“What is it that you’re working on?”
The voice of his betrothed wormed its way into Larek’s consciousness as he sat with his eyes closed, finalizing his thoughts on what he was about to try. He’d looked at it from multiple angles and hadn’t seen anything specific that indicated that he wouldn’t be able to do it; that didn’t mean it would actually work, only that there weren’t any reasons he could see that it would be a bad idea. Especially as nothing like what he was planning had ever been done before, as far as he knew; it wasn’t like he’d ever learned about the entire history of Fusions while at the Academy, only a general overview with a few advanced classes on actual Fusion creation. He supposed that he should probably speak with those in Sanctuary before he tried anything revolutionary, as they might know of someone trying it and failing, perhaps with a lethal result, but he didn’t want to take the time to do that.
It was on the edge of his mind right now, and he was fairly sure he’d figured out exactly how to accomplish his extraordinary plan.
“Nothing much. I’m just about to try something that could revolutionize Fusion-crafting forever… or it might tear me apart,” he responded distractedly, still formulating in his mind the processes he was about to attempt.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Nedira looking at him strangely. “Oh. Alright. Well, let me know if you need anything, dear. I’m going to take a nap; it’s been a long day already.”
“Will do. Have a good nap.” A few minutes later, he heard her lay down in her bed and rustle around a few times before dropping off to sleep. Now that any distractions had been taken care of, Larek could fully proceed with his dangerous-but-lucrative idea.
Taking a small, square steel plate from the stack of them nearby, he placed it on his lapdesk, staring at it while he finished with the last of his mental preparation. When he was ready, he pulled a small amount of Pattern Cohesion out from his body and began shaping it into a formation, one that he knew quite well. It was a Basic formation, with only 4 sections to it, which made sense because it was an Illuminate Fusion with an Activatable Activation Method, allowing it to be turned on and off; it was something that even the newest novice in Fusion-crafting could create, as the Effect of producing light was simple and straightforward.
What he put into the Magnitude section, however, was anything but simple. Instead of something small, such as Magnitude 1, he inserted a Magnitude 10 symbol inside the formation, meaning that it would be blindingly bright once it was activated. This wasn’t anything revolutionary, as he could create something like this easily, but that wasn’t what he was testing right now.
At this point, with the initial formation in place, he would normally begin funneling Mana into it while the formation pulled more Pattern Cohesion from his body to strengthen its structure, in order to contain the powerful energy being inserted into it. This stage was essentially the final step before the Fusion actually started to become “real,” and it was also the last chance for a Fusionist to easily stop the creation before it had to be finished, or else they might suffer damage to their internal pattern. For those Fusionists who were reaching above their ability, as in they were trying to create a Fusion that they didn’t have enough Pattern Cohesion to fully complete (such as if Larek were to try his most recent Fusion and would end up over 10,000 Pattern Cohesion short at the end), this could potentially lead to death if the formation were powerful enough and collapsed because it couldn’t be completed, leading to an explosion as the Mana inserted into it was violently released.
Larek remembered the warnings he’d been given during his Fusions Classes at both Academies, and after making more than his fair share of Fusions in his time, he knew that there was a truth to the warnings. What he wasn’t trying to do was fly in the face of that danger; instead, he was trying to bypass the dangers completely.
What happens when a Fusion is attempted and there isn’t enough Pattern Cohesion to complete it? Clearly, the answer was a disaster, in one way or another.
But what if there was another way to provide the Pattern Cohesion needed for a certain Fusion?
Having multiple Fusionists attempt to work on the same Fusion had been tried and had failed, as there needed to be a uniformity to the Pattern Cohesion used in a Fusion for it to be stable; that couldn’t be achieved with more than one Fusionist contributing, as everyone’s internal pattern was subtly different. It was like a group of people trying to build the walls of a house with wildly different sizes and thicknesses of wooden planks cut at different angles; when they were all thrown together without perfectly aligning them and matching up the sizes and angles so that they were at least somewhat straight, the entire wall would fall apart.
But Larek’s idea wasn’t to try and use someone else’s Pattern Cohesion to make up for what he lacked. Instead, he was going to use his own Pattern Cohesion to start with, and then use the ambient energy in the air to generate even more. Not only that, but he would also produce something that would generate and pay for the exorbitant Mana cost of the Fusion at the same time.
How?
With another formation, of course.
