Shattered Bastions

[vladspellbinder]

Still waiting for Kyle to die.

like a Zittle in a handful of N&Ns,

Click to shrink...

Still hate this Trope. But I wasn't going to comment on it if it was the only thing I saw I felt commenting on so-

not however took over.

Click to shrink...

"whoever"

"Good enough for Kyle's bunch," Logan noted, offhand. "Maybe not Bart."

Click to shrink...

Fuck you Logan, it's Bartholomew.

Good enough for Anna, Dylan knew, but wouldn't voice.

Click to shrink...

Also waiting for Dylan to drop that torch he's carrying.

feel you heart

Click to shrink...

"your"

Logan joinied her

Click to shrink...

"joined"

"Well, one way to find out!" Malik smiled, and, in a single moment, pulled a knife from a pocket, and cut his own arm.

Click to shrink...

Malik's a real one. He already understands that health is a resource and pain is only temporary. He's got his own version of 'healing' magic after all so self injury isn't that big of a deal.

Thanks for the chapter.

 

[Luke Dragneel]

So definitely seeing Dylan go down the path of the Blood Mage. Might even go full Necromancer if he's not careful. Learning new [Jobs] will never be a bad thing, but I doubt they will stay separated as like meets like and synergize into a cohesive greater whole.

Definitely liking Val's and Ivy's influence on Dylan and vice versa. Malik's thought process is definitely getting affected by his [Systemic Arcanist] Job, as he is treating his body more as an avatar for his mind/spirit than his flesh and blood.

Am I the only one thinking Amy has romantic intentions for Kyle, with Kyle seeing Amy as more of a fuckbuddy? Bart's insistence on being called Bartholomew probably played a part in his separation from Dylan's faction, but I am surprised he chose Kyle over the neutral faction instead. Kristen simply feels like a mixture of Malik's nerdiness but with Kyle's arrogance making her rather grating to deal with. I also get the feeling she's highly vindictive of slights against her intelligence.

 

[Weero]

So definitely seeing Dylan go down the path of the Blood Mage. Might even go full Necromancer if he's not careful.

Click to shrink...

Nah, I think it's more likely he'll get some sort of vampiric sanguimancer Job before he ever gets close to necromancy.

 

[sperance]

Still waiting for Kyle to die.

Click to shrink...

You know, it's kinda amusing that we're basically seeing a shonen protagonist seen by an outside perspective when it comes to Kyle. He has a lot of the shonen tropes assosciated with him: he's brash, hotheaded and not very smart or talented. He also hits a lot of the story beats that shonen touches on: the girl he likes is into someone else who is his cooler rival that's better than him (Dylan), his rival is "cold" and "aloof" and always acts superior (Dylan is none of those things, but Kyle sees him as such) and he's "unpopular" because other people are prejudiced against him in favor of said rival but suddenly finds a great power within him that makes him the perfect leader everyone admires (his Champion job)

Of course, when we abandon "Kyle-vision" we see the "shonen protagonist" for what he is: a violent, selfish cunt who people have very good reasons not to like. He's a jerk putting the moves on someone else's girlfriend, acts like everyone is supposed to admire him and follow his lead even if he's done nothing to earn it and his rival is more popular than him due to the simply being plain more likeable.

 

[kraryal]

I didn't expect Anna to straight up die, I thought we'd be getting drama from that for chapters and chapters. That was a good bit of writing and a nice twist for us readers.

 

[Leecifer]

Chapter Fourteen: Battery Life

​

Divine Magic was… strange.

It took a week, putting his all into it, during which the Caravan started moving again, before Dylan got his job, [Pulsewright], which took what he was struggling to do and made it so much easier. The star was small, reflecting its Clay status, and a vibrant red as opposed to Raider's almost malevolent crimson, its name made up of rippling energy that never stayed still.

Unfortunately, it was only after he got it, just like with [Handyman], did he realize what he was doing wrong. Except, while in his main Caravan profession, if he did a bad job of it he might get a splinter or make an uneven shelf, with this one he'd not only wasted Mana, he'd start feeding his own vitality into the process to compensate.

And, unlike when Sam first overcast, because it wasn't a single one-and-done 'spell', but a long ongoing one, there was no easy stop point if he didn't know what he was doing. And, at first, he really didn't know what he was doing. Which, in retrospect, was probably why the Caravan had them all try to learn their first Magic jobs with oversight.

But with them working together, and with the others not… like him, they managed it.

Sam, Ivy, Logan, and Malik all got a second Magical job, all of which were a bit like Val's, in that their new [Job]s physically enhanced them, though each was a bit different in how it worked. Sam's [Bulwark] made her tougher, for instance, to take hits without injury and giving her power to move slowly but with strength, while Ivy's [Lightness Artist] let her instead move in a way that was supernaturally graceful. The name of her [Job] made Malik laugh, but when the Asian girl glared, and declared, "Not a word!" his eyes went wide and he just nodded, refusing to explain that evening when it was just the two of them.

They, in turn, had worked with Val to get a second Magic job of her own, at Dylan's urging. Another Divine one, since Arcane required tools to learn, but, talking with Sam, and Logan about how their [Job]s worked, it was all about visualization… and being careful not to overdo it.

So, talking her through it, combining Sam's 'casting' and Logan's 'shaping', to try and make a 'shell' of mana, the Hispanic girl got something of her own to work, picking up [Ironbloomer], which made Malik snort, but let Val, for a moment, create a piece of armor. Theoretically she could use it to take a strike on it, but, really, what she did with it was just to give herself a gauntlet the moment she punched something, to make her hit even harder. Working with her, the moment of creation was the biggest drain, and she could maintain it afterwards, at a third of the original cost per second, but unless she was going to use it again and again, it wasn't worth it.

And, as Ivy had discovered, even without Ranking up the [Job] to the next tier, getting better at it normally could lower the costs, and increase the quality, of the casts as they practiced. The [Job]s were a massive jump up, but, theoretically, even if they never got one, they could've just improved on their own.

For now, at least.

All of them remembered Vey's warning that, the higher in Rank they rose, the lower the ceiling for everything non [Job] related they could do would become.

But, either way, Dylan's [Thaumic Scrutineer] helped a lot, because he could see the flow of Magic in what Val was doing, and, reaching out with his own, help her form it, a little. Similarly, he could poke other people's workings to either strengthen them, or loosen them, though the second was a lot easier than the first. After all, to do the former, he had to not only read the lines of Mana present, he had to understand what they were doing, and poke them into compliance, a little like his [Pulsewright] in some ways, but in others, not at all. [Pulsewright] was about life, it was warm, and flowing, and felt responsive to his task. [Thaumic Scrutineer] meanwhile, was about magic itself, and was… not cold, but room temperature, and felt almost a little like steel wool, in that it was kind of soft and pliable, workable in its way, but definitely not fluffy.

However while trying to get a spell to work better was really difficult, it was a lot easier to break a casting, working, whatever, because he could essentially go 'not that', and it always did something to disrupt whatever he was going after.

Meanwhile, in their day to day, everything just… kept going.

He repaired things with Jakyb, getting better, and only now realizing how much he'd been babied, now that he wasn't.

Thrain still dropped by on all of them, the short man noting the divide between them, not commenting on it directly, and making sure to check in on both 'groups'.

They were sent on Gathering missions once again, in pairs now, Dylan partnering with Malik, who, now that he was watching, really did throw himself into everything he did.

The athlete admitted, in the privacy of his own head, that he'd seen Malik screwing up, a lot, and thought he was, well, a bit of a screw up. That he meant well, but his roommate just wasn't that good at doing stuff. Except… no, because whenever it was really important, Malik did just fine, but the boy would constantly do things like field-dress a Hookpaw to get the needed bits with his off hand, or upside down with the creature turned the wrong way, or things like that.

And he was like that with everything he did.

So Dylan did the thing he had a feeling no one ever did.

He asked why.

"Huh?" the dark-skinned guy responded, confused. "Well, like, it's turning the difficulty up on a video game! When you get okay at it, well, you can do it, sure but you don't get any better! It's like, you know, walking on the sidewalk!"

Dylan, in fact, did not know, so slowly asked, "I, maybe we did different things, what do you do?"

Malik frowned, "You know, trying not to step on cracks, trying to only step on cracks, walking just on your heels, or the balls of your feet, or the sides of your feet, or making every step the exact same step, you know?"

His first response was to argue that what his roommate was talking about was childish. By a lot. The kind of childishness that was, if he was being honest, why Malik didn't have a lot of friends.

But…

But Malik was the strongest fighter in their group.

Malik was the one who had the most [Job]s out of all of them.

Malik was the reason that Dylan survived.

"Never did the 'same size' one," Dylan stated, not mentioning he stopped doing that sort of thing when he was nine. "Wouldn't that be easy?"

The other boy took a second to study the athlete, before he grinned, "You'd think so, and, like, yeah, for a dozen steps, but if you have to turn, or move around people, or stuff, it gets a lot more complicated! And out here," he waved to the forest around them, "it's even harder!"

Which led to Dylan trying to, and… his roommate was right, because as he turned, he shortened his steps, when they were going towards something nearby, he lengthened them, and, it was like that internet meme, 'I cast… Manual Breathing!' in that now that he was thinking about it, he couldn't stop noticing it.

