Arcane Apocalypse

17 – Choices, Choices … too many choices

The two girls continued chatting for another twenty minutes before Lina decided to take her leave, promising to be back the day after before the sun rose so they could head down to hunt some goblins together. Which left Mia alone and trying to get back on rails with her initial plans for the afternoon: Relaxing.

Mia decided to get washed up. Just slightly wetting her towel and scrubbing herself off left her far from the level of clean-ness she liked, but water had other, more important functions. Like keeping her from dying of thirst.

She cast a regretful glance at the little puddle at the bottom of the tub, one-fifths of what it had been before their water got communised by Jeff’s goons, then decided to try to relax some.

Her options were, sadly, diminished. No streaming sites, no TV, no videos, no gaming, and not even her e-reader worked. I should have bought actual physical books, with actual paper pages and all that.

The only physical book she had was a Bible they’d inherited from whoever owned the apartment before them. Back in the living room, her gaze landed on the bunch of papers spread over the new makeshift coffee table and Mark’s telltale scribbles spread across the pages.

She’d only read a single page, and there were dozens. Well. Better than watching mould grow.

Mia flipped through the disparate notes, finding that most of the pages were just page numbers, reminders and Class information for Mark’s apparent dream Class: the Earthen Spellblade.

Mia didn’t care all that much about that. She already had a class of her own and besides, she had no affinity for any type of magic aside from Arcane, and Arcane Spellblades were near-non-existent. Everyone with an Arcane affinity wanting to fight in close quarters went balls-deep on Force Magic or Kinetomancy, but that was a stunted school of magic, as far as Mia knew.

Only magic could fight magic at higher levels, and Force Magic affected things through kinetic energy. The source of the effects might have been magic, but the effects themselves were about as magical as a thrown brick or a punch to the gut. The same went for Thermomancy, and whatever other derivative schools of magic the Arcane element had that worked with pure physical forces like electromagnetism and such.

Mia shook her head, snapping out of her brooding. She might not have known what use those schools of magic were when they couldn’t harm any mage above a certain level, but she certainly knew pure Arcane Magic like the advanced counterparts of Arcane Blast and her other spells would be more than satisfactory for mage-to-mage combat.

The book even praised Arcane Mages for being one of the natural fit for duelists since their more chaotic spells naturally disrupted spell-forms — whatever those were. That was a nice little fact that Mia liked to think about whenever she remembered the fact that Arcane was the only element without a natural Body Enhancement effect of its own.

Back to the notes. On one of the last pages, she found another interesting little tidbit.

***

Every damned thing is colour coded based on rarity / quality / strength. (Kinda silly but very useful. Must remember.)

Grey < White < Green < Blue < Purple < ?

Poor < Common < Uncommon < Rare < Epic < ? (I’m guessing Legendary, but who knows?)

I’m guessing it all goes together with the Rank system. Rank 0 would be Grey / Poor and Rank 5 would be the Legendary(?) quality.

Maybe everything else is separated into six grades too? Like Mage ranks and stuff?

***

That’s interesting. Mia scratched her cheek in thought, pulling her Interface back up. The first thing she noticed was her Rank with the big round zero next to it, now coloured the blandest grey she’d seen. That fits.

Below it was a new entry merely saying [Class: Arcane Mage (Tier 1)] and it was written in a vibrant turquoise script, standing out against the boring colourless letters of the rest of the interface.

How was it colourless? Mia had not the faintest clue, but no matter how hard she squinted at the ‘Name’ section, for example, she couldn’t tell what colour it was even if someone held a gun against her head. It was just the tiniest bit maddening, but Mia shrugged it off with a practised use of her ‘I don’t give a shit’ aura.

Mia went through the various sections of her Interface, noting every newly coloured line or text as she went.

Her race was a light purple, bordering on pink, along with the majority of her Traits with the ‘racial’ tag next to them. The rest ranged between blue and green, while all of her stats were the same boring grey as her Rank along with her Energy Channels Trait.

