Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6), Dakota Krout [free novels to read TXT] 📗

Determined: valid query about ability. Mana cost is determined by the rarest aspect contained in the object to be reduced. Each aspect above Common rarity adds a multiplier of ‘5’ mana per second. Common = 5. Uncommon = 5*5. Rare = 5*5*5. Ritualist class bonus to Ritual of Reductions’ cost has already been applied. Increase class level to drop cost further.

Bound storage devices must be soul-bound to be valid as aspect storage. The energy of raw aspects is especially volatile and deadly if used incorrectly. Soul-bound devices can only be accessed by the bound user or a skilled thief.

“Learning any fun things, human? Care to share?” Though Havoc’s words were caustic, he had affixed Joe with a hungry stare. “Let's tell each other information all the time, so that one of us does not need to put the other in a lab for testing or dissection. Lots and lots… of testing.”

“Calm down… Sir,” Joe muttered and held up his shaky hands while digesting the information he was learning. He looked at the cube and paled. In a sudden panic, he grabbed his hand and sent his mind into the storage ring on his finger. “Oh, thank the celestials above, it's still there.”

Never had he been so glad to forget to do something. Joe still had his cauldron in his ring, along with various blueprints and a few other miscellaneous items, like his weapon-equipable Taglock. If he had lost all of that, specifically the cauldron, there was a good chance that a shadowy organization of Alchemists was going to try to melt chunks off of him until they were satisfied that he no longer had the Cauldron in his possession. Noticing that Havoc was about to start pulling out his own beard hair, Joe explained what he had just realized, and Havoc nodded consideringly.

“Hold on.” The Dwarf stopped Joe from attempting to reduce the cube. “How about we try out your ability on a few different things before you tackle that gigantic beast? What happens if you can’t finish reducing something? Does it all fall apart, or can you keep going after you regain your mana? Sure would be a shame to lose all those… aspects.”

“Good plan.” The two of them grinned at each other, each feeling surprisingly comfortable with one another. Joe was wondering if perhaps he should have been hanging out with other magical-classed people; perhaps his obsession with growth and development of his skills in magic were not so strange after all. Maybe it was his desire to do everything alone, or in secret, that was the actual hindrance.

Havoc started bringing out various items; so many, in fact, that Joe started to hesitate at taking them. The Dwarf noticed his discomfort and laughed. “You think this is a lot? You could technically requisition every single thing that I have, everything that I own, and you are daunted by a few scraps?”

“I think I could try to take it all. Something tells me I wouldn’t be able to actually do it.” Joe watched a smug expression appear across the Dwarf’s features for a moment, then took a deep breath and attempted to adjust his mindset. “That's right, I have the ability to ‘requisition’ stuff. I know it, logically, and I have been planning to use it. It still feels… strange. It’s like getting a massive student loan that you might not have to pay off if you get perfect grades your entire college career, but you would need to pay double interest on if you got a single ‘B’ in a course.”

Havoc waved away Joe’s concerns and shook his head, handing over a simple dagger. “Just shut up and start small.”

Item: Iron Dagger.

Reduction value: 8 Common aspects, 19 Trash aspects.

Reduction cost: 5 mana per second.

Viable bound storage device detected.

Joe let his mana pour out of him, and his body lit up with the intricate tattoos that signified his Ritual of Reduction. One… three… five seconds passed, and the dagger simply vanished as though he had stored it in a spatial device. In a way, that was exactly what had happened.

Aspects captured: 7 Common aspects, 11 Damaged aspects, 19 Trash aspects.

“Hold up, I didn't get all of the aspects?” Joe’s bald brow furrowed as he opened his logs and attempted to find exactly what had happened. He read over the process carefully, and his lips pressed into a hard line.

Iron Dagger suffused! Capturing aspects… bound storage device is not specifically designed for capturing aspects. 10% of Common aspects have been damaged, lowering rarity! Common aspects converted into Damaged aspects.

“Let me guess; by the look on your face, something went wrong. My bet would be that you do not have a storage device that is designed for these ‘aspect’ things, and so you lost ‘em all?” Havoc scratched at his beard and tried to think of a solution. “We can do some research, but I've never heard of aspects before, so I have no idea how we can put something together to hold them.”

“Me neither.” Joe sighed and waved at the other things in the area. “Perhaps when I level my class up, it will give us more information? Let’s do the next test.”

They used another iron dagger, as similar to the first as possible. This time, Joe supplied Mana for only four seconds and then abruptly cut off the power supply. The dagger shuddered and cracked, falling apart completely when Joe applied just a little bit of pressure to either end.

Aspects captured: 5 Common aspects, 15 Damaged Aspects, 40 Trash aspects.

Iron Dagger destroyed!

Joe attempted to convert the remainder of the dagger, but only got Trash aspects. He looked over at Havoc and winced. “Good call on holding off on the cube. The rest got turned into trash.”

“I thought that might be the case. If you take out the essential parts of something, the Rarity is going to drop. Abyss, if you take a Legendary sword and snap it in half, you might only have two chunks of a Rare