Thing was, weirdly, focusing on his steps resonated with both [Bloodshot Raider] but also [Survivor].

And Dylan had no idea why.

So he started working harder, started doing things, not in his day-job, but elsewhere that were just… different.

Asking Malik for tips, the boy talked about 'Gamer' stories which always had an 'Observe' spell that gave you intel. The obvious way to 'power level' it, his roommate stated, was just to use it on everything, complaining that his own magic both didn't have something like that, and his magic was obvious.

But Dylan's [Thaumic Scrutineer] was not.

So he started using it to look at things constantly, until he figured out a way to just… rest, and keep it running, at a low level. It used a little bit of magic to do so, something he couldn't feel with [Pulsewright], but could look at himself with Scrutineer to gauge, but, again, the more he did it, the easier it was to do.

Day after day passed, and Dylan found himself, actually, having fun.

Which never lasted, because, at the same time, doing so felt… felt like he was betraying Anna.

She was gone, he, he shouldn't be allowed to be happy.

Except he rarely found himself alone, and if he dwelled on it, others could tell, so he kept going, kept doing things, and, and the hurt didn't go away, the feelings didn't disappear, but he was, in an odd way, too busy doing things to focus on it.

He knew it wasn't healthy, knew it wasn't right, for himself, for her, but…

Life continued.

And he had to continue with it.

<SB>​

Dylan's pulse pounded as he brought his axe down, steel flashing, deflecting the attack that would've ended him, as he spun about, the blow barely missing him despite the parry, the force and weight of it almost too much, while his gun lifted up, pointed, and-

Twang.

"That's Match," Ser Maude stated, the practice weapon, which fired a rubber band, striking Kyle dead center in his forehead.

With the Caravan moving, but also with the local Monster population suppressed, because they'd killed them all, and with their trial by fire, the group's Head of Security had started running their bi-weekly sparring practices.

And she was… intense.

She never used more words than she needed to, but despite that Dylan was learning a lot, not just when he fought, but when the others did too. While the people who trained them before had been teaching them how to use their Lead ranked Combat [Job]s, Maude was pushing them forward with them. Because while the [Job]s themselves granted knowledge on how to use them, subconsciously, and when they went from Lead to Iron they'd get another boost, that wasn't enough. No, learning how to use your [Job] past that initial burst of knowledge was both how you Ranked up faster and made sure your next level of [Job] fit you better.

More than that, though, the woman… didn't move like a person, and was teaching them how to do the same.

That sounded wrong, but it wasn't incorrect. They were all still strong like normal people, mostly, but with their movement-based [Job]s, the ones the Caravan had made sure they'd gotten, along with the ability to use Magic, they were all, in different ways, that much faster than a normal person would be. But using that for anything beyond the express purpose of the [Job] was something they had to do consciously, at least at first.

Though, the more he did that, the easier it was to shape his own thinking into 'deliveries' and 'obstacles' that made [Courier] lend its help in the combat context beyond 'don't get hit so you don't fail your delivery', which was useful in its own way. And he was finding his dual Magic jobs were also easier and easier to integrate, [Thaumic Scrutineer] not helping in a normal fight, as while everyone had a bit of magic, people didn't really use that when they moved, not like monsters did, but when someone else used magic?

Especially, like how Kyle used it, to enhance his own strength?

He might as well have been calling out his attacks like a Saturday morning cartoon.

Though knowing the hit was coming didn't help a bit when the hit was coming in at super-strength, hard enough that, even using their practice weapons, the blow would still hurt pretty badly, and Dylan could barely deflect it.

But barely was enough.

And [Pulsewright], while he had to touch someone else to use it on them, he was always touching himself. Not like that. But he'd been working, and could… pulse himself, to get that much more out of what he was doing, to push himself that much harder, and, with a minute or two afterwards, he could then heal the damage he did to himself in the process.

Though he felt that the armored woman could absolutely tell what he was doing, even if she didn't comment on it. It was just that she gave advice, terse, but not angry, that was generally useful, but which also could be directly addressing the physical enhancement Divine Magic [Job]s that Malik, Ivy, Logan, and Sam had all picked up too.

And Val's ability to now make armor for a second? There was no hiding that, but, at the same time, Ser Maude often stood beside the Hispanic teen, said a few words, and left the tomboy frowning as she looked at her own hands, or knees, glints of metal momentarily forming before dispersing around them.

"That's bullshit!"

Right, because while Dylan was trying hard to push forward, even as some part of him whispered that doing so was a betrayal of her memory, Kyle… was still Kyle.

And Dylan was realizing that his old football teammate… was kind of a dick.

"Explain," Ser Maude commanded.

"What, just because he's got a freaking gun, he wins?" the taller boy demanded. "We aren't even supposed to have our old gear, so why does he get to keep his?"

"He Uses His [Job]s, You Use Yours," Ser Maude reminded him, every word leaving her like a verbal strike. "His Weapon Is Bound. You Did Not Bind Yours."

Not liking that, the other guy ordered, "Then let me use a gun too! See how he likes it!"

Their teacher looked to him, and Dylan shrugged, so she nodded to one of their older teachers, who handed Kyle a wood and rubber band revolver, same as his, the teen holding his bastard sword in one hand, now unable to use it fully, the 'gun' in the other, as they both took their positions, twenty feet away from each other, and-

"Begin!"

Smirking, Kyle lifted his weapon up, but Dylan, tracking the end, having used them himself, and slipping into his combat focus, took a single step to the side. His opponent unloaded, which was wasteful, but he supposed when you didn't need to bleed for every shot, you didn't value them. Either way, shooting took skill, and while he was at point blank, so drop wasn't a thing, 'point-blank' the way people normally meant it, as in 'so close you can't miss', for an untrained person, was more like three feet away.

Which meant that every band missed, and, in the moment where the weapon clicked empty, and Kyle frowned, starting to say, "Bullshit!" is when Dylan moved, throwing himself into a sprint, Pulse flaring through his legs, [Courier] guiding his steps. His opponent disgustedly threw the wooden gun at Dylan, who shifted to take the hit on his shoulder, letting it bounce off.

As the other guy moved to grab his weapon with both hands, Dylan snapped a shot off for Kyle's head, the guy dodged, but dodging meant he wasn't grabbing his weapon correctly, and when Kyle's arms flared gold, the mana-enhancement burning, Dylan stutter-stepped. In doing so he slowed himself just long enough for the wild swing to go by, but not enough for the other guy to have time to swing back in the other direction, a rubber band hitting Kyle's hand, which if this were real would knock him back more, but the other guy just ignored it.

What he couldn't ignore was Dylan's blunted rubber-coated axe sweeping down for his head, the guy trying to fall backwards, but that just meant that he got hit on the side of the neck in what would've been a partially decapitating strike instead of an instantly severing one.

It was, by far, the worst performance Kyle had shown in months.

Because he'd stopped trying, because he thought he'd already won.

"Match!" called Ser Maude, the one word holding several paragraphs worth of chiding, which, from how the other guy winced, he heard too.

"We've trained with our weapons," Dylan offered, taking a step back. "If I tried to use a sword like you, I'm sure you'd kick my ass."

The other guy just glared at him, which… fine.

He tried.

Turning to walk back to his seat, he heard Kyle grunt, but it was Sam's yell of "Dylan!" that made him move, not thinking, just going, [Job]s firing as he launched himself forward, only hearing the whistle of the weapon when he was already gone, the blunted blade passing right where his head had been, as he rolled, coming up to-

Crack!

He didn't even see Ser Maude move, the woman seeming to practically teleport behind Kyle, gauntleted fist a blur as she slammed a punch right into the back of his head, which caused the boy to seize up, weapon flying off from nerveless fingers. He managed two steps, before he dropped to his hands and knees and vomited, and if he wasn't concussed Dylan would eat his hat, if he had one, which was bad.

"You're Done Today," the Bronze Ranked Combatant declared, voice arctic. "Leave."

Kyle staggered to his feet, and glared at Dylan like this was somehow his fault, before lurching out without another look to anyone else, one of Ser Maude's assistants using magic to clear the mini-arena they were using.

"Is, is he gonna be okay?" Bartholomew asked. "That wasn't okay, what he did, but…"

"Lead Rank. Tougher. He'll Survive," Ser Maude announced, looking around at the others. "Guns? Useful. Limited. Require Skill. Sourced Ammo." Striding over to the dropped bastard sword, she picked it up, and handled it like it was a kitchen knife, then twirled it so fast the air shrieked. "Blades Need No Reloading."

"But," Kristen argued, glancing around, "real guns don't hit like rubber bands."

Their instructor considered that, then nodded, and looked to one of her assistants, who pulled a pistol, checked it, and handed it to the nerdy girl.

"Shoot Me," Ser Maude ordered. When Kristen hesitated, the older woman added, "No Gun [Job]. You Are Lead. Shoot Me."

Hesitantly, the girl did, knowing the basics of how to handle firearms, all of them did, but their class in school had been hunting focused, not combat focused. Her first shot went wild, but the next seven hit, sparking off the armor the woman wore, without leaving a scrap, several hitting her dead on, the squashed slugs dropping to the ground in front of her.

"W-what!?" Kristen asked, confused.

