Chapter 103: Cinderbolt

“I see, so that is the answer.” Jael said as he stood up from his desk, causing Pyri to turn her glare onto him. The moment she looked away from Trexon, Yorgi looked anxiously at Trexon, and Trexon motioned him to back up away from Pyri, as he himself did exactly that. Yorgi didn’t get it - if he didn’t know better, it looked as though both Jael and Trexon were both afraid of this level 30 Wizard. “A Controlmancer is weak. I would only assign that to a Wizard that shows no potential.” Jael replied with a deep breath.

“It’s good enough for me. Give me the quest.” Pyri replied, sounding as though she was now threatening Jael. And, despite the level discrepancy, as far as Yorgi could tell, it was working.

“You hold back your potential and wait here for weeks on end, patiently, unwilling to compromise. I thought it was out of modesty, but no, the answer was fear. You are afraid that if you show what you are truly capable of, those around you will resent you for it. But…” Jael’s eyes moved to Pyri’s hands as she suddenly clenched her fists when he said the word ‘but’, “As Archmage of Kordas, I cannot accept that. So few Wizards come to me with the understanding of the potential of a simple spell like Cinderbolt. Most overlook the spell entirely.”

“Give me the Controlmancer class quest, now.” Pyri demanded, and it went uncomfortably quiet again for a few moments as she and Jael stared each other down.

“Defeat me, and I’ll give you the quest you desire.” Jael said as he drew his staff out from off his back, something Yorgi had never seen him do before.

“What? Seriously?” Yorgi asked in disbelief to Trexon. “There’s a limit, right? Maybe she’s on to something, Jael’s gotta be bugged. He’s like, what, level 100? How is a level 30 supposed to beat him?” Yorgi said, but Trexon waved this off.

“He’s not bugged. I’ve seen this a few times before.” Trexon replied as he backed up to the bookshelves beside Yorgi. “Players who figure out the underlying power behind how magic works in this game... those players always go for the Cinderbolt spell.”

“Multicast, Icelance!” Jael shouted with a wave of his staff, and 5 giant icicles formed in the air around Pyri, suddenly shooting towards her like bullets, but before they could hit her, Pyri wiggled her fingers on both hands to cause her Cinderbolt ball to reshape and resize itself into 5 smaller spheres, which then instantly darted around the room to intercept, and redirect the projectile path of all 5 icicles, sending them into the bookshelves instead. It happened so fast that Yorgi barely processed what he’d just seen. A level 30 wizard easily defended against a Multicast attack from a level 100 Archmage. It wasn’t just Yorgi who looked surprised though, both Trexon and Jael had looks of shock on their faces, but Jael quickly shook it off.

“The first one is free. The rest are silent. To keep things fair, I’ll stick to beginner spells. Let’s see how well you studied all of those books.” Jael said as he threw his staff foward, causing it to levitate in the air in front of himself and begin rotating rapidly. A moment later, he began waving his hand around through the air, multiple colored glows from various spells appearing on each of his 10 fingertips. Yorgi’s jaw dropped, he watched in disbelief as Jael casted 10 separate spells at once, all originating from different locations around the office. A firebolt formed in the air to the right of the staff and shot at Pyri from one side, a bolt of lightning formed in the air above her and shot downwards, a wave of ice froze over the tiled floor, rippling towards Pyri’s feet, a black whip shot out from the staff towards Pyri’s wrists, a cloud of green smoke began to swirl around her.

With just Cinderbolt, she manipulated the 5 balls of cinders to spread out into more multiple tiny shapes, each variation of the bolt moved to block, or cancel out the effects of each of Jael’s attacks. A thin ring of cinders formed around the outlines of Pyri’s shoes, preventing the wave of ice on the floor from freezing her feet to the ground. A second thin ring of cinders rapidly rotated within the green smoke, burning it up and canceling out the poison attack. For the projectiles, several tiny balls of cinders appeared in front of each of them, intercepting and redirecting their trajectory rather than trying to block them outright.

