Battlefield Reclaimer, Ch 53: Spell Theory (Patreon)

“That worked, but maybe a little less destruction next time, Sam?” Jeric chuckled, as he looked toward the ruins of the maze. “We could have pinned them down and finished them off together.”

His dad was looking at him with a mixed expression, one that was half amused and half frustrated, and it made it clear that he understood exactly what Sam was up to.

Maybe he had gotten a bit carried away there at the end.

“Ahh, sorry...,” Sam offered sheepishly. He did feel a bit embarrassed when he looked at the maze. They’d worked hard to build that and now he’d broken part of it, which meant that Ayala would have to tire herself out putting it back together again.

“Grey Shard Seekers are annoying like that,” Krana chuckled, as she came over too. The seer didn’t seem upset. “You aren’t the first Wizard to get mad at them, or to go a bit overboard when they jump around.”

The guards stayed near their exit, checking over their armor as they looked toward the maze and then Sam before quickly looking away again. They had come around in their attitudes, but they were still nervous. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than the alternative.

“We have a little while before the next group arrives,” Krana said, looking toward the maze and then toward Sam. "Around a day, which is plenty of time to recover and fix that up, but when they do get here, it’ll be bigger than this group. That other thing is right behind them too, so we’re going to need to fight smart and you won’t want to burn through so much mana at once until we find out what it is.”

Her expression was troubled as she said the last part, with a small frown building up at the corners of her mouth. She still hadn’t been able to figure out what was behind the golden haze.

“It looks like these Grey Shards were organized and not running away..., which means they might be working for that thing. That’s not good news, since they’re an arrogant race of monsters and will only be cowed by something with real power. We might need to retreat to the fort and hope the traps here can take out the first part of them.

“I can explain some spell theory," she continued. "Or, at least, I can tell you about some of the common tactics Wizards use to conserve mana. You also want to only use as much mana in a spell as you need, so changing up the amount you infuse is important.”

Sam’s mood became fiercer as he listened and a surge of crystal flame flickered down his arms, ready to be released. He looked into the distance, trying to guess how difficult it would be to survive this. If he could improve his spells a bit more first, that would be best, and he gave Krana a grateful nod.

“I’ll work on the maze,” Ayala said, as she came forward. A slight smile and shake of her head said that the destruction didn’t bother her much. The maze had always been temporary. “I didn’t use much mana just now, since Sam killed most of them.”

“Right, that gives Sam and me some time to talk.” Krana chuckled. “But first, let’s clean up the experience and set things straight.”

Sam nodded, and then turned toward the two Seekers he had just destroyed. If they broke it up evenly, he should get one Seeker at least. There were a few...chunks left of them, and that should be enough to collect the experience.

He wondered what would happen if he saved a Stalker for later, maybe in an hour or so. Could he get more experience from it and get around the limit? He wasn’t sure how long it took before he could absorb more. He had forgotten to ask about it until now, so he turned to Krana and asked.

“You can do that, sometimes,” Krana replied easily, when he brought the idea up. She was accompanying him as he searched for the Seekers. “But not always. The World Law governs the flow of experience and it doesn’t like games, so anything where you deliberately try to cheat its rules will usually result in you gaining nothing. Most scholars theorize that the experience limit is related to physical constraints, or perhaps a natural law of the world, where the World Law only allows it to flow so quickly from one place to another.”

“If the energy moves too quickly, it destabilizes the seal?” Sam asked, feeling puzzled as he tried to figure out the rules. That sounded complex, and he already knew the seal was weaker in some areas and stronger in others. “Or is it something else?”

“Maybe,” Krana replied with a shake of her head. “This is a topic of a lot of debate among scholars, but the experience you get seems to be connected to all of your activities throughout the battle, as well as how you compare to the monster. It has to be a real fight, with some purpose that helps the world, or you don’t get anything much.

“For example, it’s a lot slower to level in combat near the cities. Just like how Flaws don’t appear there, the experience you gain is also less. Some people think that experience is part of the seal and more stable there, but more chaotic as you get farther away, which lets you claim more of it. Either way, that’s why there are still a lot of weak combat classes in the cities. Some wild areas are also better than others. From what I’ve seen, this one is surprisingly good, which is why we've all leveled up so quickly."

