26 May 2018 • 21 min read

Chapter 19

Aylin Merza was sitting on a rock in the expansive and dark caverns of the Krell home volcano, they stretched around her seemingly absorbing sound and the small amount of light that seeped in from openings here and there in the rock. Water could be heard dripping nearby, which she was sure would drive her crazy if she had to sit there for any length of time.

Now, what was she doing sitting on a random rock inside a cave? Well, to the untrained eye, it was just rock; but to her it was worth more than gold because it was pure Magicite. Inside the tunnel that had been carved out by the volcano many millions of years ago, huge chunks of the rock littered the floor, gleaming in the dim light. They had likely been carried out of the deep earth and deposited there by magma, Magicite did not seem to melt from what she had observed.

The most ironic thing that nearly made her want to rip her hair out was that the entire Empire had been toiling away to find tiny little shards of the stuff, while these damn primitives had entire caverns full of it all along. They were completely oblivious, if these damn savages fought with wit instead of might, then perhaps they would have fared better in their struggle against the Polarii Empire.

Not that I’m interested in changing the status quo in anyway. Aylin mused to herself.

Even worse, when she’d asked one of them if they knew what Magicite is, the guard looked at her like she was mad. They really did not think it to be anything more than rock.

Magicite was a very peculiar substance, it looked somewhat like Opal in various different colours, and up until now was only known to be found in small chunks, normally infused with the surrounding rock making it difficult to extract whole. Great care was taken to make sure that no Magicite goes to waste, it was normally used how it was found: Raw and uncut, as every bit you lost seemed to reduce the power of the stone. It’s main use was as the focus of a [Mage]’s staff, and it was usually a very simple correlation: the bigger the stone, the bigger the focus, and the more potent the effects.

Some rumored that when carved into various different shapes, a Magicite stone would increase in power; however, no sane person was willing to waste the precious stones by cutting them to see if it does even have an effect.

Although now it seems I have all the Magicite I’ll ever need, It will be an interesting series of experiments for sure.

It was also used in the making of mana stones, the fabled golem cores of old, and her favourite: soul crystals.

While soul crystals were not necessarily considered evil, black ones – the only kind that could capture a sapient soul – were undoubtedly considered so.

Aylin got up from her rock and gazed around the cavern some more, a smile rapidly building on her face.

The thing that had always been a limit to her in her pursuit of capturing sapient souls had been a dire lack of a special type of Magicite: Black Magicite. It was a material darker than pure obsidian, it tended to confuse the eye and look more like a hole in reality rather than a beautiful rock, due to the way it seemed to absorb light.

When she was still with the Polarii, it was particularly hard to source considering she couldn’t just ask for others to go find it, questions would undoubtedly be raised. So she had had to keep asking for more magicite, hoping that they would bring her the black magicite she was looking for, or go and find some herself. An endlessly frustrating process.

It just so happened to be that the rock she had just been sitting on, and was now staring at like a salivating loon, perfectly fit the description of Black Magicite.

Alyin started concentrating and forming a spell to separate some of the rock, smiling like a madwoman throughout.

Oh this will be good. She thought to herself.

Meanwhile in another, more brightly lit part of the cave, some unfortunate adventurers weren’t having nearly as good of a time as Aylin.

“It’s just a flesh wound.” Normand said with bravado.

Giran and Adrian weren’t convinced, Adrian shook his head, holding his hand up to his forehead. Even hanging in cages a good 5 meters away, and with no light apart from that provided by a few burning torches, they could see his arm was nearly falling off. Normand was clearly struggling to stay conscious. His heavy and laboured breathing echoed in the confines of the cave.

Giran and Adrian looked to each other through the rough iron bars of their cages, Giran shrugged her shoulders and non verbally it was decided that Adrian would continue trying to convince Normand to let the shamans heal him. Adrian steeled himself and started trying to convince the fool.

