NOVEL NEXT Book Two - Chapter Five - The Beat
The best thing about having no set destination? You can’t get lost. No matter what Naea might say to the contrary. We had food, drink, shelter stored in our inventories and all the gumption one could need to start exploring. There were four beast lords in the area that could apparently mess with my base of operations, and the mostly slumbering dragon within did not like that.
Dao Avatar - Dragon
Worlds struggle to contain one such as you, boundaries and rules are made for the protection of others. Not for you. Reach for the stars and claim the cosmos.
Effect: Mental +250, Will +100, Mental Attribute +25%, Will Attribute +15%
This single effect probably made me the strongest human on Earth, unless someone else had evolved their Dao beyond a simple Pool. I still had such little information about every aspect of this new world, pun not intended. Did a Dao Pool always become an Avatar or was that due to the Aspect? It was possible the Aspect of the Dragon would always become an Avatar, while another Aspect became something else entirely.
Dao was only one area in which my knowledge was lacking, and while it felt the most important in the long term, it wasn’t the most pressing in the immediate. I had some books from the guild which explained some of the basics but I would learn best by doing, as I had from the start. “Do you think the lord monster things will all be the same strength?”
Naea shrugged. “How am I meant to know?”
“I dunno. You were more helpful when we were in the dungeon.” She could feel my good humour through our bond but that also meant I could feel her genuine affront. The connection snapped shut as she gave me a hurt expression and flitted further away, though still keeping pace.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered after a short while in silence. I held my arm out and she took a perch on my shoulder, her elbows crossed atop my head and her own head laying on those. “It’s scary being out here without the connection, and I do feel less useful. So it’s not funny to joke about.” Naea emphasised her frustration by smacking her fist down on my skull. It was like being hit by a ball peen hammer. She just giggled when I squawked in pain.
“You know I don’t just keep you around because you know things, right? I’m pretty fond of you, even if you’re ridiculous all the time.”
“That’s why you love me,” Naea retorted. I nodded, which threw her around and she tumbled from my shoulder, still laughing. We bantered back and forth as we continued exploring the general vicinity around The Ascent’s claimed area. It wasn’t huge, but it would take a few days to go around the whole place, hopefully finding my quest targets while we did.
“I’m the one who should apologise, it was a bad joke to make. We’re both going to figure out this crazy stuff together, yeah?” I held out a fist, and Naea’s tiny one gave mine a bump. We nodded to each other and said nothing more on that subject. Instead, we both sensed the other’s restless energy. We didn’t even need to say anything, the familiar bond enough to start the competition.
The Dungeon wasn’t a small place by any means, but there was always a level of danger over my head which stopped me from relaxing. After watching The Ascent take down a boss which was supposed to be a challenge for myself, a lot of tension had vanished. The difficulty level had dropped back to the normal. Which, granted, I had yet to see, but I could tell it wouldn’t be so easy to find a challenge out here. Good, I thought with an audible grunt.
A level of control I had been restraining myself to since my Dao evolved dropped. The dragon within roared with pleasure. Mana careened through my channels like never before, a limiter falling away. I wasn’t scared to show my full strength to the guild, but I had subconsciously strangled the power which I showed massively. There was no need for that now we were so far away.
Plus, I had a race to win. “Ready?” I asked.
Naea had already bolted, of course.
I snorted and tore off, literally. Mana Control had become the skill Infusion, the draconic magic at the base of my power altering the way I used said magic. With a healthy expenditure of mana, I crystallised the energy inside and then let it burst throughout my whole body. The ground under my feet exploded into a cloud of debris which I left in the dust, Naea already ahead of me.
The fairy felt the air fill up with my power and her laughter picked up, disjointed as she began to make liberal use of Sparkstep. Her own impressive strength began to blast out in unison with my own. Every few seconds, the already speedy fairy would turn into a burst of pure electrical energy and increase her lead. So, she had me beat in acceleration, but what about top speed?
I layed another Infusion on top of the last, feeling my muscles and bones begin to strain as my magic pushed my strength beyond its natural capabilities. The effect wasn’t quite multiplicative, but it was close enough. I didn’t want to do any kind of lasting damage on a meaningless race, but I was frustrated to see the gap wasn’t shrinking. With two levels of Infusion, she wasn’t able to keep pulling away, but neither could I get closer. Damn, girl, you’re impressive.
I knew that even at that speed, Naea could hit hard without breaking herself. A lot of her magic use was instinctive, rather than a pure skill like Sparkstep. She hardened her body in the moment she collided with something, becoming like a bullet. At the same time, her grace was such that if she did not choose to hit an obstacle, she wouldn’t. No matter what speed, even if she wasn’t looking, she moved like the wind itself. I was strangely proud as I watched her beat me.
