Chapter 40: Lv20

Jaxir didn’t rashly jump back into the game although he really wanted to. His body was practically burning up with desire to vent on something.

But that wasn’t what he did.

Instead, he took his injection of nutrients and then hopped into the shower. He brushed his teeth after he was done, did a few stretches to counteract the time he spent lying in the pod, and then went to bed.

He was up with the sun the next morning and started on some yard work. He had ordered a few tools while he was in the hospital and they arrived long ago. While he could have just hired someone to do it for him, he didn’t want to.

Instead, he hopped on the mower and scalped the overgrowth down to nothing all on his own, having his fun on the zero gravity handles. Something about using his real body and real motor skills again really got his engines going.

Then he started pulling the weeds by hand.

Sure, there were chemicals he could have used. But once again, he took the hard path.

He only managed to finish a twentieth of the lawn, if that, by the time his body was begging for rest. But he still smiled with satisfaction.

All he had really done was ride around in a fancy lawn mower and pluck maybe a dozen or two weeds, but he felt happy.

He went inside, injected himself with his morning shot of nutrients, took another shower, and then headed down to the basement.

Now it was time.

When he entered Divinity once more, there was a light of focus and conviction in his eyes.

There were few humiliations worse for a man than to have his name stripped from him. The fact he was the only living descendant of his parents, that he carried on what was left of them inside of him, inside his name, should have been enough to drive him wild with rage.

A much younger, much rasher Jaxir certainly would have lashed out already.

But what would that get him? What would yelling at a lawyer do for him? Or worse, hitting said lawyer?

Jail time, probably.

He would handle this another way. But before he did that, he was going to need more power in-game, and that meant clearing this quest long before this week was up.

Jaxir looked up through the foliage above him. The sun peeked through, the shade falling on him in dancing patterns as the wind blew the leaves back and forth.

It was really hard to believe that this was just a game when you stood here.

"Let’s do this." Jaxir said aloud to himself.

The air shifted around him and mana seemed to roll into a gathering momentum.

He shot forward.

Jaxir didn’t know how many mobs he killed. By now, just to get to Level 6, he would have to kill 1000 Level 5 creatures or 500 Level 10 ones. But at this point, he wasn’t fighting for the sake of leveling up, he was trying to find that edge hidden within his L1 Abilities.

Maybe it was his added focus and burning sense of purpose, but he thought he was making some headway.

"I think I’m probably thinking about things the wrong way." Jaxir spoke aloud to himself, sending a trio of Casts at a Level 7 twinkle twinkle badger.

The creature leapt at a tree, dug its long claws into it for a brief instant before leaping right at his head.

It swiped, trailing starlight following after their arcs.

Jaxir had already seen how deceptively long those claws could be. They looked about three to four inches shorter than they actually were.

Still, he smoothly dodged out of the way, ducking a bit and swaying his head to one side as it soared over.

He pivoted quickly, tapping a foot to the ground as he accelerated backward. Images of the terrain filled his mind as he sped up, his pace kicking it up a notch as he envisioned a bolt of crimson and the crackling, dried leaves that spun around it.

"When I advanced Fracture to Level 13, it was because I understood how to make use of it after it was cast, not during it being cast. The level up was almost reverse engineered from something downstream.

"Sure, Fracture helps enhance the odds of critical hits, but it would have done that regardless of level. That alone didn’t help me understand it better. So what did I actually comprehend that helped me advance it?"

The badger didn’t seem to understand English, but it probably felt like Jaxir was mocking it right about now, so it reacted in kind, lunging out of a furious rage.

The ending was pretty much the same though. Another dodge, and yet another rain of Casts falling down from above.

Jaxir nodded to himself as though he understood something.

"It was the act of realizing the connection between critical hits and Fracture that made me realize that casting Fracture wasn’t just like breaking glass. It was more like ripping a piece of paper with a folded edge in two.

"I’m not creating fissures where there are none. I’m enhancing fissures where they already exist. The better I get at that, the better Fracture gets.

"But in that case..."

Jaxir realized that he was trying too hard to find some great separation between Wither, Bind, and Fracture. Their underlying sentiment was different, as were the patterns they drew from, but their concepts were the same.

Targeting the weakness of an enemy and exploiting them.

Bind wormed its way into those weaknesses to block the flow. Fracture wormed its way in to split them apart further and make them more obvious. And Wither wormed its way in to poison and destroy.

No matter what form it took, the job of a Hex Path was the same.

Target weakness. Exploit it.

Crush their enemies using the poison from within.

"From within..." Jaxir said softly.

And that was when it clicked.

He was too worried about how many abilities he would have to understand, how many spells he would have to memorize. That was the wrong approach.

The only thing he needed to understand was singular.

Mana.

Wither poisons mana.

Bind restrains mana.

And Fracture...

"Fracture is enhancing my mana attacks by using the enemy’s mana against them! No, that’s only part of it. The mana from Fracture is using the cracks I create in their mana to infuse my own mana into theirs, influencing their mana to react when I attack and causing a chain reaction that multiplies the damage I deal!"

Jaxir’s eyes widened as the last of the puzzle pieces fell into place.

―

[Lv10 Bind > Lv14 Bind]

―

[Lv10 Wither > Lv13 Wither]

―

[Lv13 Fracture > Lv20 Fracture]

―

"Oh shit." Jaxir cringed.

He was supposed to level up his Root Abilities to Level 40 before he hit Level 20 in his L1 Abilities. Did this mean he was going to lose his Mage Title?

"Dammit."