Chapter 222: Sundering for Science

Chapter 222: Sundering for Science

It was peaceful at the top of the tower. Milo had eaten and rested, and now his mana was back to nearly full. Casting spells from scratch took much more mana than normal spells; the ancient runes, in particular, seemed to pull deep on his resources. The trade-off was versatility and raw power. Other downsides were the increased to build the array before casting and the possibility of blowing himself up if he made a mistake.

Milo knew why he liked this new magic system so much. It challenged him, and he needed challenges. He and the rest of his family had been created that way. They needed to be working and challenging themselves. He remembered the competition between his family to be the first to sneak past the security guarding a corporation's secrets and finances. The first person in would only leave a mark to let the others know they had gotten there first. They didn't spoil the fun by stealing; that was done by the last person to get there. If someone did trip the security, a mad rush to pillage would ensue as everyone downloaded information, moved money to new banks, and created a maze of transactions to cover their paths. He looked back on those times and realized he'd been happy.

He hadn't been happy when he was alone. It had been terrifying for him initially, abandoned and cut off from his family and the technology they had used. The need to create a hidden home for himself had kept him busy, and then the need to scavenge and improve it. Learning the thousands of tunnels and tubes that ran through the habitat had been a challenge he gladly took on. He explored and found what he needed and then created the tools and methods to take it back to Section E and his secret area.

As he overcame the challenges of food and safety, he looked for more challenges. For years it had been keeping Section E running that kept Milo busy. He'd had a lack of tools, a lack of raw materials, and no spare parts, but those problems just added to the fun of keeping everything running.

So while he knew about other ways of casting spells, he was intrigued by this difficult and dangerous method that Keppler had shown him. He wondered if any other players were experimenting with it.

The first spells that a player could normally learn were very simple and governed by the system. No matter what mage guild you learned Bolt of Flame from, it always had the same range and damage. A player had to simply point with his finger or wand, shout "Bolt of Flame," and watch as the fire leaped from his fingers and singed his opponent in exchange for consuming some of his mana. The system did all the work; the player just had to point, aim, and shout.

With higher levels came options to improve the spells: longer range, less mana used, and added special effects. But the system was still doing the heavy lifting. Arlothe and Cremona had talked with him about the runes used by the system. A skilled practitioner of Rune Carving could use them to enhance mundane items with magical effects or create tools used in spellcasting, such as staves and wands.

Releasing the formation resulted in an explosion of dust, noise, and flying shards of rock as the rune drilled into the wall of the pit and forced sent the excavated materials flying to the sides. Most of the rock was pulverized or compressed into the sides of the rough tunnel, but some of it was sent flying. Milo was knocked off his feet as dust and rock shards flew by, several hitting him for minor damage. Coughing and wiping the dust from himself, he looked at the result. He'd stood twenty feet away from the rock wall, anticipating some blowback. The resulting tunnel was thirty feet deep.

It wasn't a tunnel he would trust, but it was a great application of magic if you needed to uncover a bit of hidden ore or form an escape route. He spotted a small nugget of Silverite ore in the debris the size of a raisin as if proving the point of how to use the formation. Curious, he stepped to the edge of the opening and cast the formation again, rolling to the side as soon as he triggered the spell. More dirt, dust, and shards of rock blew from the tunnel. Examining the result, he saw that the first tunnel was a mess of fallen rock and debris from the second blast. The tunnel was now a full fifty feet in length. Searching through the rubble, he found two more small nuggets.

Satisfied with how this formation worked, he moved down to the harder, Tier 2 stone. Standing twenty feet away, he used the same formation and the same amount of mana, getting a far smaller result. It wasn't the range; it was the power. The spell could sunder and excavate roughly twelve feet into the rock wall. He used the formation twice more at thirty feet and ten feet from the wall, getting the same depth each time. Going back to the Tier 1 stone, he tested twice more. The maximum he could create a rough tunnel was fifty feet if he unleashed the spell at point blank. He'd known that was going to hurt and was dodging almost instantly. He was still sent tumbling backward, picking up a nice assortment of scrapes and bruises. Some sacrifices had to be made when doing research.

His last test was down on the flat area of Tier 4 Duramgneiss. He used the roof of a house on the edge of the pit to give him some range. He unleashed his formation From thirty feet away and got mediocre results. The rock in a six-foot diameter circle was broken up and moved to the sides of a shallow hole. Leaping down, he pulled the loose rock and gravel from the hole to measure it. As he suspected, it was just over three feet deep.

The Tier of the material mattered. The spell that could tunnel 50 feet into soft Tier 1 materials only went 12.5 feet into Tier 2 and 3.125 feet into Tier 4. The distance was reduced by a factor equal to the square of the Tier of the material.

Next up was testing the formation with twice as much mana infused into it. The results were as he expected: Twice the mana gave him twice the result, tunneling a little over six feet into the hard stone. He tried one more time using a thousand mana. Holding the formation together at that point was hard, and he released it quickly. Rock and debris blew from the hole, not as broken as before. The depth reached roughly twelve feet once he cleared the debris and measured the result.

And he had a surprise. Nestled at the bottom of the blast was a fist-sized chunk of Duram Argenti, still partly surrounded by Duramgneiss. Taking his Crystaline pick, he started working to free it. The stone around the ore slowly gave way while a glancing hit from his pick slid off without marring the shiny chunk of ore. After ten minutes of work, it came free. It glowed slightly to his vision, like an enchanted object. As he held it in his hand, the glow intensified. Milo felt dizzy as if he had expended all of his mana. Throwing the chunk of ore out of the hole, he collapsed against the side of the pit and rested for an hour while eating a half pound of cheese and imbibing a mana potion. The ore had drained him completely.

Whatever that was used for, it loved magic. More investigation needed to be made.