“Your arm is almost torn off!” Adrian exclaimed. Normand shook his head, grimacing in pain. Adrian looked on in disbelief as Normand still refused to let the Shamans help him. The three Krell shamans were clearly getting impatient, one had crossed his arms and was tapping his foot waiting for Normand to cooperate or pass out, whichever one happened first.

“Don’t be an idiot and let them heal you!” Adrian continued trying to convince him.

“’Tis but a scratch!” Normand protested stubbornly, clearly trying to mask his pain. Loud footsteps echoed through the cave as an unseen figure approached.

“You fool! You will be healed whether you like it or not!” Interjected an elderly woman in a stubborn tone, her voice echoed somewhat as she was still a good 20 meters or so away.

Her form slowly emerged out of the gloom. She walked briskly into the cave chamber that the cages resided in. The shamans, having noticed her presence gave her a respectable berth as she approached the cage Normand currently huddled in.

Normand looked over her as she stood outside his cage, she was wearing the typical style of clothing that the Krell wore, although it somehow seemed fancier than the clothes Normand had seen other Krell wearing during his time here. She currently had her hands on her hips and looked rather annoyed. A cane dangled from one of her hands and Normand was suddenly worried about what she planned to do with it.

“Who are you?” Normand asked pointedly, a small amount of fear still managed to creep into his voice.

She moved her hands from her hips, leaning on her cane and moving closer to the cage.

“I’m elder Ro.” she said in a suddenly calm voice. Without any further explanation she pivoted to face the shamans, who were still standing back from her somewhat. “What are you waiting for? Heal him!” She commanded and pointed to the cage. The shamans looked amongst each other, seemingly unwilling to cooperate. One stepped forward to explain the lack of healing currently occurring.

“Elder Ro… It’s not correct practice to heal a person who is unwilling. It reduces the effectiveness if they actively resist it.” He said looking at the floor, clearly worried about what her response would be. Before Ro could respond Normand interrupted.

“I refuse to be healed! Either let me out of this cage or let me die in peace!” Normand demanded. He flinched back as the somehow intimidating elder turned around to face him. Annoyed at being interrupted from berating her shamans, she hit his cage with her cane. The old iron of the cage rattled loudly. Normand flinched back even further into the cage.

“Are you stupid, boy?” She asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “You need to learn to have respect and not interrupt when your elders are speaking.” She chastised. She turned to face the shamans “Well? Don’t just stand there, I don’t care if it takes a little more effort to heal him. Do it.” She commanded.

They scrambled to follow her order. One stood on each side of the cage and started muttering incomprehensible incantations. Normand tried his best to resist, but the collective might of the shamans healed his wounds within seconds. The shamans having finished their duty hastily walked away, seemingly to escape any more scolding from elder Ro.

“Now that you are in somewhat of a better state, tell me, boy. Why are you all here? Why have you intruded upon our home?” The elder asked in a serious tone, leaning back on her cane as the light from a nearby torch flicked in an eerie way.

Ethan felt the air rushing past him as he fell from a great height, he distantly heard Kothar shouting something but it was lost to the wind. He tumbled end over end, seeing the hard rocky plateau rapidly approaching. Time seemed to slow down and he closed his eyes and awaited his fate, he tried to cast a spell, anything to save himself but found he couldn’t get the concentration conjured up while tumbling in the air like he was. Ethan resigned himself to death, hoping for some miracle or that it would be painless.

<EMERGENCY: ACTIVATING SURVIVAL PROTOCOL>

In a split second, Ethan felt his AI implement drastic measures to ensure his safety. Control of his limbs was wrenched from his grasp and his arms and legs moved in a peculiar way in order to straighten him in the air, he was now suddenly falling head first and was wondering for a second what on earth the AI was doing, at least he was no longer tumbling and thrashing wildly through the air.

Then his AI cast a spell.

Before he could comprehend what the AI had done he felt the G’s pile on and his descent suddenly slowed, he nearly blacked out as he swooped, missing the rocky plateau and getting splattered by a mere 20 meters. The air continued to blow against him, but he found that no air was pushing him up, it was almost like the gravity had just been flipped. Somehow the AI was steering him with the spell and he rapidly gained speed as he was guided back towards Kothar.

