Chapter 13

The energy that was flooding in resulted from the completion of the communion and entanglement spells. It was complicated with the spell form, sucking up the patterns they had mentally constructed and then pushed them into his core. He was relieved to see the speed upgrade link to the area of his core that was dedicated to that already rather than creating a new bump. Finigan’s speed came in two flavours. There was the type that superficially resembled what he was used to, which was abruptly boosting him by five or six times but at a detailed level worked differently. Finigan’s speed was employed in little bursts. A doubling of quickness for half a heartbeat every ten seconds, but unlike Daniel’s version it did not deplete the energy of the person using it. There was no breathlessness created because unlike his version the magic did not come centrally. Instead, the power spread out into his muscles in that ten seconds when the spell was resetting. Then, when activated there was a brief burst employing that energy that had already been placed and so there were no stresses on the rest of him. It was a free skill, unlike Daniel’s version that ate up resources even if practically it was significantly weaker.

Daniel realised he had a full mastery of this new ability. There would be no need to work out how to engage the ability, as that had already been transferred over by Finigan. There was a second passive speed ability granted. It was similar because the energy was always in the muscles, both allowing signals to jump quicker from his brain to where it was needed while also supporting the muscles with what he would describe as a force energy. Its overall effects were modest, with a five, maybe ten percent permanent boost, but it was a persistent gain. It would help him at every moment in a fight. Daniel did not have rose-coloured glasses. Having an ability to move five percent faster would have no effect on the result of a battle. He had been in enough of them to know that it was rare that the two sides were evenly matched. However, battle was not a game of averages. It was about leveraging a moment to finish things. That extra strength advantage that caused a sword to jar free and leave the enemy exposed, that movement that meant the claw nicked your throat instead of severing an artery, the spear point that was a fraction too quick and got under someone’s guard. It was in those moments that the five percent gain became critical, the difference between hitting and not being hit or more importantly the separation between being wounded versus being made dead. That could be as small as a few microseconds.

The flood of information stopped, and Daniel knew that when he next checked with Ivey that his speed abilities would have progressed and the passive version would now be available. Hopefully, at least.

Then the assessment ability crashed into him. Changes to his eyes, enhancements were made to his core as a section was repurposed to support new complicated calculation engines. Then the information stopped and unlike with the speed most of this data dump occurred in the background. While he could not observe what happened, he understand that most of Priscilla’s ability to assess her enemies had been passed on to him.

When he examined monsters, he would get an impression of their physical abilities. Magic was still beyond him, as even Priscilla was not great at that. Not today or next month, but eventually the assessment base would keep improving till he could tell his opponent’s spells at a glance.

With a sigh, the spell faded.

Daniel examined Finigan. The new assessment routine kicked in. There was nothing special strength wise or health, but the dog’s speed was significantly more than his own base. The identification spell was underwhelming, but it was free and a growth option that would increase in power.

Daniel stood.

Alex the dad was gone, but Cindy was still standing there waiting.

“It’s done.” he told her.

“What does that mean?”

Finigan went up to her and went on his hind legs to put the front paws above her waist. Tail wagging furiously. Instinctively, she crouched down and patted him while Finigan furiously licked her face.

“That he still loves you,” Daniel explained to her, interpreting the emotions that were coming through the bond. “He has moved to a new pack, but you’re still the best.”

Th dog who had stopped licking Cindy and turned to look at Daniel while he was talking immediately looked at Cindy and nodded his head.

“He’s also smarter now, has a burst strength ability and I think he’ll be able to manipulate magic.”

She scratched Finigan behind the ears. “Really boy.”

Finigan’s eyes were shut in ecstasy at the pats. If he was a cat, he would have been purring. Then the dog’s head moved up and down with barely perceptible nods.

“HELLPPP!”

The scream split the corridor and all of Daniel’s attention shifted toward the kitchen and the scream. Priscilla shot off to investigate and the two dogs, Finigan and Vivian reacted by bolting at the door at the same time.

