Fork This Life!

Chapter 51: OMG

The voice echoes again. “All teachers move to defend immediately. Any advanced students willing and able are also welcome to join the defence, but be aware your life will be in your own hands.”

All the students in the library immediately crowd in a noisy panic towards the exit.

“Should we go? Maybe we can do something to help?” Lamar says as we move.

Joyce shakes her head in fear and disbelief. “What can we do? We hardly know any real offensive magic.”

“Joyce is absolutely right.” I agree, anxiously awaiting our passage through the doors so I’ll be able to see what’s going on. “Anything that’s causing this much difficulty for the teachers, you guys won’t be able to make a difference.”

“They do have a point.” Iueia agrees.

“I was just saying.” Lamar shrugs.

We finally funnel through the library doors, and I can see the magnitude of the battle. If I had a face to pale, the nearest priest would be attempting to exorcise me.

“I can see it now. It’s bad out there. Really bad.” I state seriously. “I’m not sure I will be able to do much, let alone you guys. Get to your rooms, stay safe.”

Without waiting to hear their replies (but seeing them anyway) I fly off. I try to summon my earth elementals, but there’s no response. The attackers must have somehow blocked the summoning of elementals. How they managed to pull this off without anyone noticing is beyond me, but there was no suspicious magical or mundane activity in the area just earlier… There must be someone on their side that knows space magic.

Currently, there are dozens of enemy mages surrounding the academy on all sides, evidently trying to use their superior numbers to spread out our defences. And although it’s impossible for me to tell at a glance how skilled they are, the concentration of mana in their bodies doesn’t lose out to the academy’s teachers.

Every one of them looks to have barriers of various kinds protecting them, which means that my usual high speed absorb attack probably won’t work, and indeed could be highly dangerous. Even without the barriers, magical attacks are flashing back and forth between the attackers and defenders, making the space dangerous to navigate.

I don’t know any big spells that could make much of a difference here, and my mana capacity and regen concerns me in a large-scale fight like this. I’ll have to be sparing and precise in my attacks, something which my sight should assist with significantly.

Frankly, I’m out of my depth here. Everyone will have defences against the straight physical or elemental attacks I can make. I might at best be a drain on their mana and a distraction.

My mind can’t help but go back to my conversation with Joe. Are there gods clashing someplace above us, or a dimension out of sight? Does this battle even matter?

The sky darkens, and lightning flashes, striking against the enemies’ barriers. Gale force winds scream against them, guiding stray spells at them and threatening to knock them off their feet.

Whettam’s headmaster, the sylph Kleio, has entered the battlefield.

A letter flies from her hand, and it gets caught by… Auden? Kleio’s voice is carried by the winds as she shouts, “Get this to the nearby cities, bring reinforcements through the gate!”

“You think we’re going to let this brat past!?” One of the enemy mages scowls, already starting to cast a spell when my fire bolt splashes across his barrier, blocking his vision for a moment.

Auden stretches briefly and places the letter in a pocket, his expression the epitome of confidence. “And who’s going to catch me?” Before the sound of his voice even reaches anyone, he’s gone, leaving behind only a line of torn earth marking his passage and the roaring scream of the sound barrier breaking.

“What the shit?” The mage’s words echo my sentiments precisely before he starts to choke, the air around him seemingly having been ejected from his vicinity. His mana control grows chaotic for just a second, but that’s enough for a bolt of lightning to crash through his barriers, the supercharged lightning leaving him to slump over, dead.

And yet, I still see a large concentration of mana there. Rather than him… A pouch?

I swiftly fly down to his body, lifting the flap of the pouch to reveal a handful of high-grade mana crystals. Packed to the brim with mana.

Dreyer once mentioned that if someone else filled the crystals, you could have difficulty controlling the mana from them, so I touch one and give it a try – smooth as silk. I’m not sure if the variance is small enough that it’s only a problem with more complex magic, or they purified the mana somehow, but either way, it works.

So, I currently have a lot of mana at my disposal. Part of me thinks I should just transport these to Kleio or some other professor and let them use it no doubt more efficiently than I could.

The other part of me is currently cackling like a mad scientist.

See, Kleio sucking all the air outta that guy’s barrier gave me an idea. A brilliant, mad, mad idea. It makes sense what she was able to do. Most species need to breathe, so their barriers will inevitably need to allow air flow. The mind will undoubtedly then go to poisonous gases and other such chemical warfare, which, putting aside morality and whatnot – is not within my current capabilities.

No, I can’t poison them with the air flow. But the air undoubtedly exists within their barriers and is at least partially unimpeded. That makes it a medium. The wind is blowing in their direction. And, well. Tine for this fork to break this world’s record for the world’s loudest (and worst) tune.

