Tom looked up and spotted a bird swooping down at them.
Rank eight.
Instinctively, his hand pointed up and channelled Spark.
Zap.
The bird struck by his Spark spasmed and with its wings no longer working as well as they had, it tumbled through the air. Then its wings snapped out to right its balance. With a roar, a melee fighter swung his sword and cut it in half.
Trumpets went off inside in his head.
What?
No.
He did not want to deal with whatever it was.
More people had died. They all knew the world was harsh, but there were under eighty of them. If they lost three per day, they would be wiped out in short order.
An annoying ding went off.
What?
Ding.
A time limited decision, he realised in annoyance.
Why now?
Ding.
Goddamn it, he thought, and shut his eyes.
Ding.
The bloody thing would not shut up and he knew it was a skill evolution. He hoped this time it was something useful as opposed to the last offer.
He shut his eyes and appeared back in his system room.
“What?”
Through continued use, Spark can evolve into Lightning Spears.
Proficiency from Spark adjusted for tiers will be fully carried over.
You have 72 seconds remaining to decide.
“What is Lighting Spears?”
Spell: Lightning Spears (16) (Tier 3)
Lightning spears allows the caster to create up to ten spears that can be used within two metres of your body. When they strike target, the spears deliver both kinetic piercing and electricity damage. Level of damage increases with skill level.
Skill level 4 benefit: Range increases with each skill level.
Skill level 8 benefit: User can balance spears to do between 20% and 100% electricity damage with the remainder being kinetic piercing.
Skill level 16 benefit: Spears can be used defensively.
Tom quickly assessed the relevant benefits of spark versus the new spears.
Spark was significantly more flexible. Its practical range was almost four metres and could hit its target from any direction within a three metre domain. The new spear version would reduce the range slightly and also restrict the angles he could attack from. There were only so many ways to lunge with a pointed stick even one that was magical in nature. Spark could also affect an unlimited number of enemies as shown with the wasps while the spears were designed to be single target - though with sufficient practice Tom guessed that with his general magical manipulation experience he could strike four targets simultaneously, and in a few decades potentially as many as ten. However, right now, in a comparison to Spark it would be a loss. However, it was not a massive one, as he could always repurchase Spark at the skill level of sixty-four. Spark itself at only level sixty-four would be a considerable downgrade from its current power, but if he was using it for prank or for the niche case of fighting lots of tiny enemies, it was a weakness that wasn’t that significant. If he wanted straight damage, Lightning Spears would be materially better than Spark.
On the other side of the equation, tier relativities mattered. Both Spell level and tier increased damage, and he was getting this spell at the same effective Spell level as Spark. That meant this new spell being three full tiers higher would allow Lighting Spear to hit over twice as hard as the Spark ability he was losing. Then he had the advantage of the spell doing physical damage along with electrical. That would keep the new spell functioning in a wider range of enemies.
The ultimate point that cemented his decision was that all proficiency of spark was maintained and he would be able to repurchase Spark at level sixty four. It would be marginally less powerful, but the flexibility he had from Spark was because of his Skill and not some system gifted ability. Realistically a spark ability of 64 versus 133 was thirty percent weaker plus losing the 128 skill bonus.
Skill level 128 benefit: Spark ignores the first twenty percent of lightning resistance.
Losing that benefit and gaining an ability to shift lightning damage to physical was a worthwhile tradeoff. Against lightning resistant opponents, the new spell would do better with the physical attack option..
“Evolve and repurchase spark.”
Lightning Spears: 16 (tier 3)
Spark: 66 (tier 0)
He felt the response and saw the text flash up, but he did not stay to look into it more. There was a war zone where he was.
He could not afford to spend time in his system room.
When he opened his eyes, no new enemies had emerged. The teleporter that he had bought had been set up and the ferret carcasses. They were being professionally butchered, and the key components piled on top of the teleporter and being flashed away while the waste was disposed off into the pits.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Tom had not had any need to use his storage space, so he stored some of the valuable meat. Experience had taught him that food, water, spare weapons and toilet paper equivalent were the key things to carry in your soul storage. The slabs of meat, despite not being identical were stackable and the volume could be twisted into any shape that he desired so he filled up about a third of his storage, knowing that he could shift them around anything else he chose to add in the future.
The surrounding activity was frantic. Tom couldn’t blame them they still needed to find a location to set up the fortifications. The valueless bits of the ferrets were all tossed into the pit and then the earth shifted as Keikain concentrated upon it. Rock folded in from the sides, and then the pit he had created had vanished.
“Anyone injured?” Tom yelled out.
“Over here.” Michael called out with a distinct lack of urgency that told Tom that no one was in actual danger.
There was a line of injured or more precisely a series of groups chatting to each other while they waited in a pseudo line with the occasional non-fatal injury to contend with. Tom, as a healer, moved to the front and started to work his way down the line. The battle had been so brutal and had so many ferrets attacking from irregular angles that most people seemed to have come away with some injuries. Almost all of them were caused by the razor-sharp claws, which should have been taking off arms. Instead, most of the attacks had been mitigated by the humans’ years of battle experience, reducing what should have been lost limbs to little more than minor cuts.
He was able to close them virtually instantly before moving down the line.
The Asian lady in front of him was putting no weight on her leg. Curiously, Tom touched her hand ready to find out what had happened.
Healing Tranquility went to work. “Interesting,” he muttered. “A compound fracture. How did you get that? It’s shape was too square to be from a ferret, or at least I didn’t see any of them evolved to do this level of focused damage.”
She looked annoyed at the question. “Lack of training. The problem with the whole DEUSs trial concept. None of us are used to fighting together, and this was friendly fire.”
