[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 86: New Lands

Author Note: Hey guys, sorry about the issue with this week's posts. I generally have this all set up a month at a time but it looks like Patreon's recent update borked everything up on top of making it take three times as long to post anything as a creator. We're all caught up now though. Thanks for the patience!

Sam placed the [Barren Tile], [Dune Tile], [Forest Tile], and [Lake Tile], eschewing his original idea of surrounding his main Tile with [Barren Tiles].

At first that had seemed like the best thing to do, but he had no idea when he would ever be able to get another such Tile, and in the meantime he had quite a few useful Tiles to pick from.

He attached the first [Barren Tile] to his [Sourcestone’s] Tile, and then branched the other three off of that.

That meant each of the Tiles, including the [Core Tile] itself, were all benefiting from the [Barren Tile’s] EXP buff.

Perhaps the most interesting thing was how they all interacted with each other. Sam had expected some minor changes as he placed the additional Tiles around the [Barren Tile], but not to such a degree.

He walked out from the [Sourcestone] of Sil’mara and onto the rocky gray barrens. Where the [Barren Tile] met the [Core Tile], the land was relatively flat and, well, barren.

However, as he went deeper, the elevations began to change dramatically. The ground was still generating, so he didn’t go too deeply yet, but even a dozen or so feet in, Sam was standing at least twice the height above the [Core Tile].

It afforded him an excellent vantage point to watch his Skyshard grow.

Unlike with the [Dune Tile] that simply attached and underwent minor changes, the compacted little cubes generated land from a mixture of ambient mana and the [Sourcestone].

Its mana reserves were deeply depleted, and it was a stroke of luck that he had been able to remove the [Dune Tile] without Breaking it because each Tile appeared to consume around 25% of his [Sourcestone’s] mana reserves.

Not a small amount of mana by any stretch of the imagination.

But the effect was more than worth the price. It was just a cost he would have to bear in mind for the future. The last thing he wanted was to crash into Raiko’s Skyshard as she was transforming it to her liking.

I’ll need to ask her about that, he reminded himself, reaching up to pet Komachi. She shut her eyes and purred softly on his shoulder, content to be near him.

Already Sam could see several cavern mouths yawning open as the ground rose, but left small holes that widened into darkened pits in the rocky hillside.

Where the [Barren Tile] met the [Lake Tile] the rocks became weathered and worn as if they belonged to an ancient quarry that had long since fallen to disuse.

The [Dune Tile] eroded much of the [Barren Tile] at their shared border. What height the barrens managed to climb was smoothed away as the dunes crept up on them.

On the side with the [Forest Tile], grasses, shrubs, and small stunted trees began to grow from every crevice and crack in the stone. Moss blanketed whole sections so that the barrens became a patchwork of different colors radiating outward toward each different Tile.

Sam didn’t venture too much farther because, despite the amazing speed at which the Tiles generated, they were still…. soft.

He pressed the toe of his boot into what should have been stone. The material yielded gently and bunched up like a rug ready to trip an unwary guest.

Komachi, sensing the chance for mischief, hopped down and put her paw prints into the stone. She motioned for Sam to do the same, and like a kid presented with drying cement, he pressed his palms into the soft stone to make a pair of impressions beside hers.

With a fingertip, Sam quickly signed their names.

The [Forest Tile] was hard at work making trees. He could hear them creaking and groaning with the effort of so much growth. It was surprising, really.

Perhaps it took more time to create something that was living. Drawing in more mana because a living creature contains more?

It sounded right, but then again, history was full of idiots who thought bleeding themselves rebalanced their humors or some stupid shit.

Standing at frontstage to all this change, the mandragoras went off to explore the new terrain of his Skyshard Sil’mara.

“I wonder how the others are doing?” Sam asked, taking Komachi back to the [Sourcestone] and pressing his hand on the shining warmth of its crystal.

***

Kai shut his eyes and prayed.

Not to a god, not as such. He prayed for his sister’s safe return. For vengeance and fire to rain on Darren’s head, and for more personal things besides.

He had found a small, secluded area in the bamboo grove surrounding Raiko’s great Tree. It served as a perfect spot to finish up his notifications in peace.

Sam was a problem, of course. One he wasn’t sure how to solve. Nor had he ever.

He was, without a doubt, a powerful person now that he was unrestrained by the feeble constructs of the corrupt back home. As much as Kai loved his home, he knew that it had long ago been twisted beyond recovery.

The best he could do would be to hold on to the family plantation and follow in their footsteps to honor their ancestors and the land that gave them life and prosperity.

That had led him, ultimately, to selecting his Second Order Job.

There were many to choose from, several that reflected the festering hatred in his heart, and others that sought to absolve him of such base emotion.

But it was Shaman that had truly caught his eye.

It took Cleric into a more natural role. One where he wasn’t beholden to find a God and pray to them, but to rely on the power of the land and the very real mana that flowed through every living thing.

So many people in his family thought the land was alive. His grandmother had thought she could sometimes hear the land’s cries.

But Kai, with the power of a Shaman, knew he could.

It wasn’t a voice, more like a powerful impression that gave off images and snippets of information. For the first hour, Kai was certain he had made a mistake and had gone insane.

After all, how could he be sure that the vague feelings he was getting from the bamboo surrounding him were real? Anybody could delude themselves enough to mistake errant thoughts as divinity.