It only takes me half a minute to modify my formation to incorporate the crystals. Despite not having worked much with them before, they’re effectively just big batteries. Plug and play, baby. Levitating the crystals into position, I link them together with my own mana. Unfortunately I can’t control the mass of mana inside the crystals on my own, but the formation does the work for me, draining them all dry simultaneously.

This undoubtedly causes my formation to glow like a Christmas tree to the mana sense of everyone around me, and I can see several spells already starting to form pointed at me.

But it’s too late. I completely stop supplying mana to my hearing tool, The formation activates, and into it I push the loudest, most obnoxious, most dreadful sound I know, one that would instinctively make me shudder and reach for my phone faster than a ninja grabbing their kunai back when I was human – the default *phone alarm tone.

I can’t hear the sound, but I can feel it reverberating through my metal body, even with the formation pointed towards the enemy forces. I can see the ambient mana trembling as the air carrying it vibrates.

Rather than dumbly sitting and watching it, though, I scarper from my current location, the dead mage’s body getting obliterated behind me. As I flee, I observe the results of my spell.

Enemy mages clutching their ears, quite a number. Enemy mages bleeding from their ears, several. Enemy mages bleeding from their ears and coughing blood, one? Dude, even a mage should have some points in physical stats, c’mon.

But more importantly, enemy mages with their wits still intact – basically none. Barriers flicker, some go down completely, and any spell in the process of being cast has failed completely. Meanwhile, the mages on our side, while surprised, have their wits about them and don’t miss the opportunity to decimate a good number of enemy mages.

Some spells take time to make their effect known. Others are near instantaneous. Mine just now, for instance, travelled at the speed of sound - obviously. Projectile attacks based in light, darkness, lightning, can be even faster. And without barriers, there’s nothing stopping direct attacks.

Spikes appearing from the earth below, crushing air pressures, vitality draining, curses, poison, boiling blood – is this all starting to sound a bit too evil?

The reality of magic is that there is no study that is in and of itself evil. A mage could be studying curses in the hopes of removing and curing one. The difference between medicine and poison is merely dosage. If vitality can be removed from one, can it not be added to another? And if fire can be used to burn tumours and cauterise wounds, so too can it boil the blood inside one’s body.

The most evil sounding magics can be used for good, and the most harmless seeming spells can be used to harm.

…Regardless. This part of the battlefield has tipped significantly in our favour, but this is only one small section. The further away from the source of the sound, the less effect it had. Overall, the situation remains urgent. Still, right now there’s not a lot more I can contribute to the battle.

All I can do is fire the occasional small attack to distract enemies.

Elsewhere around the academy, many of the teachers and a smattering of students continue fighting, all manner of magic being tossed back and forth.

Mr Thurston, the elvish teacher who teaches mana control, looks completely calm as he fluidly dodges each and every spell coming his way.

An enemy mage curses as her spells impact the ground to no effect one after another, but internally she tenses with anticipation. One of her spells that had just passed harmlessly over Mr Thurston’s shoulder turns in midair, aiming to hit him from behind.

Unfortunately for her, a small barrier forms precisely in front of it, completely blocking the spell without so much as a flinch from Mr Thurston.

Scowling, she creates several spells and directs them to attack from different directions, only for every one of them to be blocked. ‘Damn it, how freakish is this guy’s mana sense? I’d hoped he was just some noble pansy relying on his racial traits, but his reputation’s not for nothing. I’ll have to use something more powerful – no, he’ll notice the moment I start gathering mana and counter me, I’ll wear him down. I’ve got mana crystals and he doesn’t, drawing it out is to my advantage.’ She thinks.

But a few minutes later, rather than running out, the mana she sensed from him was only getting denser.

“This should be plenty.” Mr Thurston mutters, forming the mana around him into eight different formations.

“Fuck!” The enemy mage curses unconsciously, swiftly forming her own formations to try and counter, but she isn’t able to block or neutralise enough of the spells, and a stream of magic breaks through her barriers.

Confirming her death, he focuses on another target.

‘Knowledge is power’. For magic users, the saying is doubly true. The more magic a mage knows about, the more options they have, but also the more magic from others they can recognise.

Countering an opponent’s magic is a crucial skill for any mage in magic combat, and to do that the most effective way is to know exactly what magic they’re using. Of course, chances are an opponent’s formation or chant will be a unique creation or a variation that you’ll never have seen before, but if a mage can recognise its components, they can usually have a reasonable guess as to how it works and what it does.

‘Water, compression, some sort of jet or bolt…’ the mage thinks, swiftly forming a simple barrier to redirect incoming water away from them. But instead of a jet of water, a fiery explosion completely ignores the mage’s water alteration spell and directly rocks their primary barrier.