Most importantly, though, is that through all of those defensive actions, Pyri sent the smallest ball of cinders flying forward across the room, and pressed it up against Jael’s forehead, dealing fire damage to him. It wasn’t a lot, but the damage repeated itself over and over again. 29 fire damage. 38 fire damage. 39 fire damage, 36 fire damage.

“She’s never going to be able to beat Jael like that. He’s got like, what, 30 000 health?” Yorgi said in disbelief as he saw the damage numbers. He expected to hear Trexon agree with him, but as he looked at Trexon he only saw Trexon’s eyes open wide, watching the wizard duel without blinking.

It continued like this for a solid 2 minutes. Because cinderbolt was still only a level 30 spell and Pyri had trained all of her wizard passives she was able to keep it active indefinitely. Despite the spell's low damage, it made up for that with its flexibility. The ability to fully manipulate the size, amount, and shape of the cinderbolts using her level 30 control skill made it incredibly versatile.

“Oh come on, you’re only that good because your dad designed this game.” David waved off Jillian as she’d reached a new high score in Renegades of Korek, an early release Simbox title.

“Don’t be jealous, I'm just better than you.” Jillian teased him jokingly with a playful laugh.

“Yo Makaroth, you should let your wife stream, and you go do the cleaning. She’s way better than you!” Another player shouted at Makaroth mockingly as he stood in a crowd of players looking up at a stage, streaming to a viewership of 10 in another MMORPG setting. Jillian stood up on the stage as her in-game character, receiving the 1st place trophy from a PvP tournament, where Makaroth had failed to place.

“Yeah, I know, we’re just having fun. But no one’s ever gonna notice me if you keep winning everything. Can’t you just, you know, sit this one out?” David asked her just before they’d logged in to play a game together.

“It’s probably better if I play this game without you, right? The streaming is finally starting to pick up.”

David’s voice filled her ears as she blocked several more of Jael’s spells. Jael was getting visibly frustrated, trying many combinations of spells to throw Pyri off, but she’d spent the last 8 weeks learning nearly all of the beginner spells in the game, as per Jael’s instructions. There was no beginner spell he could throw at her that she wasn’t going to recognize. Her brain, though not perfect in memory, was particularly good at memorizing details and patterns in games. She’d never lose her way in a dungeon, and she’d never forget a spell once she’d seen it once.

“This is great, isn’t it? You can focus on taking care of Eli, and I’ll have time to go solo with my streaming. It’s just a matter of time now, I’m already up to 50 viewers.” David’s voice rang through her ears.

“It’s going so good, don’t want to jinx it by bringing you back on the stream, you know how it is right babe? No hard feelings.”

“I feel like we don’t understand each other anymore.” His final words echoed in her head.

“If I’d just held back from the beginning, none of it would’ve happened.” Pyri mumbled angrily out of nowhere, confusing Trexon and Jael as to what she was talking about. “I’m not making the same mistake twice. I want to play with my son. Give me the Controlmancer class quest.” Pyri shouted at Jael angrily as she held her Cinderbolt pressed hard up against his forehead.

“Jael, I think that’s enough, you made your point.” Trexon said worriedly.

“I do not think I have. She still wants to waste her potential and hide her talent.” Jael protested.

“Then I have no choice, I’ll kill the defective NPC.” Pyri growled with rage.

“Whoa, whoa,” Trexon took his staff off of his back, preparing to cast a spell, but the simple sound of him drawing it out drew Pyri’s blind rage towards himself, and she fanned out her cinders towards him. “Shell!” Trexon quickly shouted to put a protective sphere around himself, but he was too slow; she'd managed to get a small sphere of cinders within it, and pressed it up against Trexon’s chest to start dealing fire damage to him. “Fuck me.” Trexon looked down in disbelief. “Okay, that’s enough. Jael’s not willing to use intermediate spells, but I am.” He said as he canceled his shell spell. “Dispel Magic.” He aimed it at Pyri’s cinderbolt, which caused all of her cinder spheres that she’d spread out across the room to vanish. “Shell.” He said calmly, forming a transparent sphere around Pyri to contain her. Once he had, Jael snatched his spinning staff out of the air and put it on his back, annoyed. It went quiet from there, Jael and Pyri both breathing heavily as their mana bars filled back up.

