Chương 32

Alex and Beckett crept closer, studiously avoiding any patches of ice. A dozen feet out they glanced at each other. First Alex drew the Slimes away with a Mana Shield in the air, right above the Slimes' bodies—the density of his Shield's mana seemed to be especially useful against the Slimes' mana senses. As the Slimes were fixated on it, shells formed mid-air above Beckett's head. Beckett charged, and fire lances filled the empty shells.

Alex followed suit right behind him, a few of his own newfangled spears filling the air, smiling a bit. The Slimes were all Level 4, and in a three-against-two situation Alex would've expected they'd pose some challenge. Especially since Alex and Beckett were both tinkering with new Skills. As it was, Alex would say the two of them had picked up on the Slimes' attacking patterns decently well; three Slimes were little more than target practice.

In fact they had zero coordination; they slammed into each other fairly often. A Slime did explode into four miniature slimes in front of Alex's face, but Alex barely managed to get a Mana Shield up in time, PING'ing it right off. They'd split up into one-versus-ones near the end; Beckett watched, spear slung over his shoulder, as Alex cleaned up.

"You're sure getting a handle on the Mana Spears," Beckett observed. He glanced at the slashes marring the miniature Slimes' sides as they faded away.

"They're a little better," Alex admitted, replaying his spears in his mind.

"It still feels a little disjointed to me." It felt like his Force, Pure, and Swordforce were barely holding together in the Spear. Which wasn't unexpected, given it was by a margin the most complex mana construct he'd ever tried.

"They're getting there for sure," said Beckett. And to be fair, the damage was significantly better than before; tanking one of Alex's new Swordforce-tipped Mana Spears to the face, like b0b12 had once done in v-dueling, would certainly be… pretty bad.

"I could say the same for you, actually," said Alex, turning to the guy.

"Your lances are stronger than they were before you'd started using a case now, aren't they?" He was certain Beckett's lances were weaker than they'd been case-less last fight.

"Yeah, I'm refining the case a bit, so it shatters easier," said Beckett; he seemed pleased.

"Which just means—I'm trying to make the case thinner." He knelt down, picked up the treasure they were calling Slime balls, and tossed it at Alex, who caught it and put it in his Interspatial Ring for safekeeping—which they'd agreed on after flipping a coin. The coin being the emergency mana crystal Clarissa had given them. Another thousand dollars, potentially.

"Turns out, with a case you can stuff in more Fire mana too," said Beckett. He grinned.

"That was a really good idea. And I just Leveled, by the way. Man, fighting Slimes is awesome." Alex very much agreed with the sentiment. For Skills practice, you could do much worse than an Ice Slime, but—"We should get to the chest." He also surreptitiously checked the essence levels in his own soul, and discovered it was three-quarters gone. Which meant, with a little luck, he'd be due for a Level soon as well.

He was still cycling his Pure mana, which kept his body feeling totally fresh; that, and his new spears, were his main improvements so far. For Beckett it seemed to be his own lances and his new Level. As they walked to the chest—"You should tell me your v-Dueling handle," Beckett said without looking at him. Alex only froze for a split-second, but luckily Beckett didn't notice; he was looking at the chest.

"Why?" said Alex, putting on an amused smile.

"You want to fight me?" Beckett returned a playful grin.

"I mean, I was thinking we'd spar, but sure." Internally, all Alex could think was— he knows my talents, he knows I'm an Outworlder. I've failed on two out of three. Then, with amusement and slight exasperation— I just want to keep this one thing private, is that too much to ask? It was arguably the least 'confidential' thing to let slip, from an objective standpoint, except for the fact that it'd be undeniably awkward if it got out. Which was plenty reason in his eyes.

"Well, I'm flattered you think I'd stand a chance," said Alex.

"You'd stand a chance for sure, what are you talking about?" said Beckett. He glanced at Alex again; a pause. And then, with a glint in his eyes—"You little—you know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think you think you'd win." A pregnant pause.

"You have a thousand pieces of gear," said Alex, spreading his hands.

"I have a starter sword. Of course you'd win."

"If gear was equal."

"Well then I'd crush you." Beckett looked stunned. Then he laughed.

"You're crazy!"

"You have zero defense, dude," said Alex, grinning.

"Yeah, but have you seen my lances?"