It is precisely because of this analysis that Mrs Felt’s opponent is having a hard time. Not because they don’t know or understand the components of the magic she’s using, but because they haven’t the slightest clue as to how that ends up resulting in an explosion.

The mage can’t even just assume that it will be an explosion every time either, as Mrs Felt does use other magic, and the mage is utterly incapable of differentiating between her using normal spells and causing an explosion. After a few failed defences, the mage is forced to bite the bullet and create both a defence against explosions and also whatever the incoming spell should be, draining significantly more mana than usual now that they’re effectively keeping up two barriers constantly – their all purpose one and the anti-explosion one.

So concentrated on maintaining and repairing both spells as well as analysing and creating countermeasures against more attacks are they that they don’t notice walking over a spot another spell lay dormant, activating as it detects them.

Screaming as their legs begin to rot from the feet up, they decisively sever the limbs with a spell, only to fall to another spell from Mrs Felt, cast in the moments of the enemy mage’s agony and distraction.

Mrs Felt breathes a sigh of relief, always keeping a careful eye on the surroundings and feeling the surrounding mana. ‘Dear me, I am much too out of practice fighting. At times like these I do wish these wings were more functional.’

The trap spell wasn’t even hers, just one of the many spells the invading mages had cast and never ended up hitting the intended target. Easy to avoid if one has decent mana sense and is paying attention, but if distracted…

A young man storms out of the academy towards the invading forces, wearing only pyjamas, sandals, a pair of earmuffs around his neck and a couple rings with gems embedded in them on his fingers. There is a dark shadow around his eyes as he glares, mad at the invaders, the fight itself, and just the world in general.

“For fucks sake, why does something always crop up when I’m trying to sleep?” Raymond grumbles with quiet intensity from between gritted teeth. “Bastards couldn’t wait a few more hours, could they? No, that’d be too fucking reasonable!”

Entirely aware that his complaints made no sense and not caring a whit about it, he casts a few spells at some of the frontmost enemy mages. The projectiles impact harmlessly on their barriers, so harmlessly and with such little impact that anyone with half a brain would know they weren’t intended to do damage in the first place.

Cricking his neck and bending backwards to crack his back, Raymond absent-mindedly bats at an incoming spell with the sleeve of his sleepwear, but instead of that resulting in the loss of a limb or other extreme injury as any sane person would expect, it just harmlessly ricochets away.

‘Do these fuckers think I went through all the trouble of finding the rare alpha giant dire illusive snow leopard to get this legendarily soft fur just to let it get damaged by some random spell?’ He scoffs internally as he thinks, the extensive enchantments on the furry sleepwear doing their work.

Putting aside whether or not a creature with such a ridiculous name actually exists, why anyone would be capable of recognising clothing crafted from its fur and why anyone would take time in the chaotic battlefield to target someone’s clothing of all things, the fact of the matter is that his pyjamas are indeed very comfortable – Er, durable.

Nodding to himself, he casts several unique spells in quick succession, two for each of the enemies he had hit earlier. The speed of both his casting and the resulting attacks leave his targets barely enough time to react and maybe create countermeasures for one spell, leaving them to hope their barrier blocks the other.

Without exception, they don’t. The spells pass through as if the barriers don’t exist and summarily execute the mages they were protecting.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Raymond mutters to himself as he walks over to one of the bodies and, after taking a second to identify and eliminate the curse on the body, takes the mana crystals.

The fight goes on for hours, with the attackers slowly gaining the advantage. While our side runs low on mana, every single one of them seems to have several full mana crystals and can simply draw from them when their own runs low, allowing them to cast spells much more freely than our own people.

The academy has those sorts of resources as well, but the surprise attack and the pressure they’re putting on us gives us no time to fetch and distribute them. What’s more, we should have a barrier around the academy, but it’s evidently not active right now. Hopefully there’s someone working on rectifying that, but as it stands, we’re at a severe disadvantage.

More and more of our people are forced to retreat over time, leaving the remaining defenders spread thin and hard pressed.

So, when a portal appears in the middle of the combat, the mages on our side get understandably tense.

On the other hand, Kleio relaxes slightly, and for the first time since combat begun, a slight smile curves the edge of her mouth.

An elderly man steps through the portal, and the mana around the portal immediately ceases its chaotic movement, starting to move in an orderly flow. “Apologies for the delay. The inter-city portal formations were sabotaged in several places. It took some time to repair them all.” He says, seemingly to nobody as he cricks his neck, surveying the battlefield while several others come through the portal behind him. “The rest of the reinforcements will arrive shortly.”

A fresh wind blows as Kleio lets out a long breath, longer than humanly possible, like a continuous, unending stream. “Then I can finally let loose.” She says softly, before closing her eyes and rising further into the air. A soft glow radiates from her body, touching every edge of the battlefield. Piercing, yet not harsh. Magic, yet without mana.

