Aster Fall, Ch 36: Bounty Hunter (Patreon)

His essence was nearly depleted, so Sam grabbed four auras from his storage and combusted them, taking himself back up to 92. He’d have grabbed more, but he wasn’t sure how much his meridians could handle. Then he braced himself for the basilisk.

It arrived like an avalanche, pushing a tide of snow and rocks in front of it like a creature born from some frozen sea. The wave was nearly ten feet above the rest of the snow and only the top of the monster was visible behind it.

Before it could get any closer, a pulse of crystal flame pushed Sam to the side as he evaded. Racial advancement or not, he didn’t plan to face the thing head on. A quick assessment pulled together all of his resources.

Sam’s feet flickered as he ran on top of the snow, the elemental powder compressing beneath his feet on its own as it supported his weight. The flow of ice mana through the air all around him, as well as half a dozen other elements grabbed at his attention. The new Elemental Manipulation ability was bringing him more information than he’d had before.

Ice felt similar, like it had since he’d gained the Initiate of Ice trait, and he’d always been able to sense Fire well, but Earth and Stone around him had become more pronounced, as well as Wind, Water, and other types that he didn’t have time to identify.

The elements had a liveliness and closeness to them that hadn’t been before, as if he only had to reach out for them to respond. Fire and Ice were the most pronounced, but the others were there too.

His Essence Constellation had reached the first layer and was humming in his blood as his essence flowed along it, almost like another set of meridians. The pattern was unfamiliar, but it looked a lot like a natural rune that extended in three dimensions.

The basilisk spun to follow him, its enormous bulk turning as the wave of snow and stone crashed against a wall in the ruins, burying it more deeply. Icy powder flew in a giant curtain into the sky.

He didn’t have any new idea for how to defeat the basilisk, so it was going to have to be pure force. He pulled another scroll from his belt pouch with one hand as he grabbed auras from his storage with the other. It took him about fifteen seconds to infuse the five auras into the Advanced Fire scroll.

When it was ready, he spun back around, a fiery sphere of tumbling blue, green, and red to yellow-streak flames surging in his left hand. Around it, there was a layer of bubbling, dark shadow and frozen lightning that were barely containing the wrath within. At the heart of the spell, a star rune burned with brilliant white light.

With his new Elemental Manipulation, It felt like the elements were just a little easier to control than before, and it was easier to infuse the star rune into the center.

On the basilisk’s back, his father hung on grimly with one hand as the Outsider flailed like a massive ship on the snow, one that was crashing into port. It slipped, its feet clawing for a grip beneath the snow as it floundered. Then its weight crashed down into the snow as it caught its balance and charged toward him.

A Starfire formed in his right hand as he threw aside his evasive tactics and headed straight for it. Its eyes spun with that sticky web of essence as it fixed its gaze on him, and his shield burned around him with an evanescent halo of flames. The Stone element in the essence was readily apparent to him, even as he pushed it aside. It was mixed with the basilisk’s personal signature and there were a couple of other elements present, but it was primarily that.

The basilisk’s jaws opened as it lunged for him, its fangs widening. The marks of the last explosion were apparent throughout its mouth, burned areas and broken fangs on every side. The Starfire and infused Fire spells were two shooting stars, one blue-white and one a strange amalgamation of twisting colors as they both headed for its mouth.

Its pink-grey tongue shot out toward them, but the monster’s instincts were to capture and eat, not to avoid. Its jaws snapped closed around the spells and a moment later the layers around them shattered, igniting the runes at the center.

Muffled explosions tore through the air as the basilisk convulsed, its head slamming backward.

Sam threw himself to the side, pushing as fast as he could to get out of range. At the same time, Jeric released his grip, flying away from the basilisk in an arc before he slammed into a pile of snow forty feet away. The snow flowed around him, sinking to cushion his fall, but the impact was hard enough that he was buried almost eight feet deep.