"Bronze Tier Armor," Ser Maude stated, tapping her chest. "Bronze Rank [Plateborn]? Makes It Silver Tier."

Dylan heard the Title, and understood the woman's main profession wasn't management, be it logistical, like Quill, or social, like Vey, but combat, above and beyond anything else, her ability to communicate and teach effectively surely coming from a different [Job].

Which meant, when she Wrought, she'd lose them.

"Stronger Ammo, Better Weapons Exist. Expensive," Ser Maude stated. "Clay And Lead Gear? Enough For What We Face Here. [Job]s Make The Difference. Clay, Lead? Skill Boosts, Mostly. Iron And Above? Changes Things. Until Then? Train." Taking a moment to impress upon everyone what she was saying, the woman nodded. "Sam. Logan. Next."

<SB>​

Filling Mana Crystals still sucked.

The drain was unpleasant, though, with [Pulsewright], able to follow the flow of his own life force, which he used Mana to manipulate but wasn't Mana itself, he was relieved to be able to confirm that the process didn't actually drain them of life, no matter what it felt like.

But they needed to, so they did, though, weirdly, doing so… didn't help him feel better.

Which, yeah, filling them wasn't fun, that was just how it worked, but, but he kept feeling guilty about feeling good, so feeling bad should be better, right?

Except the guilt, the pulling feeling that he had to fight to do things, all of it, none of it was helped by doing something that made him feel bad, by, if he was being honest, punishing himself in a way.

If moving on made him feel bad, and not moving on made him feel bad… what the hell was he supposed to do!?

Fill Mana Crystals, apparently.

And… be a [Survivor].

So he did, along with everyone else, not even gritting his teeth anymore, just letting his magical reserves get sucked out of him. It was a bit like fluid dynamics, actually, as, once the flow started, it just kind of pulled itself along, until the container was full and it stopped itself. Though, from training both of his Mana-using [Job]s, he'd noticed his reserves had been growing, these sessions not leaving him quite as drained, as they were hitting a per-person quota, not one scaled to their capability.

The Divine-only people were having a harder job of it, which made him wonder if he could ask to borrow an Arcane-Teacher, to help Val, Sam, and Logan get the type of job that he and Ivy had, to make it easier on them. While Malik was…

Malik.

And had already filled up his entire set, before anyone else was halfway done, and was now working on the 'extra' set they could do for extra pay the next time they stopped at a Bastion, which was still several weeks out.

"Trained doing this too?" he asked his roommate, the flow of Mana a thick stream to his Scrutiny from the man's hands into the containers.

"Yeah!" Malik grinned. "Though it got a lot easier when I got a [Job] for it!"

"Of course you did," Ivy grumbled, however the person overseeing the process had frozen, turning pale at the dark-skinned guy's boast. "What?" the Asian girl asked.

"S-Stop doing that," the woman, Seena, ordered Malik, who looked at her, confused. "Stop filling the batteries. What is the name of the [Job] you gained, young man?"

"It's [Mana Battery]," he responded, Dylan parsing the Title, which was… actually really straightforward. It was all about having Mana, which you then had others use, because something about it meant you couldn't use it yourself. Not great if you were alone, but if he worked with Sam, she might be able to throw down prodigious amounts of lightning, or with Ivy maybe she could crack true invisibility.

From the Caravanner's response, and that of her assistant, a guy with black eyes and fingernails that were apparently all natural, however, that wasn't a good thing. "Go tell Quill," she ordered, the assistant nodding and running off.

"What's going on?" Dylan asked, concerned. "Is, is he okay? It doesn't seem that bad."

"That bad?" the woman demanded, before she caught herself. "It's… nothing bad right now. But…"

"But there's something you didn't tell us," Ivy declared.

Seena hesitated, "That's… not my call."

"Which is a yes," Bartholomew frowned.

"What is it?" Kyle demanded.

Ivy sighed, "She just said she can't tell us. And forcing her won't go well."

The other guy looked like he wanted to argue, but just crossed his arms, as they waited.

Though they didn't have to wait long.

But it wasn't Quill that entered, it was Hark, the Caravan's commander, who did not look happy, though he didn't look angry either.

"Which one?" he asked Senna, the woman pointing to Malik. Turning to Dylan's roommate, he commanded, "Say the [Job], please."

"Uh, [Mana Battery]?" the nerdy boy responded, understandably worried.

The older man let out a long breath. "Alright. I guess we're having the conversation now." The intensity that surrounded him like an aura faded a bit, and he waved around the room. "Everyone take a seat. This'll be a bit."

Dylan did so, though Ivy and Kyle both hesitated, and only when it became clear that Hark wouldn't continue did they sit as well.

"Alright. I made it clear that allowing your status as Outlanders to be known would be… problematic, correct?" he requested, and the others nodded.

Dylan, however, remembered something in particular. "Death would be kinder." At everyone's look, he explained, "You said, if it was known, we might get robbed, might get enslaved, but a one in eight, you said 'Death would be kinder'."

"Vey did, but she wasn't wrong," Hark corrected. "But to explain that, you are aware that Gods create, and maintain Bastions, yes?"

To this they nodded, Sam adding, "But, they can also be, uh, enslaved themselves?"

"Did she explain how?" Hark questioned, and, when they shook their heads no, he sighed. "Sounds like her. Alright, there's three aspects of… Bastioning, for lack of an official term. The first, the creation, is something only a God can do. It is their standing their ground, and planting their flag in the Farweald, going 'This Territory Is Mine, and Mine Alone.' Our Goddess explained it, but the records suggest different Gods can see it differently, but it's always roughly the same. They expend a great deal of energy, not Mana, something deeper."

"Like a Domain Extension, but permanent!" Malik exclaimed. "From Jujitsu Kaizen! Or maybe a Reality Mantle? From Fate/Wait Eve?"

There was a moment of silence, Dylan clearing his throat, "And… what are those, since we haven't seen the series yet?"

His roommate's cheeks darkened in embarrassment, "Oh, right! Uh, they kind of have an, er, 'inner realm', and by being really good, and using a lot of energy, they can kind of bring out that inner realm to replace the world around them with it. Not very far, or, like, very far outside, it might be really big inside, but they control everything in it, though, usually, like, subconsciously."

The golden eyed older man considered that. "That's not what they do. But it's not entirely wrong either. Gods can shape their Bastion, but every aspect of it costs them. Increasing the size, which increases the bubble, but not one to one. The creation of valuable materials, rougher ones that need to be extracted cheaper than finished, higher Tier being more expensive. The imposition of certain… rules, and pressures."

"Like why New Agartha was full of Dwarves, while Gondolin was Elves?" Logan asked.

The Leader nodded, "Yes, they originally were more like us, but every generation would be pushed a bit more to what the God wanted, and the longer they lived there, the stronger the push would be. Our Goddess doesn't do that, which is why we are the way we are, but many Gods have preferences, that, by living there, you are affected by. Most of the time. Outlanders… are not, though their children are, in turn, affected especially hard, most of the time."

"So, it's trade-offs," Bartholomew stated. "New Agartha had more minerals, but Gondolin only had plants, but was bigger."

Hark shook his head, "No, the NAgs had more rules, that ate up a lot of their budget, and the Gonds trees were created by their Goddess, as were the rules that let them grow like they did, but letting them grow saved on Mana."

"Mana?" Sam questioned. "I thought you said they used something else."

"They use something else to create the Bastion," the Leader stated. "Afterwards, maintaining it, growing it, that is Mana. And the one who controls the Mana at point of input can influence the Bastion. For some, the God is no longer there at all."

"If there's no God, how do they have the Mana to keep it going?" Dylan asked. Hark gave the cart full of filled Mana Crystals a significant look. "Oh."

Bartholomew, focused, questioned, "And with more Mana, you can do more. Have a bigger Bastion. Better materials. More rules. All of it."

"Indeed," the gold eyed man replied. "Mana is, at the end of the day, the one resource that controls all others."

Ivy asked, "In New Avalon, you have people donate Mana there too, don't you?"

"Entirely voluntary, and those who do are paid," the leader reassured her. "Other Bastions enforce it as a tax. Others use it as a punishment."

"And for some reason outsiders keep getting found guilty, with no proof they did it," the Asian girl remarked.

"Indeed," the golden eyed man agreed. "And some don't even pretend. However, the act of doing so is so specific, it creates the exact same [Job] in all cases."

Malik turned ashen, "Oh. But, it's just one of them, I've got a lot of others!"

"As long as you don't continue doing so. Because [Mana Battery] increases quickly," Hark noted.

Ivy froze, "Wait, you…"

Dylan, however, had a terrible realization, "And if you end up becoming Wrought with it… there was nothing in the [Job] that made it easier on you, just better at it. And the higher your maximum Rank, the worse it'll be."

The Leader agreed, "Yes, and when Mr. Malik starts to reach his potential, if Systemic Arcanist is consumed, his notably easy Mana Transfer will become a great deal more unpleasant."

"…Oh," the guy in question practically squeaked.

"Maybe you're a Bronze?" Sam offered. "That wouldn't be that bad."

"Or just don't get caught," Val declared.

At that, however, Hark frowned. "You're not Bronze."

