B6 Chapter 698: Final preparations (Patreon)

The days that followed were a frenetic blur of activity. In the final run up to the Proving, Kaius fell into a haze of battle, practice, and movement as he and his team bounced around the jungle. They did everything they could to shore up their capabilities in preparation, searching out the sealed ruins that dotted the inner reaches of the desert jungle, mapping their locations.

By reaching a Stellar Refinement, they had achieved one of their major goals. It wasn’t their only one, however. They still wanted to squeeze through another skill evolution as well. There was a very real chance that they would be forced into competition with other delvers, and Kaius wanted every advantage they could get.

Even if the System segregated them so that they mostly faced others in their tier, Kaius wasn’t measuring them against the average delver. There had to be others of talent. Someone had progressed the integration to this stage, and he had no doubt there were ancient dynasties nurturing their own talents. He was confident, of course — but that was no excuse to be complacent.

Every battle, they worked on mastering their new abilities and refining their teamwork. It was a butchery of steel and magic as they cut a bloody swathe through the canopy. When they weren’t fighting beasts, they were practicing on the run — quasi-spars, where Ianmus and Kenva tried to pin down him and Porkchop down as they grew comparable fighting evasively under the influence under his new Steps of the Rippling Heavens spell. 

Running through the air was a rush. It was a freedom of movement that even Expedient Shunt could not even come close to matching. Ripples of light spread from his every footfall, proving a perfectly solid barrier for him to kick off of, enhancing his speed to a maniacal pace. 

If they weren’t dancing through the sky like madmen, they were practising their individual abilities as much as they were able. Whenever he could, Ianmus worked on his mastery of keyseal conjuration — finally achieving a breakthrough to cast just the inner ring of one, allowing him to use only the first tier spells the seal provided in addition to the two full seals he normally used. Even with only having additional first tier spells available, it was a fantastic broadening of his base. 

When they could, Kaius worked with the mage to grow more used to the effects of the man’s field seal as well — the Seal of the Fractured Firmament. 

It was an interesting ability, appearing as a burning ring of silver and gold geometrics that encapsulated a circle of ground ten strides wide, rotating slowly a handspan above the ground. When he stood inside, Kaius felt the potency of the mana swirl through the air in a constant churning current. When he cast, that mana condensed into a boiling cloak of metallic silver and gold that intermingled with his offensive magic. Hateful Nail and Spear of Nectus streaked, detonating into chaotic fire that was particularly disruptive to mana constructs — alongside their standard effects.  

Stormlash in particular looked glorious, the additional energy braided into a grand whip of crackling lightning, golden fire, and solid silver. 

When he could, Kaius worked on VOS. Ever diligent in improving his use of the ability, he continued to look for ways to make use of it without overly straining himself. That wasn’t all he did, though.

Recently, he’d started pushing himself to use it with non-combat spells. He knew it had to be possible, the great-rune was far too expansive for it to be bound to offensive magic alone. Unfortunately, Kaius knew he understood only the smallest slice of the greater whole, and those limitations made progress…difficult. And unreliable.

He’d had some results, but they were inconsistent. Mostly, he’d practiced with Shunt. Half the time his attempts resulted in an inefficient, modest boost compared to what he could normally do with VOS. Sometimes nothing happened at all — and once he got hurled into a tree so hard he left a dent. He’d been forced to give up on that line of practice for the rest of the day, his soul aching from backlash even with the support of his Pillars, and the tolerance he’d built from his use of Redoubt of the Speaker. Still, he didn't give up entirely, working on it when he could. 

Kenva’s new Skill, The Blackrose Blooms, proved to be a wildly beneficial addition to both her kit, and the team as a whole. It shone in their most drawn out fights especially, simply due to the time it allowed them to build up afflictions with their attacks. The affliction itself was relatively weak to start, but it was sticky. As it built up and strengthened, it eventually left their enemies ridden with thorned, black vines that wormed through their flesh. 

