The Power of Ten

Chapter 7-193: The Smug Completion of Endless Casting

“But you can’t do that yet.” It was both relief and consternation. “Damn, that is a lot of stone...”

“Yeah, and it’s why he’s most famous for them. Virtually everyone on Terra-Luna lives under a Pyramid’s protection. Naturally enough, you can harness the power of one for a lot of other stuff...”

“So, you need to get to a +46 Stonecarving check, or better. Do you use the classical method?”

“No. The height times pi is nice geometry, but it is extremely hard to adjudicate block sizing for. It’s much easier to base the Pyramids on the blocks than the golden ratio or anything.”

“I could see that.” You’d basically have to have the ratio of the blocks the same as the Pyramid, as far as height and width went. Your QL came from adhering to geometric perfection, instead of carving each block to fit into a greater whole. Much, much harder to balance out.

“You’re intending to build one here?” he asked for confirmation.

“As the Shroud is about to fall. It should be able to link up with other Pyramids to set up to receive spatial transfers.” He blinked at me. “Yes, you’ll be able to communicate with Terra-Luna, and hopefully follow me around from world to world as we do stuff.”

“An inter-dimensional transport site, connecting us across the Greater Reality.” He nodded thoughtfully. “That’s good, lets the world know they are connected to something greater than themselves after they break out from under the Shroud, and we aren’t alone. Another Earth that went through something similar would be a good first start.”

I sighed. “All my gut instincts are saying I’ll have to go with the Shroud. I don’t know where I’ll end up... but with a Pyramid, I’m sure others can get here. With Marks, as long as I can tear the Shroud open for a short time, we should even be able to talk back and forth.”

“Coms will be good, too,” he agreed, his pale violet eyes thoughtful. “We’ll have your backs, Trav, even if we can’t go ourselves.”

I tonked his fist, and sent him back to his girl.

Natural Renewal was coming. They would all be taking advances, cheering at their ability to advance. We would get some landscape hunting done of classic Fireborn and Elementals and whatnot, and then I’d send them off for the next stage of their careers, while The Mick, Master Fred, and I prosecuted a fairly unrelenting assault on these creatures of fire.

I didn’t know how long it would take to Kill Them All, but I did know that in something like twelve hours, I was going to be able to keep right on doing that for a very long time...

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I’d brought everyone back to Boulder, where new teams had assembled to start Leveling. The assault on the corrupted volcano was all over the place, and there were a lot of hunters out there glad we’d taken care of those creatures. Nobody believed the fighting there was actually over, but I was going to claim that Node sooner or later.

It was too much sweet Fire Mana going to waste. Triple speed Fire Infusing and Free Infusing combined meant that Node was literally worth a million dollars a day in power. There was absolutely no way we were letting it go free, and when the mineral lodes in the area were located, it was only going to get better and more profitable.

Windgraf Mochtal contacted me, informing me that he’d been alerted that his rival, Bey Garar’azzar, had resumed granting Wishes, and so that ability would be tied up for some time in countering his opposite.

We’d exploited what time we could get out of it, and there were a bunch of Powered suddenly with the 14 Stat line that would let them eventually make Ten, all eager to start their Double-Helix Leveling and strive for power.

But... that also meant that the Bey was making contact with mortals. All indications put him somewhere in the Charlands here, which meant someone was sneaking in here and meeting with him in order to invoke the Wishes.

That would get a whole lot of nowhere, of course, as the Windgraf wasn’t going to let his rival get any such things off if he could help it, knowing the harm Wishes could wreak.

Word went out that there was a force of living humans in these lands dealing with one of the powerful fiery denizens here. They needed to be found, and I was to be alerted when they were. I would deal with them. Last thing I needed was bloody Fire cultists and Fire-devoted Druids making a mess of things... and I didn’t want them costing us Wishes, either.

There was no way the efreet could be the Shroudlord, as it wasn’t undead or Fiendish; it would have to be a div or ghul to have a chance at that. If it was here, that meant it was a thrall or vassal.

Thralldom to an undead was a ripe, ripe thing to be subverted. If it was involuntary, all the better.