She went through the rest of the notes, but the majority of them were Mark calculating his own stats and listing out ideas for training them. Mia noted those, making sure she remembered the more novel ideas for later.

Mia forced herself to relax, sinking into the soft cushions of the sofa as she just … breathed. How long had it been since she used breathing exercises and the meditation she learned as a teenager? Well, it sure came in handy now.

She focused on the air, the swelling of her lungs and the soft exhales, on the slight breeze brushing against her cheeks and the feeling of her locks against her skin.

Almost without thought, Mia began circulating her mana, just feeling how the tiny clump of energy flowed through her ethereal not-veins.

She felt calm for the first time in a long while, peaceful and just happy to exist with the sunlight kissing her cheeks and the mana caressing her body and spirit.

[Congratulations! You have gained a Secondary Skill: Meditation!]

[Do you wish to slot this Skill?]

[ Yes / No ]

Mia tried to retain her calm and keep her mind clear, but the little gremlin in her head was jumping up and down in joy.

With a sigh, and an eager grin slipping on her face, Mia opened her eyes and read the notification thoughtfully once more.

She squinted at it, and a new window popped up as she wished.

***

[Meditation]

[Type: General / Magic]

While in deep meditation, gain the following effects:

• 10% Bonus to Sensitivity and Control

• 100% Increased passive mana regeneration

***

Not wasting another moment, and fearing the prompt would disappear on her, Mia mentally smashed the Yes button.

[Meditation has been slotted]

[User has 4 Empty Secondary Skill slots remaining]

Mia felt the change, something changed. She wasn’t sure what or where, but she knew with absolute certainty that something got added to her being.

It was weird, and she also logically assumed it was the Skill. How did skills work anyway?

Mia shrugged, deciding to ignore that question for now. There would be a time to play System scholar, somewhere in the far future, when her biggest foes weren’t dehydration and knee-high goblins.

[Obtain a Secondary Skill (1/1)]

[Objective fulfilled, Quest Complete]

[Do you wish to claim your reward (10 minutes of remote Obelisk access) now?]

[ Yes / No ]

This damned thing is changing its formatting every time I open it. Mia grumbled, the chaotic design annoying the amateur graphic designer in her to no end. Whatever. Hopefully it’ll settle down with time. Yes, let’s see what those Obelisks can do.

[Reward Claimed]

[Searching for the nearest Obelisk … Target located: Starhaven Continent / Grimharbor City … Establishing connection … ]

[Connection Established]

[Countdown Begins! Time Remaining: 9:59]

[Obelisk Interface]

• [Class Interface] — LOCKED

• [Skill Library]

• [Transportation] — LOCKED

• [Trials] — LOCKED

Why the hell is three out of the four options locked? Mia scowled at the window, but the only thing she got was a vague sense of disconnect from it. This window felt distant and detached from her in a way she didn’t even recognise until then all the others were not.

Must be because it's a remote connection? Mia theorised, but the rapidly speeding by countdown pushed her to get herself over it. She opened the only option available.

[Available Primary Skills]

• None

[Available Secondary Skills]

• [Multitasking]

• [Fatigue Resistance]

• [Minor Parallel Processing]

• [Minor Enhanced Cognition]

• [Lesser Poker Face]

• [Lesser Kinetic Energy Assimilation]

• [Lesser Thermal Energy Assimilation]

• [Spectral Sight]

• [Spirit Bond]

“Nine options and four open slots.” Mia murmured with a grimace at the idea. Then glanced up at the countdown.

[8:31]

As much as she would have lived to dissect every single skill, she would have to be quick about this. Who knew when she would have the opportunity to get Secondary Skills again.

When Mia remembered her original plans about getting her Secondary Skill for the Quest — the arcane elemental manipulation skill that was supposedly a must for everyone — the number of Skills she could pick went down by one.

She decided to at least read the descriptions of each Skill before deciding. Being a quick reader, Mia didn’t fear running out of time because of that.