"Let's open the chest," pleaded Alex. Beckett sat on the chest, which might've been concerning, but by his expression Alex could tell the guy wasn't serious.

"Tell me how you're stopping my lances."

"I can shield against your lances better than you can defend my spears, and I'd gameplan for you."

"You think you'll gameplan for me, but I'd adapt, and find the hole in that death-star, and then it's done! I only need one lance, remember?" If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"I'd understand you and neutralize you faster than you could neutralize me."

"How could you understand me, when I don't even understand myself?" Beckett countered.

"I have zero clue what I'll do five seconds from now. And besides—""I know," said Alex dryly.

"You have your big exploding lances. I think, if you fought me, you'd find yourself less able to use them than you'd think." Beckett just gave him a long look, a look full of wonder—and… appreciation?" Dude."

"What?" Beckett grinned, turned away, shook his head.

"Okay, yeah. Chest."

"You have to believe in yourself, right?" said Alex, feeling rather unapologetic. Beckett turned to him seriously.

"I want to be very clear, I think that's freaking sick," he said.

"That you think that way.

'You have to'—that's exactly it. That's—that's all there is."" Ah." A slightly awkward pause. Beckett got off the chest.

"Um," he said, looking suddenly embarrassed, like a bit of self-awareness had suddenly dawned.

"Also—I didn't mean to get, like, intense. Or like—seem, uh—like, toxic, at all."

"I get where you're coming from," Alex told him. He also felt like Beckett probably knew that already, or he wouldn't have said what he'd said.

"It's cool. I like that energy, actually."

"Oh. Well—okay." Beckett grinned.

"Nice."

"I was thinking," said Alex.

"I really should make some low-hanging fruit improvements to my Shield anyway. Like Multi-Shield, at least—" Beckett finished with the steel latch and seemed surprised as it sprang open.

"You just have to infuse a little mana into it," Beckett said, answering Alex's glance. Inside, there were two items, sat on a satin white pillow. One, an essence stone. Beautiful golden strands in a crystalline case. The second was a silver circlet, intricately made; the kind of thing Alex might expect to see on an elf's head in Lord of the Rings. There was an emerald gemstone at its center.

"I wonder what it does?" said Beckett. Beckett inspected it curiously, but Alex said, "May I?" Alex picked it up, holding the gemstone up to the light.

"I think I have an idea. I'll bind it, temporarily."

"Are you sure?" Beckett seemed slightly concerned.

"It can't hurt, can it?"

"I—" said Alex, who didn't actually know if rift items could be detrimental.

"This one should be fine," he said finally. Alex bound it after a few seconds of effort. There wasn't any effect at first. But then he placed it on his head—and he noticed, or rather felt the treasure resizing very slightly as he put it on. It felt like the world came into significantly sharper focus, very quickly. Then the effect vanished; he walked around, and his moment-to-moment experience didn't feel all that different. But he knew what'd changed; he'd guessed as much.

Beckett gave him a questioning look, but Alex just showed him. Above Alex's head, a Mana Spear appeared, which he tipped with Swordforce. He then slicked it with a little Force, and watched it shoot forward a dozen feet.

"It's stabler," said Beckett, realizing.

"The circlet either gives an intelligence stat boost," said Alex.

"Since it's helping my willpower, or it's something similar—like, enchanted to increase the effect of all intelligence points. But since it's an item in a 2-star rift, it's probably a straightforward stat boost." A stat boost that was very much appreciated; his suspicion was it added something like +3 to his intelligence stat, since wielding his Spear suddenly felt about 25%-ish less intensive. It was obvious, but— wow, gear makes a big difference. I wonder how much it'd sell for? The ring was 2.

5 Credits, wasn't it? He decided, as he manipulated his spear around, he quite enjoyed intelligence-boosting items—he liked his increased his capacity to actually use his mana.

"Keep it for the rift," Beckett urged. Alex hesitated.

"And what if it's damaged?" The guy shrugged.

"You can reimburse me of your half of the earnings if you want." Alex did; his protest was pretty half-hearted anyway. A suspicion struck Alex.

"What's your Pure mana proficiency?"

"I haven't unboxed it yet. I do feel like I'm close—it'd get me to Uncommon Mana Manipulation, which'd be nice. Why?"