Ethan took a moment to take in the view, the Mother of Chaos stuck out like a sore thumb in the center of the volcano and its roots and branches snaked everywhere, even up the sheer walls of the volcano and over the top, spilling out of the volcano like an overflowing geyser of flash-frozen water. He rotated in the air and was back facing towards the gray cliff face, he could now distantly see Kothar as he continued to approach.

Ethan thought over what the AI had just cast, what it had cast just then had nothing to do with Mind Runes or shamanistic magic though. It felt… different.

It was based on neither logic nor emotion. Well, there was logic to it, but no intense concentration and mind bending structures. Ethan hadn’t felt any expenditure of effort as the spell was cast.

It felt more… elementary. Yes, that was the best way to describe it. It had no shape or structure like Mind Runes. It simply flowed out of him.

Unnoticed until now, he saw a new window flashing in his peripheral vision. He focused on it.

Divest("Gravity") | Move [Orderly] | Spin [Orderly] * Self

He didn’t quite understand what it meant and was confused as to how the AI had conjured this up.

“AI, what did you just do?” He asked it.

Ethan thought for a moment, it would be nice to take a look at what exactly the AI had done, but right now he needed to focus on making sure he landed correctly, and then not fall again.

“Not now, give me that report when we rest at a safe point.” He thought to it.

<Acknowledged.>

Ethan noticed a couple of Rocs circling high above, apparently interested in his tryst with flight, his heartbeat jumped as he waited for the moment where one would swoop down and pluck him from the sky.

Luckily he reached Kothar a couple of seconds later, landing surprisingly gracefully as he resumed his original climbing position. It felt like the flight had lasted a good 5 minutes but the AI helpfully informed him that his flight lasted a grand total of 23 seconds, including the initial fall. Ethan remembered the circling Rocs and cast a nervous glance, readying himself in case he had to cast a spell to defend himself against one, however he only caught a flicker of them as they were going in to land in a nest high above him somewhere. It seemed they lost interest once he stopped his flight.

Hmm, that's interesting, Ethan thought to himself. I’ll need to look into the behaviour of these things when I get a closer look, maybe they thought I was some kind of flying prey?

He turned his attention to Kothar, who was asking all kinds of questions that Ethan had been ignoring up until this point. How could he possibly explain the intervention of his AI when he barely understood it? He instead looked over at Kothar with a confident smile, Kothar still wore a somewhat shocked expression.

“How did you do that? That was amazing! It looked so natural!” He exclaimed. Ethan struggled to hear him over the whistling wind, and it was not surprising that the wind was so bad up there when the volcano was acting like a big funnel.

Ethan shouted over the wind to be heard.

“I have no idea how I did that. I just felt like it. My heart lurched in my chest and I just did it.” Ethan felt that the white lie was justified. Although it made him feel bad to lie to Kothar who was helping him.

“I’ve never heard of someone casting a spell instantly like that, and up until now we all thought that flight magic was extinct! No one uses it except for Eragoth, and then she can only use it to assist her flight when she turns into a dragon. You are full of surprises, Ethan West.” Kothar was speaking fast enough that Ethan nearly didn’t catch some parts of what he said.

A small detail caught Ethan’s attention. Did he just say Eragoth could turn into a dragon? How come no one else had mentioned that before?

“Wait! She can turn into a full dragon? Why didn’t she fully transform when the vines trapped her then?” Ethan asked as he resumed his climbing, this time slowly and carefully, he would check to make sure an outcropping could take his weight before he pulled himself up, making sure his feet were firmly in place. He didn’t want a repeat of his last little flight. Kothar also started to climb his way up.

“I’m not sure if I should be telling you this… but it takes a lot out of her to transform into a full dragon. She can only do it for minutes at a time and then rest for days to recover. To transform for longer she needs the help of a full circle of shamans supporting her.” Kothar said hesitantly. He stopped talking as he focused on getting over a particularly difficult spot.