Except for the short moments of sleep they still required, they took almost no breaks. Almost. Ianmus’s birthday was an exception they were all happy to make — and it served to be a well-earned rest that soothed some of the fatigue and irritation that had built from pushing themselves so hard. They had made their camp in the crown of a jungle-giant, surrounded by parasitic brush covered in dusty-pink blooms. Laughing and drinking, they’d done little more than talk and watch the stars go by. Kaius never was able to find any fish in the desert — but he’d done his best to fulfil his friend's request by making a smoked chicken pie.

Ianmus had looked…happy as he dug into the meal. Perhaps a little more odd was the poorly hidden look of perplexity that slipped out when he thought the rest of them weren’t looking. Like he was surprised by how much he enjoyed the moment. Kaius wasn’t sure how he felt about that. No one should be caught off-guard that they’d had fun on their birthday! Still, he was glad he could at least show his friend that there was fun to be had.

The very next day, they went right back to the grind, pushing ever deeper into the central regions of the desert-jungle. The further they got, the more common the ruins had become — but once they physically felt the distant potency rolling off the centre of the jungle like a fire’s heat, they’d stopped heading deeper. Instead, they spread out, trying to cover as much ground as possible. There were plenty of strong beasts and ruins to find where they were, anyway. 

Once or twice, Kaius thought he might have sensed other teams moving through the jungle — a distant crack of steel, a roar that wasn’t quite beast-like or the distant flash of a spell. It was hard to say. The jungle was such a hive of brawling creatures that strange sounds and random blasts of distant magic were common.

Bit by bit, the time bled away, and they spent their last few days pushing as hard as they could for their next Skill evolution — taking on as many as four fights a day. Not all of them were perfectly calculated challenges that pushed them to the very brink. In fact, many gave them only slivers of progress, but it all counted with the monstrously increasing requirements for experience. 

Two days before the Proving, a countdown appeared in their Statuses. It wasn't until the final eight hours, when the stars were splashed across the black sky, that Kaius and his team reached their goal. Deep in the canopy, Kaius panted as he pulled his blade from the skull of a feathered lizard, sidestepping around the smoking pools of magma the creature had sprayed across their battle ground.

He grinned, staring at his notifications. Three-twenty-two. They’d done it, and overshot by a level while they were at it.

Knowing they didn’t have a hope of taking their progress much further, they’d quickly field-dressed the lizard for any particularly energy-rich parts and put some distance between them and the smoking branch they’d fought on. Climbing to the top level of the canopy, they’d found a wide and sheltered branch that was open to the night sky and sprawled out to wait.

The moment he’d cleaned himself of gore and ash, Kaius dived into making them a very early breakfast — using the last of their dwindling supply of eggs in celebration for their coming struggles. 

They ate and watched the stars slide by, a pink glow building behind the distant plateaus that encircled the central jungle. Enjoying the moment, they talked through their Skill evolutions, making the best choices they could to support their future 

For Kaius, it was time to evolve another glyph. This time it was Eirnith, his mind-magic ability. Once, the simple thought of mind magic had made his skin crawl. It had left him unnerved and uncertain of what Eirnith might bring. He’d grown far beyond that point. Power was…power — what mattered was the kind of man he was.

That said — he wasn’t exactly pleased by the prospect of his first option for evolution. Karkoryth, the Glyph of Domination was exactly the kind of Skill he wanted to avoid. According to the description, every ability with it was about bending the will of others to your desires. While he wasn’t exactly embroiled in an ethical crisis by the simple thought of it, it was still something he found distasteful. He wished to crush his enemies with strength of arm and potency of magic — not fracture them into a twisted facsimile of what they had once been. 

The other option had been far more appealing. Oriamenos, The Glyph of the Wise. It was still an ability that encapsulated mind magic, but so much more than that alone. It built on Eirnith’s previous focus on utility spells to include specialisations such as the conjuration of objects, various forms of force magic, and the shaping of arcane constructs. In short, it was a glyph designed to be a toolkit of supplementary abilities, ones that he hoped would broaden his base outside of combat alone. 

