Sacrifice Mage-Chapter 29: Momentum

Over the rest of that day and the next, I focused on raising some of my ranks while also continuing to practice the basics that Gutran had showed. It was mostly repetitive exercises, so I didn’t need to spend too much brainpower on them.
Instead, I could concentrate on testing what happened when I offered
all
my effort as tribute via Sacrifice.
I figured that everything I created counted as mine under the purview of the Weave. It included things like the power and motion generated my body. So my thought process was this—what would happen if, instead of letting my foot fall and pushing me forward another step, I just Sacrificed the energy and the intention of movement an instant before it actually occurred.
Therefore, I did just that. I started running towards a wall and as I gathered momentum, I focused on the threads of Sacrifice burning their way through me, latching onto my muscles. A scouring sensation of burning energy briefly flared across my whole body.
“Stop,” I said.
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Instance of Momentum. Windfall bonus activated.
Reward
: All energy expended on current momentum path returned. However, effort towards next rank is untouched.
]
I didn’t end up hitting the wall. My momentum disappeared entirely and I just… stopped. Running full tilt at the bricks one second, then just standing in place the next. All the force driving me forward simply vanished like I had hit an invisible barricade, though of course, no physical sensation accompanied it.
And the blue box was right. I didn’t feel even slightly winded. All my training and raising the rank of Vitality had raised my stamina levels, so I wasn’t exactly expecting to feel tired.
But there wasn’t even the smallest sign of exertion. No catching my breath after the sprint, so relaxing my muscles, no elevated heart rate.
No sign at all.
All the energy I had spent really had come back to me. It was almost like I had teleported to the point where I was standing instead of running to it. And best of all, despite regaining all my energy via Sacrifice, the notification stated that all the effort I had spent towards my next rank—which admittedly wasn’t a whole lot since it was a short sprint and my ranks were higher now—still counted.
I grinned. Sure, I couldn’t figure out a practical use for this in the heat of battle just then, though there had to be some uses. But if I could keep Sacrificing my momentum instead of coming to a natural stop, and the reward returned all the energy I had spent, then I could keep going indefinitely.
It sounded kind of crazy. Plus, what happened if I changed directions during my run? In terms of physics, that meant a change in momentum, right? So would the Weave be sensitive to that?
I tested it out. Instead of running in a straight line, I ran through multiple corridors, changing directions frequently but making sure I was never stopping or even slowing down if I could help it, letting my body feel the buildup of shortened breath and racing heart and all that.
A minute later, I Sacrificed it all.
I received the same notification as before. Energy returned, but ranking efforts not withheld. Sweet.
The difference this time was that I wasn’t as completely refreshed and re-energized as I had been on my first trial. My breathing and my pounding heart needed a moment to stabilize, though, thanks to Sacrifice, they took a lot less time to recover than they normally would have. Same went for my stamina. Much better than usual, but not a perfect return.
I wasn’t totally sure why. The only thing I could figure out was the possibility that momentum was a more complicated physical quantity than I was giving credit to just then, and changing all those directions had messed up how much of my momentum I ended up Sacrificing.
It was still a great test though. I would need to figure out if—and if so, how—this was applicable during battles.
The limitation was that the energy expenditure returned in a very integral, not-directly-controllable way. I could already see how overpowered it would be if the Weave just returned the energy to me in a way that I could then direct as I saw fit, rather than just reversing time as though I had never spent that energy to begin with.
But
could
I get Sacrifice to a stage where I could direct the energy as I saw fit?
Aurier returned the next day with a bunch of the weapons he and Gutran had created. Not a huge amount. They could only make so many in one day. Most of those had been distributed among our local neighbourhood, but a few were kept in reserve at the cult.
I wasn’t keen on giving myself the wrong sort of impression or mis-train myself somehow by wielding a weapon randomly. But spear thrusts and dagger stabs were basic, so I stuck to those, because what I was really training up just then—apart from practicing the combat basics—was training up my Attributes.
The Sacrifice reward had said effort towards the next rank was maintained. So, by thrusting a weighed down spear with as much force as I could muster, and then Sacrificing the momentum of my arm and my spear before the end of the thrust, I was doubling up on training.
And all it cost me was just a bit of my mana. The fact that I was burning away the magical energy in my core was a bit of an added bonus.
This text was taken from NovelFire. Help the author by reading the original version there.
All my efforts didn’t result in any proper gains in one day. But the day after, when I had gone back to training with Gutran and practicing more of the basics, I finally did it.
[ Rank Up!
Your Power and Vitality Attributes have risen by one Rank.
Your Sacrifice Aspect has risen by one Rank.
Power
: Iron VI
Vitality
: Iron VI
Sacrifice
: Iron V
]
It had arrived near the end of our training session. Gutran saw the goofy smile on my face and correctly guessed I had received a nice notification.
“You’re getting the hang of fighting too,” he said appreciatively. “Getting better at noting muscle movement, at noticing the right tells and predicting what I’m going to do next. Of course, a more experienced fighter will weave in feints and such and make everything a pain. But the basics are important, and you—and Aurier—have the fundamentals down. It’s just a matter of continuing training now.”
Aurier had perked up at the mention of his name. Since he had completed a bunch of his required smithing for the weapons and armour, Gutran had allowed him to spar with me.
“Couldn’t have done it without your guidance,” I said, offering the short bow with the fist to the chest. I meant my gratitude.
Gutran grunted, though I was getting better at deciphering the different kinds of grunts he had. For a guy with snake head, he communicated a bit too much with grunts. Nevertheless, I was able to detect that this latest grunt signalled that he was pleased.
