Chương 28: Art Testing

I had to test out my new Skills. I only had two Presence, which was going to make this difficult—it meant I could only practice twice a day. But I vowed to always make sure to use all my Presence every day. The Skills wouldn't do me any good if I didn't know what they did or how to make them work. But as soon as the others in my squad had heard about what I had just merged, they all came to find Shave and I immediately.

I made them swear they wouldn't spread the word, but I wasn't sure if they could be trusted, and I only told them about one of my merged Skills. Likewise, I pretended that I'd merged [Archery] into it, because I didn't want to give up the fact that I had a second resonance skill available in my arsenal. I wasn't worried about Elf or Romance, but if Ticks told Scar what I had… well, I just needed to play my cards close to my chest for now.

We finished up our daily tasks as quickly as we could, then raced out into the hills beyond. There were a few other groups of Dupes out training now, which I hadn't seen before, so I asked, "What are they doing?"

"There are rumours swirling around the camp about your rather miraculous advances," Elf said.

"Everyone's wondering if the System has changed or something," Ticks grumbled.

"They don't know about your Labyrinth trips, of course."

"The System can't change, can it?" I asked.

"We don't know exactly how strong the Warlord is," Shave replied.

"But I think it's unlikely that he would be able to reach into the Path and change it. And you would not be able to change the fundamentals of the System without changing the Path."

"Right…"

"Kid, they're seeing what you're doing and seeing that it worked," Romance said.

"That's all there is to it." I nodded.

"Let's just test out these new skills." I stopped when we reached the top of a hill, not even realizing that I'd reached the front of our cluster, and drove my spear into the ground. For a few seconds, I stared expectantly, then finally added, "How do I actually get a regular resonance skill to work?" It was better to practice with my regular Skills first to get a feel for activating a resonance Skill before I actually attempted my Art.

I picked up my spear again, tapped the mud off the spearhead, then pointed it forward.

"Use the Nodespace," Shave said.

"Keep it in the back of your mind, and draw a mental line from your Presence node directly into the Nodespace. The Presence should travel along your internal ley and enter the Nodespace. Focus on the Skill you want to resonate, make sure you're holding tight to the weapon it applies to, and strike." There was a boulder in front of us at the top of the hill. Considering what a spear's resonance Skill was supposed to do—stab—I vowed I wouldn't stop until I'd managed to poke a hole right in the middle of the boulder.

"It's alright if you don't get it right away," Romance said.

"Took me a few tries to activate my Resonance skill the first—" I was already focusing on my Nodespace. With how much Focus I had, it was easy to split my attention between the inside of my body and the outside. I pulled back my arm, then thrust the spear forward. A tremble of invisible power raced down my internal ley, racing from the top of my spine into the Nodespace, and I directed it into [Spearmanship]. The Skill activated, and my spear trembled.

It was like it was pressing up against an invisible film, piercing the air, slicing through the atoms themselves. Of course, I had no way to tell, but that was how it felt. Like there was a deeper mesh beneath the surface of the world, and I was now cutting it as well. Or… not cutting. Cutting was the wrong word. A spear wasn't meant to cut—that was probably what a [Swordplay] skill would do. But it was piercing. I thrust it forward toward the boulder, and the air rippled around the spearhead.

It pierced a few inches in before coming to a halt, but I didn't care. I'd pierced rock. I pulled the spear back and leaned forward. My spearhead had carved a four-inch-deep hole in solid stone, and it didn't take any more effort than stabbing into dirt. But at the same time, my muscles ached. I wanted to yawn, but when I tried, nothing happened. It was like half of my realness had been used up.

"You felt the Presence drain, didn't you?" Shave asked.

"Yeah," I said, rubbing my forehead.

"I spoke too soon…" Romance muttered.

"He got it first try?" Elf nudged his pauldron.

"Yeah, that's what happens when you invest in Focus. Trench got his first try too, and he'd been working on his Focus a lot more than you did. Which, you remember, you had a few debates about." You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"We all tried to tell you that Trench was right," Ticks said. Romance was quiet. He'd been the closest with Trench. A numb coldness fell over everything, but after a few seconds, Romance turned to me and said, "Lap it all up now, while you can. We'll be getting a newbie soon enough to fill out the last man in our squad, and you won't be the golden boy for too long." He was probably trying to change the topic, so I just went with it.

"I'm still…trying to figure out my Presence," I said.

"It's not gone forever," Shave replied.

"You'll get used to it."

"That's why they recommend doing punch-situps," Elf replied.

"If Galliard actually cared to enforce proper conditioning rules for us, that is." I tilted my head.

