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

at the condescending tutorial. However, he had played enough games that he knew that he should follow along closely. He couldn't count the number of times that he had assumed he would understand how to do something, then tried to do it without the tutorial’s help—and failed miserably—in other games he’d played throughout his life.

A Novice-ranked ritual circle can be created using either Trash or Damaged aspects. Of course, there will be a slight efficiency difference between the two. Damaged aspects will increase the potency by a minute amount, but using Trash will be more cost-effective over time. The second circle, the Beginner-rank circle, requires—at a minimum—Common-ranked aspects. In order to use these aspects to draw your circle, you must use your mana to shift an aspect into an inscribing utensil. Try this now!

Joe reached out for the Trash aspect, but his fingers went right through it. As the aspect went over his hand, it burned him right through his shield; the weak aspect shaving off fifty points of his health in an instant.

Please make sure to use caution! Injury from base energies leads to true damage!

“Great. Once again, I am working with volatile energy that will likely end up exploding in my face or working so differently that I accidentally kill a bunch of people.” Joe tried again; this time, instead of directly touching the aspect, he allowed a little bit of mana to escape his fingers and swirl around the dark grey wispy flame. That seemed to work, so he bent his mind to the task of shaping the small flame into a stick, then into a fountain pen.

Great visualization technique! You have made a basic, trash-quality aspect fountain pen! Using more potent aspects will require more specific and detailed input, since aspects tend to become a little grumpy if they have to go into something that they see as a lesser vessel!

Now that you have a basic writing utensil, try drawing out a Novice-ranked circle!

Joe made a simple ritual diagram on the ground, the most basic that he could think of: a perfect circle. As he drew on the foggy ground, a wispy grey meter appeared in his heads-up display. As the circle grew, the meter dropped rapidly. He completed the diagram, and it shone a beautiful light grey to signify completion.

That was a heady feeling, a strange dopamine hit that made Joe strangely happy. Something about seeing results immediately upon finishing a project, even a small one like this, was oddly pleasurable. He had a feeling that he was going to enjoy working as a Reductionist.

Great! As you can see, when you are using aspects to craft, you will automatically use stored aspects. For the purposes of this tutorial, you will have unlimited resources, but nothing that you make in here will be available outside of the training area. Please remember that you will not be able to re-access this tutorial upon completion!

“Well, there go my plans of perfecting all of my rituals.” Joe sighed pseudo-glumly. It was hard to actually be unhappy when he was learning a new skill that would affect everything that he did from this point forward.

Now that you have created a Novice circle, try creating a Beginner-ranked ritual circle using this same writing utensil!

Joe started working on the second circle without any hesitation, knowing that it would likely not work. That was okay; it was important to follow along with the instructions so that he would at least learn the consequences. But he was not expecting the deep pain as his ‘pen’ exploded, taking his hand and his arm up to the elbow along with it in one deadly, white fireball.

The Reductionist went spinning across the foggy area, blood flying in an arc in the opposite direction. Joe landed heavily, stunned from the impact and how violent the reaction had been. He went to cast Mend on himself, but the damage vanished and his body returned to normal before he could use the spell. “From now on, maybe I won’t listen to every instruction that it gives me.”

As you can see, there is a furious reaction when a higher-order aspect is used through a lower aspect crafting implement. Remember, in order to create a Beginner-ranked Circle, you need—at a minimum—Common-ranked aspects. You can use higher order aspects to create lower-ranked circles, but it is a waste of resources! Try creating a Common-ranked writing utensil now!

Joe reached out to the wispy flame that was a pure white, once more allowing his mana to swirl around it and pull it into the shape of a fountain pen. Just before grabbing it, he had a premonition of danger and ducked away from it.

It was a good thing he did, as the explosion it created was almost twice as potent as the one from the Trash-aspect pen. The flames hissed in the air, lashing out with flares and bursts, until all the captured aspects had been released.

Looks like someone forgot that they needed to make a more impressive writing utensil! Hopefully this serves as a warning going forward!

“I don't know why this tutorial is so vindictive, but I guess I should have expected it, based on previous interactions with the system.” Joe scoffed as he tried to think of the ‘writing implement’ that he would attempt to make next. He had a feeling that every single one of them would need to be different, each more impressive than the last, which meant he did not want to start with an exceedingly fancy pen, he just wanted something slightly more intricate. Joe would save the peacock feather quills for the Unique or higher ones down the line.

This time, as he used his mana to form the pen, Joe visualized embossing Tatum's symbol on the side as a pure-white grip. He reached out hesitantly and gripped the pen, waiting to see if it would explode in his face. Nothing yet. He reached down and started drawing out the second Circle, composing a simple diagram and a complete