Chương 31

They came across another Level 4 Slime, and the two of them dispatched it without much trouble; this one also exploded into four miniature Slimes, but Alex's Swordforce and Beckett's Lightning Spear Skill, a clearing skill in which he stabbed a miniature Slime and sent reams of electricity shooting into a second, made light work of it. A little more experience in the bank.

"Is it just me, or is it getting colder?" said Alex, glancing ahead.

"It feels like there's more icy patches than at the start."

"The ice mana in the air's increasing," Beckett confirmed.

"We're making progress." Alex wondered what that meant for the creatures they'd face. It felt like the Slimes, at least, were nurtured by the ice mana. Beckett seemed to have summoned a fire lance, which he was manipulating mid-air. Alex watched as it grew increasingly tapered. Beckett dismissed it and started over.

"I'm trying to make it a little more lance-like," Beckett explained; he'd seen Alex's gaze.

"As in, you're trying to give it shape?" said Alex.

"Yeah, it feels kind of loose right now, like it's barely holding together." They kept walking, Alex cycling, Beckett trying to temper his lance. After thirty seconds—"Weird," said Beckett finally. He dismissed the lance again. He glanced at Alex.

"It feels like it just wants to resist me? Maybe that's just Fire as an affinity, I feel like it doesn't want to stick together."

"My mana spears work because Pure mana has a hardened form," Alex reminded him—he felt he should probably make the distinction; he was pretty sure Beckett was currently trying to actualize his inspiration from Alex's own spear.

"I'm not sure fire mana has another form," said Beckett.

"A stable one, at least."

"Is there some other mana type that can serve as a vessel for your fire mana?" Alex mused.

"Or at least give it a little structure, temporarily?"

"You mean Pure mana?"

"It doesn't need to be complex—just a simple case for your Fire mana. And it doesn't matter if it shatters quickly, obviously."

"Since it just needs to hold the mana for a little bit, when it's in-flight," said Beckett, clearly understanding.

"I see the vision. That's—that's really interesting." Another pause. Beckett smiled.

"I might try that, actually." The two lapsed back into silence. There were thirty seconds back there, as Beckett was tinkering with his lance, and Alex was observing him, where Alex considered not saying anything. He assumed the guy would likely figure out a solution regardless, and Alex didn't really want to make more of a spectacle of himself than he already had.

But Alex had spoken up, because—he didn't feel he owed the guy for agreeing to the treasure split, but Beckett did seem determined to be a decent teammate. If Alex knew something that might help and kept it to himself— I would've felt at least a little dickish. It wasn't difficult to talk, and walk, and cycle at once, and he felt himself very slowly getting more used to cycling as he went.

He was pretty sure Pure cycling's main function was refreshment and recovery, with its body-supporting properties as a secondary effect; his body still felt 100% fresh despite just finishing another fight. His thinking was, at least for now, he might keep his Pure cycling at a relatively moderate reserve % as a default setting, and sharply increase it when he was trying to heal or recover. After his initial stint of progress with cycling, it'd slowed somewhat.

He kept it up in the background, but he also began thinking about his own mana spears. He threw up a mana spear in front of him, holding it in the air. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Beckett begin to fashion a Pure casing.

"What's up?" said Beckett. Alex hesitated. Then he shrugged— whatever.

"Your lances also gave me a few ideas."

"Wait, really?" Beckett glanced at him.

"Mana Spear should be able to hit a lot harder," said Alex.

"But mine isn't."

"So what are you thinking?"

"I've made my Mana Shields more durable," Alex continued.

"It's a structural change. I'm thinking I might try it with my spears?" He was wondering all the while why he was telling the guy this.

"You want them to literally hit harder," said Beckett with a slight smile.

"Makes sense." Another silence as they focused on their respective tasks. Two Pure casings were forming mid-air. In the next few minutes he saw Beckett throwing up a few Pure cases, which started off looking more like conch shells than lance casings. Beckett was slowly refining them as he iterated, and every case would take between five and ten seconds. They did seem to be getting steadily more lance-like. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"It's way harder making these things than it looks," said Beckett. He was inspecting a somewhat blocky Pure case, which he held between two fingers.

"But I think I'm getting closer."

"I'm having a similar thing," said Alex, feeling perplexed.

"It's much harder to add shatter resistance to spears than to my shield. The mana's resisting me so much more."

"Is that like, a Mana Manipulation thing?"

"Probably," said Alex, after a pause.

"It'd make sense that it's harder to add a support to a raw Mana Manipulation than a Skill Shard. Or at least—it'd take a higher level of Mana Manipulation."

"As in, a higher proficiency level?"

"Right." Beckett nodded pensively.

"Makes sense." Their walking pace seemed to have slowed a bit as they both experimented; another few minutes passed. If it's this difficult to add shatter resistance, it's probably way beyond me to get my mana spear to produce persistent shrapnel. At least at my current skill level. Alex pursed his lips. It felt like he was all out of ideas again. To his right, idly, he saw Beckett filling a pill-like shell of Pure mana with a fire lance, his face stark with concentration. Go, he saw Beckett whisper.

The lance proceeded to shunt a foot forward, and instantly explode. The explosion was also smaller than Beckett's prior fire lances—it seemed the Pure mana shell had soaked up part of the blast." Wow, that's not easy," said Beckett; a bead of sweat went down his brow. He didn't seem at all discouraged—he seemed more curious. He was focused on the area where the explosion had been, like he was replaying it in his mind.

