âStatus,â Caleb said as he sat in the comfortably hot barrel of water.
Caleb Kavilson
Class: Dragon Rider
Level: 3
Human
Abilities
Strength: 15 (8 + 7)
Agility: 8
Constitution: 8
Perception: 18
Willpower: 18
Acuity: 18
Resources
Stamina: 90/95
Stamina Regen: 0.91 per min
Mana: 211/230.1
Mana Regen: 2.55 per min
Ambient Mana: Average
Active Skills
Mana Manipulation: 19 - Bloodline
Power Attack: 1 - Class
Dragon Bond: 6 - Class
Imperium Metallorum: 10 - Affinity (Metal)
Imperium Ventorum: 10 - Affinity (Wind)
Passive Skills
Magical Perception: 6 - Bloodline
Dragon Bond: 6 - Class
Traits
Caeli Soul: Bloodline
Wind Affinity: Major - Bloodline
Metal Affinity: Major - Class
Equipment
Dissonant Steel Spear
Smithing Hammer
Cold Steel Barbute of Strength
Caleb was surprised to seeânaked as he was in the barrel of warm waterâthat his equipment remained on his status. Before his initialization into the system, as soon as his hammer left his hand, so too did his ability to draw on his strength.
He quested out with his metal perception and found his equipment nearby.
The mana in the items made them stand out more to his magical senses. While he couldnât tell they contained mana without touching them, they had the mental weight of larger objects. Everything in his ranged metal sense was still a featureless sphere, but the spheres for the helm, hammer, and spear were larger than the metal alone that made them.
As he examined them, Caleb sensed something from the objects that had nothing to do with his Metal Affinity. He blocked the metal perception out, and focused with his Magical Perception, homing in on the flicker he felt as if he were catching whiffs of a scent on a breeze and closing in on it until suddenlyâ
Magical Perception has increased to level 7.
The flicker came into focus, and Caleb saw a faint line of essence linking himself to the items. He looked around the room and saw a much more visible line connected himself to Bog.
Bog looked at him, inquisitive, sending his sense of boredom and hunger through the bond. The tether of essence between them flared momentarily at the communication.
âSoon,â he told Bog.
He tested his strength, squeezing the wood of the barrel with his bare hand, stopping only when his great strength threatened to break something in his hand before the wood would give. No change occurred to the connections to the gear as he did this.
âI need to find the constitution enchantment,â he vowed.
High strength without the constitution to support it was a recipe for broken bones. Caleb was glad his Metal Affinity-empowered hammer blows were not so affected. He did wonder what the stat increase cap from gear would be. He had 7 points at the moment and he feared the next item he made might grant nothing. Of the long list of worries heâd had about gaining a class, having too much enchanted gear hadnât been one of them.
Bog grew more and more impatient to go out into the caves as Caleb cleaned up. Heâd washed his clothes first, and they were drying by the fire of the woodstove, so Caleb was ignoring the dragon while he waited for them to dry.
Bog began to whine by the door.
âI need dry cloths,â Caleb said.
Bog looked at the stove, and the fire raged white now as he used his Wind Affinity to stoke the flames.
âToo hot!â Caleb shouted, using his own telekinetic control to try to stop the wind.
The warring efforts spiralled, and a chaotic surge of wind filled the small room.
âStop! Iâll do it, Iâll do it!â Caleb shouted to Bog, giving in.
He was pretty hungry himself, after all, and really should have gotten moving a while ago. But he wasnât as hungry as he ought to have beenâlikely due to the system. His brother ate ravenously after his initialization, though he could go longer without meals if need be. It was a bit of a paradox. The systemâs bodily enhancements required food, but the bodyâs new state allowed it to persist better when food was lacking. Caleb, having put no points into his physical stats, didnât need the extra food to catch up to them.
Bog relented, and Caleb used his Imperium Ventorum to send a wind over the clothes, directing the hot air from the stove over the wet garments. As he did, he sensed the properties of the air changing as the water of his clothes evaporated into it.
Unlike the air that corrupted his steel as an alien entity, the water registered as air to his perception and he could detect it as well as anything else picked up by his wind sense. He mentally noted the feel of the water, putting a name to at least one of the components of air. He knew others must know the names of the rest, and he vowed to learn them someday if only to better put words to his ideas.
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He kept it up until he no longer sensed water leaving his clothes, and then reluctantly got out of the improvised tub. The cavern was warm from the constant fires, but still he hurried to dry off and get dressed.
Bog waited at the door whining anxiously as Caleb put all his winter-weather gear back on. The thick fur-lined hides were good protection for anything short of a blade thrust.
