B3 CHAPTER 318: SANCTUARY, PT. 6

Ianmus watched his closest two friends roughhouse in the middle of the safe room. Nominally, they were practicing their new skills — taking their time not to burn through too much of their already-drained resources.

In reality, he knew both of them well enough to be certain they were blowing off steam.

Porkchop’s poisoning had worn on them both. They were staunch warriors. Both of them could and had smiled as they were disembowelled, using one hand to shovel their organs back in while they struck back at their enemies with the other.

Still — they were young, and carried an attachment that was closer than what you would see out of even blood family. It was more than just their bond — their first delve had tied them closely together.

He’d struggled to understand at first. Not anymore. Not after a week in this delve. As much as it stressed his mind to imagine, he could only assume it had been worse. They’d had no classes, no backline, and no hope of significant growth.

What a terrible fate — the simple thought of it sent shivers down his spine. He knew many would be tempted to think of the pair as ‘lucky’ for the advantages they had secured. That anyone would grow strong under the same circumstances. Ianmus knew better. Even if he had had a completed legacy, he wouldn’t have survived the same experience.

He just didn’t have the mindset — the steel will required to pull off what they had done. They’d already been singular, that delve had just reforged them into something truly unique.

Shaking his head slowly, Ianmus watched the two continuing to spar. Kaius moved so fast he was an indistinguishable blur, sliding through a sequence of parry and riposte as Porkchop fell on him in a storm of claws. Every impact between them sounded like a titan punching a mountain, reverberating through Ianmus’s chest. Both of them observed, judged, and reacted to each others aggression faster than Ianmus could blink.

Even Kenva, who was a physical classer skilled and strong for her level, with Honours and ten stats per level, would have fallen in moments.

Monsters.

A display of simple physical superiority, overwhelming stats, and masterful grace. They were playing — playing! If their stats weren’t enough, both moved with the preternatural grace of predators. Porkchop’s was innate — the eminent physicality of a greater beast. Kaius had been reborn to it, that same blood woven into his very marrow.

Kaius’s culling of the rootborers had only proven his capabilities. The disgusting beasts might have been fragile, but that hadn’t stopped them from being fast.

Ianmus had good eyes, and a sharp mind thanks to his father’s heritage — with his Intelligence he could spot, evaluate, and react to a threat faster than the average High Steel rogue could ever dream. Sure, he wouldn’t match them in flexibility, strength, or speed. That mattered little when a stat-backed Sunbeam bored a hole through the head of whatever he found distasteful.

He still would have died the second he stepped into that room! Even with his senses, the worms had seemed to simply teleport to full extension.

Kaius had matched them blow for blow — moved and cut faster than they could strike. Spire’s light, the man had been reacting before the nascent impulse to attack had even made it to their primitive brains!

The power of overwhelming stats and high rarity skills. He might have been strong beyond his levels, but Kaius and Porkchop both well and truly had the strength of Silvers. It was a gap that was hard to overcome — not only the additional stats per level, but he was almost certain there was something about that transition that made people more.

Considering the aura of strength those in the second tier possessed, and that he already knew the System kept the secrets of class selection from those yet to undergo it, it seemed like a small leap to make.

If his front-line were already indomitable, where would they be after such a transition?

It was enough to make him guess second himself — almost.

Ianmus looked at his own stats, both in awe of how far he had come, and how large the gap still was between him and his front line.

Status:

Name: Ianmus

Dynasty: Sunspire

Age: 21

Race: Human (Dynastic) - +1 free stats per level

Layer Reached: 25

Class: Solar Theurge Apprentice (Rare) - +4 Int, +2 Wil, +1 Con, +1 Vit per level

Level: 167

Resources:

Health - 2420/2420 (24.2/min)

Stamina - 1370/1370 (13.7/min)

Mana - 2790/8130 (45.2/min)

Stats:

Constitution - 242 (187 + 26 + 14%)

Vitality - 242 (187 + 26 + 14%)

Strength - 137 (95 + 26 + 14%)

Dexterity - 137 (95 + 26 + 14%)

Intelligence - 813 (688 + 26 + 14%)

