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Core Collapse Chapter 26
🕑 Added 2024-03-31 04:30:05 +0000 UTCChapter 26
Ubo and Vella ended up staying at Weaver Estate for some time. Jessica was just as interested in having a master Mage’s perspective on her abilities as he was in studying her Skills, so their relationship got off to a fantastic start.
Much of their work together had to wait until Emil had finished constructing his new Boom Room, a reinforced room on the first floor of the dungeon with the magic visualization ritual painted on the floor and walls. It was quite large, one hundred meters by twenty meters, with the ritual in place only on a portion of the room.
This was to allow the magicians to designate targets further down the range without holding back. They were able to set up targets – or Tom was able to customize targets for them – which they could destroy from a safe range without worrying about shrapnel or shockwaves. It also possessed a blast wall for anyone in the boom room to duck behind should some magical experiment get out of hand.
Ubo watched first the Customization of the firing range, and then the painting of the magical visualization ritual, with fascination. While any mage could form a ritual spell given enough time and practice, and the materials to actually enact the ritual, Ritualists like Emil specialized in it to an almost ridiculous degree.
Ubo was stunned by the engineer’s adaptation to his new class, saying “It’s truly remarkable. My family has been preserving ritual magic for centuries, but I fear that your knowledge on the matter already outstrips my own by a significant margin, and you’ve only been in this world for a few months. Before long, you may reach the point where you might bring some innovation into a field which has previously been stagnant since ancient times!”
Emil soaked the praise in with a smile. “I’m glad you approve. While I understand that it’s not your specialty, I am working on a project for a friend of mine. She’s fascinated by lifelines, you see, and she’s hoping that I can improve the ritual which causes them to become illuminated. Perhaps, if you’re to be staying with us, you could take a look at my notes on the project so far and share any insights you might have?”
“Certainly,” Ubo agreed, and they set aside time to do just that.
Once the boom room was fully constructed, which only took a few hours, Ubo requested to be the one to test it out, with the justification that he wanted to demonstrate high level spells for his apprentice.
The others stood behind the blast wall for safety; peering either through the window created for that purpose or, in Vella’s case, from around the side, as the master mage showed off. He called out the names of the spells before each cast.
“Fireball,” He called, and he conjured a ball of fire the size of a basketball. He pointed down range, and the ball flew at high speed until hit one of the targets and exploded into a sphere three meters in radius. It engulfed three of the other targets, but Jessica noticed that the central target was far more affected than the periphery ones.
“Fire lance,” He called, and he shot out a line of flame about twenty centimeters in diameter shot from his palm and pierced a stone target thirty yards away. The fire was white hot, unlike the fireball earlier, and although Jessica expected that she could duplicate the feat, she found it incredibly impressive.
“Conflagration,” Ubo called. This time he snapped his hand and put both of his palms out, and a wave of fire erupted outward from them. While not as hot as either the fire lance nor the fireball spells, the wide area of destruction that it caused was impressive in its own right.
He moved on to other elements, beginning with lightning. The lightning bolt that he shot at an undamaged target caused that target to explode. He cast another lightning spell which forked out, hitting multiple targets for less damage, but causing more overall destruction.
He fired a gust of Wind that swept the debris that had accumulated down the range further away from him, and then targeted another of the stone targets with a second wind attack. One in which sharp blades of compressed air blew off chunks of the targets.
He paused there for a moment, turning to his awestruck audience. “Now, that much is just the basics. Individual attack spells which are intended for quick casting against an enemy under almost any circumstance. Each of those attacks is individually powerful and can turn the tide of battle at the snap of a finger. If you’re looking to take the path of a Battle Mage, Vella, then you’ll be expected to be proficient in each of the spells I just demonstrated.”
“There’s no way I’ll be able to copy that!” she protested.