“Has it always been like this?” Ethan asked.

“You mean how long she could transform?” Kothar responded.

Ethan was looking to the side at Kothar now, having paused his climbing, a questioning look was plastered on his face. Kothar got the hint and stopped as well, he glanced over his shoulder, seemingly nervous about continuing, before he looked back to Ethan, “Legend has it that she could maintain her dragon form for weeks in the past. Only now it seems she requires more energy to do it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” That went against the entire leveling system as Ethan understood it so far, apparently not all things were as plain cut as ‘The higher the level, the better’.

“She should be getting stronger at it as time passes, not the other way around!” Ethan exclaimed. Kothar shrugged as best as he could while clutching to the rocks.

“Beats me! She is very secretive about herself. That is probably why she is so mad at you now, but enough about her,” Kothar said, then continued: “I want to know how you flew like that.” Ethan still didn’t want to reveal more than he had to, and continued to lie.

“It was just a reflex, I think. Why are you so interested?” Ethan asked with curiosity. Technically it wasn’t entirely a lie, it was a reflex, of a kind. Kothar’s face lit up and a smile crept onto his lips as he seemed to gain an idea.

“If you can fly, couldn’t you carry us both all the way to the top?” Kothar asked slyly. Gesturing with his head in an upwards motion.

Ethan’s stress about nearly falling to his death melted away and his laughs could be heard echoing across the mountains as he struggled not to fall again.

Milandera had a lot to answer for when she returned to her guild. Not only had they failed, they had done so miserably. As far as she was aware she was the only one left alive after their encounters with the spider apes and Krell. She continued to walk through the forest trying to make as little sound as possible, not wanting to attract anything else that could cause her untimely death.

It was somewhat dark at the forest floor, the thick canopy of leaves blocked a considerable amount of sunlight and only more hardy species of plant lived below the canopy. Each of the trees stretched a good twenty five meters tall and had various vines wrapped around their thick trunks. Hundreds of Bamboo culms sprouted from the ground and mostly reached up to around the height of a fully grown Polarii.

Having lost most of her possessions, including food and water, Milandera was extremely worried about not being able to make it back to the city. She had to forage and live off berries, mushrooms, and random fruits and tubers, she wasn’t well versed on what is poisonous and not. A particularly appetizing looking berry had caught her out a day ago, it made her violently ill and quickly taught her the lesson that the less colour a fruit or plant had, the more likely it is to not make her ill. However, what worried her the most was the fate of her brother and her friends.

She’d seen Jormun die at the hands of the Krell. That alone cemented her hate for the savages. She hoped that they would all die a slow and painful death, hopefully at her hands. However, revenge would have to be put off for now, because if she was able to make it back to her guild, there was to be another story.

She’d have to tell them everything that had happened in crucial detail, and then they’d deliberate and decide what to do with her. Guild politics would mean it could take them days to decide, she sorely worried that if Normand, Adrian or Giran were still alive that they would get tortured half to death by the Krell savages, all the while the guild would do nothing, its oh-so-wise leaders taking a long time to actually do some leading.

She honestly wished she’d never have to go through that, reliving painful memories for the sake of a few stupid guild leaders. She was sure her brother was dead by now. She’d seen his state when she escaped with her life, and if Normand was dead, then Adrian was probably dead as well.

All because of that stupid half-elf, Giran. She had to go all on her own just because they met some spider ape thingies. Seriously, what kind of adventurer fears spiders? Well, they were rather large ape sized spiders, but even then you shouldn’t let your fear get your friends killed. Milandera swore if Giran wasn’t dead, she would make sure to beat her within an inch of her life. Why even bother adventuring if you had such a weakness to begin with?

Admittedly, she’d completely understand it if it were fear from giant cockroaches, but those were on an entirely different level of ickiness.