That made them all pause. "How do you know?" Kristen questioned. "We were told you couldn't know your maximum Rank until you hit your limit and started cannibalizing lesser [Job]s."

"… Quill?" the gold-eyed man questioned, suddenly intense once more, reading the how the nerdy girl locked up. "Oh. No. Vey. Of course."

A thought occurred to Dylan, who tried to keep it off his face, but their Leader, the Silver Ranked [Roadwarden], noticed instantly, turning and asking, "What did she say?"

He could feel the pressure to response, even as, in his chest, he felt [Survivor] dig in against the push, allowing him to stay silent for a second, something that he could tell Hark noted, before Dylan answered, "I mentioned we were 'diamonds in the rough', and she… it meant something to her."

"It should, because each and every one of you is Diamond capable," the gold eyed man declared. "All Outlanders are."

The statement sucked the air out of the room, Ivy stating slowly, "Thrain said, if we were lucky, we wouldn't meet another Silver until we were back in New Avalon."

"And he was correct," Hark observed. "You are not Silvers. Not yet. But you will be, and that much more. If you survive."

The statement was a knife to the heart for Dylan, the guilt, the despair, everything rushing back, until it was hard to breathe, but [Survivor] kept him in the moment, kept him pointed forward, to hear Sam point out, "Wait, but, Diamonds, they can only do what they have the [Job] for. So if you became a Diamond Mana Battery…"

"Yes," the Caravan Leader agreed. "You would be able to do nothing but suffer as the Mana was ripped out of you, in great rivers, enough to put you on par with the Gods themselves, for centuries, possibly even a couple millennia. That is why you must never be discovered, lest you be taken, strapped into an extraction array, and live in agony so long that nothing of you will remain," Hark warned them. "Thule would not do that to you. Cockaigne would do it to you in an instant, for that 'Land of Plenty' is built on the suffering of thousands."

"Then why go there at all!?" demanded the theater girl.

The gold eyed man paused, then sighed, his presence lessening. "Because they don't touch Caravans, because their goods are high quality, and because the distance between Thule and Norumbega is so great that crossing it without the ability to stop and recharge the anchor is too great a risk. But Outlanders? They have no direct protection from a God, they have no people, and, if we were to turn you in, we would be paid, and handsomely at that."

The statement sent Dylan's heart into overdrive, and, glancing to Ivy, she was trying not to panic too, so he stated, voice not nearly as stable as he wanted, "But, you won't, right?"

"We won't," Hark reassured him. "I am a [Roadwarden], and I am bound by my agreements, even more than you are. There are ways around it, it wouldn't kill me to do so, but, were I to do so, I would be executed, and rightly so, either by Quill, Maude, and Vey. Or when we got back to New Avalon for my crimes. Just as any in this Caravan knows that, if they were to sell out their fellow Caravanner, their deaths would not be slow, for Betrayal is the worst crime of all, and Deserves No Mercy."

Which… actually was somewhat comforting.

"So," Dylan offered, feeling lost, "I guess we don't need to worry about running out of [Job] slots anytime soon?"

That got a chuckle out of Hark, breaking the almost electric atmosphere, as his Presence receded once more. "Given that you could hold one hundred and eight different Iron equivalent [Job]s? No. No you do not. But, Mr. Malik, you are not to fill any more Mana Crystals, because Outlanders, in particular, pick up the [Mana Battery] [Job] very quickly, and your having it, be it from your reactions, or a Bronze or above being able to detect it, given its specificity, would invite scrutiny that… I'd say you would not survive, but the issue is that you would, understood?"

"Y-Yes, Sir!" Dylan's roommate stammered. "Um, I got it by trying to figure out how to fill the crystals better, so, uh, should everyone just let it happen without focusing on it?"

"That is how most do it," Hark remarked. "But… Outlanders. I'd say it's both comforting and worrying that the stories were accurate. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to have a talk with my second in command about what, exactly, 'Complete Introduction' means to her, as it clearly is different than what I believed it to be."

 

[Stevil]

You are not the heros of this story, right now you are just a resource.

I love this trope.
Fuck Kyle.

 

[Rotceh]

Good work I love this fic es

 

[vladspellbinder]

Sill waiting for Kyle to die. I have a feeling I'm going to be starting every comment right after a new chapter with that for a while.

Lot of interesting information here. It's a shame that Malik is off Mana Crystals duty, since it was so easy for them. Mana is the end all resource and all. Maybe Malik can 'eat' [Mana Battery] early someway. If anyone could work it out it'd be Malik, they just needs to keep poking at it to work out how to shove jobs into others.

Thanks for the chapter.

 

[sperance]

Sill waiting for Kyle to die. I have a feeling I'm going to be starting every comment right after a new chapter with that for a while.

Click to shrink...

I give it good odds he completely ignored the "Betrayal of your fellow Caravaneers is the most unforgivable crime", too.

 

[SanityRebuilt]

I give it good odds he completely ignored the "Betrayal of your fellow Caravaneers is the most unforgivable crime", too.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I have nagging suspicion that the only information that reached him was "If I tell on Dylan at the next Bastion, he's suffering for a long, long time", which really isn't what he should have gotten.

 

[TheManWithoutAPlan]

Dylan heard the Title, and understood the woman's main profession wasn't management, be it logistical, like Quill, or social, like Vey, but combat, above and beyond anything else, her ability to communicate and teach effectively surely coming from a different [Job].

Which meant, when she Wrought, she'd lose them.

Click to shrink...

Oh yeah, that makes me think all the more with communication being something related to a job, it can also be something lost if your job does not care for it. That is all the more horrifying, most jobs presumably care for keeping the vessel working doing the thing, but combat jobs, isolated jobs that care not for those they are fighting with, may find talking an incredibly difficult task.

 

[Stevil]

I love seeing the reversal of common portal world tropes. We have awesome starting equipment! Its been confiscated as payment for traveling with the caravan. We have other worldly knowledge! it was copied it all while you slept.

Besides Shonen Protag Kyle we ow have power gamer Malik who has power gamed him self into a job trap. He also needs help or he will enslave himself. This world doesnt end well for solo levelers

Im also wondering if someine saw Anna flee and decided that she was betraying thr caravan and sold her off. Did we see a body?

 

[Luke Dragneel]

"That is how most do it," Hark remarked. "But… Outlanders. I'd say it's both comforting and worrying that the stories were accurate. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to have a talk with my second in command about what, exactly, 'Complete Introduction' means to her, as it clearly is different than what I believed it to be."

Click to shrink...

Honestly, I like Hark. He's been fairly straightforward with them and when confronted with a issue, answered to the best of his ability to impart his wisdom with. I unfortunately get the feeling he won't live long, either due to the mechanizations of others or due to a heroic sacrifice. Especially once they reach Cockaigne, considering his heritage and what might be a miscommunication or what could be an intentional reinterpretation of her orders from the captain.

 

[vladspellbinder]

Yeah, I have nagging suspicion that the only information that reached him was "If I tell on Dylan at the next Bastion, he's suffering for a long, long time", which really isn't what he should have gotten.

Click to shrink...

I don't think Kyle would do this if only for the reason he wants to beat Dylan himself. I don't think it is about seeing Dylan suffer so much as it is being the one to make Dylan loose.

 

[SanityRebuilt]

I don't think Kyle would do this if only for the reason he wants to beat Dylan himself. I don't think it is about seeing Dylan suffer so much as it is being the one to make Dylan loose.

Click to shrink...

Ordinarily I'd agree with you. Here though, Kyle just got handed his ass twice over, got knocked out and humiliated by the trainer rightfully and might be feeling the only way to make Dylan lose is by underhanded methods, because he doesn't have others. I'm still 3:1 on Kyle not actually doing it, but that 1 is there. Much depends on how much he's still fuming about the duel during the crystal scene.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Binged this today. It's absolutely incredible. Ivy is best girl. It looks to me like Anna was leading on both Dylan and Kyle, so I hope he gets over that soon, but it seems like he's unlikely to do so. The "Diamonds only do One Thing" thing is terrifying. I'm hoping that the squad eventually figures out how to either jump that restriction or that they find the path to Divinity to sidestep it, but that seems a long, long way out.
Poor Malik, holy shit. He's an awesome Jack-of-all-Jobs.
I'm on tenterhooks for that "Full introduction to the world" that Hark has promised them.

 

[Turncoat]

Nah, I think it's more likely he'll get some sort of vampiric sanguimancer Job before he ever gets close to necromancy.

Click to shrink...

A shame. Necromancers are cool. If you haven't noticed, Solo Leveling did damage to my brain.

 

[Leecifer]

Chapter Fifteen: Breakthrough​

"Alright," Dylan sighed, stepping back. "Jakyb, this good?"

His mentor walked over, looking over the work Dylan did, using his Iron-level Job to see in seconds what would take the teen tools and minutes to check, nodding slowly. "It's… okay, but… why did you make the joint like that? The normal one works just fine."

"It worked fine, but I'm trying not to be fine, I'm trying to be better," Dylan replied, having taken to Malik's way of doing things in new ways wherever he could. It… wasn't as easy as it sounded, because, sure, he could do things differently easy enough, but doing things differently and still having it work was a balancing act he hadn't expected.

