“I can only do one target at a time, and I have to be able to see them and be pretty close, within 15 meters,” Daryl answered, looking at Drew expectantly.
“I’ve got the Storm spell, which you saw, and then it linked with a fireball and cone of cold spell, both of which are area effect, to make the other variants of it.” Drew considered how much he should tell Daryl. “I’ve also got a few more single target spells and a spell called dancing sword, which allows me to conjure a sword that fights on its own.”
Daryl whistled, “Damn, that’s a lot of red. You must be an angry guy.”
“Angry?” Drew asked, confused. He didn’t consider himself an angry person.
“Yeah, we realized that what xatherite you got was pretty well based around your personality. Me, I was always just trying to keep out of trouble, and I got a bunch of stuff that would allow me to remain unseen. The hothead 18-year-old kids got reds that made them able to hit stuff. Angela, who was always trying to improve herself, got a bunch of orange spells. Stuff like that,” Daryl explained.
“Well, I don’t consider myself angry,” Drew said with a frown. He’d had an anger issue when he was younger, but he’d learned to control that a long time ago.
“Anyway, I think I have a plan for how we can ambush the food group, and hopefully we’ll get some more combatants out of that,” Drew said, and then he explained what he wanted to do. Daryl nodded slowly as he followed along.
“Well, it’s a long shot, but probably our best chance,” Daryl said when he was done. He excused himself to use the restroom and Drew took a moment to fully view the messages he had ignored after killing the trolls.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Major Refresh xatherite is ready to be upgraded.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Major Spark xatherite is ready to be upgraded.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Major Mana Guard xatherite is ready to be upgraded.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Major Acid Dart has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Cone of Frost has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Fireball has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Storm has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
He clicked to upgrade major refresh and winced as a headache immediately came over him. Unlike his other upgrades, this one hurt; not as bad as slotting it would have, but still quite a bit. Giving it a moment to subside, he then upgraded the other two to similar results.
Xatherite Crystal Name: Minor Lightning Bolt
Xatherite Color: Red
Xatherite Grade: Common
Xatherite Rarity: Widespread
Type: Magic
Effect: Creates a bolt of electricity from any body part to a target no more than 15m away. Deals Lightning damage and stuns the target for 2 seconds.
Mana recharge time: 4.2 seconds
Xatherite Crystal Name: Minor Energize
Xatherite Color: Orange
Xatherite Grade: Common
Xatherite Rarity: Widespread
Type: Magic
Effect: Infuses mana into the target to reduce fatigue and lactic acid buildup. Improves the target’s natural healing by 2x normal for 24 hours.
Mana recharge time: 20 minutes, 39 seconds
Xatherite Crystal Name: Minor Mana Shield
Xatherite Color: Yellow
Xatherite Grade: Common
Xatherite Rarity: Widespread
Type: Magic
Effect: Creates a shield of mana around the caster. This shield will absorb moderate amounts of energy and kinetic damage. It also creates a slowing effect around the caster.
Mana recharge time: 4 minutes, 33 seconds
After looking at the new descriptions, he realized that there was a qualitative change when you moved from basic to common that caused the pain. But boy was it worth it.
Spark had upgraded to lightning bolt and could reach 5 times further! Its damage had also been upgraded, and it had gained a stunning component. That moved it from one of his less used spells to a spell he could use on a regular basis to great effect. Refresh had also greatly improved, becoming able to help him heal faster. He immediately cast it on himself. Looking at his leg, twice as fast wasn’t that much, but it meant he would be just a little bit better off than he would have been otherwise. Of course, the new mana shield also made it easier for him to dodge things, as they would move slower near him, giving him a bit more survivability.
Chapter Twenty-Two — Night Watch
Drew watched Daryl sleep. He hadn’t told the other man about his energize spell, but they had agreed to take turns and Drew opted to go first. He had no intention of waking Daryl up. The other man was asleep and invisible on a bench he hadn’t seen behind the door. He shook his head as he glanced at the bed, where blankets in the form of a person sleeping under the covers lay conspicuously. Daryl had prepared his safe house by making navigating the hallway difficult enough that they would make some noise in the dark, which should wake him up. He then hid where he slept behind the door.
“There’s probably some sort of long-term negative effect of not sleeping,” Drew mused to himself as he looked out the window.
Glancing towards the HQ building he hoped that Katie and Sarah were safe during the night. He should have been back already and being held up unexpectedly by the storm made him nervous for the two women. They were probably fine; Katie’s walls would allow them to hold off any attack until he got there tomorrow afternoon. After a few minutes he was able to dismiss his unease.
The storm had passed with the sun, the multicolored water leaving no trace that it had ever been there. It led to some interesting questions about how physics and mana interacted.
As far as he could tell, the energy and mass created by casting his spells came from nowhere, affected the world for as long as it was designed to, and then returned to nowhere. For example, all his water and ice spells created matter, but as soon as the duration of the spell was over, that matter disappeared. That broke the first law of thermodynamics unless it was pulling energy from a plane of existence or type of energy that humans currently had no sense for.
For that matter, what exactly was he seeing when he looked at the ley lines and auras around him? Was he piercing the veil into some alternative energy plane of existence that overlapped this one? Or was it just a type of energy that existed normally, and humans simply hadn’t been able to detect it until now? What exactly was mana?
Drew realized that he only kind of understood electromagnetic force, one of the four (or five?) fundamental interactions. Even then, he hadn’t been anywhere near an expert in understanding it. He probably wasn’t going to be making any major breakthroughs on the principles of mana.
He ducked back from the window as a particularly large bug flew by, holding still lest it sense him somehow. The glass seemed like a flimsy defense against such things, and after waiting for it to move on, he stood up and limped back towards the bed and sat down next to the fake person on it.
What did all this mean? Electronics ceasing to work and spells that caused energy to be created and destroyed in an instant. What was the connection there? He felt like it was relevant, something that would help him in the upcoming fight. But he dismissed it as something he couldn’t really make any progress on currently. His eyes drifted around the room and he saw a family photo on a wall, a father, mother, and two kids. Were they still alive?