“What happened, Lios?” Ezekiel asked after his son had woken up.
The boy's parents had been waiting for him to come home for dinner and had been growing concerned with his absence. He had never been late for supper, and it wasn’t like him to start now. In fact, Zeke and Elaine were just getting ready to go look for him when the door slammed open, their son stumbled into the home, then promptly collapsed.
Zeke had been close enough - and fast enough - to catch the boy before he fell on his face, but he was astounded at the state of his son. Given his state, he didn’t hesitate to lift him up and onto the table, to allow Elaine to work her magic and heal him.
Neither parent said a word, neither panicked either. They simply got to work. Ezekiel cut the clothes off his son, leaving him in his underwear, so they could get a good look at his injuries. Frankly, the guard was baffled that his son had even made it home given the clearly broken leg, with bruises matching boot treads, and broken arm. He was even more surprised upon noticing the bruised, cracked and broken ribs.
Glowing gold light lit the relatively small home as Elaine trembled and cast a healing spell, first stopping the bleeding in her child's mouth. Next, she started to work on setting his broken arm and leg, sweat shining on her forehead by the time she was done, nearly two hours later. It was around this time that Lios woke up, just after his father had splinted both of the fractured limbs.
Given the amount of healing he required, his mother wasn’t able to do it all in one sitting. Still, the amount she had healed had helped immensely, as had the bevvy of levels he had gained in [Pain Resistance], both during the fight and on his way home. He winced as he tried to sit up, to move from atop the uncomfortable hardwood table, and his parents both told him to stay down. Now, his father was asking what had happened.
Lios debated lying about this. He knew his father couldn’t really do anything to Ethan; he had said as much. Unfortunately, the local lord was in the Iron Tigers guildmasters pocket and was evidently friends with Duke Fontaine, the man who ruled this section of Jorial. Perhaps if Ezekial was able to get word out to the king and his adjudicators, maybe then something could be done, but surely there would be retaliation for such an action.
Still, Lios didn’t much like lying. He didn’t like lying about his identity or about simple things such as this. He swallowed painfully as he began to retell the story, recalling with eerie lucidity every moment of the conflict. He even repeated the warnings to stay away from his friend. It frustrated him to tell the story, reminded him how powerless he still was . Not just against Ethan, but against Ethan’s father, his connections.
There was nothing he could do until he grew powerful enough that the boy’s father was no longer a concern. Surely, there was little chance of his proving to be of higher value to the country than the sociopathic teen otherwise.
In the middle of the story, Lios heard his father’s hands crack as he clenched them in fury. It almost made Lios second-guess finishing the story, but he had already started and there was no point half-assing it. By the end of his story, Elaine was talking Ezekiel down from going after Ethan to “teach him a damned lesson, parents be damned.”
“Hon, I want him to get his just as much as you, but you know Fontaine would come down in a fury. We can’t touch him. Maybe bring it up to Max, see if there’s anything to be done lawfully, but don’t be rash.” Elaine said, glancing at her son, who still lay on the table. “Besides, right now we need to help LiLi.”
It warmed the boy’s heart to see how viscerally angry his parents were on his behalf. There was always a part of him that wondered at their acceptance of him, especially after telling them of his origin. It seemed, however, that his worries were unfounded. His parents still saw him as their son, someone to be protected and loved and cherished. This was the moment, more than their words and other actions in the past year, that solidified it in him. And he was grateful for it, more so than he thought he would be.
Perhaps it was because it told him he wasn’t as alone as he had spent so many years feeling. There was something heavy about keeping secrets, this feeling of having nobody else you could truly trust or rely on when it came to them. But with his parents’ acceptance, there was no reason to feel so alone.
Maybe it was because of this realization that he wasn’t alone; maybe it was the feeling of being weak and powerless in the face of his friend's fiancé, but Lios couldn’t help but force himself to sit up, wincing as he did. His parents had been in the middle of talking, Elaine trying to quell his father’s rampant emotions and Ezekiel trying to breathe in, meditate, to stifle them himself. At Lios’s movement they both shot up, trying to help him, but he waved them off.
