Path of Dragons

Book 6: Chapter 39: Spell Evolution

It should have been an expected turn of events, but Elijah was still a little surprised when he saw that an evolution was available for one of his spells. From the guides he’d read – as well as conversations with those few people he’d met who were willing to discuss their spells and skills – he knew that his class and archetype combination was blessed with a glut of abilities. It made sense, after a fashion. After all, he had four distinct forms, three of which – human, blight dragon, and guardian – had defining abilities associated with them. On top of that, he needed healing spells, damage spells, and control abilities. As a result, he had almost double the number of abilities that were given to most.

Because of that, he received far fewer opportunities for ability evolution. It was just another factor supporting the notion that the Druid – and subsequently, the Animist class – was based on versatility. So, when Elijah received the opportunity to evolve one of his spells, it was a huge deal.

With that in mind, he looked at the notification with great interest:

As had been the case with other spell evolutions, the wording was a little vague. However, upon looking over the options, Elijah thought he had some notion of what was in store with each choice.

Typhoon felt like a straight upgrade over the current spell, and while it wasn’t the exciting option, it was probably the safest. Calamity was already one of his most powerful spells, but of late, its effects had been outpaced by the strength of his opponents. So, he usually used it more as a distraction than as the devastating area spell it was probably intended to be. Likely, it would have already been upgraded if he’d chosen a different class.

However, with this new option, there was a good chance that it would become far more useful as a pure damage spell. That definitely filled a hole in his toolkit, because the only other area spell he had was Swarm, which barely even qualified for that label. Still, when Elijah looked at the option, he got the feeling that the evolution focused more on the size of the area of effect, rather than the potency.

The second option seemed like the opposite. It was also a clear deviation from the current form of Calamity, focusing on the titular volcano rather than the power of a storm. And given what he’d just experienced, Elijah couldn’t help but feel a sense of excitement at harnessing even a fraction of the power he’d endured during the recent eruption.

But the third choice truly called to him, and it wasn’t difficult to see why. Since he’d gained his Animist class, Elijah had focused on close-quarters fighting. Every time he was forced to act the role of a Mage or Healer, he’d found himself extraordinarily frustrated. He did it when necessary, but his every instinct screamed at him to use his powerful bestial forms in battle.

So, the Stormborn option seemed like a perfect fit.

It also bore the least descriptive explanation, which made it a bit of a gamble. He had no idea what it meant to wreathe his body in the power of the storm, and he wouldn’t unless he took the evolution. Or found a guide that mentioned it, which was a faraway hope at the best of times and even less likely within the Trial, where there weren’t even any Librarians to hire.

The question was whether or not he wanted to rob himself of the one facet of versatility Calamity provided. Perhaps the evolution would still give him some of that, but based on the description as well as his instincts, it would send that line of spells down an entirely different path.

So, it was a choice between versatility and specialization. On the one hand, he’d relied on the former ever since he’d attained his archetype, responding to every situation with an appropriate ability. He could heal, cast damaging spells, and fight in melee via his two most prominent transformations.

On the other hand, he knew that specialization was the path to more potent abilities. He was already powerful, so what could he do with a bit more focus on his preferred method of fighting? It was an interesting debate, but Elijah knew that he’d made his decision the moment he’d understood what was on offer.

With that in mind, he picked Stormborn, eliciting another notification detailing his newly evolved spell:

The pace of Elijah’s heartbeat quickened as he looked at the description. What he saw was even better than he’d dared to hope, but he wouldn’t know for sure whether he’d chosen correctly until he saw the individual ability descriptions. So, he opened the one for Thunderclap:

“Damn,” he muttered before moving on to the next.

That was even more interesting, and Elijah’s Mind whirled as he considered all the past situations where such an ability would have proved useful. He was immediately reminded of Dat’s Hex of Tongues, though the immobilization component was just as important. To say he was satisfied would be a complete understatement.

He moved on to the penultimate ability granted by Stormborn:

It only took a few moments’ worth of calculation for Elijah to let out a gasp as understanding washed over him. Given the speed of lightning, he could cover around seventy-five miles in that amount of time. The Shape of the Sky was already fast, but the ability to basically teleport seventy-five miles away would assuredly become quite a boon, and not just regarding travel. If he’d had Lightning Rush even a few hours before, he and the others never would have had to deal with being inside a volcano while it erupted.

