Chapter 8-250: East by North

Naturally, such an infinite power loop didn’t work. Burning a Slot or Engram into my Arcane Pool rendered it unfillable, and thus I couldn’t cycle it. I could CAST from them forever, and refill them, but they couldn’t ‘refill themselves’ within the loop of the Pool.

Ergo, I would need an infinitely rechargeable outside method to do that, the closest source of which was being in combat and harvesting ki off crits and kills.

It meant my downtime use would naturally be much slower, but that was fine. I was already using Meditation leverage: regaining my Arcane Pool in Meditation, and then spending ki to refill my Slots and Engrams, instead of drawing in mana to do the same. It basically tripled my ability to regain my power once expended... and unlike Slots and Engrams, there was no Renewal cooldown on ki! It was slow, but I could blow my Pool, sit down and Meditate at any time, and get it all back... and it wouldn’t impact my carrying power at all.

This was probably the single most important thing for Rep Counts that I could imagine. I definitely had to get this back to Terra-Luna...

Following up all that, Binder/5 (9), Inquisitor/5 (9), Battlemad/5, Arcane Archer/5, and Grenadier/5 all cycled past, day by day, as we looped up and through the Philippine islands.

It was thousands of kliks of traveling quietly across seas and between dozens, even hundreds of islands, skipping from shore to shore to get land-locks for Teleporting, stopping at coastal settlements to spread the news, get an assessment of the situation, recruit for my Allegiance or more Blessed... and absolutely butcher any of the many, many Daoist Cultivators we came across, who were treating the whole area like their own boundless hunting preserve for Powered to make pills of.

Manila proved to be totally in the control of Cultivators, who were energetically engaged in hunting down the Powered among the native population. I killed hundreds of the bastards spread out across the nation before I ever got the capital city, wiping them out from island after island, only a scant few managing to flee in time to save themselves. It affected how we traversed the islands: As they fled towards the capital, we wiped them from island after island, herding and shepherding them in that direction, Widened Commune with Nature tracking them over the seas, in the jungles, and throughout the many cities as we did so.

The combination of no Cultivators and no Powered naturally left the populations extremely vulnerable, especially when the Cultivators loved to destroy firearms and modern technology to cripple any resistance to their harvesting of Powered. They’d been having some problems with some of the tribes in the interior of the island, but given their ability to gang up on small tribe after tribe, they had been constantly wiping out any opposition and growing in strength as they did, slaughtering the Powered for their Tribulations and gaining Levels quickly in so doing. If they massacred hundreds of thousands of other innocents in so doing, it really wasn’t a big concern of theirs.

That is, until the Shroudzones started rising behind them, but that was a problem for the living left behind, not for them. They already had what they wanted.

Unfortunately for them, they hadn’t gotten to the point yet where they could flee across an entire ocean to safety. It was a thousand kliks to Taiwan; they didn’t have technology, so it was easy to get lost; and most importantly, most of them didn’t run away before I got there, figuring they’d win with numbers. Somewhat less importantly, Sleipner could move literally ten times faster than they could, and so those that did run away a few hours ahead of us we caught up to and massacred out over the waves.

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-Point of data,- Master Fred /said, as I TK’d another corpse going vivic up from the waters, stripped it of useful goldweight and burnable stuff, and tossed it back.

There was blood, but no sharks were investigating any of these dead. The blood of Cultivators wasn’t something they wanted to eat, even with that sweet death smell about it. On the other hand, the corpses that were burning white were drawing some fish in because the water they were breathing in was supercharged with vivus, making the smaller fish very excited, and they were zipping about happily.

That didn’t stop me from harvesting the bastards in their bright robes, of course. They had been very unhappy to see me, but since I wasn’t happy to see them, either, it was just a draw of murderous intent until I butchered them.

I looked over as he pointed at Sleipner’s GDS.

The center of the GDS system was a structure that had been put up in the District of Washington in America, near the geographic center of the country. A simple Rune Chip that could be made by a One always pointed towards that Obelisk, and registered its distance.

Direction and distance determined location. I eyed the map he pulled back, and noticed what he had... our vector was considerably off from Taiwan. These murdering abominations hadn’t been trying to go there at all. As a matter of fact, they weren’t going to get within two hundred kliks of it; they’d been going right for the mainland, vaguely towards Shantou?

Not even towards Hong Kong?

I double-checked this against Detect Location and my own Lived-line, and it matched up. They were swinging west to avoid Taiwan, but they weren’t heading to Hong Kong, or going due west to Hainan or anything.

“We’re already over halfway there. Up to Taiwan and over, instead of coming up from the south of China?” I sighed, plans derailing with new information again. Sama /snickered Out There in the midst of chasing down some colonel whose double-dealings had caught up with him, one of the last people of note who needed to be vivisized for the greater good of Peru.

Things were getting organized behind her, her presence and mine more advisory than physically necessary. Of course, Sama was anything but reluctant to give an abrupt personal call to someone making a power grab for things, letting them know she was watching, and they were volunteering themselves for fertilizer, just like their former rulers.

This was important, because Binder/5 (9) meant taking Extra Spell Known V – Binder, which gave me access to the V Binder spells. Those were rather powerful in the narrow field of dimensional manipulation and Summoning.

They were more spells I could merge with Arcane spells, usually at a lower Valence than Arcane magic could Cast such. One of those spells was Greater Teleport, which was that new Valence V.

Yes, I could now Teleport anywhere on the planet along my Lived-Line, no range restriction. That also meant I could Teleport Items anywhere around the planet, too...