“I need to get stronger. At least strong enough so that that prick can not walk all over me and my friends. Strong enough that he can’t tell Rose what to do.” Lios spoke through gritted teeth. His own fury at the situation had been reignited during his telling. But alongside ire, he felt weak again. For the first time since gaining the system, he was reminded of his place in this world of magic and might. And he was reminded of his desire for freedom, freedom from those with power who abused it.
A long while ago, he had decided he would no longer be one for people to walk over. Had decided that he wouldn’t live to regret anything, that he would become free and powerful. This world, Ravos, was a place where such things could happen. But, as with other realities, there were those who had a head start and would use their power to crush any who reached upwards. Any who looked to expand their own power, who sought freedom of their own.
In this moment, while wallowing in his weakness and proclaiming his need to grow, Lios realized he had stopped reaching up. Had contented himself with learning his new craft, which of course would eventually lead to his growth, but it wasn’t soon enough. He knew the path to power was not a sprint, but a marathon to most. It was a long process, and there was reason enough for it to take its time, but he was impatient. Until he was strong enough to stand up for himself, for his friends, he wouldn’t be able to feel free.
“What do you suggest, Lios? I know that look; you’re planning something.” Ezekiel's rage simmered, died down a bit, as he took in the eagerness slowly replacing his son's ire. There was still frustration in the boy's eyes, but it only seemed to be motivating him.
“I don’t like it. That serious look you get, I don’t like it one bit. But maybe you can tell us over dinner, eh?” Elaine asked as she moved to help her son off the table and into a chair.
He felt some relief once he was sitting in a proper chair, able to lean back so as not to put pressure on his bruised abdomen. His mother and father whipped down the table before their now-cold supper - some sort of roasted poultry that reminded Lios of duck - was placed before them.
He told his parents his thoughts, asking his father for some help in making them a reality. Elaine looked skeptical, but she agreed to his plot, and so did Zeke. They had never asked him to shy away from his goals, even before they knew who he really was, and they wouldn’t start now.
The first step, Lios thought, was to gain some more levels and fight some more people. Of course, unless he planned to kill the people in question, he would need to hunt some critters instead. Luckily, or unluckily depending on who you asked, the Deepbloom forest was full of such critters that needed culling, and they were growing more and more restless for some reason or another. The guard had requested help from the adventurer’s guild, asked for someone to investigate, but had not gotten any assistance yet, even from the Iron Tigers.
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Two weeks, that was how long it took for Lios to recover enough to wield a hammer again. To start sparring again. His mother healed his leg first, allowing him to at least practice his sword dances for a while before the rest of his body caught up. Of course, another facet of his growing stronger lay in his spell casting, so these two weeks without work led to him committing each rune in his tome to memory.
Sadly, that didn’t open up many options for him, considering he had already learned them all. During this time, however, he was able to craft a whole new spell. Unlike all the others, where he was interacting with the world or with his weapon, this one was only meant to help him out. At first he had intended to make such a spell with Lightning mana, but remembering the first time he cast his fire wave spell, he went with an easier to control energy.
Wind.
Of course, wind mana might be easier to control than lightning, but that didn’t make it easy by any means. The spell, like the others, was only five runes, which limited the amount of instruction he could give to the mana, meaning the rest of his intention could only be realized through [Mana Manipulation]. The skill was capped at his class level, unable to rise any higher than it already had. Still, it ought to be high enough for the spell he was making.
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After his leg was healed enough to dance on, he tried the spell for the first time. It had taken three days to develop the spell to a point where he felt comfortable casting it; Lexico runes were still finicky, but were easier to manage the fewer runes that made up the spell. The order of the runes mattered greatly, and though there were only so many ways one could order five runes, it took a bit of trial before the spell seemed to ‘click’ into place, before it was balanced enough to actually work. At least in theory.
The first time he cast the spell, it nearly went awry. Wind step, as he was calling it, would allow wind mana to cycle in or around his legs, letting him move faster. The first time he cast it, he was astounded that it seemed to work; wind mana gathered around his calf, twisting and whipping about rapidly. These were not calm winds, a cool breeze on a summer day; these were whipish, angry and volatile winds. It was as though a pair of miniature tornadoes had formed with his legs being their center.
