Chương 39

As they entered the final quarter or so of the rift, the rift creature density had increased to the point where they were having a new fight every thirty seconds of forward progress.

"Are you going to clear that?" said Alex after a particularly tight fight, glancing at Beckett's iced-up side, but the guy said, "We'll rest before the final boss, it's fine." Alex decided, watching the guy, he'd force a rest if he deemed it necessary. So far, the wear and tear was fine-ish, he'd say. It did help they were still making progress. It was in one such encounter, when he CLANG'd off four consecutive Icelings with his shield, as he focused on trying to reinforce it with his will, when— Skill evolved!

Mana Shield [Uncommon] (1/3 -> 2/3) Constructs a circular shield out of Pure-affinity mana at the user's desired location. This Skill has achieved basic proficiency (2), including a slight degree of shatter resistance (1 -> 2). This Skill has achieved multi-shield up to two shields (1). The new Skill support level gave its quality a minor increase, which felt very clear in every subsequent shield. Especially when he stacked them against Gelid Rains, as he and Beckett had decided to call them.

It wasn't long after, as they continued through this start-stop series of encounters, that Beckett achieved his second Fire manipulation Skill level as well. It almost felt too easy right now, and it was, in a way, despite all the fighting and experimentation each Skill level required; he was quite aware that, especially in the beginning, simply practicing with intent, especially if you were talented, was sufficient to increase Skill levels quite a bit.

He recalled—as he sliced a Warg in the throat, sending it reeling—that it supposedly got a lot harder as the levels increased; he recalled researching his stray thought, that one time—that if you were very well-versed in how glass shatters, it'd help with shatter resistance in Mana Shields. Supposedly it was kind of true? He watched the Warg fall away, and sliced at its neck once more. His research that time surfaced this term, ' concepts.'

Which was apparently a very deep pool of its own, and largely irrelevant at the start, which was why he'd only briefly looked into it. But his understanding was it somehow linked, say, a material science researcher's understanding of glass, which would help with Mana Shields, and also why certain swords masters would spend hours scrutinizing treasure steles which featured a single sword scar. There's just far too much to research.

It felt like—well, like he'd been thrust into an utterly new world, which of course he had, but also an utterly new and, at times, what felt like an incomprehensibly vast information world. He genuinely wished at times he had a second twenty-four hours every day to explore it all. The blood on his blade vanished as Alex was wiping it against the ice, as did the Ice Warg's body. He glanced at where it'd vanished dispassionately.

"You never—" said Beckett, leaning on his spear, wiping a bit of his own blood off his face. His eyes met Alex's.

"You never answered my question earlier, by the way."

"Which question?"

"I asked you—" Beckett finished off a diving Iceling, the final creature of this encounter, and turned back.

"—what's the weirdest thing you've learned, these past few days."

"Okay," said Alex, sheathing his sword. After a few seconds' thinking, his lips quirked.

"I'm not sure if this is weirdest, but probably tamer classes? You know there's dragons in this world."

"I'd believe it."

"I mean as tamed creatures, that people fight with," Alex clarified.

"And you can bring them into reality. To be clear, it's rare as hell."

"I was going to say—how haven't I heard about this?" Beckett looked bewildered.

"Like, Game of Thrones?"

"Kind of, yeah." Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. A few seconds.

"But how can you—rift creatures don't have souls, right? They're just hardened magic? I thought they had some kind of, like, natural expiration after the rift breaks?"

"The weaker ones. The stronger ones can last a while, supposedly years. There's this series on the process that won a ton of awards a few years back, but basically—" He explained to a fascinated Beckett his understanding of how it worked, which involved clearing a rift, 'bonding' a rift-creature via certain Skills and specialized treasures—which would also give it a soul in the process, effectively giving it a 'rebirth'—and then stabilizing the rift to create a habitat for the rift creature.

At which point you'd summon the creature into other kinds of realities—rifts, or even v-Duels—to fight with you.

"Before you get too excited," said Alex.

"It's insanely expensive. Stabilizing the rift, but like, also everything else involved. It's kind of like F1 driving, it's a lot easier to get into if your dad's a billionaire. You might be able to ask your Guild."

"Think I'd rather rely on myself anyway," said Beckett.

"But yeah, that is… that sure is something. Wait, they're allowed in v-Duels? Isn't that two-on-one? And if you tame a freaking rift boss—""It's not quite like that," said Alex, amused.

"That'd be insanely overpowered." After a few seconds they mutually decided to table this, because it could go on a while—and actually Alex wasn't even sure of some of the things Beckett was asking. At this point in the rift, they were having to actually focus and make a few decisions.