Looking at his current Illuminate formation, there was one big difference between what he had created and what would be a normal formation: It wasn’t contained. Normally, there was an encircling line of Pattern Cohesion that surrounded all of the different segments, ensuring that the Mana inside of the formation stayed contained within the lines made of Pattern Cohesion, but his current formation didn’t have it. Without it, there was an absolute guarantee that the formation would rupture as soon as Mana was inserted, falling apart as the funneled-in Mana broke loose.
Larek hadn’t added it yet, because he needed to alter it significantly first.
Instead of a simple containment, he focused his intent upon a new, thicker line that he added around the formation. He had originally thought about creating a separate, circular formation to add the Effect he wanted, but he eventually decided that it wasn’t necessary. Instead, he borrowed an intent that he’d originally thought of when creating Resonating Mana Siphon, but in this case, it was designed to absorb ambient energy before making it resonate and mimic the energy already inside of the formation. Once it was in place, instead of leaving it free-floating and unconnected, which it normally was, he deliberately connected this thick encircling line to the four outer corners of the grid, ensuring that it was touching every single segment included in the formation.
When it was in place, Larek double- and then triple-checked its intent and positioning before he began the process of completing the Fusion. Deliberately throttling the outflow of Mana and Pattern Cohesion, as it would normally flood out of him to pay for the Magnitude 10 Effect the formation called for, he only let out enough of both energies to pay for the Magnitude 1 version – which he imagined as more of a “seed” than anything else. Almost immediately, he felt the Fusion trying to pull more of both Mana and Pattern Cohesion from his body, but he had enough control over his own energy by that point to stop it from moving.
And then, contrary to everything he’d been taught about creating Fusions, he forcefully “completed” it by making it click into place on the steel plate, despite the fact that it was in no way finished. He likened it to a novice Logger chopping into a tree a single time with an axe and expecting it to topple over; the work had only barely begun, and if the Logger expected it to fall over, then they were about to be severely disappointed.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
In this case, there was only enough energy inside of the formation for a Magnitude 1 Illuminate Fusion, and if he were to activate it, the entire structure would likely falter as it attempted to produce a Magnitude 10 Effect, stressing out the Pattern Cohesion invested into the formation, and then breaking. At least, that was what normally happened, but Larek’s new containment line should act as an extra force of stability, keeping it together once the Fusion was activated.
More than that, what the containment line additionally did was trap all of the Mana and Pattern Cohesion inside as it resonated with it, mimicking the “seed” of both energies as it absorbed and then converted ambient Mana and Pattern Cohesion from the environment. For this particular Fusion, he didn’t move the absorption of energy to somewhere distant, like he’d been doing since he had discovered the process, but instead he kept it close by, so that he could observe what happened with his own senses. In this case, he could see the ambient Mana and Pattern Cohesion that normally freely floated around the environment being pulled inside the formation, passing through the outer containment barrier, which then converted to the same “frequency” as what had been used in its creation and added it to what was already there.
Of course, Mana was normally absorbed from the Fusion’s area of ambience once it was activated, but this was happening without the Fusion being activated; it was simply a process of the new containment line, as it absorbed the energy similarly to what the Mana Cost section did, but for a different purpose.
What was that purpose? Well, if it worked the way he intended, it was to feed and grow the underdeveloped formation – until it reached its proper Magnitude. The Pattern Cohesion absorbed from the environment was converted to perfectly mimic his own unique pattern, ensuring that it worked properly, and that it was used to strengthen and stabilize the existing formation. The ambient Mana that was being absorbed would start paying for the higher Magnitude as the formation was strengthened to accommodate it.
In essence, what started as a “seed” at Magnitude 1 would eventually grow into the fully developed, intended formation – over time, of course.
What was even better was that, if he had calculated correctly, then he could see the changes happen in real-time. It was for this reason that he chose the Illuminate Fusion, as when he activated it, he could tell right away that the light being produced was already slightly stronger than Magnitude 1. If he had to estimate it based on the intensity of the light and the amount of Mana already infused into the formation, he would guess that it was already Magnitude 2 and steadily climbing toward Magnitude 3. The progress was slow but steady, which was necessary because the formation had to stay stable as it grew automatically, which was best done at a slow pace; heavy injections of Pattern Cohesion and Mana could destabilize the entire structure, especially if the infusion of new energy wasn’t done smoothly. That meant that the higher the requirements were for each Magnitude, the slower it would reach the next one; in other words, lower Magnitudes would be reached a lot quicker than the higher ones. If he was to estimate how long it was going to take this Illuminate Fusion to reach Magnitude 10, he would probably put it at around 12 minutes or so.