It was pointless thinking about the various ways she would hurt Giran, the bitch was probably dead anyway.

Pausing her hike for a moment, she saw a particularly juicy looking tuber, a variety she’d eaten before and hoped didn’t have any long term side effects that she wasn’t aware of. She decided that she didn’t care if it would kill her, her stomach growled hungrily and she started eating the tuber, raw of course, and continued on her hike back to civilisation.

“A damn shame, that’s what it is.” Said the man in black robes, “why do it, Jarret Lytell? Why force our Hands?” He paused for effect then bellowed in laughter. Jarret didn’t share the guy’s humor and squirmed in his bindings. Seeing that Jarret nor his partner-in-torture were laughing he looked between them with an expression of mocked shock.

“It’s a joke, get it? Our HANDS. Because we’re The Hands. See!” He said as he pointed at the insignia of The Hands on his robes, his partner chuckled in a deep and disturbing way.

Jarret was in no mood to laugh at his joke. Or any joke for the matter. The fabric of the tent he resided in fluttered in the wind, the air smelt faintly of blood and excrement, probably from where these two had tortured others to death. The tent was enchanted to make sure that no sound escaped, nobody wanted tortured screams ruining their day after all. He tried not to think too much about what his fate was likely to be inside this tent.

Seeing that Jarret was in no mood for humour the man sighed. His partner perked up.

“Can I give it to him now? Please, Radon. I'll be gentle.” He tried to convince the first man, in a sing-song like voice, clearly mocking Jarret. Radons partner had already asked to be let loose on Jarret a few times now, Radon had denied each of his requests, seemingly annoying the guy.

“I said not yet. We don’t want to break him just yet. I want all the juicy details, and he’s going to deliver on his promise.” Radon snapped at his accomplice, the accomplice flinched back a little and took a step back, content to let Radon continue the “Interrogation”. Radon turned around and approached a table to get something, likely some tool of torture.

“I promised you nothing.” Jarret said tiredly from his position against the central tent pole, speaking up to make sure Radon heard him and trying to sound confident. The collar round his neck rubbed at his throat as he spoke.

The anti-mage collar and bindings were especially designed to contain [Mages]. They prevented the captive from accessing their mana while they had them on, and there was no known way to remove them without casting a spell to break the enchantment. So all in all, it was a chicken-egg problem.

“Oh, you all say that. Wait until you see the babblifier.” Radon said as he continued to fiddle with an object on the table.

“What’s a babblifier?” Jarret asked in concern. He continued to fiddle in his restraints. Radons accomplice watched on with a smirk.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Radon said wryly, “suffice to say, you’re going to love talking when I’m done with you. In fact, you’ll love talking so much, you’ll never want or be able to stop.”

Shit. Jarret swore.

Ethan sat on a dead log in the camp Kothar and himself had prepared on a somewhat safe and relatively flat outcropping. They had a good view from here if any Rocs decided to try and make a meal out of one of them, plus it was fairly sheltered due to a rock overhanging above them. Ethan had been unsure about the overhanging rock, but he used [Analyse] on it and according to that the rock was perfectly stable.

Kothar was stringing their hammocks while Ethan was preparing some food. Ethan was only half focused on cooking the cuts of meat in front of him as he focused on the reports and information his AI was providing him.

Oh, this has gone well. Ethan thought as he reviewed the report assembled by his AI on the subject of elementary magic. It was taking awhile to read over, but Ethan was starting to get the gist of what the AI had done, and it was very good.

He was also looking at a log entry that appeared on his HUD not too long after he’d cast the spell, but was overlooked in the heat of the moment.

You have discovered Primordial Magic. (+200 XP)

Congratulations, you are now a level 8 [Harbinger – Science]!

New title obtained: Runebreaker (+4 SP, +5 AP)

Curious, He decided to take a look at the new title.