"You'll get there," said Alex absently.

"It might take a few attempts. It took me quite a few tries to get Force and Pure to work together. Well, at least."

"I guess it's time to practice." Beckett wiped away a few beads of sweat and grinned.

"It's like we're reversed. With me it's the structure that's the hard part, but with you it's the actual damage-dealing that's the problem."

"For me, they're the same," Alex corrected.

"That's the issue. It's all structure. And it's fine at that, less so as a damage-dealer."

"I've been wanting to ask, what's up with that?" Alex smiled slightly sardonically.

"If you haven't noticed, I don't have a Fire."

"But you do." Beckett seemed genuinely bewildered.

"What's the mana you put on your sword? Wouldn't that work?"

"That's called Swordforce," said Alex. He was about to say, it's meant to be used with swords— he'd never seen it used outside of that context. He wasn't even sure it was possible. There was a silence. He also considered saying, it's three mana types—Force, Pure, and Swordforce, that's a lot of mana manipulation for a single construct. Which was true. But Alex said, "If this works, I will be a little annoyed."

"Why don't you give it a try? I—" He froze, whirled around. A half-second. Beckett cried out and leaped away; Alex threw up a Mana Shield which gave them a precious fraction of a second. He heard his Mana Shield shattering. In the clearing before them was a Slime about seven feet tall. Alex identified it, jaw set. Ice Slime Level 5 A clean two levels higher than either of them. The Slime went after Beckett first; it might've sensed the fire he was wielding. Beckett threw up three lances.

The first two went wide, but the last lance struck the Slime square on. It hardly seemed to faze the creature. It bounced right after Beckett, and its speed seemed to surprise the guy; Alex threw up another Shield, which gave him the time to get his bearings. Beckett sent another two fire lances slicing into the Slime, and this time it squelched angrily. After the element of surprise was gone, the fight was a lot more straightforward.

The issue with this Slime was, first, it was tankier—meaning it required a lot more slashes to finish. And second, its freezing capacities seemed to increase proportional to its size, meaning you could only slash or stab it so much before you had to retreat and clear the freeze off your sword or spear. Which meant the two of them were forced to bring it down with magical means. The first half of the fight, Beckett threw his typical fire lances.

The second half was a little different; the fire lances lost almost all efficacy, instantly. Because Beckett started throwing them cased in Pure mana. The first few exchanges—Alex wouldn't go as far as to say Beckett could've died, but he definitely could've been very badly injured. The Slime's bounces missed by feet, and the guy was nicked a few times with that freezing ice mana effect.

Alex might've stepped in, but something stopped him; Beckett seemed incredibly focused on the Slime, and he was grinning white teeth, like he was having the time of his life. His fire lances were getting better, lance by lance, gaining shape and speed and accuracy. They weren't yet at the level of his previous lance, but Alex could see the progress with the naked eye. Something about the pressure really seemed to make a difference.

"Alex!" cried Beckett, giving him a wave. He made a join me gesture. All Alex could think was, first— this guy really does have psychopathic tendencies, Christ. But fake Mana Spears appeared in the air behind Alex, and their tips lit up with Swordforce. To Alex's disappointment it wasn't all that hard. It was somewhat harder applying another layer of Force to the Mana Spear, and shunting it forward; his two Spears struck the Slime at strange angles, with less thrust than he would've liked.

Luckily, an Ice Slime presented a very large surface area, and he saw the Swordforce-gashes carving down the Slime's side, leaving bright, Swordforce-colored lines behind. Still relatively surface level compared to the thrust he'd intended. Finally the Slime gave him its attention, but he didn't at all mind.

Two minutes later Beckett was wincing, and Alex was pondering.

"I can't believe I was offering you my armor," said Beckett, clutching the frozen-up muscles on his left side.

"How is it you have no armor, but I keep getting wounded?"

"You need a defensive Skill," said Alex, amused.

"Or," said Beckett, eyes gleaming.

"I need to get faster."

"If you're going to try lightning cycling," said Alex.

"At least wait until you're healed first."

"Okay, fine," said Beckett. He paused; his smile froze and he glanced sideways at Alex.

"You actually joined me."

"What else was I supposed to do?"

"You could've kept slashing it and like—playing defensively, like you were doing." Alex shrugged.

"I saw you getting better, and realized I was missing out."

"You're saying you had FOMO." Beckett seemed amused.

"Yeah."

"You're an interesting guy, Alex." They kept trudging forward in silence.

"Are we going to, like—" Beckett seemed uncomfortable.

"I don't want to make you, um—""Yeah, I'm also an Outworlder." A silence. After that display of multitasking, Alex figured it was impossible to avoid.

"Should we talk about it?"

"If you want."

"I can't believe I told you I was an Outworlder, and you knew, and you still weren't going to tell me." Beckett turned to him, incredulous." Dude."

"What?"

"You—you are one unique individual."

"If you call me 'interesting' or 'unique' one more time, I'll start to think it's an insult," said Alex, with a slight smile. Beckett grinned.

"I like you." Alex grabbed him by the arm; Beckett seemed momentarily confused, until Alex said, "Up there." Ahead, there was a clearing. In this clearing, between trees, Alex could see what seemed to be three Ice Slimes.

"Kill your mana," said Alex. They walked a little closer, weapons forward, and Alex froze. There, sidled against a tree at the back of the clearing and half-buried in snow, was a chest.