“Certainly you will. When you’re level ninety like I am,” Ubo rejoined. “Obviously I’m not expecting you to melt or explode stone tomorrow. It will take you years of practice and hard work to reach this level of proficiency. I would know, I was in your shoes once too, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“That’s really quite amazing, Master Ubo,” Tom agreed. “Almost as impressive as Jessica’s light shows.”
“Is that so?” Ubo asked, raising an eyebrow to be put on the same level as a level twenty-something sorceress.
“It’s just light and sound,” Jessica explained. “I’ll show you tonight once the sun is down. You need to have the stars out to really appreciate a good fireworks show. But when I do that, it’s just an illusion. I’m certainly not on your level yet.”
Ubo chuckled. “An illusion? Illusions are the hardest part of traditional magery to master. I suppose they’re easy for you?”
“To a degree. I can’t make a person completely believable, to be honest. But lights and sounds are extremely easy,” Jessica admitted.
“I see. I’m as interested in studying those skills as I am your Fire Mastery,” Ubo said.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she agreed. “So is it my turn now?”
“Not yet,” Ubo said. “I said that I showed you the basic attacks which can be cast without any particular preparation of the battlefield. Now, I’m going to show you what I would actually consider somewhat advanced.”
Ubo turned back to the range, where the broken and battered remnants of the dummies resided.
“Er, um, Tom? Before I begin, could you perhaps reset the field for me? This will be rather more impressive with a blank slate,” Ubo said.
Tom emerged from behind the blast wall and walked down the range a ways, Customizing everything back to how it was before Ubo had unleashed his destruction. Without prompting he went ahead and added a few more dummies to the mix. It took him about five minutes to repair the damage and prepare for the next round, after which he rejoined his friends behind the blast wall.
“This is somewhat more effective outdoors, as a clever opponent would realize that something was happening,” Ubo explained as he began with a very simple spell. “This spell is called Dew.”
Ubo snapped his fingers, more for effect than anything else, and at first nothing appeared to change. Very quickly, however, everything downrange of the mage began sweating. A coating of water formed along every surface, and it continued to drip until the floor was covered in half an inch of water.
“While you might be wondering why ‘Dew’ is the first step, it’s very simple. It sets the stage. You need water in order to cast water magic, after all,” Ubo explained patiently.
He snapped his fingers again, and abruptly the water retracted to form ice lances which pierced all of the dummies at once. He snapped his fingers again, and those ice lances shattered, forming projectiles both inside and outside the stone dummies, causing some of the dummies to also explode. He snapped his fingers again and the razor sharp ice crystals raced towards him. Another Finger snap and they melted, forming a massive blob of water.
Snap! The water formed six high pressure beams which cut six of the remaining dummies in half.
Snap! The water reformed into blobs, but it was encasing the remaining dummies. Snap! The dummies were frozen in six inches of ice.
Snap! The ice shattered, and most of the dummies with it.
Snap! The ice burst into steam.
Snap! A gust of wind cleared the steam from the room, leaving behind a collection of rubble.
Snap! The rubble itself flew off the floor and formed a massive ball in the center of the room.
Snap! The ball exploded outwards, away from Ubo at a high velocity, the shrapnel acting like a shotgun and breaking chips off of the Boom Room’s walls.
Finally Ubo lowered his hands and turned back to his audience, a grin on his face. “I call that chain casting. While recasting the same spell over and over again certainly has its place in battle, especially if you don’t have time to set up a proper chain cast, it’s far more devastating if each of your spells leads into the next.”
Jessica began clapping in applause. The others followed suite shortly after. Ubo took a bow as they emerged from behind the blast wall.
“I admit, I was showing off more than a little bit just now,” Ubo said. “I am almost level ninety, after all, and I’ve had decades of practice to perfect that little combination.”
“I lost track of how many elements you command,” Jessica said.