The second-tier spells he’d been offered had convinced him that he made the right choice. Like usual, he had four options. Spectral Presence would let him conceal a target's presence for a full hour with incredible efficacy. It wasn’t invisibility — if someone was watching him, they would see him directly. However, other forms of sensing would slide right over him, including danger sense Skills. It even would make his own aura nigh-undetectable, barring an equally potent counter. Soothing Potentate made him exude an aura of calm, allowing his words to be seen for the truth of them, and encouraging favourable responses — a little uncomfortable, but he could see the benefit out of battle. Eye of Judgement let him sense the intentions of those around them — detecting deception, on the tin, but Kaius could see it as a killer in battle as well. Sensing someone's intent would be devilish for picking through feints and reading the flow of a fight. The last had been Courier’s Envy. A messaging spell of all things — but one with absurd range. Part mind-magic, part arcane construct, he’d be able to craft a small messenger bird that would seek someone in Mystral from the centre of the continent within an hour and return their response. The only limitation was he’d actually have to have met the person before.

In the end, he thought Eye of Judgement would be the most useful. It wasn’t perfect. Plenty of skills would help someone resist it, which were common among the nobility, as were artefacts that did similar. Hells, Ianmus had warned him that even strong Will and good training would help. That said, the spell was still a second tier Heroic. Backed by his monstrous Intelligence and Willpower, that was an awful lot of raw power to overcome. 

Against someone with a partial resistance, Kaius expected it would still grant him a notable advantage in a duel — and it would be priceless in a negotiation. Definitely one he planned on keeping a copy inscribed at all times.

His friends had equally interesting choices to make.

Evolving Totem of the Glade, Porkchop had ended up choosing Primal Warbanner. The Skill summoned an ethereal banner in the air above him depicting an armoured meles rearing up and brandishing his claws. Its effects were potent — empowering Porkchop and any ally near him with a sizable increase to physical power and durability, while bolstering their courage and resistance to fear effects. When it was up, Kaius felt like he had raw lightning running through his veins, urging him into action — and he was very, very eager to test it out in battle.

Ianmus had evolved another metamagic — his Armour Shredding Spells. In its place, he’d taken a dual solar and lunar affinity Keyseal of the Mountain-cracker. It was another pure-offensive keyseal, but with more specialised spells compared to Keyseal of the Rising Dawn. For the first-tier spell, Ianmus had picked Cleansing Dust. It summoned a storm of powder that could slip through any gap in a defense, tearing at the flesh within — while also wearing away at any defensive magics that might be active. For his second-tier magic, he picked Golden Immolation, a sudden jet of solar flames that erupted under the feet of his target to cook them inside their armour. 

Kenva evolved her stealth skill, Mother’s Shadow, into Woodswraith. It was similar, but far more potent — not only making her hellishly difficult to detect and track, but also increasing the power of her attacks against anyone who wasn’t aware of her. Even when you were staring straight at her, it made it a pain in the ass to keep track of her when she repositioned. 

Once they’d made their picks, they spent a few hours familiarising themselves with their new Skills — as much playing around as they were practicing. After that? There was little else to do but wait. 

Packing away the remnants of their meal, mentally readying themselves for whatever could come next, they sat on the edge of their chosen branch as the sun slowly rose over the desert-jungle. Watching golden rays mingle with the deep violet sky and slowly vanishing stars, Kaius let out a deep breath.

A minute left, not long at all.

“Ready?” he asked softly, sliding on his helmet and buckling it tight.

Kenva nodded, while Ianmus just smiled and started to weave the inner ring of his latest keyseal to join with the two he already had active.

“Let’s win this thing,” Porkchop said with a growl.

The timer on their statuses hit zero.

*Ding! The Proving commences! As you are a Path-walker within the Shardworld, prepare for teleportation to the edge of the closest designated tier-appropriate zone! Further instructions will follow shortly!*

Kaius read the notification and sighed.

“Isn’t that some bull—”

They vanished.

A/N: Will be stubbing b3 sometime today, in preparation for the ebook coming out on the 4th. As mentioned, audio will be a ~2 weeks after that.