Vol. 6 - Captivity - Chapter 8 (Patreon)

As Thomas stepped off the teleportation circle he spotted the guards sitting around playing with a deck of cards to pass the time. He almost felt bad for the people having to guard him. They couldn't do anything to improve themselves and were stuck doing nothing for hours at a time. He wasn't going to do anything to make the experience better for them but that didn't mean he couldn't pity them, just a little. As he walked closer the guards looked up from their game and looked a bit surprised, "We were starting to take bets on if you died or not. How the hell can you stay down there for so long?"

Thomas was a little confused at the question but just shrugged, "Yorik said I could have two days a week to myself. What's wrong with spending them in the dungeon?"

"Well... nothing I suppose. It's just... how many mana potions did you chug to be down in the dungeon for that long?"

"None."

This time the guards looked shocked. It took a moment for them to recover and the first one to do so practically shouted, "That's impossible! Every skill and spell uses mana! Even if you put every single bit of experience into your Magic attribute there's no way you could dive into a dungeon for over twelve hours and not use a single potion to recover your mana!"

It was Thomas's turn to be confused. He moved closer to the guards and took a seat next to them to make chatting easier. The atmosphere was rather friendly, almost collegial, as they were just players discussing the game they were all playing. Ostensibly they were supposed to be 'enemies' with Thomas being their 'prisoner' but with both side's curiosity peaked they ignored that and began a friendly discussion. Thomas started by asking, "So what you're saying is you guys need to use a lot of mana potions to recover and continue diving in the dungeon?"

One of the guards nodded while saying, "Yeah. After two or three rooms are cleared we need to take a break to down a few potions to refill our mana. It's especially bad for the mages as their stronger spells will eat entire chunks of their mana pool."

"So they can't control how much mana they're using with their spells?"

The guards all looked at Thomas like he was some sort of idiot but suspected there was something different about his skills, "That's right. They fire a spell and it uses a certain amount of mana every time. The only thing that will change is how much damage it deals based on their Power."

"So if a spell was to cost, say, a hundred mana to use it would always cost that much but deal more damage based on their Power attribute?"

The guard he'd been speaking with nodded, "Right. Take a Fire Tornado spell for example. We'll say it costs a thousand mana to cast since it's a pretty big spell. When the spell is cast it always creates a tornado of flames. The size of the tornado is changed as the spell ranks up and the damage is increased as the user's Power is increased. But the mana cost will always be one thousand mana, even if the spell was big enough to cover half the continent."

"Are all the spells you guys learn different abilities?"

All the guards nodded but one spoke up, "Yeah, what kind of dumb question is that? Have you never learned magic from a trainer?"

Thomas crossed his arms over his chest while ignoring the guard's question and smiled as he incorporated this information into what he'd just learned about his own magic. It seemed that there were two ways to use magic and each had its pros and cons. The type of magic the pirates were learning was akin to magic spells in other MMO's where each one was a different ability that just needed to be triggered. As the caster got stronger so would the spell. It was simple, efficient, and straightforward enough for anyone to get the hang of. It seemed tailored to more casual players who just wanted to grab a spell and go.

On the other hand, his magic was vastly different though not necessarily superior. He had absolute control over specific elements and could use them in just about any manner he could imagine. The downside was that his spells and their damage directly corresponded to the amount of mana he poured into the spell up to a cap determined by his Power attribute. At the current level of play, he was certain his magic was superior to other forms of magic but he wasn't certain if it would remain that way. If what the guard said was true then someone specializing in certain spells could become a serious force to be reckoned with.

If the guard was right then even a simple Fire Bolt spell could, eventually, become a monstrously powerful spell. If the user had a high Power attribute and a high ranking Fire Bolt spell then wouldn't it become a devastating spell? If the user had a rank one thousand Fire Bolt spell and one thousand power it would be deadly while still only costing a tiny bit of mana. For Thomas it was different. If he wanted the power of the Fire Bolt spell to increase to match his Power attribute then he would need to use more mana. As he got stronger the cost of a simple Fire Bolt would continue to increase.

A 'casual' mage would have to have different skills for every spell and have to rank them up separately but would always know exactly how much mana a spell was going to use and could easily specialize to become something unique and powerful. A 'hardcore' mage like Thomas couldn't do the same thing but did have far more flexibility and would rank up an entire element instead of individual spells. He needed more precise control over his mana and to know his limits but he could technically cast any kind of fire spell he could imagine and control its output however he wished. Neither path of magic was right or wrong, in his opinion. They were just different.

After thinking about it for a bit he smiled at the guards, "Thanks for the info. My magic doesn't work like that though. I can control how much mana a spell costs me and thereby control the amount of damage the spell does. It lets me fight longer by not wasting a drop of mana. I also don't need potions to recover mana as I have a skill that lets me recover it more quickly while resting."

The guards looked suitably impressed by what Thomas said. Thomas didn't mind sharing that information with them because they couldn't do anything with it. Unlike him, they needed to buy skills from a skill trainer and would need to find someone capable of teaching them Serenity to learn it. Thomas suspected that his Quick Learner innate ability allowed him to self learn just about any skill or ability that existed within AoG. He was pretty certain that the exception was Magic. Specifically magic spells. He could learn new elements on his own but he couldn't teach himself individual spells that would appear on his character sheet as different magics. He was pretty sure it worked this way because of how he learned magic at the academy. He had a suspicion that if he'd learned individual spells from a trainer then he would have been self-teaching himself individual spells instead of the entire element.