It wasn’t the casting of the spell that seemed to go wrong, but his actions after the fact. He had stood there observing the winds, visible because of how much dust they were picking up, as they swirled around his legs. He hadn’t noticed that they were gaining in strength; his mana was still flowing into the spell, which was odd. When he cast spells, they typically took mana only to start up, then once they ran out, they would stop working.
Take his sword enhancement spells, for instance. When he wretched his blade in fire or lightning mana, there was a set amount of mana that could be used. He could push the limits a bit, and especially more as his [Mana Manipulation] leveled up, but as the skill had stagnated, so too did his ability to manipulate the maximum amount of mana a spell could accept. Once the mana ran out, either by him striking enough things with his flaming sword or enough time passing to allow it to leak into the air, the spell would complete.
This spell felt different. As he considered it, and observed his magic, he realized the mana was building up, growing more violent. It wasn’t until it was nearly too late that he realized he needed to use some of the mana. He burst into action upon that realization, cutting off the flow of mana into the spell and stepping forward. Once he kicked off the ground, he reveled in the fact that he was moving perhaps fifteen percent faster than before. It was a significant enough change that he nearly stumbled on the second step, barely righting himself on the third.
He was clumsy with his new speed, moving faster than his body was used to. On the fifth step, he did trip completely, landing on his face and tumbling, causing a whimper of pain to escape when his broken arm slammed into the ground. The splint prevented it from rebreaking, for it had already started healing, even if it wasn’t usable just yet, but it still hurt.
Still, when he slowly got up, his eyes were gleaming. Maya, who had been practicing a few feet away, looked over at him in surprise before shooting over to help him up. She fussed over him, chiding him for his carelessness. He ignored the worry, waving it off, before trying his spell again, much to her consternation.
The second time he cast it, he didn’t wait to move. He took careful steps, still moving faster than he was used to but being more intentional with every movement. This time he didn’t stumble, didn’t trip. He didn’t move quite as fast, if only because he was getting used to the spell and the difference in speed.
He also managed to count how long the spell let him pour mana into it. Ten seconds. It might not seem like a lot, but ten seconds in battle was a long time, nearly an eternity. Perhaps less so in a world of magic and monsters, but it could change the tide of even longer battles should he master the spell.
As the spell ran out, Lios noticed an ache in his calves and thighs. It seemed moving even faster than he already could put some strain on his muscles. It made him wonder how many times he could use it before it became too much, before it was detrimental, but he wasn’t ready to test that out just yet.
Over the next week and a half, until he was ready to return to the smithy, he practiced this spell and made one for both fire and lightning that went untested. For the first few days, he tested the spell. He lay his training weapons out ten paces from each other, for a total of fifty paces, to use as markers. As soon as the spell activated, he had Maya count how long it took him to reach the last marker. He did this a few times in a row in order to see when he started to slow down.
On the first day of testing, he found that after the fourth instance of using the spell in close succession, his pace slowed by around half a second if he had to guess. It was barely noticeable to Maya, but notice it she did. On the fifth usage, it was a full second and a half slower. His muscles just couldn’t keep up with him.
It was good to find his limits. He knew in the long run, it was important to do so, but he couldn’t help but be disappointed at the limitation. He theorized that such limits would change as he leveled and his stats increased. Another thing he wondered about was whether the spell would be a consistent percentage-based boost or if it would become less effective as he leveled up. It would be something to test after the next part of his plan came to fruition. It could still be a few weeks until that happened, however.
That night, his mother had to heal his legs before focusing on his remaining injuries from the fight with Ethan. Perhaps it was a bit of a misnomer calling it a fight; it had been entirely one-sided despite the strength and skills Lios had developed since coming to Ravos. Still, he resolved to be ready for the next time, even if it meant he would be down for a bit longer.
The second test he did was how long it would take him to cast his spells without interruption. Currently, he was able to cast one in around six seconds. With his Wind Step active, that changed to five seconds. He was able to cast two spells before the wind stopped swirling around his legs.
Again, around the fifth time he cast the spell, this timing went the other way. Seven seconds to cast a spell, and he was a bit clumsy to complete it. It wasn’t even usable, his muscle fatigue causing him to write a rune incorrectly. His limit for the time being would be four castings in a single day.