But that wasn’t the case here.

Besides, Kai gained [Commune] when he selected Shaman. Aside from its 12 stats per level, which was the best out of the options afforded him, it changed all of Kai’s spells to rely on his Nature mana.

Not only that, it gave significant bonuses to using Nature mana. He could draw it from the surrounding wildlife to replenish his own reserves and even reverse it to heal plants and animals that couldn’t normally be healed.

He could tell that the land around the Sacred Tree was strained, but on the mend. The demons hadn’t come close enough to deal any significant damage that he could tell, but farther out… the damage was severe.

The Skyshard had spent much of its lifeforce to repel the invaders and it was now rotting from the outside in. It could no longer sustain its growth and its extremities were crumbling to dust.

It seemed such a waste to lose so much land.

He resigned himself to the inevitable. It was much like O’ahu. Things had changed so much, and they continued to change no matter what he or his family did.

Why fight?

It only made him mad, and how often had Leilani told him that he scowled so much his face would get stuck like that?

And then something changed with the Skyshard. At first it was small, a piece prematurely broken off. Then another, and another.

Using [Commune], Kai could feel the cuts to the Skyshard were not done with maliciousness. In fact, the Skyshard seemed grateful.

Like a surgeon, more and more pieces of the Skyshard were severed and neatly wrapped up into… something. Kai couldn’t tell what it was because his connection to the land attenuated into nothingness once the piece of land was severed.

And yet he could sense the rapturous joy of the Skyshard at this hero’s work. It should not have been a surprise to see that it was Sam’s doing.

The man might not have adapted well to Earth, but he simply flourished on Il’dran. It was an amazing transformation that he wished he could copy.

But to do so would be a disservice to the person he was. Copying another would just make Kai a pale imitation of Sam.

That would not do.

They each had their own path to tread.

Kai lent what strength he had to the Skyshard and the surrounding land. It wasn’t much. He was new to his Shaman powers and despite the increase in levels, was not very strong.

But what strength he could offer, the Skyshard was welcome to. He knew it was not enough to stop or even reverse the damage.

Kai only hoped it was enough that the Skyshard could hold on to the pieces of land it was losing for a little longer.

Enough time to save what could be saved.

***

Matty, Matty, what are you going to do with yourself now?He sighed and slumped against the root of Raiko’s big ass magical tree.

You wanted to be a Mage so badly, and you hardly did anything with it. Now you’re offered a bunch of Jobs and you can’t even make one choice? You used to make a dozen choices that affected the lives of a hundred-plus employees before breakfast!

He had always known what to do. Born with almost nothing, he had scrabbled and fought for every advantage and then continued to fight to keep what was his.

It was… utterly alien to be given things because some higher authority recognized his talents. Nobody had ever done that back on Earth. Every promotion was hard won, and usually lost to nepotism or worse.

Stop thinking about your old life. That guy is dead. You’re here now.

While many of his Second Order Jobs were Mage or Mage variants, one in particular stood out among the others.

Poisonmind didn’t just double-down on the Poison mana in his veins, it jumped head-first into the toxic sludge. He reread the description as if it had changed.

[Poisonmind]

The Poisonmind is a melee / mage hybrid, specializing in various poisons to debilitate, harm, and even recover Health. Poisonminds can ingest poisons to get a better understanding of their properties, but mostly to increase their affinity toward them, granting the Poisonmind’s attacks and spells new properties. Due to your racial change, you also gain temporary Health as a result. Utilizing various poisons to increase their attributes, create new abilities, and even imbue their bodies with empowering effects, Poisonminds are wildly adaptable fighters whose only downside is their need for a healthy stock of poisons close at hand.

As a Second Order Job, Poisonminds gain the following Stats per Level Up:

+2 Strength | +1 Vigor | +3 Agility

+2 Dexterity | +2 Arcane | +2 Resonance

+2 Control | +2 Mind

Matt did like the sound of Poisonmind, but the stats were all wrong. His stats were far from balanced, and he knew that over time, having to raise multiple stats would make it harder to compete with people who could focus on only magical or physical stats at a time.

And yet… 16 stats was a lot.

It was more than Sam had, and he was by far the strongest person Matt had met.

Not to mention, Poisonmind matched up with his recent… changes.

I have no idea how I’ll get my hands on tons of poisons. I don’t even have a Profession, but this pretty much locks me into some sort of toxic type. Maybe a Poisoner from cooking, or if they have Alchemists, some kind of poison-specialist.

Matt had no idea how long he stared at the notification. He didn’t even bother with the others, though he would have once loved any of the Mage variants, they didn’t fit him anymore and they were bland besides.

Fuck it. Better to accept what I am than hope to change it.

***

Sam watched as what should have taken decades, or even a century, happened over the span of a day. The [Barren Tile] was the first to complete, aside from the [Dune Tile] which was completed on arrival.

He had placed the [Barren Tile] first, of course, but the [Lake Tile] finished well before the [Forest Tile], which still seemed to be growing well into the evening.

As the setting sun set everything ablaze, Sam stepped into the relative emptiness of the barrens with Kai and Matt. Both had taken the earlier portion of the day to rest, sort through their notifications, and perhaps most importantly, select their Second Order Jobs.

Now it was time to train.