"So when you were wielding Pure, making those cases earlier—" Beckett showed his hand, which included a band of coral-blue as a ring, and also tapped a wire pendant on his chest.

"I have a few plus-intelligences." Alex nodded. Without extra intelligence stat, and thus willpower, to help with his mana manipulation, using Pure mana without proficiency levels like Beckett had been doing was probably impossible. And even still, nothing Beckett did with Pure was particularly advanced. They kept walking.

"You were telling me about your Shield?" said Beckett.

"There's at least one support I can get for it that'd be pretty easy," said Alex. Speaking of—he threw up a shield, and started experimenting as they walked. This shouldn't take long, surely.

"If it's to counter me, by the way," said Beckett, with what Alex knew was playful arrogance.

"You should realize by the time this rift's done, I'll be a completely different fighter."

"So will I," said Alex. A pause. Amused—"You seem to think the universe revolves around you." For some reason this jab made Beckett flush.

"I—""It's something I planned on achieving regardless," said Alex. He had to admit, his discussion with Beckett had at least given him a bit of an edge, mentally. After a few seconds, he saw Beckett playing with a spark of lightning over his fingertips, staring hard at it. A part of him observed the guy as Beckett closed his eyes; he seemed to be willing a change in the lightning. Then Beckett visibly steeled himself. The lightning went into his hand, up his arm—"Fuck!" cried Beckett.

"Lightning cycling feels like something you should try supervised," was Alex's opinion, said with amusement.

"It's less dangerous than it looks, your body naturally produces electricity, supposedly," said Beckett. He started at his left arm, clearly fascinated.

"It's not Fire cycling. Like, it's easier to, like, 'inflect' it to be beneficial? I swear it felt like—I swear I felt something." A silence.

"I think I'll give it another try," said Beckett finally.

"In a bit." He started cycling a little Pure into the arm, presumably to help it recover a little. A few more seconds passed, in which Alex worked on his Shield support.

"So, what's the weirdest thing you've learned in the past few days?" said Beckett, cocking his head.

"Besides that, like, other universes exist—can we visit those, by the way? Is that a thing?"

"If it is," said Alex, who'd of course looked into this a little, out of sheer curiosity.

"It's way past our pay grade."

"Aren't they talking about like, doing a Labyrinth mission in the next few years?" Beckett seemed quite curious.

"Exploring one of those things sounds pretty sick."

"Yes, well, we haven't even cleared all of the Towers yet," said Alex.

"We might be at the level to go to space in a few years, but we might also—" He paused. Part of his mind was working on his Mana Shields; as he spoke, he managed to manifest two. Two Mana Shields were side-by-side—really, all he did was will a second Shield to appear beside it while preserving the first, and it seemed the Mana Manipulation and Mana Shield Skills did the rest. One shield flickered out after a second—it seemed this wasn't sufficient to get the support yet. But he was definitely close; he grinned.

Beckett had also gone still. Alex quickly caught on that it wasn't because of his spectacular Mana Shield duplicating Skills—which, to be honest, wasn't all that difficult. One look at Beckett's expression, and he realized the seriousness of the situation. It took him a few more seconds to see what Beckett was seeing. Between the trees, in the distance, he saw patches of shifting— stalking? —white. That is not a Slime." Shit," said Beckett.

Alex gestured to the left, where there was a small clearing a few dozen paces away, and Beckett wordlessly agreed. Slowly they walked toward it. A screech startled Alex, and he chanced a glance up. He saw a bird that looked like a raven, except rather than black its entire body was the color of glacier ice. Gelid Level 5 It tilted its head at him, but it seemed content to wait high up. Presumably for the creatures stalking through the trees—it was intelligent.

Less than twenty seconds later, he saw them—like very large, blue-eyed wolves with snowy coats, and glistening icicle-like claws and fangs which Alex suspected looked like ice for a reason; the creatures' breaths frosted the air with cold mana. Ice Warg Level 4 Ice Warg Level 4 Ice Warg Level 5 Ice Warg Level 5"Something tells me," said Alex, teeth gritted.

"These things are a little less simple than Slimes."

"Yeah, maybe," said Beckett. A pause, and he grinned.

"I'd still put money on us, though. You take the bird and defense, I'll try fucking up the overgrown wolves?"

"I can also contribute to the fucking up,"Alex told him." Alright." The creatures charged, and the two attacked.