Willpower: - 452 (371 + 26 + 14%)

Stat Points: 0

Aspects:

Pillar Corporus: N/A

Pillar Mentis: The Patient Weaver

* Reinforcement: Glass Mind

* Seed: Threads of Preparation

Pillar Animus: N/A

Class Skills (9/10):

Sunbeam (Uncommon) - 183

Sundrenched Strength (Rare) - 151

Hypercharged Spell (Rare) - 159

Ray of Tender Recovery (Rare) - 136

Starlit Alacrity (Rare) - 81

Artinine’s Light Weaving (Rare) - 43

Armour Shredding Magic (Rare) - 56

Illthurial Mage Armour (Rare) - 1

Theurgic Mentalist (Rare) - 1

General Skills (10/10):

Magister’s Dash (Unusual) - 145

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Solar Manipulation (Unusual) - 200

Identify (Unusual) - 200

Sunlit Efficiency (Unique) - 200

Magician’s Potency (Unique) - 183

Wrothful Mana (Unique) - 183

Combat Casting (Rare) - 152

Refined Sharpshooter (Rare) - 200

Quick Study (Rare) - 137

Focused Attention (Rare) - 141

Honours:

Ruthless Underdog II

Trailblazer II (Bonus)

Hordebreaker

Ruthless Underdog III

Persistent Survivor IV - Minor

Ianmus shook his head again.

There was truly something about staring at his status and feeling incompetent. He was twenty-one, and level one-sixty-seven! He had capped several skills, discovered one of his aspects, and had five Honours to his name!

Yet all he could think about was the gnawing in his stomach at his deficiencies. Even if he was a mage, Porkchop had ten times more health than him — headmaster’s beard, the bastard had nearly as much mana as him! Kaius was even worse, not only did his party leader have a hundred more Intelligence, his lowest stat was still higher than Ianmus’s Willpower.

It was a foundation that he couldn’t even fathom. A result of not only their feats, but additional racial traits and a Heroic class.

Even if he had outperformed the best of his spire several times over, how was he supposed to match that? Truly earn a comparable class for the second tier? Logically, he knew it was likely — Unique

, at the very least. Emotionally, he struggled to picture himself truly rising to meet his teammates' standards.

Though, he supposed he had grown. That was undeniable.

Sitting cross legged, with his back against the wall, Ianmus pulled on his mana pool. Just a few threads, hidden between his legs and under his robes. He twisted them, braiding them as he impressed his intent on the solar affinity energy — bolstering its natural tendency to burn hot, and fly far and straight.

It took a second, and the barest feather touch of his Will. He Willed the mana to create its light at a higher energy state, the formless mass drinking in his intent further.

He cast. Warmth radiated across his legs as an invisible beam scorched the living floor beneath him, winking out a moment later.

Kenva didn’t react, facing away — and Kaius and Porkchop were far too busy wailing on each other to notice either.

When he had first gotten his class, such a beam would have taken him minutes to channel and weave. Now it was a simple second, with only the barest crumbs of focus. Sunlit spires, the hardest bit had been not making it stronger.

Such growth, in little more than a year — yet it still wasn’t enough.

His current project was vicious — a constant drag on his abilities, at least as far as making progress went. Summoning the sigil-circle was easy enough. Hopefully Theurgic Mentalist would help.

Ianmus paused, a familiar hungry need settling over his shoulders.

With his team occupied, and their location as safe as it would get in the Depths, he may as well do a little more research now.

Laying his staff across his lap, he channelled solar mana into it — runic circuits smoothing and stabilising the flow. The energy glowed softly, gathering at his focus’ tip.

“What’re you doing?”

He looked up to find Kenva turned towards him, curiosity on her face.

“Those two are going to be at that for a while,” he nodded his head towards the centre of the room, where blades met claws in a constant crash. “I figure I might as well work on my sigil a bit more.”

Kenva gave him a smile, shaking her head.

“You’re all obsessed! Not that I'm any different, mind you — just a bit hard for me to get used to my new skills with so little room.” She waved him off, turning back to their sparing team members. “Go on then, at least I've got something fun to watch.”