"Punch-situps? Actually, wait, were we supposed to be working out? Or, doing some kind of physical conditioning?"

"Supposed to be," Romance said.

"No one cares enough out here. Not enough thegns passing through, and I think I've only seen the Ealdorman once in my life. Galliard is too relaxed about it." No one cares enough. I grimaced. They were Dupes, created for war, not given much of a choice. Sure, they were getting paid, but Romance was right. Why should they even be expected to care? I was certain there were some who cared, though. Some who were looking for a reason to care.

Maybe I could show the others that it was worth caring, even just a little bit. This indentured servitude business sucked, but if we let those orcs through, it would suck even more. I grimaced, the images of the orcs' Labyrinth camp rushing through my mind. What would have happened if we had let those prisoners stay there a little longer? Using the Dupes as an army may not have been the squeakiest and cleanest moral stance, but if it was necessary to stop the orcs…

But we would need to do more than just exist to stop the orcs. We weren't doing anything to get ready for the war to reach the southern Domains, and it felt completely purposeful. As if it was a decree from on high.

"I know that look," Ticks said.

"Seen it on a few newbies' faces. You want to make a difference?"

"Levi, just stop for a moment and think," Elf said.

"There's been a Warlord for a thousand years, since the end of the Dark Age. He wasn't always in charge, sure. But he has armies of clerks and civil servants. He has hundreds of wisemen advising him. All of them have their hands in the honey jar, so to speak. Every action needs a few clerks to study it, down to building the smallest bridge in the smallest city, because the more they delay actually doing anything, the more the bureaucrats get paid."

"That sounds…a bit like slandering the Warlord," I whispered.

"Everyone knows it," Romance said.

"We're just not supposed to say it." He shook his head.

"It's all too cumbersome, and the machine can't change. All we can do is hold on a few more days, and stretch those into years, and hope that we live our lives before the orcs finally wipe us out."

"It's too late to change course now," Elf added.

"The Kingdom's too afraid to do anything different."

"I thought we weren't supposed to speak out loud about things like this…" I said.

"Yeah, well, let's just say your Art has done wonders for my confidence," Romance said.

"Enough of this," Shave said.

"Levi's not all-powerful yet, and I'm not going to let you ruin your lives with your words, even if it is the truth. Some truths shouldn't be spoken aloud." I shook my head, then cleared my throat. We'd drifted too far off-topic.

"So…what was that analogy about the punch-situps? I don't know what you guys meant by that." Ticks motioned to Elf.

"You're the one who mentioned it." Elf dropped down on his back, did a quick situp, then, as he was facing forward, threw two quick punches into the air.

"Force yourself to sit up with your armour weighing you down, then when you're upright, after doing all that effort to get yourself upright, you throw two punches."

"It's supposed to condition you to keep going even when you're exhausted," Shave clarified.

"When you've used up your Presence and feel even more tired than normal, but you still have to keep fighting, your mind will be used to it." I nodded.

"I think you guys could use a little more of that logic when it comes to leadership. There has to be a way to change things. There has to be hope."

"That's what they all say," Ticks muttered.

"Someone has to be crazy enough to try," I countered.

"That's also what they all say." I chuckled morbidly.

"Fine, then. But if there's no hope, then I'll find my own." There had to be a way out of this mess. After a few seconds, I added, "And I don't care if everyone says that, too. Hope isn't something that just exists. Someone has to make it." After a few seconds of silence, Shave asked, "Are you ready to practice your Art?"

"Let's give it a try. Is it the same method as activating a resonance Skill?"

"Correct. I can't say what it'll do once it's active, though, and I don't know what your limits are. None of us have an Art of our own. But from what I've heard, most Arts are either quite intense, or your Presence gets used up slowly and you can drag it out over a long while. You'll have to ask Hild about that." I nodded, then sent my second presence down to my Nodespace. This time, I triggered my Art. I wasn't sure what would happen, and at first, not much seemed to change.

But something swelled inside me, and after a few seconds, I felt a rush of Presence in my fingers. The Art was working. It was doing something. My Focus seemed to quiver as well. My brain made an invisible marker on the grass ahead of me, and subconsciously, I envisioned a circle where I just knew the Art would trigger. At first, I tried clenching my gut, then I tried sending out a surge of willpower to my fingers, like I had when I was manipulating the Skills. Nothing happened.

Finally, when I was just about to step back and try again, I clenched my fingers into a fist, and without warning, there was a heavy thwummp in front of me. The circle of grass flattened in a meter-and-a-half diameter circle. But it didn't just flatten. The blades broke. The stalks of yellowing fieldgrass snapped, and an invisible force pushed them down into the dirt, mashing them into the soil.

"I think that's my Art."