Chapter 231: Pack your Bags (Patreon)

“Alright, so before we go, I might as well sit down and take another bite out of the new abilities,” Calvin said. “ According to the Royal agreement I signed, I’ve got to practice subtlety with my abilities. Any overt city-smashing attacks will get me killed. With that in mind, let’s choose the Abilities for… Bent Manipulation, Beli Ma, and Stealth.

Bent Manipulation has Reached level 45!

Please choose six abilities and/or Mutations

Abilities:

Ghost hand: Manipulate Bent stored by Beli Ma as hands with physical attributes mirroring User’s mental Attributes. Increases range of Beli ma by 1 inch per level of Bent Manipulation.

^From Beli Ma

Bent Reclamation: User’s Abilities have a (correction)% chance to reclaim Bent spent on them when countered.

Counterspell: Correction applies to interfering with Bent constructs before they have manifested.

^From Interference

Bent Condensation: Condense 5 Bent into one hundred grams of black liquid Bent. One hundred grams restores 1 Bent.

Sliding Scale: Add up to (level)% To one numerical effect of an Ability while taking the same percentage away from another numerical aspect.

^ Ex. +45% Duration, -%45 Mass 

Suspend Spell: Delay activation of a Bent ability by (level)^3 seconds. Point of origin at users discretion, within limits of original Ability.

Liquid spellcasting. When using a skill, User may shift the active use of Abilities relevant to that skill at will.

Ex: shift from Gradual split to Shaping, or multi-split, or any combination thereof. Activate atom ant mid-way through Calvinian summoning’s duration. Turn on and off Voodoo U at will.

Polyglot: Ability’s Bent signatures are randomly encoded with a combination of user’s fluent Languages, increasing difficulty of deciphering, copying and countering Abilities by (Level)%

^From Language Barrier, Spell Penetration.

Recursive Casting: User may overcharge their Bent-Based with extra Bent to allow them to split into dozens of smaller units that each cast again, up to 1 generation  per 15 levels of Bent Manipulation.

Some single target Bent-based abilities will not benefit from this.

^A.K.A the Garth Special.

Contingency: When a user spends Bent on an Ability that targets themselves, they may spend an extra Bent and dictate a specific event or set of criteria. The Ability is then stored inside the user until the specified event happens, at which point the Ability Triggers.

^sucks it only targets yourself, but what’cha gonna do?

Transmuter: User’s external Bent can temporarily use Trait Doctoring on objects within range of Beli Ma without being consumed. Concentration Duration.

^ Unlocked by Passive External Circulation and Trait Doctoring.

Mutations:

All Seeing Eye: User can physically see Bent.

^ Fuck Bent sense, Why not just see the damn stuff?

Warped Bent: User’s Bent is now closer to Warp in the way it interacts with the environment. More difficult to counter, more difficult to control. May cause mutations.

Holy shit, thirteen abilities. I think the first thing I’m going to need to do is isolate what I don’t want or need.

Bent Condensation is interesting but not immediately useful, let’s strike it out. Suspend Spell is interesting but not game-changing. Contingency would be better if It worked on other things than myself, so let’s ignore it for now. I don’t need the All seeing eye, and Warped Bent sounds like it might do as much harm as it does good.

That leaves…nine? Damn.

Let’s focus on counterspelling and synergies for now. Show me Beli Ma. Its range is forty five inches plus an additional forty-five percent, so sixty five and a quarter inches. I’m seeing a lot of synergy with that.

Beli Ma has reached level 45!

Please choose four abilities and/or mutations.

Passive Aura: Bent stored with Beli Ma moves to block/redirect attacks within its range without conscious effort.

Glacier Punch: 1 Bent/hour. User receives a multiplier to their physical attributes of up to (Level) times, depending on how slowly they move. User’s inertia is multiplied by up to (level)^3

^From Atom Ant, Shifting

Float like a Butterfly: (level)% of an attack’s force is negated and applied to moving the User in the direction of their choosing. Move without moving.

Elliot’s Invisible Hands: Use fine threads of Bent to manipulate objects within range of Beli Ma at will. 

Rooted Lotus Style: Double Beli Ma Correction by standing still. 

Mutations:

Dragon clutches Pearl:  Absorb (Correction*1) of a successfully deflected Ability's Bent cost. Limited to original Bent cost.

Slippery When Wet: Able to excrete a slippery substance through your pores to make it more difficult for others to grapple or hold you. Can be directed with practice.  

Four to choose from here. Dragon clutches pearl is on the list. Make sure it’s not going to melt me into a puddle of cancer.

…Done. It’ll work.

Elliots invisible hands seems redundant with Ghost hands.

Well, now I know that. I’ll scrub it.

I definitely want the passive aura. Rooted lotus and…

Calvin surveyed the others, but didn’t find any others that jumped out.

“Let’s hold the last point in reserve.”

Why Rooted Lotus?