“I don’t understand, Trexon… how did Pyri do that?” Yorgi asked after a few more moments of silence.

“It’s a bit hard to explain. I can’t do it myself…” Trexon replied as Pyri began pacing inside the shell, glaring at Jael through it as if waiting patiently for it to disappear. Whilst she did this, Jael looked back at her and adjusted his robes before fastening his staff to his back once more.

“Please, I gotta know.” Yorgi asked eagerly.

“Alright…” Trexon took a deep breath. “Back before people played games with Simboxes and had a neural interface, players played games using keyboards and controllers.” Trexon said, and Yorgi nodded. “Your characters in those games took input from you pressing buttons, so basically, your finger movements. Some games didn’t strictly have a limit to how much input you could give, so the quicker your finger muscles could move and press buttons, the better you were at these games.” Trexon explained.

“You’re talking about APM, right? Actions per minute?” Yorgi confirmed.

“Exactly.” Trexon nodded. “Most players stopped caring about APM when games moved over to VR Simulations, because, well, we play with our entire brains in this virtual world. But when it comes to the underlying mechanics on how we control and cast spells in this game, it’s dictated by piggybacking off of electrical signals that our brain sends to our hands. It’s the same as pressing buttons on a keyboard really quickly.” Trexon said, and Yorgi was slowly starting to understand what it was he’d just witnessed Pyri do.

“To a normal player, a spell like cinderbolt is nothing special. It’s a cool ball of cinders that you can reshape and move around that doesn’t really do much damage. But…” Trexon paused as he looked at Pyri carefully. “To an experienced player, who has a more traditional approach to playing games, with an incredibly high APM, a spell like cinderbolt is one of the strongest spells in the game, because it can take as much input as you can give it. It’s not the only spell like that in this game, but it’s the only beginner spell that does it.” Trexon concluded.

“That’s why Jael’s been treating her differently?” Yorgi asked.

“Yeah. Jael knew she had singled out cinderbolt because she’d figured that out, that’s why it’s the only spell she bothered learning. That’s why he’s so pissed off she’s trying to take the controlmancer class, because it’s one of the, if not the, worst intermediate wizard class.” Trexon said, and Yorgi nodded along.

“But, if you’re so good with magic, why do you want to play a Controlmancer?” Yorgi asked Pyri, and Jael listened intently for her answer, but she remained silent.

“You said your son, right? Aegis is your son, so you must be his mother. I was just with him in Arallia. He’s a really interesting kid.” Trexon spoke softly, trying to calm Pyri down as she was still visibly fuming and filled with killing intent towards Jael as she paced inside the shell. She didn’t reply to these words, or turn to face Trexon, but she stopped pacing.

“I don’t fully understand why, but you were willing to wait here for quite a long while, playing along with Jael, all due to the fact that you didn’t want to reveal what you were capable of. Most players that Jael singles out get excited, but you got mad about it. If I had to guess, you’re afraid of not being able to play with your son if you don’t pretend to be weak. Am I close?” Trexon asked, and all eyes sat on Pyri in silence for a few seconds. “To be honest, that’s a bit insulting towards him, isn’t it? I’ve met Aegis. I really don’t think he’s the sort of person that would resent you for being as good as you are.” Trexon said calmly.

“I don’t care what you think.” Pyri spoke back calmly. “I thought that way too last time, and I was wrong. I’m not going to risk it again. I can have fun in the supporting role, too. I’m fine as a controlmancer. But if this NPC won’t let me move on from here, I’ll get left behind again.” She said as her voice slowly began to sound sad rather than angry, though she continued to face away from Trexon and Yorgi so that they couldn’t see her expression.

“Alright.” Trexon nodded towards Jael. “I’m fully on her side now. Give her the Controlmancer quest. I can’t force you to do it, but if you don’t, I’ll appoint another to be Archmage of Kordas.” Trexon said to him, and Jael let out a disappointed sigh, it was clear he was still hesitating as Trexon snapped his fingers and removed the shell around Pyri.

