Chapter 26

Chapter 26

The next morning, Erick went to the farms immediately. He chose to forgo leveling his billiard ball aura in order to get more [Grow] in the fields. And with that choice, after 6 rounds of apple growth, and a little more, [Grow] hit 10.

Grow X, instant, touch or close range, 5 MP

Cultivate a single plant, or induce plant growth in a sphere of diameter equal to spell level in meters.

Aurify had hit level 2 somewhere in the first [Grow] cycle yesterday. But he didn’t really care about that until [Grow] itself had hit 10; it’s not like Aurify gave experience.

Aurify 2

Transform an AOE spell into a semi-permanent effect surrounding yourself, based upon the parameters of the Aurified spell. Increase an instantaneous spell to a 1 second duration in order to create an aura.

Able to support 1 aura at a time.

You may choose who or what is affected by your aura.

Doubles the range on an Aurified spell.

Exp: 9700/1000000

And by these powers combined, Erick created a masterpiece, maybe 4 seconds after [Grow] hit 10.

Growth Aura, 5 MP per second.

Induce growth in the plants you choose in a 10m radius around you.

He could opt out of growing the weeds and grasses, now. He could focus on the trees entirely. He wouldn’t get dirty looks from telekinetic pickers forced to drag their carts through high grasses! His new aura was better than he expected.

Part one of his plan to become the world’s best farmer was complete!

And then came another message from the Script.

Congratulations!

You have combined parts of the Script to create your first tier 2 spell!

May your journey into magic be wide and fruitful!

+1 ability points!

But wait, there’s more!

He had only gone through about 4200 mana by that point in the day. Sure, he was tired, but compared to before, this was nothing. And since he was here in the morning, and since Valok, Apogough, and Krakina had decided that they could amp up production a lot more with more water, they had him [Call Lightning] 3 times in a row.

Rain fell across the farms, far and wide, and larger than the day before, because [Call Lightning] had leveled, too.

Call Lightning 9, 1 minute per level, super long range, 500 MP ~{Favored Spell}~

Prepare the sky to strike an area or object of your choice for . If used in an active lightning storm, Call Lightning’s duration is as long as the natural storm. Every lighting bolt called reduces the duration of Call Lightning by 1 minute, or a natural storm by .

Exp: 1200/5500

“It might be getting too big,” Apogough said.

Krakina shushed him, “Bah! You’re scared of a little storm like that! I have rounded up thunderheads bigger than Ar’Kendrithyst! This is a little shower at most.”

“Krakina is right,” Valok said. “This isn’t bad. And it’s covering the whole farm.”

“Keeping the water table high,” Krakina said. “Makes bringing up water easier.”

“Production is up.”

“Markets are full.”

“Needs more [Grow] mages, though.”

Erick said, “I’m too tired to keep [Grow]ing today, but [Grow] finally hit 10. Got [Growth Aura] immediately after, too.”

Apogough nodded. “What version did you get? If you can’t designate targets, consider abandoning the spell.”

“I got that one.”

Valok smiled. “Lucky. Took me five tries. Five wasted days. Not a pleasant experience.”

“Do I need to go to Irogh if I don’t like the combined spell I create?”

“Nah.” Apogough said, “Just grab the text box and try crushing it in your mind. But don’t crush your new aura; you might not be able to remake the same one without a lot of trial and error.”

Krakina nodded. “My daughter, bless her soul, did this weird thing with [Stoneshape] and [Telekinesis], trying to get a spell to pull rads out of living monsters. She got the idea from the Mage Guild’s Library, and the spell she made did what she wanted, but it grabbed only the smallest rads. Wasn’t useful on anything past a slime. So she abandoned that spell, then she had to abandon that spell fifty four more times! Nothing she could make was as good as that first attempt. She got powder and fragments every single time!” Krakina lowered her voice, saying to Erick, “Powder isn’t good because all of us have powder inside.” She laughed. “Usually it comes out naturally, though!”

As the rain fizzled out, Valok asked, “You coming back in the afternoon?”

“Sure. Twice a day?”

“For a little while. We’re all pretty enthusiastic about this. We want to see if it’s sustainable.” Valok added, “Thanks for this opportunity, Erick. All of us make much more money here than in many of our homes. A lot of us would prefer to live here permanently, but we can’t because it’s impossible to farm like we normally would.”

Erick looked across the green land. As the rain was stopping, more people were kicking into high gear, casting [Grow] auras and picking plants with [Telekinesis].

Erick asked, “This isn’t normal farming?”

“Heck no!” Krakina said, “We got to gouge those transient adventurers as much as we can! Have you been to the Adventurer’s District lately? I went yesterday. That place is PACKED.”

“Word is getting around that Spur might be a tough life, but it’s getting easier with the rain, and the Headmaster’s call to action has spurred a lot more human visitation.” Apogough smiled. “Even humans from Frontier are coming over to buy our produce. That never happens.”

Erick smiled. That was all really good news. He said, “I’m tapped out. Back in the afternoon?”

“Yes. Same time. Same place.” Valok said.

“See you later.”

“Later!” Krakina said.