"It's crazy a two-star rift's already this big," said Beckett. The two of them were staring at the mouth of a cavern made of ice, seen approximately seventy-five feet west, at one end of the clearing they'd entered. Alex was pretty sure he saw a rift creature shifting a little out of sight—a creature made of welded-together icy chunks, with a spine riddled with ice shards. Maybe an elemental? The issue was—Beckett checked his timer and winced. A little more than twenty minutes.

"I'm guessing you can't ask Clarissa to extend the time a little," said Alex.

"Yeah," said Beckett, looking at the cave with curiosity and a little longing.

"Yeah…" They forged on ahead; they agreed there probably wasn't time for a detour, and also recovery, and also the final fight, unfortunately. Maybe a completionist run would've been more possible if Alex was alone, with his own rift and as much time as he wanted. There was a chest deep in a nearby snowbank which contained shards of a crystal that looked very much like the crystal of an Awakening Stone.

Three more encounters followed, which allowed Alex a little more practice refining his Force sinks and Pure cycling. Their final encounter was against a flight of Level 5 Icelings and Gelids—the biggest such flight they'd faced all rift. It was a fight in which the two of them were both somewhat exhausted, and it ended with Alex taking an ice-diamond straight to the chest, after what he felt was an admirable attempt to block two Gelid rains in quick succession. He gasped.

But luckily it was the rift creatures' last gasp; Beckett was able to finish them off with two quick fire lances.

"Are you okay?" said Beckett.

"Fine," Alex managed to say. He was sure his face was very pale, and it felt like an icy hand was cradling his heart, but the feeling was dissipating as he cycled Pure. He didn't mind all that. Level up! Class 'Base Mage' has reached Level 5 Stats updated! +9. 0 per level. User distribution— 12% / 16% / 21% / 11% / 17% / 14% / 9% Strength — 11. 5 (+1. 1) Dexterity — 13. 3 (+1. 4) Wisdom — 16. 8 (+1. 9) Constitution — 10. 6 (+1. 0) Intelligence — 13. 8 (+1. 5) Perception — 13. 1 (+1. 3) Endurance — 10. 1 (+0. 8)"Just Leveled," he said to Beckett, weakly grinning.

"Finally, christ."

"Will you need a bit?"

"Like, thirty seconds?" And true to his word, he stood thirty seconds later; he still felt a bit light-headed—he was pretty sure the ice-diamond had been some kind of direct hit. Pure bad luck, but a few more minutes' cycling and he was sure he'd be back to full. He was thinking he might need to take it a bit easier next encounter, but he quickly realized it wouldn't be an issue, since—"That's it," said Beckett.

"Isn't it?" A clearing about fifty feet ahead, and a glance at the sky—feeling the sheer concentration of mana within—was sufficient to confirm it. Within this clearing, there looked to be a giant iceberg; a figure was frozen within. It was a little blurry within the ice, but it seemed to be a nine-foot-tall knight-like being; Alex was pretty sure that was a suit of armor forged of some kind of ice, complete with a weird, light-blue, 'plume' on the helm that flowed like a frozen river. The final boss.

This being was frozen next to a massive ice-sword, glacier-blue. Around this iceberg lay a series of smaller icebergs, with other blurry figures frozen within. Beckett stabbed his spear into the frosted-over grass.

"We're freaking here." He tilted his head up. Alex had to force himself not to sink to the frozen floor.

"We have—" He produced his watch from his interspatial ring.

"Fifteen minutes, thirty-ish seconds."

"We're taking at least, like, ten," Beckett decided, which Alex could agree with. Beckett grinned up at the sky, closing his eyes." Fuck!" he gasped. Alex cycled, smiling a little. In this break, besides resting, the two of them also did a little final tinkering. Beckett had tried a few fire-and-lightning mana lances, with mixed success; so far they were volatile and prone to self-implosion.

They were still very much prototypes, and Alex saw the guy playing with strands of Fire and Lightning mana, side-by-side, willing them to mix, trying to keep them stable.

Alex, meanwhile, had put in a few initial tries at enhancing his body with Force mana between encounters. Also very much early stages; so far, he'd only succeeded in causing his upper arm to seize up painfully, but he had a few ideas. A few minutes passed in tense silence as the two of them tinkered, when Alex felt the crystal at his side brighten.

"It's Clarissa," said a voice.

"How's it going?"

"Well," said Beckett.

"Why, what's up?"

"There's been an accident in Alice's eval. It isn't serious," she quickly reassured them.

"But we'll need to clear some ice mana. ⁠ It's… a lot." Alex paused.

"Sure."

"We'll need half an hour. We'll meet back in the starting zone, like we said, if that works for you two."

"Sure thing," said Beckett, eyes flickering to Alex. The crystal darkened.

"Why'd she have to call us now?" laughed Beckett.

"That entire run could've been so much less—okay. Whatever. I guess we can relax a little."