Chapter 71: A nice way to finish off the weekend

Chapter 71: A nice way to finish off the weekend

Ain’t no place like home.

It was an old quote, but it held weirdly true even when said home was a set of shipping containers, rock floor and sheet metal roof over said rock in the middle of nowhere, something Isaac really should change at some point in the near future.

The moment he entered his storage space’s range, all the various bags he’d been carrying vanished off into the ether, making him feel oddly light even though with his level of strength, all that stuff might as well weigh nothing.

He held out his right hand, now fully regrown, back of his hand facing towards the ground, and then the massive, off-white titanium Zweihänder manifested within. It really was a beautiful weapon, masterful craftsmanship, though he’d rarely used it until now.

Now though, it would be with him, always. Old Reliable manifested in his left hand in its Kabar form and touched the tip of it to the blade of the Zweihänder. The larger weapon seemed to waver for a moment, warping and twisting as it was compressed into a single point maybe a millimeter across, which was subsequently absorbed into the smaller weapon.

All it took was a mere thought, and the comparatively tiny weapon shifted into the gigantic two handed sword, which then ignited.

Isaac went through a few different sword forms, leaving fiery trails in the air as the blade flowed from one stance into the next.

The fire winked out as though it had never been there in the first place as Isaac deactivated [Starfang].

Isaac proceeded to use a few moves with every form his weapon had, as well as the variations based on his Aspects, and having multiple weapons out to see what went well together.

As expected, using a second weapon while using the Zweihänder didn’t work out too well. He was strong enough to swing that thing around as though it were a cheerleader’s baton, but his increased stats didn’t make him any heavier.

Between the weapon’s weight and length, casually flinging it around could also throw him off balance. When it was the only weapon he held, that was perfectly manageable. Using it alongside something else was a recipe to end up tripping over his own feet.

With that little bit of practice out of the way, it was time to go ahead and get those Aspects.

The first one was a basic illusion and sensory dampening Aspect which would allow him to mess with his foes in new way, royally screw over anyone trying to use the same tactics to beat him as Krebs had and fulfill his part of the bargain he’d made with that one Las Vegas casino owner. Namely, giving him a way to prevent just anyone with a high Perception to completely and utterly rip him off.

This would in turn help him build his reputation as not only an expert on the [System], but also as someone who did as he promised.

The fact that he was also planning on using the Aspects also gave him a convenient fig leaf as to how he’d stumbled across it.

The idea of a using illusions should have probably occurred to him before now. He could move so damn quickly that any small mistakes opened up massive opportunities for him, which he could then ruthlesslyexploit. Really, it was such an obvious fit for his fighting style and his Aspect slots were still relatively cheap, the fact that he’d only thought of it now was worthy of one hell of a facepalm.

The crack of his palm meeting his forehead was loud enough to startle nearby birds into taking panicked flight, making him chuckle softly. It was one thing to feel himself grow stronger, faster, tougher and overall more capable in a fight. It was an entirely different thing to have reached the point where such a normal motion had such an outsized effect.

Anyway, it was time to get back to the matter at hand. Summoning.

Summoning List (Light)

Name

Material Cost

Mana Cost

Discoball of Doom

Tier 1 Circle, Mirror Shard, Lightbulb

10

Hardlight Gremlin

Tier 2 Circle, Mud, Flashlight, Powdered Glass, Mirror Shard

50

Lesser Illusionist

Tier 3 Circle, Mirror Shard, Lens, 5 different colored Lightbulbs

100

That being said, he was trying to regenerate some mana, so he cut that out as soon as all the beams were in place. Nailing the boards into the beams from above was perfectly possible regular old nails and the hilt of his knife as a hammer. His mana hit full when he was around a quarter of the way done with the new flooring, so he hopped out of the pocket dimension, obliterated several more Lesser Illusionist, and then went right back to building his new apartment. No Aspect, sadly.

Now that he was done with the supporting structure and could focus just on nailing down the boards atop them, he nearly finished the entire thing by the time his mana refilled yet again.

Head out, slaughter monsters, get basically no XP and literally no Aspects, go back to crafting, rinse and repeat.

