Daniel and I make it back to the Necromancers Guildhall a little while later, with the food still hot and fresh in my storage core. I explain the brawl in the alley to the group, who seem pretty surprised we could get into so much trouble in such a short amount of time. Nobody, not even Stella, seems to bat an eye at the fact that I pretty much killed two people a few hours ago.
The others have finished their work on Clark and are waiting for Daniel to use [Infusion] on the soul harness. After we eat, Daniel quickly gets to work using his skill to integrate the implant into Clark more securely. I decide to watch Daniel do this part. His skill is very interesting, and I haven’t really seen him use it yet.
My spatial senses are easily able to pierce Clark’s body, mostly because he’s dead and can’t resist, so I can watch Daniel’s work live. I quickly find the soul harness, three concentric metal rings resting in the expanded space I created in Clark's chest, and focus as I see [Infusion] reaching from Daniel’s hand to the soul harness. He aims the skill right at the borderline between the implant and Clark’s flesh, seemingly merging them together.
Metal and flesh slowly join, creating an unnatural union between man and metal around the implant. The work is slow as Daniel goes section by section, making sure not to miss any spots by mistake. The border between metal and flesh slowly disappears, and after about an hour, the outermost ring is fully integrated into Clark. Another hour later and the other two rings get the same treatment. Afterwards Daniel covers the entire soul harness and the surrounding flesh with [Infusion], integrating it even further until he finally says he’s done.
Stella ends up healing my nose, which was broken when I got a knee to the face from the brawler. It only takes her about a minute to get it fully healed, which surprises me. She hasn’t been slacking on her training.
All of us—Daniel, Stella, Mordak, Duncan, and I—stand around the table with Clark’s restored body on it, waiting for the final part. All of our eyes turn to Duncan as he starts to speak.
“This is it, the moment we’ve all been working towards, restoring Clark’s soul to his body. I ask that for this final part, it’s just Clark and me. The ritual will take a few hours to properly set up and cast, and it could take up to three days for Clark’s soul to settle into his body and awaken.” Much of the worry and anxiety that I had seen leave Duncan over the past week returns, most likely from the pressure of this final step.
Mordak rests a hand on Duncan’s shoulder. “All will be well, young necromancer. You and your comrades have done fantastic work on Clark. Have faith in yourself, and all will go as planned.”
With his words of encouragement said, Mordak ushers the rest of us out of the workshop and closes the door, giving Duncan the solitude he requested.
“Well, it was wonderful working with all of you, but I haven’t slept in two days, so I’m afraid this is where I take my leave.” Mordak says before he turns and leaves, walking deeper into the guildhall.
As we walk out of the Necromancers Guild, Daniel asks a question to the group. “Do you guys want to do a dungeon or something soon? I’ve been getting antsy just sitting around and working for the last week. I want to fight something.”
Stella responds immediately. “Yes, there's a dungeon I wanted to check out about a day’s travel north from here. It’s called the Kobold Caves, and I think it would be perfect for us. We can make a little trip out of it.”
“Ooh, I’m in.” Daniel says.
“We can’t leave the city yet, remember?” I tell Daniel.
“We can do one of the dungeons in the city then. There are a few to choose from.” Stella responds.
“There are dungeons in the city? Do they have a waitlist? The only real dungeon we’ve been in had a maximum of ten people allowed inside. And it split us up when we entered.” I ask, hoping we can enter as a team.
“There are no labyrinths in Barad, which are the only ones that split people up. There’s the one at the arena, which does have a long waitlist and is broadcasted for people to watch. The other two in the city are what’s called instance dungeons, meaning each group who enters is in their own version of the dungeon.” Stella answers as we start walking down the street, towards nowhere in particular.
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“I’m free tomorrow.” Daniel offers. “Maybe we should bring Corvax too and get in some team bonding.”
“Are you fine with us bringing along our other teammate? He can hold his own for sure.” I ask Stella.
“The more the merrier. And if you guys trust him, I’m sure he’s fine. Meet me at the hospital tomorrow morning at sunrise. We’ll go from there.”
