Chapter 268: Titan’s Grasp (Patreon)

William Oh’s first painting was so enormous in scale, the canvas was a mountain and the paint was the blood of his enemies.

Those who witnessed it are said to have fainted from sheer bliss

-          Jason Salazar

Will was sitting with a selection of Sacrifices in front of him.

Simon the Indigestible Sacrifice for Phantom hand.

Phantom Hand gains the ability able to bind itself to other objects of like makeup.

Next.

Simon the indigestible Sacrifice for Aspect of the Immortal Serpent.

Bind together two or more terrains. Affix terrain in place semi-permanently

Next.

Simon the Indigestible Sacrifice for Map

Changes to the landscape made by the user’s Abilities are automatically reflected on the map.

Next.

Simon the Indigestible Sacrifice for Uru Drake’s Eye.

Incompatible.

Will sighed and set the chunk of raid-boss down. It wasn’t that exciting, all told.

Well, on to the next.

Will checked the wire hair gorillas.

For Phantom Hand, it enhanced the armor. For Aspect, it boosted Will’s protection against physical damage, and it was incompatible with Map and Uru Drake’s eye.

Will kept going for several hours, putting aside the potential upgrades he liked the most into piles based on which Ability they were for…until he reached the piece of what appeared to be wood.

The crimson puppeteer was a rare and elusive monster he hadn’t come across on the 9th Floor that took control of people and animals and used a variety of abilities through its puppets.

Crimson Puppeteer Sacrifice for Map.

User may have their Abilities originate from any location on the map within the radius of the automatic update.

Will frowned, leaning his chin on his palm as he studied the description. Did that mean he could use Aspect to create earth spikes miles away?

Will set it aside.

After another half hour of looking, he’d narrowed his primary choice down to either Crimson puppeteer or Xanith Forgemaster for Phantom Hand.

Xanith Forgemaster Sacrifice for Phantom Hand.

User may fully manifest Relics slotted in Phantom Hand. If the Relic is destroyed, replaced, or modified, Phantom Hand’s connection to the Relic is lost, and the slot will take a week to regrow.

Will compared the two in his mind.

The Forgemaster Sacrifice would allow him to take out and modify the Wand of the undead retainer, and potentially replace certain valuable pieces like the Dimensional Coiled Serpent Amulet without breaking them.

The map ability would allow him to use his ability to modify distant terrain with Aspect of the immortal Serpent, create eyes and ears miles distant in an instant, and potentially lead to more powerful upgrades to Map in the future, such as directly modifying terrain and teleporting to locations on the map without requiring a fear anchor.

Beyond that, with the upgrade that allowed him to map his own body he could accurately use Abilities to modify the Miasmatic Structures inside himself...once he had the ability to do so.

The Forgemaster sacrifice was…great to have, but not critical. The Crimson puppeteer was a strong advancement in Map’s progression, which only had two upgrades so far.

Seems like I’ve convinced myself. Will thought.

Do you wish to sacrifice Crimson Puppeteer to Map?

Yes.

Will’s body shuddered as his Ability was rewritten.

Map has been upgraded. Review the description for changes.

Map***

Passive:

You have a map.

This map is a mental construct that contains an accurate, self-updating record of terrain in a radius around the user. Current location, heading, Abilities, and manifestations therof are displayed on this map. You may summon this map and dismiss it at will, and it will only be perceivable to you.

Radius scales with Acuity. Beyond this radius, the map does not update, but will retain anything that was already filled in. Within this radius, the user’s Abilities may originate from any point displayed on the map.

The map has an alternate mode that displays an in-depth map of the user’s body.

Toggle: 7 Focus

Manifest a physical copy of the map.

Will felt it as the map changed in his mind. It was no longer a flat lifeless thing, and more like a thin, stretchy film his Abilities could interact with and pierce through with a single mental command.

Tweak it just like this…

Will went onto the balcony of his tower and plucked a portion of the map, leaning on his years of experience with his first cantrip.

Miles in the distance, a portion of the mountain shot upwards in a cloud of dust before gradually sinking back down, creating an avalanche so distant that Will couldn’t even hear it.

Brianna walked out onto the balcony beside him, drinking coffee as she peered out into the distance. Coffee was definitely a luxury this high in the Tower, but she’d figured out how the farmer kids could produce a huge quantity of both coffee and sugar, so Will had no reason to complain.

