Fel felt enlightened. No wonder he could only see light blue energy points. He also realised how important the golden lines were, without them he would hardly be able to do anything, you can’t do that much with just energy after all. But, while the book was pessimistic about being a pure energy mage, Fel knew this occupation had far more potential than the book had ever thought possible.
Although pure energy might not have the greatest raw power or some mysterious ability, it could do something none of the other attributes could. Charge power armour. Humanity always had trouble with finding a suitable energy source for power armour. They had resorted to mining rare fuels in distant planets and in the case of humans of the New World, take advantage of the natural energy in the air. These solutions were functional but expensive with a need for extensive infrastructure. Although the discovery of natural energy was a boon to humanity, it was still in its early stages of development and energy stones could only provide a limited amount of energy.
By using himself as a source of energy he could charge power armour without the need for a charging station or monster cores. He had already dabbled in this with his own, modified, power armour, however, he now placed a lot more importance on its future development. If what the book said was true, power armour was his only way to stand toe to toe with the people of this strange new world. Although he could rely on his parivartana lines, the conversion would waste energy and be harder to control than the real deal, it would stab him in the back later on.
Today was the day of the deadline. In the last four days, Fel had been practising with his parivartana lines, becoming somewhat proficient in the attributes of the four available attributes. At first, he thought they were useless to him, but he realised that, with these attributes, he could create a myriad of new equipment for his power armour. Right now he could only make minor tweaks to his power armour, without a proper workshop he wouldn't be able to repair his power armour properly, his current set-up just wasn't up to his standards.
Siyla on the other hand, sat in the corner as usual. She corrected his mistakes when he practised with his energy manipulations and took part in idle conversations. They were still awkward with each other, they didn't have a common conversation topic and Fel wasn't about to spill that he was a human, not a 'golden one' or whatever.
A dryad came to the room to escort them from the village. Fel donned his power armour and walked out of the room with Siyla. As they left the village, the world twisted around them before snapping back into place. They seemed to of have crossed a barrier of some sort.
The dryad halted and tossed a compass to Fel, ‘Go south-west until you exit the forest, there should be a town at the border, from there on you can find your way,’
He turned around and walked to the village, ‘Also, you can chuck out the map, it’s over 2000 years old. Don’t get eaten by monsters!’ the barrier twisted around him, snapping back into place as he passed it. He disappeared, as if he never existed in the first place.
‘Siyla, what did he mean by the last bit?’
‘If I remember correctly, the forest is rife with vicious beasts’
‘Anything more detailed?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine’
Fel and Siyla trekked down a narrow through the moonlit forest, dry, grey leaves crackling at their feet, exposing the ashy earth underneath. The forest was silent. So silent it was almost eerie. Fel was holding a heavy poleaxe he had retrieved from the spacial ring. It was one of the few weapons that had the right proportions to his power armour and didn’t seem to require much skill to wield. Fel was a lot more adept with firearms rather than melee combat, his main melee weapon was the Energy Sabre, something that didn’t require much skill to wield.
A sleek shadow shot out from behind an ashen tree, hurtling towards Fel. Fel kicked his suit into action and swung out his poleaxe, crushing into the shadow’s side, sending it flying over to Siyla. She side-stepped the incoming shadow and stomped up to Fel.
The shadow crashed into the ground behind her, sending out a cloud of ashen earth. The clearing dust revealed the mangled body of an obsidian-black snake. Its body was as thick as a man's torso and its skull had caved in, leaking gooey brain matter, decorated by shattered bone-fragments.
‘Your skill with the poleaxe is pitiful! If I had been even a little slower that snake would've smashed into me!’
Fel felt miffed by these wrongful accusations, ‘Well sorry for that. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve ever used one or anything. Also, you didn't seem to have much trouble dodging that...’
‘Hmpf, look at your poleaxe’
Fel glanced at his poleaxe and noticed that a wispy shadow clung to its head, corroding the heavy metal. With a quick thought, he directed some lightning energy into it, purging the corrosive energy.
‘Ah, yes, I guess you wouldn’t want a face-full of that’
Just before Siyla was about to retort, her face turned dead serious. She splayed out her wings and congealed a white bow while staring intently at the trees behind Fel. Sensing the situation, Fel retreated to Siyla’s side, exchanging his damaged poleaxe with a shiny javelin.
Siyla knocked an arrow, ‘We'll continue with this later.’ Fel wasn’t inclined to disagree.
A great, hulking panther stalked out from the trees, it's bulging muscles rippled under its dark, velvet fur. Standing four metres tall, the panther stared the duo down, gazing hungrily at the dead snake behind them. They would’ve loved to let the panther have its fill, if only it wasn’t on the only path through the forest. Who knew what lurked in the dark undergrowth. Their only way forward was to fight the panther.
Fel took the initiative, hurling the javelin at the panther, accelerating it further with a blast of force energy. However, just before it sunk into the panther’s flesh, a thin, ashen barrier appeared. The javelin crashed into the barrier, causing it to distort wildly as it resisted the blow, just barely deflecting the deadly javelin. Before the panther could take a step forwards, Siyla launched a hail of metal needles at the panther. Half of the needles shattered when they collided with the barrier, yet the rest somehow slipped past, burrowing into the panther’s flesh.
Howling in rage, the panther leapt forwards towards the duo, but it was at this moment that Siyla let loose her arrow. It flew at the panther’s eye, punching through the barrier and drilling through its eye, all the way through to its brain. Yet the panther did not stop and continued to charge towards the duo, relying on its instincts alone. Fel summoned a long-headed boar spear and planted it in the ground. The panther’s barrier had collapsed, it no longer had the power to keep it running.
Brainlessly, the panther impaled itself upon the boar spear, the long shaft reaching down into its gullet. Although the panther tried to snap at Fel in its final death throes, the spear held fast. Eventually, the panther bled out, still skewered on the spear. He yanked hard on the pole-arm, its long shaft slid silent out from the panther's body. A wispy shadow clung to the spear, slowly corroding it.
Siyla, as obsessed with cleanliness as always, waved her hand and conjured a gust of wind, cleansing Fel’s bloody spear. Fel purified the spear and dumped it into his ring. He retrieved a two-handed Scandinavian axe and casually swung it onto his shoulder.
‘Now, let’s go on shall we?’
Siyla crackled her knuckles, ‘We still have something to do, don’t we?’
Sweat flowed in droves down Fel’s face, he was screwed.
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