Figuring out how to do things different had been the first problem, until he'd started looking through his phone's library of textbooks, finding one for a shop class he'd never taken, which had been full of instructions on how to build and repair things. None of the magical materials that were on hand were in the text, obviously, but his job wasn't magical yet either. No, there were a lot of ways to do 'joinery' beyond the 'put it together, use nails' way he'd been first shown, and while they took a bit more time, they were actually kind of cool. Like putting together a puzzle that was mostly hidden when everything clicked together, but which also needed no nails, and no more than a tiny bit of glue!

It'd given him something to talk about, when everyone met and discussed their dayjobs, which had been… nice.

Jakyb, meanwhile, just rolled his eyes, commenting, "Outlanders. Yeah, this is fine. We're still slowed, and Cart C-12 said there was an issue with some of their light crystals, so grab a box of the lamp-whites and go swap out the ones on the fritz."

"Sure thing," Dylan nodded, leaving the cart they were in, E-4, near the back of the Caravan, and jogging to the Maintenance Cart, B-7, to get the supplies. Each cart was labelled, and learning which was which had been his first task, the chart still on his phone, though [Courier] meant he'd gotten it down in a week, while Sam still wasn't sure which was which, having complained about it a couple days ago, as she was sent to get materials for her tailor job her cart didn't have on hand.

Now, jogging along the carts, they were going at a walking pace, letting him move along them, the window closing but still more than enough to get where he needed to go if he put in some effort. With that in mind, he 'shifted gears', moving differently, hitting the ground with the balls of his feet, which… actually did make a difference.

Heel first? Way easier when carrying heavy stuff, not as fast, but he could do it all day.

Just put his foot down? Okay, the way he was doing it before.

Ball first? It took more effort, but he naturally moved faster, and could dodge around other people quicker, though the Irons with movement-based [Job]s still made him look like a toddler in comparison. Something he'd only realized when he started really looking at them zip past.

But this discovery? [Courier] ate it up, practically humming as he pushed it in new ways, just like [Handyman] was a great deal more active when he tried new joinery, and, with it, he found himself considering it in new ways too. More than that, he tried to work it into everything he did, and it usually worked, the concept of 'delivery' a lot more broad than he first thought it was.

The more out there he got, the weaker the [Job]'s influence, but even trying to deliver himself to the page of the textbook he needed gave him the faintest push, not enough to get there exactly, but his half-remembered glancing at the table of contents directed him to the correct chapter.

Now, running past carts, to deliver himself to the package he needed to deliver, then the package to its destination, syncing with [Handyman] to 'deliver' them not just to the correct room in the cart, but in the sockets they were going to be installed into, it all flowed together, as he got the new crystals, and made it to his destination, with about a minute to spare, the gong ringing out and the cart, along with all the others, speeding up.

From there, it was easy to ask around, getting directions, replacing the crystals, even as, here, too, he didn't just do it normally. Instead, using [Thaumic Scrutineer] he traced the flow of Mana as it came through the interior wires, like electricity, yet not quite so innately dangerous, into the flickering crystals, and out.

And, interestingly, all of the flickering crystals had the same problem, the flow of Mana through it interrupted, though in different points, and, after he was done, he sat there, holding one of the broken lights, with time to spare as he was stuck here for the next two hours until the next slowdown. So, with nothing else to do, he pulled upon his own flow of Mana, through Scrutineer, and fed it into the crystal, which flared for a moment, before he drew back on it, moderating the flow, keeping it as even as the wall mount, which was surprisingly difficult.

Seeing the flow, the broken flow, which only had a tiny thread completing the circuit, almost pulsing, creating a flicker of light when it did, he tried to use [Pulsewright] to fix it, only…

It didn't work.

At all.

He considered it for a moment, before, groaning, realized that while the Lifeforce manipulation of [Pulsewright] kind of looked like Mana, it wasn't Mana, and this crystal light bulb worked off Mana.

But, while he couldn't affect the Mana with [Pulsewright], affecting the Mana of things was half of what [Thaumic Scrutineer] did. So reaching out with that instead, he nudged the flow, causing the crystal to brighten, completely fixed!

… Until he stopped holding it in place, whereupon it went right back to flickering.

Dammit.

Okay.

Once more reaching out, with Scrutineer, he could see the paths of the Mana, but, focusing deeper, he didn't just see the flow but almost a… shadow. A depression. A furrow that channeled the Mana itself, barely at the edge of perception, and which the Mana ran down like water through a drain. Cutting the flow of Mana, it disappeared, but, blinking, while it might just be his eyes playing tricks on him, like the streaks of not-color you got after looking directly at a light when you stopped doing so… which he technically was, there was still the shadow shape.

A faint flow of magic had it light up, dimly, then cutting it again, again and again, until… no, that was actually a shape.

And, taking a moment to center himself, to feel the [Job]s within him, while they were all connected to [Bloodshot Raider] and [Survivor], he realized they weren't really connected to each other. Trying to make them connect… no, that's not how it worked, but, instead, focusing on the use of both together, [Thaumic Scrutineer] to see and manipulate something that needed fixing with [Handyman], here was a faint shimmer between them, that, opening his eyes, he tried to keep going, as he considered the broken bulb.

This crystal wasn't just a crystal, there was a pattern inscribed within it, that the Mana flowed along, and, when the pattern was complete, when he completed the pattern… light.

The problem was, for some reason, the furrow, the ditch, that carried the Mana through one part was gone, shallow, only the barest flow going down it.

So could he… dig it?

Mana was flowing, so, like, he moved Mana, could he erode the furrow into being?

Except, if Mana eroded like water did, the 'path' should've gotten deeper not shallower.

Except except… this was magic, so who knew what it could do?

Completing the pattern again, the crystal lit up, and brightening it more with a greater flow worked, but [Handyman] did not like him doing so, as the energy surged, and something cracked.

Quickly shutting off the flow, staring…

Now it was broken in two places.

Nice going, Dylan, he thought, mess this up too why don't you?

But, at the same time… why did that happen?

Redoing the flow, now needing to manually bridge two sections, which was harder, Dylan… concentrated the flow again, in a different piece of the pattern, more and more until…

Crack!

The crystal went dark, but, in the moment before it did so, the Mana at the concentrated portion went everywhere at once.

And Dylan?

He understood.

There was erosion, but it wasn't of the bottom, it was of the sides, and too much it overflowed the 'banks' and washed away the edges.

Which meant…

Trying again, feeling a little tired, each attempt costing him a bit of his Mana reserves, Dylan focused on the section he just broke, concentrating it again, but not like before. Before, it just kind of… sloshed, but while it was like a liquid, it wasn't actually a liquid, so he packed it tight, pressing into the shadow pattern, digging it out, and deepening it while making the difference between it, and the sides of the trough, that much starker.

And now, manually bridging the flow of the first two broken sections, but not the third, letting that one flow freely…

Light.

CLICK

​

He almost dropped the crystal, as something inside him shifted, feeling simultaneously like a key in a lock, a too tight belt that was loosened, and standing up fully from crouching, the world… realigning.

Looking down at the Lamp-White Illumination Matrix, he understood what he'd been doing wrong instantly, and while he was on the right track, the fix he'd done was… crude, working for a month or two, before shorting out again.

This time, he was able to use his Mana much better, redoing the Mana Circuits, a term he didn't remember learning, the pattern of its flow no longer arbitrary, but like… an art he was only passingly familiar with, identifying components, the intake and exit, the matrix seat, though he couldn't say why they worked the way they did, but… fixing the breaches, he spotted a couple of other bits that were wearing down, and re-upped them too.

Idly going through the box, he fixed them all, though by the end he was scraping the bottom of his Mana reserves, but not yet pulling from his vitality to do so.

The slowdown gong took him by surprise, as… that hadn't been two hours, had it?

Either way, he made it back to the maintenance Cart, and tracked down Jakyb, who glanced up from his assigned desk and said, "Drop those off to be repaired, Dylan."

"I… already did? I think?" he replied. "I, Handyman helped and-" He cut himself off as, no, that was wrong. "I used Handyman. Handyman? Handyman!"

But… he couldn't say his [Job] title!

Jakyb, meanwhile, was looking at him in disbelief. "Already? Freakin' Outlanders."

Seeing his mentor knew what was going on, the Miskatonic Graduate asked, "What's wrong with my [Job]?"

With a snort, the older guy responded, "You don't have it anymore. You should, what's the phrase from your plays? Right. Search your feelings, you know it to be true!"

"No, that's impossible!" Dylan responded automatically, then paused, actually listening. "Wait, what?"

And, closing his eyes, concentrating, his Handyman [Job] was… deeper. Larger. Now like [Bloodshot Raider] and his other main two, almost as if it had more gravity, despite it all just being stars in space. It looked different now, still brown but now glowing with a corona of blue light. A blue light which also ran along its new name, causing the grain of the planks that spelled it out to shine azure, which meant, "I'm a Lead Rank… [Arcane Handyman]? Why Arcane?"

Opening them, Jakyb looked at him, then at the fixed magic light crystals, then back to him. "… Oh."

"You know we drop those off with the Rune Boys, right?" his superior informed him. "We still will, to check your work, but… if it works, you're getting a pay bump. Still less than me, but more than a normal Lead worker."

