After spending the morning with his sister, Michael returned to the Valley. The road was finally completed, and getting to the dungeon was finally a smooth ride, perhaps even pleasant. There were trees covered by moss at the sides of the road, and the same moss was colonizing the patches of land where concrete had been poured to stabilize the gravel. It was growing unnaturally quick despite the dry heat, making the sight ancient and mystical. The poles and railings looked like they had been swallowed by the forest as well, a sign that Johanne had been busy.
Or perhaps? He squinted, noticing something strange about the plants. Soon, though, the urgency of daily life returned and he dropped the matter.
He parked his quad bike at a small shed by the entrance, nodding to the guards. He could spot three operators and two security guards, but he knew that there were many more hidden around, there to make sure nothing funny happened around here.
He could vaguely feel their presence with his aura senses, which was new. He used Unbound Casting, wasting a ludicrous amount of mana, to confirm that they were indeed where he thought he had sensed them. All the training back in the valley was paying off.
His perception told him was that they were Iron-rank humans, with no magical devices on them. Still, it was nice to know that Travis and Jennifer had set up such an effective system, even though it was clear that it wouldn’t fool a Silver-ranked aura user with his level of skills.
The guards nodded back. There was a hint of excitement in their body language, one that Michael soon connected to the imminent expedition into the dungeon. Today was the day they sent actual people in there, to see what would happen. They had grand plans for the expedition, plans that required his presence.
He gathered back the mana he spent. Unbound Casting was close to useless at the current stage. Perhaps he should focus on gathering more skill fractals. He could collect them, memorize them and use them with Unbound Casting’s more useful cousin: Fractal Unbound Casting.
Before that, though, it was back to training. The meeting with Dr. Kavanaugh of Occult Affairs was tomorrow, and he couldn’t afford to go there unprepared. At the same time, pumping himself full of Common-rank skill stones was not going to help all that much. He was still going to do it, just later.
“Adding it to the almost infinite list of things to do,” he muttered.
Thinking about the meeting, he realized that he wasn’t feeling too anxious about it. His reunion with his family had been much worse in his mind, but he knew that he couldn’t take things lightly. The OA was, according to Travis, as bad an agency as any of the three-lettered. Perhaps worse than them, considering the lack of information about it.
This gap in their intelligence was something the former CEO was already working to rectify, supposedly with the help of a new intelligence tool Johanne was developing alongside a team of programmers who had recently started working for Unity. All remote workers, like most programmers, but all of them—according to Johanne—"autistic enough that the privilege of working on such a project is already assurance enough of their silence.”
Of course, such shallow level of security had not been enough for Travis, who had added more and more layers through incentives, bonuses, and threats. Positive reinforcement and punishment of bad behavior. The man knew his stuff.
Johanne was already in the Valley by the time Michael arrived. The time shenanigans of the dungeon were weird for everyone but in her case they were even weirder, since one of her spells allowed her to somewhat interfere with the time dilation effect. There was no telling how long she had been waiting for him.
“Alright, let’s take stock,” Michael muttered.
Around him, magic began to swell. He started going through his normal skills, switching from one skill to the other. Then he moved onto Fractal Unbound Casting, chaining the body enhancement and increased reflexes with his normal skills. At the same time, while he was doing that, he also levitated some stones around him like orbiting satellites, using not mana but his aura, and tried to summon a flame over one palm and a block of ice over the other by manipulating the elements.
Then, he tried to add yet another layer to his technique, manipulating mana directly to bolster the effect of his aura. The stones fell to the ground, the flame died and the block of ice started melting.
“Disappointing. Even in those few moments I managed to keep it stable, the mana only helped by a fraction.”
Johanne shook her head, “using aura and mana to do the same thing must have interfered with the spell layering. However, I must say, what you did was most impressive. Your aura can perform telekinesis better than some spells I know.”
“Then why is mana useless?” complained Michael, frustrated at his lack of progress in that area.
“From what I know,” began Johanne, “your aura is like an extension of your will. It’s only natural that using it to influence the world is easier than using mana.”