“Ah, well, that’s not how Mage magic works, Jessica. Our skills are things like improved channeling efficiency, or increased multitasking. Because we’re casting spells rather than using Skills, we’re unrestricted in what elements we use. The spells, however, must come from somewhere. I’ve never actually seen a sorcerer or sorceress casting magic before, but I’m told that it’s a very different proposition. I’d love to watch you destroy some of these stone dummies, but first there’s a matter which has been bothering me. Vella, would you come out here for a moment?”
Nervously, the girl stepped forward, out into the magical rituals which caused mana use to show up. While the display of destruction had been incredibly impressive, Vella had been more blown away at the way that Ubo had been weaving the invisible parts of the spells together. He hadn’t just been casting spell after spell, he’d been casting multiple spells at a time.
The best comparison she could think of was the concert that she had attended with her new teacher a few days prior, in which she had heard a fugue played. Except rather than performing the same melody in different keys, he was weaving together multiple melodies, staggered by mere seconds, to perform the role of an entire orchestra by himself.
She’d known that her teacher was a great mage. Everyone had told her so. She just hadn’t realized how great until just now.
“Yes, Master Ubo?” she asked nervously.
“Would you kindly mind casting your version of Candleflame for me?” he requested.
Well, at least that was easy enough. She’d already explained it to him a hundred times, but she supposed that was different than actually seeing it done. So she did as she was asked.
“Ah, so that’s what I was missing,” he said. And he tried to cast the same spell.
And he failed.
“No, dammit, that’s not right either. Do it again please?”
“You can already cast the other Candleflame spell,” she pointed out. “Why bother learning mine?”
“A number of reasons,” Ubo said. “First of all, it’s a novel technique, and I love novelty. Second, it’s likely going to grant me some insight into Miss Small’s personal techniques, and I’d prefer to master it before I observe her in action. Thirdly, you’ve made a significant contribution to the magical arts for which you should be rewarded, but in order to properly do that we must be able to pass your unique spell on to others. I intend to do that for you, as you’re a few years away from being ready to teach other mages your personal spells, but you should get credit for your invention. Are those suitable reasons, Vella?”
“I prefer that you call me Jessica,” Jessica interjected.
“Apologies, I will from now on,” Ubo promised.
“I suppose that those are good reasons,” Vella agreed. So she cast Candleflame again.
Then Master Ubo tried. Then she did it again, and he tried again. After the sixth or seventh try, he mastered it.
“Fabulous,” he said. “It’s not nearly as familiar to me as the old version of the spell, but I can already see a number of practical reasons to use this spell over the traditional version. Or the traditional version over this, for that matter. The wonderful thing about knowing how to do something two ways is that you can alter your methodology as needed to suit the situation, Vella. Add that to the list of why this spell of yours is important.”
“I wasn’t planning on forgetting it any time soon, Master Ubo,” she said.
“Excellent,” he agreed. “Now then, I suppose it’s time to step behind the blast shield and allow Jessica to show us her Fire Mastery skill in action.”
They did exactly that, and Jessica swallowed with performance anxiety. Before she began, Tom reset the dummies, although knowing her skills he put out fewer of them than he had for Ubo’s second showing. She frowned for a minute after he’d cleared the area to consider how to impress the master Mage.
So she conjured a fire fox. Strangely enough her illusion mastery skill helped with the feat. It wasn’t particularly lifelike or believable; it was made of flame not light and fire doesn’t look like fur.
Once she had it shaped, she fought with it, sending it out to attack the dummies. It slammed into one of them and was consumed, leaving behind a glowing red spot. She breathed in, and summoned two more fire foxes to do the same thing to other targets.
She switched tactics, summoning a fire hummingbird and sending it flirting about her for a moment before sending it darting at another target.
She moved on to hares, dogs, cats, and a flamingo.
She tried controlling more than two at a time, but three was her limit.
If she were wielding light, she could have gone all afternoon, but fire was still far more expensive than her illusions. She kept summoning fire animals until she began to run low on mana. When she was done, she turned back to her applauding audience.
Ubo said one word.
“Remarkable.”
