fours and was out for the count for a couple minutes. You handled it much better, Ash.”
“Hey!” Matt shouted indignantly. “Who’s side are you on?”
“I thought we were all friends here? When did we pick sides?” Van asked in a very loud whisper that was not a whisper at all, but a strange filter effect applied to his external speaker.
Matt had to admit, the core’s sense of humor and personality were growing. Growing fast too considering that they didn’t actually socialize very much with others. He thought that the little trip with another pilot and awakened core might do them both some good.
Both pilots climbed back in the mech and set off once more. “Hey, Van.” Matt said. “Can you take over for a few minutes, I need to look at my skill options. It shouldn’t be long since I thought I saw one, I really want.”
“Understood.” Van said and Matt felt the control slip from his mind.
Opening the System message, Matt reviewed the list he had looked at before. A bunch of navigation and trailblazing skills but there was one little gem hidden in the list.
Projectile Guidance. (Epic)
Guide and alter the flight of your projectiles. Amount of influence and distance vary based on Perception and Intelligence. Degree of guidance varies based on nature of projectile.
Yeah, that’s the one. Matt thought to himself as he selected the skill and felt the knowledge infiltrate his core and mind. Immediately he knew it would take a lot of practice and wouldn’t be very useful for his higher velocity guns. At least not at anything resembling close range.
“I’ll take it back, Van.” Matt said after the selection finished.
The core was silent for a minute before rumbling in his mind. ”So, good skill?”
“Yeah, it’s a way to guide the flight of bullets and other projectiles.” Matt answered. He didn’t want to share that with Ash just yet. ”I think that its going to really be something with the Carl G.”
Van agreed with his assessment after he filled the core in on what the skill told him outright. They talked briefly about the possibilities and how they would employ it but ultimately it came down to what all his other skills had, testing.
Matt would need to experiment with the skill to figure out exactly how it worked and what it was capable of. Fortunately for him, that testing would come sooner than expected as he poked his head over the next ridge line and saw what littered the valley below. Bugs.
*****
“Ok, let’s try that one in the back.” Matt said and took aim with the autocannon. He fired and watched the round zip out over the corpses of bugs closes to him. Its course began to veer slightly as the skill went into effect or rather, the effect was more noticeable.
The level 32 beetle was struck in the side and then exploded as the round reacted and detonated inside. His initial assessment of the skill was mostly right, but they found that it worked a little different than expected.
His skill allowed him to alter the flight of the projectile, but it was only noticeable at extended ranges. This was because it was slowing down enough to actually be influenced. His rifle and the autocannon were the worst offenders, given their high velocity projectiles. His rockets were another matter.
The rockets were much more responsive, due to their reduced muzzle velocity and he found that he could do some interesting things. The primary thing he liked to do was correct for target movement, easily hitting creatures that had moved erratically. He also found that it could work as a pseudo top-down attack at longer ranges if he fired at an upward angle.
The big surprise for the day was that a hand grenade counted as a projectile when thrown. Ash had suggested trying it after getting tired of him shooting into the bugs and being hit with the back blast of the launcher. He didn’t have the best throwing arm but the skill more than made up for his lack of precision.
“Are we done here?” Van asked. “You have killed hundreds of the things testing your new skill. I am sure Ash is not appreciating the delay.”
Ash quickly held up her hands. “No, no. I don’t mind. Please stay as long as you want.” She definitely did not want to disrupt his practice, regardless of how repetitive it seemed to her.
“Ash, I am trying to get him to move on and stop playing with himself.” Van said in that fake whisper again.
Matt sighed, ignoring the core and the sputtering from Ash as she laughed into her hand. “Yeah, probably right. All the high-level ones are dead anyway. I just hate leaving these alive.” He began moving off, headed along the ridge to finally cross down into the grass lands with the tree islands.
“They are horrible creatures.” Ash agreed. She also didn’t like the insect types of monsters.
“Wait, you hate bugs too?” Matt asked, barely keeping from stopping to talk with her.
“Umm, yes? They are fucking gross.” Ash shivered. “Ugh. Disgusting creatures.”
“I knew there was something I liked about you.” Matt said. “Just wish I had a spell to blanket the whole area with my plasma.”