Name	Ethan West	Species	Human
Class (1st)	Harbinger – Science (Level 8)	Strength (STR)	18
Class (2nd)	Magineer – Chaos (Level 8)	Vitality (VIT)	17
XP (Deferred)	156 (0)	Dexterity (DEX)	20
AP/SP Available	5 AP / 4 SP	Agility (AGI)	24
Health	173/173 (+1.7/min)	Intelligence (INT)	25
Mana	270/270 (+2.5/min)	Wisdom (WIS)	26

Title	Description
Divine Lawbreaker	You have broken a Divine Law and incurred the wrath of the heavens. Beware the consequences.
Runebreaker	You have transcended all forms of magic and unlocked the more mystic base elements behind it. You now wield great power over the arcane. Beware lest you err!

So apparently all of his titles involved the breaking of something, and a warning. Just great. At least it set a good precedent for the future. Am I only good at breaking things?.

He turned back to perusing the AI’s report on this ‘Primordial Magic’ as the system had called it.
He knew that Mind Runes were three dimensional structures that fit together like lego blocks to form multidimensional spell models. That much was established by everyone, and according to the time spent with Aylin Merza, every [Mage] knew how to fit a spell model together from Mind Runes. It seemed that most have a different way of visualising it compared to Ethan's simulated space, however.

Apparently, things went beyond mind runes. His AI had discovered something beyond that. The runes were made of even more elementary building blocks. It was almost like how molecules are made out of atoms, and how atoms are made from subatomic particles. There’s always a smaller part.

Now that he tried to look for a comparison in real life, he could only think of one thing that was modular in this manner, something that could obey instructions and perform a function like Runes, and that was… proteins.

Proteins consisted of a series of amino acids formed from a blueprint in the form of an RNA strand, the RNA strand would enter a ribosome and a protein would come out, the protein would look like a line of atoms with various ‘attachments’ on the sides, and those would help it fold into the right shape as it gets printed atom by atom, thanks to some being hydrophobic or hydrophilic, the atomic forces would force it to bend this way and that, causing parts of it to form bonds with other parts, which resulted a three dimensional structure, a single molecular machine.

This process, in essence, was what allowed a protein to perform its function.

Some had very basic functions, like haemoglobin, for example: just tug oxygen around. But then again, some proteins, like ribosomes, were a monstrous amalgamation of many smaller proteins and had much more complexity and depth.

A ribosome had to read and execute code from RNA, if you thought about it. Input, processing, and output. Wasn’t it like a CPU in some ways?

That was a question for another time however, because right now, in his mind’s eye, he was looking at the 3D model of a Rune and discovering something new: it almost acted like a protein.

It had ‘binding sites’ like a protein, which he previously thought of as input and output ports, and it could only fit a specific purpose like a protein, and it performed a specific function, just like a protein.

And what were proteins made of? Atoms, of course. So that meant… yes. The runes were made of a smaller unit. But what was he to call that?

Ethan pondered for a moment, turning the meat cooking on the fire yet again. He decided to call it a Thaum, as a goofy tribute to one of his favourite fantasy books, he’d enjoyed reading that one in the past.

It made him smile.

Once he confirmed the name with his AI, he started to study the Thaum itself, and how they connected together to form Runes, Kothar sat down opposite the fire and warmed his hands, it was starting to get dark and at this heightened elevation it got a lot colder. He mechanically took the now cooked meat from the fire and handed Kothar a piece, before starting to chew away at his. Kothar sat there silently, he recognised by now that Ethan was deep in thought of some kind when he was vacant like this, he just didn’t fully understand why.

As Ethan continued to study, it turned out, there were different types of Thaums.

First there were the Force types:

Manipulate: Repel/Attract/Move – Velocity
Manipulate: Spin – Angular Velocity.
Infuse / Divest (Energy)
Compress / Expand (Matter – Molecular Manipulation)
Shape (Matter – Molecular Manipulation)

Second, were the Modifier types:

Entropy: Orderly / Chaotic
State: Bound / Unbound
Charge: Positive / Negative
Purity: Purify / Contaminate

And third, a generic connector Thaum that he decided to call “Connect”.