Divine.

The word appears in the mind of everyone observing, and in that moment I realise that not only is Kleio a wind spirit with impossible wind manipulation, not only is she a powerful mage and possibly among the highest level individuals I’ve ever seen. She’s also probably the most powerful practitioner of divine magic I’ve ever seen.

Kleio’s voice cracks out like thunder, harsh and loud. “This academy is a holy place of learning. The knowledge within, sacred. To those who would unjustly invade and seek to pervert the knowledge here for your own gains, know this: In the name of Dihuoin, god of magic, none of you will escape this place.”

As her words ring out, the air seems to somehow solidify, the movement of mana in my entire sphere of view being affected. Behind the group of the elderly man, the portal warps and snaps shut, forcibly closed by the magic now encompassing the entire academy.

But she doesn’t stop with just that. The wind picks up. The gale rages. Dirt and stones are torn from the ground, collected together and whipped into the barriers of enemies by hurricane force winds, a constant, violent barrage that blocks vision and wears down barriers. Pummelling, breaking, trying to force its way inside, pierce the tiniest crack, exploit the slightest weakness.

Even many spells are affected, pulled from their intended trajectories to hit the invaders, regardless of whether they were a missed spell of an ally or an enemy’s spell turned against them.

What is happening is so large scale, so encompassing, that it barely feels like magic anymore. It’s more like this entire area has become Kleio’s domain, and them, invaders rejected by the world.

Some of the invading mages attempt to flee but find themselves stopped at the edge of the battlefield, unable to put even a single toe over that boundary line no matter what they try.

Others target the old man and his men, perhaps thinking that they’re vulnerable with the old man’s signature space magic sealed. They find him almost as much a force of nature as Kleio, and the mages with him are all elites in their own rights.

Enemy mages fall one by one, but even so my inner pessimist knows that this alone won’t mean victory. Even Kleio must have limited resources, and even if this section of the battlefield Is a victory, there’s so many more enemies elsewhere. For all I know, they could be close to breaking through our defences on the other side of the academy.

Still, she wouldn’t have done something like lock them in here with us if she wasn’t sure about being able to take them down. I guess those reinforcements are significant? Ah. Yes, that could indeed be termed as ‘significant’.

Lines of mages enter my sphere of perception at high speeds, approaching the edge of the battlefield in an orderly but rapid manner. In seconds there are dozens of them in my sight, and they start attacking the enemy mages, Kleio’s divine magic somehow letting the attacks through without issue despite being seemingly impenetrable from attempts from the inside only minutes earlier.

To be clear, there are a lot of enemy mages. If I were to assume there’s the same amount of them everywhere else around the academy, there must be at least a few hundred of them.

But the reinforcements in this area of the battlefield alone easily exceed that amount. The sheer, coordinated volume of magical attacks they output overwhelms the enemy mages, their barriers unable to withstand forces of such magnitude.

“Lord, protect me!” One of the invading mages screams as his defences crumple, his selfish prayer left unanswered.

In a laughingly short time after this protracted battle, the enemy forces are completely cleared, wiped out to the last man. And by the way the winds die down and Kleio sets down to earth instead of heading somewhere else, it seems to me that things are the same elsewhere as well.

As the battle concludes and the defenders sit down to rest, I take a moment to breathe easy and settle down to the ground myself, taking a look at the state of the battlefield.

The entire area, once a calming meadow of grass and daisies is now, for want of a better word, an absolute mess. Barely any patches of grass have survived, and the ground itself is torn up and unnaturally shaped in places. Unclean fires belch odd smoke in places, magically burning without any solid fuels to consume.

I can see dozens of places where spells still lie dormant, malicious traps left untriggered by chance or skill of their originally intended targets. Unseen by normal sight, remnant magical traces are spread chaotically everywhere I look.

Frankly speaking, it looks like it’ll be a colossal project to clean this whole place up, and I would not want to be the guy organising that. They’ll probably have to quarantine the entire area.

As I look over the bodies dotted about the battlefield, I notice something that makes me do a double take. I check again, but the truth remains the same, despite how ridiculously impossible it should be.

Floating off the ground, I start making a slow lap around the entire academy, carefully scanning everything as my incredulity grows. Completing the loop, my mind is just blank.

This is… Beyond chance. We clearly didn’t have the numbers or capability to achieve this, yet I know beyond doubt that my eyes don’t deceive me. And I’m almost certain nobody else has realised yet.

“What are you doing?” The voice of Kleio whispers from the wind, startling me from my thoughts.

