“Let me get this straight,” Nedira said as she crossed her arms across her chest, staring at him from where she sat on the throne of pillows. Her tears had dried while he’d explained what happened to him with his evolution and his new Specialization, and now she simply appeared disbelieving. “You underwent some sort of transformation into some sort of divine being, all of your Specializations were absorbed into a new one, and you’re now one of the most powerful people in the world with all of your Mage Skills over 100 – and you had no idea this would happen?”

  Larek shook his head. “Nope, none at all.”

  “Are you some sort of, what, god now?”

  He shook his head again. “No… at least, I don’t think so?”

  “So you don’t know? Shouldn’t you be able to tell?”

  His betrothed was probably correct that he should be able to discern something like that, but he didn’t feel anything of the sort. “I believe I’m just some sort of ‘Avatar of Fusions’ – whatever that means. I haven’t figured everything out yet, as it just happened, but I’m sure it’ll make more sense as time goes along.” I certainly hope so.

  Nedira sighed, gathering his hands up in her own – though they were quite a bit smaller than his. “What are we going to do with you, Larek? All of these changes are coming so quickly that I don’t know if I can handle it. What’s next? Are you suddenly going to disappear when you ascend to the heavens or something?”

  “It’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “I’m still me, after all. Besides, I think this was it; I can’t see me being able to evolve again – even if I have no idea how it happened in the first place.”

  She didn’t seem particularly reassured, but over the next few minutes they just held on to each other as the wild emotional ride that his betrothed had been on throughout the day finally caught up with her. As he felt and heard her fall asleep in his arms, he gently picked her up and laid her in their bed, covering her up and tucking her in so that she’d get some much-needed rest.

  As for Larek, despite the horrific transformation he’d undergone, which probably should’ve sapped his physical energy, he felt revitalized – and ready to get some more work done. He was tempted to go out and start spreading the new Skills he could now impart to other people, but he wanted to finish the projects he had been working on before all this happened.

  Sitting back down in his pillow throne, the newly minted Divine Fusionist took care of some important matters first. Allocating his 127 available Advancement Points was fairly straightforward, as he stuck 25 in everything but Pneuma, with the 2 extra AP going into Intellect and Acuity.

  Strength: 725

  Body: 740

  Agility: 725

  Intellect: 740

  Acuity: 740

  Pneuma: 6,660

  Pattern Cohesion: 66,600/66,600

  With that out of the way, he needed to restore his Boosts. Starting with an Omni-Boost +10, he used that increase in his Pattern Cohesion to create his +15 Magnitude Omni-Boost once again to replace what he’d lost during his transformation. Once that was done, he felt much better, as he’d been missing those stats more than he realized, and now things were back to normal – or as normal as they could be when he was still adjusting to his additional 200 points in each stat.

  From there, he took a look at his Mage Skill Hexa-Boost and Martial Skill Hexa-Boost Fusions, and instead of immediately replacing them, he decided that a combination of the two was in order. With his ability to create Fusions at an all-time high, it was easy enough to combine the pair of Fusions, but he took it a step further; instead of just 12 Skills that were going to be boosted, 6 Mage and 6 Martial, he was going to boost all of his Mage and Martial Skills. It took a little extra effort to create Effects that would boost Skills that didn’t already exist, such as Fusional Growth and Focused Division; fortunately, with his intent and focus being so powerful, it wasn’t that much of a strain to make it work.

  But even with a Fusion that would boost all 20 Mage and Martial Skills he had unlocked, as well as the Block Skill that existed but stubbornly didn’t want to unlock for him, he wasn’t done. Since he was already boosting Skills, he figured he might as well include his Guardian Skills in the lot. As soon as he started creating the Effects, however, he found them to be much more difficult, as if the formation was actively trying to negate what he was doing. It was the first time he’d ever experienced something like a Fusion actively working against him, but he pushed through the interference and managed to add the boosting Effects for all 3 Guardian Skills.

  With 24 Effects, it was one of the most complicated Fusions he’d ever created. He could instinctively determine that its resource costs had increased dramatically from just the Hexa-Boosts he’d created before – and he was fairly certain it was because of the Guardian Skills that he’d added. Not only that, but there weren’t just Mana and Pattern Cohesion resource costs that he had to worry about. Because the Guardian Skills dealt with Aetheric Force and Primal Essence, those energies would be needed to not only create a Magnitude 1 version, but also in order for it to grow; it would need those to be absorbed from the environment and infused in the formation.

  Therefore, before he completely finished the formation, he added the containment line that would act as its growth component, but he had to alter its composition significantly. With his new Specialization allowing him to manipulate energy quite adeptly, he was able to shift the containment line to include all types of energy in the environment, as it took them all in and converted them into Primal Essence – which would handle the energy requirements for everything. Because this process was slower, he didn’t think he’d be able to get the full speed he was used to getting, but it would still be much easier than trying to supply it himself. Because of these speed limitations, he set the eventual Magnitude to just 10 for now, as anything past that intuitively felt like it would be too powerful for Fusional Growth to reach it.

  New Fusion Learned!