***

Multitasking: Increases the User’s multitasking ability. Scales with Cognity.

Fatigue Resistance: reduces the effect of physical and mental fatigue on the User’s capabilities.

Minor Parallel Processing: the User gains a lesser parallel mind. The mind functions with a tenth of the User’s Mind Sub-Attributes.

Minor Enhanced Cognition: the effect of Cognity is slightly enhanced.

Lesser Poker Face: Hiding emotions, intentions and thoughts becomes easier.

Lesser Kinetic Energy Assimilation: The User can absorb a set amount of kinetic energy affecting their body and transmute it into arcane mana.

Lesser Thermal Energy Assimilation: The User can absorb a set amount of thermal energy affecting their body and transmute it into arcane mana.

Spectral Sight: By focusing their Spirit Senses into their eyes, the User can glimpse into the Spirit Realm.

Spirit Bond: Form a Bond with a willing spirit associated with the User’s affinity.

***

Strangely, Mia could vaguely tell why each Skill was made available to her. The first four, for example, were due to abusing her mind and body a bit too much to get through college.

It seemed overwhelming her poor brain and working off of four hours of sleep was something to be rewarded in the System. Mia held back a snort.

The two energy absorption thingies came from her affinity. Or, well, attunement. She remembered mentions of that giving abilities as it progressed.

The last two came from her Fae nature.

Mia crossed out Spirit Bond, Poker Face, Fatigue Resistance and the Parallel Mind skills. She had no spirits on hand, didn’t need help to act even more like a statue, didn’t want there to be a need for fatigue resistance and she certainly didn’t want a second voice speaking in her head.

Especially if what she suspected about the attributes was true and the sub-mind would be dumb as a rock. Nope. That was a huge nopers from her.

That left Multitasking, Spirit Sight, Enhanced Cognition and the two absorption skills.

[3:19]

Time flew by far too quickly for her liking. If only it could do that when she was on the clock, watching mould grow in the office.

Mia ruminated over the choice, racking her brain this way and that until the countdown hit one minute.

Panic was a strong word. Mia certainly didn’t panic, nope. Making a … hasty, and perhaps rash choice though? That might have happened. Perhaps. Maybe.

[Secondary Skill: Multitasking slotted]

[Secondary Skill: Lesser Kinetic Energy Assimilation slotted]

[Secondary Skill: Lesser Thermal Energy Assimilation slotted]

[Empty Secondary Skill slots remaining: 1]

Mia let out a sigh of relief and slumped back against the sofa. Choices were hard. She just hoped she didn’t mess up too badly.

With only a few seconds remaining, Mia checked whether the remaining skills on the list disappeared with her choices made. Thankfully, that was not the case. Every single spell was still listed, including the ones she chose.

[0:00]

[Disconnecting … connection terminated]

Mia gave herself a minute to just go over her decision and found she was quite satisfied with it overall.

These Skills were both interesting and useful enough that neither the magic gremlin part of her, nor her logical part were unhappy.

Well, the usefulness of the two assimilation skills would heavily depend on exactly how much energy they could absorb, but skills were upgradeable. According to Mark at least. They would get better with time, and hopefully protect her from heat and physical force.

The little mana they would give her would just be an extra.

Multitasking, on the other hand, was a scaling skill. Which appealed to her gamer side. It would be useful even when she outgrew her other Skills or had them upgraded. Plus, multitasking was an extremely useful skill even in day-to-day life.

Mia once again felt the changes, though she still couldn’t put into words how or what had been changed about her. She suspected the only reason she felt anything at all had to do with her rather high Sensitivity and her Spirit Senses.

Anyway, with one choice out of the way, she had yet another one to make. Now that she knew spending stat points wouldn’t somehow deprive her of freely gained stats she could have gotten through training, she had to decide where to spend them.

She had eight points. Spending those points smartly could be what tipped the scales in her favour in a battle of life and death.

