NOVPUBTwo days slipped by in a blur of warped smoke-filled skies and twisting forests. Alex and Claire carved their way through the Mirrorlands. They challenged all the monsters within their realm of power and avoided the stronger ones on their way toward Valley Ford.
Alex spent as much time as he could testing out his Partial Soul Manifestation. His efforts proved two things beyond a shadow of the doubt. The first was that the ability was incredibly strong — and fun. Being able to teleport anywhere functionally instantly within a small range was incredibly difficult to fight against.
The second thing was that his ability was not a very good tool for long fights. It drew energy at an alarmingly high rate. Several times, he wasn't able to kill his opponent before his power ran out and Claire saved him from getting severely injured or killed by stepping into the fight just in time.
She also continued to give him tips and pointers on his swordwork. They were badly needed. Even though he'd been improving at a rapid rate under her tutelage, it still wasn't fast enough.
Alex's Soul Manifestation almost didn't feel like it was meant for a summoner class.
It was better for a bruiser or an assassin that wanted to get close to their opponent. But Alex wasn't about to complain. After all, it was fun.
And fun was the thing he wanted to find most in the Apocalypse.
The chainsword that he got from Armament Elegy was more than enough to let him use his core ability effectively — and he was confident that there were more powers contained within his Partial Soul Manifestation. Alex just wasn't sure how to access them yet.
But he'd learn.
And, in the meantime, his research paved the way for Claire as well. He told her everything he'd discovered from watching the Memory Crystals, about how using his manifestation felt and the steps he'd taken to create it, about the challenge he'd gone through at the end of its creation.
The two of them continued in that manner. They paused only to meditate in shifts and spend the power they'd gathered. And, by the time they had reached the walls of Valley Ford after just around two days of travel, they were more than they had been before.
Claire had advanced all the way up to Initiate 7. She'd managed to finish filling her Mind Palace and was nearly ready to open the gate to accessing her Partial Soul Manifestation and unlocking her domain. She just had to get her hands on the Aspect Gems to finish it.
She wasn't alone in her advancements. Alex's efforts had brought him from Initiate 4 to Initiate 8. Every single level came harder than the last — but the stronger they got, the stronger monsters they could seek out and the more power they could receive from their victories.
He'd already spent every single point he'd gathered before, which meant he now had 4 to work with. That was enough to advance Monster Medley from Novice 4 to Novice 8, with the alternative being waiting until he was midway through Adept to advance one of his other skills.
Alex also had a fair bit of magical energy left over and a very significant portion of monster souls sitting around to use. His own monsters hadn't gotten leveled up in quite some time. And, now that they were nearly upon Valley Ford and the portal to the Cracked Steps, it was just about time to cash that final bit of power in.
"Let's find a place to duck into. I need you to cover me while I meditate," Alex said as they stepped through the shadow of Valley Ford's unmanned walls and entered the warped city. Unlike its real-world counterpart, which was now nothing more than a flattened crater because of the Void Goliath, the Mirrorlands version looked exactly as it had the last time they'd been here.
"You finally going to level your monsters up?" Claire asked.
The two of them slipped into a small stone house with shattered windows in the shadow of a massive, twisting tree. They both scanned the room for any signs of hiding monsters. None seemed to be present. That, of course, really wasn't saying much. One could never be certain when they were in the Mirrorlands.
"Yeah," Alex replied. "And probably advance Monster Medley now that I've got 4 points to spend. It's probably a good time to move it up since I won't get another skill for a while and I'm about to try and make my monsters stronger."
Claire nodded in agreement. "Good idea. I'll keep an eye out, then. Just don't take too long. Remember we're on a time limit."
"Yeah," Alex said. He sat down cross-legged with his back against the wall and let his eyes drift shut. "This shouldn't take long at all. I'll be back as soon as I can."
And then the world was gone, and he was within his Mind Palace.
Alex wasted no time. He already knew exactly what he was doing — and his first task was to level up Monster Medley. There was no point advancing his monsters before he upgraded the skill whose entire purpose was to make them stronger.
He climbed the steps of his basin and made his way up to the mantle that rested behind it, sending his will into it with a thought to select Monster Medley as the next skill he advanced.
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Black lines flowed down from the blue gem representing it, twisting to form into three ability descriptions upon the smooth marble before him.
(4 Units) Lattice of Flesh: Monster Medley may now combine up to 3 monsters at once instead of 2, selecting 1 of the 3 as the primary to preserve their core traits over those merged with them. Traits beneficial to the primary are prioritized while those detrimental to it are sidelined.
(4 Units) Huskshaper: Allows Monster Medley to combine items with monsters, permanently infusing the monster into the item. The item will be lost permanently if it is broken, but the original form of the monster will be returned to your Spatial Mirror.
(4 Unit) Gut Sense: The effectiveness of a potential fusion will reveal itself to you before the fusion is complete, allowing you to abort the process and save the Soul Flames of constituent monsters.