“I can use the elements, though,” said Michael, voice low. He tapped his chin, looking at nothing, “but the elements are more rigid, easier to use. Perhaps mana is too plastic, and forcing it to do just telekinesis goes against its nature.”
“Interesting,” Johanne’s eyes were shining, “I would like you to explore this idea, my lord.”
Michael nodded. “I know, but this is all I can do for now. I’m spent. Using mana directly is a hundred times harder and takes a hundred times the effort.”
Michael slumped, forming a seat out of ice with his remaining elemental energies. He would have to go back to the Ice King’s room to replenish his stock before leaving the dungeon.
Johanne hummed. “Today was good progress, my lord. Your aura control has grown yet again. Not in power, but in finesse. From what I’m seeing, I think that there is more to aura than just moving things around. It’s like it can warp the very world, disrupt magic itself. In the inner reaches of your aura, it might turn out to be infinitely stronger than any outside source of energy.”
“I see. But what is the source of the aura? The soul?”
She shook her head. “The soul is complicated. I don’t know much about it, sadly. You will find it, of that I am sure. You have the talent for it, even though you will need to train more.”
Michael agreed with her. Already he was feeling the gains of all his training, in that his mana pool felt stronger, deeper and more solid. Alongside it, the other energies had grown too, and around them his aura was like a protective shroud of pure will.
“My lord… you are growing quickly. Soon you will need to rush to the threshold.”
The threshold was the point where a low-Silver aura became mid-Silver. Their theory was that it coincided with his mana pool reaching the thirties. Considering he still had a long way before Michael reached even 2 full units of Silver of mana, it was a long road getting there. Until then, changes and improvements would be incremental, but minor.
“Although,” Johanne added, “I do not have much experience with anomalous auras such as yours.”
They chatted a bit more. Michael asked her what her plans were for her own development. She was unsure, but her preference would be a more standard way of rising through the ranks compared to the experimental, yet dangerous way Michael did it. He was surprised to hear it from Johanne, who he thought would have jumped at the opportunity, but she claimed that the risk of crippling her advancement was too high.
“Not everyone is a natural like you are, my lord.”
Michael didn’t think he was a natural, just someone who put in the effort. Johanne disagreed, and they agreed to disagree. She claimed she would be able to take the step into Silver territory soon enough, possibly before they started sending Operators into the dungeon in the afternoon, real world time.
“That should also serve as a stimulus for Mister Travis. He’s grown complacent, or rather I should say that he has been using work as an excuse not to challenge the dungeon anymore. It is true that he has work to do, however the more he procrastinates while still living in the valley for many days every real world day, the more the dungeon’s influence will infiltrate his mind, making it harder for him to advance.”
It wasn’t the first time Michael heard of this strange effect the dungeon had. It was a theory many people, Theobond and the Fae included, had about the dungeon, but not something he had ever felt himself. Sure, the place was dangerous and unpredictable, but all his fears and reservations about it had been based in logic.
Stolen story; please report.
“Logic can be warped to fit a narrative,” said Johanne. “In your case, your enormous Resilience stat is protecting your mind. Other people are not so lucky.”
It didn’t explain why he had never suffered consequences before unlocking the stat. Michael’s theory was that his stat had already been anomalously high before gaining the Unity skill, but there was no way to know for sure. Perhaps it had been his life ethic: working hard for every scrap of power and taking nothing for free, that had helped him.
The next day, they were back at the empty field they had chosen for their training. The Ice King’s mountain was visible behind Johanne, looming like a sitting giant.
“Moment of truth.”
Michael summoned the skill description for his new aura masking skill. He had not yet used it since he had gotten it yesterday, wanting to rest and practice his actual aura abilities a bit more. Unlike other skills, this one was something he would need to keep up for a long period of time, and he needed to be as rested as possible.
Activating the skill, which had already reached level two after some experimentation, Michael felt the world grow distant. It was as if someone had simultaneously blindfolded him and submerged his body in water, all the while covering his ears. Not only that, but there was a sensation of powerlessness that came with the masking, as if his connection to the world and to his magic itself was muted.
