Chapter 269: Magical Mishaps

William Oh is such a heavy sleeper that a tower fell on him and he slept right through it.

He’s also so perceptive that when enemies crept over the rubble, he was awake and dressed before they took their second step.

• Jason Salazar

After some testing, he discovered that Titan’s Grasp was not a direct combat Ability, nor was it ever meant to be.

It was always supposed to provide movement assistance to things that will was trying to manipulate, and with that in mind, it had some unmentioned safeguards that may have been a byproduct of how the Ability worked.

The bad things:

When using the Ability to move objects he was unable to generate combat-levels of force. When he let go of things, they tended to drop mostly down regardless of how fast they had been moving.

It was the reason why the coffee didn’t spill. The inertia was dampened, so when the object was released, it didn’t continue flying.

When he did not let go and simply slammed a Grasped object into something, the amount of force generated was…middling, at best, especially compared to the amount of force Phantom Hand could generate.

There was a thin aura around everything he moved with Grasp that reinforced the object and prevented mishaps. With some practice, Will could control it based on his perceptions, like removing the impact-dampening field from the head of a hammer in order to pound a nail.

But even then, his Phantom Hands could do it faster and more vigorously. Maybe Will could fight someone up to roughly the 20^th Level with only Titan’s Grasp, but above that, things would get dicey.

On to the good things about Titan’s Grasp:

When Will was holding an object with his hand, the field changed its form a bit to align with his grip, and allowed him to use an object as a weapon if he wished.

If he wielded a weapon and used it with Titan’s Grasp, the weapon would be subtly reinforced to allow it to bear its own weight, plus a little extra.

For example, if Will grabbed a building, which would typically crumble apart long before it could be swung at someone, that building would miraculously hold together long enough for Will to pick it up and smash it over someone’s head.

There wasn’t much of a weight limit, either. It was more a limit based on what Will could focus on at any give time. If Will had the focus and the want, he could probably relocate the entire Burned Stronghold.

It synergized well with Aspect and Map, after some trial and error.

Will often visualized ‘holding’ a particular piece of air still, which caused Aspect and Grasp to fight each other a little when Will was performing his most basic cantrip. The aura of space and gravity played around the edges of the crystalline miasmatic structures, wearing away pieces like sandstone being eroded by water.

It took a while, but thanks to being able to hear and see the miasmatic structures at work, Will was able to find the ideal middle-ground where Grasp and Aspect reinforced each other rather than fighting each other.

I wonder if I can make a cantrip with Grasp…Aside from the fact that I’ve got telekinesis that I don’t have to pay Charge for because the Ability is being boosted to Abyss and back.

I mean an Attack Cantrip.

Now that Will had access to an Ability that warped space, there had to be a way to use it offensively as a cantrip, despite being designed to only be a support tool. If Will could pull that off, that would make the Uru Drake’s Breath superfluous.

Will was alerted to the possibility when he repeatedly slammed two pieces of glass he was working with together. Out of frustration or idle fidgeting, Will wasn’t sure, because his next observation blew the last few moments out of his mind.

The two vials, which had previously had lustrous, polished surfaces, were now cloudy and matte.

Glass turning matte meant abrasions.

Very, very small abrasions.

Will knelt down and ran his finger over the desk where he’d been idly battering the vials together and came back with some glass dust.

Why abrasions? Why not cracks, or full-on shattering? Will wondered, grabbing two more vials and smashing them together with Titan’s Grasp, watching the interaction between the two auras swaddling them.

When the auras were vigorously disturbed and slamming into each other, they tended to…overlap with the other object a bit.

Will sat and thought about this.

The Uru Drake Breath said it dealt damage by disrupting space inside a target.

Will could see how injecting space into organs might be damaging. Abyss, people did it manually with a sword. The way Will saw it, it was practically the purest form of physical damage.

The problem was, Grasp was specifically for moving and reinforcing the outside of an object. The aura didn’t want to go inside, and it was only by vigorously slamming two objects together that Will could replicate even a tiny fraction of the damage Uru Drake Breath could hypothetically do.

Not to mention…

It might be impossible to make an offensive cantrip out of it, because while he could conceivably deal space-warping damage to inanimate objects, Climbers and monsters had internal Miasma that would ward off intrusion. They would resist it far more than a simple vial.

Uru Drake Breath had to have some kind of extra function working in the background that allowed it to penetrate miasma defenses.

Will’s head began to feel warm as possibilities began to flit through his mind.

Maybe I can’t do it with Grasp, but I’ve recorded most of the ingredients I need.

Will sat down and began designing a section of miasma, taking inspiration from Aspect, Faefire, Loth’s curses, the space-warping effect of Grasp, the simple attack Ability he’d created, the Choker of the stolen voice, and so much more.

Will drew his concept of a tightly compressed sphere of miasma that was connected to the target by a thread of intent. It would follow that thread unerringly until it struck the target. At which point it would unzip from the back to the front, unleashing an enormous amount of dimensional force that had been put under strain.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Could that work? Will mused, inspecting his drawing.

Let’s try it out.

Will refined the design and re-drew it over and over from multiple angles until he felt like he could create it whole-cloth.

It fizzled out miserably, far too complex to accomplish.

Will then reverted to Ghoul’s advice:

One step at a time.

Will went back to his sketches and simplified the design of the sphere, dropping all the fancy effects and focusing only on the damage: slamming two threads of dimensional Miasmatic Structures together.

I can work in the extra effects in afterwards. Step by step.

Will redrew his design as two threads creating a dimensional distortion slammed together by Charge.

Will went back to the test dummy and channeled Miasma through his left hand. It was easier to pass miasma through his left hand, because it didn’t have the miasmatic structures from his Class cluttering its path.

Will made a little swirl of the dimensional miasmatic structures that he’d gleaned from Aspect and Grasp, along with another, held apart by a thin wishbone of miasma.

Then he passed a Charge through, tightening the wishbone and charging the structures at the same time.

The two identical miasmatic structures annihilated each other, and there was a strange twanging sound, like a wire had snapped somewhere, but there was no sign that anything had happened.

Why is my arm itchy?

“Oh.”

Will’s left arm split apart, the bottom half of his forearm falling off where the ripple of spacetime had passed through.

“Oh!”

Will raised his right hand to stem the bleeding, but it fell off.

“Oh, shit-“ Will’s words were cut off as everything suddenly felt wrong, and blood began rushing up into his throat.

Oh, crap I can’t feel my legs. I think it got a piece of my lung.

Will toppled over, his upper body falling away from his legs which went the other direction.

Whoops. Okay, so it’s worse than a nicked lung.

On the other side of the Burned Stronghold, Brianna was overseeing the planting of new fields. Badur stood beside her, him and his apprentices squinting and furiously doing math, muttering things like ‘expected yield’ under their breath as they worked.

Bri didn’t need math to tell her these kids were going to make this Stronghold rich. Badur was just working to confirm what they could see with their eyes.

On her other side, Loth was discussing long-term viability with Bri.

“We should run some tests to see if the nitrates in the soil are being impacted, or if ‘magic did it’ is a good enough excuse.” The dragonoid said, arms crossed.

“What are nitrates?” Bri asked.

“It’s a chemical that plants need to grow. Not generally found in great quantities in deserts, but…” Loth waved to where the kids were summoning rows of fruit trees with a flick of their wrist.

“When I make my own Stronghold, can I borrow some?” Loth asked, pointing at the kids.

“No. But I’m sure Will would sell you the recipe for the Builds.”

“That’s fair.” Loth mused.