“Plasma? Ash asked.
“It’s my affinity.” Matt replied as he slid his way down the slopes. “What’s yours by the way. I don’t think you mentioned it.”
Ash flushed and shrank into her seat. “I don’t have one apparently.” She muttered.
This time Matt did stop. “What do you mean?”
“On my status sheet it says ‘Null’ so I assume it means nothing.”
“Did you get offered any spells or anything in your skill selections?” Matt was truly curious since, according to Tori, everyone had some sort of affinity and often multiple with only one being listed.
“Well, I picked one called ‘barrier’ that is supposed to project a mana shield based on the affinity you have.” Ash said. “But mine just doesn’t do anything.”
“Alright, hop out, we are testing something.” Matt said and knelt down so they could easily climb out of the mech. “Go ahead and project the barrier spell.”
Ash took a couple steps back and held out a hand. He watched as… nothing happened. “Its active. I told you, nothing ever happens.” She said.
Matt had a suspicion however and wasn’t about to let it slide. “Can I try something? Just don’t panic.” He then created a mana construct.
The shape that Matt went with was a pole that extended from the ground and inched its way toward Ash at a moderate pace, easily avoided if needed. Once the end of the pole got withing a meter of her, it began to dissolve, breaking apart into small motes that drifted off.
“Aha!” He shouted. “I just fucking knew it.” He pumped a fist and canceled his spell.
Ash just blinked and stared at where the mana construct had begun to evaporate. “What happened?”
“Null is short for nullify or nullification. Or at least that’s my bet.” Matt said while somehow looking very smug while wearing a fully enclosed helmet.
“Son of a bitch…” Ash said as her eyes took on the distant look of someone reading their status. “It is Nullification. The rest of that line just filled in.”
“Fuck yeah.” Matt held out a fist.
Ash stared at the fist.
Things got a little awkward.
“Umm, what do I do here?” she asked after looking from his fist to his still helmeted face.
Matt sighed, his head drooping. “Just hold your fist out for a minute.” He said and she did as asked. “Fuck yeah!” he then tapped her fist with his.
Ash looked at him like he was crazy for a minute before asking the pressing question on the tip of her tongue. “Umm, what is that?”
“Oh, it’s a celebratory expression, kinda like a high five.”
“Right and what is a high-five?”
“Hold up your hand like this.” Matt showed her. “Then we slap hands together.” He gave her a moderately firm, but still crisp and neat, high five to demonstrate.
“And this is common in your city?” she was giving him an awful lot of side eye.
“Nah, more from my home world, but what can you do.” Matt said with a shrug. “Anyway, lets experiment with your affinity later, after we get some miles behind us. You can think about how to use it while we travel.”
They climbed back into the mech and set off for the other side of the valley. Putting one more obstacle between them and the tower Ash came from. While Matt was anxious for a good fight, Ash was anxious to get away from the source of her troubles.
*****
Unbeknownst to the initiates, the System observed the interaction, satisfied that it didn’t need to intervene in the changeling’s status menu. It noted once more that fates and paths often converged more than they diverged for the beings under its umbrella.
Out of curiosity and naturally trying to make predictions, the System referenced the changeling’s previous skill offerings. It noted that she had been offered some powerful skills in the past. It then reviewed the recordings of those skill selections and noted the frustration she showed when reading the offerings.
Perhaps things will change, now that they have met. The System thought to itself as it began to shift its attentions elsewhere but still allocating a significant amount of processing power to Matt and his planet.
this* story. I was hoping I could get back in the swing of things, but I have pretty much chewed through all of my back log. In an effort to balance this decrease in my production of The Pilot of Wrath (TPoW), I am going to cut the posts back to once a week on Mondays. I am hoping that I will be able to generate some more back log over the holidays and get back on track for the normal 2 chapters/week. There are things I still want to do with the story so I don’t think I will drop it, but I can’t guarantee the same schedule at this time.
- Cutting back on chapter production for TPoW.
- One chapter a week on Mondays.
- Still have things I want to do with this story.
- Working on another story.
- Not sure about posting new story.
- Want to take the holiday season to figure things out.
- I promise to update you if things change/resolve.