"Oh," Dylan repeated, not sure what else to say. "The jump is… is it always like that?"

"Like you're suddenly more than you were before? Like you were like this all the time, and never realized it? Yep," Jakyb nodded.

He considered that, how easy it had been to improve, how, how if he'd done so before, if he'd just been stronger-

"It never truly goes away."

Flinching slightly, the boy looked up, asking, "I, the rush?"

His senior sighed. "Most of us have lost someone, Dylan."

Caught off guard, the Handyman replied, "I, I wasn't-"

"You just got great news," Jakyb stated. "You should be over the moon. Or at least excited. But you're not, are you?"

He wanted to deny it, but he couldn't.

The other guy just nodded. "It never truly goes away, but it does get better."

Throat suddenly dry, Dylan asked, voice unsteady, "How?"

"By keeping on keeping on," the blond guy shrugged. "By moving forward. By not living in that day. You made progress, and really fast, which, Outlander, but you still had to work hard for it, even if not as much as the rest of us. Take the victory. Keep going. And if you need someone to talk to… you're not the worst Greenwheel I've dealt with, and I could take an evening off. But let's get drunk first, I hate talking about shit like that."

"I, I can handle it," the younger guy quickly responded.

Jakyb gave him a piercing look, before shrugging. "Maybe you can. Either way. Gimme a day's warning to clear my schedule. As for now, write up what you did, add it to the box, and that'll be it for today. I'll make sure the Rune Boys get both."

Nodding, and grabbing a pad and a pen, Dylan moved to do that, if only not to think about the other thing they'd just talked about, which he… didn't want to, but, at the same time, some part of him was glad they had.

<SB>​

"Oh! There he is!"

Dylan turned, with everyone else, towards where Sam was pointing, and…

"Are you sure?" Malik questioned, peering into the trees.

"Nah, I see him," Logan offered.

"Well I don't," Ivy groused, and Dylan, activating [Thaumic Scrutineer]…

There!

"The tree that'll be directly to our right… now," he instructed, and, as if he'd heard the boy, which he probably had, Carl extended a hand, before disappearing into the trees.

"How did you… no cheating!" Ivy informed him, as their housing cart, which the six of them had set up on top of, kept moving forward, the sunshade Dylan had put together keeping the Veil Light off of them but letting them see their surroundings more clearly. As he looked at her in confusion, she informed him, "When you use your Arcane [Job], your eyes glow a little."

Releasing his hold on the [Job], letting it fade, he asked, "Really?"

"Yeah," Malik told him. "But it happens all the time now, so I didn't think it was important."

Feeling the corners of his mouth twitch, he questioned, "Is it really cheating, though?"

"Do you have a new perception-based [Job]?" The Asian girl pressed, and he had to shake his head no. "Then yes, it's cheating."

"More likely to upgrade Scrutineer," Malik offered. "We get new [Jobs] for doing new things, right? So using a [Job] you already have… isn't doing a new thing, is it?"

He… couldn't exactly argue with that, so, as Carl, who was working the patrol for their section, dipped into the shadows to emerge… somewhere ahead of them, he tried to find the man normally.

He did not.

At all.

For the next hour.

And Val stiffening, and suddenly able to track the man, while great for her, didn't help.

"[Preyspotter]," was her single word explanation, which parsing, was a kind of threat-based detection [Job], and which also flagged those who were stronger, and thus not prey as well.

"So, how much stronger than us is he?" Dylan asked.

The Hispanic girl considered that, looked around at them, then declared, "We couldn't take him."

Which… fair.

And, while Logan, Malik, and Val could now track the shadow teleporting bowman with their new [Job]s, that lasted exactly until he didn't want to be found, at which point everyone's Clay ranked 'I spy' [Job]s lost him instantly.

Which was a good reminder that, while useful, starting out like they were, their new acquisitions were still of very limited use.

The alarm they set on their phones went off, so they took down the shade and folded it up, before clambering down the recessed ladder in the back of the cart onto the mini-landing and heading inside. The others went to their rooms, while Dylan stepped into one of the empty ones in their hallway to store their Veil Light Shade.

He put it away, though he noticed that Ivy had followed him, and turned to look at her questioningly, as she hesitated, before asking, "How are you doing? I, no, that was stupid."

But he could tell she was asking, not just… 'asking', polite because she felt she needed to be, so, taking a deep breath, he tried to answer honestly. "Not great. Managing? I… I miss her," he stated, the simple words unable to hold the full meaning of what he felt, but, what words could?

And Ivy winced at that, which, right, that was dumb on his part. "I, I know you two didn't get along, so, I, if you don't want to make a big deal out of it, or, I don't know," he tried to reassure her, but that came out wrong too.

Which, from how she now looked offended, meant he'd said something even worse, even if he wasn't sure what he'd said. "You think I'm glad she's dead?" the girl demanded.

"No!" He quickly replied. "Or, no, actually, no I don't, but, like, if you just don't care that'd be… understandable, I guess? You're not me, and Anna could get kinda mean about you, for some reason, so, uh…" he trailed off, finishing weakly. "I don't know where I'm going with this."

"What kind of person do you think I am?" she pressed, taking a step towards him, angrily.

"I don't know?" he answered honestly. "I, we didn't talk before, and Anna didn't like you, but never explained why, which was weird, and we never really talked in class. You… seem nice? Kinda? Not right now?"

That made the Asian girl pause, then ask, "So… you don't hate me?"

Now thoroughly confused, he replied, "Ivy, I don't really know you. I don't know Sam that well either. Val's cool, so is Logan, and Malik is… Malik." He sighed, "Hell, I don't even hate Kyle, even if he's being…"

"A douchebag," Ivy completed for him, processing that. "Dylan, do you know why Beth hates, hated me?"

A little annoyed, he reminded her "I just said I didn't. She mentioned you were friends, once, but weren't anymore, and she didn't want to talk about it-"

"I bet she wouldn't," the girl commented, and he paused, but, no, that was it.

"Right, well, then it was just 'don't talk to her'," he continued, "and you never really talked to me, so… that was it."

Ivy stared at him, asking softly, almost to herself, "You mean if I just…" Shaking her head, she tried again, louder, "Do you want to know why?"

On one hand, Anna couldn't really defend herself anymore, but, on the other… On the other, her face, crying, as she ran, ran to… get help, ran without listening to what he was desperately trying to tell her was seared into his mind, and.. and he wanted to know why she did that. So, "Yeah, I do."

The girl hesitated, as if she'd expected him to turn her down, but she nodded, "We, we were friends. Since, since forever. On the same teams. Doing the same things. I got better grades, but she didn't care, because, 'who cares about nerd stuff', right?" she shrugged helplessly. "And that was fine. Until high school. We both tried out for Cheer Squad, and I got on, while Beth… Beth was the first alternate. She still needed to come to practice, still was on the team, but she wasn't going up in front of the others unless one of us on first string couldn't make it. And that was enough to destroy everything between us. Not that she told me that," Ivy spat.

Looking away, arms coming up to hug herself, the Asian girl continued, "I thought we were friends, but suddenly there were rumors. That I was a bitch, that I was a slut, that I was just, just the worst, and people kept asking if Beth was my friend. And I kept saying 'yeah, of course she is', because I thought we were, until, out of nowhere, I was kicked from the team. Because the other girls had gotten together and 'didn't feel comfortable being on a team with someone like me.' Did you know, I thought they were just racist?" she asked.

But the Asian girl kept going, without giving him time to respond, the question rhetorical. "I was happy for Beth at least, since at least she was on the team, and that, that was enough for one of them to tell me what was really happening. Because they realized, when I didn't fight them about kicking me, I was just confused, that they were wrong. Not that they were gonna apologize, or let me back on the team, or anything. Then they'd have to admit they were tricked. And I started asking around, and, it was Beth, it was all Beth, and that's why they asked if she was my friend, because if my friend was saying it, well, it had to be true!"

Feeling the need to defend his girlfriend, Dylan hesitantly, replied, "I don't think you're a slut, but well, not a bitch either, but you are a bit… upfront?"

The glare Ivy sent him was venomous. "When we were freshmen?"

Thinking on it, he had to shake his head, "I, I don't know, we didn't really talk, and, you seemed nice, I guess? I, she wasn't like that with me?"

Her furious expression softened. "If Kyle hit you, would you be the 'upfront' one for hitting him back?" Her own words caused her to pause, adding before he could respond, "That's… not a great example."

"No, I get where you're going," he disagreed. "I, I'm trying to be the bigger man with him, trying to do the right thing, but now, now I'm not sure what to do with him."

"You can't do anything," Ivy informed him, without hesitation. "Because Kyle? He's like Beth."

"No," he denied instantly. "They're nothing alike!" He winced. "They were nothing alike."

"You want to know what Beth told me, when I finally confronted her?" the girl demanded, clearly having wanted to say something for a while, maybe even years, and now that she started, she seemed unable to stop. "Beth looked at me, sneered, and declared, 'You're not better than me.' I never thought I was! I thought we were friends! Friends don't do that. Especially over, what, who's on freaking Cheer Squad? Over things that were fun but didn't matter! And it didn't end when we were done, Dylan, she never stopped. For years she made it known how terrible I was, and people went along with it. Because they were fooled, like I was, and never realized the lie. Because they didn't want to admit they were fooled. Because they were never fooled, but, but as long as Beth was going after me, she wasn't going after them."