“Checking the battlefields.” I reply into empty space, glad I’d started powering my hearing device again after having cut my mana supply to it during the battle earlier to have more mana available for combat. “I don’t understand how it’s possible. But the only dead bodies anywhere are from the invading mages. We… None of us died. Not a single person.”

Taken by surprise, outnumbered, outclassed in average skill level, outclassed in supplies, cut off from reinforcements, it’s a strategist’s wet dream… to be on the other side of. Yet somehow with everything overwhelmingly in the enemies’ favour, we’re left with injured but no dead.

“What?” A blank reply comes after a moment, and I see a faint, almost imperceptible wave of wind ripple over the battlefield and out of view. “But that’s… Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” The voice cuts off, and I’m left to my own thoughts again.

Still hardly able to believe the reality of the situation, I start combing back through my memories of the battle, trying to figure out how exactly this could be possible.

But I am once again interrupted as something happens.

With no cause visible to any form of vision I possess, from the scorched, devastated earth, green shoots start to emerge. Like an unseen hand in a sandbox game painting with a grass tool, the landscape turns instantly from brown to green.

The grass grows with not only unnatural suddenness and uniformity everywhere to be seen but also with unnatural speed. And underneath the rapidly thickening carpet of green, more changes are occurring.

The earth softens and smooths, the sharp and harsh contours of the land becoming more gradual and natural as my entire sight is dyed with life, both in the physical and magical sense. Everyone on what was only moments ago the remnants of a battlefield lets out a collective relaxed sigh, even the injured suddenly seeming less pained and more lively.

The leftover spells, the chaotic traces, faded into nothingness. Even the corpses dotted over the battlefield seem somehow more pleasant as their blood drains into the soil.

As whatever is happening stops happening, we’re left sitting in a meadow, looking for all the world like we had just decided to have a day out in the sunshine.

Discussions inevitably pop up as to what had caused the whole thing. A rare natural treasure was used to revitalise the land, one posits. Many mages came together in a complex ritual of growth, another confidently asserts.

But having just circled the entire academy and having seen the state of things and the flow of mana, I know there was no natural treasure, no mages performing a ritual. The only theory that makes sense to me is one that could have come from a simple farm boy, looking at something he doesn’t understand, shrugging and saying, ‘I dunno, guess god did it.’

Status

Name: Gerald

Race: Living Fork

Level: 33

Experience: 6843.2/7600

Gender: None

Age: 2 years (local time)

Allegiance: None

Fame: 1

Strength: 6.5 (65.0)

Intelligence: 54.7

Dexterity: 9.0 (18.0)

Wisdom: 54.5

Charisma: 6.0

Luck: 12.1

Hardness: 26.94

Durability: 18.54/18.54

Mana: 1094/1094

Mana regen: 10.90/min (11.88)

Psi: 545/545

Psi regen: 5.47/min

Ki: 35425/3542 (35425)

Ki regen: 3.54 (35.42)/day

Unspent stat points: 0

Living – You are a living being, and as such, the energies of life heal you and the energies of death damage you.

-Trait: Average life energy absorption -Trait: Average death energy weakness

-Trait: minute life affinity -Trait: negative minute death affinity

Progenitor – The first of your species, and its forefather. Your reputation affects the reputation of your entire race.

-Trait: Minor fame gain enhancement -Trait: 50% of your fame is added to the fame of your race

Household object: Being an everyday, household object makes other beings less likely to notice you and mention you to others.

-Trait: Small fame gain reduction -Trait: Small presence reduction

Assumed inanimacy – Despite being a living entity and continually in the presence of other living entities, few have noticed your existence, assuming you to be an inanimate object. People are slightly less likely to notice you and less likely to notice your life energy.

-Trait: Minor presence reduction -Trait: Moderate life presence reduction

Fork – You are a fork. As such, you are designed to pierce, scoop and carry food.

-Trait: Minute taste enhancement -Trait: Minute piercing enhancement (restricted to food)

-Trait: Minute carry capacity increase (Restricted to food)

Second life – You have lived, and died, once before. While you died young, the experience nonetheless is an advantage over others. -Stats: Wisdom + 1, Intelligence + 2

Clinically sane – You have experienced insanity and overcome it, one way or another. The experience has changed you, for better or worse.

-Stats: Luck +5, Wisdom +1, Dexterity +0.5, Strength +0.5, Intelligence +1

Ouroboros – Like the serpent of legend, you bit your own tail. Then you ate it. Weirdo.

Stat – Luck +2, Charisma +1, Wisdom -1, Wisdom +2

Undead slaughterer – Killer of many horrors of the night, you can instinctively sense nearby undead, especially those harmful to you. All stats increased by 2 when attacking undead.

Skilled – An individual with many different skills. You may now rearrange the skills in your status.

Life energy absorption (Average) – life energy heals you, causing you to regain durability.

