Steven opened the Elemental Mimicries tab, expecting it to contain a list of spells from absorbed monsters he could mimic. He had hoped to see whatever spell that the turtles used, but instead found a checklist.

Fire

Earth X

Water

Air

Underneath the word air was a continuation of the list, but the words were blurred out and he couldn’t guess as to what they were. From the turtle, he had absorbed the earth element, but there was no spell or ability that he could cast that used the element.

He moved over to inspect the Partial Mimicries tab and found nothing had changed. His final tab was Mimic Growths, so he opened up the list.

Heater Shield (Strength/Dexterity)

Mana cost {S+D}/2 = 28 per minute. 3 mana minimum.

Greatsword (Strength)

Mana cost 28 per minute. 3 mana minimum.

Shortsword (Dexterity)

Mana cost 27 per minute. 3 mana minimum.

Magic Cannon* (Intelligence)

Mana cost 20 per minute. 2 mana minimum.

His new growth had a red colored asterisk next to its name, so he focused on it and a small description window popped up.

Magic Cannon

This mimicry functions as a caster’s catalyst for casting magic. Mana cost of magic is dependent on size, shape, intensity, and function of magic used.

The description didn’t help Steven much at all. The mana cost was a little strange as he had to spend mana to cast the ability, and somehow the magic used through it would also cost mana. He had figured that he could cast magic through the growth, due to its name, but he still didn’t know what spells he could cast. As he stood in between a group of turtle corpses, he figured he had some targets to practice on.

He walked back through the mud, now slick with blood, and stood near the edge of the turtle arena. The turtle corpses all nicely grouped up nearly thirty feet away, he imagined his forearm with a fire nozzle shaped cannon emerging from the top. He cast Mimic Growth: Magic Cannon, and watched as a cloud of red dust enveloped his arm.

When the dust settled, he could see the cannon sticking out of his forearm with the nozzle end near his wrist. It was about six inches long and the non-business end of the cannon tapered downward to embed under his skin. He felt a weird mental connection with the growth that was not present with any of his other growths, and decided that the cannon’s form was wrong.

He dismissed the growth and thought back to the cannons that were perched on top of the turtles’ shells. He had been thinking in terms of a cannon when what he really wanted was a turret similar to what the turtles had. Once again, he visualized a nozzle type cannon that was a few inches above his forearm, parallel to it. Connecting the cannon to his arm, he added a tube similar to what the turtles had and cast Mimic Growth: Magic Cannon.

This time, he felt a connection to the cannon like it was one of his own appendages. He found that he had the ability to turn it left and right, as easily as it was to turn his own head. It was a little strange at first, but quickly felt natural after turning the cannon around a few times.

“I could blow up the whole world with this thing!” He told the corpses, and oriented the cannon to follow the length of his arm. He pointed the arm, and cannon, at the nearest corpse. Nothing happened.

Steven had no idea how to use magic. He imagined other classes had a spell page or ability that listed what they could do then they just had to think about a spell, and the magic happened. He wasn’t so lucky. All he just had was a list of elements he had access to.

The description said the mana cost of his magic would be dependent on the size and shape of what he did. He wasn’t sure what function really meant, and intensity was most likely governed by his intelligence attribute. Without any other clues, he had to use his imagination. He visualized a small bullet shaped rock and jumped when he heard a pop.

He moved closer to the turtle corpse and noticed a small hole in its shell. He pointed the cannon at it again, and visualized the same small rock bullet. The pop came from the rock piercing into the shell. His cannon made no noise or any sort of feedback that something had happened. He had expected some sort of kick as the cannon fired magic. Happy to find out that he could be relatively silent with the cannon, he visualized the rock again and fired it into the shell.

He was starting to see a downside to his mimic class. As awesome as all his abilities and new magic seemed, it was all based on how quickly he could think and visualize. He needed to practice with all his individual abilities until they were second nature, and then practice combining his abilities until he could fight while utilizing everything in his arsenal. Maybe Garth or someone with more experience in Serenity Springs could offer a way for him to think of multiple different things at once.