Apogough just nodded, and walked away with Valok.

- - - -

Erick got his quests validated, took lunch in a dragonkin cafe, then headed home for a nap. He had gone through 4575 mana by then. Just enough left on his 5250 daily limit to exhaustion to finish up three more rains in the afternoon. He was doing a lot more magic than before; without Clarity X cutting all costs by 50% and Favored Spell cutting [Call Lightning] by another 25%, he’d be in a heap of hurt.

He almost overslept, missing the afternoon rains, but he didn’t; Poi knocked on the door to his room. In minutes they were out of the apartment, on the way to the farms.

Valok and Apogough were waiting for him when he got to the farms.

Three more [Call Lightning]s and the day was done!

Call Lightning 9, 1 minute per level, super long range, 500 MP ~{Favored Spell}~

Prepare the sky to strike an area or object of your choice for . If used in an active lightning storm, Call Lightning’s duration is as long as the natural storm. Every lighting bolt called reduces the duration of Call Lightning by 1 minute, or a natural storm by .

Exp: 2700/5500

Erick was near his limit. This was a good thing, because by tomorrow afternoon, after casting [Call Lightning] 6 more times, the spell would hit 10. Then he could try making an aura with both [Call Lightning] and [Grow].

Wouldn’t that be a sight to see!

- - - -

The next morning, Erick arrived at the farms on time for a morning rain.

[Call Lightning]

wait 8 minutes...

[Call Lightning]

wait 8 minutes...

[Call Lightning]

Erick sat on a stone seat someone else had made, under someone else’s weather [Ward]; Valok, Apogough, and Krakina, sat beside him, each in their own seats. Poi stood to the side, ever ready. The seats and [Ward] were there when Erick got there. There were many similar bubbles all over the farm, where people took a break while the rain came down around them, the sky crackling with faint lightning, far above.

Erick said, “[Call Lightning] is going to hit 10 this afternoon, but I need to experiment with it as an Aura to see what I’m working with.” Erick said, “I want to try it out in the desert somewhere. Maybe even get it to 10 right now and see about making a [Grow Rain], or something.”

Poi nodded.

Valok, Apogough, and Krakina looked at each other.

Apogough said, “Ask him, Valok.”

Poi took extreme notice.

Erick, suddenly a bit more wary, said, “Ask me what?”

Valok said, “The Council has been talking among ourselves and our people about our future plans. We came to a preliminary decision last night. We want to try opening some farm land north west of this farm. There’s no water table over there, though. So we’re considering cattle and other livestock, and we need a pasture to feed them. But all of that relies on your participation.”

Oh? That’s all? That was great! That fell pretty much exactly in line with Erick’s plans.

“I accept.” Erick quickly added some caveats. “But I want a cut.”

“Of course you get a cut!” Krakina said, “I’m going to demand a cut, too, when I take back my job.”

“How much money are we talking?” Erick asked, “What’s the plan?”

Valok said, “Your 10 gold a day for the rain will turn into 15. You will be offered a job as an official employee of the City, like Krakina and Al, for example. But your only duty will be the rain. We’ll work out a proper schedule later, but if you keep coming out to the farm like this, then we can work with you instead of assigning a time to cast the rain.”

“Yup!” Erick said, over the noise of the rain. “Right to rain! No need to wait.”

The weather [Ward] stopped the rain from hitting from above, and as Erick watched streams form in the wet sand, it appeared the [Ward] also stopped water flowing in from the side.

Meditation.

There were no shadows or eyes out here except up in the sky, and those were all tricks of the light. [Call Lightning] was one cast away from 10, so it was time to experiment a bit more, now that there were clouds above him to control.

Aurify.

[Call Lightning]

The mist was instant this time, spreading across the land like a fog rolling in, filling in the gaps between the rain and blocking sight past 30 feet. Erick pulled with the second aspect of Aurify, trying to choose who or what was affected by his aura, or not.

Mana flowed out of Erick, 6 mana gone in a second, and the storm yawned open above him. Blue sky appeared in a 50 yard circle of clouds, like a sightless god looking down from above. The storm was pushed to the side. Rain fell everywhere but around the three people and their weather [Ward]s.

Krakina stared at the sky in awe. Poi stared with a perfectly poised face.

Erick pushed again with his aura. 6 more mana flowed, and the sky changed again.

The hole above closed. Dimples appeared in the rest of the storm.

Hmm. That’s not what I wanted.

He tossed mana at the sky through his aura, 60 all in one go. The sky moved. Holes appeared everywhere. That seemed to be the wrong move, because the original spell disrupted. The tiny flashes of lightning ceased as wind began to drag the clouds away. Erick had accidentally killed the [Call Lightning] in the sky; all he had left was his foggy aura.

“Were you trying to do that?” Krakina asked.

“Not really.” Erick brushed a hand at the heavy fog around him. “But the spell is still here.”

“Can you make that fog discharge?”

“I don’t know.”

Erick hummed. As the rain eventually stopped, the fog seemed to be more solid. Slowly, mana flowed out of him, into the fog.