  All Skills Boost +1

  Activation Method: Permanent

  Effect: Increases Fusion Skill Level

  Effect: Increases Fusional Growth Skill Level

  …..

  Effect: Increases Aetheric Authority Skill Level

  Effect: Increases Primal Essence Mastery Skill Level

  Magnitude: +1 Level

  Primal Essence Cost: 400

  Pattern Cohesion: 320

  Fusion Time: 9 hours

  Fusional Growth has reached Level 121!

  Fusion has reached Level 146!

  Mana Control has reached Level 146!

  Pattern Formation has reached Level 146!

  Multi-effect Fusion Focus has reached Level 141!

  Energetic Transmission has reached Level 16!

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Aetheric Authority has reached Level 18!

  Primal Essence Mastery has reached Level 16!

  You have created a new Fusion and have reached Level 72! You now have 50 available AP to distribute!

  I guess this Fusion works well enough for my development – Level 72!

  During the creation of the new Fusion, he had been forced to use Primal Essence to fill up its requirements rather than Mana; when he looked at the description, he noticed that the Mana Cost section for it disappeared, and it was replaced with Primal Essence. No wonder I couldn’t push this past Magnitude 10; that much Primal Essence inside of a formation would strain the structure of the formation, if there was much more than what is required for that Magnitude.

  But the best news was that his new Fusion fulfilled the requirements for a new Fusion, bringing him to Level 72 with 50 AP to spend. He quickly split up the AP across all 5 stats he could add points to, before checking the requirements for his next Level-up.

  New Fusion Progress (50 AP): 0/3

  This time, instead of just 1, he needed to create 3 new, Fusions in order to Level-up again. While that might seem daunting to some Fusionists, it only excited Larek and encouraged him to experiment with even more ideas.

  A thorough examination of his new Fusion on the round steel medallion where he’d placed it showed that it was growing just as he expected it to, as the altered containment line was working properly, but it would be a while until it hit Magnitude 10. A rough estimate of its growth speed told him it would take about 96 hours, or 4 days, before it was complete. It wasn’t the infusion of Pattern Cohesion slowing it down this time, but the conversion of Primal Essence from the ambient energy in the environment, as it could only be processed so quickly.

  So, while he had to wait for that to grow into its potential, Larek went back to the Magical Energy Negation Sphere. Technically, he could afford to create the Magnitude he needed, now that his stats had gone up due to his evolution and had enough Pattern Cohesion to pay for it, but he decided against it for two reasons. First, because now that he had Fusional Growth, there was no need to pay for it all at once, especially since he could simply wait for it to grow. And second, he figured he might as well add another component to the Fusion that would add the Camouflage Effect that he’d left out earlier because of the expense. After adding it and creating the formation at Magnitude 1 so that it could grow into a Magnitude 15 Fusion, 2 Magnitudes higher than originally intended so that it could negate stronger spells and effects, the new Fusion was named Camouflaged Magical Energy Negation Sphere.

  Even though it was technically a new Fusion, it didn’t count toward his Level-up; he figured that simply adding a single Effect that he’d already created in a different Fusion to one already existing didn’t exactly count as pushing the boundaries of Fusion creation. He didn’t really think it would, if he was being honest with himself, but he was still glad that he’d had it confirmed.

  A brief look at how long he suspected the new Fusion would take put it at about 3 days of growth, which was actually fairly impressive considering that he’d pushed the Magnitude past what he originally intended. Seeing that it was fairly easy and straightforward to create, now that he could allow the Fusion to grow, he started creating the Fusion again; but this time, he used Focused Division to create multiple copies. Soon enough, he had thousands of the new Fusion all primed and growing, which he placed off to the side so that they could finish the process. Once they had all reached Magnitude 15, they would be able to be installed in every single transport in the Kingdom.

  Thoughts about the Magical Energy Negation Effect had him thinking about his Protection of the Void Fusion. As much as he’d like to produce a Protection of the Void Fusion that could fit around a transport as well, adding another layer of protection, he knew that even his Fusional Growth Skill wasn’t quite viable for something of that size.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t incorporate the Magical Energy Negation Effect into the Protection of the Void Fusion for individuals.

  There had been some glaring weaknesses that he’d unfortunately observed with his defensive Fusion, and the biggest one had been the fact that the person being protected could be overwhelmed by being fully surrounded by either something physical or something magical. The void portion of the protection just couldn’t handle it. If he were to add a Magical Energy Negation Effect, perhaps as an outside layer just past the void, he could potentially diminish the risk of a magical attack getting through the void portion.

  Now, a physical attack that fully enveloped the protected person would still be a problem. For instance, if a huge, non-magical boulder the size of a house landed on someone, it was unlikely that they would survive. He couldn’t think of a field or barrier that would completely block something like that, unfortunately, but he had an idea that might help – at least a little bit. He had to dig into his list of Fusions to find it, but eventually he recalled the Repelling Barrier that he’d used for a while for protection. It had used gusts of air to redirect physical attacks aimed against the one being protected, and while there had been some issues with it, the formation had worked well enough at the time.