Finigan wanted to help save whoever was in danger and protect his wider pack. Daniel followed slightly surprised at how fast the pets had reacted. He was not used to anyone but Priscilla responding to threats faster than him.

Alisha and two other non-combatants spilled out of the kitchen effectively blocking his progress. However, apart from that first yell, he did not get the sense that things were going badly. There was the sound of banging and crashing and the occasional curse, but no more screaming.

Daniel pushed his way through and then paused. Priscilla and Finigan were no longer on high alert. Animal sense flared out and confirmed that there were no monsters in the other room and the noise fighting had ceased.

Bloody Oath, Daniel cursed internally. If this was a people issue. He hoped he had not heard the beginning and aftermath of some pointless drama.

Gabby popped out of the curtain and ran into him. She bounced back. Squealed and looked back into the kitchen area, an act that seemed to calm her.

“Gabby,” Daniel said from right behind her, grabbing her shoulder. The girl jumped, turned to face him and let the curtains that she had been spying through drop. “What happened?”

“Three Mutated magpies.”

“What? Animals?”

“They came through the open kitchen window.”

They were also dead or else his animal sense would have noticed them. He dropped his hand and stepped into the kitchen without his club in an offensive position.

The chaos he had expected from the scream was not present, but the magpies had not gone quietly. Red human blood splattered one of the white walls, but there were no human corpses anywhere or even anyone who was still hurt.

His eyes went to Ivey. She had pushed herself back against the wall, but he saw the younger Parker man next to her. His t-shirt was torn and covered with blood.

As for enemies, there was only evidence of one. A single magpie corpse that was fifty percent larger than it should have been. Versus his experience with zombies, octopods and the termites it did not look that threatening. “What happened?”

Luke, standing with sword drawn facing the windows looked back at him. “Three of them swept in while we were eating. Dave, Ingrid and myself were able to hold them off.”

“Ingrid?” Daniel asked unable to help himself. It did not sound like there would have been time to draw a bow.

Ingrid from where she was standing on the opposite side of the large open windows patted the dagger on her side.

“Geoff who was attacked was helpless.” Luke continued.

“Not walking around unarmed anymore.” Geoff said from the floor.

“Everyone needs to carry weapons.” Luke went on grimly.

“Agreed, put it on the list,” Daniel ordered. With him giving them access to the upstairs apartments, the chest and the blacksmith there should be enough big kitchen knives to arm everyone. Daniel decided. Maybe they could push faster downstairs and not wait a day, but collectively they were not ready for it.

“Today’s going to be for consolidation. We need people raiding all the kitchens upstairs. Anyone with a crafter class needs to get the materials and tools to get going and create stuff to help the community. The fighters need to clear the two floors above and plan on how to expand downwards. We also need to secure the kitchen better. I guess I’ll do that now.”

“Do you need wood?” Luke asked, but his eyes did not leave outside.

Daniel thought about sending someone, but ultimately it would not be that beneficial. He wanted to explore other ways that his unique abilities could function. Overnight, he had concluded that he had been neglecting a major branch of his power. He had plant magic not wood power. Despite that, pretty much everything he had done used dead wood and then forcing it to do things. What about growing things? Plants grew, and he had not investigated that side of the abilities at all.

How should he do this? A seed? He looked closely at his club and the vine that wrapped around it. Casually, he placed it down at the bottom of the window, thinking it through. He could force that vine and use magic to drive growth. Then he thought about that enormous lizard and how fast Ivey had suggested it could move. Doing what he had been doing would not be enough against that. He needed to improve, get stronger, and master all the abilities at his command. That included improving his use of the environment. “Instead of wood, maybe it will work better if we can get some dirt and a few buckets of water.”

Daniel knew there were pots in the corridor, and they had been collecting water using ice spells for the last three or four days, so there was plenty of it available. Sun, air and water were enough for plants to grow. If he supplied those elements and used the intrinsic property of plants to its full potential, then his magic theoretically could go further.

