Chương 10: 1.1.10 - Evasion Build

[Your spell leveled up 'Spark' Tier 1 Level 10 -> 'Lightning Bolt' (Tier 2) - Level 1] [Your spell 'Spark' has been upgraded to 'Lightning Bolt'] [You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 200] [You have leveled up 11 -> 12] I put my fantasy of flying hammers aside and pulled up on the Weave to check my status.

Status Core: Lightning Affinity (Perfect) Core Stage: Orange Stage Level: 12 Mana Core Capacity (MCC) Progress to Next Level: 81/500 Core Mutations: - Lightning Brain Spells: - Electro Perception (Tier 1) - Level 6 - Lightning Bolt (Tier 2) - Level 1 Soul Mutations: - Adaptive Soul - Nature's Constitution Status Core: Lightning Affinity (Perfect) Core Stage: Orange Stage Level: 12 Mana Core Capacity (MCC) Progress to Next Level: 81/500 Core Mutations: - Lightning Brain Spells: - Electro Perception (Tier 1) - Level 6 - Lightning Bolt (Tier 2) - Level 1 Soul Mutations: - Adaptive Soul - Nature's Constitution Another eight levels before I cap out at the Orange grade.

Maxing out my Electro Perception alone would not have gotten me there as that was close to another four thousand MCC needed. Hopefully I would be able to push my Lightning Bolt up as I start hunting more. I dismissed the status page and quickly started throwing some loose soil on the burning tree bark to make sure I don't accidentally start a forest fire.

Recalling the 200 Mana Core Capacity increase that I had gotten from Lightning Bolt at Tier 2 level 1, it seemed like the Tier 2 spells would similarly increase in MCC given per level but doubled the amount since it was a Tier 2 spell. If this pattern held true, it would be three times at Tier 3 and so on. Unfortunately, Marta did not even have a tier 2 spell so there was no point of comparison. I was confident I could tier up my other spells with time.

I was also curious how my mana coils would have transformed with the upgrade of my spell. I cast Electro Perception and looked at my own arms, focusing on my mana coils. Interesting, I thought. The mana coils supporting the Spark spell previously had actually shrunk and compressed further once I upgraded the spell to Lightning Bolt.

At the first glance, it might have just seemed that it had shrunk, but I could feel internally that the coils seemed to be sturdier and thicker somehow, probably to support the increased capacity of the spell. I let myself have a moment of pride as this was something I intentionally worked on, instead of stumbled upon since coming to this world, before pressing it down. I made sure not to let this get to my head as I would probably face more failures before I made any progress with my railgun.

Now that I solved my ranged spell issue, the other thing I had learnt during the few months of boar hunt was that I lack mobility. Hunters and adventurers usually worked in teams and could cover for each other's weaknesses, but I would be hunting by myself for a while longer so I would need to cover my own bases. I went through the framework I came up with on different spell categories, which were broken down to Attack, Defense, Mobility, Detection, Recovery, and Utility.

I had Attack type spell covered with Lightning Bolt, and Electro Perception covered Detection type spells. Lightning was probably ill suited for Recovery and Utility, or at least I did not have the know how currently to formulate those spells. The book did mention that certain elements were more well suited to Defense than others, like Earth vs Fire. However, another form of Defense is avoidance or in this case, well timed usages of Mobility spells.

If I did not get hit, I could probably make do with the lack of Defensive spells for the time being. This would be like those agility build characters in those RPG games. You would be fine until you got hit one time. Not ideal but I did not have much choice at this moment. I started thinking about mobility in the old world using electricity but they were things like maglev trains or electric vehicles.

Well technically, if I treated my body as the vehicle, and the engine that powered my body's movement were my muscles, could I in theory enhance my movement with lightning mana? Maybe like Killua from Hunter X Hunter? I looked through the spell book and found the Infusion Rune. If I infused my muscles with lightning mana, I could in theory accelerate the contraction of my muscles. Sort of like a cramp simulator, but for my legs.

I tried to concentrate on shaping the Infusion Rune in my mana core and only fed a trickle of mana through it, targeting my legs. The mana streamed through my legs and I only felt a buzzing sensation throughout my legs, probably resisting the effects due to my innate lightning resistance. I increased the output and suddenly felt my lower body seizing up as I fell on the forest floor. Stupid mistake, I thought.

Even though I was not a doctor with very intimate knowledge of the human anatomy, I at least knew muscles normally worked in parts, which I had forgotten in my excitement to test my theory. My only saving grace was that I did not pee my pants from the accidental electrical shock I gave myself. I stood up again and then adjusted the spell form. I should have focused on only one muscle group at a time instead. I targeted my hamstrings this time in both my legs and also reduced the mana input.

My legs gave out like someone popped my knees from the back and I fell on my back. At this point, I was starting to question my own intelligence. I looked around and found a big enough boulder and sat down. This time, instead of standing like an idiot and testing spells on my own legs, I focused only on my quads in my right leg while my knee was bent. I adjusted the mana output again before releasing the spell and I felt my right leg kick up immediately.

For some reason, whether the Weave only seemed to finally accept this as a new spell after I stopped being stupid or because this was the right amount of mana, I got the notification I wanted. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[You have learned a new spell 'Lightning Infusion'] [Lightning Infusion leveled up 0 -> 1] [You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 100] While I did get the notification, I would need to be more precise with my application of Lightning Infusion to actually make it a Mobility spell. I would need to map out what group of muscles corresponded with what movement; and if I applied infusion to the correct muscle groups at the same time, I should be able to complete the whole movement. In theory at least.