He made a vow to himself, the next several floors he would only use his magic and cannon until he could fire off magic without much thought. Dismissing his growth, he walked to the new path and followed it to the next area.

The trip was a bit shorter, and the mud a little less slick without any blood mixing in. He saw five more boulders on the island, but they were a bit smaller than the previous island’s turtles. He stood on the end of the path and looked at the closest one and cast identify.

Swamp Cannon Turtle (Water)

Mana 45

Strength - 1

Dexterity - 1

Endurance - 6

Intelligence - 6

Wisdom - 1

Mimicries - 1

These turtles were slightly tougher, but also less powerful in magic than the last. He knew what the mimicry was without having to guess, but it was still making an educated assumption based on the previous absorption. Groaning, he decided to make an amendment to his vow. One of the turtles would have to be killed by absorption, and the ability could only be used through a melee attack.

The island had no exit path, so when he killed these turtles either a boss would spawn or he could simply teleport to the next floor. He hoped he would be able to teleport, but a normal floor boss might be able to be absorbed. Unless it was a bonus challenge. He had died on this floor, so the bonus challenge might not happen.

He shrugged. It didn’t really matter in the long run. He just had to kill four turtles with magic rock bullets and a fifth had to die by his hand.

A sudden burst of inspiration and excitement flooded him as he began to visualize the cannon on his arm, and he very nearly jumped up and down in happiness. He discarded his arm cannon notion. It would never be used again. Instead, he visualed the cannon on his shoulder. The tube from his shoulder rose to about ear height and ended in a ball, in which the nozzle of the cannon stuck out four inches from the center. He hoped that the ball addition to the cannon would allow more degrees of motion, but that part might not matter much since his growths usually worked the way he thought they would.

Making sure to visualize the cannon moving around in a complete circle as well as pointing straight up and nearly straight down, he turned his face away from the shoulder in question and cast Mimic Growth: Magic Cannon. Immediately he felt the mental connection to the growth and knew that the ability worked. He turned his head back and looked, the best he could, at his new shoulder mounted cannon.

In his opinion, it was a thing of beauty, exactly as he envisioned. Anyone alive after the eighties would know exactly where his inspiration came from, and Steven was actually quite excited for those discussions in the future. At least with those that knew of his class.

He practiced turning the cannon around in circles as well as up and down until he was satisfied with its limitations. It could move quickly, much faster than he could turn his head. Before he attacked the static turtles, he imagined the small bullet of rock he had used earlier and practiced shooting at the dark tree trunks bordering the path. He found that he could simply hold the image of the rock bullet in his mind and mentally push it into the cannon. Every time he did so, he heard a crack and saw bark falling from the trunk he was aiming at.

The process became harder when he tried to sidestep back down the path while mentally pushing to activate his shots. He found it difficult to hold the image in his head while performing other actions, and twice he stumbled, nearly falling off the path completely into the water.

After several minutes of side stepping down the path and shooting at tree trunks, he decided he would try to actually turn the cannon and push the shots out quicker. The plan was to continuously walk sideways while shooting a bullet at the tree in front of him, then the next tree in the direction of his movement, then the previous tree he had already moved past. He failed miserably. After his first shot at a middle tree, the thought of shooting the next tree caused his image of the bullet to disappear, and no magic was cast.

It was a skill that would take more than half an hour to learn, so he tried not to feel too down about it. His side step training up and down the path had stirred up the mud a bit, so it was more slippery when he went back to the next turtle area. Raising his arms above his head to stretch out his back, he managed to jam the cannon into his ear squishing his earlobe to his jaw.

Annoyed at himself for doing that a second time, the first being with his weird greatsword glove hilt, he decided to go and defeat the next turtles without any more practice with the cannon. He stepped into the arena and moved to the turtle that was nearest the corner of the island, keeping it between himself and the other four turtles.