I went on to ask Gutran about my idea of Sacrificing momentum and regaining energy to use directly, even though I couldn’t exactly do that at the moment. He said it sounded interesting, and that there were people who possessed something literally called Energy as an Aspect that provided an Affix which could do something similar.
If I could do something like that without bothering with an entirely new Aspect with its own Affixes, I’d be golden. Well, I
was
intending to be Golden eventually…
Unfortunately, Gutran didn’t have any specific information about how to best utilize or even practice that. I’d have to find a different source of information or just go about training on my own without screwing something up along the way.
Which did remind me to go and check the Mage Guild for more jobs. Kostis had urged me to attend one of the mage classes… Damn, I had forgotten all about that.
I also had the money from my last job that I needed to use, although I still had four days left on my timer after Sacrificing first the vampire heart and then all my own energy and momentum. Maybe I could find some hints on what kind of valuables I could purchase.
The atmosphere in Ring Four was pretty tense. I was thankful I didn’t see anyone going about their business on their own. Although, I did notice there were a lot fewer children roaming about too. It couldn’t have felt good being cooped up like that, but I couldn’t blame their guardians for wanting to keep the kids safe.
At least there had been no s of any fatalities, or any other sightings of Thralls even. That latter one was a bit worrying. Had the Scarthralls all gone underground or something?
I supposed it was a bit hypocritical that after warning everyone else not to be going anywhere alone, I was literally travelling to the Mage Guild by myself. Probably served me right that I ended up at what I was pretty sure was a small hospital somewhere on the other side of Ring Three.
“This is not the Mage Guild,” I said.
“This is
not
the Mage Guild,” said the unamused Ogre standing in front of the hospital, dressed halfway between a healer and a city guard. “
Human
,” he made sure to add at the end.
He did not bother pointing me in the right direction.
That was fine. I was good at figuring things out. So, I decided to head towards Gutran’s smithy, and wonder of wonders, I was walking down the boulevard of the Mage Guild by the end of my jaunt.
My first foray was to the receptionist. “Hello, Miss Silhatsa. Hope you’re doing well.”
She offered me a small smile. “Oh, just busy helping fellow mages, as usual. But forget about me, how are things in Ring Four?”
“Everything’s fine so far. No Thralls, no fighting. It’s been… surprisingly calm.”
“Well, that sounds good then. How can I help you today?”
“I was wondering… now that I’ve proven I can do Silver-ranked jobs, do I still need to go through a higher-ranked mage to get them, or can I…?” I offered her my most brilliant and charming smile.
Maybe it needed work because Silhatsa only shook her head.
“Unfortunately, guild policy doesn’t change upon successful job completion, Mage Moreland,” she said. “Your best bet is to rank your Path up as fast as you can.” She leaned in and lowered her voice to a soft hiss. “And not make a fool of Kliezeg again.”
I lowered my voice too. “Wait, is he mad at me or something? Because he didn’t seem angry the couple of times we’ve met since.”
“Oh, poor Kliezeg couldn’t be angry even if he tried. He finds it difficult to be resentful even. But the Guildmaster likes him, and anything that upsets him upsets the Guildmaster too, so… Oh, by the way, Guildmaster Lancko will now be keeping a closer eye on you.”
I was going to keep in mind the little note about Kliezeg and the Guildmaster, though I was also curious about what exactly their connection was. “You told the Guildmaster? About the Thrall fighting?”
“He’s well aware already. You might not see it from Ring Four, but news spreads fast in Zairgon. A significant number of people are interested in something as serious as a Thrall invasion. I just gave a more personal corroborating account of the events.”
“Serious, huh?” I couldn’t hide the scepticism from my voice after I had seen how other people had reacted to the Thrall held by the guards.
But maybe Silhatsa meant something different. Regular people might not be that concerned, but people like the Guildmaster, people who held real influence in Zairgon, were sitting up and taking notice. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“The only way the Guildmaster considers things is seriously,” Silhatsa said.
Fair enough. “On a slightly different topic, when’s the next mage class or whatever it is. Not that I mean to sound callous about it. I just don’t know the right, uh, terminology.”
“Finally fulfilling your guild obligation, is it? One moment, let me look at my register.”
Said register turned to be a thick slab of a notebook. The construction got me interested because it looked very much like it was printed. She flipped through the pages quickly.
“The classes usually need registration,” Silhatsa said. “So I can put your name down. You’re in luck—the next one is later today. Usually, they’re spaced out weekly.”
“Do I need to prepare or anything?” I hadn’t attended any sort of class in a while. “Like, buy textbooks or meet the teacher or something?”
Silhatsa looked very perplexed at my question. “All you’ll need to do is attend. After the basics are covered, classes are usually tailored to individuals. They’re not big, and the mage taking them always spends some time with each student before the end of the sessions.”
That did sound interesting. I wasn’t sure if the basics would simply go over stuff I already knew about Aspects and Affixes and all that, but the individual time intrigued me. That was surely what Kostis had meant about the class being useful for figuring out more about my Path.
After asking Silhatsa to register me for the next session and thanking her again for all the help, I decided to check the job board to see if there was anything interesting. I really wasn’t looking forward to making Kostis get a job for me again by feeding his gambling addiction—and I had no idea if that scammer was even alive in Ring Four anymore—but needs must, as they said.
I didn’t get to find any new jobs. A loud shout dragged my attention around. I frowned. A tall Rakshasa was approaching me, purple face scowling down at me.
“You!” she said. “
Human
. You’re the one who took my job. The Silver-ranked locomotion job that was meant for
me
.”
My first thought was wondering what in the world she even meant. And then I latched onto one word.
Locomotion
. Ah, crap.