Once the aura is a passive, doubling its effect while I’m standing still should allow me to stand still on the battlefield and focus on other things, like spellcasting without having to worry about getting an arrow through the eye.

At least, worry less about getting an arrow through the eye.

Okay, I pick Rooted Lotus and Passive Aura.

Calvin’s brain tingled as he flipped back to the Bent Manipulation list.

First let’s pick the ones that synergize with Beli Ma.

I choose Ghost hand, counterspell, and –

Passive Counterspell: Units of Bent stored by Beli Ma will deflect/interfere with Bent Abilities within their range without being consumed. They may alternatively be consumed to trigger Iroh Special.

^From Iroh Special, Counterspell, Passive Aura,

A new Ability popped up as soon as he chose Counterspell.

I choose Passive Counterspell.

Duh.

“That leaves me with three abilities left to pick.”

Calvin scanned through the abilities, trying to imagine himself in a desperate battle with another Royal, flinging spells and abilities at each other in an endurance match.

I pick Bent Reclamation.

Two left.

Now, if he got into another battle with a spellcaster, he could retain any Bent that got shredded by a counter, allowing him to more easily win a war of attrition, since a battle with another Bent user was essentially over when one side ran out of Bent.

With Ghost hand, the range of Beli Ma had ballooned out to nearly eleven feet, creating a rather large sphere of influence around himself.

I choose Polyglot

With that his Abilities should be much harder to counter. Calvin absolutely despised coming across enemies who could stop his spells with a wave of the hand.

One left…

Calvin’s gaze flickered between Transmuter, Liquid Casting, and recursive Casting.

I don’t know what I’ll need in the future. I’ll save the point. Give me Dragon Clutches Pearl.

User will be rendered unconscious while Mutation is taking place.

Calvin’s veins began twitching and squirming inside his body for a moment before he lost consciousness.

Here’s your Receipt:

Ghost hand, Counterspell, Passive Counterspell, Bent Reclamation, Polyglot, Rooted Lotus, Passive Aura, and Dragon Clutches Pearl.

Calvin came to, and was pleasantly surprised to still be alive – in a manner of speaking – and not having his heart manually pumped by a panicking Kala.

He glanced down at his forearms and used Dupdomancy to create a blade aimed at his palm.

Shaping.

34/54 bent remaining.

The blade embedded itself in his palm.

“Damnit,” Calvin said, pulling the knife out. It looked like his passive countering ability wasn’t going to work on his own stuff.

I need someone to test this for me.

He glanced around his lab. Learner was performing a night-time experiment as was usual for her.

“Learner, do you have any Bent-based attacks?”

“Not as Skills, no, but they’re not that hard to recreate manually.” She said, pointing her finger up and creating a roiling ball of fire above it.

“Not that hard to recreate manually,” Calvin muttered under his breath.

Rather than a typical ball of fire, it was so perfectly spherical, it almost appeared to be a glass orb with boiling orange magma contained inside it.

“Alright, toss it here,” Calvin said, holding out a hand.

“… Are you sure? Because my brain really doesn’t want to hurt you.”

“Pretty sure I can just grow it back if I lose a hand,” Calvin said. “Go for it.”

“Okay. I’m sorry if you die.”

Learner crooked her finger, and the ball of fire tore through the air toward him.

Once it was ten feet away from him, the whorls of Bent lazily surrounding him whipped over to the spell, latched on to the ball of fire and began tearing the Bent construct apart. It made it a full six feet through his aura, shrinking all the while, until it unraveled completely in a puff of Bent.

The veins in his forearm writhed greedily as the Bent was drawn to the closest surface and ingested, sending a visible pulse of black Bent down the veins in his arm...It felt very similar to Lady Killer, except without the warmth of intimate contact.

35/54 bent remaining.

“Fantastic,” Calvin said, putting his hand down.

“Very interesting. Is that a mutation?” Learner said, her gaze widening.

“It’s a synergy of quite a few mutations and Abilities,”

“…could you tell me which ones?”

Calvin glanced at her. He was fairly sure that saying ‘no’ would simply delay her figuring out the combination by a matter of hours. Might as well try to get something out of it.

“I’ll write it down for you if you promise to keep your brain around.”

“Of course, I’m very proud of her.”

Calvin tossed off the combination that led to the spell-woodchipper effect and handed it to her as prepared himself to approach the Stealth Skill.

“I See…interesting.” Learner took the sheet of paper and sat back down at her desk, opening up her journal and making some notes in her Build Log.

More organized than me, that’s for sure. Show me Stealth.

Stealth has reached level 35!

Please choose five Abilities and/or Mutations.

Abilities:

Active Stealth: Become invisible for 1 hour/Bent. Effect fades if you attack.

Sneak Critical: Attacks from a hidden Vantage are significantly more lethal, automatically seeking vital spots.

Passwall: 1 Bent/minute. User may travel through solid substances such as walls. Travel may be in any direction, including up and down. User may not see while they are inside a wall. If duration expires while user is inside a solid surface, they are forcibly ejected.