By the time he finally held a gently glowing orb in his hand, he’d created some stairs, had said stairs collapse under him the first time he walked up to, gotten help from google to create a second, better, version that had nonetheless also gone the way of the dodo, finally managed to create a workable set, put in some windows, made use of the Extradimensional Room’s ability to absorb basic utility devices and incorporate them ... all in all, it had taken for-e-ver to get this thing, but now, finally, there it was.

Aspect of the Lesser Illusionist:

This is the distilled essence of what makes a Lesser Illusionist a Lesser Illusionist. Mess with your enemies’ senses, create false images to trick them, or simply create holograms for less bloodthirsty occasions.

Requirements for Activation:

1,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+5 Perception

One of the following Skills:

Lesser Perception Block

Basic Illusion

Mobile Illusion

He grabbed the [Basic Illusion] [Skill]. [Mobile Illusion] wasn’t bad per se, allowing for the creation of truly incredible, variable illusions that could display anything its user wanted it to, but it also required an incredible amount of focus to use, the kind that was hard to spare in the middle of a life or death fight.

Basic Illusion (rare)

When first using this Skill, the user must choose a single subject to create an illusion of (specific person, object, creature, etc.). From that point onwards, the user may create an illusionary version of this at will (the illusion will update to match the chosen subject).

Cost: 15 mana per activation, 1 mana per second of upkeep

While the [Skill’s] description wasn’t the clearest before you’d actually used it, the situation was actually rather simple. You picked something you wanted to create an illusion of, and then you could create that thing in any position or pose you cared for. It would also update, so if he chose himself as the subject of the illusion, it wouldn’t be stuck with the clothes he had on the first time he used it.

Of course, he did pick himself. An illusionary double would be exposed as a fake after mere moments, but those moments would be enough for him to bury his blades in some vital body part.

... now he just had to get an Aspect to upgrade it. Isaac hung his head as he walked over to the Tier 5 circle. This was going to take forever, and he absolutely hated fighting illusion users.

The Fata Morgana appeared in the middle of his summoning area and the world warped. For the barest of instants, a glassy orb that shone with an inner rainbow light had hung there and then, it was gone.

Fata Morgana’s were incredibly lacking in the offense department, especially so for a Tier 5 monster, making it pretty weak in a fight, but that wasn’t what made them such a pain in the ass. Right now, he knew it was somewhere around here, even if it had cloaked itself damn near perfectly. If one of these stupid little blighters got out into the wild and started to summon more of its kind, how the ever loving fuck could you ever know there wasn’t one sitting by the side of the road, one which was incidentally hiding the sinkhole you were about to drive into?

A [Sweeping Strike] swished right through where the core had been mere moments ago, but it had moved, the air rippling as if caught in a heat haze.

He chased after it, nearly tripping over a rock telekinetically hurled at him, but he saw it at the last possible second and jumped over it, chasing after the damn thing. This continued on for two more minutes, as it lashed out with water whips and rocks, him dodging or tanking each and every one, putting enough pressure on it that it couldn’t outright disappear, but accurately targeting the damn thing was still incredibly difficult.

Eventually though, it fell apart as he managed to catch the edge of hit with the tip of his Zweihänder.

... of course, no Aspect, meaning he’d have to do this again. And again. And a-fucking-gain.

Killing these things weren’t so much a fight as a struggle to not lose his freaking mind as he chased a motherfucking invisible orb of speedy glass all over the place, unable to stop for even a few seconds for risk of it escaping out into the wild.

Twelve hours later, Isaac was in a truly foul mood. He was heading back towards the university for work and he hadn’t gotten a single godsdamned Aspect for all those long hours of work. Killing monsters at your own Level gave you a very small chance of actually getting an Aspect, so if he’d really wanted to get one, he should have done this before the emergency Level up during the Event. But he hadn’t, so ... c’est la vie.

Going for Tier 6 was an option, in theory, but those things all had auras of their own and trying to fight them without having one himself was incredibly dangerous. And getting access to his own aura would require levelling up one more time and evolving his [Class] ... except he wanted to get the Aspects before then. In other words, he’d have to tough it out. Grumbling inwardly, he marched onwards. This would take way too fucking long.