With a slash of her hand that left trailing fractal patterns, Ivy told him, "Which meant I could never have any friends, because of, of the implication, and the guys that would talk to me were not the kind of guys I wanted to talk to. The guys who thought I was easy, who got nasty when I said no. I, there were so many freaking 'Yellow Fever' jokes, and they all made my skin crawl. And, and the one guy I did like-" she cut herself off, turning away quickly, taking a deep breath, and Dylan, not sure what to say, just stood there. "You're right. I… I didn't like Beth. Hell, I hated her, but I never wanted her dead."

Turning back to him, the Asian girl struggled with her words. "And, and worse, I… I can see how much what happened hurt you, Dylan."

"I'm-" he started to argue, but she cut him off.

"We have eyes, Dylan, everyone can tell," she informed him. "And I want to help, we all want to help, but… but none of us know what to do."

That… was something he could actually understand. "I don't know either," he replied helplessly. "I've just been… keeping on keeping on. And that's been… helping. The group training, instead of being on my own has helped. You all have been helping. I just… don't know what to do."

And they both stood there for a moment, both unsure, before, hesitating, Ivy crossed the distance to him, and… hugged him.

Which, weirdly, hurt.

Not physically.

But it hurt, a lot, but… not in a bad way, as he just… stood there, not sure what to do.

"I'm here for you," she promised him. "We all are. Sam. Logan. Malik. Even Val, though don't tell her I said that. It's just… none of us know what to do, and our stupid Psych class never, never handled this. Oh, how to start a cult, how to fulfill the hierarchy of needs, how to break operant conditioning, sure, let's spend weeks on those, but not, not this."

Which got a rueful laugh out of him, even as something inside him felt… raw. Patting the girl hugging him, he reassured her, "I don't think anything could've prepared us for this. But… you have been helping, like I said. I, I don't think I could've done this alone." They just stood there for a long moment, before he added, "Or without Malik. Dude's kinda great, just sayin'."

Ivy let go of him, and rolled her eyes. "Malik's a complete doofus, but he's not that bad. I… I kinda regret not talking to him before, but he just seemed… clingy, you know? Like he'd take things the wrong way? The opposite way everyone else was, and, with all the hate I was getting, I wouldn't want to bring that down on his head. Guy seemed to be having a hard enough time already."

He was pretty sure the other boy wouldn't've minded, but that was something they couldn't go back and change, which was a thought that hit him oddly hard. "Well, we're all friends now at least," he put forward.

And Ivy, whose eyes were oddly shiny, nodded, and replied, "Yeah. I guess we are."

<SB>​

"I DID IT!"

Dylan looked up from his phone, lying on his bed, where he was perusing his shop class textbook, finding that, after his [Job] evolution, everything suddenly made that much more sense, as Malik burst through the door of their shared room. "Did what?"

"IT!" the boy repeated excitedly.

"Great… what is 'it'?" Dylan questioned dryly.

The dark-skinned boy paused, and the Raider could see the logic work through his brain, before he shook his head. "Right! I learned how to go Super Saigen! Like Gocu! Well, more like Gaio-ken, but that was going Super Saigen before they started going Super Saigen, which, like, it's Lead, so, it's just gonna get better, but, but I did it! Wanna see?"

The terms sounded… vaguely familiar, but Dylan couldn't remember, so shrugged, and went, "Sure?"

Malik grinned and then started looking very constipated, calling out, "Aaaaah. Aaaaah. Aaaaah! Aaaaah. Aaaaah! AAAAAH!"

And then a wreath of energy erupted from the guy, a deep bloody red, Dylan's reflexive look with [Thaumic Scrutineer] giving him nothing, telling him it was something other than magic, as his roommate's slowly accruing muscles bulged, and, in a single step, crossed the space…

Then tripped and slammed his head directly into the bunk bed above Dylan's, shattering the wood in an instant, as he dropped the technique and bounced back.

"Ohdamn!" the Handyman practically yelped, as he caught the broken wood before it landed on him, categorizing the damage, which was… way more than it should've been, while, at the same time, glancing at Malik, he was… perfectly fine?

He was on his ass, yeah, and looked exhausted, but he should be bleeding pretty bad from the splinters. Instead… nothing?

Hell, Dylan was hurt worse, from some of the shrapnel, as he rolled out of bed and shifted the destroyed furniture above him, to put it down without damaging it, or himself, more. "Dude," he said, looking at his friend. "The heck?"

"Sorry!" Malik winced, moving to stand, and needing to use his actual magic to give himself the stamina to do so. "It makes everything a lot stronger, and, well, I don't have any other world to learn it on. Or, er, other other world."

Which made no sense, but, "Not what I meant. What was that?"

"I told ya! Gaio-ken! Or, like, close enough?" his roommate responded.

"Yeah, you said that, but what does that mean?" Dylan pressed. "What are you doing?"

The other guy blinked. "Oh, you, you never watched Drakenorb?" At the Raider's flat look, he added, "You really should! It's a classic! But, uh, I'm, like, focusing my Ki? Which is, like, life force? And then I'm concentrating my strength together, but not, like, together together? That'd be the Gamehameha, can't do that yet. But like, you have Ki, but you can strain yourself to increase it, past your normal limits?"

Considering that, Dylan asked, "You mean like when a soccer mom picks up a car or something? Hypnotic Strength?"

Malik winced, "Oh, yeah, Hysterical Strength! And. Kinda? But on purpose? And cooler? Really strains ya, but, well, I've got magic for that! Also, sorry about your bed!"

"I'll take care of it tomorrow," the Raider reassured him. "Not that big a deal. But… can you do it again, while I check with [Pulsewright]?"

"Uh, sure?" his roommate replied, and went ahead and did it again, while Dylan watched and…

Didn't understand anything of what he was looking at.

At all.

There was the flow of Malik's vital energies, then he did his 'Gaio-ken', and the threads became a raging river of vitality, not a pulse, but an earthquake of vital energies, that came out of… absolutely nowhere.

This didn't seem like a Clay [Job], it didn't even seem like a Lead one, it was…

How?

Letting go of his roommate, the other guy let the [Job] go, breathing hard, muscles twitching, but he spent another spell to undo it, though this time, despite doing less with the his now job, it now required two castings to fix his tiredness, which was worrying.

"What even is the [Job]?" he asked. "You said something, but it wasn't it."

"Huh? Oh," Malik replied. "It's called {Aura Amp}!"

Dylan froze, because that sounded… strange. Flat. Wrong. "Say that again?"

"It's {Aura Amp}," the other guy repeated, and, again, it was wrong.

A [Job] was… rich, in sound, with nuances, it was who a person was, while this was… not.

"One more time?" Dylan requested.

Now worried, Malik repeated, "{Aura Amp}?"

No, it was just as bad the third time, the name buzzing in, not his ear, but his mind.

"We should talk to someone," the Raider declared.

"Like Ivy?" his roommate suggested.

"No, like Quill," Dylan disagreed, using [Pulsewright] to heal himself, fixing the snarls in his own vital threads, the splinter stuck in him pushing themselves out of his hands in time with the beating of his own heart. "I know she said we shouldn't tell the others, but… this is something different, and seems like the kinda thing we really need to know about. Like the Mana Battery thing."

That killed Malik's objection, and they both headed out of the Dorm Cart, the fifteen minute slowdown still going on, and [Courier] helped them both make it to Quill's Administration Cart. Dylan used his movement-based [Job], combined with [Pulsewright] to give him a boost with every step, while his roommate's Dashstepper let the other guy go faster than he could, even with combining his [Job]s.

Regardless, they managed it with half a minute to spare, heading down the high school looking hallway, and Dylan, hesitating for a moment, knocked on the ornate wooden door at the end, which opened on its own. Inside was Quill, along with several others, who'd all fallen silent, the Calculant lifting an eyebrow over his rune-scribed glasses as he remarked, "I do hope this is a worthy interruption, Dylan."

"Malik has a weird [Job]," the Raider responded instantly.

From the way the man looked at him both, that wasn't the right thing to say, as the Caravan Officer noted so deadpan the ink on the paper before him seemed to dry, "Given your natures', I do believe it would be stranger if you achieved a normal one." He paused, gaze darting to the dark-skinned boy. "Except for your last one, of course."

Shaking his head, Dylan argued, "No, it's… Malik, say it."

"… {Aura Amp}?" his roommate offered.

And everyone in the room stiffened.

"Oh man, not again," the other boy groaned.

"Twenty-minute break," Quill declared. "Get some coffee. And Slevanth, think about why what you just suggested is particularly ill-advised."

The man, with glowing green bar-pupiled eyes, grimaced, and nodded, everyone else leaving the room, the two boys not needing to be told to step inside. With a gesture from the math wizard, the door closed, locked, and a complicated pattern of magic sealed it, Dylan's attempt to view it with [Thaumic Scrutineer] showing that the pattern was so intricate, almost fractal, he could only see the greater flow, not the shapes that made it up.

"First of all, Mr. Malik, you are never to use that {Skill} again," Quill declared, in a harsh, uncompromising, but weirdly not angry tone of voice, as sure as algebra and as cold as physics. "Not if you wish to survive."