It was all speculation at this point but he felt he was right. He continued to chat with the guards for a few more minutes before they all made their way to the workshop. Thomas wanted to get some sleep as it was well past sunset at this point. Tomorrow he was going to decide what weapon to make to counter the trolls in the dungeon. Using the Gravity Hammer worked but he wanted something more efficient that he didn't have to retrieve every time it was used.

After a good night's rest, Thomas got up and was served his breakfast. Judging by the delicious taste of it he assumed that Mr. Pancake had 'awoken' and requested a visit from him. When Mr. Pancake arrived, Thomas waved cheerfully at him and asked, "How goes the procurement?"

Mr. Pancake gave a small smile, "We have plenty of mana crystals from Orcs and Trolls. Those were never an issue. However, We're still waiting on delivery for the other materials you requested. They should arrive tonight or tomorrow morning once the people we sent out return."

Thomas nodded, "Alright. Let me know when the supplies arrive and I'll get to work on some stuff. Have you written down what people are requesting for me?"

Mr. Pancake nodded and pulled a sheet of paper with a lot of writing on it out of his inventory and handed it to Thomas, "These are the requests so far. Yorik has also said that you should focus on making a large number of grenades for us to use. The grenades take priority and should be made in a ten-to-one ratio with other equipment."

Thomas accepted the list and looked it over. There were a variety of weapons requested but the majority of them were various kinds of swords. There were a few requests for armor such as leather armor and breastplates but no requests for full plate mail or anything too heavy or with too much metal. There didn't seem to be anything on the list he couldn't make though he might need to log out and do some research for some of the more obscure requests. The problem was the requested enchantments. Some of them seemed hard while others seemed impossible or just plain stupid. He frowned and pointed to one request on the list, "Tell whoever requested this that he'd a fucking moron and I'm not making a damned thing for him. Ever."

Mr. Pancake moved closer to look at the request and frowned himself. As he'd been logged out for a bit one of his assistants had helped with the requests. Mr. Pancake hadn't read all of them himself otherwise this request never would have seen the light of day. The request read, 'Skinning Knife, Enchantment: Causes women's clothing to disintegrate when cut.'

Not only was it a rather disgusting request but Thomas was also pretty certain that it was impossible. While human anatomy was fully represented in the game and sexual acts could be performed they had to be consensual sexual acts. No game that wanted women to play it would allow anything like what was being requested to be possible. In fact, all games employed systems where it was impossible to physically touch a woman in a sexual manner without her permission. Even in combat if you attempted to punch a woman in the chest your fist would not make physical contact. Of course, the damage would still be done and felt, just the act of actually physically touching would be prevented.

Mr. Pancake made a note of the entry and nodded to Thomas, "I'll take care of it. We might be pirates but we're not perverts!"

Thomas pulled out a quill and quickly blacked out that entry. The rest asked for various things that he felt might be possible and some of them seemed pretty interesting to him. Even if they wouldn't work he still wanted to give it a try! Once he finished reading the list and didn't discover anything else disconcerting he stored it in one of his rings and smiled at Mr. Pancake, "After the supplies arrive I'll get started on the list and grenades. Until then I'm going to make something for myself."

With their business done Mr. Pancake left the workshop to attend to his other duties and deal with the pervert. Thomas turned and made his way to the forge to get it going. He wanted a weapon for dealing with the trolls and he had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to make. Since the weapon was for himself he planned to use his own materials. He started by purifying the two troll mana crystals and a dozen orc mana crystals. The goblin crystals were the smallest and therefor the most useless to him. The orc crystals were an okay size, about double the size of his thumb, while the troll crystals were about twice the size of the orc crystals. None of them were very big and they would be even smaller once they were purified. The purification process seemed to generally reduce the size of the crystals by half.

He wasted no time and began using his Transmutation to purify the purplish-black mana crystals until they became perfectly clear. As expected their sizes were reduced drastically but he didn't mind it. There were still hundreds of orc crystals inside of his inventory. He wasn't about to run out anytime soon. Once the ones he had selected were purified he stored them away for use later. While storing them he retrieved several 'heart' iron ingots and grabbed a few pieces of coal for the forge. The coal was quickly purified into the 'heart of carbon' so he could merge it with the iron to make himself some Origin Steel.

As he prepared to merge the carbon and iron, he stopped and grinned broadly. He didn't have to do it like before anymore... His Transmutation energy changed into thousands of little tentacles as he used the mixing version he acquired before he got on the ship. The little tentacles picked up minuscule pieces of carbon and began to mix it into the steel evenly. Each piece of Origin Steel that he created was high carbon steel with exactly 0.95% carbon mixed in with the iron. Sadly he didn't have any manganese to add in to make it true high carbon steel. He took the time to make six ingots of Origin Steel. They would be used to make the weapon he wanted.

With enough ingots made he ignited the forge and tossed all of them inside of it. Strictly speaking, he could fuse the six ingots together but he planned to do it the old fashioned way and forge weld them together. The weapon he envisioned was going to be big, heavy, and deadly to trolls. He couldn't help smiling just thinking about it.