As much as I’d love to dump them on Will and Strength, it would be a waste. Quite literally, since every point spent on those stats would only be worth a tenth of its actual value.

If she was going to spend these points, she wanted returns on her investment now. That meant turning the things she was now above average at into strength … the problem was just that none of her stats associated with her class or a quick power-up were all that high.

Strength, Manifestation and Will were arguably the most useful stats for turning live monsters into dead ones.

Ah, damn it all. Let's do half-half. Mia decided, and before she could regret it, she dumped 4 points into Manifestation. Why Manifestation? Because out of her base stats, it was the highest.

[Free Attribute Points: 8 -> 4]

[Manifestation: 4 -> 8]

[Spirit: 6 -> 7]

Mia let out a sigh of pleasure as she felt something. Her Spirit became firmer, for a lack of a better word. She felt more … stable, grounded. Like her entire being had been a house built on sand and only now did it gain some proper foundation. It seemed those four points in Manifestation sent the main Spirit stat over the edge and pushed it up by a point.

It was a sensation unlike any other, and one that almost made her dump the rest of her points into the stat right then and there. But no. She made her decision, so she reluctantly got back to thinking over the fate of her remaining points.

What else would be useful? Mia eyed her stats. With Manifestation increased, she would hopefully have a bit more stopping — and killing — power. So other than that, what did she need?

Surviving this madness is what I want. Along with getting strong enough to go help Mom and protect her if needed. What stats would help me in that?

After a minute of humming and chin rubbing, Mia made her choice.

[Free Attribute Points: 4 -> 0]

[Agility: 6 -> 8]

[Sensitivity: 9 -> 11]

Mia groaned as a slew of sensations and sounds bombarded her the moment her points went into Sensitivity.

The sense of wrongness she only got from having her gaze locked onto a monster before became an unpleasant stable. She felt it cover her like a blanket, everything was just so very wrong.

Goosebumps ran down her spine, wave after wave as a chill crept into her bones. They were everywhere. The monsters. She felt them everywhere. On the streets, in the hallway, in the air … the air was a monster?

Mia startled, looking around nervously at the room. Why did the regular air feel vaguely wrong, just like monsters?

Wait, I should be feeling Mana and other sorts of energies with my Spirit Sense, not monster presences. Mia thought. So … is this the energy Monsters use, or they are made of? Or is it just tainted air and mana that the Rifts spew out along with the monsters?

Slowly, as Mia focused her mind on the questions and sank into her thoughts, the previously tyrannical sensations dimmed and got pushed into the background.

She still felt them, if even less clearly than before, but they were bearable this way.

The stupid Sensitivity stat was supposed to give her better monster detection. That was the assumption under which she chose to spend two points on it at least. Knowing where monsters were without even seeing them would have been a godsend if she ever managed to work up the courage to stalk through the monster-infested city and get to her Mom.

Agility, on the other hand, would help her run away if — or more likely ‘when’ — the shit hit the fan.

Mistakes make for a great learning experience. Mia could almost hear her mother’s gentle voice and the warm hug she gave her along with it. It was her go-to answer to teenage Mia getting all depressed about messing up a test or fumbling yet another social interaction.

Okay, sleeping like this is going to be damned near impossible. How do I solve this?

The answer was obvious, but Mia still couldn’t help but groan as she rose from the sofa.

***

[Cognity: 5]

Cognity: The speed at which thoughts flow. The speed of the mind. Increases the amount of sensory data the User can handle.

***

That stat needed to go up, and fast. Preferably catching up with Sensitivity, if not overtaking it. Sleep and any measure of relaxation would be nothing more than a dream until she could better handle her Sensitivity.

I have no time to grind puzzles or calculus to train up the base Cognity stat, so my only other option is levelling up and getting stat points that way.

After half a day spent sniping at or watching monsters, the last thing she wanted to see was another goblin’s ugly face. Alas, she had no choice.

Mia made her way down to the first floor and seeing no one around in the hallway Jeff led her in hours prior, she headed into the very same flat with a shrug.