“…Was that you?” Brianna asked, scratching her mussed up hair as she peered at the mountain, her oversized bedshirt rendered luminous by the morning sun.

Will made two fat pillars and a curved line, drawing a smiley-face on the distant mountainside.

“Hmm…” Brianna left and returned a moment later with a map of the surrounding lands.

“Flatten the spots in green, dig trenches in the red, and plow the checkered portions, milord.”

“Why can’t your farmers do it?” Will asked, overlaying her map onto his own.

“You’re faster,” Brianna said over her shoulder as she walked back inside.

Will was indeed faster, finishing the task in the three strides it took him to follow Bri back inside the tower.

Will sat back down at his table and mulled over his next picks while Brianna got dressed and left for work.

In front of him were a slew of preserved eyes from different monsters with eye abilities and enhanced senses. Uru Drake’s eye was kind of picky about what Sacrifices were compatible.

Basilisk sacrifice for Uru Drake’s eye

Uru Drake’s Eye gains an Active Ability that inflicts paralysis.

Nope.

Desert Eagle Sacrifice for Uru Drake’s Eye.

Visual range of Ability is vastly improved. Small damage boost to ranged attacks.

Interesting, but no.

Eye King sacrifice for Uru Drake’s eye.

Uru drake’s eye gains a toggleable direct damage effect.

Neat…but no.

Will didn’t really need more ways to deal direct damage, even if it was as cool as shooting beams out of your eyes.

Gods I probably would’ve taken the Ability in a flat second when I was starting out.

Who wouldn’t want an attack that cool?

It stung setting the Sacrifice aside and moving on to the next one. it was a flying eyeball called a Flitting Orb that was incredibly difficult to pin down because only the stealthiest Climbers could even get close to it. A good scout sacrifice.

Flitting Orb Sacrifice for Uru Drake’s Eye.

The user’s other senses become attuned to what the eye can see.

…

Does that mean I could feel, hear, and taste miasma instead of just seeing it?

Will would’ve jumped at the opportunity to take it a few years ago, but now he thought twice about it.

Yes, that would help with my research, BUT…what do I do if it clouds my senses in the same way Uru Drake’s Eye messed with my vision? Would it be like standing at the bottom of a waterfall and completely overwhelm my senses until I adapted?

Will saved the Sacrifice until the end. He was probably gonna take it, but best choose the other stuff while not dealing with sensory disorientation.

Show me the Abilities available for my secondary and tertiaries. Will thought.

…Oh, they’ve changed.

Uru Breath (major)

Active: 5 Charges, unleash a blast of space-warping breath, the dimensional ripples cause extreme damage and disorientation to those inside the cone. Does extreme damage to the environment. May linger.

Uru Breath had gone from minor to major, and the damage had become ‘extreme’.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything described as ‘extreme’, Will thought.

Scaled Charge

Active: 1 Charge, Kin/5 seconds. Coats the user’s body in scaled armor and/or propels them forward at lethal speeds. Damage dealt while charging inflicts psychic venom and bleed.

‘Stone Charge’ became ‘Scaled Charge’, adding a duration rather than a short fixed duration, along with a venom effect.

Venom strike

Active: 1 charge, Add Psychic Venom to the next attack or ability. Scales with Acuity.

Psychic venom instead of regular, less restrictions on the application.

Legendary Leap

Active: 1 Charge, user’s jump distance is tripled for a single jump. Inspire those who witness it.

‘mighty’ became ‘legendary’, and it added a buffing effect. Is this all because of my Advanced Class?

Serpent’s Senses

Passive: The User’s range and field of vision is enhanced, as well as their hearing, touch and smell.  Scales with Acuity.

…Would that pair well with the Fleeting Orb upgrade to Uru Drake’s Eye? It’s definitely upgraded.

Inexorable

Active: 10 Charges

choose a creature, object, or point in space within range. The user is compelled to move towards it by the world itself. You cannot move further away, nor be moved further away. If you do not move, you will be pushed towards the target at a slow pace. Until User reaches the target, they cannot die, but can be mortally wounded.

Scales with Resistance.

Same as before. Likely because I got it late. It seemed to be the Abilities Will got offered earlier that were being spontaneously upgraded.

Consumption

Active: 5 Charges

Consume a permanent relic, destroying it in the process, to gain some of its effect for a few minutes. Can only benefit from one consumed relic at a time.