A crackle of light appeared in the depths of the fog, near the ground.

Erick exclaimed, “Oh! I get it!”

The fog was the spell brushing against itself, generating charge, but the process was disrupted by the rain. Now that the rain was gone, the charge was coming back. He had kept a close eye on his mana the whole time, too, so that was another clue as to what was happening with the lightning part of his spell.

He said, “I’m going to try a strike, now.”

Poi said, “Okay!”

Krakina said, “FINALLY!”

Erick willed a bolt into the ground a hundred feet over there—

Craacchhthck-BOOM-OOM-OOM!

The land filled with reverberating lightning as a thousand tiny sparks joined into a crash of power that blanketed the air in a thousand foot sphere, a hundred feet away, surrounding Erick’s [Ward] in a wash of white death. The blast cleared, but lingers of lightning skittered across the ground, rushing up and over Erick’s [Ward] like a sudden infestation of lightning spiders.

Krakina cackled with joy. “Do it again!”

“NO!” Poi and Erick yelled.

As Krakina grumbled and Erick thought he might need to [Cleanse] himself, he ended the spell. Erick tried to relax. He tried to breathe. His nose filled with the orange tang of ozone. It was actually a rather nice smell, but it was overpowering in some primal way.

Two blue boxes appeared, confirming Erick’s hypothesis.

Call Lightning X, 1 minute per level, super long range, 500 MP ~{Favored Spell}~

Prepare the sky to strike an area or object of your choice for . If used in an active lightning storm, Call Lightning’s duration is as long as the natural storm. Every lighting bolt called reduces the duration of Call Lightning by 1 minute, or a natural storm by .

Lightning Aura, 1 MP per second, super long range ~{Favored Spell}~

Prepare the air around you to strike for . One strike available every 50 MP.

Yup. Just like he thought: He was impatient the first time; he didn’t wait long enough for the spell to charge.

The numbers were roughly close to [Call Lightning], if a bit higher.

Favored Spell carried over to the Aura.

All good things! Terrifying things, but... ‘good’, too, he supposed.

As the fog completely cleared, Erick gazed across the land, and the land was scorched.

Okay. Maybe this wasn’t a good outcome.

Yard and foot long filaments of sandy glass had been blasted out of the ground like iron filings standing up on a magnet. The devastation was larger at the center of the blast, rivaling the size of the nearest crystal agave...

... of which there were none in sight. Erick had fried— Ah! There was one, outside of the blast. Huh. It actually looked just fine. It glowed a bit stronger than usual, though. Hmm.

Poi let out a long, drawn out sigh, audible from over 20 feet away.

“Damn! Look at that!” Krakina shouted, “I’ve never seen anything like that before!”

“Never using that again...” Erick muttered.

The crystal agave sparked.

Erick stared at it. “What’s happening with that?”

Poi said, “It won’t hit us from here.”

Krakina cackled, “I’ve seen those spear people out of the sky! I hope we’re all lucky!”

Uh-oh.

Erick watched as the crystal agave pulsed brighter. Brighter. It was radiant now—

BOOM!

The agave’s crystal spike-leaves flew off in every direction like projectile weapons, as a controlled explosion rocked the plant’s core. A crystal spear shunked into the soil 10 feet from Erick. It still glowed, but that glow faded, and the plant laid still. Erick’s heart beat hard.

“That was close,” Poi said.

“They’re easier to pick up like that,” Krakina said. “Blast the rest of them!”

“NO,” Erick and Poi said at the same time.

“Bahh! No fun!”

“I’m plenty of fun, but all of this...” Erick waved a hand at the spiky, glassed ground all around him. “I’d like my magic to stop making me look like a bad guy, gunning for armageddon.”

Krakina said, “You have no perspective! I might not have seen something like that before, but I have seen impressive acts, and yours doesn’t even punch through a weather [Ward]!”

And I hope it never does.

Erick said, “I’m starting again.”

Krakina shrieked in joy. “Go go go! Do it!”

[Lightning Aura]

Fog returned in sparse drips of mana. Holding his aura open this time was like flipping a switch; the tiny weight on his mind nonexistent. This was much easier than using Aurify.

[Grow].

The land around him did nothing. Erick hummed. Maybe...

[Grow Aura]

The fog vanished as mana dropped out of Erick at a steady rate of 5 every two seconds. He cut that aura fast; he was already kinda low. Meditation brought his mana back up, but not fast enough compared to how he could spend it.

Erick looked to Krakina. “How do you usually combine spells?”

“You cast them both at the same time! Easy.”

“Two auras?”

“Same way.”

... Then what was he doing wrong?

... Maybe the problem was fundamental. There was an easy way to test his hypothesis.

Erick said, “I’m going to try to Mana Alter the [Lightning Aura] into bludgeoning. You two have damage wards up, right?”

Poi and Krakina both instantly popped with different glittering absorption [Ward] light. Krakina’s new [Ward] was pale green; Poi’s was bright blue. Both overlapped.

Poi said, “Careful, Mage Flatt.”

“I know, I know.”

Mana Altering: Bludgeoning

[Lighting Aura]

ERROR!