The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 58

“Cold Resistance feels like a wasted slot right now,” Rue said. “I get that we’ll need it later, but why not take something that would be immediately useful and add Cold Resistance in once we actually get to Floor 7?”

“Because we’re going to start working on merging soulprints together,” Sorin told her. “Heat Resistance and Cold Resistance are very, very easy to merge into Thermal Insulation.”

“That is… a very advanced technique,” Yoru said. “One that is generally reserved for those with phenomenal anima control.”

“How do you think you get phenomenal anima control?”

“Very well,” Yoru conceded. “What would you like us to do?”

They had set up a small camp deep into Floor 5, halfway between the portal hub and a ruin supposedly squatting at the base of a wide ravine. Sorin was pleasantly surprised at how much faster they were moving now that they had Train of Thought to help with the disorientation Speed Burst brought with it. While they lacked the anima reserves and endurance to move non-stop, they were still moving significantly faster than they’d been before.

“This is going to involve a lot of time in your soulspace,” Sorin warned. “Ideally, you’d do this back on Floor 0 in the safety of your own home, but we do not have weeks to spend there, so you’ll have supervised practice during our breaks instead. My hope is that by the time we reach Floor 7, you’ll have already achieved the merger, but if not, at least you won’t be cold when we get there.”

Sorin launched into a lecture about the anima structures of soulprints, even sketching out both Heat and Cold Resistance into the dirt to serve as visual aids. He explained the process of breaking component links, which was similar to ripping a soulprint out completely, except that instead of shattering the soulprint and letting it dissolve on its own, the climber had to break it in exactly the right ways to allow both halves to be connected to each other.

It was a complex process, made all that much more difficult by the fact that every soulprint was unique and thus required a unique approach. Even taking the same two soulprints and merging them twice could result in different outcomes depending on how it was done, and not always for the better. Succeeding in merging two soulprints together did not mean the climber had gotten what they were aiming for.

“But the good news is that these soulprints have very similar structures, so studying that will result in a lot of overlap. That should help you learn what you need to do quickly enough,” Sorin said. “The better news is that they’re both F-rank, so if and when you screw up the first time, it won’t be difficult to discard the results or expensive to obtain replacements.”

“Still a painful process,” Yoru said. “We’d need a week to recover between attempts.”

“Then better to get started early,” Sorin told him seriously. “You need to know how to do this, especially since we’re limited to whatever small selection of C-rank soulprints there are on a small handful of floors before hitting the Void Wall as the ceiling for natural power. If you can grow beyond your floor limit, then you’re going to have a soulspace capable of holding multiple C-ranks. Being able to make your own that are tailored for your build is an essential skill.”

Nobody tried to argue with that logic, so with varying degrees of enthusiasm, they got to work. It was a simple cycle, starting with them spending ten minutes inside their own soulspaces trying to map out the actual anima structure of the two soulprints while Sorin stood guard. Then they’d come back and discuss what they’d learned. Sorin would offer advice to point them in the right direction, and the whole process would repeat.

He gave them two hours to work. By the end, none of them were even close to attempting the merger, but it was a start. They’d repeat the training the next night, and the one after that, for however long it took to get them there. None of them complained, not even Rue, if only because they all recognized the value in what they were being shown.

“What about free casting?” Yoru asked once Sorin called an end to their first night of training.

“Related, but significantly more complicated. The biggest obstacle is needing a lot of free anima floating around in your soulspace, which could be spent empowering the soulprints you already have. You’re weakening yourself in one way to gain flexibility in another, but that’s only the base prerequisites.

“You also need to understand the complete structure of the soulprint you want to mimic and be disciplined and fast enough to recreate it using raw anima. The sloppier you are, the more expensive it becomes to use, not to mention the longer it takes to pull it all together.

“We’re doing merging first because once you’ve done it, it’s permanent. You’ll just be that much stronger than other climbers your rank who haven’t mastered it. In a few more ranks, once you’ve got a solid base build, we can start leaving some free soulspace to train free casting, though be warned you’ll be starting with utility soulprints used out of combat. It’s a long road from being able to free cast to being able to do it quickly and accurately enough to bet your life on the result.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yes, I understand that,” Yoru said somewhat impatiently. “I was merely inquiring about the when of it fitting into this training schedule.”

“That’ll depend on you. Get merging figured out first. The sooner you do this one, the sooner we can move onto the next set. Once you’ve got a solid foundation, we’ll discuss the next technique.”

“Couldn’t we learn both at the same time?” Nemari asked.