I squatted down in the middle of the clearing, free from any trees or large rocks, to reduce the risk of self-inflicted injury. I thought about the muscle groups that would normally be needed to jump. I slowly stood up, as if I was jumping in slow motion. I focused on the individual muscles that I had to use to complete the motion. There were sort of five areas I could feel my muscles activate. My quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves and finally my core.

Though my core was not really flexing in any direction but was acting as a stabilizer muscle. I decided to experiment with the jump motion. I squatted down again and this time I cast Lightning Infusion anchoring the spell to the same muscle groups except the core. When I released the spell, my muscles completed the motion without me thinking and I flew up into the air a few feet before regaining control of my legs to land.

While I could in theory map out all the different movements required, the problem was remembering all the different permutations, casting Lightning Infusion on the right muscles, all the while in the middle of combat while something was trying to kill me. I had just proven a moment earlier that my genius only extended to Applied Electromagnetism and not to bodily coordination. I would hardly trust myself to apply Lightning Infusion to only one muscle in the middle of combat, let alone a complex combination.

As I was racking my brain for potential solutions, I pulled up my status screen again just to see what might pop out at me. I used to stare at my whiteboard full of equations when I was stuck on a problem until something jumped at me and it was as good a place to start as any.

Status Core: Lightning Affinity (Perfect) Core Stage: Orange Stage Level: 12 Mana Core Capacity (MCC) Progress to Next Level: 181/500 Core Mutations: - Lightning Brain Spells: - Electro Perception (Tier 1) - Level 6 - Lightning Bolt (Tier 2) - Level 1 - Lightning Infusion (Tier 1) - Level 1 Soul Mutations: - Adaptive Soul - Nature's Constitution Status Core: Lightning Affinity (Perfect) Core Stage: Orange Stage Level: 12 Mana Core Capacity (MCC) Progress to Next Level: 181/500 Core Mutations: - Lightning Brain Spells: - Electro Perception (Tier 1) - Level 6 - Lightning Bolt (Tier 2) - Level 1 - Lightning Infusion (Tier 1) - Level 1 Soul Mutations: - Adaptive Soul - Nature's Constitution I saw the new entry on Lightning Infusion immediately as that was the latest thing that changed.

I started from the top and worked my way down. I did not need to get very far as I stopped on the entry of Lightning Brain. Lightning Brain: Your mana coils have extended into your neural substrate, granting your cognition the conditional logic of stored lightning. You may pre-compose any spell you have learned and bind it to a trigger condition — sensory, physiological, or temporal. The bound spell will execute automatically the instant the trigger is satisfied, without active concentration required.

Conditions may be layered with logical operators. You retain the ability to revoke or rewrite any binding at will. Lightning Brain: Your mana coils have extended into your neural substrate, granting your cognition the conditional logic of stored lightning. You may pre-compose any spell you have learned and bind it to a trigger condition — sensory, physiological, or temporal. The bound spell will execute automatically the instant the trigger is satisfied, without active concentration required.

Conditions may be layered with logical operators. You retain the ability to revoke or rewrite any binding at will. I thought of my original idea for the mutation which was an emergency defibrillator but who said I had to limit myself to that. What if I could pre-program a list of movements based on the direction I wanted to jump in, and call on the program when I needed to. I focused on the entry and another screen with a table appeared. No Instruction Summary Description N/A N/A N/A This could work...

I fiddled around with it for a bit before figuring out that I needed to have the spell weaved and thought of an activation condition without actually injecting mana into the spell form. A quick entry appeared in the list.

No Instruction Summary Description 1 Lightning Infusion on selected muscles Activated when user thinks of "Lightning Infused Jump" Lightning Brain Instruction List 1 - Lightning Infusion on selected muscles: Activated when user thinks of "Lightning Infused Jump" I squatted down again and thought of the activation command, the spell immediately fired and propelled me several feet in the air. Eureka, it was at this moment I realised how broken my mutation was.

I was sure if I coupled it with other well defined instructions and spells in the future it would definitely save my life. I needed a break today but I was starting to regret not taking Peter's offer when he asked me to join him and his wife for Pilates years ago. Three weeks later, I was trekking through the Greywoods, deeper than I had ever been in the last few months. I could not believe it had taken me that long to map out all those different muscle groups for different movements.

It was also a lot more complex than I had initially thought as some evasion movements were a sequence of movements rather than one instance of movement. I was trekking through the woods in the direction that I last spotted some giant wasps from afar when I was previously hunting boars. The heat was now more bearable as the weather was starting to head towards Autumn, though none of the leaves had started to brown yet. I heard the buzzing before I spotted them.

I was heading downhill as this part of the forest slanted downwards towards the deeper areas. I saw giant wasps the size of cats hovering over what seemed like a downed deer. I was not sure if these wasps took the deer down or they chased away another predator but that was not important. I slowly approached to get within my Lightning Bolt's range while making sure not to make any sound that might alert the wasps to my presence. Nothing like a trial by fire to put my Evasion Build to the test.

Author Note: This is the work of Josh Shoniix. This work of fiction will only be published on Royal Road and Space Battle for free. If you're reading this on another site or paid through Google Books, this work has been stolen.