He dropped the skill, and everything returned to normal. Many more tests followed until Johanne handed him a tablet.
Aura Masking, preliminary analysis. To be forwarded to Travis Tyrell when ready. Level-1 and above eyes only.
- Aura appears to be Low Copper when observed passively
- Active observation does not reveal incongruities.
- Anomalous properties of the aura are still detectable even when the skill is in use.
- Passive defenses are 50% weaker while the skill is active, but still within Silver capabilities.
- Suppression of Copper-tier magic deemed hostile by the user is 50% weaker, but still within Silver ranges.
- Active control of the environment is 50% weaker and has 50% less range while the skill is active, but still within Silver capabilities.
- Active control of the Elements is 25% weaker and has 25% less range while the skill is active.
- …
“Thanks, Johanne. At least I’m stronger than I look from the outside. That should help in case things go south.”
“Of course, my lord. If I may ask…”
“Go ahead,” Michael said.
“You mentioned you also leveled up your Unity skill?”
“I did,” he said, pulling up his status and updating his sheet on her tablet. She would undoubtedly forward the information to Travis to be entered into the Candle Light database.
“Solid growth,” Michael said.
“It is. However, I am beginning to worry about what strange environmental factor might be pushing your Resilience so much.”
“Can’t it be all the stress?”
“It could be,” she said, “however, your last level up was after you killed Carnela.” Michael winced, but she didn’t seem to notice. “And that event, while significant, happened after most of the stressors you have encountered as of late. Unless you were depressed, and hiding that fact from everyone else, I would venture the possibility that something else is prompting your stat growth. Something like Skill sundering. Or the strain of performing Unbound Casting. Perhaps even the unseen strain of memorizing the fractals for Fractal Unbound Casting. We are yet to figure out how your mind manages to hold onto the image of an infinite mathematical concept.”
“Or perhaps it’s the dungeon? You mentioned how everyone seems to hate being here. Well, everyone but you and Travis. Even Trevor hates it, it seems.”
“Travis only likes it in here when he has work to do,” she corrected him. “I will ponder over it and run some tests.”
Michael nodded distractedly. He had never thought the week of training would be so bad for the others, and the fact that they had kept it hidden from him just made it worse. He discovered the truth by accident while he was playing with his spirit guardians, catching the tail end of a conversation.
“Perhaps, I wonder…” Johanne mused. “The reason I am unaffected by this place is that I grew accustomed to it, after being sealed in here for eons. It would be compatible with the data we have. You, on the other hand, are stacking resilience points to counteract its influence.”
Michael shook his head. “I never felt any influence.”
“Hmm,” she paused. “Don’t you feel like you’re being watched? Like your life is in someone else’s hands?”
“Yeah?”
“Those are the effects. They are enough to drive someone insane, over time. However, if such was the case, then Travis would be the exception. He has no stats to withstand the mental assault, and unlike me he didn’t get exposed to it for so long that he built tolerance.”
“He did mention he was crazy more than once.”
“Perhaps. I shall talk to him. I need more data.”
Resilience aside, Michael was rather proud of his status.
He had sacrificed a lot to get here, but he had come out stronger than he was before. He had gotten what he wanted, a new rare-ranked skill, and thanks to [Magic Manipulation] he would also be able to retain the sacrificed common skills. Not only that, but he would also be able to learn any common skill by simply memorizing its fractal. A thing that, he soon discovered as he experimented, was much harder than he thought.
“I think I can answer your earlier question.”
Johanne looked up from her tablet. “Huh?”
“You asked how my mind managed to hold onto the image of an infinite fractal, right?”
“Something like that, yes. Do tell me,” she said.
“It doesn’t.”
She blinked.
It turned out, he explained, that it was easy for him to replicate Sundered skills because it was as if they were still there, in his Sanctum, in the form of scars. Learning a whole new skill fractal without undergoing the same process could not leverage the scar, only relying on memory. And memorizing a fractal was indeed, as Johanne had claimed, impossible.
