Chapter 35: Evolution

I let go of Pete’s soul, releasing him to the Ogre’s heaven, if that even exists. “Dominate Soul!” I say while watching as the body of the giant ogre raises and comes to stand before me.

“So, can you talk with me?” I ask him, squinting my eyes.

“Grrr!” The roar, albeit louder than that of a normal ogre, is nothing more than a snarl. No words come out of it.

“Oh well, worth the try, I guess. You are Bob!”

Truth be told, I’m giving them silly names because I don’t want to get too attached. They are nothing more and nothing less than tools. Once their job is done, I’ll dispose of them. As I did with Pete. Maybe, and it’s just a far-fetched possibility, one day I’ll find a soul worth preserving. But, until that day comes, I can’t afford to feel compassion for them.

“Bob, your job tomorrow will be to wait with your little brother here,” I point my other spirit ogre, “and cause havoc to those rats’ backline.”

“Grrr!”

“Yes, yes. You like growling.” I say, waving my hand at him and assuming he has understood what I have just said.

Actually, there is this one thing I should check out. “You two, stand here.”

I walk away 100 meters from them and mentally order the both of them to growl. Their roars reach me perfectly, as loud as when I stood next to them. Let’s try 500 meters.

“Where are you going, Mark?” Dorian asks me when he sees me going.

“I’m testing from how far I can communicate with them.”

“You don’t know it?” His voice shows some incredibility, but that’s just how things are.

“There’s nothing in the spell description about it, so trial and error it is.” I shrug, trying to convey that I neither understand why that’s the case.

I keep walking until I reach a distance I consider close enough to those 500 meters. Let’s see now. Growl as loud as you can. The answer comes slightly delayed, probably not due to my order, but their actual sound traveling slow. Either way, it comes.

For my last test… Levitate! I push myself at my fastest speed and go far beyond the woods and into the plains. I don’t know how far I am, but it should be enough to cover the distance from Irisgarth to their hideout and the enemy backline.

Growl, even louder! It takes a whole second of excruciating waiting, but it arrives! The sound of victory. So I can communicate with them wherever I am? This opens so many possibilities… maybe at some point, they might be able to even answer back? Ah… I can’t wait for the day to come. It is not perfectly assumable that I should be able to talk with them no matter how far we are from one another.

I levitate back to the camp, where I find everyone gathered around Mike.

“We were waiting for you,” Mike says with a smile on his face.

“Oh right! Your evolution, isn’t it? Sorry!” I press my hands together in a symbol of sorry.

“Don’t worry, you had to test it either way. Otherwise, the plan made no sense.” He answers, trying to downplay my sudden escape.

“So! What was that Fire Voley!?” I say in an excited voice, genuinely dying to know what it was.

“Let me read it straight out of its description: a true fire mage cares only about damage. You have learned to minimize idle time and output fireballs at your maximum rate for a prolonged time.” Hah, that totally suits him. “Now you can choose to simultaneously cast up to 5 fireballs. You can control their trajectories individually. Each fireball hit does 10 more damage than the previous, while each ball costs 5 more mana.”

“In other words, as long as you hit them, it’s more worth firing them batched together than individually.” Dorian dumbs it down for the rest of all.

“It is. Although I did the test with 3, and it’s beyond me to control their paths accurately. I’ll need lots of practice. I can’t even imagine 5.”

“If it’s any consolation,” I say, “I somehow met the same wall with levitate. To control my own movement, I need a huge mental effort. Practice does definitely help.”

“Yeah… it will have to wait after the battle tomorrow, I guess…” Mike says dejectedly, clearly itching to practice some more.

“And, what about the class evolution?” I ask.

“Already reached it…” His words are left hanging in the air, “a bit anticlimactic, I must say. It’s basically a message telling me if I want to evolve to ‘Elemental Wizard: Wind.’” His shoulders shrug.

“That’s… it?” I ask, trying to tell if there’s something he might have omitted.

“Right? I thought it would be something more spectacular. It does say that wind complements fire and is my natural development… but nothing else. Also, that I won’t be losing any levels nor spells after evolving. But, I don’t know?”

“Are you doing it?” I press on him to do it.

“Of course. I might have wanted a grand entrance, maybe speaking to some kind of master that would help me evolve, but either way, I’ll have to make do with pressing a button.”

Just as he says that his body floats a palm up from the ground and a light golden light surrounds him. A gust of wind comes out of nowhere and swirls around him, disappearing with a small whirlwind above his head. His body touches down again.

“So?” Rand impatiently inquires. Actually, I would have asked too if he hadn’t been faster.

“Ah… nothing much. I’ve leveled up and gotten this new spell, Whirlwind.” Right in front of his extended hand, a whirlwind appears. It’s the size of a person, but it seems relatively harmless. It’s only picking the sand from the ground and scattering it.

“Wild guess here,” Dorian says, wearing an amused smile. Is he mocking him? “Throw a fireball to it.”

“Fire voley!” A fireball rushes out from his hand and almost immediately crashes against the Whirlwind, igniting it and even making it grow in size. Dorian was not mocking him! So that’s what it meant with compatibility.

“Fuck me! Now, this is another thing!” I cry out while taking a few steps back to shelter from the heat. “Can you move it around?”

But, as I ask it, the whirlwind losses pressure and disappears. “Time’s up. It’s only 30 seconds for 20 mana, and I have to wait for 5 minutes now. About moving… I guess? It felt like so, at least.” He confirms.

Magic in this world is hard to describe. Some things just come intuitively to you, without knowing how or why you simply feel like you should be able to do them. For instance, my Levitate spell works just like that. Or how I communicate with my souls. Or now Mike with controlling wind.

“How much damage does it do?” I need to keep up to date with our new spells if I’m to accurately devise strategies.

“One magical damage per second to all enemies in range.”

“That’s actually not half bad! And combined with fire?”

“I have no clue.”

“Then… Bob, will you come here please?” I say while looking back. “I got you the perfect dummy target. Don’t kill him tho! We need his huge body.”

Although the combination itself looks powerful, the long cooldown kind of ruins it. I suppose that it will get reduced with expertise, but starting at 5 minutes, I don’t think it will ever be low enough.

I let him go for a few rounds on Bob, which I also profit from by casting heals. Lately, the rate at which my spells level up has been slowing, only advancing my heal during the war at Draka, so it’s nice getting messages like this one from time to time.

[Heal has leveled up]

“How is it? Is it worth combining them?” Although I already know the answer, as I have been closely looking at Bob’s health. It hits for about 2 damage per second, for a total of 60 at the end of its duration. Not at the level of multiple fireballs cast in fast succession, but I believe this spell will shine for its area damage to various targets.

“Not the best right now. But if I manage to control it while casting other spells, then I could make it work against multitudes.”

“Nice, just as I was thinking!”

Now then… how am I doing? Status!

[Status]

Name: Mark

Health: 101

Mana: 163

Madness: 2

Inquisitor [32]

Materialize [7] +50% mp cost, +1(+3 L)%dmg/eff

Heal [12] -25mp, +20(+2 L +0.4 I)hp, 10(-9 L)s cd

Mana Drain [5] -5hp/s, target -5(+0.05 I)mp/s, +50(+4 L)% mp/abs

Levitate [3] -1mp/s

Dominate Soul [1] -25%mp, spirit -20% phy, +20% mag

Immolate [6] 125(+5 L)% dmg, 200% on death