Death energy weakness (Average) – death energy damages you, reducing your durability.

Life affinity (Minute) – You find it easier to gain life related skills and proficiencies than if you did not have this trait.

Negative death affinity (Minute) – You find it harder to gain death related skills and proficiencies than if you did not have this trait.

Fame gain reduction (Minor) – The amount of fame you gain is reduced.

Presence reduction (Small +1) – Others are less likely to notice you.

50% Fame added to racial fame – The fame of your race is equal to 50% of your fame plus the added fame of all other members of the species divided by the number of members in your species.

Life presence reduction (Moderate) – Others are less likely to notice that you are alive.

Taste enhancement (Minute) – All food that touches you tastes slightly better.

Piercing enhancement (Minute) (Restricted to food) – It is slightly easier for you to pierce food.

Carry capacity enhancement (Minute) (Restricted to food) – You can carry slightly more food than appearances would suggest.

Mana touched (Minor) – Mana permeates your body, changing it in some ways.

Herculean Strength (Large) – In possession of the ability to exert strength far beyond that of your peers. Multiplies base strength (Before using passive or active skills) by 10.

Structured sanity (Moderate) – a well-structured mind is a strong mind. You are resistant to mind affecting or altering affects, such as fear, charm and hypnosis.

Magic metal – You have gained the properties of the magic metal, Mithril. Your body conducts mana at twice the normal rate. Your passive mana absorption is doubled. Your maximum mana is now equal to Intelligence multiplied by 20 instead of Intelligence multiplied by 10. Your maximum durability is increased by your maximum mana divided by 100. Your hardness is increased by max mana divided by 100.

Psychic – You have unlocked the hidden potential of your mind. Stat unlock: psi.

Poison Resistance (Huge) – You are completely immune to weak and ordinary poisons. The effects of more potent poisons on you are greatly reduced.

Flea-bitten (Minor) – Fleas instinctively move towards you.

Physical damage reduction (Minute) – Damage taken that would do under 5% of your total durability as damage is reduced by 5%.

Ki Practitioner: You have gained the ability to control the energy within you, and to reinforce it with the energy around you, enabling you to perform far beyond the normal limits of your body.

Stat unlock: Ki.

Water-Proof (Minor) – Water, and many water based fluids, will slip from your surface with great ease.

Feather-weight (Minute) – You feel light as a feather. A feather that weighs slightly less than you originally did, that is. 1% weight reduction.

Cat’s flexibility (Minor) – Base Dexterity is multiplied by 2. Range of movement of joints increased by 1.1 times.

Curse resistance (Minor) – You have developed an innate resistance to curses. Reduces the effect of weak curses on you.

Heat resistance (Minor) – You have developed an innate resistance to heat. Reduces discomfort and damage inflicted upon you by high temperatures. Slightly increases your melting point.

Absorb (Advanced) (Racial, Low Unique) 34.18% - Allows the absorption of energy, or substances through the surface of the body or at a distance of (Int*Wis)/10mm. Rate of absorption can be controlled. Although this ability is magical in nature, as it is a form of mana control, and mana is also absorbed, mana cost is 0. Currently the only form of energy able to be absorbed is mana. Absorbing substances has a minor chance of giving traits, abilities and skills relating to the substance.

Mana sight (Expert) (Low Unique, Passive/Toggled) 7.18% - You are capable of seeing smaller congregations of mana than before within (Intelligence*Wisdom)/1.75m. Their forms are now distinct. You can now differentiate mana by type.

Form manipulation – Self (Expert) (Low Unique, Active) 49.29% - Through the use of mana, you can manipulate your own form at will. Cannot change density or mass. Costs 3.5 mana/second while changing form, costs 6 mana/minute while in a form not your original.

WARNING! Do not use this ability if you are of a race with aspects that could result in death if you were to change them E.G. internal organs, mana pathways, et cetera.

Doppelganger (Static) (High Unique, Active) – Switch between your original appearance and that of a Human Male. Costs 1000 mana/min.

Self-repair (Master) (Low Unique, Active) 10.95% - By expending a type of energy available to you, you can repair your own durability and recover your original form. Current energies able to be used: Mana, Psi, Ki. Exchange ratio: 5 mana: 0.1 durability, 10 Psi: 0.1 durability, 10 Ki: 0.1 durability.

Mana control (Master) (Mid Rare, Passive) 3.26% - Your practice with magic has led to an incredible familiarity with handling mana. Maximum quantity of mana able to be controlled reliably: 500 mana. Minimum quantity of mana able to be controlled reliably: 0.05 mana. You are capable of controlling ambient mana within wis*0.01m

Mana sense (Advanced) (Low Uncommon, Passive) 24.18% - You have gained familiarity with sensing the presence and flow of mana in the world around you. Accuracy decreases significantly with distance.