The sun was still high up in the sky, though already on its way down. Three to five PM was the best estimation Mia could come up with. Meaning she had more than enough time till sundown.

Mia slowly crept closer to the window and its bars, fighting the urge to hurl as the vague sense of wrongness, a mostly ethereal sensation, decided to be nasty and turned into a foul taste that settled on her tongue and crawled into her nostrils.

Peeking out, Mia barely managed to stifle a shriek as she made eye contact with a goblin. A goblin sitting on the windowsill and leaning over to peek in through the bars.

Okay, maybe that foul odour wasn’t some new feature of her increased sensitivity, but an original feature of the unwashed nature of the goblins themselves. One she was only just experiencing, due to never having been within breathing distance of one before now.

The thing grinned, showing rows of needle-like teeth coated in dry blood. It let out a giggle, though it sounded more like the whine of a kicked dog than anything else.

Mia staggered back, managing to trip over her own feet. Then, she did scream before landing on her butt with a thud, much to the apparent amusement of the window-goblin.

“Motherf-“ Mia cursed under her breath as pain pulsed up her spine from her tailbone. Her runic model, finally prodded to life, started moving. Likewise, she sent a stream of mana into her fingertips which lit up in a soft pink glow just before the Bolt shot forward with all of her fear and anger loaded into it.

The goblin, being as close as it was, barely had time to widen its eyes in fright before the bolt mulched half of its head and carried off a chunk of its skull and brain into the distance. With it being a mere metre away from Mia, there was only about half a second between the first indication of a spell being cast and the Bolt hitting its mark.

Mia let out an imperious snort as the little monster’s body hit the pavement below with a wet thud. Her face morphed into a grimace though as she picked herself back up. Her butt hurt. Hopefully, she hadn’t fractured her tailbone. That would suck.

The disgusting smell lingered, but Mia already felt it start to dissipate. Just to speed it up a bit, she threw open the door of the flat to get some airflow going.

This Sensitivity thing might be a bust. I couldn’t tell it was this close at all. Mia chewed on her lips in consternation. If she had to translate how her senses worked now to data science terms, she’d say the datasets went from being binary to grayscale. Hopefully by upping Cognity, I’ll be able to parse all this new information.

After taking a few calming breaths, making sure to only breathe through the mouth lest she chokes on the lingering goblin stink, Mia strode up to the window and finally took a real peek of the outside.

Just on the street below she could see at least twenty goblins ambling about and tearing off pieces of metal from cars and signposts while another ten of them surrounded a duo of larger goblins, brawling it out.

Mia let her gaze wander further, running it over the apartment buildings on the other side of the road. Windows broken, doors hanging ajar and yet another group of jolly goblins dragging scavenged stuff out onto the streets was what greeted her.

Her face went pale as one of the ‘scavenged stuff’ dragged out by a duo of goblins was a mangled humanoid corpse. Bile rose up in her throat and her hands shook intensely.

Her hands shot out for the bars, latching onto them as her knees went weak. Swallowing, Mia took a trembling breath. The wrongness was pervasive and ever-present, and she was having trouble keeping her mind focused. If she wanted to get anything done, she needed to get a grip and get on with it.

The runic-model twirled around itself, the spell circle expanding as rune after rune and shape after shape got added to it. In just a second, she had the Arcane Blast circle ready for use.

Mana danced on her fingertips as her gaze zeroed in on the goblins dragging the corpse across the sidewalk while giving off tittering laughs.

Logically, aiming at a larger cluster of the green monsters would have been the optimal choice for her opening shot. To take as many of them out with the surprise attack as possible. Mia didn’t care. She wanted those two dead now.

The crackling bolt shot off, and the distracted duo of goblins never saw it coming. By luck, or by some heavenly will, they gave each other a side-hug just as Mia’s bolt lept off her fingers.

A fragile grin stretched across her face as both of their torsos disappeared in a flash of thunderous pink light.