The basilisk’s body swelled like a snake that had swallowed too large of a meal and then its mouth opened in a roar, releasing a torrent of multi-colored flames that sprayed across the area.

The flames washed across the snow in an arc in front of the basilisk, melting it as a sizzling cloud of steam boiled into the air. The steam wasn’t just from snow. A distinct odor of burning, coppery blood accompanied it.

The basilisk staggered, its wide-splayed claws spasming as its legs trembled. Its belly swelled wider as its neck pulsed and the monster gagged on its own destroyed organs, trying to breathe. The flames pouring from its mouth faded away to trickles, accompanied by the burnt stench of stone and something acrid.

When the clouds of steam cleared, the area in front of the basilisk was empty of snow. Instead, it was a torched black and grey expanse of ash resting on top of greenish paving stones.

The stones were precisely placed, their alignment still perfectly flat after all the years that had passed, with only a thin line visible to divide one stone from another. They stretched from one side of the open area to the other, part of a forgotten plaza or some open gallery.

The basilisk staggered, its claws sliding across the green stones without gaining any purchase, and then it slumped over, falling on its right side as its claws flailed feebly for purchase. It stretched out its neck as if it were trying to cough, and its chest swelled, but what poured out was a river of greenish blood mixed with black streaks and chunks of charred organs.

Jeric dug himself out of the pile of snow and started to run forward again, until Sam’s voice rang out in an angry growl.

“Stop!” He wasn’t planning to give it any time to recover, and he didn’t want his father near it until it was dead. The shout halted Jeric as well as Krana and Lesat who were almost there.

The Outsider had been covered in a flowing layer of essence before that hardened its scales and acted as armor, but now that it was injured, that defense had disappeared.

Sam stepped forward as he poured his essence into creating a long, crystalline spear. Crystal flame surged with boiling anger and brilliant sapphire hues as he compressed it, forcing it together as he drew on his bracer to embed a star rune into the point.

His hands clenched on the haft, compressing it until it was blindingly bright. When it was ready, he stepped forward and timed it in between the basilisk’s thrashing movement, aiming for one of its oversized grey-green eyes.

Then he hurled the spear with all of his strength.

The spearpoint blasted through the basilisk’s eye with a sizzling pop and dove inwards, releasing a shattering blast of crystal flame like a spike of meteoric fire as it burned through the creature’s brain.

The scent of burnt copper and the acrid stench of acid-burned stone filled the air as the creature let out a final, dying groan and then slumped into the snow. A new wave of blood poured from its jaws.

He growled, his fangs bared, as a light pulse of hunger flashed through his essence constellation, like a memory of the void that had been there a minute before. He could sense the Stone element that was woven through the basilisk’s scales now, somehow separating from the more complex essence that had made up the monster.

As he watched, the basilisk’s scales slowly turned white-grey, hardening into real stone as the green essence that had filled it receded back somewhere into its corpse.

The force of the World Law’s attention weighted the area, as if it were hanging there for the exact moment that the Outsider finally died, but it said nothing yet.

The silence was still and expectant as they all backed away, waiting to see if the thing was dead. Around them, the gore on top of the stones steamed, its heat dissipating as a layer of frost started to form on top of it.

The frost was forming extremely quickly and it drew Sam’s attention to the flow of Ice mana through the area, which had started to increase.

There was a swirling pattern like rivers and flowing clouds on top of the stones formed from silvery-green lines, similar to the design on the pillars but thicker. As he watched, the moonlight struck the pattern and sank in, giving rise to a faint chiming sound. A moment later, another sound chimed in the air from a different region of the stone. With each chime, he felt the Ice mana in the air increase, as if it were being called by something.

The cold in the air deepened. A moment later, the clouds of steam froze, turning to dark crystalline flakes that drifted back down. Their color bleached as they interacted with the Ice mana, turning white before they touched the stones.