This he confirmed on the third testing day. He spaced the castings out by an hour each, hoping it would give his muscles time to recover a bit. It did help, turning the one and a half second delay on the fifth casting into a single second delay, but he still slowed down on the same casting. That day he tried it a sixth time, another hour later, and found he was significantly slower. The first few steps were fine, but after those his legs became sluggish to the point he had to stop feeding mana into his spell or otherwise risk deeper injury.
Like this, Lios tested his spell for five days, discovering every nuance he felt he was likely to in such a time. Given that he was limited to a certain number of castings a day, he knew he would likely have to discover other effects at a later time. It was after this fifth day that he decided to take a chance and cast the fire version of the spell.
He told his mother about it, so he could make sure she was around when he cast it with a bucket of water at the ready. He had no idea how it would go. He half expected it to burn his legs, set his pants on fire. He was tempted to cut his pants into shorts in preparation, but having his mother available and ready to heal him gave him some relief.
And so he cast the spell on the sixth day since his legs healed. As he cast it, he poured in his intention. He didn’t want these flames to be hot, though he knew he couldn’t stop that in its entirety, so he simply tried to will the heat to push away from him. Like the Wind Step spell, as soon as he cast it, fire started to well up from his ankles to his knees. Contrary to his concerns, his pants did not catch fire.
He felt the heat, but as he had willed it it pushed outward, some of the grass where he was standing turning brown as all the moisture was wicked from it. After observing for a moment, noticing that, like Wind Step, the flames grew more intense as he waited, as he filled the spell with mana, he took a hesitant step forward. Once he did, the flame shot downward toward his foot and propelled him, launching him five paces. The grass where he stepped caught fire, lighting easily after it had already been dried.
And he, not expecting to move so far so fast, barely got his other foot under him in time to catch himself. On the third step, he fell, landing on his shoulder and cutting the mana flow off from the spell. Despite the pain from his bruised body bashing into the ground, a grin met his eyes when he stood.
“That was awesome!” He had cried out, much to his mother’s frustration. She had been on her way to help him up, but he had risen on his own before she could.
“Certainly a word for it. Are you okay?” She asked, a golden glow already in her hands ready to heal any burns.
Before he answered, he pulled his pant leg up, revealing a small amount of redness from the heat but nothing too serious. “I’m fine, at least for now. I guess we need to see how many times I can reasonably use this one.”
And so, for the next few days he tested. Unlike the wind spell, this one didn’t tear up his muscles quite so badly. There was still some muscle tearing, but to a much lesser degree. However, there was a different issue. Over time, he basically cooked his legs. Even if the majority of the heat was pushed away from him, some of it lingered; fire was not so easily controlled after all. By the fourth time he cast the spell, he had pretty bad first-degree burns on his calves.
By the fifth time, blisters formed and made it nearly unbearable to use. The sixth time, he was approaching third-degree burn territory. At that point he stopped testing; the pain of putting pressure on his legs was too much to continue.
The spells seemed to have similar limitations, though due to different reasons. The wind spell didn’t propel him like the flame one did; instead, it allowed his legs themselves to move faster. This gave him a bit more control but less explosive movement, but also caused his muscles to move in ways they weren't intended to.
The other thing he found from his first set of experiments was that while he could move faster in a straight line with Fire Walk, as he was calling it, he couldn’t craft any new spells while this one was active. It did allow him a different movement style, one that made him more unpredictable in battle, capable of dodging in any direction with a single step among other benefits.
The last thing he was able to test before going back to work was that he could use both spells three times each before it was too much in a single day. Because their negative effects were so different, using them after each other didn’t compound too much. It did make the fourth casting of either significantly more detrimental, feeling more like the fifth casting, but otherwise both would be relatively safe to use one after the other. At least, assuming he was able to take time to heal afterward. Using them multiple times across multiple days without first healing the micro-tears or minor burns would likely lead to exacerbating the injuries and reducing the number of times he could cast them in a single day.
Perhaps as his constitution was raised, he would be able to heal from the injuries overnight, without needing a healer to help him.
By the end of his surprisingly swift and productive recovery period, he was itching to get back to the forge and start growing in that realm as well. He knew in the long run he would be a weapon and armor smith, and so he would push to start a project that would help in that direction.
