Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6) Dakota Krout (sci fi books to read TXT) 📖

since it was always chattering. Joe focused on breathing while he allowed his higher-order reasoning try to comprehend why this wasn’t working. Did these orbs run on emotion? That would be a bad match-up for him, and he knew it. Joe wasn’t overrun by his emotions; he tried to be calm and logical whenever he could. Breathe in, breathe out. Good monkey brain. “Orb, move to eye level and remain there.”

Skill gained: Battle Meditation (Passive breathing pattern) (Novice V). Battle Meditation is practically a requirement for combatants that use exotic weapons. This skill allows for rapid understanding of exotic weapons, increasing skill growth by 2n%; where n = skill level!

Joe read over the skill he had just gained with a massive grin on his face. He really needed to try out more of his real-world coping mechanisms. This exercise had already increased his skill gain for exotic weapons by ten percent. That was a massive increase for just starting out. He refocused his eyes, but didn’t see the orb. He looked down with a frown, noting that it hadn’t moved from its divot. “I’m starting to have serious concerns over the usability of this weapon. Wait… wait.”

Looking at the cuff on his wrist, Joe focused his will and sent a trickle of mana to the cuff. Then he visualized the orb lifting of the ground and hovering in front of him. Nothing. “Drat! I thought that might do it-”

Just before he released the cuff, the orb *cracked* and lifted off the ground, hovering in front of him. Joe stared at the weapon suspiciously. “Were you… stuck? If that was the reason you weren’t…”

He let go of the mana but continued to picture the orb staying where it was. It remained in place. Joe saw it at knee-height, swirling around him, and then balancing on the tip of his finger. It smoothly followed his mental images, and Joe groaned half in exasperation and half in delight over the ease of use. “The cuff lets me control it pretty easily, but I can also supply mana to move it harder or faster? For instance, if it gets stuck?”

Skill gained: Assisted Ritual Orb Usage (Exotic) (Upgradeable) (Novice VII). This skill dictates the ease of use for the weapon ‘Ritual Orbs’, as it is assisted by the armor ‘Control Cuff’. This is determined to be an exotic weapon. This skill is upgradeable. When you no longer require the Control Cuff to manage the orbs, a portion of this skill’s levels will be allocated to the newly upgraded skill. Each rank allows for skillful control of a single orb, with each additional orb making the orbs 50% more difficult to skillfully control.

“That’s a lot of modifiers…” Joe looked more closely at the skill, and more information appeared as he stared at the only thing he didn’t understand, the ‘exotic’ tag.

Exotic Weapons are powerful pieces of equipment that feature unique abilities. Please note that due to their singular benefits, only one Exotic Weapon may be equipped at any given time.

“Oh. Well, that’s pretty straightforward. Let’s try this out.” Joe pulled out a second orb, tossing it into the air next to the first. “That’s not harder to control? What was this skill going on about?”

“Boom. I got this in the bag.” He made the orbs dance around each other, spin, tap lightly. Joe repeated the commands he had done the first time, knee-height, swirling around him-

*Wump*.

Joe’s Exquisite Shell shimmered violently, and he was shoved a foot to the right as one orb hit his knee and the other thudded into the wall of a building. He grimaced at them in confusion as both spheres dropped to the ground and stayed there. “What happened? Did I poorly visualize what I needed to do there? No… they become erratic after leaving line of sight?”

“Hey!” Joe’s head whipped to the side as a furious Dwarf appeared, her mustache quivering. “Who’s slammin’ things into my wall? Thank you for this opportunity to teach you the rules of hospitality and personal conduct, Bro!”

The Dwarf scowled at the divot and stated a number. A single point of Reputation with the Dwarven Council vanished from Joe’s status sheet. The mustachioed Dwarf nodded at Joe and put a hand on his elbow. “Thank you for being so kind and understanding, as well as avoiding a larger fine by paying up right away, Bro. With this kind of reputation as payment? Feel free to play with your balls here anytime you like.”

Joe sighed as the Dwarf went back inside, then moved to a small window where she peeked out at him hopefully. He had no intention of damaging her walls again, much to her dismay. He pulled out his orbs, one by one, until all six were in front of him. When he could see them up close, all six were fairly easy to control and use. However, as soon as he needed them to take individual action or move out of his visual range, they would scatter and practically try to cause property damage. He ordered them to stay right next to his body, then swirled them around and stopped them as hard as he could. Joe stepped away, and studied their positions.

One was right by the window, almost touching it. The Dwarf was gaping at it in shock, but luckily Joe had stopped all of them in time. The others? All over the place. One had even gone straight up. Only one of the orbs remained where he had thought it should be, and even that… he couldn’t remember if this was the one that should be there.

“Whoo, boy. This is gonna take some doing.” Joe called all the orbs to him and stored them in his codpiece for easy access. “I’d ask Havoc for some help training this skill, but I want to learn, not get tortured into figuring it out.”

He started back toward Havoc’s estate in order to get back to work, but as if thinking about Havoc had triggered something,