He aimed the cannon at the turtle shell and fired ten rock bullets in five seconds into the back of the monster. It was the quickest he could push the magic into the cannon. The turtle shook violently and began to rise up out of the mud. Steven saw the other four turtles wiggling back and forth with loud squelching sounds. He took a few steps back and waited for the close turtle’s head to emerge.

When it did, Steven ended it with a shot to the skull. He crouched down behind the shell for cover, and heard continuous barrage of noise as something hit the turtle shell he was hiding behind. He leaned over a bit to peek around the edge and saw one of the remaining turtles spray water into the shell. It was like water spraying out of a fire hose.

He leaned out a bit further and aimed the cannon at the turtle's face and fired another rock bullet before he pulled back behind the shell. He heard a loud pop, indicating his bullet missed, and felt his turtle shell cover being pushed into him. The other turtles must have started spraying the dead one.

Disappointed in himself, he let the mental image of the rock bullet fade and imagined a pincer in place of his right hand. He cast Partial Mimicry: Pincer and dashed out from behind the shell, angling wide towards a nearby turtle. The spray from the four turtles followed him, but just behind. As long as he kept moving he wouldn’t get hit.

When he neared the turtle he reached out with a pincer to clip off the cannon like in the previous fight. His legs slid out from underneath him and he allowed the weight of the turtle to keep him nearby as he held on to the cannon. He applied more pressure through the pincers and the cannon finally popped off. He then angled his own cannon towards the turtle's head and imagined a small rock bullet, mentally pushing the magic to act. The turtle’s head snapped to the side in a spray of blood as it thunked down into the mud.

The remaining three turtles began to spray water onto the corpse, so he dug his toes into the mud and pushed back.

The entire battle was not going as he wanted. He dismissed his pincer and cannon, and imagined a heater shield on his left forearm and the shortsword in his right hand before he cast the abilities.

He dashed back to the right, keeping his shield between himself and the turtles, and ran at a wide angle to the furthest right turtle. Their sprays of water staying well behind his position, he angled closer so his run will take him right by his target. The target turtle's nozzle was closing in on him, so he dove at the turtle and thrust his sword between its neck and shell. He felt the water from its cannon pound into his shield as he drove the sword in several more times. A few moments later, the cannon quit firing the water as the turtle died.

He rolled to his side and pulled himself into a crouch to peek around the corpse’s shell to find the positions of the last two turtles. One was close to him, within ten feet. The other was about twenty feet away, closer to the center of the island. He ran out from behind his cover and watched as the turtle's cannon began to turn towards him, spraying a deluge. He lowered his body and kicked his feet out, sliding past the turtle in a classic baseball slide, and sliced the turtle's head off as he passed.

Steven thought it looked really cool, until he realized he left himself wide open as the final turtle blasted him with its spray of water and he went spinning through the mud. He dug the pointed end of his shield down into the mud to arrest his movement and pulled his feet up underneath himself so that he was completely crouched behind the shield. The spray of water unceasing, he couldn’t see anything but water and mud outside the shield.

He focused all his strength into his legs and took a deep breath. Then he jumped straight upwards, thirty feet into the air. The spray from the turtle slowly followed him upwards, and he realized that he would fall into the spray to be blown into the murky depths off the island. He quickly visualized long thin rat tails and cast Partial Mimicry: Rat Tail on both arms. They burst into red dust and reformed as he threw his arms to the canopy of the trees. His left arm missed anything he could hold on to, but he was able to wrap the end of the other tail around a loose vine and shift his weight before it snapped. He fell at an angle, missing the spray of water from the turtle.

Slightly dazed from the impact, he quickly pulled himself up and ran towards the turtle who was angling its cannon back down towards him. He dashed around the turtle before it was able to bring the spray on him, and he stayed behind the monster as it started to turn towards him.

“I learned this from Mario,” he said and jumped ten feet into the air. He empowered his feet with absorption and stomped on the shell of the turtle with a resounding crack. The turtle dissolved into dust and Steven saw a dungeon screen appear in his vision.

Floor 3 complete.

Proceed to Floor 4 [Y/N]

Open teleportation menu [Y/N]