Once dressed, he summoned a small sack of nails heâd discovered, drawing it to him through the air with his magic. Then he donned his helmet, belted his hammer and knife, and picked up his spear. The haft was shorter than heâd prefer, only a meter and a half long, making the total length just shy of two meters and equal to his height. It would be a terrible weapon against the bats, but should another cloaker appear, heâd appreciate the reach.
The caverns were getting narrower, from what heâd seen, and so long as the spear wasnât taller than he was, heâd always be able to lower it for a thrustânot that he planned on going down any tunnels he couldnât fight in properly.
Once Bog saw that Caleb was ready, he pushed out the door and out into the tunnels. Caleb ran to catch up. The cavern immediately outside their camp was dark, but he could still make out the general shape of the place well enough to get to the large chamber lit by the magical ore brought in by the ice.
To Caleb and Bogâs disappointment, the amount of ore present in the ice had been deceptively low. Once the barrel had melted, Caleb had used his magic to draw the ore to the surface, only to find less than a thimbleful of powder. Worse yet, once free of the ice, the ore ceased its glow. To his senses, each grain felt like a thumb-sized chunk of iron, which boded well for the oreâs magical potential, but they would need to harvest a lot of ice to get enough to be of any use, and Caleb thought that wouldnât be the best use of their time here. He had to find a way out that ideally wasnât guarded by a dragon.
Caleb went on guard once they were back in the large cavern home of the ice falls. Both he and Bog waited, turning their attention to their Wind Affinities to see if any monsters flew about above. While it wasnât foolproof, the wind patterns Caleb could sense seemed to be what he expected.
As they walked, he noticed things heâd completely missed on his last tripâeven by lamplightâthanks to his heightened perception. He wasnât the only person to have taken some of the ice. He passed the damaged ice flows heâd used to get water for himself, and then reached undamaged ones. Beyond those, he found evidence that the flows had been harvested. Chunks of ice had been left on the floor around them, devoid of glowing ore. On closer inspection, the ice showed signs of having been worked by tools.
âSomeone else has been in these caves,â Caleb said to Bog. After all, they were staying in a mining camp that someone had set up.
The camp had seemed abandoned, but now that Caleb thought about it more, it couldnât have been abandoned for too long. The bats that had been present when they found it hadnât had time to completely cover the place in their guanoânot that there had been no guano for him to sweep up or for Bog to eat.
âMaybe the Frigidi come here for this glowing ice?â Caleb suggested.
Bog gave him his âWhat are you talking about?â look, and Caleb explained.
âThe ice people. They live on the glacier. Occasionally they raid the mountain villages, but for the most part they stay apart from us. They donât use metal weapons, though. Somehow they craft weapons and armor from ice thatâs as durable as steel.â
Bog lost interest halfway through the short explanation, and started chewing on a chisel he found near the ice.
Caleb quested out with his perception, looking for signs of metal. He couldnât yet make out the details of metal within his sphere, but worked metal and ore were easier to differentiate. He noticed a few other tools around, all for mining and picking ice, but no signs of metal weaponry. With his eyes, he saw signs of mining into the walls much like Bog had in search of the rare ore theyâd discovered. While the part they had camped in had been a worked mine, this whole place was a natural cavern. The more he saw, the more he was sureâor at least hopefulâthat digging his way out the other way would lead him to an entrance.
His subconscious alerted him to a disruption of the wind, just as it had prior to his initialization. He focused on his affinity sense and found a disruption in the air coming toward them. Bog sensed Calebâs elevated alertness through the bond before his own senses picked up on it.
âBat!â Caleb said, moving closer to the wall.
The giant bats, sensing his movement, altered their course. They swung around so they could strafe him, ready to bite and claw at him as they flew by.
Caleb threw his spear down, and pulled out a handful of nails.
He waited, sensing their approach until his eyes could make out the swarm of hundreds. He began to spin the wind around him as heâd learned in the forge, not trying to separate it, only to give it speed. Without the added mental effort of the delicate smithing work, the wind rapidly started to spin outward.
Bog let out a low growl, barely audible over the torrent of flapping wings and gale of Calebâs attack.
Just before the bats reached his wind, he pushed the range out, engulfing them in the vortex. Hit by the unexpected gust, the batsâ wings caught the wind like sails and they were thrown to the side. The wind tried to pull them around him in a circle, but just as Caleb had planned, their momentum threw them out of the spiral and right into the stone wall. Dozens of bats were thrown into the stone face with sickening cracks of breaking bone before the remainder noticed the unnatural breeze and course corrected, flying up to dive at Caleb from above where the wind was still.
Expecting this, Caleb threw his nail-holding hand in the air to intercept the bats, pushing out with his telekinesis to propel the nails in a wide, deadly spray. The effort of the push caused the vortex to drop, and the dead bats crashed into Caleb, sending him to the ground. His padded clothing and helmet made the impacts harmless, but he quickly rolled sideways lest he get set upon by the remaining bats. As heâd fallen, those heâd not killed had overshot him and were now making another round. Bog busied himself by tearing into the bats on the ground that hadnât yet died, and his wide salamander-like head was covered in blood.