^From Trait Doctoring

Untraceable: 1 Bent/8 hours. For the Duration, footsteps, separated body parts (blood, hair, etc,) as well as damage to the environment caused by the user are automatically erased/fixed within five seconds.

Mutations:

Vein-Sight: When using Stealth, the Veins of living creatures glow brightly from beneath their skin. (May Cause Slight Vampirism)

Camouflage: When using Stealth, the skin actively redirects light around the body, nearly disappearing. (Much less effective when wearing clothes.)

Touch-Grip: At will, finger tips and toes become able stick to objects, with a force equal to your endurance squared. (May cause super-heroism.)

Calvin looked through the options multiple times.

Well, none of them are particularly exciting. Still, going invisible seems like fun. Passwall seems handy, and Untraceable would be useful in the right circumstances.

Sneak critical looked good until Calvin realized that if the purpose was simply to kill someone, he had better ways to accomplish it than by simply stabbing them. might as well take the Stealth-focused approach rather than take a redundant Abillity

I choose Active Stealth

As soon as he chose it, another Ability popped up.

Advanced Active Stealth: Become invisible for 1 hour/Bent. Sounds are muffled for the duration, Effect does not fade upon attacking.

^From Active Stealth.

...I choose Advanced Active Stealth.

Another Skill populated as soon as the tingling went away.

Extended Stealth: Active Stealth lasts 8 hours per Bent.

Calvin left that one alone and picked Passwall and Untraceable

As soon as he chose those two Abilities, another Ability populated.

Phantom Stealth: Become invisible for 1 hour/Bent. User’s sounds are silenced and smells are negated for the duration. Includes the effects of Passwall and Untraceable. Bent-based effects that attempt to discern, identify or locate the user are resisted by Intuition. Effect does not fade upon attacking. Dismissible.

….Well, that makes the choice fairly easy.

I choose Phantom Stealth. Calvin thought. It was a rather powerful effect, being at the end of what appeared to be a stealth-focused skill tree.

Was there possibly a different option if I had chosen Sneak Critical? Like a Hungry ghost Stealth that boosted killing things in rapid succession?

Maybe there had been, but Calvin’s logic when avoiding the Ability still applied. If he wanted to kill a whole bunch of things, there was always a better way to do it than by going from person to person and stabbing them.

“Alright, that leaves me with one free Ability for both Beli Ma and Bent Manipulation, And Zero left for Stealth.” Calvin said, thinking aloud. He went back to his journal and flipped to the page where he kept track of his abilities, smudging out the entries and changing them to match the new numbers.

Meditation

4 Abilities Available!

Stealth 

0 Abilities Available!

Old Salt 

2 Abilities available!

Drafting 

0 Abilities available!

Chained Spirit 

3 Abilities available!

Abyssal Alchemy 

7 Abilities available

Trait Doctoring 

5 Abilities available!

Calvinian Summoning 

3 Abilities available!

Bent Manipulation 

1 Abilities available!

Playboy 

1 Abilities available!

Beli Ma 

1 Abilities available!

Dupdomancy 

2 Abilities available!

Shifting 

6 Abilities available!

Sense Grafting 

0 Abilities available!

Genosian Language 

7 Abilities available!

Your Princess is in another Castle 

6 Abilities available!

I wonder if Boles has princesses. Calvin thought, tapping the last entry with a contemplative frown.

Well, if they do, I’ll deal with it over there. I’m mentally exhausted and I need a change of pace from learning new Abilities.

Choosing a bunch of them in quick succession was mentally draining. That tingling sensation was his brain getting rewired, and that took energy. He’d just never noticed until he had the ability to choose more than one or two in a day.

Calvin closed his journal and went back to his Grimoire. With the unqua latch active, the whole thing shrunk down to about the size of a thumbnail, so Calvin went about creating a jewelry setting for the book so he could wear it out and about without it getting in the way. How about a necklace? That way it’s not resting on my hand out in the open, resting safely under my armor.

As he created the setting for the book, he considered what else to put in it. If he could save energetic states, he should stow away something very hot.

Molten steel, perhaps? Activated Thermite?

How about a bar of tungsten raised to a bajillion degrees via Opposite Day fuckery?

Let’s see, how would we do that… Heat the tungsten to the same temperature as thermite by bathing it in the thermite reaction, then target it with Opposite Day between liquid nitrogen and the tungsten, raising its heat even further by the difference between the two?

That sounds like it would work. Just make sure to wear something reflective, because that amount of heat will literally melt your face off.

Also, we might want to buy some osmium and a few other refined elements from the knick-knacks as well. They’ve got interesting physical properties for Trait doctoring.

Sounds good, Calvin thought, nodding as he pressed the book into the clay-soft Abyssal steel before cutting and forming the outside with tools.

On a whim, he drew a pretty design along the edge of the frame with his sculpting tool.

Can’t visit Boles without looking a little dapper.