We all say our goodbyes, and Stella leaves the two of us to prepare for tomorrow. Daniel and I make our way back to the inn, to Corvax and his family.
“Finally!” Corvax yells when we tell him about our plan to go dungeon diving in the morning. “I’ve been itching to get back out there. I have a few things I need to test on something that fights back, so this is perfect timing. My family also tells me that the dungeons in and around the city can be quite fun.”
The three of us catch up a little bit more before I decide to head to my room. Lying down on the bed trying to fall asleep, I keep thinking about our team composition for tomorrow and how I’ll fit into it. Daniel and Corvax are both frontline fighters. I imagine Stella is too with her [Combat Healer] class. I’ve known for a while that using my space affinity for offense is expensive in terms of mana cost, but I’ve been able to get by because of my massive mana regeneration rate.
Now that I’ve got some more knowledge, experience, and tools under my belt, it’s time to find a better way to deal damage. Creating a spatial edge will always be my preferred up-close tactic, but for some reason I can’t create them more than a few feet away from me, so I need a better long-range attack than stabbing someone through a portal. I take out the [Gravitic Generation Array] and hold it in my hand. I keep hearing that space and gravity are adjacent to each other, and if my plan works, then this could be exactly what I need.
I scan my mana through the cube, examining each and every bit I can, putting my enchanting knowledge to the test to decipher its inner workings. It’s clear from how well made and intuitive it is that this skill core was not the first or second one they made but from after they developed a process for it. In the middle of the cube is a heart, or part of a heart at least, with several obvious control nodes attached to it and surrounding it. Sending a little bit of mana into one of them, I feel a slight weight on my shoulders and sink down into the bed slightly.
I feed a little bit of mana to a few other nodes, trying to map out exactly how to control the gravitational forces it’s creating. Using it feels a lot like using a normal skill, with a few key differences. The first is that I get no feedback from the cube like I do from a regular skill. Everything I learn is through pure trial and error. The other notable difference is that the skill is stuck at whatever level it was when created and won’t be able to level up at all. All of this is fine, however, as the cube shouldn’t be more than a stopgap, hopefully.
I sit cross-legged on the bed, cube in my skeletal left hand, as I try and get down one specific move for tomorrow's dungeon run. I hold my right hand out flat and create a small projectile out of mana, a cone no longer than an inch, floating just above my palm. The next step is where my troubles lie: using a quick and strong burst of gravity to launch it forward, much like Daniel does. At first I experimented with just creating a corridor of gravity to fling the projectile, but unfortunately the skill core can only affect gravity in a ten-foot sphere. It takes me about three and a half hours and a fairly damaged wall that I’m going to have to pay for to get it down to a repeatable process. It’s not quite as strong as Daniel's shots, but it should still be plenty good enough for tomorrow and the beasts we’ll encounter.
With only a few hours until we are supposed to meet Stella, I finally decide to go to bed after distributing the six free stat points I’ve accumulated over the last few levels. From what I read at the library, all stats can be increased through training, and the body stats tend to be easier to raise that way, so I should put all my points into mana stats. I decide that my mana capacity is my current bottleneck and put all six points into it, raising it by twelve thanks to my trait, [Mana-Body Synchronization].
[Ray Alder] - [Self-Made Space Mage] lvl 32
Race
[Human]
Active Skills
[Space Control] lvl 21
[Mana Shaping] lvl 20
[Concentration] lvl 13
Passive Skills
[Mana Sense] lvl 19
[Mana Stabilization Field] lvl 12
Traits
[Adaptive Affinity]
[Beast mana-heart]
[Mana-Body Synchronization]
Constructs
[Mana Concentration and Circulation System]
Affinities
[Space]
Stats - Body
[Strength] - 32
[Dexterity] - 38
[Constitution] - 38
Stats - Mana
[Regeneration] - 130
[Capacity] - 72
[Resistance] - 30
I instantly feel the difference as I dump all the free points into mana capacity, increasing the stat by a significant twenty percent. I feel my mana reach deeper into my body, swirling around and condensing as soon as it leaves my heart thanks to my internal construct. With a smile on my face, I lie down and go to bed.