All around, more snowflakes began to drift down through the air, condensing from the Ice mana that was everywhere. Like a silent shroud, it fell to the stone. Within seconds, a thin layer of snow had formed on top of the revealed design.

The chimes rang out twice more before the snow covered all of the visible stone. There was one last quiet chime as it continued to fall, and then the sound ceased. In less than a minute, the revealed stones and the gore had all been buried in pristine white snow.

A few moments later, the new snow was three inches deep, covering nearly all of the gore, and it continued to fall steadily with a deceptive speed.

The basilisk’s corpse slowly turned to stone until it was a whitish-grey statue from fangs to tail. Even the bone club at the end of its tail hardened, leaving just the spikes along its spine and the tip of its tail spur behind. Its remaining eye solidified to a dark greenish gem with a swirl of grey streaks.

When the changes stopped, the World Law’s attention pressed down on the area, as if it were waiting, pushing Sam forward to gather the experience. When he touched the basilisk’s corpse and found the silver thread of energy, it spoke, even as the layers of silvery light began to gather around him and the others.

The announcement was accompanied by the shimmering flow of experience chiming through his body.

Congratulations, Guardian. You have used your Class skills to eliminate an enemy of Aster Fall.

You gain 1,240,000 Class experience.

You have gained three Class Levels. You are now a Level 61 Battlefield Reclaimer.

You have gained three General Levels. You are now Level 61.

You gain +3 Intelligence, +3 Aura, and have nine free attribute points to assign.

Congratulations on reaching the Elite Tier.

You may choose one Class and one Subclass ability to upgrade by a Tier (to a maximum of Elite).

You may also choose one ability for your Class from the following list:

Transfer Aura

Shatter Aura

The notifications didn’t stop there, even as he felt the experience settling into his body.

By eliminating an escaped prisoner from the Aster Fall World Seal, you have preserved the structure of the world.

You are Acknowledged.

[Eliminate two more escaped prisoners or Flaws in order to remove the trait Defiant.]

You have gained the Trait: Bounty Hunter.

[Bounty Hunter: You gain an enhanced awareness of which creatures are natural to Aster Fall and which are not, as well as the ability to see through some illusions and forms of concealment. +5 Wisdom.]

Elite Tier Reward Gained: You may choose one Skill or Ability to advance to Elite.

Make your choices now.

There were three choices hanging in his mind for ability upgrades, one choice of a new ability, and the decision of how to spend the attribute points. He made his choices quickly.

He put three points into Intelligence and Aura, which put them both at 145. For the last three, he added them to Wisdom. The Bounty Hunter trait had already pushed that attribute to 52, so now it grew to 55.

For the abilities that he was able to upgrade to Elite, he chose what he had always chosen: Aura of Crystal Flames, Flame Strike, and then he paused, reading the notification again as he considered the Elite Tier Reward..

There was something different about this reward, and it took him a moment to see it since he was so used to the standard upgrades at each tier, which allowed for an increase of one tier...but this one was different.

It was telling him he could choose any ability to take to Elite.

He froze for a moment as he considered the possibilities, his mind flying as he examined all of his available abilities. If that were true...he could upgrade Reclaim Aura from Advanced to Elite instantly, or any of the others.

Even the new ones that he hadn’t chosen yet: Transfer Aura or Shatter Aura, since he was pretty sure the World Law would allow it.

Reclaim Aura to gather more powerful energy, Intensify Aura to infuse more essence into auras, Imbue Aura to help with enchantments, Essence Shield for defense....

It seemed like a waste to spend it on Essence Shield or anything else that was already growing on its own, and he was doing fine with Reclaim Aura, even if he deeply wanted to improve it more.

The biggest advantage would be to apply the reward to one of the new abilities, and after fighting the basilisk, he had an idea for what at least one of them did. The basilisk had used its Aura of Petrification that had nearly destroyed the adventurers and hindered the rest of them.

What if he had been able to shatter it?