Meditation (Master) (High Rare, Active) 19.44%: Enter into a state unburdened by the worries of the physical world. There is only you, and your thoughts that exist in this world. While in this state, mana regeneration multiplied by 3.0, Psi regeneration multiplied by 3.0, Ki generated at 25 times the normal rate. User is also calmed and receives slight resistance to mind affecting or altering affects.

Magic missile (Expert) (Mid Uncommon, Active) 91.50% - Fires a projectile of mana. Power scales with mana consumption, unable to exceed 50 mana per shot. Maximum range = Intelligence*1.75/metres. If remotely controlling, there is an additional mana cost of 0.65 mana/sec, otherwise direction of travel is set at initial creation of shot.

Magic edge (Advanced) (Mid Uncommon, Active) 7.14% – You have discovered how to clad the edge of your blade in magic power, increasing the power of your strikes. Increase in power varies depending on mana spent.

Formation casting (Expert) (High Uncommon, Passive) 19.80% - You have an excellent grasp of casting magic through formations. Small increase in speed and precision when casting magic through formations.

Vocal casting (Basic) (Low Uncommon, Passive) 25.19% - You have a basic grasp of casting magic vocally.

Creation magic (Advanced) (Mid Uncommon, Passive) 43.22% - You have a good grasp of creation magic. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting creation magic spells.

Destruction magic (Advanced) (Mid Uncommon, Passive) 29.91% - You have a good grasp of destruction magic. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting destruction magic.

Summoning magic (Advanced) (High Uncommon, Passive) 10.63% - You have a good grasp of summoning magic. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting summoning magic.

Illusion magic (Advanced) (High Uncommon, Passive) 24.68% - You have a good grasp of illusion magic. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting illusion magic.

Light magic (Advanced) (High Uncommon, Passive) 83.48% - You have a good grasp of multiple aspects of light magic, including creation and illusion. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting light magic.

Darkness magic (Advanced) (High Uncommon, Passive) 32.21% - You have a good grasp of darkness magic, particularly creation magic. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting darkness magic.

Fire magic (Advanced) (Mid Uncommon, Passive) 51.44% - You have a good grasp of fire magic, particularly creation and destruction magic. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting fire magic.

Water magic (Advanced) (Mid Uncommon, Passive) 42.62% - You have a good grasp of water magic, particularly creation magic. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting water magic.

Earth magic (Advanced) (High Uncommon, Passive) 49.24% - You have a good grasp of multiple aspects of earth magic, including creation and summoning. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting earth magic spells.

Wind magic (Advanced) (High Uncommon, Passive) 17.59% - You have a good grasp of wind magic. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting wind magic.

Force magic (Advanced) (High Uncommon, Passive) 16.42% - You have a good grasp of force magic. Slight increase in mana efficiency and spell control when casting force magic.

Artificing (Advanced) (High Uncommon, Passive) 29.73% - You have a good grasp on the craft of designing and building magic tools. Slight increase in the ability to recognise the use of unfamiliar magic tools.

Common language-Written (Master) (Mid Uncommon, Passive) 13.63% - You can not only read common the right way up, but upside-down, sideways and reflected without much trouble. The very few words you don’t recognise you can understand from context, and you can read like lightning if you need to.

Small increase in the ability to ignore superfluous text and descriptions to find the actual information you want. Allows you to skip over info dumps and flowery descriptions without flinching even slightly.

Common language-Spoken (Expert) (High Common, Passive) 78.31% - You know most of the commonly used words in the common language. Only obscure and occupation specific words are likely to be outside your knowledge.

Terran language – Written (Expert) (High Uncommon, Passive) 14.19% - You have a large vocabulary and can understand most writing.

Terran language – Spoken (Expert) (High Uncommon, Passive) 4.21% - You have a large vocabulary, and have no problem engaging in simple conversation.

Ignitae language – Written (Expert) (High Uncommon, Passive), 8.51% - You have a large vocabulary and can understand most writing.

Aquan language – Written (Expert) (High Uncommon, Passive), 1.16% - You have a large vocabulary and can understand most writing.

Aquan language – Spoken (Basic) (Mid Uncommon, Passive), 23.07% - You have a large vocabulary but terrible pronunciation, and have difficulty making yourself understood.

Aerus language – Written (Advanced) (Mid Uncommon, Passive), 48.80% - You have a good vocabulary and can understand most things written in this language, although in some cases it may take some time.

Telepathy (Advanced) (High Rare, Active) 41.15% - Allows one to communicate with other beings in exchange for 0.5 Psi/sec*distance between user and target in meters, to a maximum range of (Wisdom*Intelligence)/5m. Allows the user to share emotions and thoughts with the recipient.