"Is, is {Aura Amp} that bad?" the other guy questioned. "And, damn, why does this keep happening to me?"

"Because you push, which is also why you are the most successful of your cohort," Quill answered evenly. "Take enough steps, and some of them will be missteps. It is a statistical certainty. One must merely learn that, when one finds oneself on the road to ruin? Stop Walking."

Dylan, very glad he'd suggested coming here, asked, "What's a Skill? Er. Skill. Skill. What is it and why can't I say it?"

"Because you do not possess any," the Calculant stated simply, which… oh. "As to what they are, Vey would call them 'cursed', but she is an unreasonably dramatic sort. To put it simply, they are akin to a [Job], however all that power, all that potential, all those aspects, are distilled down to a single act. A single {Skill}. Even a Clay rank one, like that which you now possess… it is Clay Rank, correct?"

"Uh, yeah?" Malik responded.

Unamused, Quill shot back, "Are you asking me or telling me."

"Y-Yeah, it's Clay," his roommate clarified. "But, like, it's strong!"

"Likely somewhere between Lead and Iron," the older man nodded. "For it is the same amount of power, with depth, instead of breadth, far beyond even the narrowest of [Job]s. That also means it will Rank Up very quickly. By now, you have learned that the more aspects of a [Job] you push, the faster it improves, yes?"

"I, uh, yeah?" the black guy offered, confused.

"Malik figured it out, and told the rest of us," the Raider specified.

"… Of course Vey did not," Quill sighed. "Regardless, yes, that is how you train a [Job], though, from the reports I've received, Mr. Dylan, you have learned that pushing in ways close to the [Job] but not entirely covered by it helps with evolving it into something different when it Ranks Up, though at the cost of less of an individual increase as the breadth is extended. However, as a {Skill} is a single act, every use of it trains it completely."

Glancing at each other guy, both Outlanders had the same thought, Malik offering, "If it gets stronger, faster, isn't that a good thing?"

The Calculant stared at them both, then sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, above his glasses. "This is why knowledge of them is suppressed, because of idiots like you two. The problem is not in having them, the problem is in how it all ends. Because {Skill}s take up [Job] slots. And for those who are particularly limited in potential, they can be quite useful, though by the time your [Job]s start to cannibalize each other, you are no longer in a position to gain more, or gain a {Skill}. Tell me, can either of you tell the difference between a [Job] and a {Skill}?"

Malik seemed like he did, but he didn't want to say, so Dylan did. "A [Job] is who you are. Like how he's a Dashstepper. But his, his Skill, it's what he does. Would Dashstep be a Skill?"

With a slight nod, Quill declared, "Indeed. But it is not easy to acquire a {Skill}. One who wishes to wield a sword will become a Swordsman. But someone of particular focus, who does not concentrate on what they can do with the blade, but on the act itself to the exclusion of all else, they would learn how to {Cut}."

Again, the buzz, angry, flat, this one speaking of a severing so complete it went beyond the physical.

"You…" Dylan said, but didn't complete the statement, not sure if he should even know what he just realized.

The Calculant continued, as if he hadn't revealed anything, "At Clay, you could slice through even Iron grade armor, and pierce Lead with ease. You would always, as they say, 'punch above your weight class'. But it functions as a [Job] does, so the higher in rank it grows, the lower your maximum capacity in non-[Job] abilities. If you raised {Cut} to Silver? You could strike down a Gold. Though you would be akin to a particularly talented child in everything else. And, worse, there is a great deal more to being a Gold Ranked Swordsman than one's ability to {Cut}. But Silver is the last safe rank, though to many it is a safe bet, if a truly harsh trade."

Pinning both boys with a look, Quill reminded them, "At Gold, for non-[Job] activities, you are not a child, you are an invalid. If it is not covered by your [Job], you cannot cook, you cannot write anything but the basest of letters, reading would be a monumental effort, and math? When you run out of fingers and toes, you would run out of capability. But you two are not Gold, you are Diamond. So tell me, Mr. Malik, this Aura Boost of yours? Does it require you to breathe?"

The dark-skinned man's eyes widened, as, almost inaudibly, he let out a tiny, "…oh."

"Indeed," the older man, with over a century of experience in this world, agreed. "I would like your word, though I cannot enforce it like our good Commander would, that you will never use that {Skill} of yours again, unless you know the alternate is Certain Death, or worse. And Dylan, I would like yours to be to never willingly cultivate one yourself."

Half of him wanted to agree instantly, but the other half… it sounded really useful.

Reading his expression, Quill nodded. "As much as you may not believe it, I do remember what it is like to be young, I recall the sense of invincibility it can bring. And, yes, Dylan, I am aware that you do not have that feeling quite so explicitly anymore, but survivor bias, like survivor's guilt, are both very much real, and exceptions… are exceptions."

Glancing between the two, the old man added, "Those who willingly use {Skill}s, and are Wrought through them, more times than not, have good reasons. They know the chances of being Gold are rare, and are willing to take that chance, and live with the consequences. You two, along with the other Outlanders, have knowledge denied the rest of us, and, should you push Aura Amp to Diamond, if it does what it seems, then you will suffocate, while being an entity of divine power, able to punch a hole in reality itself… if only you could remember how to punch."

The silence after his statement was crystal edged, and Dylan found his voice first, promising, "I won't try and get a Skill. I'd… I'd use it to try and help the others."

"Yes, you would," Quill agreed, without condemnation. "But the math never works out. A single moment of sacrificial martyrdom, while heroic, almost never comes close to equaling the sum of support one could provide from one's remaining lifetime of good deeds. Especially at your age."

Turning his gaze to Malik, the boy hesitated, "Can I train it a little, to know what I'm doing with it?"

The Calculant stared at him, jaw working slightly, before he gestured with his hands, large, expansive motions, as arrays after arrays built around Dylan's roommate, as Dylan wondered if was going to watch his friend being bound, despite what the older man stated.

"Do it. Once. Stop when I tell you to," Quill snapped, visibly annoyed.

Hesitating, Malik did, concentrating, once more starting to glow crimson, muscles straining, as-

"Enough."

The command cut through the room, and the other boy let go of his Skill, panting, healing himself.

Looking at the mass of symbols that filled the air around Malik, Quill nodded. "I'll create some exercises and send them to Ser Maude. They'll give you the skills needed to control it without needing to use it. Now. Promise."

Under the older man's pitiless glare, the younger boy gulped, "I-I promise!"

At that, Quill relaxed a fraction. "Good. And you were smart, coming to me with this. Should the worst come to worst, it is good to have a trump card up one's sleeve, but the temptation to use it is such that the rest of your cohort would be better served continuing to develop additional [Job]s, as you already are."

Both Outlanders froze, Dylan asking, voice a little strained, "You, uh, knew about that?"

Rolling his eyes, and with a dismissive wave, the math wizard declared, "I'm a Bronze [Calculant], and you are under the matrices that I am minding. Of course I know. Just as I know that Vey would prefer you did not. She prefers her flames nice and contained, while I know the power of a good pyre. Ser Maude doesn't care, because she's Ser Maude, and Hark… Who knows what Hark thinks, but if he didn't wish you to do so, he would have said something by now."

With another wave, the measurements around Malik flowed onto paper, and formed themselves into golden symbols, as the array on the door flared and faded away.

"Go on," Quill declared, "keep getting stronger. And if you have a non-emergency question?"

The man gave both Outlanders a dryly amused look.

"Schedule an appointment."





AN: As always, next four chapters are up on Patreon and Subscribestar, and this story will be stubbed before publication, so it won't stay up here forever.

 

[vladspellbinder]

Absolutely hate the Bland-Name Product in this new chapter. Hate hate hate it. Totally dropped me out of the story and ruined the flow.

roommate's Dashstepper let

Click to shrink...

Should this be [Dash Stepper]? Or is Dylan somehow remembering the name of the [Job] wrong? Same goes with the other time it is used this chapter.

I love Quill, as a character, so very much.

Hopefully Malik's next big discovery won't be something no one should use.

Thanks for the chapter.

 

[darkli4n]

I bet Kyle would hear about the benefits of the skill and ignore the consequences.

 

[Rotceh]

...You know, I wonder how the hell they managed to learn to survive in this world; it seems like, quite literally, every single step could kill you—or worse.
..

And wait—I just remembered: these aren't your typical *isekai* stories. These are *isekai* tales centered on a school that teaches how to create—and dismantle—cults...

 

[TheManWithoutAPlan]

Caught off guard, the Handyman replied, "I, I wasn't-"

Click to shrink...

And there we are showing just how much a job can define someone when they focus on it entirely. Dylan does not really have job for communication so the Handyman has to ask for the task, or the Courier needs to deliver the message or the survivor needs to live in civilization. Right now Dylan can just be Dylan, but as the class grows…

And skills, skills definition is all the more horrible defining the sanctioned act rather than sanctioned role as one crystallizes into diamond.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Damn. I, like Malik, thought skills would be cool. Like... additional things you could train into your soul past tiers where you're restricted. Sucks that it's the reverse.

 

[Stevil]

So to not just survive being diamond but enjoy it you need a wide all-encompassing job.

How does one become [God-Emperor]?