Ivey snapped orders while Daniel stood at the open window his club at the ready in case the magpies came back, but mainly he was thinking about how he was going to promote the growth he was after.

A short time later, a large pot was set up next to the window. He stuck his hand into the dirt and frowned. It was shitty soil and the plant inside it, despite being hardy was barely surviving and that was in a world where everything had mutated and got stronger. “And maybe the guts of the magpie.” he figured the cooks would want the meat. “And any other fertiliser we might have.” Excrement, he thought to himself, but doubted anyone had been trapping it and he had not heard of any issues with backed up toilets. There were few of them and, providing you used water to flush, the toilets still worked and sent all the messy bit down to the city sewers.

Cirano, the cook, heard him and grabbed the magpie and came over. “We have been disposing of offal outside. Here,” he had a knife in his hand and expertly processed the magpie. Intestines, stomachs, and other organs plopped down into the pot.

Daniel put the club on the edge of it and that vine reached out like one of the octopod tentacles to touch the plant.

First step was to set things up for later. Roots sunk into the offal from the magpie and at the same time he formed a water tight surface around the edges of the pot with another mutated offshoot of roots. Then he poured water in.

The chef, obviously knowing how much Daniel ate brought over some additional food. It was a savoury pancake. He ate absently and was amazed by the flavour. Under his control, a thin green mesh spread out from the pot and onto the window. A fine framework spreading out to create almost a single large leaf that was tissue paper thin. It expanded till it covered the windows. Luckily there was no wind, because if there was he would have had to have pursued a different approach because aggressive breathing could tear holes in the thin membrane he had created.

Daniel’s intention was to push the efficiency of photosynthesis to the extreme. The thin, soaked up all the light streaming in. It would only make what he had to do a little easier, but a few hours of sun, magpie guts and water collectively were going to reduce his energy expenditure by almost ninety percent.

His mana continued flowing out and Daniel consciously held his pool at eighty-five percent only using overflow to grow the giant leaf further till the entire window was blacked out.

Ivey created a ball of light to combat the sudden darkness in the room. Despite it being daytime and his leaf only being a few millimetres thick no light was getting through.

Luke relaxed. “Is this permanent?”

“Nope, going to eventually do bars to let us keep light and ventilation. This is an intermediate phase to gather sun energy to speed up the process.” He turned to make eye contact with Luke. “Geoff’s wounds looked pretty bad. What could the magpies do?”

“The one I fought grew, Ingrid’s,” Luke nodded towards the pot where the magpie innards had been disposed. That meant Ingrid must have got the kill. “It made its claws really sharp, and the one Dave stopped created shields around itself.”

“All of them had unique powers?”

“Yeah, but they’re magpies,” Luke chuckled darkly. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

“Smart buggers,” Daniel agreed. “I wouldn’t be too surprised if they were intelligent enough to get their own interfaces.”

Luke’s eyes went unfocused. “The system says no to that. They’re smart, but apparently not sapient.”

“Did it say if it ever happens? You know an animal species getting interfaces.”

“It can,” Luke confirmed. “Some previous events have had four or five species being sapient.”

“If that happens here it will be dolphins, orangutans and maybe elephants.” Daniel mused.

Luke shrugged. “No idea. My interface does not speculate, but if you want to know maybe have a chat with your girlfriend.”

“I’m not with that lout,” Ivey protested.

“Really?” Luke asked.

“Yes really,” Ivey said, coming over to where Daniel sat and tousling his hair. “I like the boy but… He’s just terrible in the…”

“Hey!” Daniel objected.

Ivey laughed. “But seriously with the apocalypse and all that, I don’t have time for a relationship.”

Daniel ignored the teasing and focused on what he was doing. The wood he was creating was already thickening. Another five minutes of magic growth and then he could leave it to strengthen during the day naturally.

“Interesting,” he heard someone comment behind him. Priscilla looked up, and he got a clear image of Alex. Standing at the entrance to the room. The mouse was on full alert. Energy thrummed within the man.