Scales with Resistance

Climber's Piton

Active: 10/1 Charges

 10 Charges. Place a dimensional anchor in the terrain. So long as the piton exists user may expend 1 Charge to propel themself directly towards it. Distance scales with Acuity, max number of Pitons with Focus, duration with Resistance.

Progenitor affinity

Passive: Further enhances the natural affinity scaled creatures have towards you.

I wonder what taking this would do for my diplomacy with the dragons.

Stubborn Ass

Passive: User becomes more difficult to change through outside forces, adding force to their attacks and resisting shoves, strikes and Abilities. Scales with resistance.

Good for a fighter, still. Added Ability resistance.

Gravity Charge

Active: 1 charge

The user’s personal gravity is oriented in the direction of the target for Resistance seconds. Ethereal horns grow from the user’s skull, and their brain, skull, and neck are strengthened against impact. Scales with Resistance.

Cancelable.

Same.

Astral Tread

Passive: A small doughnut shaped area of gravity below the user’s hands and feet becomes under the control of the user and can be used to push off of, or pull into objects and surfaces. Can provide a tiny amount of propulsion should the user be outside the range of any solid objects, such as underwater or in outer space.

Wish I had the spare Upgrades to get this one. I have a feeling it would be fun.

Deceiver’s Molt

Active: 5 charges. Moderate Self-heal. User slips out of their skin and creates a decoy that can perform simple pre-determined actions. The decoy will retain any wounds the user has healed through this Ability.

Also fun.

Titan’s Grasp

Passive: Space and gravity warp around objects the user wants to hold, allowing them to handle objects larger or smaller than they might’ve otherwise been able to handle, whether that be from cumbersome size or weight.

Could that be…

Ouroboros’s Tongue

Active: (eternity) 1 Charge.

Active: (Inversion) 10 Charges.

With a word of Eternity, extend the duration of a buff or debuff on the target for (Acu/10) Seconds.

With the Word of Inversion, change a buff into a debuff or vice versa.

Whoah. Serpent’s tongue wants to compete.

Blood Binding

Active: 20 Charges

Apply your tainted blood to a weapon to imbue it with a fraction of your nature. The weapon will warp fate to always return to you.

On Binding, one Ability will be randomly added based on the User’s Sacrifices. Only one Ability can be bound at a time, To re-roll the random Ability, Cast Blood Binding again.

I still want it.

Serpent’s Gaze

Active: 1 Charge

Inflict (acu/100) seconds of Paralysis on a target you can see the eyes of. Acuity contested by Focus or Resistance, whichever is higher.

Honestly, I want all of them…but the most practical one seems to be Titan’s Grasp.

It was one of the Abilities that had been around since the very beginning, and it had always been a tempting choice, overshadowed by other Abilities that Will needed more immediately.

The thing that finally convinced Will was Titan’s Grasp ability to interact with things that were smaller than what he could usually touch.

Miasmatic Structures were awfully small. He could replace the crude tweezers he’d created from scorpion stingers, eventually manipulating miasma directly.

It would also improve his earth spike cantrip, possibly open the door for new telekinetic cantrips, and finally…allow Will to wield big, manly, two-handed swords with a single hand, which was icing on the cake.

Take Titan’s Grasp as a Secondary Ability?

Yes.

Will shuddered as his Class rewired itself, taking copious notes as the miasmatic structures changed, especially around his fingertips.

Okay. One secondary and one tertiary left.

Will reviewed the list again with an eye for taking a tertiary Ability.

…Uru Drake breath? Or Serpent’s senses? Those were the only two that Will wanted, but didn’t care if they never got upgraded.

Uru Drake Breath was vastly improved since the last time he’d seen it, and importantly, Will could blast any point on his map with it at any time, which would be absolutely devastating.

Serpent’s Senses was a synergistic combo with Uru Drake’s Eye, allowing him to peer deeper into the nature of reality.

Hard to put a price tag on that.

Will waffled between the two for some time before he finally decided…not to take anything yet.

Nothing is pressuring me to choose right this second, and Tertiary Abilities don’t require me to have a Sacrifice on hand. I can just take it whenever. That means I can hold off on the choice in case I ever get into a scrape that requires one of the Abilities.

Will turned back to the Flitting orb, the preservation technique making it look like a white wrinkled prune more than an eye with wings.

Flitting Orb Sacrifice for Uru Drake’s Eye.