We’d be changing course now, circling the Charlands, finding the edges of its influence... and start to beat them back with vivus and slaughter of the Fireborn.

Slaughter, rest/Craft for eight hours, slaughter. There were a lot of things that were going to die after we ringed the area and started pressing in. I would Consecrate that Node, and from there drive the Fireborn back, back, and back some more, until the Charlands were only under its Shroud, and it was time to face the undead down and see what they thought they could do to us.

There was going to be a Grind, and it was going to be spitting fire and vivus as its sparks. The whole country was watching, and we were going to be taking back land as implacably as it had been taken from us... and more.

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“...and dream of the wind at dawn,” I finished calmly, watching a line of fiery things in motion about a mile away.

DOOOOONG!... ding, ding...

I could feel things catalyzing, condensing, swirling, and harmonizing in a process that, while not exactly evil, was most definitely dark and direly pragmatic.

It was all supercharged with a whole lot of interconnected power, all meeting in my Pool, which was now swirling with energy positive and negative, ki and arcana and mana all mixing happily as they flowed into one another.

Monk/4. Choose Prime Stat, +1 Int, Reflected over to +1 Dex with Sustained Effort.

Perfection of Self. +1 to lowest Physical Stat (Str), lowest mental (Wis) and lowest overall (Str). Monks were literally the best at pursuing perfection of self.

Net Effect, +1 Int/Dex/Wis/Con, +2 Strength/Charisma.

Ripples of ki and karma interplayed, going up and down inside me, pursuing genetic perfection, removing inefficiencies in the system, and boosting it all up with more pure power running through me.

Ki Pool Benefit:Ghost Eating Ki:Gain 1 ki if crit or kill an opponent with weapons. Spend a ki point to purge a disease.

Crit or kill an enemy. Arcane Fist Monk Levels made that apply with Weaponized Shards. Improved Threat made that a 17-20 roll, or about a twenty percent chance.

Improved Delimited Shards was giving me 18 Shards right now, so on average three to four crits, if there were no kills. If I had no power whatsoever, I could just use Darts to eventually power myself back up if I was drained.

Using ki to Recall Spells. Using ki to repower spent Slots.

And it had not done this until I had a Spell Pool, which I could Cast spells out of.

I didn’t actually need to spend Slots and Spells, and then put them back. All I needed to do was spend out of my Pool, and when I killed stuff, the power automatically flowed back in.

The number of pure spells I could Cast out of my Pool was exactly twelve Valences, the result of the bonus VI spells I had...

I could precisely do this with undead because of Vivus and my Blighter effects... and my Ur-Priest Levels, if I was honest, intercepting energy bound for the land to keep myself powered up.

I Restored Slots and Spells for cheaper than I could Cast them... at half price, as it were.

Tomorrow, Einz would finish up with his Ki Mastery, reducing the ki cost of effects by 1, to a minimum of 1.

That meant I could Cast out of my Pool for 1 less, and Restore those Valences for 1 less. I could Cast a V for four points, or Restore it for... one.

That meant I could choose whether I wanted to exploit the action economy, or the Valence economy. It would take a swift action to Restore... meaning I could not Fastcast at the same time.

If I could regain all the ki back, however, I could Cast out of my Pool constantly. Needless to say, I did not want to give up on that, because what I needed right now were rep counts... and Fastcasting two spells a cycle was a good way to double up on rep counts.

Purchased Feat: Way of Shadow II, +another d6 to Sneak Attack damage, +1 more Shadow Ki, Invested.

Purchased Mastery: Wisdom Mastery/4.

I had my endless spell loop!

“Gentlemen, I’m not going to be engaging in maximized slaughter unless we are in danger. I am looking at doing rep counts, and Casting as many spells as I can as rapidly as I can. Some of them may seem stupid or useless or whatnot, and that is totally irrelevant. I am trying to make up rep counts as fast as possible.”

The Mick nodded knowingly, and Master Fred didn’t care. “Is this a skill that I can learn?” The Mick asked, only a little greedily.