Then, my heart and Dao pulsed in unison.
That wasn’t the kind of pride we wanted right now. “Sorry, little one,” I whispered, “but I’m a really sore loser.”
Tempest Form.
I activated my new skill. If there was anything in the area that wasn’t paying attention to the two of us screaming through the countryside like two very low-flying jets, they couldn’t ignore it now. I hadn’t used the ability in this way yet, but I thought I had some idea what to expect.
Obviously, I was wrong.
The world as I knew it disappeared and a new one fell into place. All pretence of physical sight vanished and my senses extended massively. I stopped moving for a few heartbeats, immediately ceasing momentum as I looked at myself. If I was a “Stormborn” before? Now, I was the storm. With a rumble, the Dao Pool of Tempests stirred. Within my inner world, it was as though the moon rose.
I had a witness to this moment in the form of a fox. With nerves of absolute steel, the vulpine observer had felt the coming cataclysm and decided to face it head-on. I tilted my head as I saw it, a large and complex bundle of electrical impulses in a world of magic and lights. Beautiful. The pair of us observed the other, each of us learning in our own ways.
Then, I shot off again.
It was nearly impossible to keep my thoughts straight while using Tempest Form, but it was also hard for me to know why this was a problem. I was energy, and power and destruction. What else could matter? A laugh of my own scorched the world, arcs of true lightning blasting from me as my speed continued to increase.
STOP.
Clear as crystal, Naea’s voice snapped me out of it. I lost control of Tempest Form and didn’t have time to brace myself before eating the dirt. My feet, which had been weightless, suddenly weren’t. Deep grooves were dug in the ground before I flipped head over heels multiple times, only stopping when I buried myself in a huge sturdy tree. The two snapped trunks I spotted when I cracked my eye open suggested this wasn’t the first I had hit.
“Ouch,” I moaned.
“Ouch,” Naea agreed, not a lot of sympathy present in her voice as she began using Battle Bond in its original form, Healing Bond. The skill was costly, supposedly, but between my massive mana pool and Naea’s ability to heal, the damage was fixed without much hassle. I did have to find a pinky finger which had been ripped off and ask Naea to put it back on. She threatened not to unless I was more careful in the future, which I assured her I would be.
All in all, a fairly embarrassing first test run. “You won the race, I think.” I hoped that if I conceded that, Naea might move on from this much more upsetting event. Anyone could have told me it was the height of folly, hopeful bordering on insanity, but I still would have tried. It didn’t work.
“Bonk, smash, ouch, whack, bang, boing-doing, splat.”
“...And that was?”
“An auditory representation of how much shit you just ate,” Naea cackled. I playfully swatted at her with my repaired hand, letting her get her fun in while I had a look around. We had cleared a vast distance in that sprint, more than I had planned, but that was fine. After I got lost the first time, I had taken the time to memorise the specific feel of the members of The Ascent’s Daos. While I couldn’t tell where they were exactly, I could feel the general direction. No more losing home.
Not bad. This would be a good place to start from, just outside the perimeter of my claimed area, which I could also feel, like a lesser version of my guildmate’s Dao, but wider. With a small hike further from where I splatted, Naea and I were atop the tallest hill in the area, creating a scouting camp in an alcove. It wasn’t so perfect as to be a cave, but it worked to keep most of the wind away.
Using materials and equipment from the Guildhall’s storage rooms, we soon had a large tent, table and other camping supplies ready and available. Naea was very excited to make a mug of coffee, so I left her to it while I tried to figure out how the hell to find four random monsters in the general area I had just left. The beaver had been easy, because it was destroying half a forest.
I could only hope the others were stupid enough to make themselves known.
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A hurricane in mortal form had come to Earth. The trees shivered as the man blasted across the landscape, most creatures went to ground. A bolt of lightning slashed through the air before the Storm-Person and the very land itself shuddered with their passing. Every creature within miles of their position went to ground, fearful and silent.
Almost every creature.
From their positions atop the food chain, the four claimant beasts were roused. Their power had grown quickly, and then stagnated as they reached an artificial peak created by a dearth of worthy opponents. Unlike the more simple-minded beasts, who ran from the pressure and power of the storm, they moved to watch its passing. To their senses, it was impossible to miss how the world was fertilised by the Storm-Person’s journey.
There would be growth left in its wake. Their path was no longer stopped by a System they didn’t understand, and the beast lords roared, screeched and bellowed their excitement. Change had come to the world again, this time in the form of a wellspring of power so strong it passively encouraged the growth of things around it. The very pressure from its passing would create diamonds. Unknown to the storm-person, a true tempest had been kicked up behind them.
Noticed by many.