A quick calculation put the speed of energy infusion at about 20 Pattern Cohesion a minute, with the Mana coming in at about 750 per minute. At a base rate of 575 Pattern Cohesion for Magnitude 10, which was reduced to 230 because of his bonuses, it would take around 11 minutes total. The Mana Cost that he paid for Fusions had an even bigger discount at an 80% reduction, which meant that it only required 7,500 Mana in total instead of the base rate of 37,500. So, it would technically be done faster than the Pattern Cohesion coming in, but the containment line he had created had a regulatory function built into it, which kept pace with the Pattern Cohesion progress.
Of course, this was just the first example of his new method, which he had to wait to see if everything was still functioning perfectly after it grew fully into its Magnitude 10 form. He expected that, with starting formations that required a higher Pattern Cohesion and Mana Cost, he would be able to increase the rate of absorption, conversion, and infusion into the existing formation; otherwise, if he was to try and create the Magical Energy Negation Sphere +13 that he'd been estimating before, at a rate of only 20 Pattern Cohesion a minute, it could take weeks or months to grow fully. He didn’t think the absorption rate could be increased by hundreds per minute, as he still needed the formations stabilized, but even doubling the 20 per minute rate could make a huge difference in the time required.
Nevertheless, I think I did it! It was a success—
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one to believe he’d succeeded, as there was a forced notification that suddenly overwhelmed his vision.
Mana Control has reached Level 124!
Fusion has reached Level 121!
Pattern Formation has reached Level 121!
Pattern Manipulation has reached Level 124!
Fusional Growth Skill has been unlocked!
Fusional Growth has reached Level 1!
…..
Fusional Growth has reached Level 23!
You have reached Level 69 and have 42 available AP to distribute!
Congratulations!
Due to your superior and instinctual creation and manipulation of Fusions, you have unlocked the Complete Fusionary Specialization!
Requirements:
Knowledge of 3 Fusion-related Skills
Intellect of at least 20
Acuity of at least 20
Pneuma of at least 20
The Complete Fusionary Specialization also provides these benefits:
Enhances the strength of all Fusions by 10%
Do you wish to accept the Complete Fusionary Specializ—
Congratulations!
You have unlocked the Prodigal Fusionary Specialization!
Requirements:
Complete Fusionary Specialization
Fusion Skill of 20
Multi-effect Fusion Focus Skill of 20
Fusional Growth Skill of 20
Intellect of at least 50
Acuity of at least 50
Pneuma of at least 50
The Prodigal Fusionary Specialization also provides these benefits:
Ability to manipulate/alter existing Fusions in unique ways
Ability to create custom Fusions with unique Effects
Enhances the strength of all Fusions by 15%
The Prodigal Fusionary Specialization automatically replaces the Complete Fusionary Specialization!
Does this mean I’ve finally unlocked all of the Fusion-related Skills? This certainly seems to be the case.
Not only did he, surprisingly, unlock yet another Skill, but he also unlocked another Specialization. The new Prodigal Fusionary Specialization reminded him of when he initially received the Pattern Prodigy Specialization after unlocking all of the Pattern-related Skills; if he was correct, and it would provide similar bonuses, then there was a good chance that if he increased the new Skill’s Level far enough, he might unlock another Specialization that would allow him to impart all of his Fusion-related Skills to other people – including his new one. He had originally just figured that he would try to teach other Fusionists how to create this gradually growing containment line to help them create stronger Fusions, but now it seemed likely that he could simply impart the Skill and go over what it did, rather than have to figure out whether they could learn it or not.
In short, it was amazing – and he was excited to see what he could do with this new Skill, now that he’d unlocked it. Visions of incredibly powerful Fusions that he’d only dreamed about meandered through his thoughts as he waited to see the results of his initial creation, even as the light in the room became brighter and brighter as the Fusion’s Magnitude gradually increased. Larek was so eager that he nearly threw himself into creating the proper size Magical Energy Negation Sphere +13 right then and there, but he held off for now.
He could afford to wait a few minutes to ensure that nothing went wrong with his new Skill, after all.
