Chương 36

Alex's suspicion was the Gelid was a glass cannon. But it was still Level 5, and while he was sure he'd put enough into his Spears to very badly cripple it, as he watched its badly cracked body vanish, he wasn't certain it was finished. That was, until the silence was broken by a distant, gentle CRSHH! a few seconds later, the distinctive sound of a frozen object shattering into many, many pieces." Fuck," said Beckett again, breathless. Alex felt the same way.

If he wasn't so iced up, Alex was certain his body would've collapsed. As it was he tilted backward; Alex was forced to tilt him upright.

"Thanks," gasped Beckett. He tapped a steel ring with a red gemstone on it. An instant later, a flask sloshing with bright-red liquid appeared, which Beckett tried to catch, except his fingers couldn't seem to form a proper grip; the flask slipped right out. Alex caught it for him. With amusement—"You won't need me to waterfall this for you, will you?"

"Give me like, 30 seconds, I'll be okay," said Beckett, coloring a little.

"But thanks." Alex let the guy recover, set him down, and Beckett started cycling Pure. The ice started to clear a little. At which point the emergency crystal in his right hand brightened. Beckett looked crestfallen for a split-second, while Alex was perplexed.

"I didn't—""This is Clarissa St. Clair speaking," said a clear voice.

"I've finished one of my examinations, Alice's up next. You have about an hour left."

"I see," said Alex. A pause.

"I didn't call you by accident, did I?"

"I saw Beckett's fire lance," she said.

"You two are farther along in the rift than I was expecting, so I'm checking in. You two are okay, aren't you?"

"We're doing great," said Beckett. The guy was currently trying to close his fingers around his flask; he'd almost regained enough finger strength to lift it.

"Oh." A pause.

"Well—that's good. If it ever looks like you're in any trouble, and I mean any, use the crystal. I'll be there in less than thirty seconds."

"You can get here that fast?" said Alex, surprised.

"Yes, I can."

"You really don't need to worry about us," said Beckett, as the flask almost slipped out of his fingers.

"We're excellent, really."

"Okay. See you soon." A pause.

"And again, be careful. If it seems like things could turn dangerous—""If we feel like we can't handle anything, we'll call you," said Beckett sincerely.

"I swear." The crystal dimmed. Alex gave him a look.

"I'm telling the truth," said Beckett, grinning.

"I said, ' if we feel like we can't handle anything,' right?""'We're excellent'?" said Alex.

"I wasn't even—I am," said Beckett.

"Aren't you?" The guy started downing the Health potion.

"Can you feel your legs right now?" said Alex, lips quirked.

"That's like, a temporary thing," said Beckett, flushing a little.

"I feel incredible."

"I—Okay." A pause.

"You can't tell me you don't feel it," said Beckett, glancing at him.

"I wasn't slashed up two dozen times, was I?"

"But I'm fine, right?" Beckett grinned.

"You're so hung up on this! I'll be healed in half an hour."

"I'm glad you're okay," said Alex wryly.

"It's just, you almost died, and you're like this."

"I didn't almost die," said Beckett, looking at Alex strangely.

"What about the first time you cycled lightning, as the Warg was pouncing at you?" Alex pointed out, a bit incredulous.

"If you didn't break through—""I was always going to break through there," said Beckett; he seemed amused, like it wasn't even a question.

"Besides, you would've shielded me."

"I can't understand the way you fight, at all," said Alex, after a second.

"If I tried to fight like that, I'd last like thirty seconds."

"I'd try to fight like you, but you're so weird," laughed Beckett. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Wait, what?"

"I don't know how it's like from the inside," Beckett continued.

"But from the outside it's like at some point in the fight, you just decide to stop making mistakes? And it's just, like, over?"

"Is that how it looks?" said Alex, after a few surprised seconds.

"At times?" Alex was certain he was fully capable of making mistakes at any point, but before he could say as much, Beckett continued, "Give me a sec. Let me cycle and check my notifications for a bit." Alex decided to do the same. He cycled Pure to clear the last of the ice in his body, and visualized his soulspace, and then his Class Card. Skill evolved! Mana Shield [Common] (2/3 -> 3/3) Constructs a circular shield out of Pure-affinity mana at the user's desired location.

This Skill has achieved basic proficiency (1), including a slight degree of shatter resistance (1). This Skill has achieved multi-shield up to two shields (1). There's the multi-shield support. He'd expected that. The second notification, which he hadn't expected but had guessed, explained why his Mana Shield felt clearly more durable mid-fight, suddenly capable of taking three of the Ice Warg's strikes in a row. Skill evolved! Skill upgraded!

Mana Shield [Common] (3/3) Constructs a circular shield out of Pure-affinity mana at the user's desired location. This Skill has achieved basic proficiency (1), including a slight degree of shatter resistance (1). This Skill has achieved multi-shield up to two shields (1). -> Mana Shield [Uncommon] (1/3) Constructs a circular shield out of Pure-affinity mana at the user's desired location. This Skill has achieved basic proficiency (2), including a slight degree of shatter resistance (1).