Smiling to himself, Ianmus returned his attention to the slowly massing mana at his staff’s top.

He reached for his latest Skill — Theurgic Mentalist. Stamina started to trickle from his pool as his focus sharpened. His connection to the mystic force he was emitting heightened as solar affinity mana jumped to his command just a little faster, and his control got a little better. Not much, but enough that his smile widened. A good Skill, one that would become a valuable tool as it grew.

He started to weave, teasing mana into a thread that wove into a disk of concentric circles, stretching in three dimensions. He was familiar enough with the process that it was mostly rote by now — a slow drawing of precisely layered and overlapped geometric patterns.

As he focused on aligning their placements with some of Kaius’s earlier instructions, Ianmus’s mind drifted to his team leaders earlier pondering on the pillars of magic.

It was a conundrum he felt like they were just brushing upon — and that was even with ignoring the implications of how system Skills worked.

His sigil was a strange thing, more wholly separated from his normal freecasting and sorcery than either were from each other. Where glyphbinding relied on the ridgid, complex programing of runic structures, his normal art was much more reliant on raw control and the Will to enforce your intent upon mana.

Most of the actual construction was blatantly simplistic — more for stabilising and shaping intent than anything else. It made the whole art remarkably flexible in terms of what any given spell actually required. Most mages, if they even free-cast or modified their sorceries at all, didn’t go to anywhere near the extreme lengths that he did to optimise and refine their mana shapings. Sure, it made their spells less potent, harder to control, slower to channel, less efficient, less able to be overcharged, less shapeable, and more liable to blow up in your face — but hey! They still ‘worked’!

Ianmus shook his head, long since resigned to the realities of most people’s dedication to magic.

Still — if sorcery and freecasting were on the fluid, intent-driven, end of the spectrum, and rune-bound glyphbinding was rigid and precise, his current project seemed to fall somewhere in the middle.

It would have been impossible to devise without getting to witness Kaius inscribe his complex three-dimensional spell inscriptions. He was attempting to eschew the rigid requirements of runic script that gave glyphbinding and more standard runecraft its precision, predictability, and replicability — for runes weren’t the only thing that gave glyphbinding its power.

No — there was sacred geometry. Magic, for reasons unknown to even the most dedicated researchers, responded to intent and form. Runes were form taken to the furthest degree — a language that could speak and direct mana with precision, as long as it was ‘spoken’ correctly.

Sacred geometry was…a little less exacting, a little more flexible, and a lot more responsive to the intent-based casting he was familiar with. Comparatively simplistic tesselations and layered structures that he now knew were used in runecraft to smooth out any edges — in essence, stabilising and binding runic and glyphic arrays.

He was almost certain that they could do much, much more than that — but he was already past the boundaries of known magecraft, and only a hubristic fool would start with advanced applications instead of founding principles.

Ianmus finished his sigil-disk, watching it closely as he approached the point he had failed at so many times before. With the adjustments Kaius had helped him make, the disk shone solid and stable in his mana sight, stretching a full stride out from the top of his staff.

Ideally, if he could get it to work, it would stabilise and speed up the flow of his mana, allowing him to cast far more effectively — for beam-spells, at least. Unfortunately, it was only stable because he was still feeding it with his mana pool. The drain on his mana and focus to maintain it while he worked on another spell rendered it useless, even with his Glass Mind able to assist with the load.

There had to be a way to lock his mana in place — reserve them like Kaius did with his own glyphs. His team leader’s spells might have been under his command, and made of his mana, but they weren’t constantly pulling in fresh mana from his pool — they were stable. Isolated.

He refused to believe it was only possible within the body.

Ianmus bore down on his sigil with his Will and intent, demanding it stay as he cut off the flow of mana down his staff.

The sigil immediately started to fuzz, losing cohesion.

It seemed today was not his day.

He sighed, but couldn’t stop a small smile from tugging at the corner of his lips. He still had more things to try — if intent wasn’t the key, there was still soul-infusion, adjustments to geometry, and a dozen other things he could try.

It seemed like every day another frontier was revealed to him — another task to do, or theory to test.

Gods, how exciting! He’d make it there before the end of the first tier, he was certain.