Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

I also still needed my Gold spells, as I was 100% sure I could get them all off now.

Applying Metas for free to Isparian magic, applying Mana Conservation to refilling Valences. Ohhhhh, the implications thereof...

Just being able to use Metas on Isparian Magic would have turned me into one of the most powerful Casters alive back on Ispar. Add in the versatility of Matrix magic, and yeah, things would have been quite incredible there.

Feats, Masteries, and Rep Counts vs. Mana Conversion. What a pleasant situation to be in!

I was so excited about discovering a potential workaround that I blew through my II Slots and immediately targeted those Valences, instead of my Mana Pool, with a Boost Mana.

On Ispar, the spell was vastly inferior to the Transfer spells, which started at, for instance, one-half of current Stamina being turned 75% to mana, your Stamina often close to 200. So even as a Lead spell, you could easily get 75 mana back in one Casting, for a spell that only cost 10 mana normally, and could be next to nothing with high enough Mana Conversion. The more powerful versions increased the % transferred quickly, rapidly reaching over 100%.

A Boost Mana was basically ‘healing’ your Mana Pool instead of your Health. It could also be seen as a ‘working’ Mana Renewal, where you were leveraging your Mana Conversion against the results of the spell. If your Conversion wasn’t good enough, at best you’d be on par, and more likely you’d lose mana with every Casting.

It was a good way to practice Mana Conversion, however, as it truly minimized the actual Cost of each and every spell...

More importantly, it had a variable range in what it ‘healed’... which meant it was a multi-die effect, which meant per-die bonuses could accrue!

Most importantly, from the standpoint of magic, it was a Healing effect. After all, the effect could also be targeted on others, restoring their Mana Pools by spending your own, just like Cast Spells could.

That meant Augment Healing kicked in, as well as the Healing Domain. +2 per Spell Level, and automatic Energizing at some later point would both apply. That... might even allow the spell to override the restrictions on self-Boosting!

The effect might be terribly limited next to the Transfer spells, but what did I care? Anything that enhanced my Mana Renewal rate was fine by me!

Because the amount of Mana needed to restore Valences was fixed, I had to restore 10 mana to restore a I Valence, and 20 to Boost a II.

6-10, 11-20, 16-30, 26-50 for Lead, Iron, Copper, and Silver spells, respectively. 2d3+4, 3d4+8, 5d4+10, and 8d4+18.

Apply the Good and Cold descriptors, +3/die. Augment Healing, +2 per Spell Level. +8, +13, +21, and +32 mana respectively!

Cold and Sacred energies swirled around me as I fed a Boost of each matched Valence into it. Lead into I, Iron into II, Copper into III. I had no problems meeting the minimums to fill them with each spell, and the Converted cost was waaaaay less than the 10xValence needed to fill them! The sensation was bracing, invigorating, like a cold and serene snowstorm falling into the Valences and filling them up with serene harmony and joy.

200 mana worth of Slots was filled back up in less than two minutes, for a net cost of 40 on my end.

But would the extra translate back in above the limit?

I dutifully applied the boost right to my Mana Pool, using a Silver Boost. Mana conduit established, Mana Conversion kicks in and reduces the cost, Mana Pool goes down, comes back up... and the fixed bonus overlays the natural ‘return’ stop point, flooding 32 extra points of cold and harmonious singing mana into my Pool, just a few shy of full.

I resisted the urge to jump in the air and whoop for joy. It was far more active and would take longer than the Transfer spells, but I had a workaround, courtesy of Feats from the Matrix side of things!

I could now recharge each Valence for basically one-third the normal 10x or so cost or less, and recharge my Mana Pool at up to 32 points a cycle, a rapid refill compared to Meditation.

It wasn’t 600 reps an hour, but I should be able to hit 200 or more in anything, especially if my Mana Conversion was humming along properly, and I was definitely Buffing it and keeping it going.

Four to five hours of work, and I could get Energized and Split Ray both down to +I. Ah, it was a good day!

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“Got two more additions to the sapient species roster for you.”

I had to roll my eyes at Kris’ remark as she glided back in to where I was practicing not long before dusk. “Seriously? How many sapient races are there around this place? It just isn’t that big...”

“There’s a purple-skinned race that sort of look like some depictions of hobgoblins. Elf-like, fanged mouths, armored up adequately. The other I thought was some type of ogre by its build at first, but... the thing had three eyes, all lined up vertically.”

I blinked. “Well,” I managed to say. “That’s impressive. Is there some special benefit to that?”

“I don’t know, but they attacked like barbarians or berserkers as Summons, so I’m not expecting great things from them. All crude furs and leathers, and clubs or fists, too. Also, they started at a foot taller than me.”