“There is another option.” Jael said as he looked to Pyri, causing her to clench her fists in anger again.

“Jael…” Trexon said in a warning voice.

“Here me out.” Jael cleared his throat. “If the issue lies in your desire to remain inconspicuous to your loved ones, there is another path I may offer you. It is not special in any way, and that is what makes it special.” He explained.

“He’s doing that cryptic shit again.” Pyri growled as her anger slowly began to tick upwards once more.

“Get to the point Jael.” Trexon urged him.

“You will not be limited by any magical restrictions set upon other intermediate wizards, but in return, you will not benefit from any of the capabilities granted by choosing one of those many wizarding paths. Most importantly, you’ll still be able to choose any path you like once you reach the advanced stages of your journey.” Jael explained.

“What Intermediate class are you offering her?” Yorgi asked curiously.

“None. Just a Wizard.” Jael shrugged.

“Huh?” Pyri looked at him now in confusion.

Quest[1/1]: Speak with Archmage Jael.

Objective: 0/1 Archmage Jael spoken too.

Quest Giver: Archmage Jael, Kordas

Reward: Intermediate Class: Wizard

Difficulty: Easy

Restrictions: Limited to classes: Wizard,

The quest popped up in front of Pyri suddenly. She read over it, and still didn’t get it.

“What the hell is this?” She asked Jael, but as she did, the quest got flagged as completed, and she was prompted to choose Wizard as her intermediate class.

“Wizard intermediate’s a rare class. You can only get it if an Archmage likes you, and specifically offers it to you. It has no other requirements.” Trexon explained with a smirk as he crossed his arms. “He’s right, it won’t buff up any schools of magic like other intermediates will, but it also won’t block you from casting any schools. It’s a ‘learners’ class.” Trexon shrugged.

“Why not just give me controlmancer?” Pyri complained with a frustrated stomp of her right foot.

“I cannot in good conscience limit someone so talented as yourself to the path of a controlmancer. There are many stronger intermediate classes I would like to offer you, but, in addition to you most likely declining them, I feel they would take you quite some time to obtain, and I have already taken up a great deal of your time. I can grant you this class here and now, and you can join your loved ones.” Jael said as he sat on the front of his desk facing Pyri and leaned back slightly.

Pyri hesitated, she looked at the ‘Accept’ button floating in front of her in her peripheral vision, then navigated to her friends list and saw that Lina, Darkshot, Rakkan and Aegis were now all intermediate classes - she was the only one left still a beginner class. Seeing this, she took a deep breath, and hit accept, causing Jael and Trexon to let out sighs of relief.

Pyri got the congratulation message for obtaining her intermediate class, but no skills changed and no new skills were learned. She simply had the ability to now level up herself, her class skills, and all of her spells to level 150.

“What about intermediate spells? I can learn them from books now?” Pyri asked.

“Yes. With no restrictions. But no bene-” Jael explained, but Pyri interrupted him.

“Yeah yeah, okay, I got it.” She waved at him to stop talking. “If I come back here at level 150 for an advanced class, and you pull this same bullshit, I’m burning this tower down.” Pyri said to Trexon and Jael threateningly.

“Yes ma'am.” Yorgi replied unprompted. Pyri turned and gave him a funny look, then looked around the room carefully.

"Also. I'm taking these with me." Pyri walked over to the bookshelves and started taking a few intermediate spell books off of them. She grabbed the book for Multicast, Fly, Greater Invisibility, Dispel Magic, and Pyroclasm, then lifted them up to show Jael what she had taken. "Got a problem with this?"

"No." Jael smiled.

"Well, strictly speaking, those belong to-" Trexon interjected, but stopped talking when Pyri turned and glared at him. "No problem." Trexon smiled awkwardly. Pyri added the books to her inventory, then stormed out of the room, leaving the three standing about in awkward silence. Trexon slowly glanced about the office and took note of how disastrous it looked as a result of all the spells that’d been cast.

“You’re cleaning this up, by the way.” Trexon motioned to Jael before leaving the room, and Yorgi quickly rushed out after him.