He wasn’t sure if that was how Shatter Aura worked, but he had to choose one of the abilities. His class was focused on auras, and if other Outsiders used auras in battle...being able to break them would be incredibly useful.

He looked over his other abilities with some regret, from Crystal Focus to Combust Aura, and even his skills like Analyze, Meditation, and Mana Transfer. Then he realized there was one obvious option that he was forgetting about.

Elemental Manipulation.

He frowned as he studied it, examining the essence constellation that created it, and then shook his head. That wasn’t necessarily a good idea. The ability rose out of that constellation and he had no idea what would happen if he tried to force it to advance. There was a chance it could somehow advance the rune, but it could also end up crippling him or destroying what he’d already done.

More than that, the ability was already guaranteed to increase with the more essence he gathered, each time he went up a layer. So there was no need to push it now in a risky way. All he had to do was kill more Outsiders and gather their essence, and it would improve naturally.

With that settled, he made his choice.

An enormous whirlwind of energy swept into him from the World Law, flowing through his body as it upgraded Aura of Crystal Flame and Flame Strike to the Elite tier. Then a section of it divided off, settling into his mind as a new, sapphire blue flame for Shatter Aura. At the same time, the full power of the ability settled into his body and meridians, creating new pathways.

As soon as it was established, a burst of information came to explain how to use it, but it was limited.

[Shatter Aura: Destabilizes and destroys focused auras, reducing their components to natural energy. May be used to divide auras that have been gathered, to destroy objects enchanted with auras, and to break opposing auras in battle.

Warning: Do not attempt to use this ability to destabilize the natural auras of Aster Fall. Such an action constitutes a threat to the Seal.]

The world wavered for a moment under the force of the energy, but his attributes were high enough to handle the influx and he didn’t fall unconscious this time. When everything stabilized again, the World Law’s voice rang out in his mind a final time.

Guardian, you are Tasked to investigate the damage to the Seal in this area.

Rewards variable.

Then it fell silent, leaving only the silence of the snow drifting through the ruins and the feeling of new power in Sam’s muscles.

He looked around as he checked for the others around him, noting that his father, Krana, and Lesat were all absorbing some of the experience as well. Then his talons swept through the air as he called the essence from the basilisk’s corpse.

It rose in a small storm of green-grey flecks that swirled out of the corpse and shot toward him, turning bright blue as they hit his body and sank in. The basilisk was worth almost three hundred points by itself.

Essence Constellation (First Layer): 1,432 / 2,500

Strength increased by 3.

Constitution increased by 4.

Agility increased by 1.

Intelligence increased by 5.

Aura increased by 5.

It felt like the gain was a bit less than it had been while he was still forming the First Layer, but it was still worth a lot to him. His talons curled into his hands as he clenched his fists and looked down at himself.

With all of the enhanced Strength and Constitution, his physique was improving. He was more muscular than before, although he was still lean and scholarly.

His attention turned to the basilisk as he searched for the aura in its corpse. It tasted of rock dust, age, and ashes, of stillness spreading beneath the stone and of life freezing as it slowly lost itself to the ages.

He failed to Identify it as it crumbled away, but he was fairly sure that it would be something like an Aura of Petrification.

As he was turning away, he looked for the Coldfang corpses, preparing to gather their auras and experience as well. The snow was continuing to fall, slowly burying everything in the area.

“What in the world...” Jeric muttered as he came up to join Sam. He was looking between the dead basilisk and the snow that had covered the stones below their feet. “This snow is unnatural.”

His level caught Sam’s eye as he analyzed him. His dad had jumped to Level 55 from the fight. He had probably also gained the Bounty Hunter trait. There was a trace of something deeper in his eyes than had been there before, as if he’d seen the trouble of the world more clearly.

“Krana! Lesat!” Jeric called over his shoulder as he caught sight of the other two and called them over. Then he turned to look for the adventurers. His expression turned grim when he caught sight of them.

“Help me gather the adventurers over here!”