Calebâs helmetâlacking a strap or proper paddingâtwisted on his head in all the movement, and without even thinking, he corrected it using his Imperium. His helmet muffled the sound of the battle, but did nothing to block out the high-pitched shrieks of the batsâboth those on the attack and those screeching in pain.
By the time Caleb got back on his feet, the remaining bats were upon him again. He drew on his wind magic and pulled a great gust of air up, sending the bats just over his head, his helmet deflecting a few claws and saving his scalp. Bog spat a glowing glob of metal at the passing swarm and the metal attached itself to a wing, sending its owner careening down in a tailspin into the darkness of the chasm.
The bats came back for the next round, and Caleb met them with another handful of nails. Only a few remained after that assault, and the dumb creatures finally got the hint, not returning for another attack.
As soon as he was sure their escape wasnât a trick, he used his magic to pull his spear toward him, catching the haft before it passed, and joined Bog in dispatching the fallen. He felt energized from the battle, in a way that adrenaline alone couldnât account for. He turned inward with his perception and found his body brimming with essence from his kills, but as he watched, the energy was depleted, absorbed into himself in a way he couldnât detect. Suddenly, all the remaining energy vanished and he received a notification.
New Skill Created: Vortex Level 1
Caleb called up his status to see the spellâs full description.
â¦
Active Skills
Vortex: 1 - Affinity (Wind)
Vortex: Call upon the power of the wind to protect you and disrupt your enemies. Create a vortex of air around you. The size and speed of the vortex increase with your willpower and your levels in this skill and its governing affinity.
â¦
Bog stopped his bat murdering to look at Caleb, as heâd gone perfectly still.
He couldnât believe it. Heâd created a skill.
âI didnât know this could happen,â he said, mostly to himself. âMy mana sight evolved, but Iâd heard of that⦠The system granted skills, people didnât make them⦠right?â
Bog was of no help and began eating bats now that theyâd all been dispatched.
âBut someone had to have created the skills⦠The First Emperor created the whole system, after all.â
Caleb struggled to wrap his mind around the fact that heâd just created a skillâwith the systemâs helpâand comparing the feat to the creation of the system thousands of years back solved nothing.
âVortex,â he said, willing the skill to activate.
The wind around him burst into motion, throwing dead bats in all directions, many flying over the edge into the depths. Calebâs mana dropped rapidly, and a quick check showed he was using about 4 per second. He reeled the spell back in, lowering its effect, and with it his mana loss. The wind also slowed, coming closer until it spun around him in a lazy spiral and his mana stopped depleting. The skill was still active, though it drew mana at a slower rate than he could absorb it.
He experimented, lifting a nail from the ground with his Metal Affinity and sending it out into the darkness as hard as he could. He relinquished the skill and tried again, but found the effort wasnât any easier when he stopped and restarted it. He continued the test with the skill active at varying levels of power, but no matter what he did, the skill didnât hinder his ability to use his affinity. It was as if the system had automated, and codified, the trick heâd devised with his Imperium Ventorum.
âWhy didnât this happen in the forge?â he asked Bog, who again, didnât care.
The little dragon was upset that Caleb had thrown away a good portion of their hard-fought kill.
The sight of the dead bats answered the question for Caleb. Heâd felt the energy leave him as the skill had formed.
âWas it because I killed something with it? It must be. I donât know how crafting classes get the essence to progress, but combat classes gain levels through combat.â
Bog, of course, had no insights to share.
Caleb collected all the nails within his range of perception and began loading up a sack with the bat creatures. They didnât taste especially wonderful, but they were better than the cloaker. Once the sack was full and lashed to Bogâs back, they went back up to their room, where Caleb made a sad excuse for a meal while waiting for his mana to recharge.
âDo you think you can dig out that tunnel?â Caleb asked Bog, pointing out of the other door and sending the intent behind his question through their bond. It wasnât as efficient as telepathy or words, but with a gesture and a thought, he was able to get the dragon to understand.
Bog trotted over to the crude barricade and began digging. After Caleb was done resting, he checked on the dragon to find heâd disappeared into a narrow hole.
âWhatever kind of dragon you are, you definitely belong underground. Maybe thatâs why you donât have wings.â
Bogâs head poked out of the darkness at that, and he cocked his head, sending a question.
âWings?â Caleb repeated, sending thoughts of the mother frost dragon aloft from when they first met and Caleb was snatched away.
Bog furrowed his brow, as if thinking deeply about something, but whatever it was, he sent nothing to Caleb through their bond. Then he grew bored, and went to chew on the melted pot.