“Eh. That just makes them more fun for you to throw around.” Probably to their immense disbelief. Kris just smirked at the comment and the knowing truth behind it.

“There are also random Wisps of at least three types around, and minor Elementals manifesting on the Summon spots.”

“You must have gone a lot farther afield than I did.”

“Did you see the centipedal rollers?” She flicked up a Holo of an armored, segmented creature with a rounded, bullet-like head and jaws, with spikes around its backside. It actually flipped into the air as it charged, becoming a spiked disk that tried to impale Kris, and somehow recovered from being batted aside with remarkable balance and a whipping action of its whole body before Quaver inserted itself deftly between its segments, severed its spine, and it died.

“No, I hadn’t,” I admitted. “Another weird native creature, or an import like us?”

“Between the reedsharks, the shreth, and these things, not to mention the wasps, this place is top-heavy on predators, not that it’s that unusual. Oh, and there are wild aurochs from home running around here, gods know how they got here if there are no horses. They somehow amble around without disturbing the Summons, probably because they are herbivores.”

I’d seen plenty of wild rabbits and chickens running around, so the native predators definitely had some basic prey animals to keep themselves fed. Something had to feed the ursuins! That was good, as feeding on Summons was basically impossible, unless you were into ectoplasm as a food supply.

“Oh, the discrimination in the air against innocent omnivores,” I sighed dramatically, hand to my head. “Perhaps I should go vegan or something and see if that makes any difference.”

Kris just rolled her violet eyes. “I say no, but what do I know? Ready to head out and go south?”

“I’ll work on applying Meta I’s to my Valence II’s as we go,” I said happily. “The Mana Boost workaround is soooo much better than I could expect, the Theurgies from the different Traditions are really nice once they start working together!”

“I think I harvested enough Karma for the trip, but I’m going to make a point of killing any golums we run across, see if we get more of that untreated Air Gold. Other than that, it’s lived-lining, seeing the sights, and following the water.”

“Did you happen to go out by the Ward underwater?” I asked her, and she tilted her head.

“I will definitely do that tomorrow,” she stated, as I re-upped all the Disks floating around with our coin haul on them, now down fifteen hundred of the things from yesterday.

“I’m ready. Let’s go.”

------

It was... largely uneventful.

We were already beyond the normal hunting area of the drudges, and what scattered living things were around just watched us go by. Kris didn’t swerve aside for any Summons, and I was invited to blast them with whatever I was working on at the moment, too, having my own Naming Karma to harvest. For that reason, she made sure every single Summons along the way was in range of my spells and attacks, and most of them were weak enough that I could take them down without a great deal of effort.

This was especially true with Assay II telling me what elemental energies hit them hardest. It wasn’t the same as having the Cold or Fire Template, but there was a definite edge in magical vulnerability. I passed such along to Kris, who merely asked me to start getting reps in on Imperil.

Imperil was one of the quintessential Life Magic teamwork spells, although from my side of things it was more akin to Force Armor or Barkskin, except the opposite. It sank into an opponent and acted directly against their Natural Armor.

That wasn’t too huge a deal, unless their armor went negative, at which point incoming damage from weapons started being magnified!

This effect could also be applied to armor as an Item Magic Bane effect, reducing both the armor’s protective value and its specific strengths against elemental damages. If you could get those values into the negatives, then it was possible for an opponent’s armor to betray them, magnifying the force of impact, superconducting the lightning, flames or cold, or oxidizing the flesh beneath with magical betrayal. There were plenty of tales back in old Ispar of a cunning mage Baning an enemy commander’s shield in the heart of battles, and instead of holding back the arrow fire it made it faster and more murderously powerful, ending up with them being slaughtered because they didn’t take protections against such magic.

It was also possible to enchant an opponent’s weapon right into ineffectiveness with similar reversed magic, Greater Curse Weapon and its specific applications reducing speed, damage, control, and defensive ability, all at the same time.

It was not something a Caster usually worried about, of course, but it was a way to shut down a dangerous enemy if needed.

Kris was doing her own testing of these creatures. They all had enough Soak to absorb a normal blow without any problem from her, so she wanted to test Imperil’s various stages and see what was needed to one-shot the stuff, as well as determine the Elemental Phasing to use, if need be.

I was happy to comply. I could use Mana Boost to get back any amount of mana consumed by one spell now quite rapidly, with the result that Kris was trotting through the night, moving from target to target like a hunting wolf as I picked them out, or she saw them first. Summons that survived my ranged spells or who had an Imperil go off on them came charging up on her, and died.

And then Kris stopped dead in the water.

“What?” I asked, and she just flicked over a sensation, right before she bolted in the opposite direction, heading for the shelter of a stand of brush growing up against the edge of the lake water.

She’d just felt the water vibrate through her Tremblesense...