“Yes, but it’s addictive, because of your Blood Magic.” His expression hardened, as he basically had been dealing with his clan’s addictive tendencies his whole life. “When you casually start killing or injuring people to get your spell power back, using spells or no, you likely won’t be able to stop, and you’ll head right down that rabbit hole of murderous slaughter you’ve been avoiding all your life.”

He sighed heavily, looking up at the sky, back down at me. “You can take this because you are Shroudborn?”

“And I’ve a fine metric for if I’m in spiritual danger.” I flipped up Shards, girt around with the Holy Metas, and he made a noise. “My apologies. Your Bloodline’s aptitude for unending slaughter is out of my control.”

“It is what it is,” he said heavily, his eyes gleaming crimson for a moment. “I’ve already taken the magic far beyond what any of my people thought I could. ‘tis a wicked surprise I could spring on them, and they have nae a wit about them that I be the wealthiest and best-clad sot in the whole Clan, now.”

“You were never not the best-clad?” I inquired archly, and he beamed. “I’m sure it would help them not sleep well at night to know that,” I agreed. “Gentlemen and mighty steed, shall we be about our slow and careful reaping?”

The Mick limbered up his sword arm, while bloody lights danced about his other hand’s fingertips. “Aye, sounds like a plan, Boxer?”

LET’S MAKE MORE HISTORY, Master Fred agreed calmly, Grit in one hand, Idiot in the other. Riding his cycle, hands off the handlebars to let Sleipner drive, The Mick and I standing on Disks behind him, we headed for the line of Elementals running around looking for more stuff to burn.

Ice began to gather about me. The first Meta I was going to get Weirded was Sanctified Spell, which I would take all the way up to V’s... 15,500 total reps, on ever more powerful Spells.

But I could Cast 1200 spells an hour, using Fastcast. Obviously, I couldn’t Fastcast any Valence above a II with it being a +IV Meta... but that just meant I could work on non-Fastcast Rep Counts when the Valences got too high.

When I was done, I would be able to Sanctify every single spell I could Cast for nothing, meaning every spell could be Good and qualify for Aligned Theurgy and Good Spell Focus and other Good/Holy effects.

I would repeat it with No Words and No Gestures, then Reach. That would mean I would not need to speak or gesture for any of my spells, and their range would be a category higher than their default.

Sure, it was going to take days, but once it was done, I would be in a VERY good position to start building up other Metas... or focusing on specific Spells. Any spell with a Duration could be Extended, after all...

It would also be a very good idea to make all the standard area-effect spell configurations Efficient, so that was definitely on the table... My brains hummed and created spellsheets of my current Spell Counts, and let me know how much work I still had to do...

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--THE LOOP!

So, the power loop is Spell Pool + Ghost Eating Ki + Ki=Arcana=Mana + spend Ki to get back spells.

Spell Pool lets her spend mana from her pool to cast spells directly, instead of out of Valence.

Ki=Mana from Improved Arcane Pool means she can spend Ki to do so, instead, at 1:1.

Spiritual Spellcasting and Fast Spell Recall means she can regain spells for little cost, setting up the standard of recycling.

Ghost Eating Ki means that if she kills or Crits with Weaponized Shards (not touch attacks, or no miss, or Chains), she gets one Ki back per crit or kill.

So, in other words, as long as she's surrounded by stuff that is not too hard to kill, she can just keep Casting, as her ki is automatically refilled each round.

In the meantime, she can also Cast two spells a round, doubling up the speed of her rep counts. Using Residual Magic buy-off, she can alternate working on +IV Metas like Fastcast and Paired, Admixtured, etc, too.

Her limit in Valences/round is her Spell Pool, currently at 12 (the number of Valence VI's gained from her high Int after burning the Sixth Ring., i.e. 2 level Six spells). As her Intellect goes up and she burns more Rings, this number will also naturally increase.

From a balance standpoint, this is made possible by Weaponizing Shards (i.e., they require a normal roll to hit to strike a target, like an arrow). By removing that, the loop does not work, and you'd actually have to be hitting with a weapon or throwing something.josei

She is also aware of this, and has a plan to get around it...