Krana looked at him, checking to make sure he was following along, and then continued with another point he had mentioned.

“The idea that you always get 50% is a common misconception, but it usually works for early levels. As you level up higher, it can change a lot. One monster might give you 75% and another 25%. Sometimes you get more than you expect, like a bonus, and other times you get less. The amount can change based on your location, the type of monster, your level, your class, and other variables. The numbers you get from the World Law are an estimate based on your understanding of the world, not pure truth. Some people hear those numbers in percentages or don’t hear them at all. They just feel the flow of energy as they obtain it.” Krana raised her hands into the air in a shrug as she explained what she knew.

"So, distance from cities, the strength of the seal at that location, and the challenge of the monsters perhaps?" Sam muttered as he summarized it.

“All that can really be said is that risk comes with reward," Krana agreed with a nod. "That variability is also why crafting professions retain their popularity as subclasses, since the experience flow from them is much more stable. They aren't affected much by being in a city.”

They were standing over the remains of the Seekers now, and Sam nodded again as he listened to her explanation. Apparently, the World Law made its own judgment as it moderated the flow of energy. It seemed like everything important in Aster Fall somehow came back to maintaining the seal, whether he understood it or not.

“Just keep fighting monsters and you’ll gain experience,” Krana concluded. “That’s the only rule. But, at any rate, you should loot those and we can talk about spell theory.”

Sam nodded at her as he bent down next to the Seeker, searching for the thread of experience. It came to him in a crackling torrent, like a dancing lightning bolt that branched out into a thousand tendrils.

It brushed across his skin and flowed into his blood, surging through him with effervescent bubbles of new strength. The notification unfurled with a sparkle of distant starlight and a flare of trumpets resounding in his mind.

Congratulations, Scion. You have used your Class abilities to slay your enemies.

You gain 120,000 Class experience. You have reached the maximum you can absorb at once.

You have gained a Level in your Class.

You are now a Level 33 Battlefield Reclaimer.

Total Experience: 610,990 / 772,500

You have gained a General Level.

You are now Level 33.

Total Experience: 615,880 / 772,500

You gain +1 Intelligence, +1 Aura, and have three free status points to assign.

The notification faded away, taking the First Cliff with it. The amount of experience to get to 34 wasn't as big of a leap.

The new attributes brought his Intelligence and Aura to 63. As soon as the change took effect, he automatically put the three free points into Wisdom, taking it to 31 to help him reclaim more auras.

He was also curious if Wisdom would help him to reclaim an Advanced aura, which he hadn’t managed yet. The difference between tiers was steep, so it might take a while, but he was looking forward to it.

As he looked around, he could see the rest of the Grey Shards had been claimed by the others, which meant the second one here was Krana's. When there were more monsters around, he'd try out his idea. Experience usually lasted about half a day, which might be long enough to save one for later.

The changes were roaring through his blood as he looked back over the level notification, a slight smile on his face. The experience limit had gone up along with his level, which was a good sign. Then he pushed that thought out of his mind as he turned to the auras, searching for the next thread of energy.

Nearby, Krana had gathered her own experience as she watched him, her forehead wrinkled in confusion. She'd seen him pull a wispy sphere from a monster before, but she had no idea what he was doing with them.

The half-real thread of energy from the Grey Shard Seeker was more subtle than any other he had found, and it took him longer to locate it. It was barely there, like a shadow sliding across the stone.

When he touched it, the sense of isolated tunnels and abandoned things filled his mind, the pressing weight of ages passing unnoticed in the dark. Through it all, grey stone waited, silently bearing witness to the approach of dissolution.

There was a presence, like a shifting shadow that flowed from one place to another, skipping across the stone. The shadow was hunting, searching through the dark, as it faded from one area to the next, blending into the stone behind it.

You have encountered an unknown aura.

Do you wish to Reclaim it (31% chance) or to Identify it?

Even before he reclaimed it, he could tell that this aura was what made the Grey Shard tribe who they were. It was part of their grey scales and stealth, their desire to hunt, and their ability to fade into the stone. The more he learned about auras, the more he was sure that they were a key to understanding the world.

