Chapter 313: Chapter 301 – Going Dark

Excerpt from the second draft of An Earthling’s Guide to the Larger Universe

Common Utility Path Abilities (Continued)

Identify

Identify allows the identification of the properties (and sometimes characteristics or history) of an item. It is commonly available to crafters of the appropriate type, though it’s still common for others to get a more generic, less detailed version.

There are cases where Identify can give incorrect information. While this is the most famous for cursed items, it’s true of ordinary items as well.

Analyze

Analyze allows for limited identification of the characteristics of beings; most Analyze abilities will work on anything other than inanimate objects, though more specialized versions do exist. In most cases, Analyze will only provide information that you either know or have a way to find out easily, though higher-end Analyzes may give additional unknown details if you also have a sufficient Tier advantage.

If you are confident of what you are seeing, Analyze will not correct you. Over-reliance on Analyze can get you killed, but at the same time its appropriate use can be very helpful.

…

Serenity snapped his Status closed and glanced down at the pedestal. A pair of green crystals had appeared; he snatched them up, since they were the only reward other than the monster cores they’d collected that anyone was ever going to get from the dungeon.

As he turned to tell them it was time to head out, Serenity saw that the others were already leaving. Echo waved at him to hurry.

There was plenty of time, but Serenity had to admit that he didn’t have any desire to spend longer in this dungeon. He followed the others out to the road, then turned and watched as the dungeon collapsed.

There wasn’t much to see as the countdown continued, even magically; it was simply a field of corn. As soon as the countdown ended the magic holding the dungeon in place twisted. For a moment, the outer entrance to a corn maze was visible, then it was a patch of greenish darkness in the same shape.

Lightning struck the corn field from the clear sky and dirt seemed to rise from the field. Suddenly, a blast of wind swept over the group; the air was filled with bits of plant and dirt. When it cleared, the scene was calm again. The corn looked like it had been hit with a hailstorm, but that was the only visible damage.

Serenity watched the ley lines as well as the physical world. They pulled one way, then the other; the nexus shifted around as both of the ley lines forming it danced like a plucked string. He could see them tying themselves into a knot, but he didn’t see any way to prevent it. He simply wasn’t powerful enough to redirect a ley line.

Anchor it

The two words rippled past Serenity on the ley lines, forming echoes in Gaia’s voice. Serenity knew the technique her voice referred to, but he didn’t understand how it would help. It was part of many spellforms, used to provide a reference point. An anchor also provided a safety net for a malformed spellform; it would give a direction for the magic to drain if the spell disintegrated instead of casting correctly. Serenity had several positioned carefully in the outer framework he used for most spells; they were simply part of the overhead and he didn’t think about them often.

Serenity wasn’t certain what purpose adding an anchor would have to a ley line, but only one of them had long experience with ley lines, and Serenity knew that wasn’t him. He’d used them to power and ground magic, but he’d never tried to affect how they ran. It was worth a try.

He did like running magical experiments.

Serenity built the largest magical anchor spellform he could manage. It was stripped down to its purest form, then enlarged. Serenity wanted to be certain it could handle the amount of energy that would run through it.

Nothing happened; it wasn’t even touching the ley line, even though it was in it. Well, he knew how to gather energy from a ley line for a spell; he’d try that and funnel it to the anchor.

It was a spell construct that he hadn’t used since he came back in time. There really hadn’t been a good place or time to use it; it took a lot of mana to control, so it was only rarely even useful. As it came together, Serenity noticed something odd: it was warping essence around itself. Many of the tricky features were simple, once he realized they were simply there to manage the flow of essence as well as mana.

If he used both essence and mana to create it, it would be far simpler and faster to make and cost less to use. Serenity dispersed his half-formed spellform and tried again, crudely shaping essence instead of mana in some places. When he finished, it was obvious that he was far more skilled with mana; the mana portions were clear and concise, while the essence portions looked like a child’s work. Still, it was better than the pure-mana version, which handled the essence portion like trying to draw with his hands in mittens holding a long stick.

He finalized the spell and felt the ley line’s power flow into him and through him into the anchor. At first, it felt good, a revitalizing shower washing away the debris that had accumulated as he spent time on a planet that was simply not powerful enough for him.

The second ley line wandered over the first and was caught by the anchor. It no longer felt like even a pounding shower; now it was like a flood, scouring its way through everything coating his magical channels and forcing them wider. Serenity expected to feel pain, but somehow he didn’t.

Possibly because there weren’t any nerves there, but in that case how did he know what the magic was doing?

Serenity pushed that thought aside and concentrated on the ley lines themselves. They were vibrating, but the movements were already much smaller and they no longer attempted to move away from the achor. Serenity felt Gaia reach out to him again. Her voice was far clearer this time.

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Good enough, the nexus has reformed. You can let go.

Serenity released the spell.

The moment he was no longer maintaining a spell, he felt the pain his scoured channels should have given him before, followed immediately by relief as they healed cleanly. It was still a relief that he could heal so easily, and he pulled up his status to see how much he’d used.

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