Telekinesis (Expert) (Mid Rare, Active) 29.17% - Through Psi, your mind pushes at the world around you, moving objects without the need for physical contact. More Psi is required to produce greater forces. Currently slightly inefficient.

Psychic translation (Static) (Low Unique, Passive) – Through subconscious psychic analysis of thought waves and language patterns, allows you to understand (and temporarily speak) any spoken language as if it is your native tongue. Does not apply to non-vocal languages.

External Ki manipulation (Basic) (Low Rare, Active) 0.51% - You have discovered how to manipulate Ki outside of your body. Doesn’t mean you’re any good at it. Difficulty of control increases drastically with distance and quantity of Ki.

Ki blast (Advanced) (Mid Rare, Active) 47.28%: Expel Ki from your body in a concentrated blast. Power varies with ki infused. With your lack of experience, you are not able to accurately control the amount of ki you infuse into the skill, it may vary by up to 10 points.

Metallurgy (Advanced) (Low Uncommon, Passive) 16.74% - You have decent knowledge of common metals and alloys.

Herbalism (Basic) (Mid Common, Passive) 59.11% - You have some knowledge about the names, appearances and uses of common and even rarer herbs, but lack practical experience.

Lip reading (Advanced) (Mid Uncommon, Passive) 90.61% - You have learned how to understand what people are saying by the movement of their lips. Doesn’t hurt that you can see their tongue and jaw movement, either. Rarely inaccurate, you can usually tell what people are saying, unless they have some crazy accent. Good luck with those.

Multitasking (Expert) (High Uncommon, Passive) 3.14% - You are excellent at doing multiple things at once. Average increase to your ability to keep track of multiple things at once, average decrease in the reduction in precision when performing multiple tasks at once.

Body of deadly poison (Advanced) (Low Unique, Passive/Toggled) 0.10% – Deadly poison courses throughout your entire body. So potent is this poison that even touching you will cause great sickness and partial paralysis for a short period of time. Potency of poison scales a small amount with proficiency.

Body of weak acid (Advanced) (Mid Uncommon, Passive/Toggled) 2.07% - A weak acid courses throughout your body and on your skin. So weak is this acid that it acts better as a cleaning agent than a weapon. Acidity scales minutely with proficiency.

Power stab (Advanced) (High Common, Active) 13.12% - Multiplies the speed and power of a stab by 1.2. Cooldown: 4 minutes.

Nine lives (Static) (Passive) – You will avoid the next eight attacks that would be deadly to you, seemingly by accident. After avoiding eight attacks, this skill will disappear.

Charges remaining: 8

Melee weaponry – Spear (Advanced) (Mid Common, Passive) 0.00% - You have some experience using a standard spear. Minor increased grip strength when wielding this weapon, and +1 to Strength and Dexterity while wielding this weapon. Maintaining this type of weapon is easier for you.

Flee (Basic) (Low Uncommon, Passive/Conditional) 3.28% - Multiplies base dexterity by 1.5 when running away from something. Will deactivate if offensive action is taken. Will not activate if you do not perceive the thing you are running away from as a threat.

Climbing (Advanced) (Low Uncommon, Passive) 0.00% - You have a slightly increased ability to find handholds and footholds when climbing something, as well as a slightly increased ability to maintain grip on smaller handholds.

Gaming – Minesweeper (Expert) (Mid rare, Passive) 13.30% - You’ve sunk way too much time into this game. And despite the statistics saying 0 wins, 308 losses, you are way better at this than almost everyone else. Slightly increased analytical abilities. Slight instinctive ability to correctly guess the outcome of a 50/50 gamble.

Gaming - Tic-Tac-Toe (Master) (Low Unique, Passive) 48.97% - You are a master at Tic-Tac-Toe. Congratulations. Slight instinctive ability to correctly guess the outcome of 50/50 and one in three gambles.

Deception (Advanced) (High Common, Passive) 0.07% – Whether the end game is a knife in the back or a slowly drained bank account makes no difference. It’s not like they don’t lie to you, either. Others are more likely to believe your words. Affected positively by charisma. Synergistic effect with the ‘flattery’ skill.

Flattery (Advanced) (Low Uncommon, Passive) 0.00% – Skill and tireless effort is the surest way to the top. But sometimes, a few lined pockets and some glitzy compliments are all you need. Others are more likely to have positive opinions of you. Affected positively by charisma. Synergistic effect with the ‘deception’ skill.

Mud bath (Basic) (Low Uncommon, Passive) 0.00% - Your injuries heal faster when they are covered with mud, by 1.2 times. Slightly lowered chance of contracting infection and parasites from this activity.

…However, as you are for most purposes an object, this skill does not affect you.