He didn’t know enough yet to say for sure, but he suddenly wondered what would happen if he combined two different auras into one enchantment. As long as they were complementary..., or even if they weren’t and it became unstable....

New ideas flashed through his mind as he began to really consider how he could use auras in better ways. What if he could use them like complementary elements, or infuse different runes with different auras to make a more complex pattern, or....

He didn’t even notice that he’d suddenly frozen in place with his thoughts racing until Krana’s polite cough brought him back to the present. He blinked, and then saved the idea at the back of his mind as something he was definitely going to experiment with.

The aura was still waiting for him to identify it, so he did. The aura crumbled like stone dust in his grasp as he Identified it, burning itself away to nothing.

Identification is 50% complete.

As he saw the progress, he turned toward Krana and decided to explain what was going on.

“My class is based on extracting auras and turning them into Enchantments or smithed items,” he offered, giving her a nod as he turned to the other monster corpses nearby. "The sphere you saw before is that aura, which I can save for later. It's really useful to me."

It was harmless information, or at least he didn’t think she would use it against him. She had been nothing but helpful tso far.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Krana replied, shaking her head. Her eyes were curious as she watched him. “You didn’t take anything from that one? It has a failure rate then?”

Sam nodded at her and then explained a few other details, but he kept the core secrets to himself, including his ability to combust the auras and his theory on how they were part of the world itself. He didn’t like giving away all of his information, even if it was harmless.

After that, he moved on and identified the other Seeker, pulling the thread of energy from it. The aura burned away again, but this time, the identification was complete. It looked like he only needed to Identify two with his higher Wisdom in order to succeed.

You have Identified a new aura.

Aura of Shifting Shadow.

The meaning of the aura filled his mind, focusing around that sliding grey figure that darted from stone to stone. He suddenly understood the Grey Shard Seekers just a bit better. He also had the innate knowledge that this aura would work very well in concealment enchantments.

A fierce intent to build something helpful before the next wave arrived flared in his mind as he wondered what he could do with it. He glanced toward the maze and then the deadfalls. He knew there was something there, if he just had enough time to combine these auras with....

“There are two cores here too,” Krana spoke up suddenly, pulling his thoughts back to the Seekers. “Can you use them in an enchantment?”

“Yes, definitely,” Sam agreed, as he turned around again. Krana was holding out her hand with two light grey cores resting on her palm.

He had been so distracted that he hadn’t even noticed her collecting them. More time must have passed than he’d thought. He accepted them with a hard expression, his ears flaring back in a way that promised nothing good for any new Grey Shards.

“I’m going to collect the rest of the auras,” he said as he looked down at the cores and then toward Krana. “After that, can you explain some spell theory to me?”

Whatever he could learn from her would be extremely useful.

Krana just nodded. She kept pace with him as he headed for the remaining Grey Shard Stalkers.

---

In the end, he collected four of the new auras. His chance to reclaim them was up to 71%, which was getting better. By the time he was done, everyone had returned to their preparations and started to work on the maze, so he sat down with Krana for a quick overview of spell theory.

The conversation started out about efficiency, but it turned into a sprawling back and forth about spell structures, elemental manipulation, and more. It took up the better part of an hour until Krana had to go and help Ayala repair parts of the maze. Her Earth-aligned magic was useful for strengthening the walls, even if she couldn’t shift things as easily as the mage.

“I’ll answer whatever questions I can,” she said as she wrapped up. “This is basic knowledge that you need to know. Most folks learn these things before they get their class, so that they’re prepared to gain experience immediately.”

Sam nodded at her in thanks as his mind turned over what he’d just learned. His education had been good for general things, but he hadn’t known specific spell theories. Krana had given him a condensed version of some of the more common theories, using Fire as the main example.

His final question before she left was one that had been on his mind for a while.

“What are the scrolls that let you learn a spell directly? How are they different from regular scrolls?” He was still curious how his grandfather had managed to make a spell scroll that taught him Aura Bolt.

