Chapter 508

Arthur exhaled, eyes closed as he poured his cultivation energy into the mass of thread before him. It slowly inserted itself into the thread, his energy shifting over at a slower rate than normal. His Sticky Energy trait always made his energy a little easier to wield, to create Mana Darts and the ilke, but the combination of the two techniques he was utilizing right now was making the energy drift out of his hand like molasses.

Not that it was a bad thing, entirely, since that was the entire point. Especially if he was going to impart the very quality to the threads themselves as he intended. Of course, the piles of string and thread by his side, some burnt, some crisped and one particularly noxious, glued together clump indicated his success rate was still in the low percentage digits.

On the other hand, his last couple of attempts had given him an idea of what he had done wrong. He was almost – almost – certain he understood what he had done wrong. It just required a little bit more practice before he would be able to regularly impart the sticky feature to the threads.

Then, of course, he would have to move onto making it work with his grenades, and even consider how he would use them without any of his tools; but that was a problem for later. Both new techniques would take time to be useful in a combat situation, but he could at least improve them here and now, while crafting.

Here, it didn’t matter if he failed – beyond the waste of resources and time and energy, that was.

Overall though, Arthur was happy with the two new techniques he had acquired. The first was called Sticky Threads.

 

Sticky Threads (87%)

Allows creation of Mana threads that trap and bind individuals encountering the thread. Will not bind caster upon emergence, but will do so soon after creation. May be expelled a short distance from caster. 

Cost: 1 Energy per thread, max of 3 threads, duration of 3 minutes and 17 seconds.

 

Sticky Threads was Arthur’s first crowd control technique, a method to bind a number of attackers at range. Range was not very far at the moment, just over a dozen feet from him. He expected he would have a lot more range once he actually perfected the technique, maybe even twenty five feet all in. To make it go farther, he would have to work on the technique more, achieve greater heights of skill and maybe even combine it with another technique.

He had ideas of how it might work with Mana Darts, admittedly derived from seeing another Climber basically combine his Energy Beam with the Sticky Threads technique to create the equivalent of a web-shooter technique that looked like a firehose of thread. Great for binding, but also singular focused.

The other aspect of the thread, not mentioned by the Tower in its description was the strength of the threads themselves. That was, again, very much based upon his technique and understanding of the threads themselves. There was a hard cap, of course, in how strong the threads themselves were, but even now, they were more than sufficient to bind most incomplete Beginner Tower Climbers for the entire duration. Only the strongest could tear themselves free, and more often than not, left skin behind.

The other technique that he was using now had a much simpler name and was one he had been working on, on and off for the last few levels since he had grown satisfied with the basics of his clay pots. In truth, he might even have avoided learning it just to allow himself to graduate through the quests faster, but his Journeyman Masters had demanded he study the technique.

Then again, he did not blame them. It was damn useful for a craftsman.

 

Impartation (84.3%)

User may bind one known technique into material. Chance of failure dependent upon technique, appropriateness of material and prior preparations.

Cost: 1 Energy per minute, maximum of 1 appropriate technique bound. Base chance of failure 25.7%

 

Simple description, but one that hid a large amount of information within. Things that Arthur had only learnt by studying under an actual Master. Rather unfair, in a way, that the Dakha Tower held the hands of the Climbers so much. Nothing like the Malaysian Tower with its constant battles and need for progression through battle.

Then again, the Dakha Tower had its own problems. Not just the gangs that ran riot within – those were all human created problems. The Tower itself had its own version of politics, with crafters finding themselves slain in the middle of the night, fingers broken, their works destroyed by rival groups. Problems that having a Clan house helped bypass in many ways, though not entirely.

And as much as Arthur might consider it easy, the fact stood that he was only finding it so because he had a significant strength differential between himself and the challenges facing him. The few – but deadly – gathering and combat missions in the Tower often left the untrained craftsmen dead and bleeding, but were simple problems for the experienced Climbers.

In addition, the significant attribute difference made basic crafting simple for the Malaysians.

The real problem came when one reached the end of the Tower, when Climbers realised that for all their skill and success, they lacked one necessary resource to exit. Tower stones. Enough, at least, that staying ut of the Tower for an extended period was possible.

The internal Tower economy of Dakha was rather sterile, the flow of stones low. Prices were – comparatively low – because most of the crafters were making non-enchanted items. Even the enchanted items made were low quality, generating only small amounts of stones.

Since most Dakha Climbers weren’t adding to the economy by fighting monsters at every opportunity, the economy grew sterile; only a small number of cores emerging from the Tower quests made available. In the end, many stayed still at the top levels of the Tower, trying to earn a few more stones before being forced out.

After all, even they knew they weren’t fighters. And most other Towers would not be as forgiving to them.

A concern certainly, though that wasn’t the reason Arthur was delaying his own exit at the moment. It was mostly waiting for the rest of his team to catch up, and for him to finish studying these new techniques. Once that was settled, he’d cross the last few levels and emerge.

Mattered little, if he had few stones. After all, they were going to another Tower almost immediately after. At least, that was the plan.

Assuming nothing had gone wrong, in his absence. Somehow or another, Arthur figured he was not going to take that bet.