Michael tried, but all he could make were wonky shapes that barely had any structure, and as a consequence barely did anything to the world around him. Sometimes their effects were totally nonsensical other than just weak, and not at all what he was trying to replicate.
He could still learn new skills, though. As long as they were common skills, and he had some room in his Sanctum, he could absorb them, wait until they were permanently bonded with him, and then sunder them. After that they would join the collection of Sundered skills he could summon with magic manipulation.
There were limits to this. For one, the skills could not grow. Whatever process changed the fractals while on the Sanctum’s wall did not work on scars or mental images. Which was why he had chosen not to sunder [Okinawan Mastery]. He still hoped he could level it up and perhaps even upgrade its rarity, even though he had been neglecting it lately.
Then there was the issue of Qi. After gaining the aura masking skill, Michael was once again back to having a full Skill Sanctum. Unless he found his damned Dantian, his manipulation ability wasn’t going to let him manifest Qi for the purposes of unbound casting, and he couldn’t free up more space. He was stuck.
He tried to make up for this deficiency by simply using Unbound Casting. Forget the fractals completely, become a freecaster.
The results were lackluster.
He could replicate some feats without using a fractal, by simply brute forcing mana upon the world in a true Formless Unbound Casting fashion. But the effect was weak, expensive, unstable and sometimes unpredictable.
Formless casting was still promising, despite its limitations. It would be useful in some situations and it would grow to be even more useful when Michael had more mana available to brute force things. After the first mishap, Michael found that the ability stacked well with his aura manipulation skills. It could balance the diminishing effect his aura had when farther away from his body, bolstering it with mana to make up for the loss of power.
Even with all those bonuses, however, Michael’s best attempt at Formless magic was a spell to keep insects away. It had been the spell Michael had seen Johanne use back in the beginning, which had prompted the whole Formless magic discussion.
In its current state, however, it barely kept insects away. And it only did so because Michael really wanted them away from his body. Even then, to make it work he had to imagine a radial field of one-Newton forces all pushing outwards from him, somehow only targeting insects. How did it know what was an insect and what wasn’t? Magic.
It worked, but Michael’s boosted mana regeneration while in the Valley was barely enough to break even in terms of mana expenditure, making it useless outside.
Good exercise to increase mana capacity, though. And the more he used it, the better the mental image became, and the cheaper it became to repel insects using formless unbound casting. It also increased the Resilience stat, as it required total focus that quickly became enough to count as proper Resilience training.
It even reached a point where whatever system governed Michael’s magic tried to award him an actual skill to repel insects, but he refused immediately. It was common-ranked, and he did not have space in his Sanctum.
Danger rating and threat assessment
Candle Light Internal Memorandum
To: All Candle Light Personnel
From: Level-1 Operator "Fleeting Man" (Travis Tyrell)
Subject: Danger Rating and Magic Class Assessments
Overview
Danger Rating System
- Iron: The item or threat can be handled by normal humans geared with strategic equipment. Requires at least one Copper-aura operator in the response team.
- Copper: Severe threat to non-magical individuals. Requires specialized tools and a response team of Copper-aura operators overseen by a Silver-aura operator.
- Silver: Moderate threat to peak Copper-ranked individuals, capable of countering magic and magical artifacts as well as mundane tools. Requires a trained response team of Silver-rank operators overseen by a Gold-aura operator.
Magic Class Assessments
- Iron: No detectable mana or magic signature.
NOTE: some anomalous items have been shown to be able to work without mana and exist across all ranks of the danger rating. - Copper: Trace amounts of mana or a faint magical aura. Elemental energies can be present.
- Silver: Moderate levels of mana, often accompanied by Qi and a Silver-rank aura.
- Gold: Significant mana presence, potentially exhibiting complex magical effects or interactions with Intent.
- Platinum: Currently undocumented.
Addendum: These protocols are subject to revision and refinement as our understanding of magic expands.