Alex scanned over the abilities in quick succession. A grin had formed on his lips before he'd even finished reading. Every single one of them was a solid option. The first was pure raw potential, letting him get even more chaotic and powerful fusions while mitigating some of the risk that came with combining three monsters at once.
The idea of that called to him right off the bat. It meant he could combine monsters that weren't completely aligned with each other to harvest the best of their powers with only minimal additional weaknesses.
That wasn't to say the other options were bad, though. Gut Sense meant he'd basically be able to test combinations out, even if just by getting a general idea of how they'd end up. It didn't directly make any of his combinations any stronger, but it could be pretty useful in the long run.
Then again, he could also roughly get an idea of how well a combination would go just by making sure the monsters were generally similar to each other. The ability was nice… but he wasn't sure he'd pick it over the other two. It was more quality of life than it was a significant upgrade.
Huskshaper was definitely interesting. If he'd gotten it earlier, it would have been a great contender. But with Armament Elegy, Alex already had a way to get weapons. He wasn't trying to move completely away from the summoner aspects of his class. Especially not when they synergized with Requiem to the King so well.
Hey, easy choice. I'm not complaining. Especially when the choice is as good as this.
Without even a second more of hesitation, Alex selected Lattice of Flesh.
The words faded from the mantle as new power infused itself into him. Alex drew in a sharp breath, then let it out as the grin on his lips stretched wider still. He made his way back down the stairs to stand on the surface of his Mind Palace.
Then, with a thought, Alex summoned all three of his monsters to stand before him.
"Which of you should I focus the evolutions on?" Alex asked them. "Anyone have a preference? Eager to evolve, perhaps?"
Predictably, none of them responded.
Alex suppressed a sigh. He had enough Soul Flames to push pretty much every single one of them up to the peak of Initiate. Maybe even to Adept if he focused all of the Soul Flames on a single monster.
But he would do that regardless. What he wanted to do first was use some of the more powerful Soul Flames he'd collected to evolve one of his monsters. Among the strongest flames he had were the ones from the Gorgonaga, the Nagaga, and the Mutated Chimera that he'd fought back during the Initializations.
He'd never tried combing something as strong as them with his monsters, but he was a lot stronger now than he'd been before. It was worth a shot.
The question is, which one of my monsters would benefit the most from this? It's definitely not Glint. He's my best damage dealer and definitely my most dangerous monster right now. I won't combine him with anything that doesn't fit him perfectly, and I don't have anything that wouldn't potentially mess with his speed right now.
Let's see. Spark is lagging a bit behind Princess in strength right now. He's an assassin-type. It would be great to get him a boost, but I don't think the Gorgonaga or Nagaga really fit him either. The same goes for the Chimera. It was a much heavier, tankier monster.
Alex shrugged to himself.
There's no need to try and force a bad combination. I'll definitely find monsters that align more closely with Spark and Glint in the future.
Right now, I think Princess is going to be the star of the show. I don't know how the Gorgonaga's reflective abilities would work with her sludgy form, but if Lattice of Flesh does its job correctly, I should be able to get the best parts of them without weakening what makes Princess as strong as she is. I might lose out on some of the benefits that a scaled monster would get… but I think it's more than worth it. Maybe this will get Princess some stronger ways to attack as well.
There's no reason to use the Naganaga here, though. It's just a worse version of the Gorgonaga. But the Chimera… that would fit Princess pretty well, I think. There were some potential drawbacks with how different they were before, but now that I have this new skill, those drawbacks should be mitigated heavily.
All I have to do is see if it's possible to combine Princess with a Field Boss and a Region Boss.
This should be fun.
Alex banished all three of his monsters back to their Spatial Mirrors with another thought. He rubbed his hands together and readied himself as he drew deeply on his magic. After all, he'd promised Claire that he wouldn't take long.
Magic mixed with Riftwarped Qi as Alex drew a Spatial Mirror and reached within it to draw out the Soul Flames of the two bosses. They floated before him, buzzing with power and anticipation.
After them came Princess' Soul Flame. It was pitch black with arcs of purple electricity twisting through it in lazy bolts. Power poured from the three flames, already starting to press back against each other. They weren't going to come together easily.
But that was just what Alex wanted. Nothing easy was ever worth taking. He was going to work for this victory.
And then he was going to win.
Alex put the Spatial Mirror back into his deck box. He was going to need both hands. Drawing deeper still on his magic, Alex gathered all the Qi and power he could muster in one last push.
Then, a determined grin on his face, Alex activated his newly improved Monster Medley.
He could barely wait to see what would happen. If he could squeeze the soul of a Field Boss, not to mention a Region Boss, together with his Blacktongue Dredge, the results were guaranteed to be incredible. He didn't even know where to begin wondering about what would happen. Frankly, Alex was only certain of one thing. If he managed to pull this off…
Princess was about to become a whole lot more monstrous.