I finished looting these things and turning the sea around me into a pool of whiteness with excited fish shooting through it in giddy glee. Sleipner watched me heap a bunch of Itemized stuff onto my Disk, including about two hundred Cultivator skulls volunteering to be Baneskulls, and fwoosh, gone.

Hundreds of Energized gemstones, literally a couple tons of goldweight of precious salvaged goods, and over four hundred goldweight value of magical items of one sort or another... and I still had plenty to use for myself and Master Fred.

Cultivators, Harvest. It all goes together.

From Binder I’d also received Rapid Ritual, the +1 Meta for Casting overly complicated spells faster. I’d been using Fastcast Spell and overpaying in Valences; this was a cheaper and easier way to get Hallow down to one hour of Casting from all day, for instance. Extra Evolution/4 to increase the Old Steed’s power was also there. Oh, and Binder/5 increased the Summoned Monsters I couldn’t use to III, also.

Inquisitor gave me the use of a custom Bane Weapon for Levels in rounds per day (vastly inferior to an Artificer Infusion) and also innate Detect Lies for the same amount of time. Very inquiring, yes. The General Feat was Eyes of the Mage, which enhanced my visual prowess again, investing more magic into my eyes.

Most importantly, I could now access the V Spells Known of Inquisitor. Chains of Light and Sacred Nimbus went on the stack, with Dispel Evil in the Good Domain Slot. Wisdom bonus Slots Castable, activate!...

Battlemad/5 and Arcane Archer/5 had a unique advance... they gave me +1 each to my MAB and RAB respectively, AND they advanced my Alchemist Level for Bomb damage by +1 each. Grenadier/3 did the same thing, and added another trio of Bomb Feats.

Battlemad finished off the Shaped Spells Mastery with /5, Invisible Spell, a +3 Meta which rendered the spell effects (not the Casting, mind you) invisible. So, Invisible Shards, Fireballs, Walls of Fire... It was definitely something I could have fun with.

It also finished the Fire Metas with /5, a +3 Meta called Radiant Spell, which if it damaged someone blinded them for one round/Spell Level... a potentially lethal Kicker in the middle of a fight. It wasn’t like they were going to make the Save, and it worked perfectly fine on undead, although not on things with Devasight...

Arcane Archer added on Raise Spell/4, Sanctum Spell, which added +1 Caster Level and Spell Potency to a spell when it was Cast inside your Sanctum... which naturally had to be prepared and set up ahead of time, and I didn’t have one. So efficient, these choices for me.

It also finished out Improved Arcane Pool/5, adding Turning uses to the Pool.

To say I had a very large Pool now was no exaggeration at all.

Grenadier added Rapid Bombs, Force Bombs, and Elemental Bombs/2: Lightning Bombs, to the array. Rapid meant there was effectively no limit on how many bombs I could prime a round, while Force and Lightning meant I could now add Kickers of those damage types if I fed them to my Spells. The extra damage of +5d6 was coming in quite useful at times, especially now that I could use Metamagic Song to ignore the metacap for one Meta at a time... namely Bursting Spell, enabling use of these.

Ignoring the Metacap...

Leaning there against Master Fred’s back, half-dozing with the public part of my mind, I opened my eyes.

The Shroud had put Turning uses into the Pool after the Heartsong. Divine Metamagic could also ignore the Metacap. Its major restriction was that the Meta it was tied to, Duskstopping, only allowed you to use it 1/day.

Was that still a restriction? Or had it opened up because of all the different energy types? Even Aelryinth had literally never Cast a Duskstopped Spell without using Divine Metamagic, as it was the only thing he used Turning/Channeling Attempts for. The +6 modifier, which could only be made Efficient with the one Casting a day, wasn’t going away anytime soon, even if he’d used it enough to make it Efficient to III’s...

He could have tried Casting more than one spell, to see if there was a difference, but he had never bothered to, because everybody knew you could only Cast one...

But what if that was not the case?

I flicked out a Shield spell, and cast it on Master Fred... and the cost of six points for the Meta drained from my Pool.

He glanced over at me, raising his half of a left eyebrow.

“Testing something.” I followed it up with a Duskstopped Force Armor.

It drained six more points, but the Duskstopped spell was instantly disrupted as it started to manifest on him.

Still, I HAD Cast the spell on him. It had run into the one per target rule...

I tossed a Blossoming Footsteps with Duskstop on Sleipner, who nickered in delight when sea lilies began popping up beneath us, leaving a trail of blooming seaweed behind us in the ocean.

This was all burning through my Pool very quickly, but given the speed I could recharge it if there was a conflict, I wasn’t too worried about it.

I spent the same amount on a basic illusion of a waterspout whirling up out of the water behind us... and Duskstopping attached seamlessly. The spell that would normally only last a few minutes if I didn’t concentrate on it swirled silently in place like a living thing, and would last until the dusk.

Therein followed a Stinking Cloud, and a second Illusion, this one complete with sound, forming a swirling whirlpool behind us that didn’t really exist. I brought forth an area-anchored Gust of Wind, and tried to attach it, but this time it failed.

Five Duskstopped Spells, one for each form of energy in my Pool. Five spells with their durations basically able to last an entire day, even if it was restricted to one spell per person with the feedback!

Damn, the Shroud definitely knew some tricks. As expected of something full of the slain souls of multiple worlds... and I’d worked it out in the middle of the ocean on my way to an island full of chi-users, of all things!...