  Now that he had the ability to make these gusts even more powerful, to the point where it could be frankly ridiculous, he decided to leverage those gusts as an additional layer of protection.

  For his newest Fusion, starting from the outside was a Camouflaged Magical Energy Negation Barrier Effect at Magnitude 10, followed by a layer of void also at Magnitude 10, and inside of that layer would be another layer of incredibly powerful gusts of air that that would be pumped all the way up to Magnitude 22. These gusts would react to any incoming objects that managed to make it through both outer layers, and would automatically aim themselves in the direction of the incoming object, acting as a counterforce to stop it, or at least slow it down.

  Unfortunately, to get the gusts to work properly, he had to add a few components to the Fusion that would shut down both of the outer layers of protection if the gusts were activated; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to produce enough thrust to stop or slow down any objects. In addition, any objects able to pass through the outer two layers and moving slower than 20 miles per hour would be able to pass through the gust layer, which was a weakness of the original Fusion, but he thought it was still better than nothing.

  In the previous scenario, if someone had a non-magical boulder the size of a house dropped on their head, the gusts were strong enough that it would probably slow the massive stone down long enough that they could get free if they were fast enough, but it wouldn’t necessarily stop it from impacting them if they were too slow. Still, it was a vast improvement over just the Protection of the Void, so he figured it would have to do.

  As he set his new design in formation and created it to grow into its strength, he quickly discovered that Absolute Protective Fields – the name of the new Fusion – was apparently sufficient enough to count toward his requirements for a new Level; just like that, he was now at 1/3 for new Fusions, a third of the way to a new Level and 50 more AP.

  As he needed quite a few of these new Absolute Protective Fields for himself, his friends, all of the Volunteers, and the former SIC involved in his organization, he went about creating tens of thousands of them using Fusional Growth and Focused Division, as he tore through his reserve materials with abandon. Thankfully, Kevara – his Fusion-creating assistant – appeared at one point, and silently (because Nedira was still asleep) began to help him move his complete-but-growing Fusions into what she decided to dub an “incubation section” of the room, after he told her what was going on. She also brought in even more materials, with the help of a few Volunteers, so that he could keep working on even more.

  While the Fusions he’d created weren’t 100% guaranteed to work against everything that could be thrown at them, Larek concluded that they were probably some of the best he was going to get at the moment. When he’d finished preparing all of the defensive Fusions for their stint in the growing process, he shifted his focus onto something a bit more dangerous.

  Offensive Fusions.

  The first thing he did was look at the Focused Light Beam that he’d created earlier simply to test his defenses against Clockwork Elementals. It had proven to be an effective weapon, which should’ve been obvious since the Elementals used them to kill many a Mage and Martial, but he hadn’t taken the time to see how far he could push the Effect. With his higher Pattern Cohesion and greater ability to create Fusions, he decided to test how strong he could make one.

  His first attempt almost ended in disaster, as he tried to push the Magnitude past 12; the amount of light emerging from the tip of the rod he’d placed it on had been so intense that the small, curved sections of bent light, developed to focus the illuminated light passing through them, began to warp and break, as if they were pieces of glass that were melting from the intensity of the illumination. Not only that, but the spillover from the heat generated by the breaking bits of bent light started to melt the rod itself – which nearly damaged the formation. Fortunately, he was able to deactivate the Effect before anything catastrophic happened, but he was forced to eliminate the Fusion before it eventually ruptured.

  The solution he came up with to create a stronger Focused Light Beam was simple: Make it larger. Instead of a small steel rod the thickness of his thumb, he had his helpers bring him in a cylindrical stone post approximately 3 feet long and 10 inches wide. It had been created using a Shape Material Fusion, and while it was heavy to manipulate, it was cheap to produce and had been originally used by the Volunteers as a component in constructing the foundations for various structures.

  It was also perfect for what he had in mind.

  With a larger medium within which to mount the Fusion, as the size of the bent light sections were dependent upon the width of the beam of light shining through them, which he’d render dependent on the flat side of the tip of the original steel rod, he was able to make the bent light sections larger and more robust.

  Thankfully, his idea worked perfectly. He had to leave his pillow throne temporarily so that it could be tested outside of the city, and the cylindrical pillar of stone would probably have to be mounted onto something for easy maneuverability, but he managed to get it all the way up to Magnitude 18 before he started having problems with it warping again.

  To say it was devastating was an understatement, because when he activated the Focused Light Beam +18, it created an intense, frighteningly hot beam of light 8 inches in width, which could travel nearly 500 feet without degradation, and which could melt through even thick steel – if given enough time. A quick lick of the beam against a steel plate, for instance, just scorched it, but given just a few seconds, it could burn through a half-inch of steel per second.

  This might be effective against the Gergasi – but it will be even more effective against the Clockwork Elementals in the Calamity. It’ll give them a taste of their own medicine.

  This new version of Focused Light Beam was extremely dangerous, of course; but in the right hands, it could change the tide of a battle.

  So, naturally, he set about growing a few hundred of them that would be ready to go in a few days.

  With another weapon that could be used in the upcoming campaigns completed, Larek rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he thought about other offensive Fusions he might be able to create. I’m just getting started….