Finally, Elijah moved on to the last ability – the one associated with his natural form:

Lying flat on his back, Elijah pumped his fist and let out a “Yes!”

“What’s that?” asked Kurik, who’d propped himself up on bit of volcanic rock. The others were similarly arranged, though they weren’t paying much attention to Elijah. Not surprising, given what they’d all been through. Ron was busy healing everyone back to full viability, and the other two were likely going over their own gains.

“Nothing,” Elijah said. “Just a new ability.”

It was more than that. The one thing he was afraid of about choosing the Stormborn evolution was losing the area-of-effect damage that Calamity provided. Now, he had something similar. However, it wasn’t all good news. Lightning Domain was almost assuredly smaller in terms of effective radius, and it wouldn’t result in the atmosphere of confusion that Calamity had forged.

Still, given that he’d effectively gained four new abilities – five if he counted the passive buff – in exchange for one, he was pretty happy with the tradeoff. More importantly, he was incredibly eager to give everything a try.

Before that, there were a couple of things they needed to take care of. Because of his advancement to the Iron stage of Body Cultivation, Elijah’s injuries weren’t nearly as severe as they should have been. In addition, he had noticed that his natural ability to regenerate had taken a step forward. So, because of that, he was the least injured of his companions.

Ron and Kurik had gotten the worst of it, experiencing severe burns across their bodies as well as multiple broken bones. But Dat wasn’t much better off. Sadie had come through it reasonably intact, but even she was in worse shape than Elijah. Still, he needed some time to recover, so he remained where he was, lying as still as possible while he healed. To occupy his Mind, he worked on his Soul Cultivation patterns. He’d already memorized the network of channels, including the changes he would have to make before he could move on to the next stage. However, he’d also come to realize that the established pattern wasn’t set in stone. The possibility of variance remained, and he had a feeling that, if he tailored the channels to his own needs, he could gain a bit more from the advancement.

So, he studied his channels – or more importantly, the way the ethera moved through them – so that he could note the spots where the flow became clogged. It never stopped, but he’d found multiple points of lacking efficiency. Maybe those were meant to be fixed with future tiers of Soul cultivation, but Elijah felt that he could do better than the guides suggested. With that in mind, he continued to study and plot the future course he intended to take.

Like that, hours passed until he felt well enough to rise to his feet. The others were still deep in the throes of convalescence, so he didn’t dare abandon them. Instead, he stretched a little, then headed a few dozen yards away. He could still feel his companions via One with Nature, but they were far enough away that he could activate his new abilities without fear of disturbing their recovery.

With that goal in mind, Elijah used Stormborn. The moment the cast completed – it took almost four seconds – his body was enveloped in subtle arcs of lightning. For a few moments, he twirled his staff, going through the motions of the pseudo-kata he’d developed back on his island. At the culmination of each strike, electricity swirled, eliciting a crack of thunder. He had no idea how strong those lightning strikes would be, but it reminded him of when he used Storm’s Fury in close quarters.

Once he’d familiarized himself with that, he shifted into his guardian form, finding that when he shadowboxed, he saw a similar effect at the end of each punch. However, he was far more interested in Thunderclap. When he used it, the eruption of lightning was secondary to the sheer auditory sensation of the accompanying thunder. The drain in stamina was fairly steep, but with his Constitution, he had plenty to spare.

Next, he shifted into the Shape of Venom, but to his dismay, there were no enemies on which to try Stormbind. Still, he was happy to note that the lightning encircling his body was much more subdued in his blight dragon form.

He couldn’t very well use Lightning Rush at the moment, so he forewent the Shape of the Sky, instead using Lightning Domain in his human form. And it was even more impressive than he expected, causing three distinct pulses of lightning to lash out from his position. He sensed that if he pushed the duration to eight seconds, a fourth would be added. But that would take a massive influx to his Ethera attribute, so he wouldn’t need to think about that for quite some time.

There was no telling how much damage it would cause, but judging by the amount of Ethera it cost to maintain, Elijah expected it to be quite deadly. All in all, he was incredibly satisfied with his choice of evolution, and he was eager to see how his new abilities worked against enemies.