This Skill has achieved multi-shield up to two shields (1). The only difference was the number besides basic proficiency had increased by one—which seemed sufficient for his Mana Shield to break through its rarity grade for his second Uncommon rarity Skill. It felt a little unusual because he hadn't even been intentionally practicing the Skill's proficiency, or thinking about it, even. But apparently using the Skill over and over was sufficient to evolve it.

"Care to share?" said Alex idly.

"The Mana Manipulation rarity grade increase's the big one," said Beckett, eyes refocusing.

"And the Class Level, but that was against the Slime earlier. I think I'm close to another Mana Manipulation increase, for Fire, or maybe for lightning cycling, but it's not there just yet." He paused.

"I was sure I'd unlock a lightning support there…"

"Magic's hard," was all Alex had to contribute. You might be able to make progress in an hour, but it seemed relatively rare you'd get a new Skill level that fast.

"I guess I'm just used to quicker breakthroughs," said Beckett, grinning.

"I'm greedy."

"Yeah," said Alex.

"Trust me, I get the feeling."

"How about you?"

"Two Mana Shield upgrades, and a Level." The final notifications he had were— Level up! Class 'Base Mage' has reached Level 4 Stats updated! +9. 0 per level. User distribution— 12% / 16% / 21% / 11% / 17% / 14% / 9% Strength — 10. 4 (+1. 1) Dexterity — 11. 9 (+1. 4) Wisdom — 14. 8 (+1. 9) Constitution — 9. 6 (+1. 0) Intelligence — 12. 3 (+1. 5) Perception — 11. 8 (+1. 3) Endurance — 9. 3 (+0. 8)"Nice," said Beckett. Alex pursed his lips.

"What's up?"

"I'm out of essence," said Alex.

"Use the essence stone we found, top yourself up," said Beckett.

"It's fine. You can pay me back after, if you really want to." Which was how the next fifteen minutes or so passed. Alex, taking in essence from an essence stone and cycling Pure a little. Beckett, clearing his body of ice mana, but also his own lightning mana. Beckett glanced at him.

"When did you run out of essence?"

"Probably like halfway through the fight?"

"Wait, then your experience points—""It'll be fine," said Alex.

"Within a certain time frame, you can backfill in essence and your body will still convert it."

"I see." A few minutes later—"It's like I drained all the electricity out of my nerves and muscles," said Beckett. By his faraway look, he seemed to be replaying the fight in his mind.

"It felt really weird."

"There's a reason you usually use Skills for passives," said Alex.

"A Skill would neutralize that, and also the self-damaging aspects of lightning mana. And it'd probably wield it in a far more complex way than cycling it through your body. Cycling's a very basic application of mana." Relatively basic, anyway; his understanding was certain mana types, like Force and Lightning, would still require plenty of practice to cycle properly, without hurting yourself.

"There's so much to get better at," said Beckett, eyes gleaming." God." He glanced at Alex.

"I'm almost back to full, by the way. You?" Alex ceased taking in essence.

"I'm full." He'd replenished himself, and added more than enough for the rest of the rift, probably. Alex had been ready for a little bit now; he'd been idly thinking about what improvements he might want to make to his Skills, as well as analyzing the fight.

"There's what, forty-ish minutes left?" said Beckett.

"Yeah," said Alex, standing. It felt like they'd been through a lot, but so far they'd only collected a circlet, a half-used essence stone, and a few rift creature items as treasures; he didn't want to rush Beckett's recovery, so he'd let the guy finish up, but—"I wouldn't mind moving a little faster," he remarked. As he said it, Beckett said, "I feel like we have a decent chance of clearing this rift."

"As in, this entire rift?" said Alex, pausing.

"Why can't we? We were two Level 3's, and we finished multiple Level 5's. I'm halfway to Level 5 now, and you'll get there pretty quickly, probably? The final boss's, what, Level 6 or 7?" Beckett grinned.

"Yea, 7's the max for a 2-star rift," said Alex. He glanced at Beckett.

"It is also supposed to be a different caliber of creature—I'm not sure the math works like that."

"I'd say we're up to it," said Beckett.

"We'd have to pick up the pace a little, like you said, but I'm game if you are." Alex glanced at the remaining—what, half of the rift they had left? —a rift that only seemed to be steeped in increasing amounts of ice mana. It seemed to be faintly hailing at the rift's far end; Alex could see the ice mana concentrate at what he presumed to be the boss's lair. A few seconds. I guess in times like these, you do just kind of have to trust yourself.

"Okay," said Alex.

"Let's rest when we get to the boss lair, we'll see how we're feeling." The two of them forged briskly into the rift's final half.