“That sucks.” Tom told her. “But it’s not as bad as you think. They clearly checked their blow. Unless your vitality is in the hundreds.” Tom quirked an eyebrow at her.
She laughed. “I’m not that much of an idiot.”
With Healing Tranquillity functioning, Tom’s senses drilled into the bone. It was nasty. Almost two inches of the bigger bone in the thigh that he guessed was called the femur had been crumpled. It was like a dint in a metal bucket that had been hit way too hard. Tom’s power worked on multiple levels. He gathered the bone fragments and popped out compressed sections. Then he back fed the growth of the marrow, rebuilding the internal consistency of the bone as he did so. Finally, in a wave out from the damaged area, he fixed the soft tissue. A less efficient use of power would have healed inwards and then, when the bone snapped into position would then have to have healed back outwards. The order that he did it meant that the extra step wasn’t needed.
“Everyone’s healed.” Michael told him when Tom stood up and looked for the next person to fix. “Once everyone’s mana is recharged, we’re moving.”
With a flick of his mind, his spear reappeared from storage and he went and stood next to his girlfriend where she studied the small but forbidding patch of rock they needed to travel over to reach their first destination in what everyone was thinking of as Existentia proper.
She acknowledged him, but then her eyes went back to sweeping the surrounding terrain.
“Did you get the title?”
“Yes.” Her voice was curt. “Working.” Before Tom could move, her hand reached out and grabbed his hands. “But stay.”
Tom stood next to her silently while she carefully spotted. He noticed her eyes would focus on one spot for a while and then flick to a different spot.
“What happened?” Tom asked finally. “How were we ambushed?”
“Magic. An innate talent. It was broken through collective effort.”
“Then we were lucky?” Tom concluded. “If they were stronger.”
She laughed bitterly. “We lost three more people, hardly lucky and with so many of us looking for them we were bound to break the spell, eventually. I doubt they could have gotten much closer without being noticed even if we didn’t have scouts.” She stopped talking as her eyes drilled down on what, as far as he could tell was a normal crevice between two rocks. “Nothing.” She said finally.
“Two minute warning.” Michael called.
Tom checked his mana. “I should finish making use of the recharge circle.”
She let go, and he headed back to Harry’s mana circle. Unsurprisingly, it was filled with healers.
With nothing productive to do, Tom assessed the mood of those around them. Three more dead. They were no longer in the trials, those lives had been permanently snuffed out. It felt weird to think in those terms. As a kid on earth, he had never been exposed to death and then during the trial he had always known he would be reborn if he died. It was strange to have tangible examples. Yet the threat felt distant like it was not something that personally had to care about. Tom knew he shouldn’t be thinking of it that way, but he couldn’t help himself.
To his disappointment he was clearly not alone with his blasé attitude. Despite how close the ferrets had come to doing material damage, there was an air of anticipation. Everyone here had been living on the knife’s edge for years by themselves. They were no stranger to battles and almost dying. Blood, gore and danger was commonplace for them and while no one said it, Tom knew what most people thought. Those who had died were just less talented and less experienced than the survivors. It was their weakness that had allowed them to die.
Tom knew differently; in a lot of cases it came down to luck.
“Thank you.”
Tom jumped slightly in surprise at being spoken to and looked to his right. Clare stood there. Her crappy armour had a massive gash across the stomach and all her clothes below that were stained red, but the horrifying wound was gone. She had patched herself up.
Tom shook his head to deflect the praise. “I didn’t do much.”
Clare shook ahead. “Always so modest.” Then she pointed. “Look a council of war has been formed.”
The usual cast of characters, all of whom apart from Michael, Tom could not care less about. They were having a heated discussion.
“Forward, back, split up and run. What are they going to choose?” Tom asked.
“They won’t go back.” Clare declared quietly. “No change. We’re still going to the rock.” She inclined her head to where they were pointing.
“Guys,” Michael yelled. “Defensive groupings. It’s time to move out.”
In the same formation as previously, they moved out and headed towards the initial destination.
Tom was actually surprised when they reached it with nothing attacking them. The crafters immediately went to work putting up the prepared palisades. They had cut down every single one of those small patches of trees they had come to.
Tom was amused to see how seriously they were taking the threat of the ferrets. There was a group who had been clearly tasked with making rush defences against them. That group of six were chopping up some of the larger supports to create a thicket of mini spikes at the base of the fortifications. Previously, the monsters would have been able to squeeze through the cracks, but those gaps were now closed.
Michael spread the warriors out in groups of five in case there were more ferrets. Tom was with Evelyn, Sven, Thor and Keikain, positioned on the closest side to the wasps. He discovered why a moment later when a wasp ducked in and got fried. While they were mostly clear of the threat of the nasty creatures, they were still within the range of the wider spreading worker scouts. Of course, such scouts probably didn’t care about humans, but with his enmity levels they definitely cared about him.
“Incoming West. Teams six, five and seven hold current positions everyone else rotate to help.”
They were team eleven and so they immediately jogged around the steadily growing fortifications to get to the west side. It was impressive what the crafters had put together, but then again, Tom knew they had been planning this for almost two weeks. A steady growing project that resulted in the cannibalization of all the little groves of trees they had gone past on their journey.
Evelyn hissed in dismay when they saw what was coming.
Tom barely blinked.
The ten legged lizard was as big as four elephants lined up trunk to tail. Twenty tonnes or more. He had beaten far larger and more deadly things in the DEUS’s trial, but then in the trial he had been far higher ranked. Still, the impression he got from it was while it was immensely strong its speed was slower than his own and it lacked magic. That meant it was very beatable.
With a crackle of energy, his spear reappeared in his hand. This was going to be fun. He was going to find out how lightning spears functioned in a proper fight.