“Sure, but there are only so many hours in the day,” Sorin said. “Do you all want to stop climbing completely and return to home base to practice these techniques? Keep in mind that there are soulprints like Train of Thought you can add to your builds to make all this easier to learn and do. It’s not impossible to master it as you currently are, but it’s the harder path. Gaining the space to add a D-rank soulprint like Centered Mind will aid you tremendously in this task.”

Of course, none of them had room for D-rank soulprints yet. If they didn’t add anything else to their soulspaces and managed to merge a few F-ranks together to free up some room, then he suspected they could fit a smaller D-rank once they obtained rank 6. By rank 7, they definitely could hold Centered Mind. Sorin wasn’t going to demand they forgo upgrades for the next two ranks, though, especially since Centered Mind wasn’t truly necessary, but if they chose to go that route, he wouldn’t try to stop them.

He suspected they were more likely to just wait for rank 9 or 10 when a single rank up would give them enough space to add a whole D-rank soulprint, especially since he wasn’t sure any of them would actually manage to even do the simple Cold and Heat Resistance merger he was teaching them before they got there.

“Alright,” he said a few minutes later once the discussion started to circle back around on itself, “that’s enough for tonight. I’ll take first watch. Pick two people for second watch, and let’s get some sleep.”

* * *

One good thing about the ruin they were heading into was that it didn’t have any walls to trap them there. It was kind of a moot point though, since they were far more prepared this time and entering as a team rather than chasing after one person who’d been tricked inside. Combined with Sorin being four ranks over the floor itself and having a full climbing team of six, he seriously doubted there would be any significant issues.

But if there are, we can run away this time. Yay. How lucky for us.

The information Yoru had dug up for them claimed the entire ravine was technically the ruin, and there was some evidence to support that in the form of small, single-room buildings festooned on the walls like massive, man-made barnacles. The actual ground didn’t have much in the way of architecture, just a cock-eyed grid pattern of low garden fences that meandered in crooked lines.

The ruin wasn’t favored by climbers for two reasons: it was too far away from anything else to be convenient, and the monsters were universally considered to be too much of a pain in the ass to be worth fighting. The whole ruin was infested with territorial rock-borer beetles, and since it was Floor 5, that meant they were likely to be the size of a piece of furniture rather than the ankle or even knee-high specimens of other floors.

“Well-armored, aggressive, and coming at us in large numbers,” Yoru recited before they entered. “They’re going to pop out of the ground and walls and just keep coming, no matter how many we kill. We’ll almost certainly need to retreat a few times until they give up chasing us just to thin their numbers.”

“Just think of how much anima we’re going to collect,” Sorin told him. “Ready to get started?”

After everyone gave their assent, Sorin stepped into the ravine. What looked like an old, broken-down house with a partially collapsed roof waited at the end for them, though it wasn’t currently in sight. Supposedly, the ruin heart was hidden in the well next to it, easily accessed as long as they were willing to take a long drop into the darkness and fight the ruin guardian there.

Earth Warder granted Sorin a massive advantage in this ruin, which was one of—but not the only—reason he’d chosen it out of all the possibilities. He didn’t have as good a range as he wanted, but he could feel the beetles in the ground, chewing through the rock that was their food as they bored endless tunnels that the tower slowly filled back in behind them.

“First wave incoming,” he warned. The beetles used something like Tremor Sense, and it was sensitive enough to detect intruders stepping across the surface above their heads.

He moved about thirty feet away from the rest of the team, who hadn’t quite crossed the threshold into the ruin yet, to bait the monsters on him. “Five seconds to contact.”

The first of the beetles broke through the ground. If Earth Warder hadn’t already warned him, he’d have been surprised to find that his imagination hadn’t quite measured up to the reality of their sheer size. The beetle was at least five feet tall and rather square in its dimensions. Its head was the size of a child’s ball and lacked any sort of mandibles or pincers, but acid dribbled out of its mouth to hiss and sputter against the dirt where it fell.

This thing must weigh a couple thousand pounds, Sorin thought to himself as it glided forward on legs he couldn’t see. Only Blind Sense caught the scuttling motion of its limbs hidden under its protective shell, which itself scraped across the ground. It’s definitely using some sort of earth manipulation ability to help it slide its bulk forward.

Just before it reached Sorin, there was a flash of twisted light that cut through the air. Rue had hurled a spear into its side, and the penetrating power of the spell was more than up to the challenge of cracking the monster’s armor. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad pick after all.

Even as Sorin thought that, though, the spear dissipated, and new armor started to grow around the edge of the wound. He’d have to take advantage of any cracks he made quickly if he wanted to kill the monster. Of course, he’d have to do everything quickly because there were already another four coming up the same tunnel behind this one, and he could sense thirty or forty more digging their way toward the surface.

This is going to be worth so much anima, he thought with a grin.