Startled shouts in their bark-like language reached Mia’s ears before a twin set of furious roars joined the chaos. Her eyes shot to the two larger goblins and saw them looking around warily.

Readying her mana, Mia waited for the right moment. She learned from the previous sniping session, not much, but she did. ‘Shoot stuff when they can’t see the bolt coming’ was, for example, a rather simple lesson, but one she only thought of after she missed that one shot in the morning.

One of the taller goblins turned, eying its two mangled kin and turning its back to Mia. With a grin tugging at her lips, Mia aimed at the back of its head and let the spell loose.

That increase in Manifestation is doing wonders. It’s not much, but activating Blast is much less taxing. She thought as the Blast struck true. It didn’t take the whole head with it as she’d expected, but the goblin still fell over dead as can be.

Her gaze snapped over to the second tall goblin, whose head likewise snapped in her direction. Its eyes found hers in a second, then fell down to her glowing fingers.

Another Blast shot off, and the goblin twisted out of the way with a startled sound, accidentally pushing one of its smaller kin right into the spell’s trajectory.

The blast caught the unfortunate greenskin in the back and exploded, obliterating its upper body and scorching the flesh off of the taller goblin still within touching distance of it.

Mia gritted her teeth. Those things were quicker than they had any right to be. Another blast shot off a second later and this time a smaller goblin found itself snatched up and flying towards the approaching projectile.

They collided a few metres away from the tall, hissing goblin. It barked out what sounded like orders, and all the smaller ones rushed about to snatch up discarded bows and arrows.

Unfortunately, more than twenty goblins and only about ten bows meant the re-arming rush quickly devolved into an all-out brawl for the shoddy weapons. Mia aimed at the angry crowd of goblins, keeping her eye on the livid larger goblin, tearing into the crowd with a snarl on its face.

She got off three Blasts into the mass of furious limbs and snapping jaws before the large goblin tore its way out of the crowd with a bow and a set of arrows clutched in its grip.

Hide behind a wall, flank him through another window … or try out Arcane Shield? Mia wondered for a moment before curiosity won out. She reasoned knowing how well her Shield held up against blows in what was mostly a controlled environment — since the goblins couldn’t just get to her through the bars — would be a good thing.

As the goblin clumsily snatched up an arrow, dropping the rest and struggled with nocking the arrow, Mia’s runic-model already finished re-aligning and the appropriate amount of mana was waiting at her fingertips.

He pulled back the bow and Mia saw a glint of whitish light coat the arrow. She activated the Shield just in time as suddenly the arrow was before her eyes and trying to pierce through her arcane defences.

A blast of air shot right through the Shield, but did nothing more than make her pink hair flutter wildly. Air magic? The damned goblin has air magic?

The arrow cracked and turned to scrap a moment later, just as the sudden wind died down, and Mia let her Shield drop with a sigh. Then she dropped to the floor herself with a yelp as she caught another glint of air mana and not a moment too soon as another arrow lodged itself into the ceiling of the flat as its accompanying wind rattled everything not bolted down in the room.

Mia gulped and scuttled away from the window on all fours, making sure to keep well below the goblin’s line of sight.

Shield works great. Now though, I think it’s time to see how well flanking them works.

Keeping low until she crossed the door, Mia snuck out of the flat and reviewed her mental map of the building to find which flat would work best for hitting the goblin from a direction it did not expect.

That hallway would work best. Mia thought as she walked, then grimaced. That was the place Jeff set aside for the impromptu hospital, wasn’t it? Would they even let me snipe goblins from there?

To keep herself from worrying needlessly, she distracted herself by checking over the notifications she’d been ignoring up until now.

[Level Up!]

[Level: 4 -> 5]

[Free Attribute Points: 0 -> 3]

[Will: 3 -> 4]

[Cognity: 5 -> 6]

[Mind: 5 -> 6]

Mia crossed the rest of the way with a spring in her steps and a giddy smile tugging at the edge of her lips.

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