Finally, there was one that was odd and did not behave like the rest. He called it “Select”.

His AI had not discovered all the types though, he knew there must be forces and modifiers that he was missing, since not all types of magic could be explained by his current model. How would it represent teleportation magic, or divination, for example?

He was more interested in the practical applications though, but first, he needed to study the notation his AI had came up with for spell formulae.

It clearly needed more work, but he'd wing it as he went along.

Vertical Pipe ‘|’ denotes a combination of two or more forces.
Asterisk ‘*’ denotes the application of forces to a target. e.g. Repel | Spin * Target
A plus ‘+’ separates independent reactions in the spell’s instruction chain. Both reactions are occurring simultaneously.
A minus ‘-’ separates dependent reactions in the spell’s instruction chain. The right reaction must follow the left reaction sequentially.
A greater than ‘>’ means that the result of the left side of the equation is the target of the right side.
Modifiers shall be surrounded with square brackets and follow a force or energy.
Infuse/Divest takes one or multiple energies inside brackets, e.g. Infuse(Life[Positive])[Orderly] * Target to heal a target.
Shape takes the target shape inside brackets, e.g: Shape("Sphere") * Snow to shape a ball out of – pre-existing – snow.

According to this, the spell his AI had cast earlier to save his life:

Divest("Gravity") | Move [Orderly] | Spin [Orderly] * Self

Had removed the effects of gravity on his body while also moving and spinning him around in a controlled manner.

It was basically a ‘Levitate’ spell at its most primordial level.

This is gonna take a while, but I already have so many ideas! He thought jubilantly.

Name	Ethan West	Species	Human
Class (1st)	Harbinger – Science (Level 8)	Strength (STR)	18
Class (2nd)	Magineer – Chaos (Level 8)	Vitality (VIT)	17
XP (Deferred)	156 (0)	Dexterity (DEX)	20
AP/SP Available	5 AP / 4 SP	Agility (AGI)	24
Health	173/173 (+1.7/min)	Intelligence (INT)	25
Mana	270/270 (+2.5/min)	Wisdom (WIS)	26

Title	Description
Divine Lawbreaker	You have broken a Divine Law and incurred the wrath of the heavens. Beware the consequences.
Runebreaker	You have transcended all forms of magic and unlocked the more mystic base elements behind it. You now wield great power over the arcane. Beware lest you err!

Skill	Level	Cost	Description	Origin
Analyse (Active)	8 (37%)	4 MP	You analyse any object or living being, obtaining information about it. More details will be revealed as the level of this skill rises.	[Scientist, Level 1]
Lecture (Passive)	5 (22%)	—	You instruct another character on a subject. The level of knowledge conveyed and the success rate are limited by the level of this skill.	[Harbinger – Science, Level 5]
Assemble Schematic (Active)	2 (27%)	15 MP	You assemble a schematic quickly and efficiently. 10% Less material wasted per level.	[Engineer, Level 1]
Adjust Entropy (Sustained)	6 (78%)	~	Adjust the level of entropy in a system or creation. 10% To effectiveness per level.	[Chaos Engineer, Level 5]
Stabilise (Active)	2 (88%)	~	Allows you to stabilise any chaotic reaction, quickly bringing down the energy of an unstable system, chemical reaction, spell, or machine.	[Chaos Engineer, Level 5]
Mana Manipulation (Passive)	2 (76%)	—	The ability to manipulate mana is at the core of spell-casting. This skill governs how much mana your body can channel. 2% bonus to maximum mana per level.	[Magineer – Chaos, Level 8]
Rune Mastery (Passive)	2 (13%)	—	The ability to construct and maintain spell models in one’s mind is what governs Rune Magic. Your mastery over runes will increase with the level of this skill. Can control +2 extra runes per spell model per level of this skill.	[Magineer – Chaos, Level 8]
Design Schematic (Active)	2 (43%)	100 MP	Allows you to design a schematic.	[Scientist, Level 2]