“They’re a special feature of high-tier Arcane Scribes,” Krana replied. She was slightly puzzled by the question, but she answered it anyway. “They need a very good understanding of the spell and then they can create a scroll to teach it. It has a high failure rate, and the person learning it has to be capable of using the spell too or it won’t stick. It also takes rare materials to hold the mana and to make sure it doesn’t degrade.”

Sam nodded, as he thanked her again. She grinned at him as she headed off to help Ayala, with a final reminder.

“Just don’t burn down the cavern!”

He sent a half-embarrassed shake of his head in her direction. Maybe his attack had been a little overboard, but he could definitely have gathered the flames back together before he burned everything down, ...right?

Either way, he should focus his spells more. Not everyone had a Fire affinity, and his crystal flame wasn’t just Fire. That point was something he’d realized during their discussion, as he thought more about it.

He wondered how his grandfather had been able to create Aura Bolt. His class had been locked, which limited him to Level 9..., so how had he tiered up his skills? Had he been able to reach Expert or even Elite without ever getting past that?

He must have had an incredible amount of talent and dedication. It was seriously impressive, and it made Sam blink. Most of his skills were only at Basic or Advanced, and he had the benefit of leveling to help.

He shook his head as he started to meditate and to plan for the coming battle. As soon as his essence was back, he was going to intensify all the auras in his storage. It would take about eight hours, and then he would have fifteen of them. That should be enough to create something to deal with the Grey Shards before the next wave arrived, with some left over for the battle.

There were also the two cores in his dimensional pouch now, and thoughts on how exactly to enchant something to the best effect were spinning through his mind. He also reviewed what Krana had told him in more depth.

Among other things, she had given him a short list of common skills and abilities for casters, which he had jotted down in his notebook. He couldn't use them right now, but they would be useful in the future.

Some of the ones he planned to learn later included Spell Modeling, which would allow him to create spell patterns in mid-air and was a variant of control skills; Mana Transfer, which could allow someone to transfer mana to a willing target; and Mana Conversion, which sacrificed health for mana. He would have to experiment to see if any of them worked with essence instead.

She had also explained some of the schools of magical theory, which included everything from Shielding to Healing, Divination, Enchantment, Beast Taming, Alchemy, Formations...., and a lot more. There were as many schools as there were experts in the world.

A school was really just named that when someone made it famous enough that it could stand on its own. Some were ancient and had innumerable students, but nothing was stopping anyone from forging a new path, if they had the ability.

There were also stranger, more specialized schools like Fortification, which focused on strengthening city defenses, and hybrid schools like Swordsinging and Blood Smithing, which was a class that focused on enhancing their own blood and quenching weapons in it to add rare properties.

He set most of the information aside for later, since there were too many possibilities to deal with right now. Basically, there were unlimited paths in the world, but only one that was your own.

What he needed to do was to continue to refine the path he was already on, so that he could become even better at it, and he already knew what his focus points were.

Enchantment, Smithing, Crystal Flame, Fire Affinity, and Runes.

He hadn’t done much with Smithing yet, so that one would have to wait, but for the others..., maybe there was something he could do right now that would help them with the coming battle.

Krana’s discussion of Fire as a school of Elemental Manipulation had given him some ideas. At first, it had seemed like his Crystal Flame would fall under Fire, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt like it wasn’t true.

He barely understood his Crystal Flame and he’d just been using it in the first way that came to mind, as part of the Fire Affinity he had. It was a racial ability, not an elemental one, and if it were just the same thing, then what was the difference between that and Fire Affinity? If there were no difference, he would have just ended up with a racial “Aura of Flame.”

He sat on the stone as he looked into the distance and worked to bring all the new information together. The concept of forging his own path resonated with him, but the immediate question was what he could do in the time available.

By the time he finished charging all of the auras in his storage, he came up with two main paths that might be useful for the coming battle. He could feel the tension around the cavern as the others looked toward the tunnels, and he felt it himself too.

First, he needed to understand his Crystal Flame better, so that he could take advantage of its more unique qualities. That would help with efficiency and power, and it might also expand the number of ways he could use it.

Second, he needed to work on combining auras, especially with the cores from the Grey Shard Seekers. If he could create something from the cores and auras that would work against the wave that was coming, it might give them a bit more ability to deal with whatever was behind them.