The user’s other senses become attuned to what the eye can see.

Do you wish to Sacrifice Flitting Orb to Uru Drake’s Eye?

Yes.

Uru Drake’s eye has been upgraded. Read the description for changes.

Uru Drake’s Eye *

Passive: Become able to perceive that which a Uru Drake Progenitor can. Dimensional effects, Charges and miasma become perceptible.

‘see’ changed to ‘perceive’, Will thought.

Will waited with tensed shoulders for the crash of sensations to overwhelm him as his senses were attuned to the Uru Drake’s Eye.

Ting.

Ting.

Will cocked his head, frowning.

The sound of miasmatic structures bouncing against each other in the environment sounded like tiny windchimes.

Their smell was similar to freshly cut wood.

And the feel against his skin was something like the bubbles in a pond underneath a waterfall, tickling against his skin as they bounced off him.

All told, it was actually rather pleasant.

Will reached up with his right hand and seized a small section of air with Aspect.

There was a creaking noise, like an old man leaning back in a wooden chair as Aspect of the Immortal Serpent’s miasmatic structures formed a crystalline shape and solidified the air.

Will flicked it with his finger.

He watched and listened as Titan’s Grasp triggered from his fingertip and interacted with the crystalline shape.

It sounded a bit like wind breaking against a thin sheet of metal, and Will watched as the hardened air wobbled slightly under the warping effect of Titan’s Grasp.

This is excellent. The extra sensory information would make it much easier to tell if something had changed in a miasmatic structure without even looking at it, and once he was familiar with them, it would make identification, mixing, modification and guessing the function…much easier.

In summary: I had two upgrades for my primaries, two for my secondaries, and a tertiary.

I upgraded Map and Phantom Hand. Map can now deploy my Abilities through it, and Phantom Hand became Phantom Hands and gained a right hand, adding extra storage space and five extra slots.

I upgraded Uru Drake’s eye to expand my miasma senses. I thentook Titans Grasp, which I’ve been delaying for a long time.

For the tertiary Ability, I’m still waiting to see what I’ll need in the future.

Now, on to today’s business: Practice with Titan’s Grasp, pursue my studies, create Abilities, and look for a way to hatch the crystal egg.

Will moved over to the disassembled pod and leaned down to pick up a piece he’d been working on.

Titan’s grasp flared and the metal square flew into his hand the moment he considered it.

Well, I also need that bolt so I can put these panels back together.

The small bolt flew up to hover above his finger. Will found that he could orient the thing any way he wanted.

I could make Phantom Hand’s armor into a screwdriver…

The bolt began to spin.

No way.

Will oriented the bolt straight above his finger and it spun screwing itself back into the hole, securing the two panels back together.

I am a living screwdriver. Not a bad sign of things to come, Will mused.

Coffee?

Titan’s grasp flared and the cold cup of coffee Brianna had left for him was cocooned in altered gravity, flying across the room without spilling, landing in his palm without a ripple.

What’s going on here? Will mused, carefully reviewing what he knew.

Oh!

The Ability was one of the originals, and Will had been a bit confused as to why it hadn’t changed like the other originals…but it had changed. The change was just so small he hadn’t even noticed. One word.

‘tries to hold’ had become ‘wants to hold’.

One word made a big difference.

As in, the sensitivity of the Ability had become much higher, the range had been increased, and the limits inherently reduced. ‘tries’ implied he had to actively try to touch the target, and that also meant he had to be close enough to try. At least, close enough to rationalize it as ‘trying’ in his mind.

But ‘want’?

That was carte blanche.

I…want to pick up all the scattered pieces of the Ability-implanting pod and put the machine back together.

At Will’s mental nudge, the thousands of scattered parts rose into the air and began hovering in place.

It didn’t put everything together, though. Will simply couldn’t focus on all of it at once, but wherever he directed his attention would begin reassembling according to his direction.

The reason why it’s acting as telekinesis rather than a correction to grip, orientation, and weight is probably because of how high my stats are and all the boosts to Dimensional Abilities in my kit. It would’ve been significantly less potent if I’d gotten it back at level 10.

At level 10, it probably would’ve made heavy swords feel lighter and more nimble. At level 65, the bonus was so high that the Ability could move objects by itself.

I’m going to get fat like Travis if this keeps up, Will thought, sipping his cold coffee as he watched the pod reassemble itself.